A few years back I took a week-long workshop with a very well-known NYC-based photographer, one with dozens of major magazine cover credits to his name. I certainly wasn't expecting him to teach me how to photograph - I already knew that. But I was looking for insight into how he worked. I was particularly curious about how he interacted with strangers on the street.
Alas. What I discovered was that his workshop was a very scripted, scheduled affair. He does a lot of these workshops and it's pretty clear they have become his major source of income. He's come up with a canned formula - day one, this; day two, that; etc. And save for a couple hours one afternoon down at Times Square, I never got a chance to see him working. I also found him to be pretty dogmatic about most things photographic - down to things as simple as the focal length of one's lens.
I'm guessing most of the photographic workshops out there are of a similar ilk. They do their thing. Whatever formula seems to work for them.
Then you have true professional photographers - the guys still out there doing it. Working with clients. Making their money - or not - based upon the creativity they bring to the table and the resulting imagery they create.
What's the old saw... those who can, do; those who can't, teach. I know, I know, that's not fair. But still, there's an element of truth to it. The doing of it is hard. The number who make a success at it is slim. And those who do do it are mostly too busy to share what they're doing.
There's a whole industry which has arisen around "teaching" professional photography. Workshops and books and videos and all the rest of it. Alas, mostly, the folks providing those things aren't exactly the source of wisdom they'd like us to think.
I'm guessing that's what Jazzy was looking for... that rare intersection of a great photographer, still in the game, who sets aside some time to explore how and what and why they do what they do.
There are a few resources like that out there. Dan Witner's Road to Seeing is one. So is Gregory Heisler's 50 Portraits. But they're rare. I, too, would love to hear of other examples of insight from the high end. Books or videos or whatever that provides a bit of a glimpse into this hard art.
More than anything, that's why I hang out in this particular forum. Because you periodically get ageless snippets from guys like BC. Priceless stuff.
The only thing is, forums by their nature impose both a brevity and a tenuousness to what is written. Deep dives into a subject don't often happen.
Which is why I'd love to see a book by some of you. Especially you, James.