Woulda v Coulda

I don’t know how many times I’ve shown a piece of work only to hear someone say “I coulda done that”

Now with today’s technology, that may be true, in some instances BUT the real question is “Would you have done it that way?” Would you have chosen that angle? Would you have lit the subject the same way? A photograph tells a story. How would you have told that story?

There is a lot of commercial photography that relies on the input of an Art Director. They will give the photographer and idea of what needs to be expressed and may even point out certain details that must be adhered to. The photographer often has to do everything in their ability to make that vision a reality. In many cases, the photographer has to come up with their own completely unique vision of the story (think improv)

The real question comes down to, would you have come up with the idea and then could you have implemented the idea into reality?

I remember years ago, a friend of mine was dating a girl who one day, while listening to the radio a Whitney Houston song came on and she made the statement “I can sing as good as her” to which I replied, Then why don’t you? Whitney is making millions of dollars, tours the world, lives a life few can dream of (this was pre-crack cocaine, Bobby Brown days). She had no reply.

If you coulda done that, they why don’t you? The world needs more creative folks. Come on in, the waters fine, the more the merrier. I hope I’m not coming off sounding like a jerk. I’m not defending my work, I don’t have to say I “Coulda” ya see, I already did the work.

There’s a joke, “How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 10, one to change it, and nine to stand around and say, I would have done it differently”

Those who really “Could” have done that, instead would say,” I would have done it differently”

I’ve recently listened to two podcasts that help with this notion

Lenswork: Those Pesky Molecules

Jeff Curto’s Camera Position 102: Creative Process in Stages

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 at 8:37 am. It is filed under Business, Photographers and tagged with art, artist, artistic, create, creative, photographer, photography, process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.