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One Photograph, Many Choices

In Photographically Speaking, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory, Tutorials &Technique, Workflow & Technical Issues by David56 Comments

Being able to dissect an image is a helpful skill. Looking at a photograph and identifying the various choices that led to the look and feel of that image, even when it’s your own (maybe especially when it’s your own) makes us stronger photographers that are more fluent in the visual language. I’ve been talking a lot lately about the …

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Cooking a Better Photograph

In Photographically Speaking, Study the Masters, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David41 Comments

How is it that two photographers can stand in the same place and make two very different photographs? What accounts for the frustrating reality that, in that moment, one photographer can make something truly compelling and beautiful while the results of the other’s efforts are underwhelming? Surely it can’t be just better gear. Sometimes it’s different gear. Different gear represents different possibilities, …

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Masking In Lightroom, An Introduction

In Lightroom & Workflow, Photographically Speaking, Photographs & Photoshopping, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David57 Comments

I love the masking tool in Lightroom Classic and it has seen some changes over the last few iterations, some of them pretty significant. I was asked recently about this and it seemed like something you might be interested in if you’re a Lightroom user. If you do any dodging and burning at all, the new AI functions are game …

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Want Different Results? Try Different Things.

In Creativity and Inspiration, Photographically Speaking, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory, Travel by David83 Comments

Landing in Nairobi last month, my usual fears were running amok. Would my luggage arrive with me? Would I have problems at customs? Would the bartender at the first camp be able to make me a decent Old Fashioned, of which I was desperately in need? You know the ones. But most heavy of all, the one weighing me down …

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To Make Better Photographs, Study More Photographs, Part Two

In Photographically Speaking, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David15 Comments

The first installment of this two-part series began an exploration of the way in which we study a photograph, first to experience it and then to learn from it. If you missed it, you can read the first part of To Make Better Photographs, Study More Photographs here. The main point in that first article was this: our first point …

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To Make Better Photographs, Study More Photographs, Part One

In Photographically Speaking, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David47 Comments

I started this craft innocently enough—purchasing on a whim a Voigtlander rangefinder with a fixed 35mm lens when I was 14—but by the time I was 16 years old, I was hooked and desperate for something with a few more options. I wanted “a real camera.” I have no idea where I thought my mother would get the money for …

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An Iconic Photograph, or a Photographed Icon?

In Photographically Speaking, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory, Travel by David14 Comments

Talk to any traveling photographer for long and the words “iconic photograph” will come tumbling out of their mouth as surely as a bus-load of tourists with selfie-sticks will spill out the moment you arrive at a destination and set up a tripod, thrilled to be there alone. As goals go, it sure beats wanting nothing more from our images …