Do you have what it takes?

Beach Mood #7. St. Pete Beach, Florida, 2012

…to be an outstanding photographer? That is a question I often ask myself. I come back from a morning of shooting in the mountains and, out of 100 images on my memory card, none are really special and or worth working up in post-processing. I also peruse many photo web sites and photography books and am always impressed by the talent that is out there. Could I ever, in my lifetime, produce photographic images of that quality and originality? I am especially amazed at the portfolio of the great photographers…André Kertész, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, Minor White, Edward Weston, and Cindy Sherman, to name just a few.

But, you know what? All of those great photographers had to learn their craft just as we are learning it. What we see in the museums and in the published portfolio collections is the cream of what they produced, culled and selected from sometimes many thousands of other images that didn’t make the grade. We don’t really see their bad work. We don’t see their learning curve that (typically) arced over many, many years. Unless we know a lot about them, we never really get a sense of their personal struggle to improve as an artist. We just think, “Wow! They were talented!”

On his website, The Mindful Eye, Craig Tanner has a great article entitled, The Myth of Talent (link no longer active, unfortunately). In it, he takes the time to outline how long it took him to learn the art of photography–including a six-month photography trip around the American West during which not a single one of his 7,000 images turned out to be a real “keeper.” Eventually, as the years passed (years of persistent, hard work, I would add), he was surprised that people were starting to call him a “talented” photographer. Here he throws out what I think is a great quote: “Being labeled talented only means we have survived being untalented.” Personally, that quote gives me hope! His article concludes with some excellent reading recommendations (that have a lot to do with getting in touch with yourself) as well as a list of seven suggestions to help you grow artistically. I highly recommend this article if you are on a similar path as I am, with similar doubts and questions.

Craig’s mention of his first 7,000 images being failures reminds me of an oft-quoted “rule” about photography: you don’t start producing really good images until you get through your first 10,000 shutter clicks. I had previously heard of this as the “10,000 Hour Rule”, typically attributed to Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success. The idea is that you don’t get good at anything–skateboarding, skiing, accounting, cycling, hockey, baseball, bird watching, photography, or whatever–until you have done it for over 10,000 hours. Hard work and persistence is the key.

Finally, in Bruce Barnbaum’s book, The Art of Photography, he mentions in the very first chapter that there are three ingredients to success in any endeavor: enthusiasm, talent, and hard work. And, he adds, to be successful you only need two out of the three. Only two out of three required!? So, I could be a little deficient in the talent area, but I could make up for it with my passion and discipline!? I found more than a little hope in those words as well.

So, if you endeavor to be a successful photographer (we can talk about what “successful” might really mean another time), don’t give up! Get past those first 10,000 shutter clicks as soon as you can. Work to keep your passion alive and be persistent. If you are lucky and happen to have a lot of innate talent–great!–that just means your learning curve will be steeper and shorter than the rest of us. Send me an invitation and you can count on me to come visit you at your gallery opening!