This is so true. Years ago, the wine industry took off in our community. One winery survived for over 100 years was the only game in town suddenly became twenty and has tripled since. To properly photograph, I picked grapes, made barrels, drove tractor, made wine, drank it then I could photograph. When I transitioned to work with wild land fire, I did the same, trained with the firefighters, worked the tools and equipment, then photographed and illustrated.
Same for my landscape work, I studied the geology, the flora and the fauna; lived in the desert.
Today, it's the same with my work with iconography, ancient orthodox churches, the ethnic community that I document. It started with curiosity, then learning the history, theology, prayer and worship and digging deeply, to live within, passion.
To simply photograph randomly, from outside and without knowledge and with little passion, one misses the very essence of the images and loses the deep connection and only portrays the superficial.
Look at the work of Sebastian, Henri, Ansel, Edward. Not only each crafted their vision but they succeed since they had a passion and a knowledge of the subjects they each photographed. Without that passion and knowledge, they simply take pictures and not create photographs.
