You mean those that do, do and those that don't, teach?
You mean those that do, do and those that don't, teach?
I was watching a rather lengthy video biography of AA a few weeks ago.
It suggested that his "inspirational moment" involved a shot of a particular rock outcropping at Yosemite,
when he realized that the photo would be much more dramatic if he used a red filter to darken the sky.
The biographer claimed that this was the moment that transformed his vision and his work.
- Leigh
If you believe you can, or you believe you can't... you're right.
It's easy to name the exact image(s) which transformed several of our "heros" into Masters. With Ansel it is accepted to be the photographing of "Monolith," with Weston his pictures of the Armco facility, with Karsh when he pulled Churchill's cigar out of his mouth and shot him, with Gene Smith "Walk to Paradise Garden" after returning from WW2 just recovering from extremely serious wounds, Paul Strand the magic year of 1916 when he made "Wall Street," and "White Picket Fence," and perhaps his most ikonic image "Blind," Dorothea Lange, "White Angel Bread Line."
Cartier-Bresson, no single image, but from the moment he bought his first Leica.
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
One of the main problems with figuring out the difference between a master photographer and an idiot with a camera is that the cameras have become rather highly advanced. Really, in how many arts and crafts can you find tools so automated? Automatic exposure was first, then came automatic focus. Now we are seeing the introduction of automatic scene detectors, e.g., the camera pops the shutter when the subject smiles. It won't be long before there is camera software to hint to the photographer where to move the camera to line it up according to what other famous photographers did. Yes, the Cartier-Bresson mode, the Winogrand mode, the Ansel Adams mode, etc. But you have to watch out for the Weegee mode, as you may wind up with a dead body in the frame.
There's a trend in China for newlywed couples to have the wedding photos Photoshopped, thus saving expenses. So did that marvelous shot result from a mastery of photography or a mastery of Photoshop? We have marveled at past photographs. But how about a future of synthetically enhanced photography, where wire-frame models are built from recognized objects, and then rendered later at the whim of the operator? The detail of a jacket's cloth may not be captured, but it could be digitally produced. A skyscraper could be photographed with a fish-eye lens, then rendered as being straight and tall with more detail than an 8x10. There's a fellow who Photoshops celebrities into his party pics (link).
When at the end you say, "Great photograph! How did you do that?" and the answer is, "Photoglobe 3.0 with the Reality v2.3 plugins," then what? Are the master photographers the ones who only used film? What about the photographers of the future who use Lytro-type cameras and software? Will they be masters or not?
Once upon a time it was easy to determine if a person had mastered a craft. Now, post-Dada, who can tell?
"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." - Walker Evans
This got me thinking...
“I consider this [Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1927] to be my first visualization,” AA says in his book The Negative, “seeing in my mind the image I wanted before making the exposure.” (i.e., using a red filter to express his visualization, since a yellow one wouldn’t do.)
A threshold to be sure...
But does one’s 1st visualization = the threshold of “Mastery”?
Bernie Madoff was a master investor, given the analogy of monetary success. So the distinction between a journeyman and a master would be the difference between Goodfellas and the Godfather. About the same game in the so-called art world.
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