Facebook did it to me again. A headline promised me I could master photography easily. It sent me (I couldn’t help it, I was curious) to an infographic about apertures and shutter speeds and focus modes and rules of thirds. I read it all. And when I was done I knew exactly what I knew when I was 15 years …
Your Next Step: Unified Work
If you’ve read my latest eBook, Making The Image, you know I’m a big fan of questions. Always have been. Questions open us to possibilities, especially when they lead to more questions, experimentation, increased curiosity, and play. This is the last in a series of articles about the power of four particular questions to drive our work forward. The first …
Your Next Step: Narrative Work
The third in a series of questions I encourage students to ask themselves, and frankly, they’re questions I still ask myself – is this one: does my work tell a story? Of course there’s a question that needs to be asked before any other: is story the best tool for the job? Not every photograph has to tell a story. …
Your Next Step: Vital Work
Nothing, but nothing, makes a stronger photograph than it being alive. Not perfect focus, not a great exposure. Life. Spark. Energy or emotion that gives you goosebumps and doesn’t let you go all day. Earlier this week I encouraged you to consider the question: is my work authentic? as one way to take a next step in your photographic work. …
Your Next Step: Authentic Work.
If you’re at the place where you no longer wrestle as much with the basics of exposure and focus, it could be time to work on the photographs themselves: on content and composition, on vision and the deeper aspects of your craft and art. There are 4 questions I keep encouraging my students to ask themselves as they consider their …
Approval & Art
It is a short step from learning to use a camera to hoping others like what we create. It’s a natural step. But when the next step is allowing the tastes of others to change what we create, it’s a step in a direction that leads away from art. We are responsible for our art, and to be honest with …
Chasing Photographic Style.
We value style, forms of expression so unique to shooters that you can identify their work immediately. Show me a Jill Greenberg photograph, or an Annie Leibovitz cover and their name comes to mind without a conscious thought, much less looking for the photo credit. So valued is the notion of style that it won’t be long before someone writes …
It’s the Vision Is Better Show!
Today we launched the Vision Is Better show, a mostly-weekly 10-15 minute video podcast about photography. I’ve pre-recorded the first 6 of them and they’re live now on You Tube and I’m hoping that you’ll do 2 things for me – the first is subscribing. The second is asking questions in the comments. I’m hoping these questions will become the …
OverSharing?
A couple years ago I went for sushi with Chase Jarvis and as we sat across the table talking about art and commerce and life and stuff, he expressed an idea that I’ve loved and played with ever since – that the task of an artist is this: to create, and to share, and to do whatever you need to …
Poetry & Imperfection
The third in a trilogy of opinionated editorial articles about getting past the craft in order to express vision. I’m heading back to the Khutzeymateen this weekend and have 3 days with the grizzly bears and the wilderness and with any luck the bee in my bonnet will take his leave and I’ll return with a renewed calm. This article …