Humbling Experiences

[Kirk Gittings]

IME there is nothing quite as humbling as having to photograph the exact same subject as a famous photographer. Well after I was established as an architectural photographer I had couple of very humbling experiences. Twice I have had to photograph the same building as Nick Merrick of Hedrich Blessing. Once I had to do some additional photography on a bank that he had previously photographed and once it was the other way around. In both cases I found his creativity and technical mastery a real humbling educational experience. Anyone have a similar experience?

[John Cahill]

I tried to photograph a green pepper in an old aluminum reflector. It didn't turn out like E. Weston's Pepper Nr. 30.

[Bruce M. Herman]

My fiance went with me to Portage LAke here in AK one spring during break up. She brought only an HP point and shot digital camera while I had my 4x5. It was cold and damp, and she doesn't deal with those conditions. I was doing my thing while she sat patiently in the car. Suddenly she hopped out, took a couple of quick snap shots (I think that this is how the name came to be), and then got back in. Later, after my film was developed, I showed her what I had done. But when I saw her photo, I felt like a beginner. Luck, fresh eyes, or just more natural talent...

[aphexafx]

Lol, these stories are good for the soul. I want to read more!

I am studying, among others, Abelardo Morell. His seemingly simple shot of a white porcelain container on a table corner is famous and very inspiring, so I tried to do something similar. I tried for an entire day. Let me just say that I am embarrassed and I hope the guys where I get my film processes didn't look too hard.

It really puts you in your place. You've got to be determined.

I gave up, "some other day" I told myself...

Ref: http://www.abelardomorell.net/books/books_m01.html


Here is a sub-question: Do you believe that you have to be a natural a specific subject, or do you believe that hard work, determination, and plenty of self-loathing will probably get you there someday?

[GPS]

IME there is nothing quite as humbling as having to photograph the exact same subject as a famous photographer.

Humbling? Humbling?? I couldn't care less if I take pictures of a place that a famous(?) "somebody who" took before me. I take pictures of what I see, he took pictures of what he saw. I find your "humbling experience" genuinely phony.

[aphexafx]

^ I think the context of "I can do it my way" vs. "he/she did it their way" is fully understood by everyone.

I believe the question is concerning an appreciation for very good work, in your own opinion, and comparing your similar work to something you consider to be very well done.

If you are of the opinion that anything you do your way is then equal (aesthetically, etc.) to that done by someone whom you consider a master, automatically, you are perhaps cutting yourself short (in THIS context, not of you own vision, which I agree, is yours to explore and appreciate).

Obviously there is nothing wrong with appreciating a photograph that is well done in your opinion, and comparing to it your attempt at the same subject.

Otherwise there would be no point in adopting an opinion about any particular photograph of said subject, and there would be no point in accepting another's work with said subject as inspiring (to you). It's a very large part of learning, at least for me.

[eddie]

can we see the said photos side by side? then we could be the judge of what is "better".

sometimes the actual photographer is more critical than all others.

[Steve M Hostetter]

Speaking as a house carpenter and framer I can honestly say I am humbled on a daily basis.. I used to think that northerners were the builders of the greatest cities and that we were far more superior and advanced with our buildings and architecture in general then the southern states.. I used to think the only architecture in the south could easily be seen in the movie Deliverance. A lean-to over an old rotted porch complete with a inbread playing a banjo..
That is untill I traveled to places like Charleston S.C. and Savannah GA.. A very eye opening experiance and I fell in love with the place and it's ppl right off..

[Allen in Montreal]

I have had a few humbling experinces when shooting assignments with some pretty big photojournalists, and then seeing their work in print, an image I never even saw while on assignment.

But perhaps one of the most awkward assignments, was to shoot Annie Leibovitz.
And it started off horribly when the writer I was with spoke down to her and pissed her off from the get go. She was fine, but the entire shoot felt awkward and I moth balled all the images from the intended shoot and used a frame I grab shooting from the hip of her as she quickly whipped out a Contax T2 and took my picture as I packed my gear at the end of the shoot.

[Henry Suryo]

About 5 years ago, I was travelling through Pennsylvania and photographed the Easton, PA/Phillipsburg, NJ bridge that Walker Evans shot in 1935 from roughly the same vantage point. What is humbling is that I didn't know it at the time. I was vaguely aware of Evans' photo and I remembered it being in NJ somewhere. Evans had titled it Phillipsburg, NJ (where his camera was pointing) and since I was on the Easton, PA side (where our cameras were standing, oddly enough both 8x10 Deardorffs), it didn't click to me at the time that they were the same bridge. I recall having a strange sense of familiarity though when I was photographing it so after I got back and developed my negative, I looked up Evans image in one of his monographs and well, much to my amusement, it is the same bridge. We were probably standing on the same projecting platform next to the bridge (at a different time of the year obviously), and his camera was pointing more to the right of the bridge with the 19" cell of his Protar, I believe, while mine more directly towards the bridge with a 10" lens. The bridge had not changed very much except for the pedestrian railing it seems.