Why are some people good at photography while others arent?

I Love Film said:
I don't believe you can learn to be creative. You can plod along and learn to ape real creativity, and you can learn to be technically better, but you can't learn to be an "artist".

I had a girlfriend once who decided she wanted to be a "photographer". She was Japanese, about 24 years old, and had never taken photos other than a few family snapshots.

I got her a Nikon FE (this was around 1995), taught her the basics, and she instantly started taking remarkable photos, some of the best I've seen. From the first roll of film. (FAR better than me)

You cannot learn to have an "eye". If you don't have it, you will never have it.
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If she has an eye and you don't, then how do you know her photos are any good?

Randy
 
When it comes down to taking a "good" picture I firmly believe it is about practice and applying yourself. Some people learn quickly some don't but as an instructor I can tell you hard work pays off....
 
I could practice my snappy finger to the bone every day for 50,000 years and never be no HCB or Mozart. You gotta sell your soul to da debil. 🙂
 
Jack Conrad said:
I could practice my snappy finger to the bone every day for 50,000 years and never be no HCB or Mozart. You gotta sell your soul to da debil. 🙂
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And you gotta meet da debil at a crossroad at midnight. Then you can pick the banjo like two jackrabbits ......dancing? (Or something)

Seriously though I wonder if gearheads like us ever get it. Discussing art with gear heads is like discussing Proust novels with a cat.
 
Jamie123 said:
You might not be born with an absolute pitch but that doesn't mean you can't play an instrument well with practice. Everybody can play an instrument well with enough practice unless you have some physical attributes that prevent you from doing so (like e.g. very short fingers for playing piano). Maybe you will never be great at it but you can surely be really good at it. Same goes for singing actually. Given enough training early in their life, most people could be decent singers (i.e. accurate) at least as far as hitting the notes is concerned. The only problem is that hitting the notes doesn't mean much if your voice isn't nice. But then again, this doesn't seem to keep performers in musicals from doing it. 🙂
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You are absolutely correct that one can master an instrument with enough practice. However, this does not mean that you can create good music on that instrument. Making good art requires much more than technical proficiency. Good photography is the equivalent of good songwriting. You can't be the equivalent of a musician in a cover band in photography.
 
Perfect Imposter said:
You are absolutely correct that one can master an instrument with enough practice. However, this does not mean that you can create good music on that instrument. Making good art requires much more than technical proficiency. Good photography is the equivalent of good songwriting. You can't be the equivalent of a musician in a cover band in photography.
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I agree. It is very evident in music, and very obvious when you hear it. But its also true of photography. In photography i find that you need the "eye" to be able to see the image when it presents itself. If you do not have or cannot develop this no amount of technical knowledge will help.
 
For those that have some talent (me included), after you have learned and acquired new skills (mentally), it takes a extended effort to apply that what you have learned in real life. using your humanity as a guide to put together your knowledge in a way others can enjoy your vision and eye. It is much like an Internship, where you now begin the real learning, and get better as you experience more and more of lives visual expressions you capture.

Some, will be great, others will be very good, and some will be good. This is where the built-in talent (or lack there of) comes into play.
 
I come to this from being creative in the music industry.
In recent times I've been persuaded somewhat by the argument that talent from birth doesn't exist.
Mainly, once a discussion about good musicians or good photographers starts to revolve around talent (from birth or genetically) I think it becomes too dismissive of the hard work and commitment great creative people have put in.
I've been around great musicians and great photographers, and those people live and breath their creativity. The great photographers have developed a critical eye from years of doing it every day. I've shared a moment with a great photographer friend. My picture looked like a happy snap, his had much more insight, power and looked professional. It's about the eye for composition, as well as skill in execution.
I have an ear for music. But again, that's come from years of critical listening.
I love photography, but I'm resigned to never improving until I've had the time, or the passion to take numerous shots every day, and thereby develop my skill and eye.
To answer the original question then, the difference between a good photographer and one that isn't, is the eye for composition, and the acquired skill to translate the vision into a finished photograph.
Playing an instrument to a higher level requires taste (refined over many years of critical listening) and a basic level of skill required to translate what you hear into a musical sound others can appreciate.
 
koven said:
Why are some people good at taking pictures while others aren't?
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the eye.
the-eye_zps4f59d140.jpg
 
I believe some of us have the gift to see and think in an abstract world seeing form, light and texture and pulling all the elements together to create an excellent image. Excellent images can be pure luck but many are created. Some people are purely mechanics where as others are artists. The process of dealing in an abstract world extends to other forms of creativity like math, physics and engineering. These too are creative processes but driven. Y another part of the brain.

I personally believe each of us are pre wired for a given set of talents. There can be several talents or one singular we do well. Unfortunately we don't have a set of directions when born as to what we will do best and unfortunately many people. Never discover their true talent.
 
x-ray said:
I believe some of us have the gift to see and think in an abstract world seeing form, light and texture and pulling all the elements together to create an excellent image. Excellent images can be pure luck but many are created. Some people are purely mechanics where as others are artists. The process of dealing in an abstract world extends to other forms of creativity like math, physics and engineering. These too are creative processes but driven. Y another part of the brain.

I personally believe each of us are pre wired for a given set of talents. There can be several talents or one singular we do well. Unfortunately we don't have a set of directions when born as to what we will do best and unfortunately many people. Never discover their true talent.
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Some good points. To your point about the ability to see and think in an abstract world, I would add this is something almost all of us have had as children. Whether we can recapture it as an adult is the thing though..
 
Those being free of or abandon rigid technique and obsession in equipment equate to being good at photography. Good photography is recording an image that visually invokes emotion to the viewer.

Outside of this discussion: Photography as art is in the imagination. A fantasy on behalf of the photographer.
 
I get the feeling that this is pretty much the same discussion as the one about angels dancing on the head of a pin, which medieval theologians, allegedly, never had.

So far, the only description of a good photograph seems to be the same as Potter Stewart's definition of pornography. Would anyone care to provide an objective definition of a good photograph?
 
You need to feel passionate about photography or indeed, any other thing you want to pursue. If you are to be good at it you need to be fairly obsessive.
 
I think a good deal of it is training. Learning from a real working professional will greatly improve your skills. It won't make you a "great" artist, but it will greatly improve the technical quality of your day-to-day images.
 
koven said:
Well photography is a pretty big spectrum but Ill just say taking a picture.
Why are some people good at taking pictures while others aren't? .....
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Taking a picture can in itself be divided into several skills that are necessary to get a meaningful result. I believe that is the reason why this thread has developed into a discussion in which members shoot from different angles at the subject.

Some never get to the point where their motor skills allow them to take a non-blurred picture. Some never grasp how a given subject could be framed in different ways, and how only a few of these framings make sense. Some never understand the concept of time and amount of light and how these two factors are decisive for the outcome of the exposure.

I believe that in most cases these skills, and also further picture-taking skills that are less technical, can be practiced and learned by most people, as Damaso and others here state.

My own excuse for not being any better is lack of practice because of lack of time.....
 
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