Study the Masters: Elliott Erwitt
USA, California, 1955 USA. 2000.New York city. “It’s about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.” – Elliott Erwitt Elliott Erwitt (1928 – present) is …
Starting with Filters
Banff National Park, Canada, 2014. I used both a full and graduated ND for this. When I first started making photographs, optical filters (the ones you put on the front of the lens, as opposed to software filters) were common. You’d screw them to the front of the lens and it was all pretty simple. When I sold most of …
Study the Masters: Galen Rowell
Winter sunset, Gates of the Valley, Yosemite National Park (California, 1990) Split rock and cloud, Eastern Sierra (California, 1976) “Photography was a means of visual expression to communicate what I had seen to people who weren’t there. At first I was disturbed that 99 percent of my images didn’t look as good as what I had seen. The other one …
On Noise Reduction
Cavendish, Prince Edward Island We fear missing out, so we read it all, and listen to every voice we can, seldom aware that by doing so we’re missing so much more. This is not the post you think it might be. This is not about reducing the noise in your low-light, high-ISO, photographs. There’s software for that. This is about …
Back in (and from) Banff
I got back from two and a half months on the road just in time to get a last minute invitation from friends Dave Brosha and Paul Zizka to join them in Banff for a workshop. Emergency laundry. Flights booked – my first in over 8 months. And then 3 long days teaching in some of the most beautiful places …
Study the Masters: Ansel Adams
Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, Ansel Adams. “I had been able to realize a desired image: not the way the subject appeared in reality but how it felt to me and how it must appear in the finished print” When I started this series I knew I was going to have to write about Ansel Adams (1902-1984). People …
Forget Jumping.
Here’s another Q&A from The Big Q. This time we’re talking about making the jump from full-time job to full-time photographer. If you’ve got questions you’d like answered, I’d love to help: leave them in the comments. Q: When you first made your decision to become a full time adventurer/humanitarian photographer what scared you the most? Did you have a …
Study the Masters: Edward Burtynsky
Thjorsá River #1Iceland, 2012, copyright Edward Burtynsky “We took what we needed from the Earth and this is what we left behind. That is the informational layer of my work, but there is also a political layer and an autobiographical one.” Edward Burtynsky (1955 – present) is still very much alive and working today. One of Canada’s most respected photographers, …
The Next Step
Q: I’m a nature photographer with what I’ve been told is a reasonably solid portfolio, and I blog fairly regularly. I make a little money with my photography, but I think I could do more to increase the income a bit. I’m ready to take the next step toward living my dream. I need to market myself beyond my local …
Bodies of Work
Another question from my recent Q&A on Facebook. Some of the questions needed more time and space to answer, this is one of those: How do develop from taking random images to working on projects? What makes a good project? When is it finished? First, I think it’s important to recognize that there are no rules on any of this. …