Talent. The Secret Ingredient.
You might have read my first article here last month about Technology vs. Technique. I had the privilege of having Jack Hollingsworth (@photojack on twitter / http://jackhollingsworth.com), one of the true masters of our craft, read the article and he left me a very simple direct message on twitter. “Nice job. Well done. Like your rationale here. Totally agree. The real missing ingredient here is ‘talent’ which you need to combine with other two.” While I was very happy he enjoyed it, I also knew he was very much on point with bringing up the subject of talent.
Honestly, the word “talent” is not something we see too much nowadays in a lot of art and photography forums. It is something I like to shy away from and I think others do too. Why? Because of the very nature of it’s definition.
Tal·ent [tal-uhnt] – a special natural ability or aptitude. There it is- “natural ability”. With Instagram on iPhones, Photoshop on iPads; thousands of books, DVDs and blogs on technique; cameras with built in filters, auto settings and editing tools; image stabilizing / vibration reducing (I’m avoiding the Nikon/Canon debate here =) lenses and a myriad of other ways that promise to make anyone a photographer, the people who still stand out above all that are the ones whose work somehow has that one extra thing in it that just makes anything they do awesome… Talent. Talent?! Yes, talent.
Imagine just having had Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s and then feasting on her delicious homemade apple pie. It’s warm and sweet. The slight bitterness of the tart golden delicious apples mingling with the cinnamon, the crisp crust and the smooth whipped cream all vying for your taste bud’s attention. Then, on the long trip back home, you and your family stop by McDonald’s for a bite to eat. With that taste of Grandma’s apple pie still dancing in your mouth, you buy a “baked apple pie” from the girl at the counter. Hoping to relive that moment at Grandma’s you are happy and relieved to read on the tiny box that this pie tastes just like Grandma’s. You open it, pull out the “pie” and slowly eat the first bite. Nothing. No taste sensations, no smile inducing sugar coma. This pie tastes like crap. Its overcooked, dry and the apples aren’t even cooked enough. You see, Grandma made an apple pie for YOU with her talent, years of cooking experience, time and love all wrapped into it and served joyfully to you. McDonald’s made an apple pie for ANYONE based on customer demand, factory efficiency and budgetary constraints all served in a cardboard box with empty promises written on it served to you by a high schooler who would rather be home doing her nails.
“What does apple pie have to do with photography?” you ask. A lot. What apple pie would you rather eat? I’ll eat Grandma’s over McDonald’s any day of the week. Why? Grandma gots skillz McD’s aint got- that’s why. Both pies may have started with the same ingredients but Grandma brought her secret ingredient to the taste fight. Talent.
Everyone out there is trying to be a photographer. They have the money to buy a Canon 7D, Photoshop, 70-200 lens and a flash based website. They buy the books that tell them what to do. They look just like a photographer. But are they? {Please keep in mind that if you have done this, I am not knocking your style or what you do at all, I’m just trying to make a point!} Someone my wife knew from high school did just that. I took a look at this person’s portfolio and realized this person was trying to sell a McDonald’s apple pie with Grandma’s name on it. Every picture was underexposed. The framing was off and the flash was fired straight at the client’s faces. The backgrounds clearly showed off the cars and landscaping around her house, etc. Granted, some pictures were wonderful and this photographer did have a decent client list, but the lack of “natural ability” was very evident.
Am I saying not everyone has natural photographic ability? Yes. And my email is joshuaconti@gmail.com. I welcome hate mail. I have been taking photographs since I was ten. It wasn’t until I was 22 that I realized I had the talent to try to take this love of mine somewhere. I discovered it through multiple friends who saw my pictures and told me “Josh, you really have talent. Have you ever thought doing anything with it?” I was at the beach yesterday and looking around told me that every other person had a camera or smartphone with them. They were snapping away, documenting their day by the water. They were all photographers, but not all of them were photographers. The old man with the point and shoot camera, holding it up with shaky hands to get a picture of his daughter and grandkids playing in the surf was being a photojournalist to for his wife. The mom with her Samsung phone, taking video of her son digging a moat for a sandcastle was directing a movie for loved ones to watch on Facebook. They were both in their own right photographers but on a different level than what we know as photographers. The McD’s apple pie was not on Grandma’s level at all but it still counted as an apple pie. Having a camera makes you a photographer but does not put you on the same level as Ansel Adams. Talent puts you there.
If everyone who tried out for American Idol had true talent, Season One would still be airing ten years later. Some people will only sing their babies to sleep or rock out in the shower. Not everyone will be Carrie Underwood. The same applies to photography. Some people will take thousands of pictures that only a handful of people will see. Robert Capa in 1944 took a single blurry picture of a solider headed for the Normandy Beachhead and single-handedly defined the emotion of a world history changing event.
We admire, idolize, copy and maybe sometimes get jealous of people like Capa, Adams, Hollingsworth and others, often failing to realize it is because of their talent that we do so. Do not get me wrong! – you all have talent. I hate the complexity of Photoshop, but you might rock an edit worthy of first place in a photo contest. But I might take a picture in-camera worthy of the same award. There was talent in both images, but it took different ways of getting there to find it. The person I mentioned above might discover their talent isn’t in taking pictures as it is in graphic design because they did wonderfully and skillfully craft it.
What is the secret ingredient that you bring to the table? Is there a talent you might be overlooking? How does the talent you see in yourself set you apart from everyone else? Do others see that talent too?
I’m a Canon fan boy obsessed with DoF, 50mm lenses, low ISO and in-camera shooting. If you don’t know what any of that means, I’d love to tell you. If you do know what those mean and realize that I really am just obsessed with getting cool bokeh with low megapixel cameras, then we might just be on the same page. I’ve been shooting film since age 15, went digital over 5 years ago and shooting weddings and portraits semi-pro/part-time for the last 3 years.
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Great article. I have to agree that that special something in photos has less to do with gear and more to do with vision. The best gear in the world can still be used to make ‘bad’ photos.
With that said, those people out there with the money to burn do two important things. First, they are starting a hobby that means a lot to them (hopefully). Second, they make sure the camera makers stay making money so we can have new technology.
Photography can be a lot of things, but most of all it should be a way to record things that will fade as memories.
Thanks for your comments! Not sure though where “people out there with money to burn” comes into play as far as talent goes?
we already know that manufacturers market to those people and that they exist. however, if they ceased to exist and for some unknown reason that caused Canon to heaven-forbid close its doors, that would not prevent me from taking pictures at all!
I just need a camera. Any camera. The fact I shoot with Canon has nothing to do with me being a photographer or my talent at all. I use Canon cus I trust them. If they destroy that trust, I will move on.
I did touch on the fact that people are being photographers and recording memories but my main point was not the money they spend or the equipment they use or what they know but in the talent they posses that has the potential to launch them to greatness.
Plenty of great people have started with nothing to their name. Their talent to go beyond that was what made them greater than their circumstances.
The point I was trying to make is that money cannot buy talent, but there are those people out there who try to spend money on the best equipment thinking that it’ll make a huge difference in how their photos will turn out. I definitely agree with you that there’s talent, that innate or practiced thing that achieves greatness in a particular field.
exactly.
A great article, and very insightful.
Would you agree that ‘photographic talent’ doesn’t necessarily mean that a photographer can take excellent pictures across the board? I think ‘photography’ is a pretty broad term to define talent, and that talent could refer to a particular style of photography, the creativity of the images, even something such as the way someone poses a product for a catalogue.
I’d say that, for example, someone may be a phenomenal portrait photographer but if you put them in front of a stunning landscape they may not be able to capture it as well as another.
I’m only just starting out in the world of photography myself and am still getting to grips with the camera, I must have taken thousands of pictures, a few hundred of which I’ve edited and deem acceptable and only 2 or 3 that I’m really proud of.
I put this down to me not having found my particular ‘niche talent’ as yet, it’s a matter of plugging away. I think that over time my talent will emerge, even if it’s the bare bones and from there I can hone it.
tom, i can agree to that to some extent. however, for the sake of brevity i had to paint in broad strokes. to say that someone is a talented actress is painting in broad strokes but is generally accepted across the board by most people. her being talented in every movie might come into question but generally speaking, she is talented.
same applies for photographers. i can refer to a portrait photographer being a “talented photographer” and avoid the long form “talented outdoor medium format family portrait photographer”. After all:
“Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.” -Edsger Dijkstra
“Brevity is the soul of wit.” -William Shakespeare.
I am applying the word talent in broad strokes as I could easily go into the nuances of certain talents and certain photographic subjects… but then the point and soul of my argument would be lost.
Very good article.
I sometimes feel that Talent is not the secret ingredient but the ignored one. “Why should I worry about creativity , when I can buy a $1000 DSLR, a 70-200 lens and click cool bokehlicious photos? I am getting all the oohs and aahs on Facebook and people even say that I should take it up as a career”, is what most of the people think. I am often disappointed that how many people click the same kind of shot. I am a fan of sweet bokeh and DoF too but I am tired of seeing people click same kind of shots with shallow DoFs. There is no creativity. It has been done by million other photographers. So, why people do it? Probably becoz of the self-loathing they get by the appraisals of the who-dont-know-photography people. And, once you are drowned in the sea of fame you just forget what you set out to do. Or maybe you never set out to do achieve more than those petty appraisals.
I used to do the same when I started photography in 2005. But, I soon realised I was just another photographer. My pictures were no different from my friends who bought DSLRs, lenses and what not. And, here I am clicking with a puny Sony H5, well not so puny but still. I made me realise two things – there has to be a purpose behind your photography & secondly, I don’t “need” a DSLR to click great shots. Ultimately I bought a DSLR but only when I felt that I cannot push my H5 where I want it to go.
I click a lot less now. I only click when I feel I have a purpose to click. If the world sees my photos, then they need to tell the purpose, a story, a situation. Personally, with a story a photo is as good as a body with a life. I have a good photographer friend but he always clicked the “usual shots”. I told him how are you different from others? You post one of those “usual” photos on facebook and 30 people say “you rock” and then you continue to do that. What’s the purpose of your photography? I can click what you click. How different you are from me? And, that’s when I talked a lot about creativity. Click what normally people don’t click. You don’t have to go into a Volcano and click. You can click what you are clicking but with a sense of purpose, with a story, with a hidden angle that people haven’t seen. Get closer, go round the subject, do whatever. Purpose leads to creativity and the extent creativity depends on Talent. People know if they have it or not. They just ignore it.
“I click a lot less now. I only click when I feel I have a purpose to click. If the world sees my photos, then they need to tell the purpose, a story, a situation. Personally, with a story a photo is as good as a body with a life. I have a good photographer friend but he always clicked the “usual shots”. I told him how are you different from others? You post one of those “usual” photos on facebook and 30 people say “you rock” and then you continue to do that. What’s the purpose of your photography? I can click what you click. How different you are from me? And, that’s when I talked a lot about creativity. Click what normally people don’t click. You don’t have to go into a Volcano and click. You can click what you are clicking but with a sense of purpose, with a story, with a hidden angle that people haven’t seen. Get closer, go round the subject, do whatever. Purpose leads to creativity and the extent creativity depends on Talent. People know if they have it or not. They just ignore it.” You should be writing my blog posts!!!!
LOVE this…perhaps because recently I have been wrestling with the issue of “what sets me apart.”
A discussion I had w/ an actor friend yesterday seems to peripherally touch on some of what you highlight: when he would have friends come see his stage productions, sometimes the only thing they could say post-performance was “How did you memorize all those lines?” He used to get all twisted around the thought, “Really? That is all you could come away with after 2 hours of emotion, story and character development?” Then his tortuous thoughts would begin: “what’s wrong w/ what I’m doing that they cannot see the other things that go into acting/this performance?” The reality was that his friends were just limited in their scope/perspective, and might never be able to recognize everything that went into preparing for a performance.
Some people are just going to boil photography down to “point/click/edit,” and those people will not be my clients b/c they will not wish to pay for something they think they can do, too. Though many people can put a coherent paragraph together, not all people can be considered “writers.” It is in the creative process that talent is honed and “matured.”
The creative process is truly a challenge some days, but it is one I happily pursue if only because I am more developed as a person for walking thru it. Thank you for sharing your insights!
Excellent observations… when I’m driving to a wedding, I’m not thinking about “point/click/edit” I’m watching where the sun is in the sky and dreaming up where I can pose the couple outside, etc. Don’t pay what you think you can do with a camera and software. Pay me for what I can create for you.
Good article, I like to avoid the area of ‘talent’ as well… it puts a bit of a mystery into something that I think comes down to hard work.
put in more hours and you’ll become more ‘talented’ or in other words the more you practice the better you become, sure there is the occasional person who seems to just have this natural ability, I used to live with this guy who was (still is!) a crazy good guitarist, fingers like lightning! I used to strum a few chords… after living with him for a bit I realized he practiced 5-8 hours a day, literally ever spare moment he had, he was plucking away. some people would have said, he’s talented/gifted but really he just practiced like a demon!
All I can say is: AMEN!!!
Talent is often lost and overlooked these days with technology making everyone a “professional”. Fortunately you can still spot the good from the bad, the talented from the techno-reliant, the educated from the natually gifted.
When we can recognize and utilize our talents, either in a hobby or a profession, the world becomes simplified.
So true! I hope we never lose the days of being able to spot the good from the bad. Its nice to see even in “iphoneography” that creativity and a good eye can still come into play and stand out against basic instagrams.
I love seeing the comments trend towards building up, not tearing down. I was afraid of this becoming a virtual fist fight as the world of photography can tend to be very ego centric… But you guys have proven me wrong!
Joshua, great article….really enjoyed it. I have a question, though, or several, if you or anyone can shed some light.
I love photography…have loved it with a passion that is hard to ignore for years. This may sound like a stupid question but…..how do you know you are talented? How do you know if you have the talent for something? I like some of my pics…only some. And there are only 1 or 2 I could say I’m very happy with. And I’ve been told that I’m incredibly hard on myself. But if you asked me today I would tell you that I’m very unsure whether I have talent or not. I know that I can recognize what makes a good image and what makes a bad one. I can say about someone else’s work, yes this works or no it doesn’t and why, but when it comes to my work, not so much. Does it take a pro telling you that you have a talent for it or is it just something you know? And one other thing. Does talent begin to show itself after an incredible amount of work? Or is it something that is just apparent right from the get go? This is something I’ve been grappling with for a while now.
jennifer- Being critical of and being able to self-edit your images is a fantastic quality and a necessary evil for an photographer. I am incredibly hard on myself too! As a matter of fact, I look at my flickr stream alot and think “wow. do i suck or what?!”. Its in our nature I think, especially for perfectionists like myself. I think I will forever be trying to harness and control it.
How do you know you are talented? You don’t. I didn’t think much of doing anything more than just keep shooting 35mm black and whites for the fun of it until alot of friends recognized what I was doing might just have more value than I even saw. Thats when I went out and bought a DSLR and started making something of it. It’s different for everybody. There’s alot of photographers I know who I view as very talented but for them they’re just out doing what they love to do. Talent is that wierd little thing that shows up randomly. Its alot like love, really. You meet a guy and something clicks. Next thing you know you have feelings. Feelings turn into attraction. Attraction turns into romance and romance turns into “I love you’s”. Talent can follow a similar course. You buy a camera and click. Next thing you know, you cant stop clicking… and editing… and posting. Alot, alot of pictures later you realise you have others attracted to your work. You have an audience and that audience starts it’s “I love you’s” and suddenly talent appears, smiling at you with a goofy grin. Just keep learning, shooting and discovering what you do best. If you can take pictures of doors like no one else, run with that! Find your niche. Start shooting anything that moves or looks cool. Self-edit and look for what you’re shooting best. Talent is waiting in the corner to jump out and surprise you. It may not take alot of hard work to find… it may take alot of hard work to find it. But you will. Dont give up.
And no, it does not take a “pro” telling you that you have talent to validate your talent but it sure as hell is awesome to get a nod from a pro!!! email me joshuaconti@gmail.com if you want more in-depth responses =)
Thanks, Joshua…that was absolutely the best response and really put a smile on my face. I’m going to save it so I can refer to it when I’m questioning what I’m doing:)