From the course: Narrative Portraiture: Portraits of Two Texas Artists

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Wise rather than clever

Wise rather than clever

From the course: Narrative Portraiture: Portraits of Two Texas Artists

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Wise rather than clever

I have another photographic assignment for you, and with this one I think the title says it all, the title is Wise Rather than Clever. You may remember one of the previous movies when I was talking about Keith's darkroom and I was showing those different phrases that he has written in his darkroom. One of those phrases was "Create pictures that are wise rather than clever." What does that exactly mean? Well, sometimes I think intelligence is something that we gain quickly. It happens fast. Wisdom, well, that's something that we can only gain through experience and through the passage of time. You know so often in contemporary and modern photography, we try to create those frames which are clever. We take someone down to the beach and the beach is kind of gloomy. We have them holding a red or bright yellow umbrella, and then we compose a frame so they are on the rule of thirds, and we have this clever picture. But it doesn't really say very much. It's not very deep. Those photographs…

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