Herschel Mair : Also not all photography is intended to be art. In fact only a small percentage of working photographers are professional artists. nicely put! Whilst they may use the elements of art in their work, such as compositional elements, colour, texture etc., they are usually compelled to work within tight parameters of content which may not allow the critical observation neccessary for art. The technical stuff is only as good as it supports the creative dynamics of the artist/craftsman. There are many great photographers who have only the most fundamental knowledge of the technical process. Bresson never printed his own work by all accounts he found gifted printers and used their skills to produce the images many find so astonishing. Makes you wonder how many other great photographers never achieved 'success', who slipped past us with the greater population never seeing the wonders they captured. I knew a student who used to leave each class in tears convinced she was thick because she couldn't get the maths, didn't understand the concepts, and felt belittled (not by anyone's actions but rather her own insecurities). One day she stopped by my house with albums filled with truly beautiful images she'd taken in the past- she wanted to know if I felt it was worth her continuing to try to learn photography.. I explained to her that it's all well and good for someone to smugly be able to perform advanced calculations in their heads, producing numerical answers to complex equations at quiz nights but in reality even a gnat can perform advanced vector calculations, even a mental cripple can do the *most* complex calculus and differential equations in a *heartbeat*. Throw a ball, they can catch it - there's some serious high end maths going on there! Truth is, all the calculations, all the knowledge we take on board is to allow us to get *close* to those who can naturally intuit things, and her work suggested she was better off NOT attending classes which frustrated her, she was far better off out there shooting lots of film and continuing to make those beautiful images. I asked what drove her to take classes in the first place and she said it was because she couldn't hold her own in conversations with photographers, she didn't know much about the terms or equipment. Wrong reasons. I personally find Weston's work superior to AA's. He used *junk* gear in comparison to AA's (AA was a total neophyte and LOVED new stuff!) but Weston knew his gear intimately. knowledge whether gained by calculation, intuition or experience goes a long way k
