Typically I see it with photographers who go to a place like India or Nepal, and everything's so colorful and exotic and they think, therefore, a picture's been taken.

Sam Abell

Categorized in : Thinking Taken India

I was a consultant for Kodak back in the late 80's. There were engineers there who told me that in the future, most photographs would be taken on telephones. They weren't able to do anything with that. They were engineers, not management.

able taken would-be

It's more difficult now, to be a Geographic photographer, than it was when I came along. And it wasn't easy at that time.

difficult photographer easy

That's who comes to my workshops. I jokingly tell my students that the class could be called "Your photographs: Better."

photograph students class

Increasingly, it's people not interested in National Geographic. by Sam Abell

Increasingly, it's people not interested in National Geographic.

national-geographic not-interested people

I did a story for the Geographic on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and Stephen Ambrose was the writer. He said, "I've got the easiest job in the world. I just have to re-tell the story of the greatest fishing, camping, hunting, canoeing trip of all time. You, Sam, have the hardest job, which is, pretend like nothing has happened in the last 200 years.

hardest-job hunting jobs

In the last workshop I taught, a woman flew in from Thailand. She's a medical doctor in Bangkok. I asked her in her one-on-one session where she wanted photography to be in her life.Did she want a second career? Was it about earning money? Or was it art? And she said "None of those. I want photography to be serious in my life." It would be like someone wanting music, like piano playing, to be a richer, deeper, and maybe even harder experience.

doctors photography art