This LF thing ain't easy

[BillGM]

Having spent the past year working hard to create some quality images with my LF camera and finding little to show for it, I have come to a new appreciation for those on this site who are making fine images. My hats off to you. This stuff is hard.

[eddie]

keep at it....it gets easier.

where are you located? sometimes it is a fun learning experience to shoot with other LF shooter.....and you getto talk lens, camera, film , and developer porn! :)

i often find myself learning quite a bit from the people i have shot with.
eddie

[sully75]

Have you shot much digital? You can learn a lot about photography for pretty cheap with a cheap dslr and a lens. I wouldn't wanted to have made my mistakes on film. Waste of film and money.

Once you get your basics down, then you can put your time into large format. At least, that's what I did.

[Greg Blank]

Shooting a lot with an DSLR has no basis for teaching LF work, none.


Have you shot much digital? You can learn a lot about photography for pretty cheap with a cheap dslr and a lens. I wouldn't wanted to have made my mistakes on film. Waste of film and money.

Once you get your basics down, then you can put your time into large format. At least, that's what I did.

[Robert Jonathan]

Shooting a lot with an DSLR has no basis for teaching LF work, none.

With all due respect, you're 100 percent wrong.

Before I bought a studio monorail, I made my income (and still do) by setting up a DSLR on a heavy tripod, composing and focusing an image with a right angle view finder (now with live view), and then lighting the image in the studio. A great way to make perfect images, and a great way to learn a shit load about photography/studio photography.

Before I started making images with the view camera, I was expecting a challenge. It turns out, it's actually the same exact process, except it's easier than using the DSLR, not harder, IMO.

[Greg Blank]

Shooting with a tiny view finder of any type will never teach you the same perceptive and compositional skills that seeing on ground glass does-I am sorry but I feel that it is you that is wrong. When you have shot LF for over twenty seven years come back to me and tell me your observations, then we can have an intelligent conversation.


With all due respect, you're 100 percent wrong.

Before I bought a studio monorail, I made my income (and still do) by setting up a DSLR on a heavy tripod, composing and focusing an image with a right angle view finder (now with live view), and then lighting the image in the studio. A great way to make perfect images, and a great way to learn a shit load about photography/studio photography.

Before I started making images with the view camera, I was expecting a challenge. It turns out, it's actually the same exact process, except it's easier than using the DSLR, not harder, IMO.

[sully75]

Shooting a lot with an DSLR has no basis for teaching LF work, none.

Perhaps in your experience.

[sully75]

Shooting with a tiny view finder of any type will never teach you the same perceptive and compositional skills that seeing on ground glass does-I am sorry but I feel that it is you that is wrong. When you have shot LF for over twenty seven years come back to me and tell me your observations, then we can have an intelligent conversation.

Are there any large format images on your website? I see a lot of digital images. Just wondering.

[Robert Jonathan]

My observation is that large format film photography is overhyped in terms of difficulty and skills required, and that digital photography requires far more care and skills than film photography ever has and ever will.

With digital, the lenses need to be better, the focusing needs to bang on, or you'll know it. The apertures need to be larger. If you're using a tech cam, you need shims to make sure the sensor is aligned correctly. The list goes on and on, and it's been proven over the years as people began to use digital backs and scanning backs.

If you shoot with digital first, and then try LF film, the LF view camera is a joke in comparison with serious digital shooting.

[Merg Ross]

The best way I know of to learn large format photography, is to start with a large format camera. Anything else becomes an unlearning process. However, most photographers come to large format photography after using smaller film formats, and some from using the digital process.

There is often emphasis, too much, on the technique of large format; the real challenge is in composition. Years ago, I had students interested in learning large format photography after seeing my work. Some believed that the magic was in the format, and wanted to move on from the 35mm or 120 cameras that they were using. My first assignment was always to have them, with their roll film cameras, expose a maximum of five frames in a day of shooting. It was a revelation to them; how could they spend a day exposing only five frames and get anything worthwhile? Soon, they learned it was the only way to get what they wanted; a lesson of slowing down and being selective.

As an aside, one of them wrote me recently, a chap I spent a few days with in the field and darkroom forty years ago: "Merg, since I last saw you in 1972 and you taught me the view camera, I have had a successful career in commercial photography." It was wonderful to hear.

[Corran]

When you have shot LF for over twenty seven years come back to me and tell me your observations, then we can have an intelligent conversation.

Dismissing someones opinion based purely on their number of years of experience is the height of arrogance in my opinion.

I have to agree that shooting a DSLR (not on auto, obviously) is a great way to learn. Sorry, but while it's nice to have a big piece of GG to compose on, you still "see" the image through a viewfinder and it's the same concept. If you can't compose through a viewfinder I doubt you can compose on GG.

[Brian Ellis]

Shooting with a tiny view finder of any type will never teach you the same perceptive and compositional skills that seeing on ground glass does-I am sorry but I feel that it is you that is wrong. When you have shot LF for over twenty seven years come back to me and tell me your observations, then we can have an intelligent conversation.

What "tiny view finder?" Modern DSLRs have a 2" x 3" viewing screen with 5x and 10 x "loupes."

[sully75]

Shooting with a tiny view finder of any type will never teach you the same perceptive and compositional skills that seeing on ground glass does-I am sorry but I feel that it is you that is wrong. When you have shot LF for over twenty seven years come back to me and tell me your observations, then we can have an intelligent conversation.

I figured out your problem...you need to put your eye right up to the viewfinder. You can't use a loupe on it and you can't stand two feet back.

[sully75]

The best way I know of to learn large format photography, is to start with a large format camera. Anything else becomes an unlearning process. However, most photographers come to large format photography after using smaller film formats, and some from using the digital process.

The OP hasn't said whether his problems were from the technical aspects of LFF or from the plain difficulties of taking a good photograph. For me it sounds like the latter. Because I don't think once you can compose a decent photography, composing a decent LF photograph is all that hard. And the technical aspects are not impossible to figure out either. I think using a digital camera to teach yourself how to evaluate a composition is a pretty smart idea.

I took about 60,000 digital pictures before I touched a LF camera. The vast majority of them were stinkers. I was on a pretty good roll at the time I switched to film. It would have been pretty expensive to learn on film, I have no regrets. I do think that shooting film definitely forces you to buckle down and pick your images carefully and you can learn a lot of focus that way.

[Greg Blank]

Arrogant?- "Maybe". Ah but its not the 27 years I have spent shooting film and LF, its the thousands of film negatives I have made and the whole process of developing, printing exhibiting and successfully selling the imagery to people that bought them, magazines and other publications. Which only get shown when, where to whom I want them to be. Looking at a larger image on a bigger piece of glass should be teaching you to look at the edges of the image, going up does not benefit this in the present format, but does translate back to work in smaller formats. Working larger makes smaller format work better.

[Pawlowski6132]

My observation is that large format film photography is overhyped in terms of difficulty and skills required, and that digital photography requires far more care and skills than film photography ever has and ever will.

With digital, the lenses need to be better, the focusing needs to bang on, or you'll know it. The apertures need to be larger. If you're using a tech cam, you need shims to make sure the sensor is aligned correctly. The list goes on and on, and it's been proven over the years as people began to use digital backs and scanning backs.

If you shoot with digital first, and then try LF film, the LF view camera is a joke in comparison with serious digital shooting.

Please. ANYONE can shoot digital and print an image or, take it to costco for the final image.

[Robert Jonathan]

Please. ANYONE can shoot digital and print an image or, take it to costco for the final image.

That's a typical view by someone who thinks that shooting digital consists of point-and-shoots and JPEGS, and taking your files to some MegaMart to have someone ELSE make lousy prints for you... :rolleyes:

You don't happen to be Ken Rockwell?

[Roger Cole]

Anyone can shoot digital. Anyone can shoot film. Doing either WELL is a different matter. Digital is easier in the sense that doing it fairly well in purely technical terms is easy, because of the degree of automation which, let's face it, lets the average non-technical non-hobbyist get better results than such people usually did with film. Still, nearly the same is available in late model 35mm autofocus and some few MF cameras. That's not to say that doing it well and developing a digital workflow to produce fine images is easy; it's not. But doing it "well enough" for most people, even fairly critical hobbyists, isn't that hard.

I don't think shooting automated digital is going to teach you much of any use for totally manual LF in terms of technique. Shooting digital in manual mode, well that's a different story at least in terms of learning exposure. I think it would help for that, but only "think" because I learned with film long before there was digital.

As for learning composition, I think small format, digital or film, can help a lot, IF one slows down, as discussed above by Merg. The faster you shoot the longer it will take. Shoot a little and look a lot. You'll do that even more so with LF anyway. ;) Digital certainly makes that cheaper in terms of marginal cost of each additional exposure, but just banging away with a DSRL (or 35mm) won't teach you anything if you don't really look at and pay attention to the results.

I wonder about folks who say LF is so easy, though. I started with it in the late 90s and had done tons of 35mm, but even though I read up on it and had the theory kept finding new and creative ways to ruin sheets of film. Taking it up again 10+ years later I not only re-created some of those by finding them again, I managed to find a couple of totally new ones! It normally settles down pretty quickly and the good shot to blooper ratio improves pretty quickly, but just in terms of mechanics and technique LF DOES have a learning curve that can at least seem steep.

[psychoanalyst]

Anyone can shoot digital. Anyone can shoot film. Doing either WELL is a different matter.

I think this is well summarized!:)

I am new to LF....still learning and going through the frustrations. Blaming the equipment, blaming the lens then the film and over-whelmed by the self realization that it is me all along ....but it still is great fun for me.

But I think DSLRs offer their own advantages. I am big into macro photography....I am aware of the challenges of that setup. And I CANNOT imagine myself ever doing that on film.

I love both about equally.

Don't want to comment on the learning aspect of it, since I don't have the expertise to dole out info on that.

Avi

[Roger Cole]

I'll do macro on film, but I've never tried it with LF. No particular reason - bellows extension isn't that complicated to calculate - just always did it with 35mm or sometimes, my digisnapper.

[goamules]

The pictorialists learned a lot about LF photography studying paintings. I learned a lot about film and LF cameras shooting exclusively wetplate. Composition and process are two different things, and can be learned in any number of ways.

[Brian Ellis]

Please. ANYONE can shoot digital and print an image or, take it to costco for the final image.

Please. ANYONE can make a photograph period. That doesn't mean they can do it well. If you think using a view camera confers some special talent on the photographer I suggest you just look at some of the image sharing threads in this forum. There's certainly some outstanding photographs in them but there's plenty of not-so-outstanding stuff (to put it as tactfully as possible) too.

[sully75]

I keep wanting to get in here and argue but it's a waste of time. If you are so thick headed to think that you, personally, can't learn anything about LF photography from using a different kind of camera, well, ok. Too bad for you. Many of the best photographers (people whose pictures on here I've learned from) switch back and forth between formats at will. In the end, they are all pictures. When I shot digital I was always trying to make my pictures look like LF pictures, and I think many of them did. I could probably pass them off here as LF pictures. Now that I shoot LF, I'm always trying to bring the informality and spontaneity that comes naturally with a DSLR into my LF pictures. They inform each other. Yes, there are many things that are individual to each. My original advice to the poor OP was that if he was a really inexperienced photographer, and frustrated with LF, he could take a year with a DSLR (or a Leica or a Mamiya C330 or a K1000) and save himself some money and learn a lot. I stand by that, I'm flummoxed that anyone would argue.

[Jim Jones]

. . . Looking at a larger image on a bigger piece of glass should be teaching you to look at the edges of the image, going up does not benefit this in the present format, but does translate back to work in smaller formats. Working larger makes smaller format work better.

Forty years of shooting 35mm Kodachrome taught me to look at those edges and everything else.

[Brian C. Miller]

keep at it....it gets easier.

Hear, hear!


Have you shot much digital? You can learn a lot about photography for pretty cheap with a cheap dslr and a lens. I wouldn't wanted to have made my mistakes on film. Waste of film and money.

Do you realize that many of us started photographing before there were consumer digital cameras?? When I really picked up photography and bought a Pentax 6x7, neither Nikon or Canon produced digital cameras. I learned on film, no problem. I went through plenty of Polaroids with my Graphlex, no problem.

We learn by doing. Digital capture doesn't make up for learning the best technique for developing sheets in the darkroom. We learn to compose on the ground glass by looking at it, exposing film, and then seeing what it really looks like when we finally print it. Yes, it's a learning process. We keep at it, and we learn.

[sully75]

Hear, hear!



Do you realize that many of us started photographing before there were consumer digital cameras?? When I really picked up photography and bought a Pentax 6x7, neither Nikon or Canon produced digital cameras. I learned on film, no problem. I went through plenty of Polaroids with my Graphlex, no problem.

Yeah. Did I say you didn't? I firmly suggest the OP should go out and expose some Polaroids. Except he can't, because the company doesn't exist anymore.

We learn by doing. Digital capture doesn't make up for learning the best technique for developing sheets in the darkroom. We learn to compose on the ground glass by looking at it, exposing film, and then seeing what it really looks like when we finally print it. Yes, it's a learning process. We keep at it, and we learn.

This is the kind of fascinating discourse I got used to on Apug. You seem to be missing the part where I don't shoot any digital anymore, pretty much only shoot LF and really enjoy it. But if you can't compose in a viewfinder/rangefinder/whatever, you probably can't compose in ground glass. And you might be leaning against some false ideas about your camera.

I think you are trying to have an argument where there isn't one. I firmly stand by the suggestion that learning some basic skills with a cheap DSLR is a pretty smart thing to do. Film is totally different in some ways and 100% the same in others.

[Jay DeFehr]

Paul,

I understand what you're saying, and I agree 100%, though I didn't take the digital route in learning photography. Anyone who claims making images with a camera has absolutely nothing to do with making images with another kind of camera possesses such a brittle mentality, there's nothing to be gained by discussion with them. Every test preparation guide I've seen includes some version of the following statement:

"Absolute statements are generally false"

I'm sure the above is not lost on the OP, or any reader with even a modicum of intellectual flexibility. Your LF work attests to the effectiveness of your methodology, and it didn't take you 27 years to figure it out.

[Corran]

Do you realize that many of us started photographing before there were consumer digital cameras??

But there was cheap consumer SLRs and cheap consumer film, which while not as easy/cheap as digital has become was still cheaper than shooting LF.

[Robert Oliver]

I agree the best way to get better at LF photography is to practice LF photography.

BUT, I feel you can improve SOME of your LF photography skills using a DSLR as long as you slow down and get really methodical while shooting, just like you have to do when shooting LF. This includes taking careful notes.

You can learn a lot about exposure, spot metering, depth of field, and composition.

Exposing for shadow details and seeing a "blinking highlight over-exposure warning" can help teach you about contrast control.

There are some things about learning LF photography that you won't be able to practice on a DSLR, but you can learn to improve your overall photography skills with proper practice.

Of course, none of this is true if you stick it on one of the cute pictures and "spray and pray"

If you use a DSLR the same way you need to use a view camera, then you can improve SOME aspects of your LF photography.

[Brian C. Miller]

I wouldn't wanted to have made my mistakes on film. Waste of film and money.


This is the kind of fascinating discourse I got used to on Apug. ...

I think you are trying to have an argument where there isn't one. I firmly stand by the suggestion that learning some basic skills with a cheap DSLR is a pretty smart thing to do. Film is totally different in some ways and 100% the same in others.

Ah, come on, Paul! Film isn't sacred, and learning on film isn't, to quote you, a "waste" of either film or money.

Everybody else seems to be trying to make the point that learning on a large format camera isn't an overnight thing, not film vs digital. Is every exposure you make on film a 100% success? You never make a mistake on film? I've had plenty of mistakes, both happy and otherwise. And I learn and I keep going.


Yeah. Did I say you didn't? I firmly suggest the OP should go out and expose some Polaroids. Except he can't, because the company doesn't exist anymore.

(Please remember to copy/paste the quote tags, thanks!)
Chill pill time! As for instant film, Fuji is still producing it, and I'm still using it. B&H has Fuji color and B&W in stock right now. Bill can spend $2.50 an exposure for learning with fast feedback, and the stuff is great.

But of course, we don't know what problems Bill has actually been having. What does Bill define as "quality image?" I don't know. You seem to have the opinion that Bill can't make a good photograph no matter what he uses, so please go use something else in the mean time. I'm guessing that Bill can use a camera and make a photograph, it's just that he's having some LF-specific problem.

[Leo Salazar]

What a strange discussion..!

While obviously for large format cameras and equipment and images, this forum is also about "Photography".

While learning about all of the above I have found that good photography can be learned and made with any type camera...

I feel that good image making is in the power of the image and the talent of the artist to comunicate, not a given of the equipment, does not matter if large or small or digital or not.

Large formar is stongly on the side of craftsmanship rather than technology based on the way cameras are handled, and this is both a need as a choice on the part of the photographer reflecting both his business as the pull of his artistic expression.

Nikons and Canons and Hasselblads and Bronicas and Sinars, Linhofs et all produce great images and are also all great learning tools... to learn more about photography.

Please let's not be censoring, restrictive nor taxative on issues of art and expression... maybe with the exeption of "jokingly" and sometimes.

The whole world is already too full of the negatives, can we all stay positive?

All above certain ages know one learns more through mistakes...

Leo

[E. von Hoegh]

Having spent the past year working hard to create some quality images with my LF camera and finding little to show for it, I have come to a new appreciation for those on this site who are making fine images. My hats off to you. This stuff is hard.

Hee hee. That's like saying learning Italian is hard. Italy is full of pre-schoolers who speak Italian just fine.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Having spent the past year working hard to create some quality images with my LF camera and finding little to show for it, I have come to a new appreciation for those on this site who are making fine images. My hats off to you. This stuff is hard.

If you enjoy it, then keep at it.

[ImSoNegative]

I learned alot from this forum and the book "using the view camera" by steve simmons, there is a huge learning curve compared to the smaller formats, but just keep at it.

[BillGM]

All I ever intended with this thread was to recognize the effort that goes into making photos with large format. I've shot plenty with film and digital. I just am now coming to appreciate the quality I missed in smaller formats.
pbase.com/usnqvr

[Gary Tarbert]

All I ever intended with this thread was to recognize the effort that goes into making photos with large format. I've shot plenty with film and digital. I just am now coming to appreciate the quality I missed in smaller formats.
pbase.com/usnqvrWell said it turned a little digital vs LF in degree of difficulty
I Have shot with most formats except 11x14 and you are right LF is the most demanding especially at 8x10 and beyond ,Where you always seem to grappling with DOF vs diffraction issues .And yes i have shot serious digital ie Phase one Hasselblad digital ,But the only format that has had me reaching for the reference books is 8x10 it had me beaten in the early days and the only format i did not good results with until a lot of practice , But photography is not about how hard it is to do it is about results. And i will keep plugging away with 8x10 for the results .And i am sure all the really good LF shooters on this forum appreciate your recognition of their craft . Regards Gary

[Bill Suderman]

WOW!! 4 pages of blather and not one mention of Light Falling On An Object...if what the light is doing is not what you are looking at...? Shrug.

Forgive me while I laugh. It's involuntary.

[sully75]

Bill, I checked out your website. Your images are pretty strong, and technically really striking. I don't think you'll have any problems, really.

In my experience, LF isn't that much different/harder than any other kind of photography. There's many more things to screw up, but I find it easier to make "keepers" with LF than with other things I've tried. My success rate as far as images I care about it much higher.

Anyway, good luck, Bill. I think you'll be fine.

[Gary Tarbert]

WOW!! 4 pages of blather and not one mention of Light Falling On An Object...if what the light is doing is not what you are looking at...? Shrug.

Forgive me while I laugh. It's involuntary.It's a bit like a group of guys talking about their cars they won't allways mention their wheels or tyres but without them they are going nowhere, A little like us without the light falling on the subject:D Regards Gary

[Greg Blank]

Yes seeing light and translating, its a very important component. And any type of camera can be difficult to understand. But it is rather interesting that Ansel Adams stated "The large format GG image is an entity in itself, a different experience from using a view finder. On the GG the image appears upside down and we must learn to view it in this position" And at some point in that 27 year time frame my mind started seeing the image upright, I can not say when it happened....but I never see the image upside down under the dark cloth, any longer.

[sully75]

well it's fine to just not like LF photography too. Maybe it doesn't work for you. Your doing pretty well with your G10. You could pass a lot of those pictures for LF pictures.

[Roger Cole]

You don't "see" it upside down? I can understand the idea of easily translating it to what it will look like right side up, maybe even barely being aware that it's upside down, but actually seeing it as right side up? That's easily possible if someone wears inverting prism glasses for a few days, but not, I wouldn't think, when popping in and out of a dark cloth. When those same folks take the prisms off the world appears upside down again until the brain learns to adapt again. I can't see this kind of thing happening with the amount of time even the most ardent LF shooter spends looking at a ground glass.

[Greg Blank]

No I don't. I have composed images for an hour sometimes, but thats not really a criteria. Maybe because I paint and draw, maybe I accept the GG image as a manifestion of what I wanted. I really have a hard time wanting to process film. I have lot of boxes of shot but unprocessed film. I usually go away from the place that photographed rather content even when I was frustrated at first.

[Jim Peterson]

t n

[Greg Blank]

111111

[Robert Jonathan]

Perhaps I should apologize for starting such a heated debate with my reply to Greg a few pages back.

I'll offer some useful advice to the original poster, BillGM:

If you haven't already tried this, and you're shooting 4x5, get yourself the Fuji PA-45 instant film holder, and get some Fuji color 4x5 instant film and starting messing around. It's fun, and you get instant prints, woohoo!

[Bruce Watson]

Having spent the past year working hard to create some quality images with my LF camera and finding little to show for it, I have come to a new appreciation for those on this site who are making fine images. My hats off to you. This stuff is hard.

There is a threshold that people seem to hit at various levels of experience. Once you hit it, things suddenly start to make sense, and the long and exacting workflow becomes more automatic. Many people get there about the time they notice that the image on the ground glass is no longer upside-down and backwards -- unless they will it to be.

What I'm saying is that if you keep trying, there will come a time when you work the image instead of work the camera. Things become easier after that point. Easier, not easy. It's seldom actually easy. But what venture worth doing is?

[Michael Alpert]

Having spent the past year working hard to create some quality images with my LF camera and finding little to show for it, I have come to a new appreciation for those on this site who are making fine images. My hats off to you. This stuff is hard.

Yes, this stuff is hard. It's hard because art is a matter of seeing with one's heart. It's hard to present subject-matter truthfully, with both uncommon insight and evident emotion. I wish you well as you continue to work toward "fine images" that have lasting value.

[p martinez]

I wonder about the iPad? It has a camera and you can compose your image on a digital simulacrum of a ground glass. There is no tripod attachment.
If a big part of "learning large format photography" is really all about composing on the ground glass, then is the iPad a good learning tool?

I think once you have the mechanics of the camera mostly nailed down you might be able to make a decent negative, but making a decent photograph is a whole other problem. With a digital auto-everything camera the first part might be a little easier, but the second part is just as difficult.

FWIW, I'm a multiformat film shooter (35mm, 6x6, 4x5, 5x7, 8x10 and 11x14).

[dperez]

I think if one uses a DSLR in conjuction with a light meter it may allow one to develop greater confidence in their metering process.

[Robbie Shymanski]

I wonder about the iPad? It has a camera and you can compose your image on a digital simulacrum of a ground glass. There is no tripod attachment.
If a big part of "learning large format photography" is really all about composing on the ground glass, then is the iPad a good learning tool?

I think once you have the mechanics of the camera mostly nailed down you might be able to make a decent negative, but making a decent photograph is a whole other problem. With a digital auto-everything camera the first part might be a little easier, but the second part is just as difficult.

FWIW, I'm a multiformat film shooter (35mm, 6x6, 4x5, 5x7, 8x10 and 11x14).

Any serious digital shooter, especially those using digital MF & LF, works teathered. They can see the image exactly as they want. Point & click to zoom to fine focus. No upsidedown, mirror image, dim view under a dark cloth. The same work is done as with an LF, just without any of the romantic restrictions of simple technology. The iPad is still a bit of a toy compared to a MacBook. It has potential in its future once it can run like a laptop.

[Robbie Shymanski]

The discussion on this thread is silly.

I got back into photography after being forced to shoot digital by Kirk Gittings because the option of shooting LF was not available. I went to digital kicking and screaming. I got into LF self-taught. I had romantic notions of its purity. I learned a lot technically. I had one or two shots I might show to someone, but I got a hundred fold better when I went out with my DSLR. I shot thousands on thousands of images, as opposed to the hundreds via film. Because I was immersing myself with digital, and had the ability to work with speed unimagined if I were only working traditionally. I experimented way more. I took tons of long exposures that presented themselves instantly so I could see what was wrong right there and then. I played around with digital filters and color balance within the camera to understand how that worked. Doing it enough, I could start to intuit exposures and visual situations rather than having to think about it. But most important was that I developed a personal vision by doing. That's how every photographer worth their salt became who they were/are. I always had to remind myself that Harry Callahan shot several rolls every day. And in the end he still would admit to producing a single worthy image a year.

Photography is a language. You will never woo any Parisian ladies with your poetry after a semester of French I.