The equipment is even easier to use now but the real trick is the vision. Its the vision and the ability to capture that vision that is the infinitely difficult part. Yeah anyone can push the button and get a reasonable image under average conditions but the mojo is usually in those conditions that fall out of average.
Heres what a couple of the TRULY greats had to say about it.
"The photographer’s most important and likewise most difficult task is not learning to manage his camera, or to develop, or to print. It is learning to see photographically – that is, learning to see his subject matter in terms of the capacities of his tools and processes, so that he can instantaneously translate the elements and values in a scene before him into the photograph he wants to make."
Edward Weston
"Photography is a medium of formidable contradictions. It is both ridiculously easy and almost impossibly difficult. It is easy because its technical rudiments can readily be mastered by anyonwith a few simple instructions. It is difficult because, while while the artist working in any other medium begins with a blank surface and gradually brings his conception into being, the photographer is the only imagemaker who begins with the picture completed. His emotions, his knowledge, and his native talent are brought into focus and fixed beyond recall the moment the shutter of his camera has closed."
Edward Steichen
"For us the camera is a tool, the extension of our eye, not a pretty little mechanical toy. It is sufficient that we should feel at ease with the camera best adapted for our purpose. Adjustments of the camera – such as setting the aperture and the speed – should become reflexes, like changing gear in a car. The real problem is one of intelligence and sensitivity."
Henri Cartier-Bresson
"I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term -meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching - there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster."
Ansel Adams
The technique has always bee the easy part. Its the vision and the expression of that vision that is so difficult and making images like only you can make and having the ability and the courage to see that, capture it and show it. The hardest thing in becoming a great photographer is truly finding your own voice.
