Month: December 2022

Posted on

Am I A Failure?

Dead tree in snow. Bent, broken, but still trying to stand.

It’s the end of a calendar year. For most of us, it is a time of reflection. Are you having doubts and insecurity about your art and your capability? Do you, sometimes, deep down inside, fear you are a failure? I know I do. At this time of the year especially, I wonder if I am a failure.

An ongoing problem for most creatives

I have written before about failing. We all feel it. I think creatives feel it more than most.

The fact that we are creatives means we have to create. But when we show our creations to the world, we are very likely to get rejection and criticism. That hurts. It bruises our ego and makes us insecure. As creatives we have to be out doing new, fresh, interesting work that sets us apart from our peers. But we can’t always feel the inspiration or be on top of our game. When we look at other artists work or awards, it is natural to feel inadequate. A failure.

My reading tells me most artists feel this way at times. Sometimes a lot. Even the famous or well known are troubled with this doubt.

What are your metrics?

We have to be careful to select what we are measuring and how we are doing it. When we feel a failure it is usually compared to what we see other people doing, or our goals, or based on some negative feedback we get.

So one problem is who do we compare our self to? Remember, what you see on social media or magazines or gallery shows is the very best work they can do. But we compare our everyday work, or even our throw-aways, to them and feel a failure. What if you took your carefully selected portfolio of a few great images and compared those to these other people? Would you compare better? Even if you say they are better, can you justifiably say, “but mine is very good”? Don’t assume you are not up to the measure.

External metrics

And we tend to tie our sense of worth to external measures. Like money or recognition or winning contests. One problem with this is that these are things out of our control. We might work hard and market our self extensively, but still we cannot control our sales success. We may enter a lot of contests and open exhibits, but the fact that we are not picked very often is mostly dependent on circumstances we cannot know or understand. And no, saying we just need to get better doesn’t ensure success there.

Recognition is more subtle and in some ways more dangerous. What artist doesn’t want recognition? It makes us feel significant. It validates us and our work. We may seek it, even need it, but we have little control over it happening. The “best” artists are often passed over for seemingly inconsequential reasons. Personal preferences of judges or curators, biases, maybe entering subject matter that is not popular with them. Any number of reasons.

Who said you failed?

But when we are not selected for the show or contest or gallery, what do we internalize? When no one is rushing to buy our prints, what do we assume? We tell our self we are a failure. We are not good enough. No one said that. It is what we tell our self. We are our own worst critic. We rush to think the worst.

Of course, we could try to game the system. We could study the styles and opinions of the judges or gallerists and design work to match their preferences. This might get some show entries and even sales. But whose work are you doing at that point? Are you still an artist if you subvert your vision to the opinions of others?

The moment I decide to create my work first for your approval, and not because it scratches some creative itch within me, I have lost.

David duChemin, “The Soul of the Camera”

All critics have their own opinions. Many are locked in to certain positions because they have developed a reputation in that movement. Some cannot rise above their training. A few are just narrow minded. A lot just may not like our style of art. I’m not saying it is useless to listen to them, just that their opinion is just that, an opinion. It is not law or given from God.

Take the failure or criticism as just an input. Think about the merits, if any, but feel free to discard the advice. Your own opinion must direct your art.

Understand your goals

Be careful of needing to seek the approval of others. They can reject your work, but they cannot judge your art. David duChemin also said, in the book cited above: “Craft can be measured; art cannot”.

The reality is, no one but you can judge your art. Our creativity is a gift from God. When we create art, we are giving back a praise and thanks to him. It is from within. The judgment of our art is our own.

Sure, we can, if we are lucky, find one or more trusted mentors who can give us good feedback. But even then, it is up to us to accept or reject their input.

Out art must scratch the particular itch within us. That is the goal that matters. We must create what we have within. This is internally driven, not dependent on the whims or opinions of other people.

Never give up

I have heard it said that if you can be talked out of your goal, you should give it up. Some disagree, but I think there is a good core of truth to it. Being an artist is particularly difficult. You must be driven and willing to follow your heart despite rejection. It was much easier to become an engineer than to become an artist. The goals were clearer and more easily attained.

I like the phrase what is the thing you can’t not do? This is your art. I think it is a good description. If we have art in us, we are almost compelled to produce it. It doesn’t matter if it is rejected. It doesn’t matter if we don’t get rich with it. This is our art. We have to do it. Other people’s opinions may hurt, but they should not knock up off course.

If I do the art that is within me crying to get out, and I’m happy with it, I am not a failure.

Despite what I may feel today.

Posted on

It’s Just Data

Smoky Ouray sunset, looking up the box canyon

Digital images are just data, pixels, digital values. Yes, but… That’s like saying paintings are just pigment smeared on canvas. It can become something more.

It’s data

Every digital image is data. I won’t go into film. It is the same but different. But a piece of exposed film is just data, too.

What comes off my sensor is a rectangular array of pixel values, red, green, and blue tuples. Tuple is just a mathematical term for a small set of numbers you keep together and in order. In this case (red value, green value, blue value). This is just numbers. Data.

When this data is brought into my computer it is still data. The manipulations I do on it in Lightroom and/or Photoshop are mathematical operations. Things computers are good at dealing with. An image may be gigabytes in size, but it is still nothing more than data.

Data just is. It doesn’t mean anything.

Interpreted by our minds

When the data is displayed on screen, I can view it and interpret it as something. This is the key. It means nothing until a human interprets it.

A particular set of contrasting tones and colors in a region looks like a tree to me. Even if the computer uses an AI classifier to identify it as a tree, that is just a meaningless label to it. The computer does not know what a tree is. An image of a tree cannot invoke memory or symbolism or meaning in the computer. It can in our minds.

So the data we see on screen, that is just variations of intensity and color, becomes meaningful to us because we are human. The data itself does not encode hope or despair or memories or associations or pain or beauty. That is what we make of the data.

The pen

There is an old expression that says “the pen is mightier than the sword.” This is true, but unpack it a little. A literal pen (do you remember what those are?) is not stronger or more forceful that a literal sword. The expression is metaphorical. The force of words conveyed to people’s minds can do more than the threats of swords can.

This is the case with images. The data making up the image means little. What we interpret from the data when we view it is everything.

I do not get political in this blog, but from a sociological interest, the protests going on in China (as I write this) are fascinating. Censorship is so strict that the symbol of the protests is a blank piece of paper, representing that they can’t say anything. From an engineering point of view, the amount of “data” in a blank sheet of paper is zero. It is the meaning ascribed to it that makes it powerful. An empty of paper can say volumes.

What elevates some?

Back on track, how is it that some data creates a far different effect than others? It’s much more than just the data. For example, here are 2 histograms. This is important data about the color information and distribution of pixels in each image.

Mona Lisa histogram Random flower image histogram

Their shapes are not that different. The one on the left has more warm dark tones and is darker overall. The one on the right has a lot of bright reds. Both have a red spike at the high end. But these are just 2 sets of data.

Would it make a difference if I told you the left histogram is the Mona Lisa and the right one is a random flower image from my reject bin?

So we cannot take an engineering view of the data to infer the value or user reaction. Our human perception makes all the difference.

More than data

The famous photographer Edward Weston once said: “This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.” It is a little bit of a stretch, but I don’t think it breaks badly to say when we press the shutter, we collect data, but it is more than data.

We could look at the data as an engineer and analyze histograms, tonal distributions, edges, area balances, and 100 other parameters. I know. I have. But my conclusion is that matters little. It gives us ways to describe the superficial data, but it says almost nothing about what the image means to us as humans.

So what?

I think we always have to ask “so what?” when we learn something new. Let me share 2 takeaways I get from this.

The first is that the data doesn’t care. I spent years trying to optimize the perfect histogram, ensuring total, crisp sharpness, capturing and preserving perfect color balance. At this point in my journey I will say that none of that really matters. All that matters is the effect I bring to myself and my viewers. Is it pleasing? Does it make us think? Is there a larger idea behind the surface scene?

The second takeaway is even harder for me to really grasp. It is just data, and the numbers don’t really matter. This means that what the original scene looked like (the captured data) should have little bearing on what we do with it. Process the data as much as necessary to create a great image. I need to stop being limited in my thinking by the reality I started with.

If it was an average, sunny scene but I feel it should be dark and moody, fine. If it was a colorful scene but I feel it should be presented in black & white, fine. Crop it. Add texture. The original data should not limit our artistic interpretation. This is one reason I often find it valuable to let images “age” a bit before I process them. I loose much of the association to the real scene and can take a more artistic view of the result I want.

Today’s image

I love this image and this place (Ouray Colorado). The sunset was almost blown out from a haze of wildfire smoke. Contrast was challenging. But I had to get something. It was too beautiful to stand idly by.

Besides B&W conversion and cropping it, the pixels have been bent quite a bit. The image is a couple of years old. I find that every time I go back to it I push it a little more to the extreme. Each time I do, it becomes a little more what I remember of the event. The less I remember the actual original scene, the more I feel free to make it match what I felt.

Posted on

Time Builds Perspective

Water flow, mountain ranges, abstract oil painting?

I find that a distance of time often builds a healthy perspective on my images. Sometimes, when the images are “fresh”, the experience of the capture clouds my judgment. Letting them age can build a clearer judgment of them. They can take on a new life.

Let go

I have written that we need to fall in love with our images and capture the emotions we were feeling at the time. That is true, but the experience of the moment is not sufficient to make it worthwhile. I could point to many images in my catalog that bring back great memories. Ones where I felt alive and on fire when I took them.

They will always be meaningful to me, but that does not make them great images. I have to learn to let go of my emotional attachment to them and look at them with detachment. That is the only way to begin to see if they could bring satisfaction to other people.

Be analytical

I have said that we need to balance our emotional side with our analytical side. This is one of those times. Looking at one of my images may bring back a flood of joy or suffering or pain or other feelings. But I must coldly and analytically figure out if I have brought any of that to my viewers.

Just because it was significant to me does not mean it should be to you. This may be the last picture I took of my father before he died, but that doesn’t make it meaningful to you unless it brings out something significant about the human condition.

I may have a group of shots I took in 2 feet of snow in white-out conditions where hardly anyone was dumb enough to be out. The images may be beautiful to me and bring back the experience as a pleasant memory, but what can they convey to you?

If I can’t bridge from personally important to an exciting image from your perspective, it is only a selfie.

Distance

One way to be able to see this is to use time as a distance mechanism. I have found myself instinctively doing this a lot, but it was interesting to see it discussed by Alister Benn, CaptureLandscape’s 2020 Photographer of the Year:

When I turned professional, I suddenly found the time between shooting in the field and getting around to processing was extending from a matter of hours, to months, or even years. I have thousands of images I have never looked at since importing them (apart from rating and deleting any obvious weak ones.)

Alister Benn – Luminosity & Contrast

He goes on to describe how this separation helped him by allowing him to view images more objectively. They are distanced from their original meaning. How he perceives and reacts to the image right now is all that matters. Sometimes he looks through old images and “discovers” ones he was cool to at the time that he can now develop into a great image. Seen on its own without the baggage of the emotions of the shoot, it means something new. Distance builds perspective.

See them for what they are

Alister asks how, then, does he decide what images to work on? “Simply, I work the ones that speak to me.” Sitting in front of the computer days, or even months after the shoot, they look different. They have different meaning. A meaning may arise independent of the original context.

He is in a different place – literally and figuratively. He has different feelings and emotions. The images are perceived different. Some become more important. Presumably some become less important. But he is processing them from the point of view of where his head is at the time.

At the time

Interestingly, this means that there could be a kind of ebb and flow to our perceptions. At any given time our feelings will be different. We may be happy, sad, melancholy, reflective, hopeful. How we feel at the time determines how we perceive our images and how we process them.

In a recent article, I suggested an exercise to discover our natural themes: pick your “best” 100 images from your portfolio. Brainstorm descriptive terms. Group those into categories and name them. I also gave the opinion that this was not deterministic, because repeating the exercise at another time could be a little different, because you would pick different images as your “best”.

I think I was discovering the idea that even our portfolio is not a fixed set. There is not necessarily 20 or 50 or 100 images that is fixed in time that represent me. The members can change, not only as we do new work, but as we change our perspective. Time brings new points of view. Distancing our self from the emotions of when we captured the image changes how we view it. We are always growing and learning.

It’s actually exciting for me to look back through old images in my catalog. The excitement is when I have one jump out at me and I look at the way I processed it and say “what were you thinking?” Then I re-process it from a different point of view and create a new, different image.

Example

The image here is an example of this idea. Every time I come back to it, I see something different. Sometimes I love it, sometimes not as much. It is in or out of my portfolio on any given day. The longer I live with it, the more I like it. I am tending to see more layers and ideas swirling through it. Right now I would say it is a definite “in”. It speaks to me.

Posted on

Real Reality

Girl sitting on rock over cliff

As I write this in November 2022, Meta (Facebook) has just laid off about 11,000 employees. I feel sorry for the people, but it got me thinking about virtual reality vs “real reality” I don’t know about you, but I greatly prefer real reality.

Virtual reality

Have you noticed that many of the largest tech companies (Meta, Microsoft, Google, etc) want to move us to a world where we experience life through virtual reality goggles. We would sit in our chair and “experience” any place or time, we can do things that would be illegal or impossible in the real world. And generally is seems to be perfectly safe.

In the virtual world we don’t have to worry much about the consequences of our actions. Game over. Restart. We don’t die or go to jail. What’s not to like?

Real life

Contrast that with the real world. Things take time and money and most of us have to work to earn a living. We are “stuck” in the era we are born in. Our society has lots of laws and restrictions we have to live with. We get hot and cold and wet. We get sick and break bones. People can be cruel. Marriages break up. We die.

Wow, the virtual world sounds pretty good, doesn’t it. 🙂

It’s about the experience

To me, one of the differences is a safe, manufactured, managed experience vs what life brings us and what we can find in the world. The real world is real. The virtual world is fake. Even when the technology gets to the point where the virtual world looks real (it’s a long way from it now), it is still fake.

Deep down inside, you know fake experiences are fake. Unless you live your life with only fake experiences.

Let me chance making you upset with me. I don’t have much use for Disney World or other similar entertainment vendors. It may be fun to take the kids or grand kids there, if they’re under about 8, just to watch their excitement as they are entertained. But otherwise, I can’t escape the knowledge that it is all fake. It is all a manufactured experience made by a large corporation. That leaves me completely unsatisfied. Except for a good roller coaster. 🙂

When you know the pirates on the river cruise aren’t able to attack you, it looses any terror. When you figure out the rocket ship you’re flying isn’t going to crash no matter how badly you “fly” it, there is little incentive. Even that good roller coaster that thrills for a couple of minutes, in reality, has no lasting hold for us. It will not fly off the track or crash into something or drown you when it seems to plunge into the lake. Shallow experiences. It is just shaking us around in a safe and controlled way.

Being there

This quote captures an essence of the notion of “being there” in real life:

When I am out, I am there to be in the countryside, to have an experience; to notice, to engage, and perhaps record some good data with my camera. I am not thinking about making images, otherwise, I risk missing the experience altogether, and that seems counter intuitive. The experience comes first.

Alister Benn, “Luminosity & Contrast”

It’s not a game. No one is directing it or controlling it. No ads are being served up to us. It is the wild, unpredictable, real world. I agree with Alister’s description of the experience being key. The experience triggers our interests and creativity. We may not even know why we are drawn to an image at the time. We will figure it out later. Right then it is our subconscious speaking to us. But the experience has to be real to be meaningful.

Safe?

If there is no risk, there is no reward.

When we are experiencing the actual world, we are not necessarily safe. If I am in the mountains taking pictures, I could get lost; I could make a misstep and break my leg; i could slip and fall off a cliff; a bear could attack me. Or if I am in the city shooting images, I am even more at risk.

The fact that there is danger involved heightens the experience. People these days seem to believe that anything unsafe is bad and should be avoided. The reality is that life is unsafe. We don’t know what is going to happen 5 minutes from now.

Putting our self in situations that can be uncomfortable or even a little dangerous can be good for us. We become more self reliant and able to think and handle situations. It gets the blood pumping and sharpens our senses. A little real danger is far more exciting than a lot of fake danger.

To me, the dangers of being a couch potato and spending our lives anesthetized in entertainment outweigh the dangers of exposing ourselves to the real world. Entertainment is a dangerous drug.

Don’t be stupid

Oh, I can’t say that can I? It would imply that some people do not use good judgment. But as I talk about risk and experience, let me balance that with the counsel to do it realistically. You have to appraise the level of the risk and your capability. I’m not saying you should put yourself in danger.

For instance, when I talk about going out in very cold conditions and snow, I dress appropriately. I have the equipment. And a good 4-wheel drive to get around. And a lot of experience. Getting a good picture is not worth killing myself.

Don’t put yourself in any situation that you can’t handle or that is not worth the potential cost. Get training on identifying and countering the types of threats you could face. Most of all, be aware of yourself and what’s going on around you. Situational awareness applies even out in the woods. Be realistic and make sure you are physically and mentally capable of what you are doing.

Live a real life

My art involves outdoor photography. I do all of my shooting outside. As such, I have to get out in it. Weather almost doesn’t matter. Today, as I write this, it was 22F and snowing and with enough wind to make it pretty chilly. I was out walking nearly 5 miles in it. It was a nice day. The experience was more memorable than the images I got.

It is not always pleasant. That is not my goal. Life isn’t always pleasant. Where I live we have temperatures from 110F to -20F. We can have winds over 60 mph. There is snow and blizzards and thunderstorms, even tornadoes and wildfires. Being out in those things makes you take a moment and say “Wow!”. It is real life.

I feel real and alive and in the moment when I am out experiencing the world live. I am a player, not a spectator. Despite the limitations of my opportunities and capabilities, I want to experience life for myself. I am not content to let a corporation or a game developer or a movie maker package an experience for me, to feed me the same program they give to 1,000,000 other people.

Look at the image with this article. Look closely in the top right. That woman is living a real life experience at the moment.

Live life to make art

Artists are often pictured as counter-culture, wild, living on the edge. To some extent, that is true. We don’t have to look different or dress different, but we should be different. Our art is about bringing experiences to people. As such, we have to experience things ourselves. That is a source of inspiration for us. Our passion from what we experience needs to be felt by our viewers.

Do we have to suffer to make art? Is danger required? Of course not. Monet painted many of his great works in his back yard. The issue to me is are we actually living a life that fuels our creativity and vision? We have to have real experiences, not fake, packaged, safe entertainment.

I don’t think I can generate passion for my viewers playing a flight simulation wearing a virtual reality helmet. It may be enjoyable, but it is a fake experience. I don’t want to show fake experience to my viewers. We don’t have to hang out over a cliff to live life. But get out. Be real. Live your own life, not something someone else packages and sells you. Take risks where necessary. Be yourself.