Getting UnStuck

In Creativity and Inspiration, Pep Talks, The Life Creative, Vision Is Better by David14 Comments

The late Steve Jobs once said that creativity was nothing more than connecting dots. Ignoring for a moment that creativity is more than just idea generation, and necessarily includes idea execution, I like the metaphor. The more divergent those dots, the more unusual and interesting our ideas and the solutions to the problems we’re working on, whether that’s a new …

Greater Intimacy

In Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft, Thoughts & Theory by David8 Comments

I believe that when Robert Capa said “if your photographs aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough,” part of what he implied was more than just physical proximity, but a more intimate knowledge of the subject. They’re connected of course, and if there’s one thing that I love hearing from others about my work, it’s the word “intimacy.” I want …

Breakfast with Freeman

In Life Is Short, News & Stuff, Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons by David34 Comments

This past weekend was something like a rite of passage, of which we have so few in this culture. And those we do have seem to come accidentally; we recognize them in hindsight. Which makes it a little less a rite and a little more merely a milestone. Still, this weekend was that for me, something I’ll always look back …

Nice Capture?

In Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons by David37 Comments

Some thoughts about the way we talk about photographs. As always, I think the questions are more important than the answers. I’m not looking for consensus, just giving voice to my own thoughts and questions. Yours might be different. Thought the First. “Nice capture,” says nothing about what you felt when you experienced a photograph. It says nothing about art. …

The Magic Wand

In Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft by David71 Comments

This weekend I posted about my experience with the new Fuji XE-1. It’s a great camera. It’s capable of making some beautiful photographs. But I didn’t say the one thing I most wanted to. My heart was screaming to say it and got over-ridden by my mind and it’s always a mistake not to listen to my heart. I wrote …

Planning Is Just Guessing. But With More Pie Charts and Stuff.

In News & Stuff, Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, Uncategorized, Vision Is Better by David22 Comments

I taught at VanArts this morning, by which I really mean I talked for two hours and hoped those beautiful young minds would learn something from my string of disconnected thoughts. One of the things I  talked about, though with my tendency to digress, I have no idea which rabbit-hole I was down when my time ran out, was poetically …