Expertise

Reflections is part of the Photowalk Podcast. Search for Reflections by Neale James, wherever you get your podcasts.

I often muse on the Photowalk podcast that if there’s something slightly technical I need to engage with or attend to, then it’s very likely to give me a nosebleed, although to suggest I ‘don’t do technical’ is not entirely accurate.

A chap called Neil Ford is my champion of I.T., and I think I have leant on him more and more to do this, because whilst I could do tech, I have chosen not to do tech, mainly because he keeps up with stuff that requires you to read an instruction manual. I’d rather smash the button that I believe is stopping the kit I’m trying to make work as many times as it takes, convinced that it might just do the trick.

Halftime oranges

Come on, let’s be honest, it worked in Star Wars. When the Millennium Falcon refuses to jump to lightspeed, Han Solo gives the controls a thwack, a sharp reminder of who’s in charge, and hey presto, it all works again.

But has technical expertise overshadowed good old-fashioned feelings for the craft of photography?

A question I shall revisit after some thoughts about football, the round ball version.

In my day, as a fledgling player with a full head of hair, football, as I remember it, was not a very technical sport. Even Jimmy Hill on the Saturday night TV footie show Match of the Day would use language like ‘boot the ball up the field a little more’ in his punditry, I’m sure.

As a young something, I played as a defender for Bengeo Tigers. We played in gold and black stripes, in the days before McDonald’s started sponsoring youth football – I’ve never quite understood that stance. Look I like a Big Mac with the best of ‘em, but there’s something quite odd about a fast food chain sponsoring sport and health, and if you dare say to me “Carrots Neale, what about the Carrot sticks,” I shall stare at you long and hard for longer than feels comfortable.

Some associations just don’t feel appropriate to me. That’s just me.

True story, my grandad was a tobacconist and confectioner close-ish to Tottenham Hotspur’s ground in north London, and there was a time in the 70s he’d be the go-to blending tobacconist for the Spurs players who’d buy the tobacco on their way in to the match. See, some associations just don’t feel appropriate to me.

Anyway, back on point, the manager of the Under 13s team I played for, Bengeo Tigers, was, from memory, certainly not technical in the slightest. I don’t recall half-time chats with pitch-side marker boards, or anyone shouting tactics from the sidelines. It was as much as the coaching staff with a very small ‘c’ and ‘s’, could do to stop us running off early, approaching half-time, when the orange segments arrived from my friend Christopher Strong’s mum.

I’m having to borrow from somewhat faded memory here, but coaching followed a more colloquial path; something like “Oi Jamsie, just bang that ball out if it comes anywhere near you, because you’re certainly not skilled enough to do anything else with it. Big Trev, run and see if you can get on the end of anything that comes your way, the irony being Big Trev was actually little Trevor Higgins from my chemistry class at school, someone whose growth spurt hadn’t actually triggered yet, but he was the fastest kid on the sports field, no doubt. And, the rest of you, when that whistle blows, knock it about the pitch and see if you can just get two or three completed passes. Then, when you lot have lost it, Jamesie can kick it out, hopefully.

When we watch football at home, my eldest speaks in a language akin to Hungarian with a Basque accent, in Icelandic.

Apparently, I know diddly squat about football, and I’m constantly tested, so that he might be able to ridicule me, for purposes of self-entertainment.

“Come on Dad, get with it, it’s obvious, they’ve shifted into a 3-2-4-1, with the full-backs inverting to create overloads in the half-spaces, while the false nine drops into the double pivot to destabilise the opposition’s press.”

Right you are son. Or in old money, bang it up the field lads, and run like sh&t to get on the end of it if Big Trev doesn’t get there first.

So yes, football these days has turned into a tech fest. To put it in photographic terms, it’s like being handed a Sony flagship mirrorless and actually knowing what every single button, dial, and menu item does. Impressively technical.

But has technical expertise overshadowed good old-fashioned feelings for the craft of photography?

I do wonder if we’ve confused expertise with expression? They both start with e, but they’re about as relatable to each other as tobacco should be to a Spurs player heading to a match.

The danger with expertise is that it can become a cage, a set of rules so tightly drawn that you dare not colour outside the lines. You know your histogram better than you know your own heartbeat. You recite lens specifications more fluently than you recall why you first picked up a camera.

And yet, when you look at the work of some of the most celebrated photographers, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, and William Eggleston, it isn’t always the technical perfection that holds you. What strikes you is presence, honesty, timing, eyes open, willing to see.

I think back to the pictures that really stop me. The ones where perhaps the focus is slightly off, or the light doesn’t follow a textbook pattern. They work because they feel alive. Expertise didn’t make them; attentiveness did.

So, is expertise overrated? I’d say it depends on what you’re measuring. Technical prowess is useful. It gives you tools, choices, and control. But it’s not the heart of the matter. A carpenter who knows every type of joint but never builds a chair isn’t much use to anyone. The craft exists to serve the making, not the other way round.

After twenty years of professional photography, do I consider myself an expert? Honestly, no. And I’m not sure I want to. Because if you start to believe you’ve arrived, you stop travelling. You stop questioning, experimenting, failing, and learning. And I don’t think that’s an excuse for my inability to quote tech, no.

Perhaps the better word is practitioner. Someone in practice, still on the pitch, still trying to get a few passes together. Someone who loves the game, whether or not they can name every formation or decode the tactics.

And that’s a comforting thought: to keep showing up, to keep photographing, not as an expert, but as a participant. Someone willing to kick the ball, who may miss, but tries again. Perhaps the most interesting pictures aren’t made by those who know everything, but by those who are still curious enough to admit they don’t.

Half-time oranges, anyone? See Christopher Strong’s mum.

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