hi guy,
your teaching philosophy very sound. i'm sure your students learn a lot from you. looking through your portfolio, i'm blown away by the various situations in which you have to produce technically finished results. you simply couldn't do it without your technical knowledge.
differences arise from intent. someone took beautiful photos of brancusi's sculptures. he hated the pictures. took some himself, bleary, torn, but exactly how he wanted the spirit of his work to be perceived. so an art intent is different from documentary, journalism, advertising, etc.
and the learning curve a lot different for us older folks. kids raised at the breast of computers have a natural ease with the equipment. i just read a recent book, edited by sylvia plachy
http://www.amazon.com/25-Under-Up-C...bs_sr_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214669857&sr=8-7
these kids coming out of photographic graduate programs can really write about their projects, the quality of the photos outstanding, and the projects themselves various and interesting. that doesn't mean they will ever make a name for themselves, but they're all starting at a level far above myself. (this is documentary photography, by the way.)
for most of us i suspect the simplification you recommend is the only way we can achieve satisfactory results. all this study seems mostly to help us find a focus with which we resonate and have something special to say, a special kind of urgency.
let me quote robert henri (from 'the art spirit'):
"It is useless to study technique in advance of having a motive. Instead of establishing a vast stock of technical tricks, it would be far wiser to develop creative power by constant search for means particular to a motive already in mind, by studying and developing just that technique which you feel the immediate need of, and which alone will serve you for the idea or the emotion which has moved you to expression."
for us older folks time is of the essence. at 25 i had all the time in the world, at 68 i feel time's winged chariot at my heels.
thanks for thoughts.
wayne
www.pbase.com/wwp