Another week, another quote! Actually I have two this week.
The first, and the title of today's wee diatribe comes from Percy W. Harris who said that "skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase."
The second is one that I often think of, sometimes at the oddest moments, perhaps it's when observing someone struggling with a fancy new gizmo that promises to open any wine bottle in an exciting new way that's guaranteed to remove the cork in one piece and also be EASY.
I've yet to come across anything that works as well as the type of corkscrew shown above!
"The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium.
Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it." Edward Weston
Have you ever noticed the"equipment" that professional musicians use?
Have you listened to the music that comes out of these beaten and battered pieces?
Some of the most beautiful, haunting, and memorable music I have ever heard has come from such instruments.
Knowing one's instrument well, intimately, allows one to concentrate fully on the task at hand, whether it be belting out "Mustang Sally" or
simply capturing images at weddings without hoping, risking, guessing or even praying that the brand spanking new camera, lens, flash, or whatever gizmo will do as advertised.
The professional's challenge is to simply "see, shoot and leave" with great images,
concentrating on actually seeing images with "content", thinking about the framing,
anticipating and waiting for the moments, ok call them "decisive moments" if you wish
and he or she does this by practicing to the point that doing so is second nature.
