Originally Posted by
Peter Lewin
I'm also late to this thread, but I think there is a problem in Jim's original question, which had to do with "great shots." Let me start with a quick personal "bio," which I will then tie to photography. I began racing bicycles when I was 16 or 17, and had just enough initial success to dream about making the Olympic Team. However, I learned fairly quickly that I simply wasn't good enough; in any given race I would finish ahead of 90% of the field, but I simply couldn't beat the top 10%. But I continued racing bicycles because I enjoyed the sport, and competed in Master's age-group events into my 60s. Now, looking back from age 72, even knowing I didn't have the talent to be "great," I still have wonderful memories of racing, even internationally (but still never ending on the podium), great friends, and I would do it all over again.
So let's switch to photography, something I also have been doing since I was 16 or 17. In fact when I was in my early 20s I bought my first view camera, thinking at the time that while I could have purchased an Ansel Adams print for the same money (back in the early 60s, $300 would have done it!), with the camera I could make the same prints. And just as in cycling, I soon learned that while I might be competent, I was never going to be great. There is a reason there has been one Ansel, I want to say one Weston (but he had talented sons), one William Clift (a personal favorite), and so on. The point is that it is very, very hard to be great, or to make a really great photograph. It's a nice goal, but one rarely met, and that's why I find fault with the original premise. All any of us can do is do the best we can.
As to the issue of re-making the iconic image, I was given what I think of as excellent advice: when we are at a location, and we see the obvious (or iconic) image, take it. Once that is out of the way, now explore and find the less obvious images, the ones that say something to you personally. Most of us are attracted to the classic images, so feed that urge first, and then go to work for yourself.
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