The Perceptive Photographer

Episode 310

For many photographers I work with, one of the consistent pieces of feedback I hear is that there is never enough of something to do the work they want. There might not be time or money or gear. A lot of effort and energy goes into thinking about what is needed to achieve our goals and what is missing. I like to imagine and brainstorm as much as the next person and have often suffered the same fate of what can't be done because of something. I was having a conversation with an artist associate about this very subject. I thought they had an interesting approach. Rather than focus on something missing or can't be done, they focused on what was in front of them. The paint they had. The canvas they had. The view out the window they had. All of the present moments were put into that painting. It got me thinking about the idea that it's always something the blocks our work, and it's always something else that frees our work.

As always, I hope you and yours are safe, and please remember to keep safe and wear your mask.

When we think about approaching our photography, we often put things in buckets or bins. These classifications can help us identify areas of the images to work with and projects to pursue or find meaning in our work. Over time, I have grown to think about these ideas as more of a continuum or spectrum of ideas where they overlap and push into each other. Rather than creating edges, they offer up some softer transitions to more meaningful work. This week's podcast looks at how this approach to edges and overlaps can impact our work with voice and vision.

I work with a lot of different people on different aspects of photography. One of the big areas that I help people with is developing a deeper connection to their work and others' work. In that process, one of the issues that comes up repeatedly is the idea of what makes a good photograph. On more than one occasion, I have found myself in the conversation about something being a bad photograph or not. As I have looked back over my notes from these conversations, I have begun to wonder if the issue is more about personal taste in art, apathy for composition, or are we just willing to live with less than ideal photographs. This week's podcast dips its toe into the idea of what makes something good and why there is an audience for what you might consider bad art.

Throughout our lifetime, we have a lot of friends and acquaintances. Some people are around for a short time, and others might last that lifetime. I have been thinking a lot lately about friendships and how they shape and shift us. They provide support, honesty, humor, companionship, and so much more. As I started to think about photography, I wondered about friendships in photography and the impact they can have. This week's podcast focuses on the question of who your photo buddy is and what does that mean to you and your work?

I have been working on some images in the studio recently and some start of the new year cleanup work. As I bounced back and forth between those two projects, it occurred to me that I was missing one thing oftentimes. That thing could be a screw for a tripod leg or a lens cap or an emotional feeling in a print. But as I worked on the projects, I started to wonder how many things in my photography could be fixed with just one thing. So in today's podcast, we talk about how our approach to photography, creating images, viewing images, and talking about images could be improved by focusing on just one more or less thing in the process.

This week's podcast is a chat about how we feel about photography and photographs. In my teaching experience, I have found that many people think a lot about their photographs, but in some ways how we feel about our photographs can matter more.

This week's podcast is a quick chat about setting goals for the new year and the importance of looking back at the past year and celebrating what was good. In a year harder than most for people, 2020 gives us a chance to celebrate the flexibility and durability we all have to continue adapting and creating.

This week's podcast topic came about because of some maintenance on the car. That maintenance got me thinking about how scheduled maintenance to keep a car running smoothly could be applied to photography.

This week's podcast is about the importance of having traditions in your photography. No matter how big or small traditions are something we can look forward to each year and reflect back on the past.

This week's podcast is all about homework. One of the areas that I think all photographers could improve is understanding what makes a good photograph or a good photograph to them. We dive deep into that topic this week with an exercise to help you better understand how and why you react to photographs the way you do and apply that knowledge to future images or discussions.