I guess, what we are seeing is comments on very much different levels. To start with Boris's photos were very good snapshots of his friends. At that level he has to make no apologies. Some of us saw a capability of moving those photos out of the snapshot category and made suggestions on how he could do that in the future.
Others, saw nothing beyond that and made comments about how unfair our comments were. One can chose a couple of things in photography. On can chose to let the camera do it. Even when one has a good eye, that still leaves things in the mediocre category as anyone could do it. On the other hand one can try to understand why this works and that does not work. How to do things they have not gotten around to programing the cameras to do yet. How to see in ones mind approximately what a photograph is going to look like and to adjust it before snapping the shutter.
Still others seem to think that if one has to do all that study and practice and work why bother. Those are the ones I frankly don't see why they join in the conversation. In my opinion no matter how great they make the cameras, good pictures will still depend upon emotions, tools, and techniques. Too many only want to talk about the tools. Emotions are very personal. Technique requires a lot of study, and practice (the one real advantage digital that I see, cheap practice), e.g. work.
One of the interesting things I have seen, and the interview with Helmut Newton that Lasse posted a link to seems to show this, is the best photographers do not seem to think they are all that good. That is probably because they can see the difference between what is in their head and what they produce.
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Rob Studdert wrote:
On 26 Jan 2004 at 16:54, Lon Williamson wrote:
It seems to me that most hurled darts at Boris had to do with flash. The "Available Light" contingency smote him. That's kinda bad. I've seen a LOT of "available light" photos that I don't think much of.
I think that the thrust of suggestions was to learn to use the light that exists before making the situation more complicated by adding more light.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
