FrankS
Registered User
VinceC said:
Sure it is. (That wasn't my question though.)
No doubt.
oftheherd
Veteran
So does innate ability need instruction to bring it out? Or can no amount of instruction provide great ability to one without innate ability? Can one teach another who for whatever reason is not receptive, no matter the innate ability?
Interesting to ponder.
Interesting to ponder.
FrankS
Registered User
So does innate ability need instruction to bring it out? Usually but not always. There are examples of natural untaught talents.
Or can no amount of instruction provide great ability to one without innate ability? Improvement yes, Great ability, no. (In my fatalistic viewpoint.)
Can one teach another who for whatever reason is not receptive, no matter the innate ability? Receptivity to teaching is necessary.
Interesting to ponder.
Or can no amount of instruction provide great ability to one without innate ability? Improvement yes, Great ability, no. (In my fatalistic viewpoint.)
Can one teach another who for whatever reason is not receptive, no matter the innate ability? Receptivity to teaching is necessary.
Interesting to ponder.
Bosk
Make photos, not war.
I think you can certainly try.
The success you are met with would naturally depend on the student.
Most people for instance, could probably be taught to run the 100m dash in under 15 seconds (or therabouts) given enough training, proper diet, gym work etc. but only a tiny minority would ever 'have what it takes' to break 10 seconds, and my guess is that mental toughness, will to win, determination and so forth would be a part of that.
Didn't Einstein or Edison say something along the lines of Genius being 99% hard work?
The success you are met with would naturally depend on the student.
Most people for instance, could probably be taught to run the 100m dash in under 15 seconds (or therabouts) given enough training, proper diet, gym work etc. but only a tiny minority would ever 'have what it takes' to break 10 seconds, and my guess is that mental toughness, will to win, determination and so forth would be a part of that.
Didn't Einstein or Edison say something along the lines of Genius being 99% hard work?
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
FrankS said:
Agreed!!
before we both got into taking pictures, I didn't know that my wife has the innate ability to take good pictures.
I shoot a lot more than her, but once in a while when she's in the mood to take pictures, I almost always like her best results more than mine.
How do you explain that?
skibeerr
Well-known
Pablito said:
Pablito,
Have we met......?
I keep on looking without seeing.
For a while I thought that just that other camera would do the trick and I ended with an Ebay store.
But I keep on trying and sometimes amaze myself, there is always hope.
Take care,
Wim
John Camp
Well-known
The case of Jim Nachtwey is instructive in looking at this interesting question. If you've gone to conflict zones, you'll notice that there are many, many photographers around (and in many cases, especially in Israel, conflicts are deliberately staged for the photographers.) However, with all these people shooting photos of the same general subject matter, a few seem to separate themselves from the crowd, as Nachtwey does. Most of the others are serious, professional photographers, and they know all about techniques and lighting and EVs and so on. But they don't get Nachtwey's photos. And this isn't just in one instance: this is consistently. They don' t have his feel and eye and timing, and they can't and won't get it.
I worked for Miami and then St. Paul newspapers for twenty-odd years (and some of the years were really, really odd.) Over those years, I developed the ability to pick out the photographs of one photographer at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and one at the St. Paul Pioneer-Press Dispatch, without looking at the credit lines. The two photogaphers simply saw things differently, and better, IMHO, than their fully professional and well-trained brethren.
Frank S wonders how you get that last 5%. I don't think it's 5 percent; I think most intelligent, serious people could get into that 5 percent with hard work and diligence. I think the people we look at and really wonder about are probably in the .0001%. Or you could even add a zero or two.
JC
I worked for Miami and then St. Paul newspapers for twenty-odd years (and some of the years were really, really odd.) Over those years, I developed the ability to pick out the photographs of one photographer at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and one at the St. Paul Pioneer-Press Dispatch, without looking at the credit lines. The two photogaphers simply saw things differently, and better, IMHO, than their fully professional and well-trained brethren.
Frank S wonders how you get that last 5%. I don't think it's 5 percent; I think most intelligent, serious people could get into that 5 percent with hard work and diligence. I think the people we look at and really wonder about are probably in the .0001%. Or you could even add a zero or two.
JC
raid
Dad Photographer
I once taught a small group of students a six-week course on capturing on film a slice of life in Japan, and I tried to explain to the students how to look at things and how to capture emotions, but they got stuck with the technical aspects in the beginning. By talking about emotions and about feelings and about how you "see" things before taking the photo, there is hope that some students pick up the seeds to become creative on their own. Maybe I am too optimistic.
Raid
Raid
sepiareverb
genius and moron
Well this has kept going under my radar!
I've been thinking about this a bunch lately, as the semester comes to a close this is one of the things I do trying to figure out what works and what doesn't anymore. Every group is different, and this semester I've had one very good photo 1 class. And why? what made this group so much better? It certainly wasn't that I did anything terribly different than I did in the Fall- I did actually combine 2 lectures into 1, thus they got a little less in-depth instruction/examples of what all the camera controls do to the image.
I firmly believe that these folks are getting good because 1) they are having fun with it- in this group everyone is there and glad they are- even those who are required to take it, and 2) because they have some ability there before they picked up the camera.
A few stories-
First a guy who shot with a 35mm a bit, made some interesting images, but nothing spectacular. Printed pretty well, got the technical stuff right off. Picked up a 127 square format camera- some very cheap plastic kodak- and immediately made wonderful images. He found his format. That first roll had a lot of technical problems- under-exposed & developed, but by roll 2 he was getting on film what he was seeing in his head.
Second, she had never taken pictures other than some point & shoot snaps. Couldn't figure out any of the controls, got the tech stuff down, began to figure out how the camera worked- camera troubles, borrowed a couple of cameras, but she has more great frames per roll than anyone. She can just put an image together without any work.
Both these folks are getting better at printing, better at making images- but I don't know that I really had much to do with this 'eye' that they have. I certainly help them hone it, but they have it walking in the door.
In past years I've had folks who really love the whole process- love the shooting, the printing- even running film- but just can't seem to focus, can't expose well, and can't put an image together in a way that I can find anything good to encourage. The snowy field with the slightly tilted horizon, moose way off in the distance, in the trees, underexposed and underdeveloped, printed so the snow is about 15% grey. And they don't see it as being any worse than any other image they might see. Don't get that the snow should be white not grey- and that by thinking about the exposure the snow can be white. You explain, you show examples, you walk them through the print- yet each time they come from the darkroom the print is going some other direction than the one pointed to.
These folks don't have it coming in the door, and they don't find it while here.
One last- someeon who was making pretty good images all semester, finally jumped in on the 4 rolls in 1 room in 1 hour assignment- got nothing on those 4 rolls. We sat and looked a proofs and I had to agree- nothing to print there for the design or subject. She has done two assignments since, with incredible improvement in the design of the pictures- some landscapes and another group of interiors. Beautiful stuff, and in printing she has begun to ask much more specific questions about getting stuff just how she wants. I think that she had it in her all along- but I as teacher just helped her find where it was. And that is perhaps my role- to help them find what they've got in them to shoot- and sometimes it is great stuff and sometimes it is just snapshots.
My teachers all nudged- suggested directions, pointed at things, let me make the connections, let me find the path to what was in here (points at somewhat empty head) and showed me the technical stuff. What overdeveloped looks like, what happens when you try to print underexposed film. What the filters do. That you can learn- the shooting you can learn- the seeing you can't learn. I think you need to nurture the seeing, to tease it out of yourself.
I've been thinking about this a bunch lately, as the semester comes to a close this is one of the things I do trying to figure out what works and what doesn't anymore. Every group is different, and this semester I've had one very good photo 1 class. And why? what made this group so much better? It certainly wasn't that I did anything terribly different than I did in the Fall- I did actually combine 2 lectures into 1, thus they got a little less in-depth instruction/examples of what all the camera controls do to the image.
I firmly believe that these folks are getting good because 1) they are having fun with it- in this group everyone is there and glad they are- even those who are required to take it, and 2) because they have some ability there before they picked up the camera.
A few stories-
First a guy who shot with a 35mm a bit, made some interesting images, but nothing spectacular. Printed pretty well, got the technical stuff right off. Picked up a 127 square format camera- some very cheap plastic kodak- and immediately made wonderful images. He found his format. That first roll had a lot of technical problems- under-exposed & developed, but by roll 2 he was getting on film what he was seeing in his head.
Second, she had never taken pictures other than some point & shoot snaps. Couldn't figure out any of the controls, got the tech stuff down, began to figure out how the camera worked- camera troubles, borrowed a couple of cameras, but she has more great frames per roll than anyone. She can just put an image together without any work.
Both these folks are getting better at printing, better at making images- but I don't know that I really had much to do with this 'eye' that they have. I certainly help them hone it, but they have it walking in the door.
In past years I've had folks who really love the whole process- love the shooting, the printing- even running film- but just can't seem to focus, can't expose well, and can't put an image together in a way that I can find anything good to encourage. The snowy field with the slightly tilted horizon, moose way off in the distance, in the trees, underexposed and underdeveloped, printed so the snow is about 15% grey. And they don't see it as being any worse than any other image they might see. Don't get that the snow should be white not grey- and that by thinking about the exposure the snow can be white. You explain, you show examples, you walk them through the print- yet each time they come from the darkroom the print is going some other direction than the one pointed to.
These folks don't have it coming in the door, and they don't find it while here.
One last- someeon who was making pretty good images all semester, finally jumped in on the 4 rolls in 1 room in 1 hour assignment- got nothing on those 4 rolls. We sat and looked a proofs and I had to agree- nothing to print there for the design or subject. She has done two assignments since, with incredible improvement in the design of the pictures- some landscapes and another group of interiors. Beautiful stuff, and in printing she has begun to ask much more specific questions about getting stuff just how she wants. I think that she had it in her all along- but I as teacher just helped her find where it was. And that is perhaps my role- to help them find what they've got in them to shoot- and sometimes it is great stuff and sometimes it is just snapshots.
My teachers all nudged- suggested directions, pointed at things, let me make the connections, let me find the path to what was in here (points at somewhat empty head) and showed me the technical stuff. What overdeveloped looks like, what happens when you try to print underexposed film. What the filters do. That you can learn- the shooting you can learn- the seeing you can't learn. I think you need to nurture the seeing, to tease it out of yourself.
antiquark
Derek Ross
Here's National Geographic's opinion on the matter:
Any advice for a photographer wanting to enter the profession?
... Training can only help to fine-tune a natural “eye,” and although a prospective photographer may have a true passion for the art and craft, if he lacks that eye no amount of training or desire can compensate. Many people must be content to be advanced amateurs rather than professionals.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/qanda/index.html
Any advice for a photographer wanting to enter the profession?
... Training can only help to fine-tune a natural “eye,” and although a prospective photographer may have a true passion for the art and craft, if he lacks that eye no amount of training or desire can compensate. Many people must be content to be advanced amateurs rather than professionals.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/qanda/index.html