Monday, March 8, 2010

Trivial art isn't worth the trouble it takes to produce it

"When you set down the path to create art, whatever sort of art it is, understand that the path is neither short nor easy. That means you must determine if the route is worth the effort. If it's not, dream bigger."

These are the words of Seth Godin in his bestseller "Linchpin". I just finished it last night. It's worth reading if you're trying to make art. In fact it's worth reading even if you're not ready to make art.

There are 300 days left in the year. I've missed a couple days as I've tried to catch my breath and evaluate what I'm trying to do. I have 60 photos so far, half are below average, half are above.... and about five are really good. I've decided to raise the bar a bit and really try and learn how to make great photographs with my remaining time. I'm going to start with portraits of men and work at it until I have something worth celebrating. There will be some testing, some shooting and some crying, but I'm starting.

I've looked at a lot of portraits over the years, thousands, no tens of thousands. I haven't seen any better that the one Karsh did of George Bernard Shaw. Great face, great lighting, makes for a great portrait.
I'm going to work on this until I get it right.

Rob Skeoch
www.thepicturedesk.ca

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