The Perceptive Photographer

In episode 594 of The Perceptive Photographer, I take a deeper look at one of the most common pieces of creative advice: know your audience, and why I don't believe your audience is where your photography begins. Instead, I explore how your audience is made up of the people who recognize something of themselves in work that grows from your own curiosity, honesty, and craftsmanship not from chasing approval or trends.

This week we are talking critique and seeing. I think one of the most powerful ways to grow as a photographer, or any creative professional, is to invite critique from outside your own niche. A great photo editor can look at any set of photographs and know what makes good photography, reminding us that fresh eyes often see what we can’t.

I also discuss how seeing isn't just behind the camera but an act that happens over and over again in our process.

This month, I'm starting a mini-podcast episode on silence in photography. What does silence look like? While we see silence as the absence of sound, it's more about how we capture it in images. Mindful observation helps us overcome both auditory and visual noise, allowing us to create calmer compositions. Silence lives in negative space and soft light, teaching us patience and restraint. The most meaningful photographs may not be the loudest, but those that encourage us to slow down and truly see.

This week we are talking plateaus. A creative plateau is that strange phase where progress feels stagnant. You’re not getting worse, but it feels like you’re also not getting any better. It’s like hiking. There are flat stretches where you can’t see the summit, yet you’re still on your way there, just on a less steep path. so in this episode we dig into those long flat stretches that are in many ways my favorite parts of a hike.

In Episode 590 of The Perceptive Photographer, we explore those moments when something in your work feels right or wrong and you can't explain why. Instinct isn't mystical. it's compressed experience, but we often drown it out with external validation and over-analysis. This episode examines how to tell healthy critique from noise, offers three practices for building trust with your own seeing, and encourages listeners to honor the quiet voice that responds before logic catches up. Mystery is part of the work, not a bug to fix.

In episode 589 of the Perceptive Photographer, we discuss how nothing is ever wasted in the creative process. Every effort, whether successful or not, contributes to growth. Mistakes and unfinished projects teach valuable lessons and enrich our artistic journey, ultimately shaping the photographer we are becoming.

Photography is something many of us do every day, yet we rarely stop to ask why. In the week's episode 588, we dig into some of the reasons and motivations for why we make photographs.

Photography is more than documenting what we see; it is a way of noticing, remembering, understanding, and connecting with the world around us.

The images we make reveal what captures our interest and what we value. Over time, our photographs become a reflection of how we see the world and, perhaps, a reflection of ourselves. Ultimately, photography is an act of attention and awarenes

This week we share in the sadness and impact of Jeff Schewe’s passing, a major loss to photography. We offer up some congrats to Makeda Best, new photo curator at MOMA! Finally we dig into and explore how hesitation can cost us great images.

Photographers often hear that they should "shoot with intention," and I mostly agree. But for today’s episode of The Perceptive Photographer (episode #586), I wanted to dig a little deeper. While some level of intention is always at play, we don’t always know what it is before picking up the camera. Often, we discover it later while editing, processing, or writing about our work. And importantly, intention doesn’t always start as a fully formed idea; sometimes it emerges gradually as we engage with the creative process.

In this episode of the podcast, 585, I talk about something that has come up in conversations several times over the past few weeks with different friends and colleagues: the challenge of photographing familiar places.

There’s a tendency in photography to believe the next great image exists somewhere else. So we travel to new cities, another country, or another landscape. We just want something new, but some of the most meaningful photographic work comes from returning to the same places over and over again until they begin to reveal something deeper.