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 …
August Desktop Wallpaper
One of the most magical forests I’ve ever been too, this forest glade on Ramsay Island in Gwaii Haanas was straight out of a story book. I spent a too-short, but very happy, hour here climbing over moss-covered logs and dodging bear scat, half-expecting to hear the trees speak to me. A slow shutter speed and some intentional camera movement …
More from Gwaii Haanas
I’m heading to Bali tomorrow but I’ll do my best to drop a line. In the meantime, here’s a few more postcards (didn’t see the first ones? You can find them here), and some shop talk about packing logistics, from last week’s trip to Gwaii Haanas. Like the Ocean Light II trip to the Khutzeymateen, I was limited in what …
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 …
Gwaii Haanas
A week ago we wound our way out of Sandspit, one of the few small towns in the Haida Gwaii, a group of islands in northern British Columbia that used to be called the Queen Charlotte Islands, towards a waiting bush plane. We loaded our gear into the De Havilland Beaver around 6:30am, the sun already up for a while …
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 …
Breakfast with Freeman
This past weekend was something like a rite of passage, of which we have so few in this culture. And those we do have seem to come accidentally; we recognize them in hindsight. Which makes it a little less a rite and a little more merely a milestone. Still, this weekend was that for me, something I’ll always look back …
Being More Creative
For a craft that is, at its heart, a creative effort, it amazes me that you’d have to read 100 books about making better photographs before you read anything on the creative process. And it’s not that it’s the job of these educators to teach creativity, but still. I’m sitting in a coffee shop right now, two photographers beside me. …