The advice I would give to any photographer - young, old or in-between - is to explore anything visual because this is, after all, how you express your artistry. Look at paintings, movies, drawings, sculptures - look at anything visual and try to integrate that into your visual sense. After that, go out and take pictures and keep on taking pictures!
Interpretation
Explore various forms of visual art to enhance your photography skills.
Elliott Erwitt emphasizes the importance of broadening one's artistic perspective by engaging with various visual mediums. He suggests that by studying and integrating the richness of different artistic expressions, photographers can deepen their understanding and mastery of their own art form, ultimately leading to more impactful photographic work.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a photography workshop to inspire participants to explore art.
Making pictures is a very simple act. There is no great secret in photography...schools are a bunch of crap. You just need practice and application of what you've learned. My absolute conviction is that if you are working reasonably well the only important thing is to keep shooting...it doesn't matter whether you are making money or not. Keep working, because as you go through the process of working things begin to happen.
Photography is an art of observation - it's about creating something extraordinary out of the ordinary. You choose a frame and then wait until the right time for something magical to come along and fill it.
I'm almost violent about that stuff - electronic manipulation of pictures. I think it's an abomination. I reject it all. I mean, it's OK for selling corn flakes or automobiles or for taking pimples out of Elizabeth Taylor's face, but it undermines the thing that photography is about, which is about observation and not about manipulation of images.
Now very often events are set up for photographers... The weddings are orchestrated about the photographers taking the picture, because if it hasn't been photographed it doesn't really exist.
There's no great mystique to photography. A lot of photographers like to put their hands up to their forehead and tell you how they've suffered and so forth. Well, I just rent a car and drive to the place and take the pictures.
The main thing is to study pictures and stop listening to the pontifictaions of photographers. Photographers aren't oracles of wisdom. If they're good photographers, then take a good look at their pictures - what else do you need?
Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing.
I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.
You do the best job you can. You take it step by step. It's hard enough to make a movie. If it works, that's great. If it means something beyond the moment to somebody, they can take it and it lasts through the years, we'll see.
Film is this incredible medium that allows us to feel empathy for people that are very different than us and worlds completely foreign from our own.
In New York, a 13-year-old Indian girl came up to me crying, saying to everyone nearby, 'This is where I come from.' It's easy to forget that actors have the ability to instill a sense of self in viewers. That's the greatest compliment.
It became like a symbolic thing, to be “an artist.” After Duchamp, I realized that being an artist is more about a lifestyle and attitude than producing some product.
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