To me ... what comes out of the camera is only the starting point (raw) ... akin to the negative that remains to be decided how to be prepared for the world (or myself) to see.
We have our "canned" profiles from the OEM, but just like using "mixing & matching" films & papers to achieve the "look" we like ... you can go straight down the middle for "standard" or you can go your own road. Part (I said "part", not all) of the the thing that gave AA (et al) their look was their experimentation and development of such.
It was quite interesting to see AA's print of a negative in his early years compared with a print from the same negative many years later. The refinement of his "look" was clearly an evolutionary process of exploration. If you've ever seen his notes or his workups ... it is radically different from today's "insta-pic" society. You could see from his notes that he was distinctly thinking through the multitude of aspects that he wanted to convey in his print ... and the approach he was planning for achieving it through a multi-step, individualized approach to the image, with some images requiring hundreds of attempts before he got what he wanted.
Most people today don't have the patience and tenacity to work up a print like AA did. But another point is that most people today don't have the patience and tenacity to even VIEW a print with a degree of study & appreciation for all it is. Just as much as our society is largely "insta-pic" oriented regarding taking/making images ... they are just as quick to go "Ooooh-aaaaah ... next please."
Not quite sure which is the cart and which is the horse or the chicken or egg here, but for those who aspire to growth ... don't be dismayed because it doesn't happen with the click of a button here and the click of a button there. OEM, software mfr's and tutorial guru's would have the masses believe it is that easy & quick ... nothing new under the sun here, just a reminder that craftsmanship is not a "quick" man's game, but it is a very worthy one that has its perpetuity in successive degrees of refinement.
I am a believer in the 10,000 hour rule. That seems to be the length of effort needed to be able to perform to your potential. It seems to fit music performance and sports and I would guess also photography. I am quite a few hours short of the 10,000.
Ha ha Jim, I am way over 10,000 hours, but I am a slow learner.
Good philosophy though and I just wrote today that I can almost always improve an image I processed last year. I have some images I have processed at least 50 times. But I always try to use simple steps. Its the small things that make large differences and the difficulty of deciding which is best.
But in the end, at least in my case, its the visual judgment that is my sticking point.
Someone recently PM'd me and told me I had no idea what I was doing and was struggling too much with processing. At least you seem to work hard at it also even tho you stick with a minimalistic workflow.
