If you have been interested in landscape photography for some years, you may notice that most photographers who do it thoughtfully and regularly do it more or less the same way. To be honest, there’s no significant difference in their works. If we look at the winners of photo contests on such web platforms as Viewbug or 35 Awards, we can hardly tell why this photographer is a winner and that isn’t. The top 100 of them do the same – perfectly balanced, professionally processed images of beautiful places while great light. Simply put, postcards. It became a standard in landscape photography quite a while ago. (And I think that’s the reason why Sony Award trying so hard to distance oneself from that.) I recently listened to a podcast with one of the lead landscape photographers in Russia. Among others, he said a very important and truly thing: everyone now knows how to shoot and process, a good photograph is mainly the question of luck. To my mind, that’s a dead end. Ansel taught us all many years ago what is good in landscape imagery. And we have learned the lesson. It’s time to do something more. Some photographers invented their systems of taking a good photograph. They even converted it to a simple scheme. The set of algorithms: try to combine shapes, lines, the rule of thirds, and light, and you’ll get a good image. But wait! Where’s the creativity, I want to ask? Human life isn’t enough to visit all the places on our planet. Nature offers us an infinite variety of plots. Also, we have such characteristics as area, spot, season, weather, time of the day, foreshortening, focal length, the height of shooting, depth of field, type of processing, coloured or monochrome, contrasty or not, filters, infrared, and so on, and so forth! The one who said that everything in the world is already photographed just has a poorly imagination and a lack of experience. So, why do most of us do postcards, not photography? I bold to suppose because it’s easier. It’s much easier to learn the processing technique and basic “rules” of composition because there are plenty of different tutorials on the Internet, and a massive part of them are free. And then get likes on Instagram, tons of rave comments on Facebook, and winnings in out-of-town photo contests. The other way, the path of many-year practice, eternal search, mistakes and disappointments, and then, finally, the obtaining of your masterpiece that you’ll be satisfied with for a whole week, and most of your followers couldn’t even understand – this way is much more complicated...
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I think everybody asks this question to himself sometimes. Those of us who tend to any form of creativity repeat the question multiple times during life. And if most adult persons find some answer convenient to them and keep living and creating without doubts, the rest of creatives are suffering from that annoying uncertainty. If you are interested, I have some thoughts about that. First of all, there’s no talent… Well, actually, it exists, but that does no fundamental matter. What do I mean? If you ask most people to describe the talent, to define what it is, more likely, they will tell you about some universally recognized persons who made (or still making) masterpieces no matter in which sphere. But in fact, they describe the top of the mountain, the visible results of the skill. And don’t consider what is below: years of study, even more years of practice, a rich experience, a sea of mistakes, plenty of fallings and even more risings, lakes of tears, hills of insecurity and rocks of selfless dedication to the deed, and so on, etc. It’s very simple. Talent isn’t some kind of superpower that gives you the possibility to make something outstanding without hard work. It’s just a base. A starting point, if you will. Let’s take an example. There’s some kid; name him kid #1. At some moment, for some reason, he decided to be a photographer. His parents buy him the first camera. He starts to photograph everything he sees around. When someone asks him what genre of photography he prefers, he replies that he doesn’t limit himself to one genre. He likes to photograph everything, from landscapes and street scenes to portraits and architecture. After some time, he suddenly faces some photography masterpiece that strikes him to the core. And he finally realizes that he does poor photography, knows nothing but simultaneously understands which genre in photography he will choose. And he goes to photography courses where he studies the basics. After few months, his photographs look much more harmonic. They become meaningful images, not sudden pictures anymore. They are still far from what could be called masterpieces, but at least they are no more trash. There’s some other kid. Name him kid #2. Once he finds a camera of his mother or father, he goes for a walk and starts taking pictures. Later, his parents see those images and are surprisingly ask: “Did you take these photographs?” Because these images look harmonic and meaningful. They are far from what could be called masterpieces, but this is just his first attempt! So, both kids made their first steps...
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