> "That some of our abilities are inherent. They just have to be set free."
Heavily disagreed. I'm a street photographer myself (self-trained), and Maier's work has been inspiring both from an artistic and motivational perspective.
These abilities aren't "inherent". They take years and years of practice to hone, and a constant criticism of your own work (from yourself or otherwise).
I don't think any photographer ever picked up a camera, figured out how to work it, and then just started taking good work. Bear in mind also that I don't know a single street photographer who's able to shoot anything close to >5% keepers, much less show-ers.
When you view art like this, keep in mind that not only is it a highly selected slice of the artist's entire body of work, but also you are looking at what is most likely their top work at the prime of their abilities. What you don't see are the years of producing forgettable, boring, and downright bad work to get there.
That reminds me of something I dislike about street photography - there are the Greats - people like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Garry Winogrand, etc. that are positively worshipped in the street photography community.
To the point where anything that they ever produced is automatic gold. People don't seem to account for the fact that, like all other artists, 99% of what these people produced is somewhere between utter crap and not great.
But nope. If it was shot by HCB, it's automatically a divine work gifted to us by the Gods of Photography themselves. Ugh.
There is a difference between the already vetted produce of someone like HCB and the raw produce we are dealing with here. Of course he produced crap, but that crap has never seen the light of day. I doubt anyone wandering upon a pile of thousands of his photographs would consider them automatic gold.
Heavily disagreed. I'm a street photographer myself (self-trained), and Maier's work has been inspiring both from an artistic and motivational perspective.
These abilities aren't "inherent". They take years and years of practice to hone, and a constant criticism of your own work (from yourself or otherwise).
I don't think any photographer ever picked up a camera, figured out how to work it, and then just started taking good work. Bear in mind also that I don't know a single street photographer who's able to shoot anything close to >5% keepers, much less show-ers.
When you view art like this, keep in mind that not only is it a highly selected slice of the artist's entire body of work, but also you are looking at what is most likely their top work at the prime of their abilities. What you don't see are the years of producing forgettable, boring, and downright bad work to get there.