Month: January 2009

Long time coming

I am often asked, what am I working on now? Like many people, I have lots of things in the works. I am pleased that some of these efforts have recently come to fruition, after the typically long time cycle that is common to this business and sometimes frustrating to me. Read More

Photographs as mirrors and windows

I often tell my students that their best photographs are the ones that reflect their personalities, life experiences and outlooks.  I was recently giving a presentation, when an audience member’s question stopped me cold and forced me to articulate how that same idea has played out in my own work. Read More

The life and death and life of Polaroid pictures

Polaroids, those instant-developing images that we all came to love, seem like they would have become quaint in the digital age. Still the saga of Polaroid’s “images in an instant,” having gone through many incarnations over the years, continues. In fact, I just started using the first Polaroid product I have owned in a long time. Read More

How I learned to critique photographs

I was reviewing another photographer’s work recently. Left and right, I was tossing off suggestions for improving the images. Though I was thinking intensely about the work, I was largely unaware of my own process, as I critiqued the work. When she asked me how I had learned to critique images so fluidly, I was stopped in my tracks. Read More

Where I learned the most about photographing

I recently realized that if I carefully look at my career as a photographer, I can pinpoint where I learned the most about the act of photographing.  It was not in high school, where I learned the craft of photography.  Nor was it in college, where my study of the history of photography taught me about the art of photography.  It was in a different place, one that I fear is fast disappearing from the photographic landscape. Read More

Blurring the lines between art and commerce

You hear and read a lot about how the lines between the worlds of art photography and commercial photography are continually being blurred. In most ways that is good.  I recently lived through a particularly interesting experience that shows just how much these once distinctive realms are blurring. Read More