This idea that some people are so talented and that's why they make great photos is bogus. Sure talent plays a certain role but the biggest part is when a photographer has comeplete devotion to his craft. He works and works and works for years and then the photos start coming and to others it might seem that he makes the images because of his talent but the reality is he makes the images because he works harder than the next joe. The guy creating the good work makes sacrifices, he puts photography ahead of everything else in his life and he keeps at it year in year out.
I read a story tonight in the book by the photographer Anni Liebovitz "Annie Leivovitz at work" I had read the story before years ago and it was in inspiration to me like it is to Annie Leivovitz, I thought I would share it here.
Page 195 (Annie is telling a story that the photographer Dorothea Lange told her)
After spending a month on the road in southern California she (Dororthea Langue) was finally heading home. It was raining and she was exhasusted and she had a long drive ahead of her. She had been working up to fourteen hours a day for weeks and was bringing back hundreds of pictures of destitute farm workers. Somewhere south of San Luis Obispo she saw out of the corner of her eye a sign that said PEA-PICKERS CAMP. She tried to put it out of her mind. She had plenty of pictures of migrant farmers already. She was worried about her equipment, and thought about what might happen to her camera in the rain. She dorve for about twenty miles past the sign and made a U-turn. She went back to the sign and turned down a muddy road. A woman was sitting with her children on the edge of a huge camp of makeshift tents. There were maybe three thousand migrant workers living there. Lange took out her Graflex and shot six frames, one of them of the woman staring distractedly off to the side while her children buried their faces in her shoulders.
The image of the woman and her children became the most important photograph of Dorothea Lange's life and the iconic picture of the Depression.
