When you want to make a photograph, what do you do? Probably you set out into the world somewhere and start looking for things you might photograph. You are on the hunt for potential. What if you were to point yourself to your Lightroom catalog rather than the world out there? I would propose that searching the world and searching in your exigent collection are pretty much the same thing.

Yesterday I was talking about feedback and the way the digital workflow makes getting feedback about our work so much easier. Not unexpectedly, there is a downside to such easy feedback; the pressure to conform.

How well do you suppose you would learn tennis if you could never see where the ball went after you hit it? Learning is always a function of action, feedback, assessment. This is equally true for photography and this explains one aspect of the digital revolution that I think is highly overlooked, but has radically changed the nature of photography.

Once again I found myself contemplating the super long 100-400mm Panasonic Leica lens for my m/43 camera. As a part of the research, I decided to investigate a cropped image from the Panasonic Leica 50-200mm I already own. Then the next step was to see what the results would look like if I used either pixel shift technology versus Super Resolution Enhancement in Lightroom. Fascinating results.

The light we use to view a print or book is so critical in determining how that photograph appears. Unfortunately, we have no control over the light people use to view our work. A story from Paul Strand's biographer demonstrates how frustrating this issue can be for us photographers.

I've come to believe that the most fundamental and important decision we make when producing our image-based artwork is whether we want our work seen via reflected or transmitted light. Every subsequent processing decision is based on this first choice.

Each of the art media have characteristics that are its greatest strength, that set it apart from other media. A novel gives the writer unlimited control over time; music has the ability to tap directly into our nonverbal emotions; painting provides a medium in which the artist can include or exclude elements based solely on their imagination. What sets photography apart? Seems to me that one of its primary strengths is its ability to show detail even finer than human vision and to carry that detail to future generations.

I love photography books, but I must admit that I struggle with big, thick books. I once wanted to read Tolstoy's War and Peace, but struggled for years to make the necessary commitment to its 1200 pages. I feel the same way about 3-400 page photography books. Like big books, big museums also present a challenge. The only way I know how to negotiate my time in a big museum is to concentrate my attention on a manageable number of pieces of artwork. Similarly, viewer fatigue is a real consideration as we produce our artwork..

Gestalt psychology tries to explain why we are drawn to certain themes of attention. For example, movement attracts our eye much more than a static scene. Put in photography, all we have are static scenes, even if they capture blurry movement. This defines one of photography's greatest challenges.

Each morning as I slowly awaken from my night's sleep, I think about the coming day and what I need to do. Every once in a while, I find my calendar is clean, I can spend the whole day doing photography without any guilt about obligations I might be ignoring. What a wonderful day! But then follows the troublesome question: What will I do?