PixelatedImage Blog

We had an unexpected opening in our sold-out Lumen Dei tour in Ladakh, India, this September. This is a chance to spend two weeks with Ami Vitale, Matt Brandon, and myself in some breathtaking places honing your skills. Ami’s not only a brilliantly talented photographer (National Geographic, etc.) but she’s a lovely gal with way too much energy, a keen eye, and a big heart. Details are HERE on the Lumen Dei site. This one’s going to go fast, so if you want in, it’s now or never. If you want in, send me an email HERE. Updated May 18: Spot filled!

I was going to end this week off with a list of photography bloggers who are dishing it up consistently well, but I’d like to give y’all a little more time to weigh in on that. So I’ll post that next week. In the mean time, something a little more along the lines of brainfood.

Sometimes I find myself saying things and before they’re out of my mouth I realize it’s too late and I come off sounding like one of two people: Grandpa Simpson or Mary Poppins. The other day I put a comment on Twitter to the effect that great photography happens at the junction of vision and craft, to which my smart-alec wife replied: “I think “the junction of craft and vision” sounds a bit hokey. Is that where Engineer Discipline hooks the Engine of Hard Work up to the Train of Possibility?” Yeesh, have I become a total cornball?

And then just this morning I started writing this article and started with, and erased, a rant about Program Mode and the way camera companies seem more and more to be playing the “this camera’s so good, now there’s no reason not to shoot like the pros” card. Suddenly I realized that the next step for me was complaining about this newfangled VCR technology and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

But. I still have a beef. If my friend Ron Carroll chimes in here a couple times a month it’s often as the elder statesman reminding me to be gracious and positive. So with his voice in my head, let me re-word my rant into something more, uh, uplifting-ish. Ok, that’s a stretch, how about less rant-ish? Ok, here goes.

Nothing the camera companies will ever do to their cameras will make shooting “like a pro” (whatever that means) automatic. There will never be a “shoot like a pro” mode and I’m reminded of this every time I or someone else jokes that the P on the camera’s mode dial stands for Professional. While “being a pro” seems to imply that all professional photographers create photographs that transcend mediocrity – OH! How I wish this were true! – it just isn’t so. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the designation of professional means you make money at this, nothing more. It does not mean your work is excellent, your vision has stopped evolving, or your craft is at its apex. It certainly doesn’t mean your work is better than other photographers who have chosen to do this avocationally. In fact, it could mean the opposite. Doing this professionally often means deeper ruts into which we fall.

I’m digressing (but I think the rant’s gaining momentum. Sorry, Ron. I tried. I am a weak man)

Somewhere along the road we lost sight of this simple, fundamental fact about photography – it’s an aesthetic craft. How much light hits the film plane/sensor plane is important for a decent exposure, but if that’s how we define a “good photograph” then dear Lord, take me now. Randomly choosing an aperture of f/8 because it lets in just the right amount of light isn’t photography. It’s math. Our cameras are really good at the math, but lousy on poetry. And that’s what photography is. I don’t want to steal his thunder, so I’ll skirt the analogy, but Vincent Versace wrote a beautiful, and profound, Afterword in my book, Within The Frame, and it’s had me thinking ever since. Sure even in poetry math has its uses to describe metre and rhyming structure, but it’s role is descriptive, not prescriptive. Poems are about passion. So is photography. And the minute I allow my camera’s math to determine the look of my image is the minute I concede that, in fact, photography is nothing more than framing things and letting the camera do the work for me. Every aperture setting, every shutter speed, has an effect on the aesthetic of the image and it should be you, not the camera, making those choices as they correspond to your vision.

To me this means shooting on what I call AV/EV Mode. I shoot in AV mode, consciously choosing the aperture because the first aesthetic choice I generally want to make in regards to exposure is the depth of field. Then I use the histogram to tell me if I’ve got something close to a good digital negative, and I use the EV compensation to bring the exposure closer to my ideal. Some of you will do this using TV mode. Some will use Manual, and even others will use Program and shift the aperture/shutter combination. For the image at the top of this post I shot on Manual mode to allow me the most control over my panning. However you do it, I encourage you to reconsider the role your camera’s mathematical brain has in contributing to the poetry of your images.

Thus endeth the rant.

Have a great weekend. When Monday rolls around it will be a mere 3 weeks until the book is released. You can almost hold your breath that long.

Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity. - Edwin Land

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work. – Rita Mae Brown

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams

A few years ago I had one of those mind-altering epiphanies and before you jump to conclusions, it was completely drug-free. I picked up, and read, Joey Reiman’s Thinking For a Living. Amazing. Made me see, among other things, that creativity is an asset, and harnessed well you can live on it. How many of us would love to make a living doing what we love, being paid to do what we do anyways, just for the love of it? Reiman is a former ad-exec, so the book is written from that angle. One day he’s running an ad agency and overnight he realizes that the clients are essentially paying for the ads to be executed but getting the creativity and the thinking for free. So he switched gears and turned his former ad agency into an ideation firm. Now they get paid to think and should the client so choose, they’ll execute the idea as well.

There’s a couple take-away nuggets in this for photographers. 1. Find the book and read it. 2. You should be selling your creativity and vision, not your ability to wield a camera. If you sell the former then the price is higher because there’s only one of you. If you sell the latter, the price is lower, because these days everyone claims to be a photographer. Simple supply and demand. Scarcity drives the price up. Your creativity and vision is an asset. For those of you that skipped Vision Week because it had “no real world application,” you should go back and read the articles and discussions. If you think creativity and vision are not the rarest of commodities and therefore valuable, well you couldn’t be more wronger.

Furthermore. You should read Hugh MacLeod’s How To Be Creative, and that’s available free as a PDF right HERE. I’m halfway through it and it’s fantastic.

Lastly, if you are in Vancouver, be sure to check out Creative Mix, Vancouver’s Ideation Conference. It’s a one day conference about creativity and pulls together an astonishing array of speakers at the top of their fields as creatives. There’s a chef, a juggler, businessmen, designers, a photographer (I’ll be speaking on Creativity and Constraint) and others. More info HERE. It’s just gaining momentum and the site’s not complete, but this is going to be great day. Book time off to be there. Thursday, October 22. At the Roundhouse in Vancouver.

The Lumen Dei Thailand Workshop and Tour closes on February 28, so if you want in, now’s the time to act. With Thai Air giving up to 50% off ticket prices to encourage tourism to Thailand, now’s a great time to get in on Lumen Dei. Once the 28th comes and goes, applications will no longer be accepted. If you would like more information please see the Lumen Dei site HERE, or email Matt Brandon at: images at thedigitaltrekker dot com. You could email me but I’m in Bangladesh from the 12th to 23rd of February and I’m not sure I’ll have email access.

If you’ve not put your name in for the Lensbaby Composer Giveaway, now’s your last chance for that too. Once I am home I’ll close the comments and randomly draw a name. Then the fine folks at Lensbaby will send you a new Composer with the mount of your choice.

See you in 12 days.

Two weeks ago Matt Brandon and I announced a second 2009 Lumen Dei tour, this time to Thailand with Gavin Gough making the third instructor. We were intentionally mysterious with details and still filled half the tour, so now we’re tipping our hats on the details a little more.

Our workshop group will convene in Bangkok where we’ll spend a a couple of days exploring the city. Bangkok is a great location for street photography and we will be setting out for the local markets as well as exploring some of the city’s shimmering temples and shrines. Just looking at the itinerary for the first few days reveals that the group will be exploring by bus, train, subway, river taxi, long-tail boat, tuk-tuk and on foot. Such is the diversity on offer.

From Bangkok, we will travel to ancient Ayutthaya. Bangkok’s former capital is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and is home to the remains of dozens of monumental temples. Ayutthaya is highly evocative and wandering around the ruined, sacred places is always mesmerising. It would be easy to spend several days exploring Ayutthaya but the lure of more remote locations will see the group taking an overnight train to northern Thailand and the country’s most northerly province. And yes, we travel First Class on the train, sharing lockable, twin-berth compartments. If you’re very lucky a steward will come from the restaurant car to take your food and drinks order, which is then delivered to your compartment. Better still, we’ll approach Chiang Mai in the morning as the sun rises and the view from the window will hint at adventures to come.

In conversation with tourists, Thai people often ask “Have you been to Chiang Mai yet?”. Perhaps it’s the 300 temples, perhaps it’s the surrounding mountains, the local handicrafts, the enticing cuisine or the sense of tranquility that pervades the town. Chiang Mai is gorgeous, that’s for sure, and the group will embark on several photo expeditions from here before setting out to the northern reaches of Thailand towards the Burmese border and Chiang Rai.

Days in Chiang Rai will be spent honing our photographic skills and we’ll be concentrating hard on making the very best of the opportunities on offer. Nights in Chiang Rai will be spend in traditional teak wood accommodation. Simple but attractive. We will eventually leave the town behind as we extend our search for great images and head out into the countryside, staying in traditional bamboo and straw bungalows with the possibility of a home-stay in one of the local hill-tribe villages.

At this stage of the trip our priority will be for our presence to be culturally sensitive. We will link up with one of the local organisations that work with the hill-tribe populations and our aim here is to get memorable images whilst encouraging and aiding the community development projects which support the hill-tribe communities. As a result, our photographic endeavours will be informed by a greater understanding of the region and its inhabitants. We’ll be trying to avoid crashing in and crashing out again, you’ll already know that smash-and-grab photography is not what Matt, Gavin, or I are about.

Thailand’s Hill tribes, or Chao Khâo, originate from across China, Tibet, Burma and Laos. Their borders are defined by language and culture rather than geographical lines and they tend towards a subsistence existence. We will be in a region where the Lisu, Karen and Hmong make their home and will be spending time in villages, meeting with and photographing local people, where appropriate. Photographing in such locations is a privilege and we will approach it as such, probably dividing into small groups of two or three photographers with an accompanying leader.

When our time in northern Thailand comes to an end we will return to Bangkok for a final photographic splurge, to review our images and reflect on our experiences.

I can’t wait. Two very exciting tours this year. For more information visit the newly updated Lumen Dei site HERE or go directly to the Thailand Tour pages HERE.

This took us way too long to post, but it’s finally up thanks to Matt Brandon’s tenacity. For those who’ve been waiting – thanks for your patience. We created this slideshow for the last night we all had together during the Ladakh 2008 tour and since things are hopping for the 2009 Lumen Dei Workshops already, seemed like a good time to post it. And uh, we only just got it finished. Enjoy.

The Lumen Dei Ladakh Tour sold out in three days leaving a trail of disappointed would-be applicants in its wake. Not being ones to sit idly by while people want to travel to exotic places with us, Matt Brandon and I have asked Gavin Gough to team up with us and take a group to Thailand at the end of May 2009.

Here’s the details:

May 25-June 05, 2009
Cost is USD$3600 from Bangkok. This includes pretty much everything except your transportation to Bangkok. We meet you there at the beginning and leave you there at the end.

We will spend 12 days in Bangkok and off the beaten track in the ethnic hill-tribe villages around Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. It’ll be hot and this is not one of those tours where you’ll be staying in fancy hotels (none of our tours are) but if you’ve wanted to get off the beaten track and spend 12 days working on your craft with three world photographers that are passionate about what they do, this is a fantastic opportunity.

As with all our tours the group size will be small, in this case it is limited to 7-8 participants plus the 3 instructors, leaving you with a low student-to-teacher ratio and plenty of time for one-on-one.

As you can see, this one is happening soon – so if you want to join us we need to get things rolling ASAP. Please contact us with initial expressions of interest and any further questions. We’ll then get you an info/application package and begin the process. It’s first-come first-served and when the tour is full, it’s full. Email me at info@pixelatedimage.com

If you want in on the Lumen Dei tour to Ladakh this fall, now is the time to speak up. In the last three days we’ve filled 6 of the 7 spots (pending receipt of the deposits) and are now left with ONE open spot. Speak now or forever…well, you know.

UPDATED – Sorry folks, that last spot just went. Matt and I and another special guest are discussing doing another, but different, tour in 2009 to help meet the demand. Keep your eyes open.

If you’re new here and just have NO idea what I’m on about – go HERE for more information on spending two weeks in some of the most amazing places in the world with Matt Brandon and myself, and our very special guest Ami Vitale.

Matt Brandon and I are thrilled to be announcing plans for next year’s Lumen Dei tour. We’re still working out details like budget and itinerary, but we’ll have that up and on the site soon. Here are the broad strokes. September 2009. Ladakh. Special guest instructor Ami Vitale. That last part should make you very, very excited. If you don’t know who Ami Vitale is, I strongly encourage you to spend some time looking at her work, either online (link below) or in back issues of National Geographic.

If you are interested in being on the Lumen Dei trip for 2009, please send an email ( info at pixelatedimage dot com ) and I will add you to the list. When the exact details are out and I have the application and information package re-written, I’ll get it out to you. So at this point we’ll put you on the list and give you first crack at securing a spot.

Ami Vitale’s site is HERE.

The Lumen Dei site is HERE.

They say that among the best ways to learn is to teach. As much as I am passionate about photography, I am as passionate about passing along that passion. Teaching is one of my great joys, and one of the pay-offs is how much I learn while doing it.

This year at Lumen Dei I gave myself two assignments with which to challenge myself and sharpen my edge. The first was to use the Lensbaby that’s been sitting in my gear closet for two years. The second was to work on my panning.

Both were a lot of fun and reminded me of the importance of being aware of our ruts and climbing out of them. Photography, as much as it is a technical pursuit, is first an artistic one and subject to all the ruts and pitfalls as other pursuits. The expression of our vision is the end, the technique is the means, and the more we explore the means available to us, the more faithfully we’ll be able to achieve our end.

Learning to use the Lensbaby was a great deal of fun (and this should answer the questions I am getting about the selective focus on some of my images – a plain old, generation 1 Lensbaby.), but the panning was the exercise I enjoyed the most. By the end of our time together we were panning everything that moved. Trucks, people running, rickshaws, monks on motorcycles. The above is one of the first I shot, in Old Delhi as rickshaws whizzed past, piled high with schoolkids. The most I counted on one cycle-rickshaw was 10 kids.

Speaking of Lensbabies – have you seen the new line-up? I know the big players like Nikon and Canon get all the Photokina lovin’, but Lensbaby has announced some really cool new stuff, not the least of which is their new Composer lens and the Optic swap system. Check’em out here: Lensbaby.com. While the Lensbaby was originally just a toy to most of it, it’s beginning to become a serious tool – you know, if you like that kind of thing.

Stuck in a rut? There are few things better than an assignment that forces you to stir the paint a little, bring some of the less-used colours to the top.