I never meant to imply that school was the only place to learn. Far from it. I never went to school for photography. I do it out of love of learning.

That said, photography is something I work at.. I work hard at it. I learn from other people on flickr and other photo blogs more than anywhere else. But it’s still a challenge to develop my aesthetic sensibilities.

Yet, Thomas seems to think that this “vision” thing just comes out of nowhere and you just “have it” or you don’t.

I think that’s a load of BS.

I don’t really care if someone with a relatively undeveloped sense of aesthetics doesn’t like my photos. They’re not for them.

But photographers that I respect and that I can see the work they put into their photos.. their opinions are the ones I care about.

I would love it if art was an intensive and required subject from grade school through college. The world would be a much more beautiful place.

Instead, The only aesthetic decisions made by the average person on the street is whether to get a red car or a blue car… or maybe whether this stunning over-saturated sunset on the beach is a flickr favorite or not.

While I agreed with some of the biting criticism in the NYT article, I think it completely missed the mark overall. Change is never easy I suppose.

j03 suggested that you believe people shouldn’t have to work to make their opinion matter. Seems funny to say that to you considering the work you put into making your opinion matter.

Nothing much has changed about who becomes a success and how. A different vehicle from obscurity perhaps.

To me, what the Internet is doing is creating a “middle class” of art professionals that never existed before. Most forms of art, be it photography, film or music, traditionally had either highly paid superstars or ones that were dirt poor, regardless of talent. It was very similar to the pre-industrial revolution system of have and have-nots in the world of production. But now, there’s a new middle class of artists emerging that can actually make a decent living with their art without being superstars made by the corporate machine. It’s the artists’ version of that same revolution: Technology is enabling people.

Here’s a couple articles for further reading:
Pearls Before Breakfast
The Hit Factory

I used to think I loved Jeff Wall because he had really amazing photos that had placed on boxes and were backlit.. but when I bought one of his books and tried to read about the “art” behind his work I totally fell asleep studying it. And I thought all this photos were really not that interesting to me. He has one or two good one’s but it was more about the presentation of it for me.

As successful he has been, I think it has to do with being in with the right crowd and being one of the few chosen by the “gatekeepers” as TH calls them.

I think there are 100 photographers more interesting on flickr than some of the stuff I’ve seen in NYC galleries and museums.

But of course this is just my opinion, and we’re all entitled to one.

I have several pieces of art hanging in my home right now:

http://flickr.com/photos/shveckle/872781157
http://flickr.com/photos/blogdog/160271925
http://flickr.com/photos/pisacane/2212313287/

and they’ve all been bought from flickr people, not framed prints from people I have no connection to.

Daniel
http://flickr.com/photos/smoothdude/
http://www.danielkrieger.com

“vision trumps training”

How does one get this “vision” you speak of if not work at it? Just born with it?

I think that if you actually reasearched any of these people you think were born with this “vision” you’d find they’d been working on their “vision” for years.

Vicky Slater says on her blog:
Two rolls of film back, with nothing on them that I like except this…..funny how you can so easily lose your way sometimes.

For me it happens when I stop thinking about what I’m doing and shoot because I can’t not, (it is an obsession) and not because I have something to say.

Sounds to me like this vision thing is something she works at.

Even child prodigies have to work hard. People think that Beethoven was just this child genius that could just brilliantly play piano from such an early age! Must he have had vision?

From Wikipedia:
Beethoven’s first music teacher was his father, who was a tenor in the service of the Electoral court at Bonn. He was reportedly a harsh instructor. Johann later engaged a friend, Tobias Pfeiffer, to preside over his son’s musical training, and it is said Johann and his friend would at times come home late from a night of drinking to pull young Ludwig out of bed to practice until morning.

Hmm. Sound’s like you don’t get something for nothing after all.

Amongst the masses there are some wonderful photographers on Flickr, and if this platform gives just one of them the chance to make it big then good luck to them. Thanks for another interesting article Thomas.