Here's a thought…

HT1856 - Every Wish Has Been Granted

There is that old bumper sticker wisdom that advises us to be careful what we wish for: we might just get it! For most of my photographic life I wanted faster, smoother, sharper, better. Now that I have all of that in today's amazing photographic tools, I suppose there are no excuses left for why our artwork fails other than to acknowledge our personal and internal limitations. Damn it was sure handy blaming inadequate tools!

HT1857 - Toned vs False Color

When a black and white image is toned, the mood shifts but the believability does not. There is a reason that a color image that deviates from reality is referred to as false color. But we never hear a toned black and white image referred to as a false black and white

HT1858 - The Three Rules of Communication

An old maxim tells us the theory of communication broken down into three steps of advice. Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you just told them. That pattern seems to work pretty well in project-oriented photography, too.

HT1859 - What Will I Do with This Day?

Each morning as I slowly awaken from my night's sleep, I think about the coming day and what I need to do. Every once in a while, I find my calendar is clean, I can spend the whole day doing photography without any guilt about obligations I might be ignoring. What a wonderful day! But then follows the troublesome question: What will I do?

HT1863 - Beyond Bragging Rights

It is a part of human nature to want to share our successes. When we make a photograph we are particularly proud of, we want to show it to others. Other than the fleeting joy of sharing our successes, why are you involved in photography? What is the deeper reason you go to such lengths, expense, work, and sacrifice for your photography?

HT1864 - Viewing Lights

The light we use to view a print or book is so critical in determining how that photograph appears. Unfortunately, we have no control over the light people use to view our work. A story from Paul Strand's biographer demonstrates how frustrating this issue can be for us photographers.

HT1865 - How to Save $1,600

Once again I found myself contemplating the super long 100-400mm Panasonic Leica lens for my m/43 camera. As a part of the research, I decided to investigate a cropped image from the Panasonic Leica 50-200mm I already own. Then the next step was to see what the results would look like if I used either pixel shift technology versus Super Resolution Enhancement in Lightroom. Fascinating results.

HT1866 - Learning Without Feedback

How well do you suppose you would learn tennis if you could never see where the ball went after you hit it? Learning is always a function of action, feedback, assessment. This is equally true for photography and this explains one aspect of the digital revolution that I think is highly overlooked, but has radically changed the nature of photography.

HT1870 - Stages of Creative Thought

I've talked before about the solutions to problems that pop up from seemingly nowhere. I've recently been reading The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. I found there a fascination quote that discusses this process. Glad to know I'm not alone in observing how creative ideas so often appear unexpectedly.

HT1871 - The Competition for Eyeballs

All media include an element of narcissism. With every photograph we make, we are essentially competing for attention. Each photograph screams, "Look at me!" This intense competition for eyeballs leads to a secondary phenomenon I think of as "the advertising promise." "Come look at me and you will be rewarded with this goody." The competition for eyeballs is so fierce that we now are overwhelmed with advertising promises way out of proportion to actual content.

HT1872 - Print Size and the Wall

Once Stieglitz decided that photography was best consumed as art on the wall, like painting, he set in motion the pursuit of large prints. If it weren't for our predisposition to exhibit photographs on the wall, I wonder if there would ever have been a push for larger and larger prints. And if we collectively did not think of photography as something destined for the wall, I wonder what methodology/medium would dominate the sharing of photographs?

HT1873 - Maximum Black Is Not Magic

In my youth, I thought the magic was to achieve a maximum black. It took me several years to learn that the magic is not in maximum black but rather in beautiful gray tones and chords of tones that please the eye. Increasing contrast and overprinting the blacks is rarely the answer. My apologies to Bill Brandt.

HT1877 - The Thought That Goes With Every Photograph

Photographs are visual, but that does not mean they are devoid of words, devoid of thought. Every photograph sparks a thought. A photograph might spark thoughts of the beautiful, the trite, the irrelevant, the desirable — there is probably an example of a photograph for every word in language. Artwork is a gateway to thought. How does knowing this change what we do and produce?

HT1878 - Twenty Times

To really appreciate a new piece of music, I need to hear it at least 20 times so that I can own it in my mind. The same can be said for photography. I have to spend time with an image before I feel like I've seen it. I have to think about it. I have to search for metaphors in my responses. Sometimes I need to know a little bit about the photographer so I can put their photograph in the context of their career. The idea that photography is something to be glanced at just sits wrong with me on so many levels.

HT1879 - Twenty Times, a Variation

As a follow up on yesterday's conversation about music and looking at photographs, I could apply the exact same logic to locations where I photograph. The first time I go anywhere I tend to photograph the fairly obvious compositions — and perhaps do so without nearly as much depth as I would like to. I need to return to a location a half a dozen or a dozen times before I feel I've gotten to know it. Weather changes, seasons change, but most importantly, I change.

HT1880 - Mat Boards and Margins

The convention in photography is to finish the print by affixing it to mat board. There various methods to do this, but they all have in common the physicality of the board itself. This adds expense and bulk to the finished work of art. Is it the physicality or the margin that is important here? Once the print is in the frame, is the physicality of the mat board still important?