Herschel Karl you are an unending source of information and sometimes even inspiration to me but I must challenge the idea that art has always been made to explain/explore/understand the world etc. Before the academifying of art, much was done just for fun and for decoration and sharing of experiences. Much art is done simply to understand art itself and visual language. I agree with you on that =) In his quest to understand and find a solid, non-axiomatic foundation for mathematics, the logician Bertrand Russell finally admitted failure and claimed that his life's work had taught him that science is subordinate to human emotion and less governed by logic and reason. Students that turn away from technology as an approach to photography often make very good, critically observed and captured moments which fly past people thinking about densitometry and N+2/N-2...ummm I mean pixels and histograms. A great photograph is seldom great by virtue of it's technical excellence alone. Students that approach photography from the technical "portal" (As I did) can take far longer to reach a stage where they are engaging with the subject critically. This is fine for a commercial or perhaps even a modern editorial photographer and even a requirement in most cases But for art it is a hindrance... hmm, I find myself agreeing with you a lot there too. this reminded me of a student I knew, came literally crying to me one day after a particularly complex class in sensitometry she'd been in and was about to quit photography.. I asked her why she was studying photography and she said it was to get better at it, and when I asked she showed me a collection of her photos from before she began studying. I looked them over and advised her to quit. Then I told her all the tech stuff we learn is so we can get closer to knowing how to do things easily, to minimise errors and become proficient to the point that we don't need to fret over how to make the image we want to make - I'm not talking of those who just click and get good shots, I mean more those who know what they want, have a goal and are striving to get it right.. And in time this stuff becomes second nature. I want a 1:1 macro, I really dont need to calculate anything, nor even think about the compensation .. and I certainly don't need to muddle my way there, I just do it because I can now. it's become second nature. Well this young lady was an intuitive photographer. She was doing what our most advanced photographer were doing, and she'd come to this point by taking photos and subliminaly learning what she was doing wrong and how to get it right - she couldnt explain much at all about any of the technical processes, but she was as good at making photographs as anyone could hope to be, and the 'process' was too tech for her, too confusing, and cripling her actual skill. I told her all this stuff we were learning was purely to get her to the point she was already at. Poor thing, it wasn't luck or some sort of blessing that got her to where she was, she'd got herself there by independant thought and working hard at learning to be be better. Sometimes the tech stuff CAN cripple an already skilled person. Sad thing was, she still felt her photos were rubbish. I told her all skilled people will feel that way, it's what drives them constantly to improve. k
