10 Legendary Photographers Share Advice for Budding Artists

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark has put together an inspiring video of 10 “world-class” photographers sharing advice to younger people.

The five-minute video includes a mix of living and deceased photographers, all have achieved great things in the field.

Paul Graham

Go out. Start working. Make mistakes. Your work will be crap at first; it’s fine. My work, every time I start something new, is junk.

Martin Parr

You’re probably going to fail, so unless you’re obsessed, unless you have, almost like a disease, you’re not going to make it. So, unless you have that, forget it, just go get a job in a bar or something like that.

Nan Goldin

Don’t think it’s okay to live in your phone. You have a lot more to say than Instagram. And a lot to experience in the real world.

Miyako Ishiuchi

You have to be curious… If you take photos, it is not enough in itself. You need to take interest in other areas like literature, music, or film. Photography is just one part of a cultural whole.

Elina Brotherus

Often, young people tend to think too much and work too little. I think the secret is you just have to start. If you’re a photographer, just go out and start taking pictures. Look at them, and they will tell you what the next picture has to be.

Stephen Shore

As I’m thinking of this, I”m thinking about how I’ve lived my life without advice but what’s worked is that there are times I feel I know what I’m doing and I can get terrible reviews and I don’t care because I feel like I know what I’m doing.

Barbara Kasten

Young artists have to think about the future of their work, but they shouldn’t get stuck on it. They shouldn’t want it to be the end result of their efforts. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to be a superstar, but I never worked with that mind and I would hope a lot of young people don’t work with that mind — If it comes, it comes.

Anton Corbijn

There has to be an element of that person in the photograph, but there also has to be an element of the photographer in there because the cameras are basically all the same; it’s the person holding the camera that can make the difference.

Collier Schorr

Photographers can talk a lot about what seems like a certain kind of power, and a certain kind of invisibility, you’re in charge, and you actually own the picture, but your life is about what is in front of you, so you never see yourself, in a sense.

Ulay

If I would give any suggestions, don’t go to the art academy. Don’t go too often to art galleries and museums because these are ready-made. If you want and need inspiration, go behind central station.

Currently showing at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an exhibition by artist Jon Rafman, who has been collecting strange moments from Google Street View since 2007.