Peter wrote:
"Colin.D" wrote in message
...


Peter wrote:

Last weekend I went to the beach with a friend, who is an excellent
photo artist. We simultaneously saw the same shot. His was far
superior to mine, simply because he shot from a slightly different
angle. In my excitement, I never realized the alignment of a sunbeam
reflection with some seaweed, until it was too late. Had he
explained the alignment before he shot, the picture would have
really been his, not mine. Yet it was a good learning experience for
me.

What you have described is a prime example of education in operation.
Next time you take a photograph that experience will impact to some
extent on how you see the next subject.

Your interpretation of the image as being your friend's if you took
his advice is not so; he is educating your sense of composition. If
it were the case, then few of us would 'own' our images as we would
have to attribute them to all of our educators and mentors, right back
to primary school.


I do not really disagree. I think there is a very fine line between
inspirational education and outright copying.

If my instructor set up the shot and all do is press the shutter,
morally it is not my shot.

Compare with, I visualize a shot and my instructor shows me how to
technically accomplish my vision.

That is just my opinion. Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive, but if I am
presenting an image as an example of my creativity, it ought to be my
creativity, not someone else's. The way I see it, that is the difference
between an artist and a hack.

Even creative people had to learn somewhere; only a total genius could
accomplish a work without any prior input from some kind of teacher, or
at least a study of others' work. Some have an 'artistic mind', others
like me have a technical bent and are short on artistry, a problem I
have wrestled with all my photographic life.

Colin D.