If It’s Easy Anybody Can Do It
There is nothing new under the sun” so they say, the only thing new is new ways to do the same, new technology to do the same.
But the unchangeable reality or law or whatever you want to call it is that “”If it’s easy anybody can do it”” and if it’s easy then it’s not worth much. If you are relying on just pushing the shutter button and expecting that for just doing that you will get a great photo, well, you are fantasizing.
A great photo is not easy to make, just study the greats of the past, first (in some cases) they traveled great distances to get to the place where they believed the scenery was extraordinary, they invested in time and money to get there, then once there they took hours and in some cases days to find the right spot, then they studied the light, if it fell to the right to the left or behind etc. and chose the one that most moved them, maybe in some cases they went there knowing that it would be a cloudy day, they even wanted clouds in the photo. After maybe a few days there then they went back home and into the dark room where they invested some time again, not only in developing the film but also in the process of printing on paper and maybe doing a bit of dodging and burning like Ansel Adems liked to do, he liked (in some cases) to darken the sky, to make it look like it was night when in reality it was day, and he did this by doing some dodge and burn technique, you could say that he took the photo and photoshoped it the old way. He put his touch to the photos to make them his version of reality, the final photo DID NOT reflect reality as it was because he altered reality to be able to stamp his style on the photos.
So what i am trying to say here is;
1.- It’s not that simple if it were it would not be worth anything
2.-Every photographer that wants to make good photos has to put a personal touch to his photos, and the larger the touch the better, maybe turn day sky into a night sky.
3.- The further away you go from traditional photography the better you will be, because it’s part of the creativity of an artist to distance yourself from tradition and do your own thing.
Some photographers say that you can find good photos no matter where you are, i disagree 100%, good places to photograph no matter if it’s landscape or street photography you don’t find good places everywhere, you have to look for them, you can find boring places everywhere and then try to convince yourself that they are good photos because they are done with all the technical rules in existence and you could say it’s a very artistic rock or wall, but it’s still just a rock and just a wall boring to everyone. There’s no rocket science behind this, you start with a good place or person or whatever that will be interesting to anybody not just to a very few photographers that do not want to hurt your feelings and will tell you it’s a great photo of a rock, and then they will say “good light, rule of thirds, good texture etc etc. and tell you it’s a great photo when it’s just a rock. The best critics of a photo are not other photographers but just anybody in the street, they will immediately ask you why did you take a photo of a rock? If you have to explain why then your photo is no good.