In my very humble opinion, the \'how question\' is at the heart of one of the biggest problems I see in the wedding photography \'industry\'. Photographers simply do not know where they are going with their photography.
Many start with the motivation of money (makes sense, right?). But this often leads photographers on a chase because if they dont start making \'cool\' images then they cant pay their rent. \"Let me see what photographer X is doing because they are obviously making a bunch of money!\" the struggling photographer says. What comes next is the \'how question\'. Perhaps the how question stems from something much more simple like \'man, that photographer has 75,000 facebook followers and his images get 1000 likes...if I can get 1000 likes, I can be successful!\'
With forums like this it makes it very easy for someone to post a \'how question\'. We have a community here. We share. We even have friendships.
There is nothing wrong with a \'how question\', but the problem becomes when that\'s the end of the questioning from the asking photographer because it results in a bunch of hacks running around perpetrating originality.
People dont ask the \'why\' because they have no clue where they are going with their photography. Let\'s be honest here, original thinkers are the vast minority in the industry.
Why dont people ask why? Because its harder and some are probably incapable of doing so on their own.
As a poster on this forum, I dont mind answering the \'how questions\' for a few reasons. One, this is a community. I\'ve been helped countless times by countless people over the years. Two, the \'how\' is the easy part. \'How\' is a lower order thinking question that leads to understanding. The manner in which that person applies, analyzes, and creates with this new found information is on them. Three, I have no problem telling people the \'how\' to my photography because there isnt much \'how\' to it! I think my photography already has a lot of \'why\' in it (or at least I hope it does)....thats why its mine.
May 11, 2013 at 08:05 AM
Previous versions of canerino's message #11545142 « Asking WHY, not HOW »
