George Barr on "Learning to See"
I “discovered” George Barr by reading his three excellent articles “Taking Your Photography To The Next Level” on Luminous Landscape. I then followed the link to his “Behind The Lens” blog, which I’ve been reading since then. Recently I decided to check out his older articles and found this very true remark:
In my experience, photographers who pick up a camera to use as a tool to capture what they observe (the artsy types) become good photographers a hell of a lot faster than the techie types who obsess about films, developers, pixels and profiles. The artsy type knows what he wants and only needs to find the path to get there – the techie type doesn’t know where he is going, but he has maps for everywhere and lots of gadgets to help him on the way – if only he could figure out the destination. This process can lead to a huge amount of frustration.
Exactly! And thank you George for this great description! At least I’ve recognized the facts, and I’m looking for my direction. I’ve also gotten rids of the maps, so to say, as I’ve stopped obsessing about lens resolution, distortion, glass coatings, raw-converter features, etc. I am spending a lot of time looking at photo books and photographs on the Internet, and I’m out photographing and constantly on the lookout for interesting compositions.
Does this mean that I am half way “there”? Probably not, but at least I am on my way!