Skills vs Talent

[Didereaux]

If you spend lots of time and intense effort with scrupulous technique and excellent equipment in the same terrain, could you produce work that looks as good as Ansel Adams'?

Substantiate your contention that Adams' work is "good".

Because he says it is, and I agree with him!

 

[imagemaker46]

Given any equipment you wanted could you take photos as good as Neil Leifer?

Joe

Yep.

 

[sleist]

There are a lot of technically excellent dull photos. Too many actually.

 

[Overread]

With the right gear, location and reference material - sure anyone can copy-cat. Indeed to copy-cat is part of how many of us learn. We see what others have achieved and we head out to copy that method/effect/style/whatever. We copy so that we learn the skills; if only at a technical level, as to how to achieve that end result.

From there we've got the technical skill; how we use those tools that we develop is up to us. Indeed how we learn those very tools can be critical - if you learn how, say, Adams shot a certain shot, but only learn in so far as how that shot was taken you might well have only 1 tool - how to take that shot in that light and that situation.

If you learn the components of those tools; the justifications and even the alternatives and the series of choices that made up the end result then you've gained a LOT of tools. Further you've gained them in a way that allows you to separate them into individual components that you can then pick and choose.



Skills are like a toolbox - if you've a big box full of lots of stuff you've got a lot of potential; whilst if you've only got one or two you might have a harder time. Of course experience in using those tools is key and its just a possible to have a huge box full of tools and know only how to use a few well; or to have only one or two but know how to use them really well.

And in the end how we bring it all together and achieve the final end result of a photo is part of what makes us individual. Some part theory; some part luck; some part experience; some part the experience of others etc... All adding up in no defined order nor relative amounts.

 

[Bebulamar]

I myself? No! Someone else? Possibly and even better than Adams.

 

[rexbobcat]

No.

Not everyone can in the same way that no matter how much training someone has, some people will never be fast enough to run in the olympics. You can vastly improve above the average, but that doesn't mean everyone has the same potential.

Photography requires a certain amount of visual and technical intuition, as does most art. Some people have more capacity for it than others.

That being said, someone who isn't very innately talented at something can become better than someone who is talented but never practices.

I might be able to master the technical side of why Adams takes a certain photo and why it is good, but that doesn't mean I "see" in the same way as he does both in the field and in the darkroom.

 

[sleist]

This popped into my head:

Technical Competence -----> Technique -----> Style -----> Art
​

Different people will progress along the continuum to different degrees and at different levels of consistency. Someone may have consistently excellent technique but never create their own unique style. Some people get technically competent/proficient but are never able to use it as a technique to create a predetermined result. The art part is tough because its in the eyes of the viewer as well as the artist, but I think it's safe to say that you have greater chance of creating art the further you progress along the line.

 

[zombiesniper]

Should I be ashamed that I could care less what some guy did a long time ago with a camera?
Now I would say given enough time and the drive to do so I could probably learn how to copy anyones work in any art medium. Am I unique. No. I think anyone can do it.
Do you know what the biggest limiting factor is for most (myself included sometimes)? The drive to do so.
Almost everything you need to learn that will allow you to copy almost anything is on the net.

So what's my point. Learn the techniques used and the why's behind them......

Then forget that picture/piece of music or other masterpiece and create your own thing.

 

[zombiesniper]

P.S.
I have no skill or talent. I run with persistence and luck.

 

[bribrius]

P.S.
I have no skill or talent. I run with persistence and luck.

you know some of these great photographers we speak of you might see the same fifty or a hundred shots they took over and over again. What you may not see is the fact they spent forty years and took thousands of shots you will never see.

 

[pixmedic]

P.S.
I have no skill or talent. I run with persistence and luck.

that's exactly how I roll at work.

 

[robbins.photo]

It does sort of make one wonder, though how much is talent and artistic vision and how much is just right time, right place. Not to take anything away from Adams, mind you, but I have to admit I wonder if his work would be held in such high esteem if he just start shooting it today.

I wonder if Adams work would ever reach such an esteemed status decades from now if the first of his works were seen today, as opposed to years and years ago. Would it be considered as stunning, as iconic - if he were a complete unknown showing these images for the very first time?

Kind of an interesting thing to think about really.

 

[Dave442]

After every shot I like to say "take that Ansel Adams". Probably due to the fact that, like many kids into cameras, I received Ansel Adams posters, books, and such as presents at christmas and birthdays.

Oh, I was reading these letters of Ansel Adams the other day:
Letters From Ansel

 

[robbins.photo]

After every shot I like to say "take that Ansel Adams".

Lol.. I can just imagine the sort of looks I'd get at the zoo if I started doing that. Not that I don't get enough stares as it is..

I just think it's kind of interesting to think about though, would Adams ever become a world renown, revered artist if he were just starting out today and competing with the millions of other shots on instagram, facebook, photo sites, etc...

Or would his work pass into mediocrity, lost in the noise?

Or perhaps would he succumb to the instagram/500 px peer pressure and switch from landscapes to taking pictures of cats doing silly things or wearing silly outfits?

 

[limr]

It does sort of make one wonder, though how much is talent and artistic vision and how much is just right time, right place. Not to take anything away from Adams, mind you, but I have to admit I wonder if his work would be held in such high esteem if he just start shooting it today.

I wonder if Adams work would ever reach such an esteemed status decades from now if the first of his works were seen today, as opposed to years and years ago. Would it be considered as stunning, as iconic - if he were a complete unknown showing these images for the very first time?

Kind of an interesting thing to think about really.

As someone mentioned before, Adams' work doesn't stand out so much today, but then again, it's probably because of a lot of people since him HAVE copied him and his style. He had the vision, the talent, and the dedication to create something new in his time - something new that also heavily influenced both his contemporaries and generations of photographers after him. If he were starting out today, he wouldn't necessarily be shooting the same shiny, smooth-water, saturated landscapes that we see so often, but just better than everyone else. If he was enough of a visionary in his time to be original and unique, why wouldn't he be so if his time were now instead of then? And no, perhaps it wouldn't be in landscape photography but in an entirely different genre. Maybe he shot landscapes because he saw a gap, a need for landscape photography to be pushed in a new direction. Perhaps he'd see a different need today.

Who the hell knows, is what I'm saying