A long-time friend is an artist whose latest work is at the intersection of her two passions, photography and sculpture. To introduce others to her work, I made this profile video. Read More
Whenever I buy (or advise a photographer about) a piece of gear, I always use the same criteria. I simply ask, “Does it solve the problem?” I used to only apply that test to cameras or lenses. Increasingly, I use it when considering other camera related gear such as tripods and flash cards. I have been using it often recently because entrepreneurs are increasingly coming up with novel solutions to problems that I once thought were not “solvable.” A classic example of this is camera straps. Read More
I spent time in early October judging the annual Pollux Awards, which are given out by the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards. The juror’s statement, which I wrote after the judging, was recently posted along with the winning work. The whole process was an education for me. I thought that turning my experience into a blog entry would enable me to take others on the same educational journey that I recently undertook. Read More
I just finished up a great road trip to California where I was photographing and teaching. Throughout the trip I was using my Olympus PEN cameras constantly. The reaction that my cameras drew was fascinating. Many of the students were very interested in what I was using because of the size of the cameras and lenses. Half the pros I encountered smirked at my “tiny” cameras. The other half wanted to know more. Nearly everyone asked the same question, which went something like “which camera do you use and why?” Read More
For the last two weeks I have been blogging about the important question of where do you learn how to be a photographer? To date, I have explored my take on the future of commercial photography, called into the question the value of formal schooling and offered some on-line resources that can serve as well as school, if not better (and they are much cheaper.) I want to deconstruct a few of those same resources to suggest how to find value in reading them. Read More
I spent an afternoon talking with people at a minor league baseball game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, asking them what they liked about minor league baseball and this is what they said…
In last week’s blog entry I started to explore the question, where do you learn how to be a photographer? Much of that entry was speculating on what the business of photography will be like in the future. I also called into the question the benefit of formal study of photography, at least for those who want to be commercial photographers. Read More
Eager young photographers write me often, telling me about what they want to do as photographers and asking for my help. Part of me says to tell them to “…run as fast as you can, away, away from this ever more crowded field.“ Another part of me says, wait, the business continues and is (in some way) growing, doubly so, with the movement of most communications media to the web, which is an ever more image-driven media. So there will be photographers in the future, though not the same kind of photographers as there used to be. I recently blogged about the best college for photographers being the one where you learn how to “think,” not just take pictures. That begs the question, where do you learn how to be a photographer? Read More
For the last two weeks, I have been blogging about photography and the events of 9/11. First, I explored how the attacks have become something of a milestone marking major changes in the business and culture of photography. Then I pondered how those same events helped me understand my own process as a photographer. This week, I am considering what photography fails to do when it comes to tragedies, like 9/11. Read More
Last week I blogged about how the terrible events of 9/11/01 changed photography. (Or maybe more accurately, how the photography that came out of that day highlighted the changes in the culture of photography that were just picking up speed at that moment.) That essay was written from the perspective of a blogger first and a photographer second. This week I approach the same topic the other way, as a photographer first and a blogger second. Read More