Tag:thoughts & theory
Some of my earliest lessons in this craft served me very well—at the beginning. As I’ve grown, they have stopped being helpful. I suspect this is true for you, too. I was told to put the sun behind me. I was told to fill the frame with my subject. I was told that if I divided the frame into thirds and put the subject on one of those magical lines, then my photographs would be more interesting. For a while, […]
Some of my most frequent advice is to shoot through a scene. As a younger photographer, I would give up too easily and put the camera down too quickly when my efforts weren’t met with immediate success. “It’s not working,” I would say, when the truth was closer to “I’m not working.” I wasn’t giving the scene the time and effort it almost always needs to be coaxed away from the obvious. Or worse, I’d get what I thought was “the […]
I’ve always loved high-key images for their simplicity, elegance, and power. There’s a directness to them and no confusion at all about your intended subject. The technique is relatively simple, and yet for all its advantages, it’s been a while since I’ve thought to embrace it. Going into my recent trip to Kenya, I decided to remedy that by looking for opportunities to mix up my portfolio and go high-key, and I thought that might make for an interesting Sunday morning conversation with […]
Starting has always been tough. They don’t tell you that when you buy a camera. Or the new lens you get so excited to use. “This,” we think, “is going to change everything!” Except it doesn’t. At least not yet, because you’re (to misquote Julia Roberts in Notting Hill) still just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her. Except you’re just a photographer standing in front of a scene asking…”where the heck do I […]
I went to Kenya last month with the usual mix of excitement and worry. Excitement for all the normal reasons, not the least of which was being in front of wonderful things in beautiful light with my camera in my hand. Worry because I really didn’t want to come back with different versions of the same photographs I’ve made before. I had been taking some of my own advice and asking “what’s missing from my images?” and I had come […]
This post is accompanied by some of the work I shot over the last 4 weeks in Kenya. What a trip it’s been. I hope you enjoy the images! My grand-dad was a Scout. At the time he was the highest decorated man in the scouting movement in the UK, a movement whose motto is “Be Prepared.” I like to think some of that desire to be ready for the unexpected has come down to me in my DNA, though […]
Two weeks ago, I suggested you stop asking if your photographs are good and that you not concern yourself with whether they are or are not art. I advocated a more playful approach guided by what you love and what brings you joy. I argued that the growth in your craft could be channelled by that love because the more you love doing something, the more you do it, and the more you learn. Or so I believe. But that doesn’t remove the […]
My photography is never so difficult and robbed of its joy as when I try too hard to make it “good” (whatever that means) or worse: to make “art.“ The moment I focus my concern on the outcome of what I am making or how it is received by others, my work becomes rigid and self-conscious. Not only does the picture-making become more difficult (and the resulting photographs less infused with life), it all becomes so much less enjoyable, weighed […]
Wildlife photography should be easy: get a long lens, put the critter in the frame and don’t screw up the exposure. Simple, right? In the 20 years during which I have slid sideways into becoming a wildlife photographer, I have found myself both delighted and frustrated by the challenge of it. Surely if you know how to use a camera, the rest should be a matter of funding the lens and finding the animals. Beautiful creatures make for beautiful photographs, […]
I once wrote that “what if?” was the central question for creative people. I also once wrote that our expectations of what we hope for—of a place, a subject matter, even an idea—can blind us to the reality of it. You show up in Venice to photograph the city in fog and experience agua alta, the high flood waters of winter, only to arrive to a sunny week with nothing but blue skies and sunshine. You go to the pyramids […]