Once again, I flip through The Education of a Photographer, by Charles Traub et al, and read Alexey Brodovitch’s refreshing ideas about photography. Amongst them:
- What is good today is a cliché tomorrow.
- The photographer’s job is to fight boredom.
- … by surprising.
- Photos should stimulate thinking and be interesting/intriguing.
- Avoid clichés.
- Like established photographers, don’t fall into the trap of “found approval” (sticking with the style you became known for, and not developing).
- Develop constantly. Constantly develop a new vocabulary.
- Make progress, don’t get stuck.
- Any photographic technique is allowed as long as it helps you. Not cropping may have been fine for Cartier-Bresson, but don’t let that stop you from nicely cropping your photos yourself.
- Instead, crop your photos in different ways as an exercise in improving your images.
- It is the end result that matters, not how you got there.
- There are two levels of viewing: at the time of taking the picture, and later while editing the images.
- Always experiment.