Is a great photographer born with it???

[removed account4]

children don't know right from wrong until someone tells them. ...

who knows if greats are born with it.
maybe they are great because they don't care if they make mistakes, are inventive, and move-on ...

 

[keithwms]

It is clear that each of the musical composers cited here contributed to the lexicon and that those contributions were carried forward by others. But there would still be strong motivation to progress, absent any one artist's contribution.

On this subject of trailblazers clearing paths for other artists, well, we wouldn't even know about the St. Matthew Passion without Mendelssohn, nor would we know Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition without Ravel, etc. etc. In music, there is a long tradition of consulting the compost pile and using that material to germinate new seeds. It's an organic process, there is no 100% new, but there is a lot of compost in the cycle! So too photography.

 

[Rudeofus]

Since I once again I read about some folks fear of ending up as a Salieri instead of a Mozart: Being a Salieri is not nearly as bad as it sounds. Sure, Mozart got all the fame and glory, but let's not forget that Salieri also made a decent living (unlike Mozart who died in poverty), and he outlived Mozart by decades despite being six years older.

If we transform our ambitions into more effort and better pictures, I'm all for it. But let's not rant ourselves into a depression just because we haven't become the Beethovens of photography by now. BTW: Beethoven wasn't all that happy in his life either ...

 

[Paul Jenkin]

I suspect that some people are born with a better artistic "eye" than others and others who are able to make the very best of their abilities via their "craft".