KISS More Often

We should all KISS more often, don’t you think? After all, who doesn’t like a good kiss? Wait a minute! Get your mind out of the gutter, that’s not what I mean. I’m referring to the acronym KISS; the famous KISS principle. The acronym stands for “Keep it simple, stupid“. It tells us we should never make things any more complex than they need to be; simple and straightforward as possible is best.

Last week I tried and struggled to implement a new security protocol on my blog. By “struggled” I mean that it made my site inaccessible for extended periods of time and left me extremely frustrated. Fortunately, with the help of kind strangers in a support forum for my content delivery network I was finally able to get it working. It turned out it really was a very simple process but unfortunately lack of clear, simple and unambiguous instructions from both the content delivery network and my hosting platform led me down the wrong path. Who would have ever thought that to “enable” a process you should NOT click on the enable button for that feature? Certainly not me. But I was wrong, oh so wrong. It was a case of enabling something but you don’t dare use the enable button to do it. Are you confused yet?

Are We Guilty Of This Ourselves?

I won’t bother all of you with the gory detail. It is not a pretty sight. The point of all this is that while struggling with this blatant disregard of the KISS principle and how it complicated things it made me stop and ponder. Are we, as photographers, just as guilty of doing the same? Do we speak in code that may be understood by experienced photographers but may be confusing to non-photographers and less-experienced photographers? I think we can make a case for just that.

Photography can be art but it still at its heart a very technical process. With all that technicality comes a lot of acronyms, strange wordings and misleading phrasings that we continue to use by tradition. Learning all of this can be very confusing to a beginning photographer and completely incomprehensible to a non-photographer. Since we all like to help each other learn and we also like to discuss our photos with both photographers and non-photographers perhaps we should simplify our way of talking about photography. In other words, apply the KISS principle to our photography communications.

A Few Examples

Here are a few examples where we often violate the KISS principle.

Shutter Speed

We use the term shutter speed when we mean exposure time. The speed of the shutter is always the same. The exposure time will vary. How fast a shutter opens and closes is the same on all our shots. We control light by adjusting the exposure time, the amount of time between the opening and closing of the shutter. Some manufacturers use “Time value or Tv” on their dials for what we call shutter speed. Perhaps we should follow their lead and call it “time value” or “exposure time” as it more simply (and accurately) describes what we are talking about.

Stopping Down/Opening Up Aperture

Due to camera math sometimes things like aperture seem backwards. The higher the aperture number, e.g., f/22, the smaller the aperture opening. Why don’t we simply say we are going to (or used) a larger aperture opening or a small aperture opening? It’s less confusing than “stopping down”.

ISO

ISO is the short form name for the International Organization for Standardization. It is not an abbreviation or acronym. ISO represents film or sensor sensitivity to light. I presume ISO standardized the sensitivity scale and it became known as “ISO” as a form of shorthand. Wouldn’t it be more understandable to someone if we explained that we increased the sensor’s sensitivity to light rather than saying we increased the ISO?

Mirrorless camera

I’ve ranted before about the mis-branding of mirrorless cameras. Calling them mirrorless implies that there is some special significance about being mirrorless. There isn’t. None at all. Even DSLRs operate in a mirrorless fashion (moving the mirror up and out of the way) when taking the picture. Why don’t we refer to them as electronic view finder cameras instead? That’s the real significant part of this new technology. Using the term “mirrorless” is really a misdirection away from the true importance of the technology.

Not knowing our audience

When we discuss our photos, we often don’t know our audience (or perhaps don’t care who they are). We usually launch right in to a dissertation filled with all the technical jargon and buzzwords we know. As a result, sometimes the eyes of our audience glaze over and the attention wanders to other things. Do we really need to go into the intricacies of the adjustments we made to saturation and vibrance and the use of luminance masking when we could have simply said we boosted the color and contrast while adjusting the exposure in some areas? It all depends on who is our audience. Remember, keep it simple. Tailor you message to what your audience is looking for from your discussion.

What Should We Do?

Breaking with well-established habits and traditions is difficult. It takes patience and persistence. It’s a slow and long process. However, if we believe that the KISS principle is beneficial, we have to constantly work to improve our communications about photography. I mention communication because although photography is a visual art all of our interactions with others in regard to photography are written and/or communications.

Although they are over-used clichés, the phrases “Be the change” and “Change begins with me” are true. So, I’m taking this as a New Year’s resolution to try to improve my use of the KISS principle. Oh, I’m sure I’ll fail miserably at times but hopefully I’ll continue and over time get better at it. So, remember to KISS more often!