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More Important Than Good?

In Life Is Short, Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft, The Life Creative by David22 Comments

Some of your photographs aren’t very “good”; they’re way more important than that.   You’ve felt it—I know you have. You’ve experienced the rush of making a photograph that turns out exactly as you planned. Perhaps better. It’s sharp in all the right places, the colours work together, and it has a certain je ne sais quoi that garners more …

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10,000 Frames to Make One. What’s Wrong with Me?

In Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory, Wilderness by David66 Comments

I loaded my gear into my truck last week and headed 12 hours north to the mouth of the Chilko River, my first trip since the amputation. I drove the same route a year ago, through towering mountains and golden aspens, my mind less on the bears I would photograph and more on the looming surgery. If I didn’t change …

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Creative Failure: Teacher or Trap?

In Creativity and Inspiration, Life Is Short, Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft, The Italian Incident, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory, Uncategorized by David28 Comments

In the creative life very few things go the way we expect them to, and I suspect when they do, it’s because we’re not reaching far enough beyond our comfort zone, not risking enough. First steps into any new endeavour—whether that’s learning a new technique or beginning a new body of work—are not the steps that get you to a …

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It’s All Been Done?

In Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft, The Life Creative, Thoughts & Theory by David51 Comments

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 …

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Best For What?

In GEAR, Pep Talks, Rants and Sermons, The Craft, Thoughts & Theory by David23 Comments

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 …

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Everyone’s A F*cking Photographer

In Rants and Sermons, The Craft, The Life Creative by David

(A Labour-Day Weekend Rant for you, with apologies to those who cringe when I cuss.) Last time I was in Venice I saw a camera-ladened photographer, a huge tripod slung over his shoulder, turn to a friend and gesture to the crowds of people happily making photographs with their mobile phones, as he sneered, “now everybody thinks they’re a f*cking …