I came home from my last trip with almost 20,000 photographs, which is, by any standard, a whole lot of photographs. I edited them down to about 30. That’s 19,970 images that didn’t make the cut. If I looked at every one of those photographs for only three seconds, it would take me 1,000 minutes, or almost 16 hours, to …
Find What You Love?
Poet Charles Bukowski says “find what you love and let it kill you” But that advice, edgy as it sounds doesn’t sit right with me anymore. But there’s another poet, also named Charles, and I like his life advice much more. Charles Baudelaire says “find what intoxicates you and let it give you life.” Or that’s how I read it. …
Chasing Colour
Two weeks ago, I talked to you about my four Un-Stuck Filters, four techniques I use when I’m shooting to put a little more life into my images and give me a good place from which to begin. But what if you’re just not seeing anything? We’ve all had those days. That’s when I give myself an assignment. Something fun and simple. And …
It’s Not the Tool
There’s a lot of talk these days about how much better analog tools are than digital, but when we rely on our tools to render soul and authenticity in our work, when the tools get either the credit or the blame, I think we’re heading in the wrong direction. Let’s talk about it. I’ve decided to begin posting my weekly …
Navigating Fog
Any creative effort, in fact life itself, is undertaken in a context of uncertainty. But there are times things feel more uncertain than other, like we’re lacking direction. The Japanese concept of Ikigai provides helpful vectors or points of light, that make it easier to navigate in the fog. Let’s talk about it. I’ve decided to begin posting my weekly …
Who Says There’s No Un-Suck Filter?
In my first book, Within The Frame, before all of this blew up and I became a writer (and just how exactly did that happen, anyway?) I wrote that “there was no Un-Suck filter in our photography” and since I didn’t get a flood of emails asking me what on God’s green earth I was talking about, I assumed people …
Touch the Heart
Songwriter Leonard Cohen once asked “How do we produce work that touches the heart?” It’s a question I think we need to pursue if we’re going to make anything that finds traction or resonance, most especially for ourselves but for others. So how do we do it? Let’s talk about it. I’ve decided to begin posting my weekly podcast here …
How’s Your Balance?
Ask a photographer about balance and tension in a photograph and they’ll look at you like you just asked them about the mathematics of hyperfocal distance. Actually, that’s unfair; I know a number of photographers who could speak at length about the latter. I know fewer who can speak about the former. But ask a painter or sculptor the same …
Too Late?
If change is the one true constant in life and we’re subject to it as much as other things, why does it seem so hard to reinvent ourselves? Is it ever too late to evolve or start over, to move in new directions that are unexpected, to others, but often ourselves most of all? Let’s talk about it. I’ve decided …
What’s the Point
In the wake of the pandemic I recently heard an artist express words I suspect many of us are thinking about making and sharing our art: what’s the point? These thoughts have been haunting me. What’s the point? We are. You are. Life itself is the point and we (and you!) need your art-making more than ever. Let’s talk about …