'sokay, Bill. There is a lot of that on the list (GRIN).
The point I made, which everyone seemed to miss, was that really good photographers don't make a lot of worthless photos, and hardly ever screw up technically. I guess most of those who answered do both, but think they are really good photographers.
There is a guy over on apug.com (analog photographers users group) who's tag line is "You buy a camera and you are a photographer, you buy a piano and you own a piano". His point is of course that buying a camera does not make you a photographer any more than buying a piano makes you a concert pianist. With the camera or piano, some instruction, and a lot of directed practice you can become as good a photographer or pianist as you are capable of. But both require a lot of work. There is also something to be said about player pianos and automatic cameras, but I think that would be obvious to anyone who thinks about it.
You do not learn to paint by slapping paint on a piece of canvas and tossing it away. You do not learn photography by snapping the shutter and tossing it away. You try and do the best you can. Then you look at it and analyze it and try to figure out how you could have done it better. You go out and try that. Then you compare the results. Based on that you repeat the process over and over. Eventually you get to where what you want and what you get is nearly one for one.
Has anyone here seen the contacts of Alfred Eisenstaedt's shoot of his wife's (Georga O'Keffe) hands? He shot three rolls of almost identical photos. Any one of those shots would look great on the wall. None of them were "I wonder how this will turn out" shots. When you look closely though you notice none of them were actually identical. He was trying to fine tune what he knew was a great photo into the perfect photo. Totally the antithesis of the MG technique.
The advice to shoot lots of film is for people who shoot two rolls of film a year and can not seem to improve. Anyone who is shooting a roll or two (or equivalent) a week and not improving is not working at it. Shooting a thousand shots a week in the hope that one will be decent makes you every bit as capable as a wall mounted surveillance camera.
graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" -----------------------------------
William Robb wrote:
What I disagree with is what I thought I read, not what you had actually posted.
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