Pete Ashton's Notes & Links

Niece asked for advice on SLR vs mirrorless cameras and I went on a long rumination about the psychological difference between the act of seeing being mediated by a tunnel of glass vs a digital screen and how this might affect the image, and I think I should start writing about photography again.

Text message screenshot reading: I think the biggest issue for me (and this is quite subjective) is with a DSLR viewfinder you are looking through the camera at the subject with no mediation, like looking through a window. With a mirrorless you are looking at a screen so the subject is already mediated into pixels, like how your phone camera works, or the Live View screen on the DSLR. This has advantages as you’re seeing a low-res preview of how the photo will actually come out, but I found it detached me from the world rather than engaging me with it. There’s a psychological difference. The moment before you take photo involves looking and understanding the subject, and the “tunnel” of the viewfinder, shutting out everything else, helps with that. I think it brings you and the subject closer together. A screen render is a barrier to that process and while it might help with the technical aspect of making the photograph it (maybe) affects the looking and understanding. That said all photography is mediation. it’s just a different form of mediation which you have to learn the nuance of and adapt to. I never went through that process.