Is photography really hard? or is it really easy?

<p>Go to any culinary site and people will never tell you how hard cooking is, in fact "anyone can do it" seems to be the mantra for many similar types of activities without it either diminishing their art or craft, or minimizing their respective practitioner's skill set.</p>

<p>So in your opinion:</p>

<ul>

<li>Is photography hard or easy?</li>

<li>How does either of these characterizations influence the way beginners approach photography?</li>

<li>Should practitioners take offence if photography was said to be easy?</li>

<li>Should we lean more toward "Photography is easy"? </li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Involved, complex, effort requiring, rewarding and therefore "easy (pleasurable)".</li>

<li>Some will bother to learn, others not. It is a personal issue and not subject to generalisation. Those who like challenges will not be bothered if it is described as hard.</li>

<li>No. They know that effort is required or they would probably not still be practicing the craft or art of photography.</li>

<li>If you are selling something to do with photography, maybe you might want to suggest it is easy to increase sales, but why would you want to state something that is erroneous, at least as concerns photography that goes beyond a "selfie" in terms of a challenge? </li>

</ul>

<p>Automation and cameras that make decisions for you (rather than the opposite) already suggest that the craft is "easy" (and which the manufacturers love). Certainly, without effort most can acquire reasonable images of whatever subject they are shooting with "smart cameras". However, whether you use such devices or not, you are ultimately faced with the so-called 1% creation, 99% perspiration rule of art (although I believe it is not weighted enough on creation) and the requirement of effort to achieve best results. But not everyone wants that, so we need to define what (level of) photography is hard or easy, Michael, before posing your question. </p>

<p>Like cooking, it gets ever harder as you get more refined. </p>

<p>I am more of an engineer than artist, and always had more fun in the darkroom than out with the camera. The technical parts were always easy, the artistic parts not so much, for me.</p>

<p>Compare to sculpting, where it is a lot of physically hard work, and with some mistakes you start all over. With photography, it mostly isn't so much work, and most of the time mistakes are easy to fix right away. But not always.</p>

<p>Now, one could automate sculpting, such that there was no work, and no art, and I suspect that is happening more and more.</p>

 

<p>Well, it's not rocket science, and becoming good at it isn't tortuous. But it does take a while. I think time is more important than anything else.</p>

<p>It is not insulting to say that photography is easy. Not a lot of people master it because they can't or don't want to spend the time. It's not a walk in the park, but it's not difficult, either. Aeronautical engineering is difficult!</p>

<p>I think some photographers want to say how hard it is to make themselves feel better. And some insecure people use psychological tactics, usually in vain, to discourage newcomers, as they don't want to be dethroned as proverbial king of the proverbial hill.</p>

So in your opinion:

 

1) Is photography hard or easy?

 

Both! But doing anything well takes work.

 

2) How does either of these characterizations influence the way beginners approach photography?

 

When I started being interested in making pictures as opposd to casually snapping pictures of places I had visited, the

difficulties of making an a photo that was interesting to me is one of the things that kept me going. If it had been easy I

likely would have moved on. On the other hand I felt like people who made pictures that I found interesting and intriguing

seemed to do it repeatedly quite easily and I guess I wanted to see if I could figure out their secret.

 

And eventually I did figure out the twin secrets of making good to great interesting photos: dig into your self and

simultaneously learn both the craft and what it really means to make art.

 

3) Should practitioners take offence if photography was said to be easy?

 

Taking pictures is easy. Making photographs is harder.

 

 

4) Should we lean more toward "Photography is easy"?

 

Is it?

<p>High level skills of all kinds require study, practice, and effort, usually for some considerable period of time. The most practiced and enjoyed ones allow a life long learning experience.<br>

On the other hand, much easier to let others do difficult things, order out and use a cell phone.</p>

<p>I have a client that routinely makes, in a few minutes using an iPhone's camera, scratch photos that very well might take care of 90% of what they need them to do. And then they pay me to spend a couple hours shooting and a couple hours in post to re-shoot exactly the same things so they have what they really need for the 10% of use that really closes their sales. Photography is easy for them, except for some photography, which isn't.</p>

<p>Again we can have an endless discussion on definition. What does easy mean? Addressing one perspective from the artistic view. I know some people that you hand them any camera and they can produce a beautiful image intuitively and with great facility and then there are others who try as hard as they might and taking classes just can not take a good photograph "easily" (again to quote Cunningham ad nauseam "you can not teach photography"). Does that mean that they should try something else? Speaking for my self in my case absolutely not. I find pleasure and love compliments when I get them but I will be damned if I stop regardless.</p>

<ol>

<li><strong>Is photography hard or easy? </strong></li>

</ol>

<p>It's about a 7 imo. You didn't say great photography, and what about taste/preferences. Is McCurry great? I never thought so, though many did/ still do.</p>

<p><strong> 2.How does either of these characterizations influence the way beginners approach photography?</strong></p>

<p>People often approach photography (cooking, or whatever) with their associates, peers, then it becomes a groupthink kinda deal, especially with social media these days...they can compete against each other, or quit together, just as easy. Plus, beginners usually know jack. Once, they stick with it, they often do change their minds (about photography)</p>

<p><strong> 3. Should practitioners take offence if photography was said to be easy</strong><br>

<br />People will be offended to almost anything, I personally wouldn't<br>

<br /> <strong> 4. Should we lean more toward "Photography is easy"?</strong></p>

<p>I can really careless, but i lean toward easy, because I'm more less a street photog, so it helps me if cameras are ubiquitous:) </p>

<p> </p>

<p>It's all what you make it, and have an interest an eye for doing. Nothing more--except for being recognized sucking up to the right people...</p>

<p>Getting reasonable quality images is a lot easier today than it was 10 years ago. Latest generation digital camera, ISO 800, aperture priority, F8, auto focus, some light and composition and your're 90% there. </p>

<p>It reminds me of what people say about playing the guitar, that it's the easiest instrument to play, and the hardest to play well.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>It is an ocean in which a gnat may drink, and an elephant may bathe.</p>

<p>What about Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours to mastery (I am still working on that.)? Doesn't that make everything hard -- even photography?</p>

<p>Howard</p>

"Is photography really hard? or is it really easy?"

 

I think, disregarding the technical aspects, it could be compared to writing. Just about anyone reading this could easily write about various

topics - it's pretty easy on the surface. But do you want to write well enough to have articles "published?" Writing for casual websites is

almost certainly much easier than for a prestigious magazine. And it could be extremely difficult to write certain articles such as climbing

Mt. Everest, or even something like the Appalachian trail (A Walk in the Woods, by Bryson).

 

So I think that the difficulty of photography could be comparable. Additionally, the technical knowledge needed for certain types of

photography "raises the bar," although this doesn't really make the photography harder - it just presupposes a certain level of qualification.

 

So yeah, it can be anything between ease and hard.

<ul>

<li>Is photography hard or easy?</li>

</ul>

<p>Photography is as easy as pushing a button - and as hard as earning millions for a picture you took.</p>

<ul>

<li>How does either of these characterizations influence the way beginners approach photography?</li>

</ul>

<p>Someone starts because they want to take pictures, someone because they want to be famous.</p>

<ul>

<li>Should practitioners take offence if photography was said to be easy?</li>

</ul>

<p>This is psychology, and not ethics nor law, and therefore not a question that can be answered with "should" or "should not". It would however be interesting to know _why_ some practitioners will take offense.</p>

<ul>

<li>Should we lean more toward "Photography is easy"?</li>

</ul>

<p>Good starting point!</p>

<p>What an interesting question. Is playing the piano hard or is it easy. My seven year old grand daughter plays the piano, so does Ramsey Lewis, one of my favorite jazz pianists. I'd never confuse one with the other. I think the answer largely depends on what your vision of photography is. Can you achieve your mental vision of an image through photography? Is that easy or difficult? If all you wish to do is make snapshots for family memories or take selfies with your phone -- it is easy. If you set the bar higher and challenge yourself to make complex images with many subtleties, that may be hard. I've been doing this for just about 70 years and I still find photography challenging. I have been asked by one of the photo software developers to write and article about my journey through photography over the years. I thought that would be easy - it turns out it is hard because it has been a long, complicated and rewarding journey and I'm enjoying it more today than at any time in the past.</p>

<p>Anyone can "point and shoot." That's photography. It's easy.</p>

<p>And then there is Photography. . . .</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

The artistic part probably hasn't changed. The technical part has gotten much easier. No more walking to

the mail box and waiting for my slides to return.

<p>There is no step-by-step recipe for creating art. Some are born with it, some try and learn, others will never see it.</p>

<p>I don't think it's fair to compare cooking with photography. Both are crafts that can produce art. But we all must eat and nobody can press a button and produce a basic meal. Photography has suffered as technology has advanced and placed cameras in virtually everyone's palms. It's no surprise that professional photographers get irritated when discussions like this arise. The same thing happened in the world of writing. I worked in newspapers for 20 years amid newsrooms bustling with reporters and editors of all sorts. There were standards for accuracy and fairness. Then along came the Internet. Suddenly everyone could produce their own news and, as we all know, standards and accuracy went out the window. Thing is, from where I sit, it seems like most people don't care. So newspapers are changing and many are dying. Photography has suffered in similar ways. It's easy to take basic snapshots and I think that's all most people want. Just look at the snapshots that get posted to social media sites. But real photography? People pay for it when quality really counts ... weddings, for example. Meanwhile, snapshots taken on the fly with phones are easy. No question. As others have already argued, true photography takes time, skill and talent. I think the question we should be asking ourselves is this: Why don't we embrace change? Photography isn't an elite club any more. But that's not a bad thing, is it? Cooks have their own TV network. But there are now millions more people with cameras in their hands. Can't we build something great upon that foundation? </p>

<p>But you can press a button and produce a basic meal -- microwave dinners! Just as you can press a button and capture an image. The latter or the former may be quite acceptable to some, but to others may not produce adequate food or a worthwhile photograph.</p>

<p>That's true, Sandy. But with a microwave dinner all you are doing is warming up a meal that was made by someone else. An equivalent in photography might be downloading an image for your computer monitor. You didn't actually create the image but you are able to use it with a click of your mouse. So what I was saying is that you can't push a button and create a meal from raw ingredients but you can push a button and create an original snapshot of just about anything. My larger point was that photography has had it a lot rougher than cooking.</p>

<p>Whether photography is easy or not depends on the person. Some people on PN produce brilliant images with a minimum learning curve, while for others it takes a longer time. On an average, it is safe to say that photography is not easy. Photography <em>seems</em> easy, just point the camera and click. Thats what makes it even harder. what seems interesting in real life (or by looking through the viewfinder), doesn't always turn out to be so in the finished image. It takes time to realize and get around that temptation of the shutter. This leads to the following question:</p>

 

<ul>

<li>Given enough time and training, most will produce technically <em>flawless</em> images. Can anyone produce <em>great</em> images, given enough time?</li>

</ul>

<p>Regardless of how much time it takes to master the technicalities, the ability to produce great images is inherent. <em>That</em> is the limiting quantity in this equation.</p>

<p>So in my opinion, photography as a service (such as wedding/professional photography) is hard to master. Photography as art (as in images that <em>matter</em>) is beyond easy or hard, it is just inherited I am afraid.</p>

<p>Cooking at professional level is hard - I used to work in a busy, big city, fine dining restaurant - cooks were working unbelievably hard.</p>