Medium vs Message: Don't blame the camera

[uskanb2n@ibmmail.com]

  Paul Schliesser wrote:
  >...You don't
  >necessarily need formal training, but you need some form of training
  >even if it's teaching yourself through trial and error, or through
  >reading and by studying other people's work. Why be content to squat
  >in the dirt when there are giants whose shoulders we can stand on?

  You know, this is an area where my wife and I have had a long running
dispute. She is a daughter of a physicist & an artist was then trained
as a graphic artist: Her education was almost entirely in the hands of
actual practitioners of their arts or science. She believes that you
can't learn something unless it is directly from a practitioner.
  On the other hand, probably the last thing I was taught by a
practitioner was reading. Pretty much right through the University, my
teachers were just that: Only occasionally did their classes & subjects
of research coincide. Programming was taught by an engineer, Logic by a
computability theorist, Operating systems by a artificial intelligence
researcher. &c., &c. ad nauseam. What I have learned has almost entirely
been through books followed by going out and trying it.
  Photography has been the same way, I have read about it and gone forth
and done it. God knows if I could get some of my early prints back from
my parents I would burn them because they are so incredibly bad, maybe
not too bad for being in fifth grade, but nonetheless, awful grey over
exposed/ under developed monstrosities.
  Now I am at a stage where I really like the prints I have been
producing, but wish I were more efficient: It often takes me four hours
or more and a dozen sheets of paper to arrive at a single print I am
happy with.
  Likewise, I wonder if (or how much) I would benefit from working with
someone with similar interests & tastes versus continuing solo,
developing on my own. (pardon the pun)

  BTW: Does it seem to anyone else that the recommended development
times for Ilford & Kodak (B&W) papers is too short: they don't seem to
reach (visual) maximum black without much more development...

                                         - John Lowther