How many photos?
At the end of your life, how many photos will you leave behind? How many will you consider to be good or great? Think about this when you're editing or when you review your work and get discouraged about your output. Harry Callahan considered just six prints a month worthy of his name. Six a month. Between '84 and '89 Andreas Gursky released less than 40 images for public display. How many shots do you take in a month? How many are you satisfied with as your best effort? Are you being ruthless enough? And yet, are you being prolific enough?
All photographers must edit, for after the results of technical errors have been discarded, the only thing that distinguishes a successful picture from a failure is the maker's artistic judgement. - Peter Galassi, Chief Curator, Dept. of Photography, MoMA
This is a short, but wonderfully intriguing post. I've been mulling over this same idea for a little while now. I won't repost what I said over at my blog, but it's definitely an important question.
The editing process sometimes gets forgotten, but I think it is as important to the photographer's final piece as the moment he or she opens the shutter. It is, perhaps, that "artistic judgement" Galassi speaks of that distinguishes between good and great photographers.
-n
Just two-three shots a year,
If you can't take a good picture- take a lot. I wrote that 20 yrs. ago in the comment book of a particularly "prolific" exhibit. Apparently, an entire generation took it seriously.
I think of photography as art. In that sense a masterwok or an approximation to a reasonable candidate for that is rarely achieved, it takes many shots, and many , many hours of editing.
Now , if one is more realistic and the goal reduces modestly to serious approach to a 'well" done work you might expect a few examples of such in your whole life.
Great topic for discussion.
Some rambling thoughts.... which lead me to ask more questions of myself - and to want to be more critically aware of the work that is out there.
What is the saturation point when the sponge of interest (maybe only mine) can hold no more? Is it personal, public, market driven? Is it a unique combination of chance and timing? Is there a critical moment when the chosen subject matter "feels done" or is it simply when you no longer see the work for what it is? Who determines when / what enough is?
I practice in hopes of becoming a better editor... and I try to be more fully aware of others work. I like to find relationships between apparently different points of view and bodies of work in hopes of discovering still more...
a photographer was asked<"What's the best photograph you ever made?" The response:"The next one."