PixelatedImage Blog

My trip to Iceland in August was one of the most creatively fruitful trips I’ve ever taken. Perhaps it was the incredible landscapes, or just the vastness of the open spaces and the extremes of weather, but whatever it was, I found myself creating photographs unlike anything I’ve shot before. The Print & The Process series was designed to give me, and other photographers, a chance to show not only our work, but to discuss the process of creation in a way that pulls the curtain back on techniques – like how we used three different ND filters to work through an exposure problem, as well as the more internal processes related to creation – like finding inspiration and working through frustrations in finding our vision.

The Iceland monograph is first a look at 39 of the images I created in Iceland, then a look at some of the techniques I used, including more work with ND filters than I’ve ever done, and a look at the post-processing, including free downloads of 2 Lightroom presets. The last third of the book is a discussion of the process and thinking behind each of those 39 images. It’s the closest I can get to taking you with me on this trip, though with the advantage of not getting as wet and cold as I was. I also briefly discuss logistics involved in the travel and supporting the digital workflow while tenting our way through Iceland.

This one kind of got away from me, and by the time I finished doing the layouts it got to be 65 pages. I know I get overly excited about this stuff, I can be pretty enthusiastic but I think this one raises the bar a little and I’m getting nervous about how I’m going to top it.

But Wait! There’s More! Buy The eBook, Buy a Chance To Win.

Just before this book launched I got a new canvas from the good folks at APC – it’s a huge 30×40 canvas print of the photograph that graced this month’s free desktop wallpaper. It’s called Vast, Iceland 2010. I love the canvas of this image so much, and I’ve had a lot of interest in it. It will be among the special editions sold when I begin selling prints later this year. But you can be one of the first to own it. You see it’s September and we’re now just past the first year of creating these books for the photographic community, and to celebrate we’re giving one of you a thank you gift. I’m going to get APC to print this as a 20×30 gallery wrap and if you buy the Iceland Monograph before the end of September 12th, then you not only get a discount (see below) you also get a chance to win this print. The only caveat is that you must be in continental North America to win. Sorry, the cost of shipping beyond North America is really prohibitive. You don’t have to do anything; if you buy the eBook – and you’re in North America – you’re automatically entered into the draw and if you win we’ll let you know after the 12th. Good luck!

Special Offer on PDFs
For the first four days only, if you use the promotional code ICE4 when you checkout, you can have the PDF version of Iceland, A Monograph – The Print & The Process for only $4 OR use the code ICE20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more PDF ebooks from the Craft & Vision collection. These codes expire at 11:59pm PST September 12, 2010.

Several months ago I wrote a post about whether photography was or was not Art. The absurd difficulty of defining “Art” aside, I came down on the side of “photography is a craft, excel at it, love it, and let others decide if it is or isn’t Art.”

I’ve changed my mind. Rather, my thinking has become a little clearer, and in part I’ve got Seth Godin to thank. It was while reading his book Linchpin, that I began to put the pieces of things together, and I bet you’ll be shocked when I tell you it comes back to Vision. Intent.

First, a couple thoughts from others. Anne Lamott says “Art, to be Art, must point at something.” My friend Jeffrey Chapman says Art needs to have something of the artist in it, otherwise it’s just craft.

Is photography an art? Maybe. Can photographs be Art? Also maybe.

It depends not on how skilled a technician you are, nor on which gear you use – though to one degree or another both of those affect how you create you art. It depends on two things. The first is a desire to make it a gift, the second is the vision of the artist himself.  I’m not going to explore the first too deeply this morning, my coffee’s barely kicked in and I’m still processing this part. I do know that propaganda posters are not made as a gift in any sense of the word, but they do have intent and I would argue that alone doesn’t make them Art. I could be wrong. I do suggest you read Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift if you’re interested in the discussion. Seth Godin references the book in Linchpin but doesn’t do it justice.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that it’s the second aspect of this I’m most interested in. Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see, but it finally clicked in Maui – it’s the combination of Craft and Vision (no promotional plug intended, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence…) that makes Art. Godin argues that craft isn’t relevant – and perhaps he’s right. Perhaps we’ve elevated Art to a pinnacle it doesn’t deserve – perhaps there’s something higher to aim for, not merely Art but beautiful art, true art, art that expresses the author’s intent or vision as elegantly, uniquely, powerfully as possible. If that’s the case then a poet who masters the language has a better crack at that goal than one barely out of grade school. But it’s no substitute. I’ll take the grade schooler with something to say anyday, even roughly, over the eloquent poet without an original thought or honest emotion to share.

This is why Vision matters. Without it, we’re pointing at nothing. Without it we’re creating perfect images without passion, risk, failure, or humanity. It’s also the reason Craft matters. A man can say, “my heart is broken, my God has forsaken me,” but without Craft it’s neither a poem nor a song, it’s just a lament.The way he says it determines whether his words are merely heard or if they in turn cause hearts to quiver and break, to feel something.

This is also why the some of the old school get very twitchy about all this. There are forums aplenty full of grumpy old men talking trash about this emphasis on vision as though it were a complete dismissal of craft. They argue that the recent accessibility of digital gear that was once out of reach of the beginner has “made everyone a photographer.” They argue that learning the craft used to take time, it used to matter, it used to take dedication, dammit! Oh please. Talk about golden calves. So what? So the craft is a little easier now, so what? These codgers are just making my point for me more elegantly than I could. If the gear is getting better and cheaper (and it is getting cheaper in the long run – look at what we get now for $2000 compared to the price of early digital monsters, ) and if the gear is getting easier to use then, yes, you still need to master it. But if the ground around gear has been leveled, what’s the only ground left on which to differentiate (they use words like “compete”) ourselves? Vision. And yes, as cliche as it’s become – Passion too. Don’t settle for eloquence (Craft); say something that matters to you (Vision) and say it as loudly and courageously and powerfully as you can (Art)

I know the old school is scared, nervous, wondering how they’ll switch gears. But if their craft is as good as they say it is, then its time to stop bitching and start looking inside themselves to find that spark that was there when they first discovered the magic of the camera. This didn’t begin as a rant about professional concerns, but if there are people that seem dismissive of the need to develop and express our vision, this is where it is most profoundly pragmatic. Anyone can now hire someone whose sole qualification is competence with a camera. If the client wants more, they need someone with vision and a voice, and that’s where the money is. Want to compete solely on your technical competence?  Get in line behind the 16 year old with the ad on Craigslist and get ready for the fastest race to the bottom you’ve ever experienced.

Wow, that went off the rails fast. All I really wanted to do was encourage you to keep at it – both in learning your craft and in the harder work of discovering and expressing your vision. They work together, don’t neglect them.

So is it Art? The last time I discussed this I concluded that that was up to the person looking at your work. To some degree that’s true. But it has much, much more to do with us. To be sure, we’re craftsmen. But Artists? That’s up to us to decide – are we willing to do the hard work of moving past mere competence and into the scarier realm of expression, at pointing at something we see in a way others do not? At the risk of quoting myself, I think it’s motivating to remember that merely perfect photographs don’t move the heart, only art does that. We can do better than perfect histograms and compositions that take no risks.

This is the big one folks. At the end of the month-ish I am going to ask my manager, Corwin, to do a draw while I am in Asia. That draw will be a random draw of names from the comments on this post. And that winner will get a FULL Adobe Creative Suite 5 MASTER COLLECTION! That’s a $2600 piece of software, y’all. It’s not a demo, it’s the real thing, and when we do the draw we’ll ask your preference of Mac or PC and have the Adobe Mothership send this straight to you.

The fine print? You have to leave a comment, and in the right places leave your name and email address. For bonus points you can tell people about the amazing photography education resources available for the ridiculously low price of $5 over at the Craft & Vision website, but that’s more for the keeners who do this kind of thing because they like to, not because they have to. Leave your name once, tell the world, that’s all. It’s an honour system thing. Well, the “tell the world” part is. The “leave your name and email address” part is actual pretty mandatory.

So there you have it. Huge thanks to Adobe for sharing the love with this community with no strings attached.

Last month we launched the new Craft & Vision website and invited readers past and present to leave honest reviews of the books. As a thank you for the participation we put an iPad on the line and this morning I’m announcing the lucky winner of that iPad. So huge congrats to Pam Idel! Pam, we’ll drop you a line and get details but I think we’re going to send a gift certificate, so if you want to upgrade or pick something more useful to you, then you’re free to do that.

The rest of you? Huge thank you! It was a year ago I went to Thailand with The Legendary H and he planted the seeds of this idea in my mind, and when TEN came out it changed the direction of things for me and got me involved in a larger community than I ever imagined – and you all are that community, so thank you. We’ve made our purpose to align ourselves with the amateurs – the ones who do this for the love of it (regardless of whether you also make money at this) and I hope our passion comes through. We’re committed to keep offering inspiration and education for ridiculous prices; if you keep reading, we’ll keep looking for new photographers and new books.

Now, the big news for those of you who didn’t win – and there are a few hundred of you -  because I’m feeling the love and I had a nice chat with the folks over at Adobe, they’ve put a full CS5 Master Collection on the line for us. Mac or PC, depends on who wins. This is the mothership of collections, and the one I use daily. Last I checked this was retailing for $2600, so it’s up there as one of the most expensive give-aways we’ve ever had. Stay tuned later this week for the full details!

September wallpapers are here, in both 2560×1600 and 1280×853. *The first versions I posted gave you one extra day, which is good for some but confusing the rest of the world. They’re fixed now.

I shot this in Iceland in the driving rain, with a 24mm/3.5 tilt/shift lens. So struck by the vastness of space in Iceland, and the almost tiny influence of man on the landscape, I decided to explore some of those themes. This is one of my favourite images from that trip, and it now hangs large – 40×60 – on canvas in my home. You can explore all the Iceland images, and my process in creating them, on September 9th when we launch the next eBook in the Craft & Vision library.

I’m off to Ladakh, Thailand, and the Kathmandu valley on Sept.10. After that it gets quiet, but I promise I’ll check in when I can with a postcard.

Click the image above for the smaller wallpaper. Click HERE for the larger one. And if you want one for the iPad, sans monthly calendar, click the iPad:

iPhone shot of dolphins swimming under the bow of the zodiac. Maui.

A quick note to say hello. Kind of feeling guilty for being here and not dropping a line. We’ve been having an amazing time here -yesterday I spent the day in a zodiac off the coast of Lanai, a small island itself just off the coast of Maui. Snorkelling, underwater sea caves, incredible weather, and – most amazing of all a chance to swim, unexpectedly, among a pod of hundreds of spinner dolphins. Can’t begin to describe the magic of it. I’m paying for my indiscretions today, though. Clearly I the sunscreen I thought I was applying liberally wasn’t as liberal – or effective – as I thought.

The festival kicked off last night with a reception, and this morning with a keynote. I spoke about Vision-Driven Photography and the need to discover and express our vision. Before that I spent three days relaxing, and chewing through Seth Godin’s book Linchpin which you should read. Run, don’t walk, to your local library or bookstore and get this book.

My friend Sabrina Henry told me I needed to read Linchpin and I resisted because while Seth Godin is a scary-smart guy he kind of writes like a grade 12 student and I find it hard getting past his writing to the wisdom beneath. Not so with Linchpin; it’s still not particularly brilliant writing as far as craft goes but the content is incredible. It’s been a long time since a book got so much of my attention, marginalia, and circles and arrows.

At it’s core, Linchpin is a discussion of the value of the artist in our culture, and the necessity of being an artist in this economy. It’s got lots of brain food in it, and it connected some dots for me, but it’s also profoundly pragmatic – especially for those in the creative arts who think they have to be less unique, and blend into the crowd, to be a commodity rather than a brand, in order to make it. It also, and here’s a difference, has a deeply human side to it. Anyways, Linchpin really inspired me and with it Seth Godin moved in my thinking from marketing guy to join the likes of Hugh MacLeod (Ignore Everybody),  Steven Pressfield (The War of Art), and writers like Anne Lamott whose combined voices all say that the hard work of art matters, that creation has value and that making a life and a living at this stuff is more likely the less we sell out.

Anyways, love it here. If you’re here in Maui at the festival, please do introduce yourself to me. Corwin and I return to the mainland Monday morning and then the sprint to get ready for 6 weeks in Asia begins.

This is not Hawaii. Just a random beach. But, oh – the batteries that once got recharged here! I love the beach.

Aloha! I read this this morning over coffee,

“The batteries that keep my cameras working might as well die in the darkness of my camera bag if my personal batteries are not constantly recharged by the direct encounters with the natural world that first gave me the burning desire to interpret that experience in photographs.”

Galen Rowell, The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography.

I have nothing to add, except that this is a book well worth reading.

It’s Monday and I am now roughing it at the Hyatt Regency in Maui in preparation for the Maui Photo Festival. I’m hoping to do some actual relaxing and not planning to do much photography but I may find my personal batteries charge faster than I expect, in which case I’ll drop you a postcard and let you know how things are going. Otherwise, you can find me on the beach with Galen Rowell and something cold and wet to drink.

Andrew S. Gibson’s Magic of Black & White series has been one of the most well-received series we’ve produced. Andrew continues his clear teaching about Black & White in the third of the series which we’re launching today. The Magic of Black & White – Part III, Nine Photos, takes us through nine of his gorgeous black & white images with the goal of teaching more advanced techniques to give your images more subtlety and power. Clearly taught in Photoshop, and 5 of the lessons in Photoshop Elements, Andrew takes us through Toning, Split Toning, Exposure Blending, Textures, and the creation of Diptyches and Triptyches, all without losing sight of the idea that our work should be driven by intent with the goal of creating photographs that honour the Artist’s need for expression and the Geek’s need for excellence of craft. And all that without getting mired down – the examples and the illustrations Andrew provides compliment his clear teaching style and make this book a pleasure to read.

We’ve tried really hard to consistently over-deliver on these eBooks – to keep the price to $5 but give you $20 – or more – worth of content, whether that’s inspiring or instructing. Andrew’s given us another book that does all of this really well. If you’ve been looking to take your Black & White photography to new levels and explore new ways of expressing yourself in this elegant medium, this whole series is well worth your attention.

CraftandVision.com is running its usual promotion: use the code WHITE4 when you checkout and get $1 off Andrew’s eBook OR grab five or more eBooks and use the code WHITE20 to get 20% off. These codes expire at 11:59pm PST August 22, 2010.

Iceland, August, 2010

Last week Owen Shifflett wrote a post on Viget.com that made the rounds. I tweeted it. Chase blogged about it. And it got rounds and rounds of kudos and attaboys, among them my own voice. And then something started to bug me. Owen’s title – How Inspiration Killed – Then Ate – Creativity, says it all. It lays the blame for the death of creativity (I didn’t get the memo on this one, but moving on…) at the feet of our need for inspiration and the usual imitation and derivation that occurs in its wake. It’s (still) an article well worth reading. I suggest you read it before you read this post, but once you’re done there, come back here and let me throw my towel in the ring in defence of Inspiration.

OK, done?

Here are my thoughts. Consider them thunk for your consumption and discussion. Comments, as always, are open.

1. This is a case of mistaken identity. What we now call the phenomenon of inspiration is often Inspiration’s doppleganger, Imitation. To be clear about this, Inspiration means to inspire. It means to breathe in, it is the gathering of raw materials. Before we engage in any creative endeavor we must have raw materials. The more we increase our inputs the more raw materials we have to engage the “what if?” of creative processes. What we do with that in-spiration is up to us. We can incubate the stuff, work within constraints, and do something true and unique (hard road) or we can peel the skin off the old stuff and make it look new, look like ours. But faulting an essential part of the creative process for our natural inclination to take the easy road isn’t helpful.

2. Everything is derivative. Ultimately there is nothing that is not created in the context of other stuff. We see two things, combine them and juxtapose them to create something new. We see something we don’t like and we react and move in the opposite direction. But to advocate a creativity free from true inspiration is a step in the wrong direction, which, by the way, is not what I believe Shifflett is suggesting. I think he’s simply using the word the way so many do and in doing so making his point well to those that use it that way. The danger is that in so-doing we villainize an important part of the creative process and suddenly we’re heading in the same direction Owen is arguing against – the death of creativity.

3. Adapt but don’t Adopt. What is needed is an adaptive approach to creative processes, not an adoptive one. In the words of Bono – every poet is a cannibal, every artist is a thief. We all draw from sources outside ourselves. The challenge is in finding your own voice, in adapting elements, thoughts, processes – whatever – and not not in adopting them. One strips former things down, re-purposes them, combines them with parts from myriad other sources still, and takes us to a different place than when we started. The other just likes what he sees, gets “inspired”, steals the original idea, and makes it his own with a can of spray paint. One is creative, results in something new and comes from the in-spiration of many sources; the other is just imitation and while it might well be the first step in learning your craft, it won’t get you any further.

4. Inspiration Comes From Working. Inspiration, in the rare sense that it appears like that bolt from the blue (it never is, but let’s pretend) still comes from working. It doesn’t come from flipping through a book looking for an idea. It comes from putting your camera in your hand and being honest with yourself, and learning your craft, embracing your constraints.

In case it’s not clear, I’m advocating (I think) for the same thing Owen Shifflett is, but I think I want the word Inspiration back. I’d rather re-align our use of the word to its original meaning than cave in to a popular use that leads us in the wrong direction. The more we understand how creative processes work, particularly our own process, and that includes a proper understanding of inspiration or increasing our inputs (and then using them for good and not for evil) the more life and breath we give to our creativity. Creativity is far from death, but if we deny it the need to breathe in and out we’re stepping closer to the morgue.

Updated

5. One more thought in post-script: I think there’s another issue here and that’s where we go to find our inspiration. If our primary source of inspiration is other photographers then I think our work becomes not only more derivative than usual, but we begin to draw from a thinner gene pool and, well, y’all know how that turns out. No one wants to see the results of our artistic in-breeding. We should be drawing from the widest pool, breathing in the purest air. By all means see what other photographers have done in order to learn from them, but when it comes to filling our creative wells, it might just be best to drill into the deeper, purer sources, not just the groundwater downstream from everyone else. I’m not sure if those metaphors work for you, but they do for me.

I don’t normally do this, I usually save my shameless self-promotion for posts of their own, but if this is something you want to explore more,  I discuss creativity and inspiration (the good kind, not the evil twin) in two $5 eBooks – The Inspired Eye and The Inspired Eye II, both available on the Craft & Vision website. Both books look at ways in which creativity happens, and ways to hone your own processes.

There are two organizations I am particularly excited to be involved with right now – one is Focus For Humanity which is an incredible initiative aimed at providing grants to photographers to partner with NGO’s, the other is the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers, an initiative aimed at breaking down stereotypes and opening dialogue between cultures. Both are a little counter-intuitive, both are willfully breaking previous molds of how these kinds of things have always been done, and both have some amazing people with big hearts and sizable brains behind them.

The IGVP has finally launched their website and I’d encourage you to head over to VISUALPEACEMAKERS.ORG and take a look, see if it’s something you’d like to get behind and be involved with. Focus For Humanity Foundation is HERE and you should make that your next stop. The IGVP and Focus For Humanity play nicely with each other and I like to think of them as a left hand and a right hand working together to similar ends. Huge kudos to Mario and Marco, and their respective teams, for putting their hearts and souls into these groups.

Craft & Vision is proud to be a supporter to both, and in the coming months we’ll look for new ways to partner together to build the community of photographers and visual storytellers who seek to use their talents and time for good (and not for evil.)