Look At it This Way

I used to commission a lot of photography.

Consequently, people were keen to show me their work.

99 per cent of the portfolios I saw were of a very high standard.

But 98 per cent of them contained pictures I had seen before.

Obviously not the same subject or composition, but I had the general impression that I was not seeing anything new.

They didn't have a point of view. If the did, it was that the viewer of their pictures (me) should like their work.

Very occasionally, I saw work of someone who did have a point of view, whose work was like no one else's.

These were often difficult people, almost uneymployable because you couldn't tell them what to do.

Sometimes it went wrong.

Sometimes it didn't.

When it didn't go wrong, it more than made up for the times it did.

From Whatever you think think the opposite by Paul Arden.