How To Really Study Photography
If you are thinking that by taking a course on the photographic techniques you are done, well you are mistaken, if you study only that then you would have learned only about 10% of what you need to learn, let me tell you what i discovered.
Back about 25 years i was very frustrated with my hobby (Photography) because i was not getting what i wanted, my photos were not good and by good i mean they were not meaningful, yes they were beautiful but they did not have something that i knew was missing and i did not know why, so i went and started studying the greats and the not so great photographers, what made them so great, why were they considered great or good, so i studied their life and their photos their frustrations and their philosophy of life and photography and little by little i started to find a common denominator, and that was that their photos were not technically great but that they were different, they were interesting and they were interesting because they were different, this guys and gals became famous because they started to go out of the norm and started to be original and that was the key to their success, that does not mean that you are going to be famous or successful because you put out there different type of photos, a lot of other things happened for this people to become famous photographers and that is because there are a lot of photographers that can make different looking photos but never seem to be noticed enough but they are noticed just not by the right people, it’s like a singer that is very good with their own style and everything but never discovered by the right agents.
But at least it’s a start and no longer just shooting in the dark, it’s not that i want to be famous but i do want my photos to be noticeable because they have some type of uniqueness.
The other thing i discovered is that a good unique photo comes after about 20,000 bad photos, like a very famous photographer that i don’t remember his name once said “If i get 5 good photos in a year, it was a good year”
Uniqueness is far better than just beauty, aim at uniqueness based on your own personal way of seeing things and your photos will be more rewarding to you and who knows maybe you’ll be famous one of these days.
And for those that say they don’t want to be famous i say, being famous will help a lot in making more money, that is why being famous is so rewarding, not so much as for the ego but very beneficial for the pocket