Here's a thought…

HT1579 - Photographer or Artist

How do you perceive yourself? That is, what terms do you use to describe what you do? Are you a photographer or an artist? How you define yourself will set up the limits for your creative work. Clearly there are no right or wrong answers here, but carefully choosing how you define yourself can prevent unintended limits.

HT1583 - Seeing vs Feeling

With every picture, we point our camera at something we want others to see. But beyond that is a deeper challenge. In order for photography to be an art medium, it has to point beyond what the photographer wants us to see to what they want us to feel.

HT1584 - The Texture Hour

So often I hear photographers talk about the Golden Hour as though it were some magical color. It is a lovely color, but that color can be replicated artificially with color balance and other processing tricks. The real magic of the golden hour is not the color but rather the angular light that reveals detail. That revealing of detail can also happen at high noon if the light is at the correct angle to reveal detail and textures.

HT1585 - Building an Index of Our Website

I've had a number of people email me that they wish we had a comprehensive index of all the materials available at lenswork.com and LensWork Online. I would love to provide this, but I have no idea how to do it. Could any of you help?

HT1586 - Most Influential Book

Daybooks by Edward Weston? The Decisive Moment by Cartier-Bresson? The Americans by Robert Frank? For me, there is no question that most influential book has been Photographers On Photography by Nathan Lyons. This is the one book I go back to and reread over and over again.

HT1590 - High ISO vs Slower Shutters

For 50 years, my photographic life has been a balancing act between ISO and shutter speeds. Most often, a tripod was the answer. Rarely did I choose a faster film, because I prefer not to have grain in my images. But now, with the new Adobe Denoise feature, I find those high ISOs a lot less intimidating and don't hesitate to choose a fast shutter speed.

HT1591 - Ah, the Memories

The other day I was thinking about my early days in photography and all the things I needed to learn that are now obsolete — at least they are in my current workflow. I found myself nostalgically remembering reciprocity failure, hypo clearing agent, spot tone, dry mount tissue, HC 110, handheld light meters, Wratten filters, Light Impressions, and the Zone VI Fred picker newsletter. I'm not sure I miss those days, but I do remember them fondly.

HT1592 - I Don't Miss the Repetition

Yesterday I was waxing nostalgic about my early days in photography, but there is one thing I don't miss at all — the repetition. For example, if I made five prints I had to repeat the spotting of those prints on all five of them. It was mindless drudgery. Now if I have a spot in an image that needs removing, I do it one time in the digital file and it's gone forever.

HT1593 - Non-photographers Who Are Photographers

Thomas Merton, Wright Morris, Lewis Carroll are three examples of creative individuals who did wonderful photography even though they weren't really photographers, at least not in the way you and I usually think of photographers.

HT1597 - Two Types of Storytelling

Presentations of groups of photographs are often described as "storytelling." There are two (at least two) types of storytelling that are quite different and can often lead to confusion.

HT1598 - Human Vision as the Ultimate Photographic Standard

"But that's not what it looks like!" Is a photograph supposed to be a perfect copy of what we see? In some cases, that's clearly true, but in the role of photograph as art work, how we see the scene is not at all the governing factor of what we create.

HT1599 - Selfies at the National Parks

I think I've completely misunderstood the purpose of the national parks. I've been operating under the assumption that National Parks were established so that we would have an opportunity to see their grandeur and glory. Clearly, according to contemporary culture anyway, I am wrong about this. Purpose of national parks is to serve as a background for the gazillions of selfies whose subject is not our magnificent planet, but rather a bit of narcissistic "Kilroy was here."

HT1600 - DeLorme Maps

As a landscape photographer, I love dirt roads. You can rely on the fact that the best photography starts after the pavement ends. That said, finding dirt roads can be a challenge in unknown territory. Years ago, Huntington Witherill recommended that I get DeLorme maps. He was right. They are great, not flawless, but way better than any other maps I've seen. That and a GPS make getting lost almost impossible. Well, almost.

HT1604 - The Experimental Percentage

When we first pick up a camera and decide we want to explore photography, just about 100% of our photographs are experimental. We are learning, trying, figuring out what we can do easily and what we need to learn to do. But once you've achieved the basic competence, the experimental percentage drops, precipitously, maybe even to zero. This is not good. How much of your work should be experimental? A difficult question to answer, but certainly zero is the wrong answer.

HT1605 - Kudzu

One of the most significant natural events in the last 50 years in the Central Southeast areas of America has been the advance of kudzu. It's an invasive plant that is considered a scourge. But it also makes for some interesting visual compositions. Now that I'm traveling in kudzu infested areas, I can't believe that no one has done a portfolio of kudzu country and submitted it to LensWork. Have I just missed it?

HT1606 - The Sophomore Curse

What you did was great; what's next? The so-called sophomore curse is really not about you second project, but about every project in your future. The best strategy is to avoid the void that naturally occurs after that first project is done.

HT1607 - The Best Among Several Choices

The aesthetic style of processing you choose is one of the most critical decisions needed as you work a project toward completion. The key word in that sentence is "choose." In order to choose, you need to have options, that is, several interpretations of style to choose from. Don't just lock-on to the first idea that occurs to you.