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Author Topic: Hard Skills and Soft Skills  (Read 14157 times)

David Sutton

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #20 on: January 29, 2014, 09:07:10 pm »

I believe skill is overrated, luck and guts underrated.
But its more flattering for the ego to believe the opposite.
Seeing ourselves as only partly being craftsmen and partly being a medium out of control helps opening new perspectives.

Cheers
~Chris
I wouldn't disagree with that Chris. But I see luck and guts as two of those "soft skills", or if you prefer, a matter of character. Some people seem make their own luck.
I would say "moving out of my comfort zone" is another term for giving up control. And I do realise that when I'm "in control" it's only a sort of pretence. At any rate, the whole control thing and emphasis on hard skills tends to slam shut an important door. Serendipity.
Good article Alain.
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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #21 on: January 30, 2014, 01:07:22 am »

I wouldn't disagree with that Chris. But I see luck and guts as two of those "soft skills", or if you prefer, a matter of character. Some people seem make their own luck.
I would say "moving out of my comfort zone" is another term for giving up control. And I do realise that when I'm "in control" it's only a sort of pretence. At any rate, the whole control thing and emphasis on hard skills tends to slam shut an important door. Serendipity.
Good article Alain.

I agree.
To give up the ego requires a strong ego.
But its nothing we can really control.
That's why I don't call this a skill.
Its more an attitude or a trait that comes with time and might work or not in a given situation.
Training still is good, but this is something beyond mere training.

alainbriot

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #22 on: January 30, 2014, 02:08:55 am »

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Alain Briot
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dreed

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #23 on: January 30, 2014, 06:47:20 am »

I believe skill is overrated, luck and guts underrated.
But its more flattering for the ego to believe the opposite.
Seeing ourselves as only partly being craftsmen and partly being a medium out of control helps opening new perspectives.

Maybe, but often times a little bit of skill can help increase your chances of being lucky.

If luck were dominant then photography could be classified as gambling and I'm not sure you want to argue that.

As an example of skill influencing your luck - if you come to know how a particular weather forecast will influence the weather in a particular geographical region then going there to take a dramatic photograph becomes less about luck of being in the right place at the right time. Similarly, being able to read a map can make the difference to finding a good location by chance.
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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #24 on: January 30, 2014, 07:32:50 am »

Maybe, but often times a little bit of skill can help increase your chances of being lucky.

If luck were dominant then photography could be classified as gambling and I'm not sure you want to argue that.

As an example of skill influencing your luck - if you come to know how a particular weather forecast will influence the weather in a particular geographical region then going there to take a dramatic photograph becomes less about luck of being in the right place at the right time. Similarly, being able to read a map can make the difference to finding a good location by chance.

I completely agree.
I also want to state I am generally against black and white thinking
and my post was not meant as a rejection of the meaning of skill.

My intention was to put something additional into the equation and put the meaning of skill into perspective.

Or, to communicate the idea more pointed, maybe even exaggerated:
Skills, be they hard or soft are tools, nothing more.
Where is the artist?

Cheers
~Chris
« Last Edit: January 30, 2014, 07:35:52 am by Christoph C. Feldhaim »
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Rob C

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #25 on: January 30, 2014, 08:42:49 am »

I completely agree.
I also want to state I am generally against black and white thinking
and my post was not meant as a rejection of the meaning of skill.

My intention was to put something additional into the equation and put the meaning of skill into perspective.

Or, to communicate the idea more pointed, maybe even exaggerated:
Skills, be they hard or soft are tools, nothing more.
Where is the artist?

Cheers
~Chris


Are you still talking about photography, or was the subject changed whilst I wasn't looking?

Rob C

Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #26 on: January 30, 2014, 09:02:42 am »

Are you still talking about photography, or was the subject changed whilst I wasn't looking?

Rob C

I have no clue.
Just trying.
What do you think?

Cheers
~Chris

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #27 on: January 30, 2014, 10:40:10 am »

I have no clue.
Just trying.
What do you think?

Cheers
~Chris


I'm lost, I think.

An artist has this compulsion - he just has to paint, sing, play his instrument, sculpt or create his art and it doesn't matter what the subject really is; for a photographer, I feel it's pretty much the other way around.

Deprive a snapper of subject, genre and purpose, and he has nothing to do. Not the same thing at all. As painter, one can sit down with the paint and just daub, and something comes out of it. You can hold a camera all day and nothing may come out of it. It usually doesn't. And there's the rub: it doesn't depend just on you, it depends on what's happening around you, over which you may or may not have any control.

You see the problem, then.

Rob C

Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #28 on: January 30, 2014, 01:10:30 pm »


I'm lost, I think.

An artist has this compulsion - he just has to paint, sing, play his instrument, sculpt or create his art and it doesn't matter what the subject really is; for a photographer, I feel it's pretty much the other way around.

Deprive a snapper of subject, genre and purpose, and he has nothing to do. Not the same thing at all. As painter, one can sit down with the paint and just daub, and something comes out of it. You can hold a camera all day and nothing may come out of it. It usually doesn't. And there's the rub: it doesn't depend just on you, it depends on what's happening around you, over which you may or may not have any control.

You see the problem, then.

Rob C


Yup - that's it - the stuff beyond anything skill-like.

For me it all comes down to something like "conditio humana".
The old questions found ubiquitous and in religions as well:
Where do we come from?
Why is there anything at all?
Who are we?
What is mind?
Where do we go to?
How shall we live?
What's our purpose in this world?
What's the purpose of life?

So - no one could tell me art doesn't matter.
And in my view true art somehow touches these questions - must touch these questions.
Beauty and aesthetics are a part of that and deeply connected to these.

Cheers
~Chris

Dave (Isle of Skye)

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #29 on: January 31, 2014, 07:38:38 am »


I'm lost, I think.

An artist has this compulsion - he just has to paint, sing, play his instrument, sculpt or create his art and it doesn't matter what the subject really is; for a photographer, I feel it's pretty much the other way around.

Deprive a snapper of subject, genre and purpose, and he has nothing to do. Not the same thing at all. As painter, one can sit down with the paint and just daub, and something comes out of it. You can hold a camera all day and nothing may come out of it. It usually doesn't. And there's the rub: it doesn't depend just on you, it depends on what's happening around you, over which you may or may not have any control.

You see the problem, then.

Rob C

So, a blank canvas is not art until the painter chooses to randomly daub paint on to it and as painting is already accepted as being such a ‘High Art’, it can even be created without the need of “subject, genre or purpose”. Then if the artist does their damndest to make an exact copy of that work the very next day and then again the day after that, ad infinitum, then each and every one of those pieces may also be classed as art, because it has been created from nothing other than the desire of the artist to make something, anything.

At the start of the day I go out with a blank memory card in my camera, I come home at the end of the day with some arrangement of stored pixel data on that card, data that I nor anyone else could have foretold the exact placement of, or distribution or meaning of, nor can it ever be recreated anew in exactly the same way ever again, no matter how hard I or anyone else tries. Yet according to what you say, it can never be classed as art, even though it has been created from nothing other than my desire as a photographer to make something, because you tell us that I have in fact created nothing, or been creative in any way at all and so it can never be classed as art.

Rob, photography can definitely be a creative art, it is not simply the photocopying of reality, or shopping for pictures that already exist in some kind of alternate universe, that just hang there waiting for us to pluck out from thin air, as easily as plucking low hanging fruit from a tree.

We look, we see, we feel, we choose, we compose and as such, we are then able to create art based on this creative process.

Dave
« Last Edit: January 31, 2014, 07:46:10 am by Dave (Isle of Skye) »
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Rob C

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #30 on: January 31, 2014, 10:31:48 am »

1.  So, a blank canvas is not art until the painter chooses to randomly daub paint on to it and as painting is already accepted as being such a ‘High Art’, it can even be created without the need of “subject, genre or purpose”. Then if the artist does their damndest to make an exact copy of that work the very next day and then again the day after that, ad infinitum, then each and every one of those pieces may also be classed as art, because it has been created from nothing other than the desire of the artist to make something, anything.

2.  At the start of the day I go out with a blank memory card in my camera, I come home at the end of the day with some arrangement of stored pixel data on that card, data that I nor anyone else could have foretold the exact placement of, or distribution or meaning of, nor can it ever be recreated anew in exactly the same way ever again, no matter how hard I or anyone else tries. Yet according to what you say, it can never be classed as art, even though it has been created from nothing other than my desire as a photographer to make something, because you tell us that I have in fact created nothing, or been creative in any way at all and so it can never be classed as art.

3.  Rob, photography can definitely be a creative art, it is not simply the photocopying of reality, or shopping for pictures that already exist in some kind of alternate universe, that just hang there waiting for us to pluck out from thin air, as easily as plucking low hanging fruit from a tree.

We look, we see, we feel, we choose, we compose and as such, we are then able to create art based on this creative process.

Dave



Dave,

1. Why would any painter do that? Apart from anything else, it would put his work into the same doubtful category as digital printing. I was a painter - of sorts - before I had a camera; I've been through the passions of graphic creation and it's my feeling that though it can be a pleasant experience, more often than not it ends up a life-curse: one ends up concentrating on the wrong priorities to the high cost of everyone who depends upon one. Yes, money is a factor and success in either paint or photo-print creates its own momentum and reasons for continuing. The point I'm making, which apparently hasn't been really understood or well-made, is that creation, as in art, is a basic thing for a painter. Only with that will he be a painter. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that everything he creates is art - it usually won't be - but it is nonetheless a creative event because it starts from scratch.

2.  What you have described is visual editing. You are talking about selection, which isn't creation: it's choosing from what already exists. You may choose to describe that function as creation, which is your right, and though I find myself forced along similar paths post-retirement, I can't honestly consider what I do in that world as creative. How, then, can I be expected to dishonestly ascribe that quality to others doing essentially the same thing as I do? It wouldn't compute. Because the supreme lighting director in the sky has ordained that no cloud will appear in exactly the same space and in the same form ever again has nothing to do with the editor - the photographer - he just edits what's offered. That's not, and cannot be creation. That is skill, and a handful of photographers has far more than its fair share of that!

3. Oh absolutely! But unfortunately, not very often within most genres of photography. Where one depends purely on chance and external variables, that's what one reaps: chance happenings. On your list of offered services, you reveal only the possibilities: those are not tantamount to creativity; they are basically nothing more than what I've already said: editing what's existing there, in situ, and applying a management skill.

Look, it charms me not at all to feel that my current photography is fuelled by desire to create, a desire that can never be properly realised within the genres currently available to me. The most I can draw as consolation is that some images are testament to a reasonable eye; that in different circumstances I could rest assured that I could probably pick up where I left off, not because of anything wonderful I know, but simply because of the basic fact of my genetic structure, over which I had neither control nor say: I am what I am, and that's really just about it. Ditto everyone else. Wishing isn't enough. I've often wished I'd been a stockbroker instead; I'd have that bloody 25m yacht.

So what is creative photography? For me, it's partly in the putting together of disparate things that wouldn't normally be found so aligned; it's the creation of an atmosphere between two people (pick your size of group to suit) that results in something quite ephemeral that even the same group will never be able to recreate. It's catching that instant that proves the creativity actually was present within the moment. Without it, you just have another snap of the same person just standing there or, worse, just a pleasant memory of what might have been had you both been better prepared for your task.

A model session can be short or it can be long; you may catch the thing on the first roll or find yourself toiling along getting nowhere. You and your model may both be world-renowned, but take away the magic of interaction and all you get, at best, is technical perfection as devoid of creative spark as anything from anybody else. Look at the best sites from the best agents and snappers - what do you see? Some rare, high photographic art, and a much larger amount of technical pyrotechnics saying nothing. Especially do you see this in cosmetics work. Why?

Why? Because pro photography isn't much about art: pro photography is about product and selling. And amateur photography? At best, about relaxation and taking the mind off the workaday stresses. It's when that becomes confused with ego, art and the hope to turn it all into money that the pain begins. If you want to be an artist, it's probably because you are not one. If you are, it doesn't strike you in the same 'glamorous' way at all; possibly, you wish like hell you'd been born a business genius instead.

Rob C

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #31 on: January 31, 2014, 03:41:54 pm »

That's the point, Keith: nobody should.

We should simply think what we want to think, and let the rest of the world roll merrily along. I really hope I don't get sucked into this theme again - whatever I believe, it's my opinion and nothing more nor less than that.

Rob C

Christoph C. Feldhaim

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #32 on: January 31, 2014, 03:48:34 pm »

Rob - we don't exist inside a vacuum.
What we think of is "I" or "me" is just an illusion - a concept we need to survive and stay oriented.
For the body we know - we come from earth and we return to it.
Similar with the mind - somehow.

So - IMO it's totally okay not to know why one wants to produce art, take photographs or whatever.
But you can be sure there's reasons for it and it's connected to the whole thing you're coming from.
Even if we don't know and can't express.

Maybe its just the cosmos being curious about itself ...
Who knows?

Cheers
~Chris

Dave (Isle of Skye)

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #33 on: January 31, 2014, 03:55:32 pm »

That's the point, Keith: nobody should.

We should simply think what we want to think, and let the rest of the world roll merrily along. I really hope I don't get sucked into this theme again - whatever I believe, it's my opinion and nothing more nor less than that.

Rob C

Oddly enough, I do not consider myself an artist, nor do I have any need or wish to ever assume that appellation, yet I do believe that on occasion, I have indeed been fortunate enough to have created art through my photography – yes I know, I am being a little oxymoronic here, but that is the only way I can truly describe my feelings about the whole ‘is photography a creative art’ question.

Art has always been the product of outside influences and stimuli, none of which any person or artist can have complete control over, just as I cannot have control over that cloud that chooses to linger over my shot. You are what you have felt, seen and done in your life and your work will always reflect that, in fact without these external and mostly uncontrolled influences and stimuli, we would all be blank canvases.

I am not saying you should change your view on the subject Rob, if that is your understanding of it then good for you, everyone should be allowed their own opinion based on how they see things. I just find it difficult to understand why you keep getting stuck on this self made tenet, that says if the photographer has not physically changed something within the scene directly, then they have not and can never be said to have been creative.

So, next time I create a landscape photograph, I will make a point of breaking the nearest blade of grass showing in the foreground of the shot, because that way even if the shot is unsuccessful, at least I can take comfort in the knowledge that I have created art, albeit unsuccessful art, because I will have directly influenced something within the shot.

Sorry Rob, I am not really trying to wind you up, I just think we are probably two sides of the same coin here and I wish you all the best.  ;)

Dave
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Rob C

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #34 on: February 01, 2014, 04:37:02 am »

Oddly enough, I do not consider myself an artist, nor do I have any need or wish to ever assume that appellation, yet I do believe that on occasion, I have indeed been fortunate enough to have created art through my photography – yes I know, I am being a little oxymoronic here, but that is the only way I can truly describe my feelings about the whole ‘is photography a creative art’ question.

Art has always been the product of outside influences and stimuli, none of which any person or artist can have complete control over, just as I cannot have control over that cloud that chooses to linger over my shot. You are what you have felt, seen and done in your life and your work will always reflect that, in fact without these external and mostly uncontrolled influences and stimuli, we would all be blank canvases.

I am not saying you should change your view on the subject Rob, if that is your understanding of it then good for you, everyone should be allowed their own opinion based on how they see things. I just find it difficult to understand why you keep getting stuck on this self made tenet, that says if the photographer has not physically changed something within the scene directly, then they have not and can never be said to have been creative.

So, next time I create a landscape photograph, I will make a point of breaking the nearest blade of grass showing in the foreground of the shot, because that way even if the shot is unsuccessful, at least I can take comfort in the knowledge that I have created art, albeit unsuccessful art, because I will have directly influenced something within the shot.

Sorry Rob, I am not really trying to wind you up, I just think we are probably two sides of the same coin here and I wish you all the best.  ;)

Dave


Better yet, Dave, would be to introduce a red sofa.There's precedent for that, thus legitimising the operation and giving it a certain street credibility through recognition, comfortingly depositing it within the safety net of genre.... However, a possible problem might arise if you later decide to clone out the sofa: would that remove the creative function of the original act or simply add a further dimension of demonstrated creative control and input? Of course, the latter would require the addition  of a caption outlining the fact of the removal along with an in-depth analysis of the method, whether via the pleasures provided by Adobe or another purveyor of magic. That would initiate immense interest in the work and open the door to great debate about relative merits of route. Hell, after the graphs, someone may even notice the picture, but I wouldn't bet the farm on that.

;-)

Rob C

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #35 on: February 28, 2014, 06:47:14 pm »

A month late, just catching up.

Bruce Percy has an article up on his blog about selection of focal lengths.  In it, he posits a useful rule of thumb theory:  in landscape work, choose the focal length that provides you with the size of background you want in your image; then use your feet to control the size of the foreground you want in your image (move closer or further away). Moving your feet will dramatically alter the apparent size of the foreground without effecting the background at all. Changing focal lengths will change the background without changing the foreground (as long as you move to keep it the right size). That little piece of advice seems to me to be more a more practical and effective tip for landscape photography than the volumes written on 'style' and other such nebulous matters (sorry Alain). 

But he is also indirectly demonstrating a point: there is more to it than passively recording what's out there.  You may think of photography as a helpless form of collecting photons but if you see an image as an arrangement of things in a frame, then that arrangement doesn't come ready made, the photographer makes artistic decisions in the field that truly determine what the result looks like.  As Bruce demonstrates in his article, it's perfectly possible to arrive at very similar framing in two shots but with very different emotional impact (big foreground bushes + big towering background mountains vs identical bushes and tiny miniature mountains). Skill + vision gives you two totally different results from the same material handed to you by the universe. I would say those kinds of in the field decisions does constitute art-making in action...



Better yet, Dave, would be to introduce a red sofa.There's precedent for that, thus legitimising the operation and giving it a certain street credibility through recognition, comfortingly depositing it within the safety net of genre.... However, a possible problem might arise if you later decide to clone out the sofa: would that remove the creative function of the original act or simply add a further dimension of demonstrated creative control and input? Of course, the latter would require the addition  of a caption outlining the fact of the removal along with an in-depth analysis of the method, whether via the pleasures provided by Adobe or another purveyor of magic. That would initiate immense interest in the work and open the door to great debate about relative merits of route. Hell, after the graphs, someone may even notice the picture, but I wouldn't bet the farm on that.

;-)

Rob C
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alainbriot

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #36 on: March 18, 2014, 01:21:55 pm »

A month late, just catching up.

Bruce Percy has an article up on his blog about selection of focal lengths.  In it, he posits a useful rule of thumb theory:  in landscape work, choose the focal length that provides you with the size of background you want in your image; then use your feet to control the size of the foreground you want in your image (move closer or further away). Moving your feet will dramatically alter the apparent size of the foreground without effecting the background at all. Changing focal lengths will change the background without changing the foreground (as long as you move to keep it the right size). That little piece of advice seems to me to be more a more practical and effective tip for landscape photography than the volumes written on 'style' and other such nebulous matters (sorry Alain).  

But he is also indirectly demonstrating a point: there is more to it than passively recording what's out there.  You may think of photography as a helpless form of collecting photons but if you see an image as an arrangement of things in a frame, then that arrangement doesn't come ready made, the photographer makes artistic decisions in the field that truly determine what the result looks like.  As Bruce demonstrates in his article, it's perfectly possible to arrive at very similar framing in two shots but with very different emotional impact (big foreground bushes + big towering background mountains vs identical bushes and tiny miniature mountains). Skill + vision gives you two totally different results from the same material handed to you by the universe. I would say those kinds of in the field decisions does constitute art-making in action...

Hi Dave,

This is a good point but I covered this, as well as many other aspects of composition, in my first book Mastering Landscape Photography. The purpose of my current series on Vision is to explore new horizons and possibilities for creating original photographs.

Alain
« Last Edit: March 19, 2014, 01:36:09 pm by alainbriot »
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darr

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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #37 on: March 21, 2014, 07:59:37 am »


I'm lost, I think.

An artist has this compulsion - he just has to paint, sing, play his instrument, sculpt or create his art and it doesn't matter what the subject really is; for a photographer, I feel it's pretty much the other way around.

Deprive a snapper of subject, genre and purpose, and he has nothing to do. Not the same thing at all. As painter, one can sit down with the paint and just daub, and something comes out of it. You can hold a camera all day and nothing may come out of it. It usually doesn't. And there's the rub: it doesn't depend just on you, it depends on what's happening around you, over which you may or may not have any control.

You see the problem, then.

Rob C

It sounds like you are addressing environmental/landscape photographers? I shoot a lot in the studio and find the studio backdrop to be a blank canvas. I started my career as an illustrator and graphic designer and approach photography in a lot of ways I attribute to my art education. I later went to commercial photography school for food/product studies using a 4x5" and chromes, and find the only difference between creating art on media like paper/canvas/surface and creating art on film/digital back, to be the tools. The idea or purpose for my work is still the same with each set of tools, a visual presentation.
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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #38 on: March 22, 2014, 01:30:44 pm »

It sounds like you are addressing environmental/landscape photographers? I shoot a lot in the studio and find the studio backdrop to be a blank canvas. I started my career as an illustrator and graphic designer and approach photography in a lot of ways I attribute to my art education. I later went to commercial photography school for food/product studies using a 4x5" and chromes, and find the only difference between creating art on media like paper/canvas/surface and creating art on film/digital back, to be the tools. The idea or purpose for my work is still the same with each set of tools, a visual presentation.

I agree with Darr.  I also rely on my art education (Paris Academie des Beaux Arts) and I don't see much of a difference between photography and painting/drawing either. Furthermore, now that we can modify just about everything in Photoshop I approach the original capture as a point of departure.
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Re: Hard Skills and Soft Skills
« Reply #39 on: March 25, 2014, 06:32:43 pm »

Well I banned myself from using ND grads and CPL filters for scenic work. I also took an oath never to take a foggy/misty water shot
Why?

Well that path is well trodden, big time
Some might say it's limiting, but then I think you are pushing yourself more when you restrict things
Plenty of prime only shooters that take "one lens" out for the days shoot, to focus themselves on the subject and not worry about a bag full or lenses.

Sometimes you can have too much. Neither approach is wrong, it's what works for you
If everyone started wearing red tomorrow, naturally I'd want to wear blue  :o
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