[Leica] Under yer finger nails

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

> Gee Mike, it sure sounds like the TP stuff gets under yer finger nails eh! '-)
> 
> ted


Yeah and that's not all, Ted. Peoples' presumptions, assumptions, strategies
and idiocies get pretty bald after a while when you're in a position to see
how one guy after another after another (after another) approaches things.

In general, people:

- --Don't shoot enough, not nearly.

- --Pay way too much attention to what their technique *is* rather than
mastering it.

- --Don't look at enough good work.

- --Don't look very carefully at their _own_ work.

- --Pay attention to the wrong things, i.e.,
    --printing manipulations rather than what's worth printing;
    --resolution and granularity instead of tonality;
    --what camera they use rather than how they use it;
    etc.

- --Don't push themselves. That is, they have a couple of strategies for
making pleasant pictures (in their own terms) but they never challenge
themselves to stretch their skills.

- --Don't take pictures of things they're interested in. They think they're
out "taking good photographs" when what they're doing is demonstrating that
they don't care enough about any particular thing to really be a
photographer. David Hurn and Bill Jay have some excellent thoughts in this
in their book _On Being A Photographer_.

- --Skip all over the place from one technique to another, as though _that_
were the point.
    
If people don't want to believe me, that's fine, but I'll bet I've looked at
more portfolios (and more original prints in museums and archives) than
99.9% of all the amateur photographers out there. One _does_ observe a few
things in the process of doing that, after all (unfortunately you can hardly
help it).

- --Mike