Stop Using A Camera, Start Making Photographs
The day my photography changed was the day I stopped learning to use a camera and started learning to make photographs. Indulge me: it’s more than just semantics, at least it was for me. We begin, most of us, learning photography as the art of using a camera, figuring out the buttons and dials and learning to focus and expose. …
The Place of Craft
“Sharpness is over-rated. No one has ever looked at the best photographs of this century and been moved emotionally because it was tack sharp or because the histogram was perfect. We suffer, not from a lack of technical ability, but from a lack of visual literacy, imagination, and the willingness to connect emotionally – and vulnerably – with our subjects.” …
New Ideas, New Directions
Today is one of those days. And this is one of those rambling posts. Feel free to skip it if you’re looking for something with a single coherent point that’s easy to follow. We’ve just said goodbye to my mother at the airport and I’m settled on the couch in our new place in Victoria, surrounded by light and birdsong …
Enough.
Bull Kelp, Queen Charlotte Strait, British Columbia When I dropped into the waters of Queen Charlotte Strait a couple weeks ago it was a bit of a graduation for me. I’ve spent a year working towards it. Four different SCUBA certifications, a lot of reading, research, and far too much dreaming about the photographs I hoped I would make. And …
Below
What an unforgettable week. Last Sunday I closed the door of my Vancouver loft for the last time, threw my SCUBA gear into the Jeep and headed to the airport to pick up one of my best friends. We got on a ferry to Vancouver Island and headed north to Port Hardy, camping for a night along the way to …
Back to Sucking.
This weekend I’m off to the northern tip of Vancouver Island to dive in the giant kelp forests with sea lions and octopus. I can’t wait! After a year of taking SCUBA courses and, forgive the pun, immersing myself in a hobby more bewildering than even photography, I am finally taking my cameras into the water and it feels like …
On Real Photographers
Photograph: My friend, and inspiration, Chris Orwig My first experiences of being part of a group of my peers did not go well. My memories of being in school are mostly filled with my efforts to fit in, and the efforts of others to keep me out. The new kid. The smaller kid. The kid with the funny name. So …
You Matter More
I should have known better; I should have known that I can’t just say, “we give our cameras way too much credit for their part in the photographic process,” on social media, toss it out over left field without further commentary and not get some yeah-buts and some push-back. My bad. I should have known that there will be those …
The Visual Toolbox is Shipping!
I’m speaking at a creativity conference in Mexico this week, but I wanted to let you know The Visual Toolbox is now shipping! You’d think this would get old somehow, but the release of any new book is exhilarating, even more so when it’s a printed book. If you’re at the What If! Conference, come have a celebratory drink with …
Four.
This is a short note to long-time readers. It’s unedited and is, simply, a reflection and a thank you. Four years ago on Easter weekend I fell off a wall in Italy and changed my life forever. That I lived at all is wonder enough, but that I now look back on the last 4 years as some of the …