Professor Elam

Friday Jan 25 2013

Robin Wong suggests the key to success is persistence.

The honest truth is, there is no shortcut. You cannot bypass the steps of going through all the failures, or shooting all the ordinary photographs, until you finally be able to achieve something beyond the normal photographs. I still find most of my photographs looking rather similar to what anyone else can find on the web when you just google street photography. I think it is the ultimate desire for any photographer to be known for his distinctive style in whatever he shoots, and it surely takes a lot of time for that to develop. No matter how many workshops you attend, no matter how much books you have read, you will not go much further, unless you put in more time shooting and actually making photographs happen. I know, because I have shot so much crap, and you can still find my digital junk photos all published here (proudly) over the course of many years in my archives. Some photographers would cringe when they think of their earlier work, but I do not care. I admitted I was not that great as a photographer, there still is a lot to learn and explore, and my progress throughout the years was well documented. Only through all those crap shots, failures after failures I began to evolve and grow. Into what? Well I am not too sure myself, lets hope we all have the chance to find out.

One of my Dad's favorite movies was Spencer Tracy portraying Thomas Edison.

After trying 500 different things for an element to a light bulb, his assistant said

We have tried 500 things and we know no more than when we started

Edison replies

No we know 500 things that will not work…..