a fascinating topic you've raised here Tunde, and some great thoughts expressed.. very interesting story bout the ice cream cones!

I think a distinction should be made partly in who the photos are taken for.... a professional in a certain sector will need to have something to make their approach unique, employable, and capable of generating enough interest/income to make it a worthwhile ongoing career... in essence their livelihood depends on being able to produce something which will satisfy the demands of the market... in such circumstances the primary concern must surely be to produce technical excellence which 'meets the brief', rather than satisfying any personal, emotional motives.... an example of such a sector which springs to mind would be something like advertising or stock photography... but for continued recognition and success the photographer in most cases would probably need to develop a style identifiable as theirs, and in part that has to come from the photographer's own individual view of the task/ the world which surrounds them...

I don't want to get too deeply into this as some aspects raised overlap with some of the discussions I intend to make in my dissertation, so I'll probably ramble on for several boring pages... but!.... consider a landscape by contrast.... there is such a sense of universality and also nationality embedded in the landscape that it can be a very emotive subject, and to have the greatest impact one might argue it is the duty of the photographer to convey as best they can the emotions they experienced while capturing the scene.... it reminds me of a very simple piece of advice I heard when starting out - take pictures of that which interests/moves you, and with sufficient technique you should be able to convey the interest which spurred you to take the picture on to your audience.

Certain other kinds of photography (I'm thinking street/sport/wildlife photography here) rely on a sense of timing, and arguably test the photographer's reactions more than their considered artistic planning. I'd say they also rely more on solid technique, as there is little to time to think about it when the moment counts. Just look at the work of Cartier-Bresson for example.... some have controversially referred to his photos as 'snapshots', but through his masterful technique, sense of composition, and eye for the 'decisive moment', many of these 'snapshots' have stood the test of time as profound works of art..

Not wanting to go on too much here, I'll leave you with the notion that some of the world's most famous and revered works of art came out of times of extreme emotion for the artists concerned...

Adam Edwards Photography