These type discussions will never resolve. Conscience regarding what is essentially an "informed intuitive process" resists such rationalizations and categorizations. Every opinion has a counter opinion selectively supported by some past example of some successful photographer … so all we have are opinions.
How to make photos from a more accessible technical POV has made it all more available to more people than ever before in visual history. So, the notion that it was the same in the film era belies that fact … it is like saying all Tsunamis are equal in their destructiveness. Even that sort of thinking lacks discrimination.
IMO, the notion that one can better learn photography by merely shooting a lot assumes that a level of discrimination already exists to make directional choices afterwards, and that anyone can be successful given that they shoot enough.
Likewise, the thought that all photography is valid, that none is better that the other, reminds me of the trend to provide trophies to every participant of sporting events just for showing up. There is a famous story in advertising where the agency creatives told the client they had ten ideas to share, and the client famously quipped "I'd rather see one good one".
Winograt's ultra-prolific remaining unedited work can only be curated with guess work based on looking backwards, not what he may have done going forward … if he even did anything with it. Perhaps his pile was left as the ultimate act of discrimination? We'll never know, he's dead. Many famous painters made decisive decisions to make dramatic creative changes, and in one famous case bought back older work and burned it.
Creativity and talent never seem to get the same level of discussion … and (IMO), creative discrimination has taken a body blow in the process.
Why did someone shoot an image or select it afterwards? What is the intent? What is the purpose? Is it a one hit wonder, or a part of a consistently insightful body of work? It may have been captured in a flurry of intuitive creative response, and recognized later for being above other images made at the same place and time … yet, that again assumes an ever improving sense of discrimination is being developed in parallel with the act of making the images.
My personal proclivity (opinion), is to be in the camp where discrimination is exercised when shooting and again with rigorous editing … but was informed by initial studies of those who's imagery struck a cord with me and why it did, not just shooting indiscriminately and hoping for the best afterwards (which is NOT to say prolific techniques can't result in something rising above something else, just that hightened discrimination then has to be present afterwards).
I like the idea of contextual validity. It makes photography intimately personal, or it can be more universal depending on intent. Just showing up is okay if the audience is limited and only interested in snapshots as a result … where just about any image of a subject suffices. It steps upward when a body of work can be consistently recognized as contributing something to a more universal insight of the ever changing world around us, yet do it with a personal edge to it.
We are never without something new to shoot, the trick is to be tuned to what that may be, and leave the rest to happy snappers.
Even a Tsunami has a crest.
- Marc