I mainly work as a graphic designer but I started taking pictures some years ago. Because I wanted to melt the advantages from each discipline. An example: the visual structure is in graphic designs is less complex than in photography and more striking, but on the other hand photography is much more authentic (in general). So to me it`s to do better and stronger images, not only potography.

Thats why I adore stuff like this:

http://www.showstudio.com/projects/advent/24_moss.html

Its striking like a symbol or a logotype but its still a photograph

nowadays i found there's more and more photographers in my country where they're not even coming from photography studies, whereas creative studies even. everyone think they can become a photographer by learning small knowledge about lighting and having a digital camera, also from helps by various softwares that can help you create anything. and actualy it's quite frightening for the well known and well studied photographer who learnt from manual camera.
but in the end, you still can see the difference. sometimes it's just working the other way round, the better skilled photographer might just stuck in their states, and people who they call amateur sometimes can create better works than the well studied one because they have more determination and maybe they just got the skill.
i think what can survived, and what i appreciated more are photographers who can catch a soul from the object, i found that more in documentary photos and portraits, where you communications skills also important, not just technical.
when people never stop learning, they can succeed in their fields.
this world now is so full of easiness that's created by technology. everyone can be anyone.

Thank you for your replies, interesting opinions.However my question doesn't feel quite resolved yet.
There is a certain moment during a shoot when the images seem to come effortlessly ,a sense almost of flying,that all the physical is of little or no importance.
Now,I recognise this state and I know that it is not always achievable, my question is ,(leaving aside any notions of the factors that combine to get one there,e.g.motivation,desire,and the factors that conspire to keep one grounded,e.g. fear,distraction,)how to go further?

Can one go further?

sounds like a metaphysical state almost like the best times in your life appearing to be in slowmotion..a feeling i get sometimes when im taking a picture...but ive had it when scoring a goal in a soccer cup final(amateur)the ball came over seeming to hang in the air for ages..i head the ball into the back of -the net_the net ripples and i think wow this is what its like..
what im talking about is previsualization-and then it happens!you imagine it happing and then it does!so more imagination?

hehehe.
i guess it's to do with ur eyes. u see things differently when ur 18 to when ur 30 years of age. and being slightly naïve when ur young.i can't take photos wearing glass cus they move around.

Nick, I think you have answered your self with your original question. Intuition, perception and insight. I would like to think (definitely hope!) that this can be trained and improved.

I had the joy of watching Pink Floyds Saxophonist, Dick Parry play recently. I was entirely mesmerised by his ability that was without a doubt sheer genious. He played in a trance like state, body completely quivvering as waves of whatever you would like to call was flowing through him, being translated and converted by him into sound. To say the least, he looked like he was a world away. He had completly immersed himself in the void, but never became lost in it.

Perhaps there's no real earthly translation or map for that state...at least I think there are limitless, and ever changing variabes involved in it. Perhaps we just mould it in time to work for us. This has to get better with experience/age providing we're constantly striving to do so. Constantly asking our selves how we can do it better next time. More of a gradual trickle of knowledge.

I'm not sure we can discount what gets us there in the first place for I feel it's in identifying it that could take that state further. I would, as I'm sure everyone here would be very interested in what you thought about the factors that "combine to get one there,e.g.motivation,desire,and the factors that conspire to keep one grounded,e.g. fear,distraction".

Previsualising the outcome...Perceiving the moment...moulding the energy available...balancing empathy with the subject, and your own voice...PLUS willing to diverge from the intended path of concept to allow what magic the moment has to deliver. Translating it technically and graphicly, all whilst patting our head and rubbing our stomach in circles. Easy surely...? :) I'd like to think that our ability to do this becomes better with age/experience.

As others have said above though....BIG question. I remember reading in DaVinci's note books that even he wondered how man could go any further in such "advanced technological times"...he later went on to invent to the Hellicoptor amongst other things.

Thanks for the discussion.

When I was a student I conducted an experiment of sorts. I deliberately got stoned and took my camera for a big walk. And I had a really fantastic time – everything and everyone looked amazing, and I shot loads of stuff. Next day, I deved the films etc, and couldn’t find a single image I’d normally look twice at. I couldn’t even discern, however vaguely, what it was that might have excited my eye enough for me to take any of the pictures I did. To round the experience off, I really should have got stoned again and had another look at the contacts, but I’d already lost interest. The ‘altered state’ that seems to occur when people are at their most creative, as far as I’m concerned anyway, can’t be chemically induced?

Please excuse another anecdote, but I don’t know how else to describe what I’m thinking. I remember being at a supermarket checkout and catching a little kid looking at someone in the queue. It was as though, for a brief instant, they were the most amazingly wonderful thing he’d ever seen, like his first ever dressed Xmas tree or something – a pure, unquestioning adoration, as though he was enamoured. Then he looked away and the rapture ended, totally. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen often with kids, and sometimes much older people, and have come to think of it like a falling in love with the eyes. Photographers who talk about having to love whatever or whoever they photograph, seem to have the ability to tap into that almost childlike mindset, though whether they can do so systematically… I can’t be sure, but I think I read Diane Arbus quoting a (Chinese?) proverb which says, “Through boredom comes fascination.” So it isn’t necessarily the most exciting projects that lead to the desired state? And there is some work involved, some effort.

Being able to turn it on and off at will does seem really desirable though, especially when you’re using images taken in that 'channel' to convince people to give you commissions. Or just when you think you’ve cracked that, you actually lose it? Perhaps the more you work, the more references you accumulate subconsciously (from your own experience and the imagery you are exposed/expose yourself to – like a resource you tap into, however thoughtlessly it may seem - the easier it gets? Though whether it can ever get any more intense or not, I don’t know. Like falling in love, it’s never as exciting as when it's both anticipated and unexpected?

And that's not a come on BTW - I'm talking photography here!