Can we learn to photograph,

<p>or do we need an innate talent to view and compose?<br>

Will studying and experimenting be enough?<br>

L.</p>

 

Interesting question and one I have wondered about myself...

<p>To me, the important question is, what is <em>enough</em>? And, enough for <em>what</em>? Enough for some things, for sure. Enough for some other things, not. I find the best route is using whatever talent I have and combining that with the study and experimenting that allows me to continue to grow, challenge myself, and witness improvement.</p>

<p><br /> We won't all be Weston, Frank, Avedon, Leibovitz. And that's what some people think of as <em>enough</em>. They may very well be disappointed if they lack either the talent or the learning. But, I also wonder if it's the case that those who want to be Weston, Frank, Avedon, and Leibovitz are the most likely to fail because they set themselves up for failure by focusing there. Even without the talent that it might take to reach as many viewers as some of the "greats", one can reach whoever one reaches and that could be very much <em>enough</em>.</p>

<p> Some people have a capacity for it. However hard work is the thing to move to a higher level if that is what you want to do. </p>

<p>I rather photograph to learn than learn to photograph, : - >.</p>

<p>Who's the judge? Who's the time-keeper?</p>

<p>As Fred has pointed out, it all depends on what's <em>enough</em>. I'm going to answer with an anecdote from famous designer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Glaser">Milton Glaser</a> that I heard somewhere years ago. He was asked for his definition of happiness. He said (something like), "Happiness is exceeding your expectations." Which I think is a lovely way of not answering the question and at the same time pointing out why he's not answering it. Expectations change; always change, are changed by the thing that they expect, and so on. (I'm equating happiness with the OP's "enough".)</p>

<p>Way off topic, but I can't resist giving Mr. Glaser's description of his mother's recipe for spaghetti:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"First, put a 1 pound package of Mueller’s spaghetti in a large pot of rapidly boiling water. Allow to cook for 45 minutes to an hour, or until most of the water has evaporated. Add half a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup, and a half pound of Velveeta cheese. Continue cooking until all the contents have amalgamated. Allow to cool and de-mold from the pot. Divide into 1 inch slices and fry in chicken-fat.</p>

<p>When I was in my early teens, I went to a neighborhood Italian restaurant in the Bronx, and ordered spaghetti. The waiter brought me a bowl of strange-looking stringy things covered with tomato sauce. "No, no," I said, "I ordered Spaghetti, SPAGHETTI!""</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Awesome cooking! Totally exceeds my own expectations.</p>

<p>I hope that it's the latter.<br>

When I picked up a guitar for the first time, I had high hopes of becoming Segovia or George Harrison. Of course, I never achieved those heights, but I did learn that lots of practice could make you better. Will I ever be a world famous player? Unlikely, but I don't know whether it's lack of innate talent or unwillingness to dedicate the time and effort to become one. I'm guessing some of both.<br>

So, I think that some people are naturally blessed with skills that they can refine into greatness, whereas the rest of us have to work harder to try to be great - or even adequate. If it were easy, the people we now think are talented would just be another average guy.<br>

Unfortunately, the folks who post their photos here have set the bar high; I say unfortunately because if you all were much worse, I could seem so much better!</p>

<blockquote>

<p>do we need an innate talent to view and compose?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Can you learn to see? Yes, but you should watch enough.<br>

So, yes, I think you can, given you are critical enough, open-minded enough for critics, and put the bar high enough for yourself. Photography certainly taught me to see more and watch differently. In turn, I think that made my photos on average better (but not yet good enough).<br>

With regards to enough being enough, see Fred's reply. Nothing to add :-)<br>

One (to me) big step forwarrd was where the technical side of photos has become fluent enough to not bother too much with the decisions - so choosing the exposure values and possible other camera settings does not distract me from watching and framing.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Will studying and experimenting be enough?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, and possibly even useless, unless you set a direction and goal for yourself. Experimenting for the sake of experimenting yields no results. The reason why it's not enough are the missing efforts: practise, practise and practise.<br>

Experimenting may sound like practising, but the goal, to me, seems different: what do you expect to see back from yourself? Experiments can go wrong, so failed shots can be shrugged off as being part of the experimental waste. Practise means the bar is there where you put it for yourself, and you better jump over it. When I review my own photos, this sure makes the difference between carelessly deleting, and studying why it went wrong (or more rare, right).</p>

<p>Also remember, all the great ones had to work hard to become great - talent alone never cuts it. That said, I think Joseph is right... the 'naturally blessed' seem to be always a step in front of the rest of us....</p>

<p>If photography were more like boxing, and if your time in the ring was all the time you had to compose and shoot your picture, you would see that, whatever you think you might have done, you gave up everything you had for that one then and there. Was it enough? Enough doesn't matter when you're used up. Better luck next time. Fortunately, there's always a next time.</p>

<p>Trial and error gets a bad rap in the popular mind. The "instant expert" seems to have gotten the upper hand in our thinking. We have a native understanding of beginner's luck, but neglect to see that every technical pursuit requires us to be beginners, at least for a while. The more complicated and involved the subject we want to master, the longer it takes. So with photography. It's the nature of things. If I ever write a memoir I will call it "You have to get things wrong in order to get them right!"</p>

<p>Native talent does you little good without training of some sort. Persistence pays. It takes practice and discipline to learn your craft. I see nothing wrong with study and experimentation. How else can one go about guiding himself without paying careful attention to what he is doing? I will add the comment that it may help to get some actual guidance and instruction along the way to help focus your efforts. Self training can wind up being uneven in the short run. You can waste a lot of time through distractions and digging too deep into fruitless efforts to perfect things a more experienced person wouldn't bother with.</p>

In my experience, "I don't have a talent for ________" most often translates to "I haven't put much time or effort into ___________." Most of my best friends are very 'talented' musicians. In practical terms, that means they spend dozens of hours a week practicing, studying, and trying to get better at what they do. No one I know who is 'talented' simply picked up an instrument and started making music instantly.

<p>Fred,</p>

<p>"<em>what is enough?</em>"</p>

<p>This leads us to the need of a target, a reference framework, for our photography. The photographers you mention all have their specificity. But not all of their work are masterpieces.</p>

<p>I think it is not about becoming like William Eggleston, but rather to develop <em>viewing and technical capabilities to produce images which please me like those of Eggleston</em>.</p>

<p>Photography is so varied, the genres so numerous and different, that a major part of the effort could go initially into understanding <em><strong>what </strong></em>I want to do. And <em><strong>how </strong></em>I can do it.</p>

<p>Once we have found this target, we can work towards it, trying to bring the elements under our control which make the photo which pleases us.<br /> <br /> L.</p>

<p>Ross B and Phylo,</p>

<p>you show us the two sides of the same medal. It's an ever progressing process, if we work to make it progress.</p>

<p>A famous Italian photographer, Gianni Berengo Gardin, says: <em>my photographic archive is like a good wine, it improves with the time</em>.</p>

<p>L.</p>

<p><em>"masterpieces"</em></p>

<p>Again, I'd have to ask what is a masterpiece and of what significance is that to you? I think there are definitely alternatives to masterpieces that are worth going for. </p>

<p>I mentioned each of those photographers, and there are countless more one could think of, more for their bodies of work than the individual photographs.</p>

<p>________________________________</p>

<p><em>"understanding <strong>what</strong> I want to do"</em></p>

<p>Yes, though some of that understanding <em>comes from</em> what I do as well as <em>going into</em> what I do.</p>

<p>_____________________________</p>

<p><em>"Once we have found this target"</em></p>

<p>The target can be fixed or moving. Often the minute I think I find it, it starts morphing into something else.</p>

<p>_______________________________</p>

<p><em>"trying to bring the elements under our control"</em></p>

<p>A lot of my time is spent actually trying to lose and/or give up control, but I know what you mean.</p>

>>> Can we learn to photograph

 

Of course "we" can. Happens every day. Formally and informally. Same as writing, roofing, nursing,

painting, flying, driving a race car, running a hotel, skiing, playing drums, and gardening.

<p>What Luca may be getting at, or at least my take on it is, that in any of these areas (roofing, nursing, driving, photographing . . .) one can study and learn but that won't always get you to where you want to be. Nurses all study hard to get their licenses and all become at least proficient in the study of nursing. But there are good nurses and bad nurses. Same with roofers. Same with drivers. Same with photographers. Good nurses seem to have that something extra that average or poor nurses don't have, even if they can all set up an IV and know a percoset from an aspirin. Good photographers seem to have something extra that average or poor photographers don't have, even if they can all take a picture that's in focus and that doesn't blow out the highlights. In many areas such as photography, we tend to call that extra bit <em>talent</em>. (Of course, we've had many discussions on the role of "good" in photography and how significant that label is and how important it might be as a goal. But, outside the confines of Philosophy, it's a relatively understood and harmless term of value.)</p>

<p>On the other hand, talent without learning will often mean unrealized potential. Learning can be of all kinds. People are self-taught, taught by teachers, mentors, in more formal or more casual contexts. Learning requires a lot of looking. It happens in museums, galleries, with books, with dialogue . . .</p>

<p>Fred, photography, in particular art-photography is different from all the skills you've listed. Because those that you've listed work to an externally fixed framework.</p>

<p>If we were talking about something like (picking an extremely simple example of targeted framework) the Olympic sprint (is it 100m?), that target is very, very fixed, and obviously, some are more naturally gifted than others (training is still necessary, but natural gifts are the limit).</p>

<p>But in photography, we, each of us, get to devise our own "game," or own "framework," the nature -- in every respect -- of our framework.</p>

<p>As you've (Fred) said, that framework is or can be in flux either continually or, to use an evolutionary phrase, with "punctuated equilibrium." If we can tailor the goal to our own gifts, then, almost by definition (if we are good and attentive tailors) we can be the best at what we are the best at. It's ... circular.</p>

<p>Julie (<em>referring to your first post</em>),</p>

<p>I could imagine a scale of judges and time-keepers:</p>

<ul>

<li>first ourselves. It's ourselves who decide for photography, as for any possible human activity. We set our objectives and the time-frame within which to achieve them. We ourselves decide about our learning process, whether we attend courses, have a mentor, study books. We also decide what becomes of our work: limited to our family album, our hard drive. Or the internet.</li>

<li>And we present ourselves to other judges. Particularly on the internet. The peculiarity of internet judgements that they are issued according to a potentially infinite value frameworks. The result is that each and every opinion is valid and sustainable.</li>

<li>Then there are "professional judges" of the most diverse kind: those purchasing images for advertisement, for fashion, for news, for books, for corporations; and then museum curators, merchants of photos. All these have a real or potential market in mind - not necessarily an economic market - and consequently a precise framework of reference according to which they judge photographs. They have a specific target and match what they see to this target reference.</li>

</ul>

<p>The time: mostly it's not an issue if it's ourselves who set the rules of the game (I have been editing my next photobook since well over 6 months and there is - still - no end in sight). It's no issue on the internet.<br /> Professional judges might be time-keepers.<br /> For sure, human activities need a deadline, otherwise they are never completed.</p>

<p>Joseph White,</p>

<blockquote>

<p>... but I did learn that lots of practice could make you better.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think here you address a very important point, which complements to my initial question: creativity requires application, endurance, constancy. You need to pursue a project, may it be musical or photographic.<br>

According to which you set your framework of reference.<br>

Whether it is sufficient to work a lot to become a guitar virtuoso or a master in photography, probably the border is not very clear-cut.</p>

>>> What Luca may be getting at, or at least my take on it is, that in any of these areas (roofing,

nursing, driving, photographing . . .) one can study and learn but that won't always get you to where you

want to be.

 

Absolutely true. There are no guarantees in life that one will as successful or developed as one wants to

be, in any endeavor. Including photography. That's acknowledging the obvious that, for example, I'll never

play the piano like Horowitz.

 

But clearly, photography, like everything else, can be learned. People do it all the time. Through a variety

of methods.

<p>Julie, I'm photographing to express and communicate, much of which involves others. I may not go out of my way to tailor what I do so others think it's <em>good</em>, but I assess my growth, at least in part, by what I sense I'm communicating to others, which comes from feedback. There are times when that feedback simply doesn't matter and I move on according to my own vision. It's a balancing act. </p>

<p>I'd frame it a little differently from Luca. I wouldn't necessarily talk in terms of presenting ourselves as photographers to other "judges." I present myself to viewers. I often disregard their judgments, but I don't disregard their responses. The may tell me they'd prefer if I had done <em>x</em>, which I may not care about at all. They might say this photo, or this element of a photo, makes them feel <em>x</em>, and that usually has some impact on me.</p>

<p>Recently, we had a discussion about some hesitation I had about one of my own photographs. You made some suggestions which I didn't think would work for me. Someone else may very well have made a suggestion that would have worked for me. That's not because I'm working to an externally fixed framework. It's because ideas come from all over the place.</p>

<p>Learning and growing suggests to me that, at any given point we don't devise our own game completely within our own framework, certainly not in every respect of that framework. Otherwise, we couldn't have any idea what or how to learn. The minute we look at someone else's work and get an idea, the minute we open a book of photographs which has been on the shelves for decades and realize this person is considered great by millions, the minute we go to a gallery and see someone's work who's been chosen to show, we are influenced and we learn something. We may not use it and we may not agree with it, but it certainly doesn't seem to me it's all our own game, though photographers do, as you suggest, have a lot more freedom than the sprinter who must perform a specific act in a set amount of time. </p>

<p>Freedom does not occur in a vacuum and does not imply solipsism. And not all photographers are equal.</p>

<p><strong>Wouter</strong>,</p>

<blockquote>

<p>... unless you set a direction and goal for yourself. Experimenting for the sake of experimenting yields no results.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Absolutely true: the direction and goal are "the framework" I am referring to.<br>

Technical skills: to some extent they are part of the creative process. But I agree with you, some "types of photography" require a consolidated technique to move on to composition.<br>

For sure familiarisation with the equipment should be no hampering element.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Also remember, all the great ones had to work hard to become great - talent alone never cuts it. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Absolutely agree. But are there more "<em><strong>naturally blessed</strong></em>" in other forms of expression than in photography?</p>

<p>Delete.</p>

<p>A good photographer is a good liver.</p>

<p>One is born with "X" talent. I don't think that can be augmented, but it can be maximized, like a figure sculpted out of the stone, freed by sheer work.</p>

<p>Asking if one will become a great is like a six year old kid asking if he will become a millionaire by the time he's 30. The answer is: It's possible, but extremely unlikely. Life is a gamble.</p>

<p>In art, there are no goals, in the sense of objectives that gain "points" or you attain or possess. It's not a game, that is for hacks. It's an exploration. One can set goals, of course, but the work will go where it wants to go, unless you strangle & kill it, often giggling mischievously while it drags you along. It's not like taking a train between two points and arriving exactly on time. More like riding with a crazed cabbie that gives you the grand tour of the five boroughs until stuck at a red light, and you thrust money at him and bail out, wondering where you are.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Luca,<br>

Are there more or less.... it's hard to say. The nay-sayers will yell about mass-market consumerism approach to photography bringing the art down on a whole. Conversely, I think this mass-market means there is more fish in the pond. So, in absolute figures, there may be more naturally blessed photographers developing themselves, because it is more widely spread than painting, wood-cutting and many forms of expression.</p>

<p>Another way to look at your question would be the notion that many seem to have: that photography is easier, because you have to understand some f-stop stuff and remember something about your ISO, and push a button. So, no talent needed at all! The list Fred gave earlier, well, 'they had an eye for it' and/or 'got lucky when to push that button'.....</p>