PixelatedImage Blog

James Nachtwey opens the LOOK3 Festival - read about the inspiring conversation between Nachtwey and Time’s MaryAnne Golon on PDN Online HERE. I respect this man more than I can say. (If you’ve never seen his TED speech, head over HERE to A Thousand Words where Jordan Nielsen has it posted.)

From that PDN article:

“When you see so much pain and so much sadness, do you feel you still have the capacity to love?”

That question drew oooohs as it was asked by Time’s MaryAnne Golon to photographer James Nachtwey. His answer drew a thunderous standing ovation.

“Witnessing pain and sadness is an act of love,” he said.

In light of that the rest of this stuff is just trivial.

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David Ziser has an excellent post on building your client base. Read it HERE.

The LAYERS Blog has an excellent tutorial up on solving underexposure problems. Most articles of this sort scratch the surface but don’t get beyond the “move the exposure slider over” kind of advice. This one is solid and I guarantee you’ll learn something new (guarantee not actually guaranteed.) Link HERE.

Moose Peterson linked to a deal on the Epson R1900 if you’re a NAPP member. And you should be. Check out Moose’s post for the links and details. If you’re not a NAPP member, here’s another solid reason to join.

Scott Kelby wrote a candid post yesterday about forgetting to put a memory card into the camera. Read that HERE and then go HERE for my solution to it (if you’re a Canon shooter.)

When I was in the throes of falling in love with photography, a young man looking for something to be good at, some way to express myself, my mother gave me two great gifts. The first was the Pentax Spotmatic, and not the camera I thought I wanted/needed to begin my illustrious journey in imaging. The second was a copy of Freeman Patterson’s Photography and the Art of Seeing. That Spotmatic is long retired, though I have another sitting on my desk as a reminder of my roots and my first-love. The book is long gone, probably disappeared in the chaos of one of many moves during college years, but yesterday I bought another copy and it’s sitting here now, not far from my Spotmatic. You know you’re getting older when you get nostalgic about these things.

I’m not writing this as a trip down memory lane; I’m pretty sure you don’t care that much. I wanted to encourage you to consider two things.

1. Go back to the beginning and recall what drew you to this art to begin with - what was it that you loved so much about photography that you’d commit to spending so much money on glass, metal, film, or all the digital detritus that litters the path to imaging these days? Do you still feel it? If not, it’s time to grope your way back to that, to rediscover the joy of seeing in new ways, expressing yourself in new forms.

2. Read Patterson’s book. It’s on it’s way to becoming a classic and many of us wouldn’t give it a second look. There are no pictures of shiny gear. There is not a single discussion of which camera or lens is better. The photographs in it do not move me the way they once did. But the exercises Patterson discusses, the concepts surrounding learning to see, are not just theory - they are absolutely critical.

Re-reading this book has been more than sentimentality, it’s been a reminder of the very first lessons I ever had in photography. If you read here often I assume it’s for more than just the cute little buttons at the head of each post (in fact, more than likely it’s despite the buttons! Deal with it.) I assume you get something from what I write. In some ways you’re reading the 20-year distillation of my original experience with this book. It’s what started me on the path of nurturing the artist and not just allowing the geek to run amok. If you have a chance, go to the source material and read, absorb, Patterson’s Photography and The Art of Seeing.

“It is incumbent upon you to make sure you are getting what you want at the moment you take the picture. It would be best for you to spend more time thinking of the quality of your pictures and less time thinking about the quality of your pixels. The parameters of your vision are more important than the expertise you have with levels and curves or whatever you get involved with after you take the picture….I wish you to see not how clever you can be, but how observant you can be.”

Jay Maisel from the Afterword in Welcome To Oz, Vincent Versace

Running dry? Looking for inspiration? Here’s a simple solution: increase the inputs. Watch something inspiring or educational. Read something you wouldn’t otherwise read. Attend a workshop. Go to Borders or Barnes and Noble and pick up a photography book by someone you’ve never heard of who shoots in a style you’d never shoot.

Here’s some suggestions:

Western Canadians who haven’t taken a NAPP seminar have a chance to see Ben Wilmore (left) in Vancouver and Calgary on June 9, and 10 as he presents his Photoshop CS3 for Photographers seminar. Details on the NAPP website here: Vancouver - Calgary (Oops, looks like there’s one in Ottawa -June 06 - and Toronto - June 16 - as well. Follow the links for details)

If you’re in or around Ft. Erie, Ontario on June 07, I will be presenting my Know Your Stuff workshop and would love to see you. More info HERE.

There’s a great video of David Tejada shooting a commercial assignment on oil rigs in Colorado - if you’re interested in seeing how he works and why he does what he does, his videos - all of them - are worth the time. The video is on the Strobist site HERE.

George Jardine has an interview/podcats with Steve McCurry on his site HERE. While there be sure to check out his conversation with Jay Maisel, Seth Resnick, and Greg Gorman HERE as well.

Finally, if you want some solid learnin’ in your own living room - Kelby Training is having a Memorial Day sale and selected DVD’s are 50% off. Follow THIS LINK for details.

I’m shooting a commercial assignment out of town for the next two days, so I’m writing this on Thursday, see you next week. For my American readers, enjoy your long weekend. Go shoot something you love.

“To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer’s craft. His central problem is a simple one: what shall he include, what shall he reject? The line of decision between in and out is the picture’s edge. While the draughtsman starts with the middle of the sheet, the photographer starts with the frame.

The photograph’s edge defines context. It isolates unexpected juxtapositions. By surrounding two facts it creates a relationship. The edge of the photograph dissects familiar forms, and shows their unfamiliar fragment. It creates the shapes that surround objects.

The photographer edits the meanings and patterns of the world through an imaginary frame. This frame is the beginning of his picture’s geometry.”

from The Photographer’s Eye, John Szarkowski

This is a beautiful book that distills things down to the elementals. It’s not so much a teaching book, as it is a meditation on 5 choices a photographer makes in the process of creating a photograph: The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, and The Vantage Point. MOMA has a 2007 re-print of the 1966 original. Amazon.com has it HERE.

In fact in searching for this title I stumbled on some others that look like a refreshing break from the one-step, two-step books we so often tend to spend our time and money on. Here’s the ones that caught my eye:

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Scrapbook

The Nature of Photographs, Stephen Shore

The Photographer’s Eye, Michael Freeman (different book, same title as the above - but I have R.C. Concepcion’s recommendation on this one. I believe he called it “awesome.” So there you go.)

Perception and Imaging, Richard D. Zakia

I haven’t read any of the last 4 books, but they’re highly rated and they have pretty covers - so how bad can they be? Just kidding. Give them some consideration if learning to see in new ways is a priority for you right now. I’ve just ordered a few books, so I’m cut off for now. But these ones are now on my list.

This one’s not very newsy, sorry. Totally uninspired, I wracked my brain for something to give you, feverishly surfed the web, and in the end decided it was a toss-up between not posting at all, posting a few rubbishy little details about coming products, or giving you something to chew on related to your craft. Chewing won out, so here’s some reflections along the lines of why technique alone (the HOW of photography) can’t get you all the way to where you want to go. I know, I’m a one-sermon guy these days.

When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you are on the right track.
- Arthur Fellig

Some of the great pictures, you just look at them and you marvel at them, for the subject matter and somehow they struck a chord in you. But it’s rarely about the technique. It’s not about the lens, or the film, or the light necessarily. It’s really just some story in that picture. Some emotional element which you connect with.
- Steve McCurry

Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term - selectivity.
-Berenice Abbott

Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.
-Don McCullin

So you’ve started rehab and you’re recovering from your addiction to HOW and need a shot of WHY? Looking to stand on the shoulders of giants this weekend?

Check out PixChannel.com which features a collection of video interviews with legendary photographers.

Travel Photographer Gavin Gough and I are switch hitting today. We’ve chosen a topic - Inspiration: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants - and are exchanging blogs for today. You can read my take on this subject on Gavin’s blog HERE. But before you head off there, take some time to read Gavin’s take on the subject.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Photographers! We’re a lucky bunch. Not only do we have a rewarding occupation or satisfying pastime, we’re able to learn from those who have gone before us for free.

Other photographers’ work is readily available and close examination of it allows us to stand on the shoulders of those photographers we admire and to see much further than we would from ground-level. It’s a tricky balancing act, no doubt, but if you are willing to put in the effort, you’ll be rewarded.

And if you’re prepared to stand on a giant’s shoulders then the view will amaze, engage and inspire you. I want to tell you about one or two giants whose shoulders I have hitched a ride on in the past.

Read the rest of this entry »

It looks like Inspiration is the theme o’ the day out there in the blogosphere. If you got through all the links in my last post and are hungry for more, check out the links HERE on Matt Brandon’s blog (the post titled Inspiration Overload) and the links on Matt Kloskowski’s blog HERE. Go find your muse.

My friend Gavin Gough and I are planning to do some guest blogging on each other’s sites. One of the ideas we’ve had revolves around influences, another around inspiration. I’ll save my thunder for those articles, but in the mean time because I’m bone-dry on inspiration or news-worthy stuff for the blog (I know, the irony is thick…) here’s a link to some inspiring influences (ya like how I brought those threads together into one alliterated idea?)

Tom Stoddart’s black and white images are second to none, particulariy his iWitness series which begins with “it is sad and unnecessary that any of these photographs exist.” Stoddart is a man who unquestionably shoots from the heart. Link to iWitness. Be sure to read his introduction to the series.

Ami Vitale’s work is no less exceptional, particularily those of Kashmir. Ami’s recent images of the rickshaw wallas in Calcutta for NG took me right back to India. Truly excellent stuff, and nice to have a strong female voice among all the men. Link to Ami Vitale

Kazuyoshi Nomachi. Last year I began to think seriously about a photo book on the idea of pilgrimage and our search for the holy. I found instead that the book had been shot so well already by Nomachi that I’ve put the idea aside until I find my own angle on it. Nomachi’s images are strong, sensitive, and a refreshing break from the heavier humanitarian stuff I often look at. That said, there’s nothing shallow or light about them. Link to Nomachi

Take some time to look through the work of at least one of these exceptional photographers. But when you do, do it with a critical eye. Why are these images powerful? Why do they work so well? Would it work as well in colour? B&W? What lens did she use, and why? Looking at images critically is a powerful exercise and a good step towards growing in visual literacy, which will translate into more powerful images in our own portfolios.