Anyone Can Become a Good Photographer with Persistence and Humility!

During my most recent trip to New York, we interviewed Hungarians who had emigrated after the 1956 revolution.

It was an enormous honour to speak with photographic artist Klára Aich, who spent more than fifty years building her career in New York and has an exceptionally respected body of work behind her.

At the same time, one of my students opened her first photography exhibition in Esztergom.

Today, a great many people want to become photographers, and many of them are genuinely talented.

Technical knowledge is easier to acquire than ever.

But is being able to operate a camera really enough?

Anybody who has built a successful career in photography would say:

NO.

That is only the tip of the iceberg.

It takes enormous amounts of practice and humility to gain experience in portraying the many different areas of life.

And gaining experience takes time.

So what does Klára think after more than fifty years in the profession?

Once a photographer has accumulated enough knowledge and experience, I believe there is also a responsibility — whenever possible — to pass it on to the next generation.

After all, every professional once learned from the “older ones”.

That hierarchy is part of how knowledge survives.

Among successful photographers today, teaching is sometimes forgotten.

Or people simply lack the time and energy for it.

Naturally, there are honourable exceptions.

I try to live up to that responsibility too, although it is not always easy while moving between two continents.

Today, hundreds of young people graduate from photography programmes in Hungary every year.

Thousands more want to improve through courses or self-directed study.

If you think about it, the country cannot provide an artistic career for all of them.

That means photographers also need management and self-management skills.

What can someone do if they want to learn?

Find a course.

Or find a photographer from whom they can gain real knowledge.

Students in schools usually need work placements where they can gain practical experience.

Those placements are not easy to find.

Most photographers already have their own teams — or, very often, work alone.

And they rarely have enough time to transfer meaningful knowledge to a student.

But that is precisely where responsibility enters.

Every master carries responsibility for the student they accept.

If you take somebody on, your task is to bring out as much of their ability as possible.

Because one day that student may become a master too.

And if photography becomes their profession, they should pass that knowledge forward again.

All right.

But what is the secret of success?

How can I become a good photographer?

Let me tell you the story of a young woman who asked those questions less than nine months ago.

Kinga Majtényi contacted me in February 2016 because she wanted to complete her summer internship with me.

Four weeks is not much time.

I normally do not take interns because schools often prescribe exactly what we are supposed to teach, and that rarely matches the student’s own interests.

Kinga’s school approached the placement differently.

She also explained clearly why she wanted to learn specifically from me.

And she seemed ambitious enough to become the kind of student her family and teachers could one day be proud of.

I told her I could take her only on one condition:

She would not begin learning during those four summer weeks.

She had to begin immediately.

And she needed a concrete goal that we could achieve together.

That goal was her own photography exhibition.

Her immediate reaction was that she did not believe she could actually do it.

So I broke the problem down.

What does an exhibition need if it is meant to bring the creator recognition, visibility, confidence and momentum?

First:

What subjects genuinely interest the photographer?

And within those subjects, where does the photographer feel most at home?

In Kinga’s case, our conversations kept returning to the relationship between Wine and Woman.

Next came the style and message of the images.

Here, I had to move Kinga outside her comfort zone.

She needed to let go of habits and reduce the urge to satisfy other people’s expectations.

Then came the venue.

A good exhibition needs a location that genuinely supports the subject.

Kinga is from Esztergom and loves her home town.

It was obvious that the exhibition should take place there.

Because wine was central to the concept, I looked for an event in the city where the project would fit naturally.

I contacted the organisers of the BorHíd Festival.

They welcomed the idea and offered to exhibit the photographs in public space if the final images were strong enough.

Creating the exhibition images

This was the point where outside help became essential.

Kinga could not stand on both sides of the camera at the same time.

She asked Diána Lovas to help create and develop the visual concepts.

Diána is a food writer, model, photographer and chef — in other words, an ideal creative partner for this subject.

They created tasteful square-format images.

Five were selected.

Thanks to Eszter Jakabfy, they were also beautifully printed.

What do you need in order to bring visitors to an exhibition?

Because the photographs were going to be shown during a festival, there would already be a natural audience.

But we wanted people to come specifically for the images too.

So we came up with a bigger idea:

Auction the photographs.

Kinga loved it.

She already knew whom she wanted to support with the proceeds.

She began researching how the process should work.

The festival organisers were delighted because the auction gave the exhibition a deeper purpose.

They published the plan on their website so more people would notice the unusual programme.

I registered Kinga’s domain and built her website so there would be a proper reference point.

With help from the organisers, the online magazine Hello Esztergom interviewed her.

Then Hungary’s M1 television channel also filmed a short feature on the opening day, including the charity auction.

That is the story in brief.

I hope Kinga continues writing the next chapters of this success story.

And I hope reading it gives somebody else the inspiration to begin their own.

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.