Where’s Your Hamburg or Rolling Stone Tour?

Today’s post is about practice.  This topic is inspired by the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.  My good friend, Travis Bechtel, turned me on to this via another photographer’s blog post in which he wrote about Malcolm’s concept of 10,000 hours.  During my 12 hours of driving over the thanksgiving holiday, I listened to the audio version of this book in which Malcolm argues that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at some activity.  This 10,000 hour statistic has been measured in case of some of the most successful  musicians, scientists, computer industry titans, and on and on.

I’m in the process of doing even more research into this phenomenon.  One of the examples brought up in the book is the experience of Bill Gates.  He accumulated is 10,000 over a period of a few years.  One notable exclusion to the discussion in the book is the idea that not all 10,000 are equally important, that some segment, say 1000 hours, come in a fairly compressed time frame and will be very significant in terms of one’s success.

Consider the Beatles, a case that Gladwell discusses in the book.   The Beatles actually became good at live performances over the period of 47 days, starting August 17th, 1960.  During this period they played nearly 350 hours on stage in Hamburg, Germany.  It was during this period of intensity that most critics believe they became true stage performers and then refined their skills over the next year, performing at a frantic pace in Hamburg.  Turning to photography, one might fairly argue that Annie Liebovitz had her most important practice hours while she toured with The Rolling Stones in 1975.   For many ultra successful in their respective fields, Malcolm argues, the 10,000 hours are accumulated over a 5-10 year period.  She started her career with Rolling Stone Magazine  in 1973 and ended it in 1983.  Like the Beatles in Hamburg,  Annie’s most intense practice came touring with The Rolling Stones for a year; an intensive, submersion program of practice (to say the least, she became a drug addict during this period).

Like so many of the cases mentioned in the book, Annie’s success may be less attributable to her eye for photography, her raw talent or genius, and more attributable to practice.  Intense practice.  Where does this leave the rest of us photographers?  Can we find our Hamburg or Rolling Stones tour?  Other questions I don’t have answers to:

1) Do you approach any shoot as practice?

2) Do you approach every shoot as practice?

3) Do you give yourself assignments that are designed for practice?

4) Does your work differ when call it practice?

5) Can you design a practice regiment, like high performing athletes do, for your photography?

6) Is there are time for practice and a time for rest and reflection?

7) Do you quit practicing just because you think you’ve mastered your craft?

Do you ever master your craft?

After driving for 6 hours, listening to the book, I decided to practice and created today’s image.  This image started as an HDR image, with a texture background overlay applied, and then I applied two homemade photoshop actions.  I don’t necessarily gravitate towards this kind of heavy processing; its more akin to graphic art, but its good practice.  It keeps me familiar with my camera, keeps my eye and creative energies sharp, keeps me on top of the newest processes in digital photography.  Its not good or bad, its practice.  And I’m still looking for my personal Rolling Stones tour.

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