| February 2021 |
March 2021 |
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1
HT0727 - The Damn Pink Elephant |
In Gestalt psychology, one of the basic principles of human thought is called "lock-on, lock out" — LOLO, for short. If we are not careful, we can easily do that to ourselves in our photographic efforts. |
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2
HT0728 - The Hidden Premise |
Why do landscapes need to be pristine? Why do fashion photographs need to be sexy? Why is street photography always gritty? Why not violate the expectations by changing the premises. |
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3
HT0729 - A Year Later, Still the Same |
Website updates can be no fun and time consuming. On the other hand, what does it say to your website visitors if they see the same work visit after visit? |
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4
HT0730 - The Three-quarters Blues |
Beginning a project is filled with excitement. Half way is a benchmark of accomplishment. Finishing is a point of joy and pride. Three-quarters is the danger zone. |
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5
HT0731 - Road Trips |
A road trip is the foundation of lots of literature from Ulysses to the Pickwick Papers. So much of photography travel is about the destination. But what about the stories along the way? What about the travel itself? |
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6
HT0732 - Books for My Road Trip |
I only have room for about 30 books in my trailer. Deciding which to take has been an interesting thought process in itself. Here are a couple of ones that made the cut and will be going with me. |
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7
HT0733 - Panorama Images |
Book publishing and magazine publishing don't provide a very satisfying solution to presenting panorama images. Too bad, because panorama format is such a lovely way to see in the landscape. |
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8
HT0734 - The Three Important Dates |
With photographers whose work is highly collectible, having a clear provenance is important. For you and I, it may be less important, but it doesn't take much time or cost anything for us to supply a provenance for our work should somebody, someday want to collect it. Why not provide them with the three important dates? |
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9
HT0735 - Floating Mounts |
One of the most interesting ways I've ever seen an original photograph presented was at a show of Mark Klett's work in Arizona. He used a floating mount technique which I thought was simply spectacular. I've used it a couple of times in my own work, and it's a very interesting way to emphasize the artifact nature of an original print. |
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10
HT0736 - Rest Days |
As the better weather gets closer to us this spring, it's a common thing for photographers to start planning their extended photographic vacations. I often hear from photographers who have gone somewhere for a week or two to photograph. I'm not sure this is a universal feeling, but I know that whenever I go out for an extended period like that I have to have a day, somewhere in the middle, that's a rest day. A day's break in the intensity brings me back refreshed and ready to be creative again. |
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11
HT0737 - Reoxygenating Your Brain |
Yesterday I was discussing the need for occasional rest days, but the same idea pertains to the importance of a mid-day 10 minute nap. Being creative consumes oxygen from our brain, and I've often thought the 10-minute nap is a great way to recharge your brain cells for the next few creative hours. |
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12
HT0738 - Focal Length and the Weather |
As strange as it may seem, the weather can have a significant impact on which focal lengths I use. A long focal length on a hot day isn't a good combination because of the heat waves that come off the surface of the landscape creating distortions. Extra windy days, I tend to choose shallow focal lengths because it minimizes movement and I can take advantage of all that dust in the air to create atmosphere. |
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13
HT0739 - Big Compared to What? |
I often hear landscape photographers describe the subjects they photograph as being so impressive because of their enormity. The Grand Canyon and storm supercells come to mind. This doesn't always come through in the photograph, however, because big is a description that begs comparison. |
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14
HT0740 - Better Than My Expectations |
Every time we press the shutter, we have some idea about how we'd like the picture to turn out. When our expectations aren't met, however, it's sometimes because the image ends up better than our expectations, but different. It's easy to confuse these two and discount the image that doesn't meet our expectations there by missing the potential that it exceeds our expectations, but differently. |
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15
HT0741 - It Rarely Goes Perfectly |
My new life on the road has begun! |
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16
HT0742 - Super Resolution |
Adobe has announced "Super Resolution" in their latest update to Photoshop. I'm not convinced. At least not yet. |
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17
HT0743 - KonMari |
Do you know that tiny Japanese woman who teaches the virtues of tidying up? I've watched a couple of her YouTube's in preparation for my trailer life, but what really struck me was how I could relate to her concept of "sparking joy" when it comes to photography! That point in the process of working an image when it suddenly sparks joy! What a strange connection to discover between making art and organizing your life. |
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18
HT0744 - More on Super Resolution |
Four times the resolution does not mean better quality, but it does mean four times the resolution. If quality is a function of more detail or a sharper image couldn't we increase the quality of the photograph by stepping closer or farther away from it? How silly!
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19
HT0745 - Instruction Manuals |
For 30 years, my only camera was a used ARCA Swiss monorail View Camera that came with no instruction manual. I never needed one. I knew how to use a view camera, so I never missed the fact that my used camera didn't have instructions. Now, I don't go anywhere without my digital camera's instruction manual. Not anywhere. |
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20
HT0746 - Rejecting versus Accepting |
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In last week's podcast I was discussing the difference between searching and finding and I think it's one of the most important concepts I've discussed in my podcast series. Here's another way to think about that issue about purposefully setting out to photograph what we preconceive versus simply being open to accept what we find. |
21
HT0747 - Tokens |
As a way of including and remembering those whom I love, I'm taking with me on my road trip a token from each of my family members — something they've touched, something that has physical connection to them. Strangely enough, I think it's the same dynamic that makes signing prints or even personalizing them so important. |
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22
HT0748 - The Problem with Big |
There is an inverse relationship between the side of a print and the size of the audience. In an ironic way, the larger the print the smaller the audience. |
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23
HT0749 - The Suitability of the Tool |
One of the problems of today's camera reviews is that they tend to judge each camera against all possible uses instead of the ones that are ideally suited for. |
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24
HT0750 - Your Definition of Finished |
In your photographic life, what do you have to do, that is, what do you have to complete in order to consider a project finished? Is it finished when you have a successful print? Finished when it's matted? Finished when it's framed and put on the wall? Finished when it's published? Finished when you get tired of it and just move on to the next project? |
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25
HT0751 - Beyond Your Visible Universe |
Do you have any idea the reach of your artwork, both globally and in time? Of course not! We send our work out into the world and mostly have no idea with whom it connects nor how deeply people might appreciate what we do. But every once in a while, we might get a glimpse and isn't that lovely? |
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26
HT0752 - Composing for the Medium |
Different media — think books, PDFs, magazines, billboards, etc — have different aspect ratios and orientations. Should you compose for the medium or compose strictly for the content of the image, ignoring the medium all together? |
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27
HT0753 - What You Don't See |
Our eyes see everything, but our brain has this amazing feature to filter out things that are in our field of vision but not the focus of our attention. The camera records them, but even in processing, we might not see things that are right in front of our eyes. |
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28
HT0754 - Enlarged Distractions |
Here's something to be aware of when making bigger prints. Little things, things that are unimportant in a small print, can become large enough in an enlargement to become distracting. It might take a little extra processing to make sure those distracting things don't ruin your larger prints. |
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29
HT0755 - Scanning Textured Paper |
When a photograph is printed on textured paper, scanning it presents a particular problem. Scanning textured paper usually scans the texture itself, when what we want is the photographic image unencumbered by that texture. A good trick, one that we learned when reproducing platinum/palladium prints in LensWork, is not to scan textured paper, but instead to photograph it with a hi-res camera. |
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30
HT0756 - Who is "my grandfather"? |
Family snapshots can present a difficult challenge when the people in the photograph are identified by relationship, rather than name. On the back of some of our family photos it says things like "my grandfather" but we have no idea who wrote that and who the person in the photograph is. |
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31
HT0757 - Make It Special |
There was a time not that long ago when making a beautiful 16x20" print was something really special. Now a print like that is not that special because so many people are making them. In order to get noticed in the art world, it needs to be special, and that is an invitation to creativity. But what makes artwork special? Size? Trickery? Novelty? Uniqueness? Or is it something more fundamental? |
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