How do you consider yourself as a photographer in terms of the work you do? Is it important to tell your viewers how you define your work as being a particular kind or made with a particular camera, or does the work you make define you instead? If I make more images, like the one … Continue reading Camera Position 213 : What’s your hashtag? →
This episode covers some practical details. I go over the places where you can listen to Camera Position and list a number of online resources for you to explore photography that go beyond the “usual suspects” of Instagram – Flickr – Facebook. – Sources – Where to Listen to Camera Position Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts … Continue reading Camera Position 212 : Sources & Resources →
"Whatever you do with your photography - don't ever do... "that" Our desire to learn quickly, be noticed in social media and not make any mistakes has led to some photography pundits saying things like the above with increasing frequency
I can’t think of a time in my life that has been more disconcerting than this last year. The pandemic and the disruption to our daily routine. We don’t work the same, we don’t socialize in the same way, we don’t go out or see friends or family. We are certainly in strange and uncertain … Continue reading Camera Postion 210 : The Calming Camera →
During this pandemic time, we have been forced to trade in the allure of travel for the allure of the backyard. As I return to the podcast after a long absence, I explore the idea that you don’t need to go somewhere special to make special photographs. Instead, you need to go deeper wherever you … Continue reading Camera Position 209 : Your Own BackYard →
By slowing down as we look at photographs – ours or someone else’s – we can more easily bring ourselves to the photograph, and by doing that, learn more about the medium and ourselves. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: My Instagram Feed – Follow me and I’ll follow back Sign up for the Workshops … Continue reading Camera position 208 : Bringing Ourselves to the Photograph →
Musicians warm up before they make music, but what about visual artists? Do photographers need to warm up before they create photographs? I think yes, and with the help of a podcast listener, we posit some ideas for getting warmed up visually. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: University of Georgia’s Cortona Studies Abroad … Continue reading Camera Position 207 : On Warming Up →
Some thoughts on living an artful life, led off by poet Mary Oliver’s “Instructions on Living a Life” Pay attention Be Astonished Tell about it. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: Mary Oliver– The American poet at the Poetry Foundation Twyla Tharp – a brief video of some of Tharp’s choreography Samuel Beckett – … Continue reading Camera Position 206 : The Artful Life →
Rather than trying to make art your life, work instead on trying to make every day of your life into art. “You just have to live and life will give you pictures.” -Henri Cartier Bresson Play Podcast:
The act of making photographs connects me to the world, to my medium and to myself. When I make photographs, there is always a reward. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: Places you can find and listen to Camera Position: iTunes Podcasts Player FM Stitcher iHeart Radio Short Orange
Many people think of a wide lens as a way to get farther away from a subject, but I think of a wide lens as a way for us to get closer… a wide lens is really a close-up lens, allowing us to create a dominant subject in the frame by emphasizing the difference in … Continue reading Camera Position 203 : Your Eyes and The Lens →
Podcast listener Tracy wrote: “Photography comes from the depths of who we are. It is not only an exploration of our world, it is also an exploration of ourselves.” This episode is a “part 2” of self-exploration and its relationship to our photography, utilizing a worksheet that you can download called “Passion and Mission” to … Continue reading Camera Position 202 : Exploring The World And Ourselves →
What is your story? What are you curious about? What do you care about? How can your photographs express those interests? Making stronger photographs often depends on digging deep to determine your passion and then translating those passions into images. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: Morton Arboretum Photographic Society – Where I’ll be … Continue reading Camera Position 201 : Digging Deeper →
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes and art is knowing which mistakes to keep. Instead of living in fear of “getting it wrong,” a better, more useful strategy is to keep moving – plowing through the things that don’t work and slowly refining the process to get to the things that resonate for you … Continue reading Camera Position 200 : Make Interesting Mistakes →
“Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” -Miles Davis One of the most consistent questions I get from students is this one: “how do I develop my own style?” Miles Davis helps with an answer. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: Miles Davis Interview on YouTube … Continue reading Camera Position 199 : Playing Like Yourself →
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton How can we use the art we make with the camera to grow, learn and provide ourselves with a way of saying new things… to, as Merton says, “find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”? I’m asking … Continue reading Camera Position 198 : Losing and Finding Ourselves →
When the subject takes precedence – when you point your camera at things that are the most interesting thing to you – you are on your way to developing a personal style – the sense that these subjects are the most important things and can only be pointed out in this way by you. “To … Continue reading Camera Position 197 : Let the Subject Take Precedence →
How do we go beyond a record of a place and begin to make photographs that convey a real sense of place? The objective is not just to show what your destination looks like, but rather to convey, in photographs, what it felt like to be there. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: Exhibition: WANDERLUST: … Continue reading Camera Position 196 : A Sense of Place →
This episode is a little meditation on the importance of aligning ourselves with the messages around us, using Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird as inspiration. “The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes with it.” -Anne Lamott Play Podcast: Links … Continue reading Camera Position 195 : The River of a Story →
“But the art in an artwork might not be located precisely where you thought it was. Perhaps it was just as much in the damage and decay as it was in the intact original. Perhaps it was in the gaps – in contemplating and rending those insults and injuries – that we find ourselves, by … Continue reading Camera Position 194 : Our Wish To Persist →
As photographers, we know that there is a fairly wide range of options available to us that change what was to what we show the world in our images. Every photograph is a composite of the choices we make as the person who eventually presents the image. Every photograph is an interpretation of the way … Continue reading Camera Position 193 : Is It Art? →
An early influence on my ways of thinking about photography on a deeper level was the great writer John Berger. A poet, novelist, artist screenwriter and more, Berger, born in 1926, and died just a few weeks ago, in January of 2017 at the age of 90. A read of Berger’s work gives great insight … Continue reading Camera Position 192 : John Berger, Looking and Seeing →
Walt Whitman’s poems in his opus Leaves of Grass mirror the actions of the photographer by beginning with facts and transforming those facts into ideas. I explore how both photography and Whitman’s poetry use simple language to convey complex ideas, giving any object or experience new importance by recording it on a previously blank page. Play Podcast: … Continue reading Camera Position 191 : Walt Whitman, Poetry and Photography →
“You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi Berra I like to see photographers out in the world and watch them photograph. Observing how photographers photograph can be a great aid in helping us make better, more informed, more personal photographs. Play Podcast: There are still a few spaces left in 2 of … Continue reading Camera Position 190 : Watching Photographers Photograph →
What drives and motivates photographers to do the work they do? I think that our unifying motivation is curiosity – an unrelenting, never-ending curiosity – an “itch” to know more about something and to learn about that thing through photographing it. I was prompted to think about how we should cultivate the itch – our … Continue reading Camera Position 189 : Cultivate The Itch, Not The Scratch →
Do you take time to be creative each day? The creative act is worth taking the time for. It’s worth making the time for. It’s what holds us up and keeps us going. Thousands upon thousands of creative people are forced to make the time to create. It’s worth it because of what we give … Continue reading Camera Position 188 : You Are Worth The Time →
If you see a picture that you think you may have photographed before, take it. Both the subject and the photographer may have changed since the last time you photographed it. Regardless of the reason, you should always make the photograph. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: University of Georgia Studies Abroad Program in Cortona, … Continue reading Camera Position 187 : Always Make the Photograph →
Among the many things that make photography such an interesting pursuit are its qualities of objectivity combined with subjectivity. In the end, photography is an objective medium with a subjective soul. Play Podcast: Sign up for the Workshops Mailing List – Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy Photography Workshops. Each one of these … Continue reading Camera Position 186 : Objective and Subjective →
In addition to the phrase “Less is More,” the great architect Mies Van der Rohe also had another saying that relates to making creative work, and that is “God Is In The Details,” suggesting that attention to each and every detail of your process, from conception to execution, is integral to making the best work … Continue reading Camera Position 185 : God Is In The Details →
Whether it’s a stack of dishes in the sink, moving forward with your photography or climbing up a steep mountain, looking at the path that you’re traveling is usually the easiest way to the top. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: Sign up for the Workshops Mailing List – Planning is underway for the 2017 … Continue reading Camera Position 184 : Look At The Path, Not The Mountain →
