Irene Rojas

This week, we started Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird,” and Loup Langston’s Photojournalism and Today’s News,” and listened to a Lenswork podcast.  In the latter, Brooks Jensen suggested that talent is perhaps overrated, and that photographers should work on the development of our own eye (how we see something, how a photo could be better, etc).  To that end, he agrees with Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule and Ansel Adam’s 10,000 negative statement.  Essentially, practice, practice, practice.  Talent is nice, but even the best get better by taking lots of photos and experimenting.  We have to keep at it.  The fact is, many of those photos will not be great, but they are necessary.

I felt the podcast was a nice companion to Lamott’s book.  It echoed many of her sentiments, even though she is focused in the writing process.  She has a chapter called “Shitty First Drafts.”  They happen.  They suck.  They’re necessary.  It takes a lot of work to make a good piece.  As with the writing process, many of those 10,000 photos will be cringe-worthy, if not absolutely horrible.  Nonetheless, they are learning experiences.  They happened.  Now, what can I learn from them?  To that end, Lamott reminds us to avoid allowing perfectionism to control us.  Obviously, this is often easier said than done, but we need the mistakes to help us fine-tune our skills.

I felt Langston’s introduction was somewhat out of place amongst these readings.  It focused on how editors preconceive stories, textually and visually.  It highlighted the clash that sometimes exists between editors, photographers, and audiences.  Editors often choose photos that match their existing notions of a situation or person.  Photographers that please editors tend to do the best in that industry.  ”Audiences, however, do not perceive the story or photograph as a symbol, but as reality,” Langston notes.  The photograph chosen to represent a story can be misleading or inaccurate.  Furthermore, it can be robbed of the photographer’s original intention.  Having editors can be a tricky situation.  They can help you improve your work, and they can bury it deep within a story or use the photo out of context.