Secrets of Success

Secrets of Success
What does it take to succeed as a photographer? Here's an empirical top ten, in order of importance.
1. Energy.

Successful photographers, for the most part, have an excess of personal energy. They can work from down to dusk and want more. They're restless when they're not working. They don't like vacations. Sitting around is not for them. This has been true of Dean Collins, Cartier-Bresson, Norman Parkinson, Robert Capa, Edward Weston, Andy Warhol, Galen Rowell, Eliott Erwitt, Jacques Lartigue, and on and on and on. Lazy, slow, tired, procrastinating photographers without the energy to follow through are not likely to build up the needed momentum.

2. Commitment.

For many years, Josef Koudelka refused to keep a residence, so intense was his commitment to keeping after the world. Cartier-Bresson allegedly shot two rolls of film before breakfast every morning. William Henry Jackson packed 20x24-inch glass plates into the mountains by mule train. Gene Smith got beate...