View Post

Make It Different, Make it Yours.

In Creativity and Inspiration, Pep Talks, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David4 Comments

One of the great photographic challenges is making a photograph that is different: different from what others are making and different from the images you’ve made so many times before. Taking the same photograph over and over doesn’t appeal to me. I want to go further, learn more, and get closer and closer to images that feel uniquely my own. I’m …

View Post

Over the Shoulders of Giants?

In Books, Pep Talks, The Craft, The Life Creative by David13 Comments

Years ago, I took my battered Land Rover Defender (that’s Jessie in the picture above) to the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley. I’m sure you’ve seen photographs of the playa: rocks sitting on parched earth and cracked mud, long trails behind them as if they’ve moved on their own. This fascinating phenomenon of what are called “sailing stones” is explained …

View Post

My Keeper Rate is Getting Worse

In Creativity and Inspiration, Pep Talks, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David18 Comments

I have over 400,000 photographs on my hard drives. Of those, only 2,000 images have been compelling enough over the years to consider them final photographs or “keepers.” I suspect I’d have even fewer if I went through them all now. That’s a so-called keeper rate of 0.5% or less. After almost 40 years behind a camera, only half of one percent of …

View Post

The Power of Mood

In Pep Talks, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory, Vision Is Better by David60 Comments

Photography can be many things. For some, it’s about capturing scenes. For me, it’s about conveying emotions and suggesting narratives that resonate deeply, first with me and then with the viewers who might experience the image. I’m not so much after eyes as I am hearts and minds. Mood does that. The mood of a photograph is its emotional tone—a …

View Post

Keep At It. Wonder Awaits.

In Creativity and Inspiration, Life Is Short, Pep Talks, The Craft, The Life Creative by David19 Comments

 It was 39 years ago on a summer day much like today when I picked up a 35mm Voigtländer rangefinder camera at a neighbour’s garage sale. That whim would change my life, drain my bank account many times over the decades that followed, and make me a different human being than I might have been if I’d bought the tennis racquet instead. …

View Post

A Word About Art-Making

In Creativity and Inspiration, Life Is Short, Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David142 Comments

One of the happy perils of posting your work online is the very real possibility of criticism. I suppose posting it anywhere exposes you, but the internet gives people both a microphone and anonymity. Things get said online that would never be said in person to another soul. The internet, especially social media, emboldens us. But it’s not only the internet. …