The Power of Photography: A Journey of Trial and Error

As I reflect on my own journey as a photographer, I am reminded of the importance of patience and dedication to craft. The moment I met Ralph Gibson, whose work I have long admired, struck me with its eloquence. He spoke about the relationship between his images from one to another, how he thinks about developing a visual language that transcends time. For him, it was all about creating a "visual algorithm" that speaks across image to image, year after year. This concept resonated deeply with me, as I too have grappled with the process of honing my craft and finding one's unique voice in photography.

Ralph's work is a prime example of how a body of work can be both iconic and enduring. His collaboration with Robert Frank on some of his movies was formative, and his own body of work has been shaped by that experience. The Americans, a project from the 1950s, is a landmark work that speaks to its time and place in American culture. It's a testament to the power of photography as a medium for capturing the zeitgeist of an era. When we look at Ralph's work, it's clear that he has spent years refining his craft, experimenting with different approaches until he found his unique voice.

One thing that struck me about Ralph is how much thought and care he puts into each image. It's not just about pointing a camera and clicking the shutter; it's about creating something truly meaningful and evocative. As I talked to him, I was reminded of the importance of patience and dedication in photography. It's not a field that can be rushed or shortcut; it requires time, effort, and attention to detail.

This is a lesson that applies far beyond photography itself. Whether we're talking about creating art, making music, writing, or any other form of creative expression, the process of honing our craft takes time and dedication. It's not something that can be rushed or forced; it requires us to slow down, think carefully, and put in the hours necessary to develop our skills.

Take, for example, the documentary film "Zero Dreams of Sushi." This film is not about photography at all, but rather about the art of sushi-making. What's fascinating about this film is the way it reveals the passion and dedication that goes into creating truly exceptional cuisine. The chef who appears in the film has spent years honing his craft, starting with simple tasks like cooking rice, before moving on to more complex dishes. It's a remarkable example of how time, effort, and attention to detail can come together to create something truly remarkable.

As I watched this film, I was struck by its Eastern approach to creativity. In many cultures, art is seen as a spiritual practice, one that requires patience, discipline, and dedication. This is certainly the case with sushi-making, which involves not just technical skill but also a deep understanding of the ingredients, the seasonings, and the presentation. It's a philosophy that resonates deeply with me, particularly in an age where we're often encouraged to rush and hurry.

The power of photography, like any art form, is ultimately about the freedom of thought and expression. When we create something, we are exercising our own unique perspective on the world, our own voice. This is a gift that should be cherished and nurtured, rather than rushed or forced into something it's not meant to be.

As I looked back on my own journey as a photographer, I realized that this is exactly what Ralph Gibson was talking about – the power of visual language to transcend time and speak across image to image. It's a concept that speaks deeply to me, one that I believe applies far beyond photography itself. Whether we're creating art, making music, writing, or any other form of creative expression, the act of creating something truly meaningful is ultimately about exercising our own unique freedom.

This realization has led me to appreciate the value of patience and dedication in my craft. As a photographer, I know that I must take the time to learn, experiment, and hone my skills if I'm to create work that truly resonates with others. It's not always easy, but it's essential. When we slow down and allow ourselves to fully engage with our craft, we unlock our full potential as creators.

The lesson from Ralph Gibson is clear: the power of photography lies in its ability to transcend time and speak across image to image. This is a concept that speaks deeply to me, one that I believe applies far beyond photography itself. Whether we're creating art, making music, writing, or any other form of creative expression, the act of creating something truly meaningful is ultimately about exercising our own unique freedom.

As I look back on my journey as a photographer, I am reminded of the importance of patience and dedication to craft. It's not always easy, but it's essential. When we take the time to learn, experiment, and hone our skills, we unlock our full potential as creators. The power of photography lies in its ability to capture the essence of our experience, to convey meaning and emotion in a way that transcends words.

In the end, this is what I believe makes photography so powerful: its ability to speak across time and image to image. Whether we're creating art, making music, writing, or any other form of creative expression, the act of creating something truly meaningful is ultimately about exercising our own unique freedom.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyesterday I did a video talking about the importance of creating meaningful work and I want to talk a little bit more about that and the reason I'm doing these videos is I want to hopefully provide some inspiration and some enthusiasm to create things and we live in a world that does seem very oversaturated with plenty of photographers plenty of images and a lot of noise to cut through and it's also a very passed fast paced environment too with social media and kind of the cycle of everything and one of the things that I think is important too is to understand what it means to create meaningful works and I want to talk about what that is and I want to talk about the time and care that it takes to do those things because I think that is really important and it's something that I think our culture doesn't have much patience for but it's important to understand and it's important to embrace and when I'm talking about meaningful works I'm obviously saying you know meaningful works could be something that means something to you you know that's why most of us get into photography or creating anything for that matter there's a personal enthusiasm excitement expectation maybe a set a personal bar and you're trying to get better and reach that and that's fine but I'm really talking about meaningful works on a much larger scale in the context of culture in the context of you know if you're able to create something you have the power to make something that can make somebody think it can create awareness for something it can just create positivity and make somebody feel better about something and there's an enormous power that we have in creating something and that talent takes a lot of time to build up and I think that we live in a culture especially if you look at something like the music business where it tends to celebrate young prodigies and old legends so you either need to be Justin Bieber or you need to be Miles Davis there's really not much in between and one of the things that I really like about photography is is less so in that regard in fact I think it's quite the norm to understand that most people especially in the fine art world and I think the commercial art world or sorry the commercial world as well tend to come into their own in their careers when they're in their 40s 50s and 60s that's not unusual and that's usually when you start to see the best work happen and so I think it's important to realize there is no rush I think it's also important to understand and that even like very iconic works throughout the history of art they're always a culmination so for instance if you take you know the Mona Lisa for instance well da Vinci didn't just decide to do a painting one day that was going to become famous and he did it and that was it that painting was the culmination of years of studying and learning how to draw on hand skills learning how to paint and trial and error and all these things that came before that to lead up to that one piece and you can say that for any work about a month ago or about two months ago I was in New York and I had the wonderful privilege of getting to meet Ralph Gibson whose wonderful photographer certainly somebody I look up to my friend Thierry hooked me up into that and we went over there we were talking to Ralph and Ralph speaks very eloquently like this and it is something that he thinks about it's the relationship of your work from one image to another it's it's coming up with a visual language and I think the term Ralph used was visual algorithm that speaks across image to image a year after year and you end up culminating this body of work that you have during your career the culture tends to pick out iconic works and things and you really that's beyond your control I mean if you look at rough Robert Frank and the Americans for instance and interesting ly enough rough Gibson used to work for Robert Frank you syste on some of the movies and he's known for that work of art but that work of art when you see what made that meaningful the Americans that was a project that was a culmination it was informed it had intelligence behind it it had something to say it was of its time it was of the zeitgeist of the 1950s and America at that time and it worked and it was a complete home run and he's really defined by that body of work because it really was that meaningful I think on a number of levels and so I think it's important to understand that you know this doesn't happen overnight things take time there is a wonderful film that I want to recommend to you there's nothing to do with photography but about craft and it's a film that was done in 2012 called zero Dreams of Sushi you may have seen it it is a documentary about a sushi chef in Japan who is world renowned he has a restaurant that only seats a handful of people and in his books I think it's like two years in advance it's very expensive you have to book it years out and then you go and you eat and it's this whole production that go and it is the finest sushi supposedly that is served anywhere in the world and what's interesting about the documentary is they really get behind the passion and I love it when food gets poetic like that but the passion behind that craft and what it takes to actually go to the market handpick the fish some of the younger assistants that come on board for the first 10 years of their career all they do is cook rice that's it and you know when you hear something like that it's it's it's very Eastern in its approach and I find it fascinating because the whole point is that you spend a long time or learning a craft that is going to be meaningful and makes sense and the ideas that you transcend once you have put in the hours and the time spent to get that right but I will recommend I'll put that video in the show description and I recommend that you guys check it out used to be on Netflix I don't know if it still is but watch it it is excellent but I think that's important to understand and I think it's something that is not obvious or prevalent in our culture and society right now is I think we're very hurried I think things are impatient I think it's a subject for another video but if you look at the cycle of social media and where we are headed with photography outlets that we can put our work I mean it's a quick cycle it's a fast turnaround and things get really difficult I think when you start looking at it in that scheme of things and of course the photography extends beyond social media but my point is is that you know we are in an age where the cycle is much faster but you still need to be patient you need to learn the craft I mean to put in the hours that it takes and you need to understand that that is I mean that's a gift the ability to make things seriously think about that for a second whether you make movies whether you make art whether you draw whether you paint whether you take photographs whether you make sculpture whether you dance whether you write whatever it is the act of creating it represents the ultimate human freedom I mean it represents the freedom of thought there's an enormous gift that comes with that and you should be excited about it and you should try to take that to the next level and you should realize the power of what that can do anyway these are just my thoughts I want to know what you guys have to think so please leave me a comment and if you've enjoyed this video please remember to like it share it with your friends and it's always subscribe to the art of photography for more videos and I will see you in the next one lateryesterday I did a video talking about the importance of creating meaningful work and I want to talk a little bit more about that and the reason I'm doing these videos is I want to hopefully provide some inspiration and some enthusiasm to create things and we live in a world that does seem very oversaturated with plenty of photographers plenty of images and a lot of noise to cut through and it's also a very passed fast paced environment too with social media and kind of the cycle of everything and one of the things that I think is important too is to understand what it means to create meaningful works and I want to talk about what that is and I want to talk about the time and care that it takes to do those things because I think that is really important and it's something that I think our culture doesn't have much patience for but it's important to understand and it's important to embrace and when I'm talking about meaningful works I'm obviously saying you know meaningful works could be something that means something to you you know that's why most of us get into photography or creating anything for that matter there's a personal enthusiasm excitement expectation maybe a set a personal bar and you're trying to get better and reach that and that's fine but I'm really talking about meaningful works on a much larger scale in the context of culture in the context of you know if you're able to create something you have the power to make something that can make somebody think it can create awareness for something it can just create positivity and make somebody feel better about something and there's an enormous power that we have in creating something and that talent takes a lot of time to build up and I think that we live in a culture especially if you look at something like the music business where it tends to celebrate young prodigies and old legends so you either need to be Justin Bieber or you need to be Miles Davis there's really not much in between and one of the things that I really like about photography is is less so in that regard in fact I think it's quite the norm to understand that most people especially in the fine art world and I think the commercial art world or sorry the commercial world as well tend to come into their own in their careers when they're in their 40s 50s and 60s that's not unusual and that's usually when you start to see the best work happen and so I think it's important to realize there is no rush I think it's also important to understand and that even like very iconic works throughout the history of art they're always a culmination so for instance if you take you know the Mona Lisa for instance well da Vinci didn't just decide to do a painting one day that was going to become famous and he did it and that was it that painting was the culmination of years of studying and learning how to draw on hand skills learning how to paint and trial and error and all these things that came before that to lead up to that one piece and you can say that for any work about a month ago or about two months ago I was in New York and I had the wonderful privilege of getting to meet Ralph Gibson whose wonderful photographer certainly somebody I look up to my friend Thierry hooked me up into that and we went over there we were talking to Ralph and Ralph speaks very eloquently like this and it is something that he thinks about it's the relationship of your work from one image to another it's it's coming up with a visual language and I think the term Ralph used was visual algorithm that speaks across image to image a year after year and you end up culminating this body of work that you have during your career the culture tends to pick out iconic works and things and you really that's beyond your control I mean if you look at rough Robert Frank and the Americans for instance and interesting ly enough rough Gibson used to work for Robert Frank you syste on some of the movies and he's known for that work of art but that work of art when you see what made that meaningful the Americans that was a project that was a culmination it was informed it had intelligence behind it it had something to say it was of its time it was of the zeitgeist of the 1950s and America at that time and it worked and it was a complete home run and he's really defined by that body of work because it really was that meaningful I think on a number of levels and so I think it's important to understand that you know this doesn't happen overnight things take time there is a wonderful film that I want to recommend to you there's nothing to do with photography but about craft and it's a film that was done in 2012 called zero Dreams of Sushi you may have seen it it is a documentary about a sushi chef in Japan who is world renowned he has a restaurant that only seats a handful of people and in his books I think it's like two years in advance it's very expensive you have to book it years out and then you go and you eat and it's this whole production that go and it is the finest sushi supposedly that is served anywhere in the world and what's interesting about the documentary is they really get behind the passion and I love it when food gets poetic like that but the passion behind that craft and what it takes to actually go to the market handpick the fish some of the younger assistants that come on board for the first 10 years of their career all they do is cook rice that's it and you know when you hear something like that it's it's it's very Eastern in its approach and I find it fascinating because the whole point is that you spend a long time or learning a craft that is going to be meaningful and makes sense and the ideas that you transcend once you have put in the hours and the time spent to get that right but I will recommend I'll put that video in the show description and I recommend that you guys check it out used to be on Netflix I don't know if it still is but watch it it is excellent but I think that's important to understand and I think it's something that is not obvious or prevalent in our culture and society right now is I think we're very hurried I think things are impatient I think it's a subject for another video but if you look at the cycle of social media and where we are headed with photography outlets that we can put our work I mean it's a quick cycle it's a fast turnaround and things get really difficult I think when you start looking at it in that scheme of things and of course the photography extends beyond social media but my point is is that you know we are in an age where the cycle is much faster but you still need to be patient you need to learn the craft I mean to put in the hours that it takes and you need to understand that that is I mean that's a gift the ability to make things seriously think about that for a second whether you make movies whether you make art whether you draw whether you paint whether you take photographs whether you make sculpture whether you dance whether you write whatever it is the act of creating it represents the ultimate human freedom I mean it represents the freedom of thought there's an enormous gift that comes with that and you should be excited about it and you should try to take that to the next level and you should realize the power of what that can do anyway these are just my thoughts I want to know what you guys have to think so please leave me a comment and if you've enjoyed this video please remember to like it share it with your friends and it's always subscribe to the art of photography for more videos and I will see you in the next one later\n"