Artist or Machine?

Just doing a little soul searching here....

Is there a point where you need to have artistic intuition for making great photos that people a 100 years from now will remember you for, or is it just sheer skill with f-stops, guide numbers, and composition? I can think there is an argument either way depending on your perspective, but at some point do you need a vision to be great, or can you just memorize the facts, calculate the square roots for light intensity at a given distance, and set up the shot according to a text book??

You need a Muse. Something to spark your creativity.

People get their first camera and proceed to shoot anything and everything they see around them. In time, if the Muse strikes, suddenly they find that one or two subjects really get the juices flowing.

I maintain that this is the key point in deciding whether or not a person remains a "snap shooter" or becomes a photographer.

If they are to become a photographer, there will be a thirst for knowledge on their chosen subject(s) that goes beyond mearly how to photograph it. Birders start to learn about birds, landscapers start learning some basic meteorology and pay attention to sun/moon rise and set times, street shooters become armchair shrinks in order to better understand the human condition, etc, etc, etc...

In my own shooting, I want to know the history of the aircraft, the ownership chain (provenence) of warbirds or classics. Ultimately, my interest in aviation meant I had no choice but to become a pilot myself.

Think of photography as a tree. Your favorite subject is the trunk but the tree must branch to survive!

Technical skill does not create art. There are many people who are technically proficient at various things who are not artists.

The other side of that coin is that art is objective, and not everyone will see/hear/feel the same things based on the same work. As the old saying goes "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like". That said there are many 'great' photographs that are not necessarily 'art'. PJ's for example dont have to create art to create powerfully moving images, but it doesn't hurt. There are also great artistic photographs that technically are 'eh?' if you dont know what you are looking at. Some of my favorite examples are from cartier-bresson's work. He was very much about capturing the moment. If he were shooting now 'That's not sharp, its out of focus, Get an L, your rangefinder sux!' would probably be most of the critique comments, never mind the work!

I figured out a long time ago my right and left hemispheres clash and the result is what is inside my head rarely makes it out via any medium, but photography is as close as I seem to be able to get so I'm sticking with it (what are hobbies for anyway!). I'm still working on technical proficiency (lighting has become the bane of my existence when I have the time to complain about it) , but every once in a while I shoot a real winner that other people ooh and aah over, so I must be getting somewhere.

And yeah, the muse. Evil evil muse. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop doing something for a while, and wait for inspiration to hit anew.

One main ingredient that separates well-off, technically-skilled hobbyists and the "pros" who will be remembered is PERSISTENCE. The persistence to go back and go back again to the same location waiting for the right light or the right confluence of people and elements that make a good shot into an iconic photograph.

nadtz wrote in post #6965861
I figured out a long time ago my right and left hemispheres clash and the result is what is inside my head rarely makes it out via any medium, but photography is as close as I seem to be able to get so I'm sticking with it (what are hobbies for anyway!). I'm still working on technical proficiency (lighting has become the bane of my existence when I have the time to complain about it) , but every once in a while I shoot a real winner that other people ooh and aah over, so I must be getting somewhere.

And yeah, the muse. Evil evil muse. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop doing something for a while, and wait for inspiration to hit anew.

Thanks for that reply! That's kinda what I was having a hard time putting into words, and makes a lot of sense! Just trying to figure out is if all this is ever going to be for me is a quest for proficiency or if I'm going to have a "that's what my muse is" moment and it'll give me a direction to go. There are so many different avenues of photography I see around me I want to photograph and can't seem to decide on a direction to go. It's like ADHD behind a lens sometimes!