Re: [Leica] Photographers IQ test

[john <bosjohn@mediaone.net>]

Birkey, Duane wrote:
> 
> My father always taught me:
> 
> It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove
> all doubt.
> 
> Having said that,  I've done photography work with doctors, dentists,
> engineers and during my photo retailing days, I was the account manager for
> Argonne National laboratory.  Many of these people with multiple PHD's would
> undoubtedly score higher on some IQ tests than I...
> 
> But all of them asked me technical and artistic questions about photography
> that they didn't know... and some of their questions I thought were
> incredibly stupid.  In many ways IQ is relative..... Lawyers have the
> highest IQ????  Eat your hat.  They are just better at either manipulating
> the legal truth, finding loopholes or catching the manipulation of the truth
> by the opposing legal counsel....  remember that most politicians are
> Lawyers....... No offense intended to lawyers on this list.  Several of my
> best freinds in the states are lawyers ....
> 
> But hang around people at places like Fermi Lab or Argonne National
> Laboratory etc...  for a while if you want to see people with a high IQ..
> 
> I can't speak for other photographers, but I try to learn something each
> time I photograph and I've observed thousands of different situations ....
> Having shots hundred of weird cases in our hospital, photographed countless
> surgeries and x-rays, I can identify lots of different medical cases,
> bacteria cultures and tell you about medical procedures and expirimental
> treatments, but I'm not a doctor.  I've learned all sorts of stuff about
> sub-atomic particals,  using geo-textiles for unstable road construction,
> high powered short-wave radio transmitter and antenna construction and
> design and hydro-electric turbine generators, but I'm not an engineer.  I
> can tell you about tribal peoples languages, history and traditions, but I'm
> not an anthropologist nor archaeologist.  I can identify all sorts of birds
> and snakes and tell you behavioral aspects of them, but I'm not an
> ornithologist or herpetologist.  I've learned all sorts of things about
> volcanos, but I'm not a volcanologist.  I could tell you characteristics of
> historical Andean religous art, but I'm not a art historian...  I hope you
> get the point.
> 
> I've experienced enough as a photographer that I think I can hold an
> intelligent conversation with just about anyone and ask intelligent
> questions.  I don't know any other person who has experinced the broad
> variety that I have.  But there are other photographers on this list who
> have probably experienced as much and probably more...  But there are other
> photographers who only shoot weddings and portraits...... Just as there are
> lawyers, dentists and doctors who can't figure out on their own how to open
> the camera back or press the rewind button.
> 
> Duane
> 
> Duane's Photographs of Ecuador
> http://duane_birkey.tripod.com
Why do wedding photographers and portrait photographers seem to be on the
bottom of the photographic hierarchy?  Are we confusing what a professional
photographer really is.  With all due respect to the many gifted artists on
this list, not all, nor even the majority of professional photographers are
artists. They are technicians delivering what their customers demand, day in
and day our, supporting families and mortgages with their craft.  These people
 are no less profession photographers than the Pulitzer prize winning news
photographers or the glamor fashion photographers. 
Even these new under-educated photographers who are managing to make a living
with their wits and cameras are pros.  If they are under-educated are we not
mis-placing the blame and should we not be addressing these complaints to the
schools of photography that are graduating these ill prepared students?  Why
do I get a sense of a generational thing going on here. Sorry Duane for rambling.
John Shick