LOS ANGELES – When photographers relied entirely on 35mm film, they had to wait to capture that decisive moment.
Now, they can shoot hundreds of frames and feel fairly certain they got the photo they were seeking.
Artistry, however, remains a key factor.
“Digital cameras are just a way of sketching what you’re doing until the moment happens,” says National Geographic photographer Cristina Mittermeier.
Adds photographer Campbell Addy: “The decisive moment changed more to the 'intuitive moment' because you have so much at your disposal that sometimes you forget just to look. Despite having thousands of gigabytes a day to capture, you just need that one frame. That decisive moment is still there.”
Mittermeier and Addy are among the shooters included in “Photographer,” a look at some of the world’s leading visual storytellers.
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Produced by Oscar winners Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the six-part series was designed to show how photographers make the decisions they do. The two had produced “Free Solo,” a heart-pounding profile of climber Alex Honnold, and heard many comments that they were crazy to climb with him just to get the perfect shot.
“They were fascinated with how I do it and the decisions I make,” Chin says. “I always looked around at my peers and thought what they do is so crazy – how do they approach a leopard seal or a supermodel or a celebrity?”
In his line of work, Chin has to be a climber first. “When things are too dangerous or when I need to contribute to the climbing team in order to get us up or get us down, I have to do that before I can take out the camera and shoot.”
Mittermeier agrees: “You have to be an accomplished water person first before you can take any photographs because your life is in danger every second that you’re in the ocean or the middle of nowhere. There’s no point in trying to chase a whale or shark. It will outrace you every time. You have to exercise tremendous patience and wait for animals to come close to you.”
Paul Nicklen, a veteran National Geographic photographer, has dealt with leopard seals in Antarctica, polar bears and grizzly bears. “I’ve never had a scary moment with a bear,” he says. “But the scariest moment I’ve ever had where I got attacked was in the subway station in New York.”
Addy – who traffics in that world as a portrait photographer – says he has to know the subject’s environment to get the right picture. “The biggest fear is working with people who have huge profiles. I have to capture their essence; I have to capture a moment and an emotive space where I’ve captured someone honest and true.”
Like the others, he says, “there are certain shoots I can think of now, if I hadn’t pushed myself that one little extra inch I would be a very different artist than who I am now. I guess it’s scary shooting superstars in 10 minutes sometimes.”
The variety of photographers is key to the series, Vasarhelyi says. “What they share is their singularity and that drive to be able to execute their vision.”
Social media, they say, isn’t a threat to photography but a way to be seen. “It allowed my stories and my community’s stories to get center stage where we wouldn’t necessarily have had access to it,” Addy says. “We’re ever-changing people and we have to go and push ourselves.”
Social media gave Mittermeier the kind of feedback she hadn’t gotten from readers. “Now we’re having a conversation, a dialogue with millions of people around the world who are asking questions through social media.”
Conversely, Nicklen went “kicking and screaming” into social media. “I wanted to just be out there in nature with the animals,” he says. When he first suggested followers could get more information if they went to his feed, he had more than 45,000 new followers in two hours. A polar bear shoot on the National Geographic site, got two billion views. Another video netted 180 million. “All of a sudden, here’s another way to communicate with the world. Instead of putting out a story once a year, you can beat the drum daily on issues that you care about.”
“Photographer” begins March 18 on National Geographic and is available to stream March 19 on Disney+ and Hulu.