In the social media age, everyone is an aspiring photographer with a camera in hand to start shooting from scratch. The age of digital cameras forever changed the paradigm of photography. Digital cameras are a built-in addition to every device, laptop, desktop, tablet, phone, and auto dashboard. These built-in cameras come complete with computerized help including autofocus, auto-correct, light adjustments, and post-snap editing tools.

Digital camera accessories take the guesswork out of taking and posting pictures for all skill levels. Users who become adept at using the auto features in digital cameras start to feel like they are becoming accomplished photographers, but what they are becoming accomplished at is using the powerful built-in photographic tools that are a seamless addition to the built-in digital camera. Even as these words are read, the experience of automatic photography is taking another leap into the future with AI-guided digital cameras.

Back to the Future

In the digital era even the definition of the word, photograph, must be reassessed and redefined. According to the Oxford Languages dictionary,  the word photograph is defined as, “a picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused onto film or other light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment, or stored digitally:”

The digital camera has altered that definition. Aspiring photographers can still find and use cameras that require film, but most cameras have replaced film with memory cards. Although digital cameras are a step back to the future in many ways, they do allow those dedicated to learning essential photographic practices the opportunity to start shooting from scratch and turning the clock back to an earlier time in learning fundamental photography. 

Defining The Vision

Photography is an art, or is it a skill? From its earliest incarnation, the photographer has had to grapple with the technical knowledge of how to use a camera to achieve the desired results. Those who are now renowned as artists behind the lens are also expert technicians.

Every era in photography has had unique challenges as the tech of photography evolved. What remains the same is the fundamental essentials of capturing a vision in a photograph. Michael Grecco, a legendary photographer whose career spans over fifty years has witnessed dramatic changes in photography. The constant that he has perfected from his beginning shooting black and white photos with 35mm film is an essential lesson for aspiring photographers who are starting to shoot from scratch. As a photographer, Michael Grecco has concentrated on a vast array of photographic styles defining the vision and applying techniques to produce artistic results.

The news photojournalist, social documentarian, sports, fashion, commercial, and portraits are genres in photography that Grecco has mastered, separately and as a fusion of his unique artistic style. In all of his work, Michael uses his vision to fuse a defining vision of the moment. He has the uncanny ability to combine the techniques of multiple genres to produce art that is immersed in technical expertise.

Michael Grecco Tips for Photographers

Along with writing books to guide the aspiring photographer, Mr. Grecco offers sound advice in interviews and discussions. Books by Michael Grecco include The Art of Portrait Photography, Lighting, and the Dramatic Portrait: The Art of Celebrity and Editorial Photography,  and a book that features his iconic photographs of the Punk Movement, Punk, Post Punk, New Wave: Onstage, Backstage, In Your Face, 1978-1991.

Michael Grecco’s Tips include:

• No matter what device, learn it well. The tool of choice should be mastered whether it is a smart or tablet camera, a DSLR, or mirrorless. Michael Grecco points out to aspiring photographers that they must become familiar with the basic functions of the equipment, shutter speed, aperture, focus, breath, and depth of the lens and its limits. He encourages experimentation to get to know the camera. Take the automatic settings off and shoot in manual to learn how settings affect the image.
• From the earliest days of his love of photography, Michael was focused on the effects of shadow and light. In experimenting with the light, he also incorporated foreground and background coupled with focus and angles to produce unique images that captured not just images but moments in time.

His advice includes experimenting, observing, and seeing the world through the viewfinder of your own unique style. Michael Grecco says that shooting from scratch is the best way for aspiring photographers to capture their vision of the world.