Much of what we teach is the nuts and bolts of photography. The exposure triangle, how to edit a photograph, what camera to buy (a tiresome question), how to compose an image, and so on. All important to know but my concern is that technical skills will merely make someone competent. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but many people would like to go beyond that level.
My advice has been to study the great painters, their works and writing, for inspiration. Comparing oneself to others at any level is a great recipe for disaster, but having a standard to aim for is not.
My first standard was to have images properly composed, exposed and focussed. That took a long time. The backgrounds always caught me out.
Now I have other, harder, standards to strive for.
One book that has helped shape my thinking and vision is “The Art Spirit” by Robert Henri.
Robert Henri (1865-1939) was an influential American painter and educator. He used his gift of verbal communication to bring out the natural gifts of his students and develop their spontaneity.
So over the next few weeks I’ll post quotes from the book that have resonated with me. I hope that these extracts may help others in their work as photographers. I hope they will cut through the nonsense and offer a vision of where we are heading and how we do it.
Let’s start with a one that I use as a warning about photo competitions.
“Some students possess the school the work in. Others are possessed by the school.
No matter how good the school is, a student’s education is in his own hands. The man who goes into a school to educate himself and not to be educated will get somewhere. He should start out a master, a master of such as he has, however little that may be.
By being a master of such as he has in the beginning it is likely he may later be a master, after years of study, of much.”