Re: [Leica] Talent

["Joe Stephenson" <joeleica@email.msn.com>]

As the singers say, we all have an instrument--our voice. And we can all
learn to get the most from our instrument. But, if you have a fine
instrument (a gift) you will get much from your instrument. If your
instrument isn't the greatest, then no amount of work will take you to the
highest. Even so, you can improve and can enjoy your instrument and make
some nice music. I think it's about the same with photography. We can all
learn and get better. But if you don't have the special edge that some are
apparently born with, you will level off at some point below the greats.
Joe Stephenson
- -----Original Message-----
From: Harrison McClary <hmcclary@earthlink.net>
To: LUG <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Date: Saturday, October 31, 1998 9:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Talent


>Friday, 30 October 1998, Alastair Firkin wrote:
>
>
>> Yes, but you can teach most people [who
>> have an interest] the technical factors, expose them to images, and then
>> explain how those images are pulled out of a scene. Then practice
practice
>> practice, and you will find your own personal vision.
>
>Alastair,
>
>I  don't  think  this is totally true. I think some people can see all
>the  photos  in  the  world  and  have someone explain to them all the
>technical niceties of the photos and they still would not get it.
>
>Kind  of  like painting. I can't draw a straight line. I took a lot of
>art  classes  in  college  and  failed  them  all  miserably, but I am
>somewhat accomplished with a camera.
>
>I  can't  explain  how  I  do  things,  I  just do what "feels" right.
>Exposure,  moment,  light,  mood, all of it. To me it is automatic, to
>others  who I talk with they work and work and still never fully grasp
>it.
>
>Photography  is  kind  of odd in the fact that people see it and see a
>form  of  reality,  however  the  photos  themselves are divorced from
>reality.  They  are  2 dimensional, a slice of one moment in time, and
>are  one  small  part of a vast scene. Many people never see the small
>slice  a  photographer  selects,  many people never see the light that
>motivates the photographer.
>
>And many people never develop the tunnel vision a photographer has to
>have  to  select the small scene that represents the whole. This is, I
>think,  the  hardest concept of photography. To be able to see a scene
>that you find interesting and find in that scene something that can be
>recorded  on  film,  that  communicates a feeling, mood, sense of the
>place  to the viewer, this is the hard thing of photography. Too often
>people  want  to  stick on the widest lens and shoot some kind of wide
>angle  shot when the real shot needs to be made with a 90, or a 180 as
>close  as  the  lens  will focus. It sounds like I am being dreadfully
>basic I know, but most people I talk to who are not photographers just
>can't  understand  this  no  matter how I explain it. I even go to the
>trouble  to  show  them  in their own photos what they did wrong, they
>still don't get it.
>
>I  think,  photography  is like so many things in life some are really
>good  at  it  naturally, some get good at it through hard work but are
>never  "artists"  in the media, and some work all day and never get it
>at all. Same can be said about fixing cars, shooting guns, or anything
>else. Some people have a knack, others don't.
>
>Best regards,
> Harrison McClary
>http://people.delphi.com/hmphoto
>preview my book: http://www.volmania.com
>mailto:hmcclary@earthlink.net
>
>Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.
>
>