My daughter is setting off on her semester abroad in college. She chose not to go on a college-sponsored program in some sunny and warm spot, where she might be surrounded by other American college students. Instead, she chose to enroll in a university in the chilly, damp and often gloomy U.K., to follow her passion, costume design for the theatre. Needless to say, I am very proud of her adventurous spirit. Read More
As photographers, we know that some moments, ideas or experiences are simply not photographable. That does not mean we shouldn’t pause to enjoy them as life gives them to us. Nor does it mean we should not learn from them even if we do not come away with the perfect picture. I had one such experience in NYC recently. Read More
In this multi-media piece, I take you with me as I attend Waterfire, a long running piece of performance art held on the river in Providence. Waterfire is a spectacle to be enjoyed through the eyes and ears (as well as the nose.) To experience Waterfire check their schedule. Read More
I recently finished a great class on the “Photographic Tools for Travel Photography” at the International Center of Photography in New York City. I teach all my classes as a building process, where I pile ever growing amounts of information, responsibility and autonomy on the students as the workshop goes on. The end of that process, which is also the end of the class, is when I circle back through all the lessons of the class, to explore exactly what is the most difficult thing about making a good photograph. Read More
I have been putting a lot of time lately into my project photographing inside homes after the foreclosure and before the houses are cleaned up and resold. That moment is when I see what I think of the “ghosts” of the people who used to live in those homes. The work has been very well received lately, which got me wondering why that is. The educator in me (and the photographer in me) both want to understand why the images seem to work well for others. Every photographer has an idea about what his or her work should do for the viewer of the work, but so what. When a body of work succeeds in both the photographer’s mind and the viewer’s eye that’s something worth thinking about. Read More
I was on the other end of the camera recently, for the first time in a long, long time and it was a fascinating experience. Being “on camera” is not something I do very often, so I was bit wary. Although the resulting images looked good (at least to me,) the entire process from start to finish was as interesting as the final result. A photographer being photographed! If that’s not the start of a good blog entry, I am not much of a blogger. Read More
As a blogger, I am competing, (in theory) with millions of other bloggers for your attention. In my mind, the hardest part of the job is coming up with things to write about that others have not already explored. As of late, I have discovered that the best blog entries arise out of the intersection of my personal interests, input from others and recent events in my life. This week’s blog came out of that same place. It explores the question of how do we know who really knows what they are talking about? Read More
I generally write (blog) as way to organize the jumble of activity in my head. I am writing this particular entry after six weeks in India (and what seems like an equally long flight to get home.) The flight was not really six weeks of course, but the intensity of how experienced the two flights left me thinking about how we initially encounter and later remember experiences. Photographs often facilitate this process. Some discussions with family in India prompted me to think further about the intertwined relationship between images, family stories and memory. Read More
The philosophical riddle, “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” has become the starting point of many jokes. It also raises important questions regarding observation and how we establish/define reality. While a physicist can empirically (and easily) prove that yes, a noise is made, the philosopher is less sure about what is thruth. A recent article in the New York Times, and especially the reaction to it, reminded me of this philosophical question. Read More
If you have been reading my recent blog postings (or attending any of my recent presentations,) you will know I am almost obsessed with multi-media. Although I am interested in multi-media (or new media) as a potential added revenue stream, that is not the main reason I am so interested in the subject. Similarly, though it is the talk of the commercial photography world that is also NOT why I am interested in it.