The public is being spoiled by good technical quality photographs in magazines, on television, in the movies, and they have become bored. The disease of our age is this boredom and a good photographer must successfully combat it. The only way to do this is by invention - by surprise.

When I say that a good picture has surprise quality or shock appeal, I do not mean that it is a loud or vulgar picture but, instead, that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me.

Outstanding past work in photography, and in fact in all the arts, is very important to today's photographers. But it should be used for inspiration and not for imitation. These works should be something to be built upon, not to be repeated.

Photographers should make three or four prints from one negative and then crop them differently. When I was art director at Harper's Bazaar and at several agencies as a consultant, young photographers would bring me their portfolios and all the prints would be in the same standard proportions, either for the Leica or the Rolleiflex. Many times, by limiting themselves in this way, they missed the true potentialities of their photographs.

Surprise quality can be achieved in many ways. It may be produced by a certain stimulating geometrical relationship between elements in the picture or through the human interest of the situation photographed or by calling our attention to some commonplace but fascinating thing we have never noticed before or it can be achieved by looking at an everyday thing in a new interesting way.

The creative life of the commercial photographer is like the life of a butterfly. Very seldom do we see a photographer who is really productive for more than eight or ten years.

The public is being spoiled by good technical quality photographs in magazines, on television, in the movies, and they have become bored. The disease of our age is this boredom and a good photographer must successfully combat it. The only way to do this is by invention - by surprise.