Humans don’t just want stories. Humans NEED stories.
My favorite photographer, by far, is David Duchemin. He is a humanitarian photographer and I got to know about him after I have found his books website 3 years ago, Craft&Vision, from where I bought almost the entire collection. The reason I like him is because he is a humble and fantastic photographer who managed to stay uncorrupted in a photographic world driven by equipment lust. Even more, he is promoting exactly the opposite which is “Buy books not gear“. Although I spent enough on gear, the reason I did not spent more is him and all the books that they sell on his website.
One of the books that I acquired recently it is called “A Lesser Photographer” and it is an extremely powerful manifest towards doing photography for the right reasons and in the right way. Even more, most of the principles in the book apply to all kinds of modern art, like game development for example. To prove that I suggested to Laura to read the book and, well, she was, same like me, very impressed. The books just states some very obvious artistic principles that you somehow knew them but never thought about them in order to really understand what they mean.
The longevity of a photograph is inversely proportional with the longevity of the subject.
Its only weakness is that in order to properly understand the book, in my opinion, you have to first experience all the “Don’ts”. You need to buy gear, to post photos randomly, to do all these things that the industry is making you do though all the crappy websites and other media.
The thing that was the most important for me to understand and realize is that photography as an art it is not about images, it is about stories. Everyone can take a photo but very few can tell a proper story. And image without a story is just a recording, which is fine if that is what you follow.
Technique and gear seem insignificant if you have a message.