Can an "eye" for photography be learned?

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M. Valdemar

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I've seen some people totally untrained or experienced in photogrpahy pick up the cheapest camera available and start to turn out beautiful, startling photographs.

They "get" it. Their perspectives, angles, colors, choice of details to hone in on are 100% each and every time. Second nature.

Then you have people who study photography, buy tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, debate characteristics of lenses, cameras, ad infinitum, and they never take anything more than pedestrian, uninspired images, totally without any interest to anyone else.

It's the same with music. Some people can pick up a guitar or a clarinet, and start making divine sounds once they master the basics. Others can practice a lifetime and never make any progress.

I think an "eye" and a talent cannot be learned. Those without talent can sometimes take an accidental great image, but those who "have it" can create the fascinating images and the looks with any camera, any lens, almost any medium.

You can practice the technical side of the craft forever, and improve the final image, but you can't teach perception.

What do you think? I think a great artist is born, not taught.
 
I think photogs of any talent can always learn more and so better their "photographic eye."

However I think real talent is a gift, something which can not be learned, or taught even in the very best photo schools.

I've seen many gifted photogs turn out great shots who could barely tell the difference between an F/stop and a bus stop.

Stephen
 
I think people who do great work can probably come to it differently. There are those who just pick it up and start doing interesting things from the get-go. Yet others who "Learn" or acquire an ability or style through years of working at it.

Whether it can be taught? I kind of doubt it. Maybe the right person can help you along to some extent, but I think you learn the important stuff on your own.

Check out Robert Adam's essays in his books, "Beauty in Photography" and "Why People Photograph" for some interesting thoughts on this.

Cheers,
Gary
 
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M. Valdemar said:
It's the same with music. Some people can pick up a guitar or a clarinet, and start making divine sounds once they master the basics. Others can practice a lifetime and never make any progress.

I think an "eye" and a talent cannot be learned. Those without talent can sometimes take an accidental great image, but those who "have it" can create the fascinating images and the looks with any camera, any lens, almost any medium.

You can practice the technical side of the craft forever, and improve the final image, but you can't teach perception.

What do you think? I think a great artist is born, not taught.
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Oh yes you can teach perception! Pictorial composition is not a transcendental truth that needs only to be remembered by the gifted. It's a very dense network of social conventions, cognitive abilities, historic circumstances, taste, and so forth. Just by paying proper attention to previous artwork is a huge step in understanding how it works, and ditching the mystery away.

Musical composition used to be a similar mystery: how the hell do people put notes together and make them sing? Then a musician friend of mine explained to me the basic mechanisms behind a song: key, scale, rhythm, etc. The mystery went away, but I actually have a newfound respect for musicians simply because I understand better how much hard work you need to put into your art before making something marginally good. It's not just talent.

We think that learning is hearing something explicitly and then applying it. Our selves do a lot of background processing without us knowing it. The "gifted" individual is often a weird mixture of special cognitive abilities and exposure to art.

There are plenty of talented folks who never developed their potential before exposure to other artists, practice, and encouragement.

I don't think you can take Joe Ordinary and be sure you will turn him into Mozart, but on the other hand, there are no reasons to believe that the person you believe to be Joe Ordinary is not in fact a Mozart to be.

Likewise, everybody CAN succeed at school, but not everybody does. And it's not just a question of intelligence or inborn talent. You need to take everything in consideration, the cognitive, the social, and the accidents of history.
 
Good question to ponder, M Valdemar. 🙂

I'm a teacher because I believe in the power of education and learning. That's why I believe that people can learn and develop a gift. Not all skills and dexterities are innate, and if it were, we'd be in dire streets if we had to trust on those who are "born with a gift" to do things. Imagine if only those people "gifted" to learn languages studied French, German or Chinese? What about those who need it? We all can learn because we have highly adaptable and intelligent minds.

In sum, yes, the skills can be learned and developed into a talent.
 
Photography is a general term and in fact no one is a great photographer, there are great landscape photographers, documentary photographer, fashion photographers etc...

So, in end the everyone who takes photos has talent for one of the many subject matters that can be photographed, the real genius lies in the act of deciding on one subject and running with it.
 
Yes, but probably not from photography courses

Yes, but probably not from photography courses

Art courses and particularly Art History.

OK.. photography courses insofar as mastering the technical aspects of gear and film.
 
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Talent is earned

Talent is earned

The mystical magical savants you describes do not exist. They are a myth. You might describe me as one of those, but in fact I'm an old time 'child prodigy'. I come from a family of musicians and artists. I was playing clarinet in the 4th grade, that's nothing special but that's young. My parents made it happen. I now play music 'by ear'.

My father took me on sketching expeditions at the same age, and we sat in the front pew in church and sketched portraits of choir members and the preacher of the sermon. Playing ball came second. It wasn't valued the same.

Learning the arts is like learning a foreign language. The earlier one begins the easier it is to master.

Those who have talent are those that are immune to failure, that is, they see their mistakes soon, don't moan about them and try something new, even if takes a hundred tries. They don't give up even though they may be prone to the errors of everyone who is self taught. I was lucky, in my family I had a good support group.

Grandma Moses could only progress so far, yet she is considered to be a kind of savant. However, she never overcame 'speaking' painting with a heavy accent.
 
I think I can take away a bit from what everyone has said thus far to form my opinion; that what makes up one's "eye"- the perception and mastery of composition, light, balance - basic geometry - this all can be learned. Exposure to the work of master photographers and leaders in the various genres of photogrpahy is a great education, as is having a mentor. The goal is to get to where technical issues aren't in the way of doing what you want to do - expression - with the camera.

What can't be learned - and in my opinion is what is most important in developing as an artist - is how one lives one's life. Our rich and sometimes tragic experiences are what form the Art that comes out of us, whether we are using a camera or not to make the Art.
 
This is the best thread I've seen on RFF for months. Thanks especially to MHV, Francisco and Dektol Dan for your encourgaing replies. There is hope!
 
mhv said:
Oh yes you can teach perception! Pictorial composition is not a transcendental truth that needs only to be remembered by the gifted. It's a very dense network of social conventions, cognitive abilities, historic circumstances, taste, and so forth. Just by paying proper attention to previous artwork is a huge step in understanding how it works, and ditching the mystery away.
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Thanks, mhv, for your response. I believe your take on it is a lot closer to reality than the O.P. Humans learn stuff. It's what we do. There are many lessons to be learned about composition, color, perception, etc., by anyone interested in paying attention to what others have done. Even the so-called untrained genius is more likely a gifted and perceptive observer, whom in reality "taught" himself.
 
M. Valdemar said:
You can practice the technical side of the craft forever, and improve the final image, but you can't teach perception.
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I'm a natural musician but I struggle as a photographer.

There were some great records by Stefan Grapelli and Yehudi Menuhin... violin duets in a jazz style. Grapelli played with his soul, and his sheer musicality shone through. Menuhin learned the notes and played them well, and he got better over the years, but he never approached what Grapelli had. Perhaps a little unfair as jazz was Grapelli's thing, and Menuhin was a classical violinist.

Perception though.... I think you can teach perception, but it's not the same as natural ability. Perhaps it's my fantasy, but a natural aims the camera and gets a good picture, whereas someone like me gets *some* good pictures, which are found at the editing stage. I'm getting better at editing, and I've learned more about what works. I'm not sure I've learned any more about what to take in the first place.

If I didn't think I was improving (even if I'm crap) I wouldn't continue with this strange hobby,
 
Call me egalitarian, but I think anyone can be an artist. It's art after all, and just because it isn't 'gotten' doesn't make it bad, it's just not at the right time. I see stuff that looks like crap and it gets critical acclaim. So there's no accounting for taste. So the stuff done by 'non-artistic' types could well be the next big thing.

I strive to always be on the outside though.
 
As we say in TX, "all my taste is in my mouth". I have zero artistic (or musical) ability and doubt if I can learn, so I just shoot interesting-looking people/ places/ things--kinda' like a one frame at a time reality TV show. I know my limitations.
 
"Perhaps it's my fantasy, but a natural aims the camera and gets a good picture, whereas someone like me gets *some* good pictures, which are found at the editing stage. I'm getting better at editing, and I've learned more about what works. I'm not sure I've learned any more about what to take in the first place."

The fact that you're editing doesn't mean you're any less of a photographer - everybody edits - there are no photographers out there who get what they want even close to all the time. Photography is a reductive process. We start with everything anyone could photograph in the whole world, and every possible way of photogrpahing it, and boil it down to one, specific piece of paper. Editing is part of the process, so don't feel bad about having to sift through the garbage - the fact that you have garbage to look at and are willing to face failures it is staying on the right track - it's all part of growing.
 
"The highly successful British fashion photographer, David Baily, thought he was lucky if he got one usable shot from a 36 roll."

Indeed - I mean, if we're honest. We shoot a lot of passable work, but our absolute best images are few and far between.
 
As much as I agree in principle with the notion that humans learn perception, you can only learn so much.

I have come across certain people who, by nature, have this "ability" to see things in ways others do not. This is not limited to art by the way. I have met engineers, Accountants, athletes, business men /women, lawyers, musicians, even farmers who have astounded me by their ability to process information differently, better that the rest of us.
Those abilities are genetic, they belong to that person. One may learn the basics of any art, but they will only go up to the level they are able to; they may progress further ahead with more teachng, but still, up to a certain point.

Probably the greatest architecture proffesor I have ever had once said: "we dont teach students to learn art, we teach them to learn "their" art".

I dont believe that you either are or are not talented, Everyone is talented in their own levels. The world is all about the greys.
 
HCB also shot a lot of junk so there is certainly hope for us all. However I do think you have to have a good eye to begin with.
 
1. Everyone has some talent. The question is how much?

2. Abundant born talent, even at the genius level, without motivation and significant sacrifices won't become greatness.

3. Talent, is dynamic, it can be cultivated by tireless observation and synthesis. How far? it depends on the effort... mental efforts, not physical, that will follow naturally.

4. Not all greatness are recognized either by the world or by the artist him/herself.

Combine these four, and all of us suddenly have an equal chance of being recognized and become greatness.

Go for it.
 
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