I am a thief

[troron]

About 40 years ago I took a photography class. I remember little of the class except these words from the teacher:

"Look at every book on photography you can find. Try to duplicate what you see in the book. There is no shame in mimicking others and you will learn more in that process than I can ever teach you."

So here I am forty years later, retired, and I have a camera.

This place gives me great ideas. I steal some of them.

Hope you don't mind.


Troron

[jayhawk1013]

Hey, that is how you learn, so there is no shame in it. Also, because every human is different, so will the style of the artistry. If someone gets bent out of shape about it, remind them that we do not live in a insulated, vacuum world.

From my profile:
"I learn from observing others, and mimicking their style. You may see in my photos something familiar about them; I am a self taught photographer, and whatever style I like, I emulate. Is this a bad thing? Hardly. I just consider the artists and photographers here at PBase my teachers. "

[rileypm]

If no one copied another's technique, we would all be trying to figure out how to make fire.

[sean_mcr]

Photography is not just about technique; It's about feeling, insight and intent. Drawing on inspiration is of course a good thing and poets and painters picked up pens and brushes because of how moved they were by what they'd seen and read. John Lennon wanted to become a musician because of Elvis, but he did not become Elvis he became John Lennon and a photographer should not become somebody else.

To the OP I’d ask this question. Do you think your teacher expected you to be still copying 40 years later?

Nothing makes photography more mechanical then when it becomes little more then a photocopier

[troron]

Photography is not just about technique; It's about feeling, insight and intent. Drawing on inspiration is of course a good thing and poets and painters picked up pens and brushes because of how moved they were by what they'd seen and read. John Lennon wanted to become a musician because of Elvis, but he did not become Elvis he became John Lennon and a photographer should not become somebody else.

To the OP I’d ask this question. Do you think your teacher expected you to be still copying 40 years later?

Nothing makes photography more mechanical then when it becomes little more then a photocopier

Oh shame on you for thinking I am photocopier
Shame on me for being coy with my little story.

I am just getting back into photography after a laps of nearly forty years.
And yes I do copy technique. I see a new technique and go try to use it on something.. I "steal" the idea and create something with the new tool I have aquired... Ansel Adams dodging in the horse in the meadow.. I stole that technique and use it a lot with HDRi.

Everyone starts mimicking from birth. If you saw film history of the groups "The Quarrymen" or "Johnny and the Moondogs" you would see just exactly how mimicky Lennon was at first.

I feel John was talented enough to invent a new sound over time. However I highly doubt I will ever find the "missing chord" of photography.

Cheers

Troron

[sean_mcr]

Photography is not just about technique; It's about feeling, insight and intent. Drawing on inspiration is of course a good thing and poets and painters picked up pens and brushes because of how moved they were by what they'd seen and read. John Lennon wanted to become a musician because of Elvis, but he did not become Elvis he became John Lennon and a photographer should not become somebody else.

To the OP I’d ask this question. Do you think your teacher expected you to be still copying 40 years later?

Nothing makes photography more mechanical then when it becomes little more then a photocopier

Oh shame on you for thinking I am photocopier
Shame on me for being coy with my little story.

I am just getting back into photography after a laps of nearly forty years.
And yes I do copy technique. I see a new technique and go try to use it on something.. I "steal" the idea and create something with the new tool I have aquired... Ansel Adams dodging in the horse in the meadow.. I stole that technique and use it a lot with HDRi.

Everyone starts mimicking from birth. If you saw film history of the groups "The Quarrymen" or "Johnny and the Moondogs" you would see just exactly how mimicky Lennon was at first.

I feel John was talented enough to invent a new sound over time. However I highly doubt I will ever find the "missing chord" of photography.

Cheers

Troron

Well welcome back, it's been too long

So you hung up your camera after your class, the class where you were encouraged to replicate. I think there's a lesson there for sure

If you'd had been fortunate enough to have taken a class by Robert Adams, you would have been taught that you must know your mediums history in order not to repeat it.

What you would have been taught in Mike Johnson’s class

"The urge to make clichés stems from a desire to make pictures that look like everybody else's pictures. Why would anybody want to do this? Personally I think it's because it relieves us from having to rely only on our own judgment when evaluating what we've done. Photographers, far more than other kinds of artists, are perpetually insecure about whether what they've done is going to be accepted as good. I also think photographers like clichés because, at an early stage of our development, it's a way of demonstrating competence and accomplishment. You can tell you're in this stage because the phrases "that looks like a professional took it!" and "it looks like a postcard!" are construed as compliments, and make us swell up with pride. (Later, of course, those kinds of comments become insults.)"

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/colum ... 6-01.shtml


Maybe Lennon would have still been wearing his black motorcycle jacket and singing Elvis tracks at weddings had he hung up his guitar in the sixties. Thankfully he didn't (though he might have lived, a lifetime of Elvis covers would have been a fate worse then death for him) it's a shame you hung up your camera



Funny you should mention Adams
http://www.photoattorney.com/2005/03/mo ... -view.html



Keep shooting (this time)

Sean

[dougj]

Troron, welcome back to photography. There are some great photographers here and elsewhere, and using a style that you like is a good (re)starting point.

The prior and current masters have done a superb job in defining some styles and techniques; but you will find styles that works for you based on your research.

Please post your photos, your journey will be interesting.

[akamurdock]

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again
"goethe"

[azato]

One of my favorite poems of Kipling. I think it applies to photography as well.



When 'Omer smote his bloomin' lyre,
He'd 'eard men sing by land and sea;
An' what he thought 'e might require,
'E went an' took -- the same as me.

The market girls and fishermen,
The shepherds and the sailors, too,
They 'eard old songs turn up again,
But kep' it quiet -- same as you.

They knew 'e stole; 'e knew they knowed.
They didn't tell, nor make a fuss,
But winked at 'Omer down the road,
An' 'e winked back -- the same as us.