Lately I’ve read a lot of articles and videos talking about lenses in the context of “interesting” and “boring”. I noticed that all of the lenses in the “interesting/beautiful” category were either very wide/very long or very wide aperture, i.e. F/1.4 or wider. Ok, I get it. Lenses like that create a perspective that is different than what we see with our eyes and as a result produce a perspective that unto itself gets notice either through the separation of […]
Mise en place (French pronunciation: [mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) is a French culinary phrase which means “putting in place” or “everything in its place.” There was a discussion over at The Online Photographer where they were talking about their difficulty of losing memory cards. This baffles me how anyone who takes their photography seriously would be so sloppy with things like the management of their memory cards. No offense intended but it makes me wonder how people work/live without having put much thought into how they […]
I think that it was a natural extension of how I learned back in my landscape photography days that I’m much more interested in the small things than big picture. By that I mean that I’m not really one for the all encompassing wide shot. There is just too much information and except for certain compositions that are very wide it is designed in a way to let your eye naturally sweep through the scene to land where the real […]
I don’t know what it is but I seem to work in the dim a lot. Rarely do my assignments take me to where the light is bright, the sun is full and I have to deal with almost too much illumination. Rather I’m so often working in less than ideal light from a technical standpoint. This has always been the case it seems. Back in my early years shooting landscapes and nature everything was shot on slow chrome film […]
I have no problem admitting that I’m a bit of a behind the scenes (BTS) junkie. If you are in my office you will regularly see, if not the news, some sort of tutorial or BTS video playing on my secondary screen while I’m working on something else. This is because I want to not only be learning constantly but about all things possible. What has been really bothering me is that when photographers post BTS videos they so often […]
My work for the last few years has developed this neat-o split personality. I do portraits and I do reportage. Sometimes I get to do that for the same assignment which is to me very cool. I do a lot of business profiles and to me it’s important to not only make the head dude/dude-ette look cool but also, if at all possible to show the people who work there who don’t wear the fancy suits. When you realize that […]
This is a little grab shot from my local bistro. There are a lot of little things going on that makes me want to know the rest of the story.
Sorry for the delays in posting. The last few months have been a long blur of often fun and occasionally well paying but more technical than artistic jobs. Not a lot of down time which is kinda how I like it. It’s not the sorta life that most would want. Don’t get me wrong, I dig it but it would be hell for most. When people think about becoming any kind of professional creative they think about the fun, maybe […]
As I’ve said before: I try to not imitate any artist that I know of. Ok I in the past I have occasionally tried to summon some mojo from the gods, so to speak, but in the end it is always my voice that comes out of me. But I do admit that I am drawn to certain things that reminds me of other artists work for often unconscious reasons and the results are unexpected. When I first noticed these […]
Was at a gallery showing the other day and saw this: It’s kinda got a bit of cubism going on. I think. It’s funky which I like. Just a passing thought for ya.
Two things came up lately that has prompted me to make this confession. First off I came across an interesting opinion piece on PetaPixel where the photog who wrote it talks about how heavily modern commercial and PR photography relies on digital image manipulation. I won’t call it “retouching” as reconstruction is more like it. The reliance is so great that in many ways the industry depends as much or more on PhotoShop than the photographers who supply the base […]
I don’t try to think too much about my work. By that I don’t mean that I don’t care, far from it. Rather I try to not spend too much time in my head. I want a gut feeling. An organic, spontaneous, “where did THAT come from!?” I used to think too much and that would stifle my ability to be creative. Learning to not think is hard but it helped me be receptive to the quiet inner voice of […]
I bet you can. In a way. Sort of. Maybe. Uh, … Let’s first define our terms. In the modern era wherein everyone has an image making device loads of people are off making tons of happy snaps. Some are actually pretty good. Most is what you’d expect from a total amateur who is point and shooting: boring representations of objects. And a good lot of it is down right rubbish where the most insipid subject-visual approach combo is supposedly […]
I got a call the other day from someone who after seeing what I shot and how it ran in the publication that I was on assignment for the company wanted to purchase my images for their company’s new marketing campaign. Sweet! I love calls like that. So I go to my archive and pull the images. And that got me thinking, “I wonder how many images I shot last year?” So I did a search in my archive and […]
I look at a lot of photos every day that aren’t mine. I believe that it’s my job to be aware of what is going on in the world in general and the world of photography specifically. This gives me inspiration, ideas for stories and occasionally I learn something that I can apply to my own work or business to move me ahead. Let me tell you that if you are a fellow photographer and are doing interesting work in […]
I had an interesting memory tonight and it goes like this. I don’t know her name and I don’t really remember what she looked like but I strongly remember what she means to me: the first and very lasting application of psychology to my photographic work. Up until the point that I met her, I’ll call her Claire, I was a total landscape/fine arty photographer who never really tried to photograph people. I was awkward and shy. Regardless, I was […]
I had a seriously “where have you been all my life!?” moment a while ago and it goes like this: When I go to shoot a sporting event the lens of choice is usually my trusty Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8 which often gets a Nikon TC14BII converter added for the extra reach that you need when you really can’t get close enough to the action. If any of you have shot football, soccer, baseball and whatnot you know the drill. […]
I was halfway through a superb BLT sandwich for lunch today when I had the following thought “Why haven’t cameras taken on the same approach as cars”. Ok I can see that this makes no sense so I’ll rewind a bit. The wife and I were having lunch and watching an old episode of Top Gear, the British “real” version, and they were trying to find the first car that drove and felt like a proper car and not some […]
The adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds true in many ways that we don’t often think about. I had a revelation the other day about this phrase and said it in this manner: “A photo is worth a thousand words but most of them are only true to the photographer”. Wha? Yeah. Let me explain. We know that in that “decisive moment” there are lots of big conscious choices that the photographer makes among which are: lens […]
I ran across the following thought just now as I was catching up on some stuff. It has everything to do with photography and my way of looking at life. Grand aint it? “Human beings took our animal need for palatable food … and turned it into chocolate souffles with salted caramel cream. We took our ability to co-operate as a social species … and turned it into craft circles and bowling leagues and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We […]