I don’t do rules very well. But I’ve got a couple of my own that come pretty close to inviolable. Don’t clean your sensor with your tongue is one such great rule. Very practical. In Bosnia, I was once given a large jar of honey that I thought would be better protected in my camera bag than anywhere else (I …
Further Thoughts on B&W
I’ve been hosting Heart of the Photograph virtual lectures for camera clubs around the world over the last couple of months, and one of the questions I seem to get after every one of those lectures is this: How do you approach your black and white work? The question comes in many forms, and now seemed as good a time as any to revisit …
What Makes the Image Work, Part 2
This past Sunday, I introduced you to a photograph of mine and sent you to my blog to discuss it, asking questions about the decisions I made and the effect of those decisions. I’ll keep this message short because I said most of what I want to say in the video I’m about to show you. But if you missed …
What Makes the Image Work?
As a child, my cousin James had a reputation for taking things apart. I recall one Christmas when he dismantled down to the wiring every gift he was given. Remote-control cars? Give him 20 minutes, and there’d be nothing left but a pile of tiny screws, little motors, and the tears of his mother who probably should have known better than to …
10 Upgrades for 2019
Happy New Year! I spent last month photographing Venice, then London briefly, with the Leica Q—a beautiful full-frame mirrorless camera with a fixed 28mm lens. It’s brilliant; one of my favourite cameras, ever. The sharpness of the lens is astonishing, as are the tonal qualities, the contrast, and the speed of focus. It’s gorgeous. The photographs it makes are amazing, …
Exposing for Highlights
While people rush to buy the latest cameras with the highest dynamic ranges and the latest software that’ll allow simulation of the highest dynamic range possible, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, it helps to remember that every limitation can also be a beautiful creative constraint. On the beach in Moeraki recently, and disappointed by the bright sunlight and …
Vision-Driven Exposure: A Clarification
I wanted to follow up on my article about how I expose, to clarify a few things. If you’ve read that article, read on. If not, you might want to read it first. To make a few things clear, my last post was not a dismissal of craft. Craft has its place. Excellence matters. But there’s this thing about people …
Vision-Driven Exposures
This is my confession. I no longer use a light meter. I don’t spot meter. In fact most of the time I don’t even know what metering mode I’m on. My life as a digital photographer became infinitely easier when I abandoned those, put my camera back to manual and simply began exposing for what’s important. Whether you use a …
Consider Your Colour Palette
One of the things you’ll notice consistently about the bodies of work of photographers who’ve been doing this a while, is that many of them, though not all, seem to work very intentionally to create a consistency within that body of work – some kind of unifying element. Often that element is on a theme, so it’d be a body …
Learn to Isolate More
Isolation: Use a Longer Lens The Visual Toolbox, Lesson 13 Nikon D800, 300mm, 1/400 @ f/11. ISO 800 This Whooper swan was photographed tight with a 300mm lens. Telephoto lenses, anything over a 35mm equivalent of 50-60mm, have the opposite effect of a wide angle, and the longer they get (200, 300, 600mm) the greater the difference. As telephoto lenses …