Finding, or creating excellent photographic images is a lifelong process of learning. Of effort, trial and error and a willingness to change. Some find what works for them & then proceed to hone & refine the process until all their energy & time is focused on creating. Others jump from the current fad to the next one, never stopping long enough to learn anything. Still others lie somewhere in the middle.

No matter what you do, much of it has been done before. Thought of before. Dreamed of before. With the real prospect of photography being that it is time consuming, frustrating and exhilarating all at the same time how do you know what works for you?

You don't, until you learn just what that is. And, to the frustration of some, it is not a static thing. It changes just as you change. The technique refines itself in the hands of a careful worker. The vision matures and what you accepted as excellent years ago may now be barely acceptable. Quality is always the watchword and goal. Too many fads come and go, leaving behind crap that was 'cutting edge' at the time but on looking back was merely hype and poor work accompanied by publicity.

So, how do you find what works for you and have it stand the test of time?

I think that first and foremost, you have to actively work at the craft of photography. If you don't, you can have the greatest vision ever but your prints can't show it. And, when talking about the craft, it is not the same thing for everyone. The final prints look great, but the path to them is often a long, tortured journey. A path that can easily scare one away if you really believe there is only one way to get excellent prints.

A few quotes from Gene Smith:

"The kind of negative I get is full of guts in the shadows, so that I can always print them down if I want. I'm of that old school which exposes for the shadows."

"As long as a negative is printable, it's all right with me. The impossible light conditions I've worked under have made me struggle. Sometimes I mumble to myself, but then I say, "Oh hell, I'll just print it"... Bit if it's a photograph I've really had to fight for and the content is there, I'll print it somehow. This is something only I can control in the darkroom."

"There's nothing in photography I hate worse than the discipline of the darkroom, and yet I have spent all these years printing. The reason is very simple. I want the damn pictures to say what I want them to say.... making my own print is the only way to fulfill what I saw when I made the photograph."

"I evolved a style that I happen to like for my own work"

"The atmosphere of the darkroom is important. It has to be very open... and it must have music. I don't think I could ever stay in the darkroom without it."

"As I said before, I absolutely despise printing. I look at the negative, and I look at the print. I come face to face with all the mistakes I made. In the darkroom it is my problem to overcome the mistake. I know the print I want, and I know I'll probably get it, but it's sheer drudgery. My formula for successful printing remains ordinary chemicals, an ordinary enlarger, music, a bottle of Scotch, and stubbornness."

Some quotes from George Tice:

" I think photography is perfected enough so that most things can be printed straight, except for a little edge burning. I never do any dodging because I never underexpose my film. There are no thin shadows to hold back. My procedures are simple. I use one developer for all formats of film, D-76, and one developer for all prints (except platinum), Dektol."

I've been photographing for twenty-two years. During much of this time my printing was haphazard. I think that in making a print, the procedure itself isn't so difficult, but the critical decisions are."

Some from Jerry Eulsmann:

"In the photo magazines the emphasis is on the camera end of the process. Many photographers have five or six cameras. They usually have only one enlarger, frequently a Tinker Toy B22 with palsy in the brace system. I have many enlargers that aid in the multiple printing process, but I have only one camera, with a couple of lenses."

"When I get ready to print, I sit down with a stack of proof sheets. I look at these proof sheets and try to find clues to things that might work together. Sometimes (and this is a mental state) I'll sit down and a half an hour I can make more little notes of things I want to try than I could possibly do in a week. Other times I'll sit down & look at the proof sheets and think, "What the hell am I doing in photography?"

"The developer I use is LPD by Ethol and I think it's really fine. It's supposed to have a longer tray life and low fog level. But I hesitate to make a big thing out of it because when I go around the country doing demonstrations I use whatever is available and I get the same kind of print."

Some from Duane Michals:

" I am concerned with photography and since printing is fundamental to photography, it must be considered, but only as a craft. Printing is to photography what grammar is to literature."

"In my work, I try to use the simplest means to achieve the effect I'm after. I use one kind of film, Tri-X, and rate it normally. My taste in light is very specific. I'm like a moth. When I enter a room, I go toward the window."

"Most people are not aware of light as a thing in itself."

"The more you work and the more you make mistakes, the more you can learn."

Some from Ralph Gibson:

"I overexpose and overdevelop and, in the process, pick up grain and contrast. this yields a dense negative, but through the years I have found that I prefer them this way."

"There has to be a reason why darkroom work is so important. It is easier to go around making photographs than it is to print and understand them. Quite often because of the speed of the shutter, the speed of the film, etc., I will have momentary peaks of awareness. Sometimes it is difficult to raise my perceptions to where they were in that fraction of a second. Darkroom work forces me to do so."

"Different goals and different personalities require unique and personal methods of work. And everything is always changing/"

Some from Wynn Bullock:

"I could think of the negative-making process as one in which I would make a technically perfect negative. But the technically perfect negative doesn't always give me what I want."

"Being able to repeat a good print is the kind of technical expertise learned only by attention to processing details and constant "eye" training. I rate the development of a fine technique as 25 percent book and instruction and 75 percent "eye" training."

Now one from Paula Chamlee:

"It's not what it is, it's how it looks."

All the photographers quoted are masters of the art. I could fill pages with quotes from hundreds of others, all with valid viewpoints and opinions, and all with excellent images that stir the soul. Some of them are ever searching for the small things that keep them improving, even as many think they have a complete grasp of technique & have no more to learn. All show the truth of the old adage, "When you're through learning, you're through."

As long as you photograph, you will be involved in the search for what works for you. If you are searching for a way to become 'another Ansel', I feel sorry for you. To be 'another anyone' is to fall short in so many ways. Be a student of Ansel or whomever. Take their inspiration and use it to help you achieve your finest images, not copy theirs. What works or worked for them may not work for you. So many of us have been inspired by the images of others yet end up photographing so differently from those who inspire us. We take the inspiration and somehow incorporate it into our own work. We don't sit around and re-hash what someone else has done but try to learn, to make some of what inspires us our own.

High quality should be a given. The finest prints possible should be the norm. After that, whatever it takes to keep you photgraphing, to keep your interest up, is a valid approach. Whether trying little things and changing here & there, or taking a working method, perfecting it and moving on to visual perfection, if it works for you, then do it.

There is a lot to be learned from the excellent photographers of the past as well as the greats working today. Great images come from every type of photographer we can imagine. Simple gear to the finest & latest electronic wonderflexes. If you think it works for you, it probably does.

And what works for you, as experience has shown so many, will probably be an evolving process. The 'one true way' has many paths.