I’ve got a question for you. Do you know how your photographs work? Not your cameras, you know how to focus and expose and use enough of the other buttons that you can mostly make it do what you want, but do you know how your images work? A still image is a lot of moving parts (metaphorically speaking). Sure …
One Thing: Simplify
If everything went to plan, I’m currently in the bush on the Zambezi River, probably just settling in for the evening by the campfire with a whisky in my hand and a blanket of stars above me. Behind me, a forest of winterthorn trees, and around me, the song of frogs. In the distance, splashing and the deep guttural noises …
Seeing Takes Time
I spent yesterday morning with a cup of coffee at the local marina, staring at the boats and the light and breathing it in, my deep pleasure at doing nothing at all spoiled only by an apple croissant that was, in fact, filled with marzipan. A nice surprise if you like marzipan, but I think it tastes like the inside …
Do Your Photographs Matter?
Your photographs probably don’t matter that much, and neither do mine. The one that just took home the blue ribbon at the state fair? It’s (probably) not going to change the world. The one that just made the cover of that magazine you’ve always hoped might publish your work? In a couple of years, you’ll likely look back on it …
Find Your “Hey, Look at That!”
I have an early memory of going photographing with my dad on a morning after a big ice storm came through. It was just after Christmas, the storm had knocked out power to much of the area, and the streets were thick with ice, impossible to drive on. I finally had my first “real” camera, an SLR with interchangeable lenses, …
Stop Looking (Only) for Subjects?
I went to Kenya last month with the usual mix of excitement and worry. Excitement for all the normal reasons, not the least of which was being in front of wonderful things in beautiful light with my camera in my hand. Worry because I really didn’t want to come back with different versions of the same photographs I’ve made before. …
6 Ways to Be Less Un-Ready
This post is accompanied by some of the work I shot over the last 4 weeks in Kenya. What a trip it’s been. I hope you enjoy the images! My grand-dad was a Scout. At the time he was the highest decorated man in the scouting movement in the UK, a movement whose motto is “Be Prepared.” I like to …
Are Your Shoulds Hurting Your Creativity?
I ask myself a lot of questions as I make my photographs. What’s this scene really about? What do I include, and what do I leave out? What possessed me to get up at 5 am and sit in the rain? Those kinds of questions. Like you, I also ask myself what I might do with my exposure, how I …
Between What If? and What Now?
I once wrote that “what if?” was the central question for creative people. I also once wrote that our expectations of what we hope for—of a place, a subject matter, even an idea—can blind us to the reality of it. You show up in Venice to photograph the city in fog and experience agua alta, the high flood waters of …
Change Your Lens, Or…?
Imagine this: we’re side by side at a local pond, a thermos of coffee between us as the first light comes up. You’ve got your camera with a 24-105mm lens. I’ve got mine, too, but chose to bring my 300mm lens instead. As we set up, you say you wish now that you’d brought a longer lens. “Funny,” I say, …