+1.
I personally think that there is no such thing as inborn talent. Two traits that are mostly inherited are intelligence and physicality; without physicality you're not going to be a pro athlete. Without intelligence of a certain level you probably (I can't say "certainly') aren't going to become a famous artist or scientist. But most famous artists (since we're talking about photography) were actually trained into their jobs. They combined intelligence with the learned traits of perseverance and a willingness to work, with certain cultural possibilities (like opportunity) to become artists, but there's nothing in that that I would call inborn 'talent.' Trained differently, I think an exceptional scientist might well have become an exceptional artist.
I think there's something very true about the 10,000 hours. I've read all the books mentioned -- both 'Blink' and 'Outliers' are based on much more boring work, which is why Gladwell makes the big bucks: his books aren't boring -- and I'm pretty much a believer. It's not talent, but work, that makes the star. You just have to know exactly what talent you might be talking about...which is not always obvious. For example, I think Richard Prince's main talent lies in public relations.
But I have noticed that in most professions, it takes four to five years of steady work AFTER graduation in a specialty for even a very intelligent, hard-working professional to become truly competent in his specialty. It's true of law, surgery, engineering, etc. And 40 hours a week, for five years, is just about 10,000 hours. The 10,000 hours, by the way, is not to achieve basic competence as MD suggested, but to achieve a very high level of accomplishment.
JC
