Prevailing wisdom says there are no stupid questions. But some questions are better than others, lead us to deeper inquiry, raise new, stronger questions, and better address the reason we asked the question in the first place. I hear a lot of questions. In emails, at live events, on my blog, and through social media channels. I suspect, with few …
Winning at Yoga
One of the best things most of us can do right now is stop asking so many people what they think of our art, whether that’s photography or not. Art is not a democracy, it’s a way of sounding your voice and when you allow others – especially unknown or anonymous others – to determine the direction of that art, …
Greater Intimacy
I believe that when Robert Capa said “if your photographs aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough,” part of what he implied was more than just physical proximity, but a more intimate knowledge of the subject. They’re connected of course, and if there’s one thing that I love hearing from others about my work, it’s the word “intimacy.” I want …
Visualizing Spots in LR5
If there’s one feature I love in the newest version of Adobe’s Lightroom, it’s the Visualize Spots tool. There wasn’t much fanfare about it, it kind of snuck under the radar a little, but for me this is huge. Lord knows I try to keep my sensor clean but it’s a losing battle. My usual workflow involves a pretty paranoid …
The Power of Constraint
I spent the last 4 days on Vancouver Island on a beach near Ucluelet. Gorgeous. Passing whales. Beer. Hammock. Silence. My girl and a couple dear friends. Some beautiful light too, and though I didn’t go to make photographs I did take an hour each evening to play. We just finished the inaugural The Created Image seminar here in Vancouver …
Why Sketch?
I’m a big believer in sketch photographs, making frames you know aren’t working but have some idea in them you want to explore. The alternative is to believe that all the images I make that don’t work the way I had hoped are failures and I don’t believe in the notion of failure in creative endeavors. At least not in …
The Magic Wand
This weekend I posted about my experience with the new Fuji XE-1. It’s a great camera. It’s capable of making some beautiful photographs. But I didn’t say the one thing I most wanted to. My heart was screaming to say it and got over-ridden by my mind and it’s always a mistake not to listen to my heart. I wrote …
Let Them Steal
Some days my time online makes it seem like photographers spend more time making watermarks than they do making photographs. So as it’s been a while since I’ve allowed myself a rant, let me weigh in with my opinions about the theft of images. But first a caveat. Yes, copyright laws matter. Yes, you should register your work. Yes, you …
Printing Hokkaido
After narrowing down my Hokkaido work through my edit process, I’m now left with a collection of images to print. Here’s my rough process. 1. Image Prep. I take each image through a final pass in Lightroom’s Develop module. Here are the questions I’m asking myself as I go through the panels. Is my monitor recently calibrated? Am I completely …
Different Ways to Point
We had an interesting conversation in Hokkaido one evening, and it stands out because when you put 15 photographers together for a meal, and there’s no shortage of drink, conversation tends to end up with everyone telling lies about how long they can hand-hold their long lens, or how Ansel Adams was a total hack. This time it was about …