Can good photographic ability be taught, or is it in-born?

On May 19, 2015, PeterN wrote
(in ):

On 5/19/2015 10:14 PM, Savageduck wrote:

Anyway I get my right eye refurbished tomorrow, so the World will have a
‘duck with 20/20 binocular vision to deal with.
Best of luck and I hope you do well.

Thanks!

I am having my right eye done on Friday, but not the lens adjustment. My
opthamologist doesn't think it would work for me.

Well if you don’t have problematic astigmatism you shouldn't need the toric
replacement lens. If my right eye turns out anything like the left eye I am
going to be a happy camper.
--

Regards,
Savageduck

In article , PeterN
wrote:


Today is indeed a strange day. I am in complete agreement with nospam,
as is Tony Cooper. Now I'm starting to worry. Hell is about to freeze
over. Can th forcast be that far off.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=temperature+in+hell+michigan

hell won't freeze over until next winter.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| Even Adobe has dumped Flash from Lightroom and PS.
|

Interesting. I didn't know that. Unfortunately
there are a lot of diehard web designers out there
who put a lot of time into mastering Flash and
used to make big money making Flash sites. Maybe
they still do. I don't know. Either way I think they're
loathe to just dump all that expertise, so they'll
keep making Flash sites until the website owners
realize that half their visitors can't see them.

they've realized that quite a while ago since billions of mobile
devices can't see flash, plus macs no longer include it although the
user can opt to install it if they want.

I have a friend who has Java installed and I
thought it must be a mistake, but it turned out
that he needed it for one website: A Harvard
University event calendar! It's hard to believe
they could be that dumb. It's sort of like learning
that the FBI doesn't have a firewall.

there are the occasional java applets out there although a calendar
sounds like the wrong use.

Flash and Java should have been gone years
ago, but they persist. Even script was being phased
out before the trend toward interactive websites took
hold. Not so long ago a script-dependent site without
a no-script version was considered unprofessional.
But many sites now (webmail is a good example)
are so interactive that they just can't work without
script.

javascript is fine.

On May 19, 2015, nospam wrote
(in ) :

In , PeterN
wrote:


Today is indeed a strange day. I am in complete agreement with nospam,
as is Tony Cooper. Now I'm starting to worry. Hell is about to freeze
over. Can th forcast be that far off.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=temperature+in+hell+michigan

hell won't freeze over until next winter.

Head South of the Equator and you will find a Winter about to arrive.

--

Regards,
Savageduck

In article m,
Savageduck wrote:

Today is indeed a strange day. I am in complete agreement with nospam,
as is Tony Cooper. Now I'm starting to worry. Hell is about to freeze
over. Can th forcast be that far off.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=temperature+in+hell+michigan

hell won't freeze over until next winter.

Head South of the Equator and you will find a Winter about to arrive.

but not in hell. michigan, that is.

On May 19, 2015, nospam wrote
(in ) :

In news.com,
wrote:

Today is indeed a strange day. I am in complete agreement with nospam,
as is Tony Cooper. Now I'm starting to worry. Hell is about to freeze
over. Can th forcast be that far off.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=temperature+in+hell+michigan

hell won't freeze over until next winter.

Head South of the Equator and you will find a Winter about to arrive.

but not in hell. michigan, that is.

Then what on earth is Sedalia, MO, or Avenal, CA?

--

Regards,
Savageduck

In article m,
Savageduck wrote:

Today is indeed a strange day. I am in complete agreement with nospam,
as is Tony Cooper. Now I'm starting to worry. Hell is about to freeze
over. Can th forcast be that far off.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=temperature+in+hell+michigan

hell won't freeze over until next winter.

Head South of the Equator and you will find a Winter about to arrive.

but not in hell. michigan, that is.

Then what on earth is Sedalia, MO, or Avenal, CA?

not hell.

http://www.gotohellmi.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Michigan
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...michigan_n_456
8659.html

On May 19, 2015, nospam wrote
(in ) :

In news.com,
wrote:

Today is indeed a strange day. I am in complete agreement with
nospam,
as is Tony Cooper. Now I'm starting to worry. Hell is about to
freeze
over. Can th forcast be that far off.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=temperature+in+hell+michigan

hell won't freeze over until next winter.

Head South of the Equator and you will find a Winter about to arrive.

but not in hell. michigan, that is.

Then what on earth is Sedalia, MO, or Avenal, CA?

not hell.

http://www.gotohellmi.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Michigan
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...michigan_n_456
8659.html

Oh! Yeah! I forgot. Avenal is the asshole of the World.

--

Regards,
Savageduck

In article , Giff wrote:

Sandman:
Maybe you can give me examples of people that you know of that
have spent an almost identical amount of time practicing a
specific skill yet are not comparable in skill level? Or are you
just in reference to anecdotal references?

What, people I know and you don't? How is that going to help our
discussion?

If they are only people you know, then they're anecdotal and are not reliable
data in this discussion.

Sandman:
Of course, A good starting point is the studies by ‎Anders
Ericsson, specifically "The Making of an Expert" from 2007 or
"Giftedness and evidence for reproducibly superior performance"
from the same year.

That's great, thanks, I'll try and read them, they seem interesting.

You're welcome.

However, with a very quick search on google scholar I found more
recent articles which seem to come to different conclusions:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...60289613000421

As I've said, it's not an exact science, it's not cold hard facts. There are
theories and studies that you can draw conclusions from. I won't be paying $36
to read that study so I can't comment on it, but for every study that leads to
one conclusion, there may be another study that leads to another conclusion.
These conclusions aren't always mutually exclusive of course. Some complement
each other, broadens the view or dive deeper into parts the other study didn't.

I would say science has probably not figured it out yet, but I am no
expert in the field and I would need to read more, thanks for
stimulating my interest, or perhaps I should say my talent?

Haha

I am (obviously) in support of the 10k hour rule of thumb, because I can relate
to it. It resonates very well with how my own skills have evolved and how I
watch other people's skill evolve.

Sandman:
The point is, the reason I'm not a better painter is not because
I'e reached some supposed "talent threshold", it's 100% due to me
not having or not spending enough time to hone the skills I do
have.

Then we could say that one is born with more interest for learning
that particular skill .

Well, there's a catch there to. What interest you and what becomes a passion
for you is alost exclusively dependent on your surroundings when a child. This
is an even wilder field of psychology of course, but it's not reasonable to
assume that any given person would not have their interest hadn't it been for
some form of intriguing exposure to them, preferably during their younger
years.

For example - a lot of really skilled people have been doing what they are
doing since they were young. And the reason why they did it when they were
young is more often than not due to exposure to the craft by their family,
friends, surroundings etc.

The point is, Mozart might not have been an excellent composer had his father
been a soldier or a politician.

Outer stimuli is important, and plays a large part of who you are.

Anyway, I still believe that talent plays a role, but I am open to
the possibility that such predispositions are developed in the
first years of life and we are not "born" with them.



--
Sandman

In article , Andreas Skitsnack wrote:

Andreas Skitsnack:
Just for the record, here I am agreeing with nospam. The
propensity to be good at something - which you might call
"natural talent" is ingrained in people. Constant practice may
improve one's skills in something, but those with natural talent
will need less practice and be able to do whatever it is
intuitively.

Sandman:
While "intuitively" is the wrong word completely, the above is a
pretty normal reasoning from people that may look upon skilled
people and explain it in a way that excludes themselves. "He's
good with numbers", "She's got an eye for portraits", "He's got
the rhythm in him".

The day you teach me how to use an English word is the day I'll
audition for the Royal Swedish Ballet troupe.

That must mean that you've already spent countless hours practicing ballet by
now. Good for you!

You might consider Albert Einstein's thoughts on this:

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to
the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me
than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge.

Slightly misquoted:

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that
the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive
knowledge."

This is from "Janos: The Story of a Doctor" by Janos Plesch, translated by Edward
Fizgerald, cited as a conversation between Janos and Einstein.

All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I
believe in intuition and inspiration.... At times I feel certain I
am right while not knowing the reason."

This is not part of the same quote. Wikiquotes doesn't even list it. Having said
that, it resonates with other verified quotes from Einstein that talked a lot
about intuition and how it has been a key part for his work.

Einstein was no linguist, however. Intuition is when you're doing some based on
what you feel is true, without using reasoning. It is closely related to
"instinct" in some areas, but importantly not all.

"Intuition" comes from latin, and means "to look at", "immediate cognition"
without the use of conscious and rational process.

When it comes to "talent" or "skill", no one "intuitively" knows how to play a
piano or paint a portrait, it is a learned skill.

--
Sandman