People expressing themselves in speech or writing are generally rather careful to avoid saying anything that might stamp them fools. Not so photographers, if one is to judge by the flood of trite and boring pictures published year in and year out in photographic magazines and annuals and shown in exhibitions. Using an analogy with speech, most of these pictures are as hackneyed as saying that a rose is a rose is a rose; they repeat what has already been said a thousand times before; they say badly what others have said better; or they say nothing at all, in which case they are visual gibberish, meaningless statements toward which a viewer’s reaction can only be, So what?

Andreas Feininger, The Perfect Photograph (1974)