You might want to read the first post on Lightning Bugs first. The following might make more sense if you do.
If you exercise your photographic muscles every day one of two things will happen. You may get better at making photographs. This is what you want to happen. But, there is no guarantee you will get better. Because the other thing no one wants to hear about is that after a lot of work, some people don’t progress and then they quit in frustration.
This used to happen a lot with film based photography because of the demanding technical requirements. It took a great deal of work and commitment to learn darkroom processing. It took a real commitment and practice to gain (and maintain) a level of competency in developing and printing film and prints. Many people gave up photography because of the difficulty of doing this.
The frustration level with photographic technology and equipment has decreased dramatically because digital photography is orders of magnitude easier than analog photography. With “auto everything” we can create digital photographs that are technically acceptable almost without fail. It’s tough to have a technical failure with a digital camera.
The big difference between quitting analog and digital photography lies in how soon the practitioner realizes what the photographs are about is important. Because the analog photographer had huge technical and handicraft issues to surmount to create viable artwork, they could spend years attempting to perfect their skills without worrying about what their photographs were communicating. With digital photography the technical issues are very quickly dealt with and the realization that communication is paramount comes much quicker. It is the point where the photographer realizes that the art is more important than the artifact is where the decision to continue or not happens.
The Art Institute of Chicago is a fantastic place to visit. We only had a few hours to devote to this huge place before we had to go to a friend's wedding. We punched all the tickets for the great paintings and sculptures (and photographs, lots of photographs) in the few hours we were there. We took a few moments to catch our breath and just absorb the scale of the building when this wonderful photograph appeared before me. Out came the iPhone and a photograph was made.
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