Today, I’m going to talk photography, as it is core to who I am and key to what I do. When people ask me what my podcast is about, I say it’s about photography, digital media, culture in the digital era, art and literature. It’s a form of questions, an inquiry. There’s a certain mysterious element to it as well, because it’s kind of unable to be forced. I feel like if I tried to come up with a strict theme for a talk I don’t think it would go that well, not that it IS going that well, but it would go less well. So instead, it’s: marketing, social media, multimedia, art and business and culture.

Maybe it would be good to develop a more formal framework? If I’m going to do 30 minutes a day should I break that down into segments? What would that look like? What kind of segments should I create?

Today, though, I’m going to be a little more focused because I want to talk photography. There are so many ways to talk about photography because it’s such a huge field. There are all of the categories of photography to consider and it helps to think about what each kind of photograph calls for. The basic thing that combines all segments of photography is that you have to get great photos. 

Whatever the purpose, whatever the format, you have to go out with your assignment and figure out how to bring back the best images. Whether you love it or hate it, people’s response is going to play into the mix, too and there are always trolls. That’s why being a photographer is kind of like waging psychological war because you’re going to deal with so many people trying to get into the field as well. But it helps to think about the categories. The more you know the better chance you stand. 

There’s photography you do for the public (journalism, art, marketing) but when you do marketing photography you’re doing stuff for the public on behalf of a client and this is a great way to make money if you can pull it off. When you get the chance to work with a business and they give you some idea of what they want, then you get to create a voice that matches the brand’s goals. It’s a lot of fun to help businesses to convert people into fans.

How do you make someone a fan? You have to be compelling to them in one way or another. They have to want to see what you’re going to do next.

Back to the categories. Each of the categories has different considerations, and lots of overlap. Like with landscape photography where you’re depicting a stretch of space and architectural photography where you’re showing a landscape with a home. It’s like a cross between landscape photography and portraiture, but it’s a portrait of a building.

When it comes to people, there’s a lot of categories, but there are also types. There’s candid photography and posed photography and those modes of representation can exist within each of the categories. For example, if you photograph an event where someone is talking and you get a great photo of them at the podium, that is a candid journalistic photo. However, if the speaker is not in a place to get a great shot and you approach them after the talk and ask them to get a photo then it is still a journalistic shot, but it’s of a posed variety.

Thinking about what category it is will help to make decisions about the equipment and technique to use in order to get the shot you want. We start with the constraints. What can’t be done? Many of those are obvious and eliminate the techniques that are inappropriate to the situation, but it’s a helpful orientation. The limitations of a situation or a category of photography help to determine what can be done and how.

So, I want to come up with a concept for a shoot right now. That way I can walk you through how I make my decisions.

We are in winter and we have all of these cool trees without leaves and you can see their structure. I came across a huge maple tree that cast a massive shadow across the street and I want to