As a photographer who learned his craft before autofocus became a truly reliable technology, my earliest challenge was focusing the lens. Those who picked up photography after the cameras could focus faster than we would ever be able to do ourselves won’t know the frustration of that particular learning curve. But focusing the lens was never so hard as learning …
Are Your Photographs Poetic? Part One.
Painter Robert Henri said, “Paint the flying spirit of the bird, rather than its feathers.” Similarly, Poet Anton Chekhov said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” One is a plea to painters, another to writers, but both beg the same thing: make me feel something. Don’t just tell me; don’t …
Composition: The Power of Simplicity
“Simplify, simplify, simplify.” ~ Henry David Thoreau “One ‘simplify’ would have sufficed.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson It took me years to figure out that photographic composition is about organization of elements in the frame, that making a photograph has so much more to do with my decisions than it does with the scene in front of me. Before that realization, …
What’s the That?
After the start of my course, The Compelling Frame, there were some good questions and excellent conversations about the lesson on Intent. I thought I’d clarify it in the discussions we were having, but I’m going to post it here because I think it might be illuminating for a larger audience. I want you to imagine you and I are …
Change How You Make Photographs.
Today’s the day you’ve been waiting for! For some of you it’s the day I finally stop teasing you about The Compelling Frame. For some of you it’s the day I finally stop talking about it. If you’re among the first, then you’re in luck! If you’re among the second group, I’m sorry to say you’ve got another week to …
3 Ways to Start Seeing Better
This is the final of three videos I’ve made to introduce you to the course I’m releasing next week. The Course is called The Compelling Frame and I’ll give you a sneak peek at it in this video. The video is about learning to see because while we’re exploring making stronger photographs with composition and visual design I think it …
3 Ways to Improve Your Compositions Now
Last week I put up a video about Making Images That Connect. This morning I’ve put up the second video. If the first video was about the need to make stronger images, this is about how we begin to really do that. It’s not a long video and it’s not a full-on course in composition (that’s coming!) – but doing …
Making Images that Connect
If you’ve been around here a while you know I’ve been on a bit of a tear about the importance of composition in making images that connect: images that do more than just get a like on Facebook or Instagram. And I’ve been around long enough to know that this is the big hurdle of most photographers – sure, we …