A day after I had posted my Martin Parr Rome story, one of our members here, David B. reached out to ask about a weird visual artifact that appears on one of Parr’s images. Check it out:
Hey everybody. As most of you know, I’m a big fan of printing out my images, and since Eduardo turned me onto the FREE PRINTS app, I’ve been all in with them, taking advantage of my 85 “free” 4×6″ prints they offer every month.
Intention, commitment, and repetition can unlock latent abilities, and that’s how most of us come to realize that we’re onto something, but for some of us, that’s just not enough.
I’ve seen students do the work and put in the hours but don’t seem to get any better, and I’ve seen them experience some sort of sudden unexpected breakthrough which then fosters significant improvements in their work, almost overnight.
I came across a photograph on Instagram today that got me thinking about how different people will see (and photograph) a similar scene in a very different way.
The image was taken by Larry Cohen, and is a simple photograph of a remarkable event, but for all its simplicity, check out how well-composed the image is.
I’ve been answering this question quite a lot on Instagram lately and decided to write a how-to guide here to point people to. Here’s the question: “When you post it is accompanied by another close up of your post over two tiles, how do you do that?” Well, Mick (and everybody else), here’s the secret.
I saw an ad on Instagram advertising a free hour-long lecture David Alan Harvey did for Chase Jarvis’ CreativeLive channel and I definitely couldn’t pass it up. At 14 minutes in he definitely raised my eyebrows. At 25 minutes in he straight blew my mind. At 29 minutes in he blew my mind yet again.
Stupid bird kept moving his head! There were a lot of variables to keep track of. There was heavy wind and the woman’s hair was blowing all over the place. Also, the pelican was moving its head all over the place and when a pelican is looking sideways, you have a shot. When a pelican is looking away or directly at you its narrow head disappears into its neck and you lose your shot.
2017 was a very busy year. Photography is not my main gig and I was heavily focused last year on growing certain aspects of my business to run themselves a bit more independently which should afford me some more free time to do things like run around the world making photographs.
As a steadfast and general rule, I do not shoot the homeless. While some people can pull this off very well, much of what I’ve seen is largely exploitative or just a cheap-and-easy shot. The only times I have gone *there* is when I see an opportunity to serve a larger narrative. This time was different.
All in all 2016 was one hell of a year. As I do at the top of each year, I’m currently ruminating on what I’ve learned, where I’ve grown, and where my growth has maybe been stopped or slowed. I’m not a big fan of listicles, but I’ve got one here for you anyway. What started out as a list of 3 or 4 items that I have learned over the year quickly Tribbled into a list of 11 items. Let’s dig in.
“Working the Shot” is a pretty straightforward concept. It says that you you shouldn’t just run up to anything that catches your eye, photograph it and call it done. Instead, you should consider staying with whatever it was that caught your eye in the first place, and really explore that situation. Take multiple shots, move about the scene, explore a variety of angles and perspectives, allow something to unfold, and in short, fully document whatever it was that you observed and deemed worthy of committing to film, or memory card, or what have you.
Carry a camera with you, and make the best images you can with the tools you have. You won’t get a second chance to make that once in a million image.
I look at a lot of photos. Like, seriously a lot. Sure, I’m on Instagram and Flickr, Facebook and 500px, and I’m known to spend a good half hour every …
Photography is kind of a big thing for me. Without photography in my life I would almost certainly lose my shit, succumb to a stress-related heart attack, or worse.
2014 Was a very strange year for me, both personally and for my photography. I learned some things along the way, and I’ve put aside ten of those things here to share with you. I’d love to know if any of these things resonate with you at all. Keep in mind, these are not 10 universal rules of photography. Not by any means. They are 10 rules for me. Ten things that I’ve learned through the course of pounding my head against the wall over and over again while chasing my own muse. What’s interesting to me is that none of these 10 rules is technical in any way. They’re all process stuff, the feely stuff. The artist stuff.
I’m more inspired than I’ve ever been before, I’m having more fun and truly I feel that I’m now doing my best work. I may just be in love.
