Taking a photo is EASY.. you point a box with a hole in the front at what you want a picture of... and press a button.
Modern digital Photography? Pah! Camera chooses your 'film' for you, chooses your shutter speed, and aperture, even focuses the lens for you.
Hardly taxing to take a photo... not like the days of yore when photogrpahers had to start with a bit of Alchemy, seperating egg-whites and finding and mixing the noxiouse chemicals to make the emulsion to spread on a glass plate; guessing at how sensitive it was going to be; estimating light levels by eye, then pondering the exposure, and which size washer to put behind the lens as the 'aperture' and how many elephants to count for the shutter speed when they took the cap off..... What 'challenges' are left?
Ones that have always been there..... putting the camera where you want to take a photo..... getting what you want a photo of, in the view-finder.
Still life! Come ON! Stick a bowl of fruit on the table and the camera on a tripod...... yeah, that is SOOOOOOO dangerouse, and difficult, isn't it?
Insects? I'm plagued by the bludy things at the moment. Too hot to have the windows closed at night. I have dozens of the little bugres dancing round my living room light every night.... I could snap pics off them without even getting out of my arm-chair! Not like I have to climb Mount Everest or anything to get the shot.......
Land-Scapes? Yeah! How hard is it to wander out into the countryside and point a camera down a valley? Not like the valley is going to jump up and run away, or scream 'Nooooooo! And put its hands infront of its face to spoil the shot, is it?
People? Bit like the moths and bugs that plague me every night. Streets full of them. It's not like they are an endangered species; that you have to travel to the darkest amazon to find, and who only come out at night....... is it?
Weddings? Well its people. people who WANT you to take thier photo! "Where should we stand? Do you want Auntie Mable in this one?" You hardly have to go out of your way to get a shot.
Press? Well... opens the remit a bit more. Taking a Mug-Shot of the Mayor in his chain when he gets elected is hardly difficult, is it.... just stick him in a pass-port photo machine is you want!
Catching the 'moment' just before the tsunami strikes shore and devestates some south east asian island? Hmmmmm... that might be a little more... err...... dangrouse..... but you STILL only have to point the camera and press a button!
So... taking tong out of cheek...... whats the point?
Point is that taking a simple 'landscape' can be as challenging or unchallenging as YOU want to make it. Taking a portrait is as challenging or unchallenging as you want to make it. Taking a still life, or shooting an event is as challenging or unchallenging as YOU want to make it.
And the 'challenge' is rarely in the technical difficulty of using the camera. Modern cameras are so sophisticated and user freindly, it takes very little thought, skill, time attension or craft to do it.... unless you want to..... meanwhile, the veriety of 'specialist' equipment we now have at our disposal, we rarely 'have' to fight with the limitations of the equipment we can use. Remember, back in the dark (room) age, your photographer had to be part engineer, part chemist, as well as artist, and craftsman.... they had to make equipment to do whatever it was they wanted to do; especially if it was a bit out of the ordinary; they couldn't just ring the Nikon or Cannon franchise!
Beyond that, we still have the same 'challenges' every photographer faced; getting the camera where the shot is.
Bit easier these days slipping a little Cannon compact in yoru pocket before a day hiking round Yosemite, to the days of Ansel Adams, lugging a wooden 5x4 field camera, its glass plates and wooden tripod up the canyons! In fact.... If I couldn't even be bothered to walk.... hire a helicopter!
So how much of a 'challenge' do you want? And what KIND of challenge?
In recent years, probably one of the most challenging photo's ever shot, were those of blue whales giving birth.
Endangered species; they had to search hard to find thier subject... then they had to pick thier moment.... not every day they sprog a new ten-ton fish into the ocean! And do it in hostile enviroment, under water! We had photos taken ON the moon, before we got those pictures!
So what about the moon-shots? Putting a man on the moon to be able to press the shutter of a Hassablad.... pretty easy shot to take... once they were there... challnge was getting them there, and pretty big one at the time.
You can go round and round and round, looking for what might or might not be 'more' or less of a challenge..... but end of the day, its all reletive.
The Appollo crews didn't PERSONALLY face that much of a challenge taking thier space photo's. End of teh day, to a greater of lesser extent, they were 'luggage' strapped to a chuffing big fire-work..... it was the techies that built the rocket that faced and over came most of teh challenges to put them there.... all they had to do was point the camera and press the button!
Housewife, trying to get a 'nice' photo of two-year-old-tear-away... THAT actually could be quite challenging..... sit the little rug rat down and try and pose them, without them trying to run off, pull faces, burst into tears... or catch a candid when they aren't covered in baby goo, or trying to make finger paintings with the contents of their nappy..... COULD be as difficult and challenging as chap waiting for 'just' the right light over a valley in Wales, or trying to track down a lesser spotted red-fluted warbler in the Essex marshes.
Its all subjective.
And ultimately.... 'hard to get' very rarely has much relation to 'Interesting'..... or even 'asthetically pleasing'.
Just because it was a challenge to GET a photo... dont mean it's going to be any more interesting to any-one, or particularly good.
The first challenge is, and always has been, and always will be.... to find the INTEREST thats worth taking a photo of! Then making it a 'good' photo of whatever is interesting.
And that can be applied to any and all branches of photography.
