I’m certainly not a chef, but whenever I’m asked what the “key ingredient” is to making good photographs, good ART, the answer I give is a simple one: make a lot of it.
We often talk about how vision is everything, but vision doesn’t come from the womb full grown and mature. It’s cultivated. And that cultivation takes time and effort. Certainty and control might be your friends while performing surgery, but they are not your friends here.
While some people might mistake my suggestion of repetition and productivity with ‘thoughtless’ production, it couldn’t be further from what I mean. In reality, it’s usually through producing art that ideas get brought to fruition. You’re working your way through fear, through vagueness, through the numbers, the details, the soul of it. It’s through this process that we find what we’re looking for.
Tolstoy re-wrote War & Peace 8 times (by hand) before he got it right.
Michael Jordan has missed 26 game winning shots.
I could go on, but you get the point.
[Btw, if you haven’t read the book Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
“Making art is like beginning a sentence before you know it’s ending. The risks are obvious: you may never get to the end of the sentence at all – or having gotten there, you may not have said anything. This is probably not a good idea in public speaking, but it’s an excellent idea in making art.” – from the book Art & Fear
, you’re missing out. The book was first gifted to me by a photographer I met on the road named Bryce Boyer. Thx B.]
Do you mean to say “its ending” instead of “it’s ending”? They both make sense in their own ways…
“…beginning a sentence before you know it’s ending.”
“…beginning a sentence before you know its ending.”
Great advice as always, Chase!
I think a corollary worth keeping in mind (and I know you’ve touched on this before) is “see a lot of it”.
I read that book a few months ago and it changed the way I view art, photography, and anything else I have been passionate about. Not to give a synopsis or anything, but the book is basically about all the internal and external issues involved with creating. Whether it be photography, cooking, or making a halloween costume, art and it’s many forms are integral to people whether they know it or not. And sometimes the fear within is stopping you from being happy.
Thank you for recommending this book. I hope a lot of people read it because I know, for a fact, that they’ll enjoy it.
I do not know how or when I received this book but it has sat unread on my bookshelf for years collecting dust. Today, after reading this post I finally opened it up and finished it. Thanks.