Why are some people good at photography while others arent?

[DNG]

For those that have some talent (me included), after you have learned and acquired new skills (mentally), it takes a extended effort to apply that what you have learned in real life. using your humanity as a guide to put together your knowledge in a way others can enjoy your vision and eye. It is much like an Internship, where you now begin the real learning, and get better as you experience more and more of lives visual expressions you capture.

Some, will be great, others will be very good, and some will be good. This is where the built-in talent (or lack there of) comes into play.

[back alley]

“If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great.”


― Tom Hanks

[chrisso]

I come to this from being creative in the music industry.
In recent times I've been persuaded somewhat by the argument that talent from birth doesn't exist.
Mainly, once a discussion about good musicians or good photographers starts to revolve around talent (from birth or genetically) I think it becomes too dismissive of the hard work and commitment great creative people have put in.
I've been around great musicians and great photographers, and those people live and breath their creativity. The great photographers have developed a critical eye from years of doing it every day. I've shared a moment with a great photographer friend. My picture looked like a happy snap, his had much more insight, power and looked professional. It's about the eye for composition, as well as skill in execution.
I have an ear for music. But again, that's come from years of critical listening.
I love photography, but I'm resigned to never improving until I've had the time, or the passion to take numerous shots every day, and thereby develop my skill and eye.
To answer the original question then, the difference between a good photographer and one that isn't, is the eye for composition, and the acquired skill to translate the vision into a finished photograph.
Playing an instrument to a higher level requires taste (refined over many years of critical listening) and a basic level of skill required to translate what you hear into a musical sound others can appreciate.

[fireblade]

Originally Posted by koven

Why are some people good at taking pictures while others aren't?

the eye.

[x-ray]

I believe some of us have the gift to see and think in an abstract world seeing form, light and texture and pulling all the elements together to create an excellent image. Excellent images can be pure luck but many are created. Some people are purely mechanics where as others are artists. The process of dealing in an abstract world extends to other forms of creativity like math, physics and engineering. These too are creative processes but driven. Y another part of the brain.

I personally believe each of us are pre wired for a given set of talents. There can be several talents or one singular we do well. Unfortunately we don't have a set of directions when born as to what we will do best and unfortunately many people. Never discover their true talent.

[Murchu]

Originally Posted by x-ray

I believe some of us have the gift to see and think in an abstract world seeing form, light and texture and pulling all the elements together to create an excellent image. Excellent images can be pure luck but many are created. Some people are purely mechanics where as others are artists. The process of dealing in an abstract world extends to other forms of creativity like math, physics and engineering. These too are creative processes but driven. Y another part of the brain.

I personally believe each of us are pre wired for a given set of talents. There can be several talents or one singular we do well. Unfortunately we don't have a set of directions when born as to what we will do best and unfortunately many people. Never discover their true talent.

Some good points. To your point about the ability to see and think in an abstract world, I would add this is something almost all of us have had as children. Whether we can recapture it as an adult is the thing though..

[George Bonanno]

Those being free of or abandon rigid technique and obsession in equipment equate to being good at photography. Good photography is recording an image that visually invokes emotion to the viewer.

Outside of this discussion: Photography as art is in the imagination. A fantasy on behalf of the photographer.

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I get the feeling that this is pretty much the same discussion as the one about angels dancing on the head of a pin, which medieval theologians, allegedly, never had.

So far, the only description of a good photograph seems to be the same as Potter Stewart's definition of pornography. Would anyone care to provide an objective definition of a good photograph?

[Haigh]

You need to feel passionate about photography or indeed, any other thing you want to pursue. If you are to be good at it you need to be fairly obsessive.

[David Murphy]

I think a good deal of it is training. Learning from a real working professional will greatly improve your skills. It won't make you a "great" artist, but it will greatly improve the technical quality of your day-to-day images.

[zerobuttons]

Originally Posted by koven

Well photography is a pretty big spectrum but Ill just say taking a picture.
Why are some people good at taking pictures while others aren't? .....

Taking a picture can in itself be divided into several skills that are necessary to get a meaningful result. I believe that is the reason why this thread has developed into a discussion in which members shoot from different angles at the subject.

Some never get to the point where their motor skills allow them to take a non-blurred picture. Some never grasp how a given subject could be framed in different ways, and how only a few of these framings make sense. Some never understand the concept of time and amount of light and how these two factors are decisive for the outcome of the exposure.

I believe that in most cases these skills, and also further picture-taking skills that are less technical, can be practiced and learned by most people, as Damaso and others here state.

My own excuse for not being any better is lack of practice because of lack of time.....

[photomoof]

Originally Posted by Sejanus.Aelianus

I get the feeling that this is pretty much the same discussion as the one about angels dancing on the head of a pin, which medieval theologians, allegedly, never had.

So far, the only description of a good photograph seems to be the same as Potter Stewart's definition of pornography. Would anyone care to provide an objective definition of a good photograph?

Objective:
1 (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts: historians try to be objective and impartial. Contrasted with subjective.
• not dependent on the mind for existence; actual: a matter of objective fact.
2 [ attrib. ] Grammar of, relating to, or denoting a case of nouns and pronouns used as the object of a transitive verb or a preposition.

I never trust a solely objective definition about anything relating to aesthetics, and seldom anything relating to science.

Judgement without humanity does not interest me.

[johnwolf]

Originally Posted by I Love Film

I don't believe you can learn to be creative. You can plod along and learn to ape real creativity, and you can learn to be technically better, but you can't learn to be an "artist".

Completely disagree. Everyone already IS creative, but some have deeper access to that part of themselves than others do. It's belief systems like the OP's that stifle that dimension of ourselves as we grow.

This either/or perspective is actually a lousy way to frame a discussion, because the fact is that everyone can learn to be more creative than they now are. That's what really matters.

Look at your own creative life. Sometimes you have dry periods and sometimes you have incredibly fertile periods. It's not that you suddenly become more innately creative. It's far more likely that your circumstances have allowed you to once again tap into that dormant dimension of yourself. We all have that sacred, creative space within; artists are just better able to access it. Gaining greater access is something anyone can learn.

John

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Judgement without humanity does not interest me.

It seems to me, short of your being from another species, all judgement must have huge doses of humanity included.

What I'm trying to get at is: how do we agree what "good at photography", as in the thread title, means? I'm really interested to see if someone can come up with a definition that differs from "this is what I like or have been taught I should like".

My current position is that the question should read "Why do some people produce pictures that are liked by lots of people in [select your audience here] and others don't?"

I'd really like to see if anyone can come up with an argument that will convince me otherwise.

[FrankS]

Quote:
Originally Posted by I Love Film
I don't believe you can learn to be creative. You can plod along and learn to ape real creativity, and you can learn to be technically better, but you can't learn to be an "artist".

Quote:
"Completely disagree. Everyone already IS creative, but some have deeper access to that part of themselves than others do. It's belief systems like the OP's that stifle that dimension of ourselves as we grow.

This either/or perspective is actually a lousy way to frame a discussion, because the fact is that everyone can learn to be more creative than they now are. That's what really matters.

Look at your own creative life. Sometimes you have dry periods and sometimes you have incredibly fertile periods. It's not that you suddenly become more innately creative. It's far more likely that your circumstances have allowed you to once again tap into that dormant dimension of yourself. We all have that sacred, creative space within; artists are just better able to access it. Gaining greater access is something anyone can learn.

John"

Great response John.

Also, I don't buy the gear head or artist dichotomy.

[photomoof]

Originally Posted by Sejanus.Aelianus

My current position is that the question should read "Why do some people produce pictures that are liked by lots of people in [select your audience here] and others don't?"

It is totally visual fashion, always has been. If you were living in France in the late 19th century -- and the internet had existed... "lots of people" would have hated the expressionists.

There is no such thing as a definition for "good photography," because the minute you define it, someone will go outside the definition and make something "good." Defining art is the same as defining religion or politics, it only leads to dogmatism, boredom, and false prophets.

I do know what does not interest me - personally.

[fstops]

A good photographer is someone who knows if his good or no good; therefore, he does not go on living the frustrating life of a hack.

Its very comforting to know and admit one's limitations.

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

"lots of people" would have hated the expressionists.

From what I understand of the French art establishment at the time, they did!

So then, I think, the question becomes: what is the pressure behind those who feel the need to impose "dogmatism, boredom, and false prophets."?

I sometimes think that, if we could only pinpoint this need for absolutism and treat it, we'd have far more fun and far less mayhem. Then again, perhaps the absolutism is a big part of the fun, for those who wish to impose it.

[Jamie123]

Originally Posted by photomoof

There is no such thing as a definition for "good photography," because the minute you define it, someone will go outside the definition and make something "good."

It seems you're applying the the general Neo-Wittgensteinian open concept* argument of art to the concept of 'goodness' although I'm not sure this really works. The whole point of the non-definability argument that followed from this, though, was that definitions of art are nothing more than thinly veiled art criticism, i.e. they don't really say what art is, but instead what the person stating the definition thinks is good art (e.g. if you define art as imitation then all you're saying is that you evaluate an artwork on the basis of how successful the imitation is).

Anyways, my point is that you can very easily give a consistent definition of 'good photography'. That is basically what critics do over and over again. The problem isn't that your definition will be proven wrong, it's that you might have a hard time getting people to agree with you


(*the argument being that art is an essentially open practice and that any definition of art that closed of this concept would eventually be undermined by new art)

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

The problem isn't that your definition will be proven wrong, it's that you might have a hard time getting people to agree with you.

Darn them contrary folks!

[awaw]

Buy expensive equipment and you are a good photographer!

[j j]

Originally Posted by fstops

A good photographer is someone who knows if his good or no good; therefore, he does not go on living the frustrating life of a hack.

Its very comforting to know and admit one's limitations.

One problem with this idea is that the number of photographers who know they are good and the number of good photographers does not necessarily equate.

[hteasley]

Originally Posted by FrankS

IMO, people are born with different amounts of potential in anything you can think of.

I have a different but important version of that: I think people are born with preferences that draw them to being fulfilled by doing different things. I don't really believe in born potential. My daughter is a good artist, and she will think in the future that she was born that way, but I know that before she was two, she had filled crates and crates of drawings and scribbles. By five she had filled more sketchbooks than I ever will (and I'm an Art Director). Her skill came through experience, but much of it is experience she'll never remember. She just loves to draw, and does it a LOT.

A drawing professor in college started a semester off by saying to the class, "You have 100,000 bad drawings in you. It's my job to get them out as fast as possible." I've always thought that was about right. Do anything 100,000 times (and in such a way that you're really engaged with doing it), and you'll get good at it.

[Teuthida]

I don't believe in "an eye." I believe in good editing skills.

[I Love Film]

There are gifted, insightful, precise and natural genius neurosurgeons.

There are hacks, who laboriously learned surgery through rigid, repetitive practice, and cannot improvise when faced with a unexpected complication.

Who do you want to remove your brain tumor?