Making Creative & Technical Choices
This morning I’m going back to fundamentals and answering a question from several months ago that asked, simply, how and why do you choose a particular lens or aperture for a scene. I love this question because it gets to the heart of what it means to be a photographer, or any artist, and that is about making choices. If …
Tired of Perfection
This is a little bit all over the place, and it’s raw. But that’s the point of this whole thing. I could do with a little more raw right now. I’m tired of perfection. My morning scroll though Instagram just wears me down more every day, with image after image post-processed into plasticity, over-sharpness, and the obliteration of shadows. I’m …
Shoot Like A Pro?
If I hear one more person or read one more camera ad that tells me to SHOOT LIKE A PRO! I swear to god I’ll start drinking gin from the cat bowl and Fluffy can go drink out of the toilet. What is this obsession with being a so-called pro as if it’s the highest calling of the photographer and …
Postcards from Lesotho
After 2 weeks in the highlands of Lesotho I’m back in Johannesburg for a couple days to wash the dust off and get the bumps massaged out before beginning the long journey home. The highlight this morning was waking up in a bed that was not my sleeping bag, and getting a cup of coffee that was not powdered Nescafe. …
How To Get Sh*t Done
Have you ever felt like you’re insanely busy but not actually accomplishing anything? Like you’re frantically doing stuff but never getting stuff done? Being creative, no matter what the discipline or genre means making things, it means creating, and to do that – whether it’s one photograph or a significant body of work, never mind all the things we need …
Everyone’s A Photographer?
I posted this to FaceBook one year ago and now seems as good a time as ever to post this here. I was speaking last year at an event with a panel of photographers. There was a Q&A afterwards and someone asked me what I thought about this idea that “everyone is a photographer.” I told her I agreed. Everyone …
The One About Creative Burnout
I’m tired. Not like the “I need a nap” kind of tired, but the kind of tired that goes into your soul and slows your thinking and makes you dread the things you were so excited to put on the calendar only a few months ago. The kind of tired that feels like the first signs of burning out. And …
Postcards from Venice
The train from Venice pulled out only minutes ago, heading south to Florence and away from the city that, after 8 years, I’m only now beginning to really discover, though I’ve loved her – quirky, busy, impossibly tangled with tourists, as well as beautiful, romantic, and bathed in light – from the start. Florence will be a quick one, 4 …
How to Deal with Creative Boredom
I get about a dozen emails or comments on social media every month asking me what to do when you wake up one day and you realize you’re bored and you feel like your photographs are boring and because the only only thing worse than making boring photographs is being bored yourself, and because I think there’s a connection, I …
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 …