The enigmatic Cat in the Hat once told us that “there is no one alive who is you-er than you.” The less fictional Miles Davis reminds us (as I tried to do two weeks ago in this article) that this is true but that it takes some time to arrive at, that it can take a long time to play, or—as a …
Shoot Like Yourself
“Sometimes,” observed the great jazz musician Miles Davis, “you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” Sometimes? I think he was graciously understating it. For most of us, learning to shoot like ourselves is not only a long journey but a necessarily winding one. When we first begin to make photographs and take our …
What Gets Overlooked (Don’t Let it be This)
Your biggest challenges, the ones that stand in the way of your best photographs, are not technical; they are creative. I’d put money on that being true for almost everyone who reads this. Once you’ve learned the fundamentals, the challenges you have won’t be solved with your tools so much as by your thinking. When you look at the work you’re …
It’s All Been Done?
Somewhere out there, right now, sits a photographer who wants to throw in the towel, discouraged because they haven’t yet found their thing, their niche. I know this because I’ve been that photographer. Some of you have told me you’ve been there, too. Many photographers are still there, frustrated by how hard it is to be original. “It’s all been …
Best For What?
For years, the article that got the most traffic on this blog was titled “The Best Travel Tripod?” Google sent people there in droves, but most of them didn’t stay long because I stubbornly refused to give an actual answer to that question: what’s the best travel tripod? Instead, I tried to encourage a particular way of thinking for readers to find …
3 Ways To Love Your Photographs More
Click play to watch this 7-minute video Earlier this week I started a conversation I’ve been dying to have for a while: specifically, why do photographers get so intimidated by the edit and the “Now what?” that comes once we put the camera down? And are we missing important opportunities? For years, I’ve been signing my letters and articles to …
What’s Missing From Your Photography?
I was both excited and nervous about going to Kenya recently after a two-year absence. Beyond the extraordinary experience of just being in my happiest of places, there is always the pressure of the photographs. Will they be stronger than they’ve been in the past? Will I find ideas that interest me? Will my new gear and my growing familiarity with …
Your Best Shot Isn’t (Usually) Your Only Shot
I traveled once with a photographer who would leap into a scene, press the shutter, and more often than not exclaim, “I got the shot!” Depending on whether you were there at the time or only heard of it after the fact, it was either really annoying or mildly amusing. If the direction into which he leapt to “get the shot” happened …
New Year, New…Gear?
The danger of sound bites is that they lack nuance, and they sometimes come back to bite you in the ass. A dozen years ago, I coined the phrase, “Gear is Good, Vision is Better.” Some of you were around when I sent that out into the world. Some of you started reading my words because I wrote it. It …
What Lens Should I Bring?
If I could use only one lens for the rest of my life, it would be a 16-35mm (unless I was photographing bears, in which case I’d want 600mm). But then again, if that bear was really far away, I might want 1200mm. Or if I were underwater, then I’d want my 15mm fisheye. Oh, and then there are portraits for which I might want …