JYOTISH DUTTA

"Make at least one definite move daily towards your goal"-- Bruce Lee.

"Look at the things around you, the immediate world around you. If you are alive, it will mean something to you, and if you care enough about photography, and if you know how to use it, you will want to photograph that meaningness. If you let other people's vision get between the world and your own, you will achieve that extremely common and worthless thing, a pictorial photograph." - Paul Strand - "The Art Motive in Photography"

    During a recent trip to the mountains with a group of photography enthusiasts, I realized something funny about the way in which we approach digital photography. It seems more and more importance is given to the 'Rules' of composition over one's instincts or intuition. Needless to say, on coming back, everyone from the trip ended up with similar images, displaying a lack of creativity. This trend isn't surprising as most of the online content on "Taking_better_pictures" swear by the Rules of composition. They tend to create the impression that without the 'Rules' photography doesn't exist. Photography contests and Digital Saloon exhibitions seem to prefer photographs that adhere to the laid out rules of composition, indifferent to the types of photography. Judges check if the photograph fall 'IN' or 'OUT' of the set rules. I have also been to some workshops, both basic and advanced, where the mentors try...

Vivian Maier...street photographer extraordianaire, discovered posthumously, shot more than 150000 photographs which, surprisingly, she never published. It seems that many of her negatives never made it to print.   She kept all her work to herself. An artist, in contrast, today spends a lot of time and effort in promoting himself or herself and his or her art through various mediums of communication. In the present day scenario, with the internet bustling with photographer and photography pages, artists compete for space and an audience. Vivian Maier's story is thought provoking. What might have been her motivation to photograph random people or streets ? Why did she isolate herself? Will I photograph solely for myself, without any audience to derive feedback or inspiration from?