A Great photograph...

[Clint Troy]

I listened to some piano students today. Kids. Pretty standard stuff. Technical stuff. But then a little girl started to play and I was amazed at the sound that she got out of that piano. She held the notes a little longer here, shorter there. 10 Kids shared the same piano but when her fingers played it, it was a different piano altogether. There was magic going on.

She will one day become a great pianist. Great pianists, great violinists, great cooks... great photographers. There's just something indescribable happening when these people do their thing. Something magical. A spark. It's like if their heart was doing it.
Two people could stand in one same spot with the same equipment, trigger at the same moment and yet, the great photographer will come up with a masterpiece while the other just won't.

What's up with that?

 

[back alley]

i don't like those people...just sayin'...

 

[Shac]

Clint - yup agree 100% - just wish I was one of those people🙁

 

[pakeha]

Life
123456

 

[lynnb]

the camera marketing dept: "the good one is using our Creative Filter Effects"
the software marketing dept: "the good one has subscribed to our plug-ins"
the pessimist: "some people just have it - I could never do that!"
the optimist: "maybe if I go to enough art galleries and put in the 10,000 hours, I can do that one day, too"

But some people do just have it, and I have much admiration for their natural talent, and like you, take great pleasure in enjoying their work.

 

[koven]

Clint - yup agree 100% - just wish I was one of those people🙁

Your 666th post haha.


Sometimes I wonder if its the same with photography with things like piano or sports.

 

[Moto-Uno]

Maybe my next camera will give me their eye!!!
Regards,Peter

 

[__--]

...I have been taking some photo courses at a local college. Some of the students never progress past the subject in the center posed snapshot style of photography. They buy some pretty advanced gear, but could be better off using their phone camera. On the other hand there are some in the class that start out not knowing which part of the camera to aim at the subject and end up at the end of the quarter taking very creative and beautiful photograph.

And your point is?...that it's the talent of the photographer that's the decisive factor rather than the equipment he or she uses? — what a surprise!

Seriously, though, you can find the same thing by looking at photographs that move you. In my case, since yesterday I started looking at Ruth Prieto's 30-photo essay, Safe Haven on Burn Magazine. What marvelous color photography, and it's "color-coded" across the essay (purple, green, yellow, red blue....). What an inspiration her essay is: I can see that what I've been doing for the last few months is just puttsing around with color.

No point in trying to figure out what she shot with: it doesn't matter — she could have done it with almost any decent camera, film or digital.

—Mitch/Paris
Paris Obvious [WIP]
Eggleston said that he was "at war with the obvious"...

 

[thegman]

I listened to some piano students today. Kids. Pretty standard stuff. Technical stuff. But then a little girl started to play and I was amazed at the sound that she got out of that piano. She held the notes a little longer here, shorter there. 10 Kids shared the same piano but when her fingers played it, it was a different piano altogether. There was magic going on.

She will one day become a great pianist. Great pianists, great violinists, great cooks... great photographers. There's just something indescribable happening when these people do their thing. Something magical. A spark. It's like if their heart was doing it.
Two people could stand in one same spot with the same equipment, trigger at the same moment and yet, the great photographer will come up with a masterpiece while the other just won't.

What's up with that?

I'm not sure the metaphor works for me. Of course some photographers are better than others, but, photography is only partially skill based.

The fact is, the photos that people ooh and ahh over like HCB's man jumping over a puddle could have been taken accidentally. Not saying it's not a good picture, but in all seriousness, it can't be proven that he didn't accidentally trip the shutter whilst the camera was hanging round his neck.

But in the case of the pianist, it does not matter how lucky you are, you're never going to play Mozart accidentally. You'll never make a 147 break in Snooker by accident, you'll never beat Roger Federer at tennis using luck.

So whilst I agree with crux of what you're saying, I'm not sure if it really applies to photography, as it's not a skill that can easily be defined.

A 147 break is a 147 break, but many photographs will only be considered works of art if you know who pushed the shutter release. So that, for me, makes it very tricky to say 'this person will be great, and this one won't.'

 

[Griffin]

I'm not sure the metaphor works for me. Of course some photographers are better than others, but, photography is only partially skill based.

The fact is, the photos that people ooh and ahh over like HCB's man jumping over a puddle could have been taken accidentally. Not saying it's not a good picture, but in all seriousness, it can't be proven that he didn't accidentally trip the shutter whilst the camera was hanging round his neck.

But in the case of the pianist, it does not matter how lucky you are, you're never going to play Mozart accidentally. You'll never make a 147 break in Snooker by accident, you'll never beat Roger Federer at tennis using luck.

So whilst I agree with crux of what you're saying, I'm not sure if it really applies to photography, as it's not a skill that can easily be defined.

A 147 break is a 147 break, but many photographs will only be considered works of art if you know who pushed the shutter release. So that, for me, makes it very tricky to say 'this person will be great, and this one won't.'

I could not disagree more.

 

[thegman]

I could not disagree more.

My basic point is that skill in photography cannot easily be defined, if you disagree with that, I'd genuinely be interested in how you define it.

Cheers

Garry

 

[daveleo]

. . . . .
Two people could stand in one same spot with the same equipment, trigger
at the same moment and yet, the great photographer will come up with a
masterpiece while the other just won't.
. . . . .

I disagree very much with this comment. If two people do exactly the same
thing, they will get exactly the same result. What makes one result better
than another is that the two people did NOT do the same thing.

As for "gifted" people - yep, they're out there !

 

[bonatto]

I think if taking quick look through contact sheets of the "greats" you'll find a lot of hit and misses, a lot of repetition and re-composing, and one or two "standout" frames.

It boils down to a mixture of constructed vision, aesthetic sensibilities and technical understanding of light, along with background, personal interest and understanding of the subject matter, a dash of quick thinking, and a bit of luck. I think pretty much all of these elements can be practiced, learned and honed.

In regards to being "great" (whatever that means), in anything, there really isn't a substitute for repetition, commitment, relationships and networking, inspiration, and a bit of luck.

Cheers,

 

[Richard G]

Nice story. Fact is that girl at the piano really blows all of photography away. Not sure if I ever cried at the beauty of a photograph - I might have, once.

 

[Exdsc]

Everybody is good at something, the lucky ones find out what is it that they're good at.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I think if taking quick look through contact sheets of the "greats" you'll find a lot of hit and misses, a lot of repetition and re-composing, and one or two "standout" frames.

It boils down to a mixture of constructed vision, aesthetic sensibilities and technical understanding of light, along with background, personal interest and understanding of the subject matter, a dash of quick thinking, and a bit of luck. I think pretty much all of these elements can be practiced, learned and honed.

In regards to being "great" (whatever that means), in anything, there really isn't a substitute for repetition, commitment, relationships and networking, inspiration, and a bit of luck.

Cheers,

And editing. Knowing what to show and even more important what not to show.

What separates great photographers from the rest is vision. The ability to truly see.

Take a look at this and one of Robert Franks contact sheets from The Americans. The great photo of the black man on the trolley was the only one like it on the sheet. I always find the way a photographer edits (what he leaves in and what he decides to take out) fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHtRZBDOgag

 

[bonatto]

Editing indeed...

What a great video, thanks for sharing.

What strikes me most interesting is the subjective interpretation that all of these images can instigate. The tuba player to me seemed like a tongue in cheek take by Robert Frank, and the horn, replacing his head and face, signified the potentiality of the voice of a political rally. The curator, however, saw it as a symbol of the "drowning" of his voice, beneath the spectacle.

Anyways, this discussion is the whole point of it isn't it?

Photography has the power to betray our pre-conceptions and to permanently re-position and encapsulate the show of life.

Cheers,

And editing. Knowing what to show and even more important what not to show.

What separates great photographers from the rest is vision. The ability to truly see.

Take a look at this and one of Robert Franks contact sheets from The Americans. The great photo of the black man on the trolley was the only one like it on the sheet. I always find the way a photographer edits (what he leaves in and what he decides to take out) fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHtRZBDOgag

 

[peterm1]

Its talent. DammitT

 

[airfrogusmc]

The fact is, the photos that people ooh and ahh over like HCB's man jumping over a puddle could have been taken accidentally. Not saying it's not a good picture, but in all seriousness, it can't be proven that he didn't accidentally trip the shutter whilst the camera was hanging round his neck.

If HCB didn't find those kind of moments consistently and didn't write about learning to see those moments at great length then you might have a point. But if you saw the exhibit "Henri Cartier-Bresson The Modern Century" which include hundreds of these kinds of accidents you would see that it wasn't accidents. You also got to see his contact sheets and read his thoughts so you got to see that these images were much more than accidents because the visual things he writes about is all in his work. The man knew how to use visual language and to be able to see when all those elements like leading lines, form, repeating shapes, implied motion, etc all came together to make a photograph and he could see it in a fraction of a second.

Then he had the skill to be able to capture what he saw and he did it consistently. When it happens consistently over decades then I would say there is some evidence that it is more than images that were taken accidentally. I mean just look at all the repeating shapes in the man jumping over the puddle.

Yeah some luck of being in the right place at the right time but a lot of that is putting yourself in environments and positions that allows you to become lucky consistently.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Editing indeed...

What a great video, thanks for sharing.

What strikes me most interesting is the subjective interpretation that all of these images can instigate. The tuba player to me seemed like a tongue in cheek take by Robert Frank, and the horn, replacing his head and face, signified the potentiality of the voice of a political rally. The curator, however, saw it as a symbol of the "drowning" of his voice, beneath the spectacle.

Anyways, this discussion is the whole point of it isn't it?

Photography has the power to betray our pre-conceptions and to permanently re-position and encapsulate the show of life.

Cheers,

A great quote to your point by John Szarkowski

"What the photographer taking the picture and the historian viewing it must understand is that while the camera deals with recording factual things and events that form the subject of the photograph, it only produces a perceived reality that is remembered after the thing or event has passed. While people believe that photographs do not lie, this is an illusion caused by the mistaken belief that the subject and the picture of the subject is the same thing. One is reminded of the written inscription on the famous painting of a "pipe" by the Cubist painter Rene Magritte that refutes what we believe we are seeing by saying "This is not a pipe." Indeed it is a painting of a pipe and not a real pipe in the same way that a photograph of a subject is both an artifact and a record of what the photographer captured with his camera from nature. Because we see reality in different ways, we must understand that we are looking at different truths rather than the truth and that, therefore, all photographs lie in one way or another."-John Szarkowski