>The theory of photography can be learned in an hour and the elements of practising it in a day... What cannot be learned is the sense of light, an artistic feeling for the effects of varying luminosity and combinations of it, the application of this or that effect to the features which confront the artist in you. What can be learned even less is the moral grasp of the subject — that instant understanding which puts you in touch with the model, helps you to sum him up, guides you to his habits, his ideas and his character and enables you to produce, not an indifferent reproduction, a matter of routine or accident such as any laboratory assistant could achieve, but a really convincing and sympathetic likeness, an intimate portrait.
Was Nadar right? Could you really learn the basics of photography in an hour? And the rest of it is just artistic talent?