An artists journey

Category: Attitude

  • Life Is Happening

    Life Is Happening

    Life is happening right now. it is not something you hope will happen someday. Make the most of it, now. This includes your photography.

    Now is all we have

    The past is gone. The future is uncertain. The present time is what we have. Use it. Use it up. Wring it dry.

    Time is a scarce and fleeting resource. We can’t slow it or bank it or save it. It passes, whether we want it to or not. It moves at the same rate for all of us. Use this very moment wisely. Once it is gone, it can never be reclaimed.

    I don’t mean to be all Zen or depressing. But this is true and should be top of mind for all of us. Time is a resource we cannot control. All we can do is use it wisely.

    Pinocchio?©Ed Schlotzhauer

    We don’t get a “do over”

    We only have one life. I won’t argue reincarnation with you.

    The choices we make on a day to day basis shape our future. When we decide not to do something, it is rare to get a second chance. How many opportunities do we let slip by to do something that would make us better?

    Deciding to spend our time watching TV or playing games or hanging out on social media is wasting one of our most valuable treasures – our time. Solely my opinion, of course. Only you can decide what is the best use of your life.

    Do days seem to slip away, disappear into a fog of sameness as we repeat the same actions every day? Why do that? That is the result of having no direction. Of letting external voices control our lives. Those voices do not have our best interests at heart.

    It is commonly documented that when people are asked on their death bed what they regret, one of the most common regrets is that they did not take the chances they wanted to. For instance:

    I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.Old Colony Hospice

    Fear caused them to miss out on the opportunities to lead a different life. This is what they regret at the end. It is so easy to do and it seems like the safe path. But who said everything should be safe or easy?

    Rise Against, representing the daily struggle©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Don’t just live for the future

    On the other hand, we sometimes see people who seem to live entirely for the future. They have a “plan”. Their current time and energy and money is being banked for what they plan to do “someday”.

    This is another way of avoiding living your life in the present. It is great to have goals. Even great goals that will take years to achieve. But what about now? The goals should direct the trajectory of our lives and influence how we spend our time. But they should not shut us down. No matter how important our long term goals seem, we are still living our life right now.

    Even if you’re an entrepreneur and are starting a business from the ground up, you still have a life to live Maybe you decide it is in your best interest right now to be working 100 hours a week and pouring all your money into this business. But at least have an exit plan. It’s got to be a temporary agreement with yourself. Know when to call it quits. Think about what it is doing to your life and health and your family. Some things are more important than making a big bundle of money.

    There is a saying “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” One point of this is that we are not as in charge of our plans as we sometimes think. If we cannot control the future then it is foolish to pin our entire life on an uncertain outcome. Live for now, too, while we are working for that future.

    I had a friend who worked and saved to retire early. He had great plans: extensive travel, learning languages, doing good works for charity, etc. A great list. A few months after he retired, he was dead. Didn’t see it coming.

    Wouldn’t he have been better off doing those things when he had the chance rather than putting them off to “someday”?

    Be in the moment

    That probably seems very heavy and perhaps depressing. It shouldn’t be. It really resolves to a theme I come around to a lot – mindfulness.

    Mindfulness simply means being present, in the moment, aware of things around you and what you are doing. It helps us to live our lives now rather than fretting about the past or worrying about the future. A mindful attitude encourages curiosity. It leads us to learn, to explore, to experiment.

    As photographers, these are skills we should always be practicing. Are we really seeing what is around us? Are we open to the opportunities that are there? Do we see past our preconceptions? Are we able to see the things around us for what they are and what they can be? And are we willing to put it in action by going out and photographing it?

    Compared to the life experiences I was talking about this may seem trivial. But it is all related. When we are mindful – when we can really be aware and in the moment – we will be more successful living in the present. Think of photography as training for living a more rewarding life.

    So I believe it is at least a double reward. Being mindful in our photography will keep us more engaged. We will be more creative and we will likely be happier with our images. Isn’t that one of our purposes in photography? What is really more important than growing creatively and being pleased with our work?

    But, too, as we practice mindfulness in our photography it helps discipline us to be mindful in our daily life. Just thinking and being aware and in the present helps us to consider what is important. It helps us to decide how to make better use of this moment.

    In a storm? Standing bravely?©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Moderation

    Am I suggesting that you should quit your job and go do whatever “fulfills” you at the moment? Of course not. Living your life means you have responsibilities. Some things are urgent, some are important, some are just necessary. Being mature is knowing the difference and deciding what to do when.

    You have bills to pay. You have a career, a family, housing to provide, people have to eat. Your government wants you to pay taxes. Unfortunately, we do not just get to do anything we want. We will do what is necessary because we are responsible adults.

    But we have a hundred moments a day to choose what to do. When we can choose to drift instead of doing something useful and constructive. To be on automatic and just do the easy things. Practicing mindfulness is a great help in being aware of what we are doing and deciding to choose better things to do.

    Mindfulness in photography is practice that helps us lead a more mindful life overall. Photography can help shape our life. Who knew?

    Life is happening all the time. We can’t call a time out. Let’s not let our life drift away without giving it the best we can do.

    I don’t want to come across as “preachy” or judgmental or having all the answers. I am a fellow traveler, looking for my path. Perhaps I am further down my path than you are.

    Please take this as encouragement to practice a more mindful life. Remind me, too. When we are mindful we can take joy in where we are and when we are.

  • Do You Take Pictures?

    Do You Take Pictures?

    Do you take pictures? Well, of course. We all do. I suggest if we are serious about making art that may not be the best attitude.

    Take pictures

    It is estimated that about 2 Trillion pictures are taken a year. That is several hundred pictures for every person on the planet. Probably 99.999% of those are shot on cell phones. Nothing wrong with that. Cell phones have gotten amazing. But realistically, most of the shots taken are selfies or predictable tourist pictures. Again, nothing wrong with that. If the picture makes them happy, it is good.

    Everybody takes pictures. Do you know anyone who has never taken one? I don’t.

    But I am writing to an audience who admires photographic images and probably aspires to make much better ones themselves. What makes a picture good?

    There are obvious qualifiers like being sharp, well lit, subject easy to see, things like that. Those are things that, if you do not do them, it probably will make the picture bad (unless you did it deliberately). But, as you have figured out from experience, eliminating the problems does not mean your pictures become “good”.

    Rocky Mountain fall panorama©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Taken by pictures

    The concept of being taken by pictures is one I picked up from John Barclay. It resonates with me, because I have seen it working in my art.

    What I have seen in my photo shoots is that sometimes something special happens. We no longer are looking for pictures. We have found a subject or place that captivates us. It releases some kind of creative energy within up. We are not just trying to take a picture, we are trying to capture the magic we are feeling. We have to shoot this. There is no choice not to.

    It may be very easy or it may be hard. That is, the scene may present itself to us complete. We have found a treasure. We just have to compose it, set the camera, and take the picture. It is already perfect. Don’t mess it up;

    Sometimes it teases us. We know there is something great hiding there, just out of reach. Maybe we have to walk around to look for the right angle. Perhaps it is zooming in on the right piece. Or waiting for the right light, Maybe it is a matter of thinking about it to figure out what is calling to us. Whatever it is, we usually know it when we see it. The inner voice guiding us says “Yes!”. Then we know we have captured the essence we are searching for.

    When this happens it is very rewarding. We know we have glimpsed something great and good and we feel like we have captured a view of it.

    What is the difference?

    The difference is taking a picture vs making art. Taking vs giving.

    When you’re at the Eiffel Tower and you think “I like that and I should shoot it”, you probably know how to make a good record of it. You and 50,000 other people that day. When anyone sees it they say “yep, that’s the Eiffel Tower”. No passion. It is just a fact. You might even want to hang a print of it on your wall. But you could get the same thing from any print on demand web site.

    But when we are taken by a scene, there is an intensity and passion invoked in us. It is a personal experience. With luck and skill on our part, some of the feeling might be shared by some of our viewers.

    We did not take the picture to show it to you. We had to take it for us. It was something we were drawn to. It is like it was a gift given to us.

    Geese flying at sunset©Ed Schlotzhauer

    If it does not captivate you

    I use a recent trip to France as an example a lot lately. It is recent and fresh in my mind.

    I was unashamedly a tourist. That means I shot a lot of pictures because I felt I needed to record where we were and what we were seeing. Just like everyone else with their smart phones. Even though I was using a nice mirrorless camera, they were still mostly tourist shots.

    Some of these are nice. That is, they are sharp, well composed, and show what I want of the scene. I will keep too many of them, but just for my own private memories.

    But a few were moments where something spoke to me and drew me into an image. These times were meaningful to me. As far as images go, these were the Wow moments of the trip for me. Whether anyone else ever sees them or appreciates them doesn’t matter. They are special to me. When I go back and look at them I remember the feelings of the moment.

    It’s about emotion

    A common theme that recurs is that it is about passion, emotion. Did I feel anything deep or special about this, or was it a record shot? Record shots are pretty and a few will go into a slide show or book of the trip.

    The really meaningful images weren’t shot to a plan and were not shot primarily to record the event or place. They may be random occurrences. But these are special to me. Times when I was truly engaged and excited by what was there.

    If I wasn’t excited about what I saw, why should you be?

    Car wash brush abstract©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Don’t settle for just taking pictures

    So take pictures. But don’t settle for just taking pictures. Let’s turn up our sensitivity to hear when something is calling to us. If we are not actively listening, we will probably miss it. We know something great is there. Now we have to find it. Work the scene. Peal away the clutter. Follow your instinct. Let yourself be taken by pictures. It is worth it.

    When we get caught up in a situation like this, it doesn’t really matter if all we have if a cell phone. Use what you have. But follow you passion. Figure out what is really there and get the shot. Take the gift. Appreciate it.

  • Take a Cheap Trip

    Take a Cheap Trip

    Most of us like to vacation. Travel is booming at levels not seen for years. Popular vacation spots are often overcrowded. And costs continue to increase. What if I suggested a way to take a cheap trip? One that may benefit your photography. And it’s not a timeshare sales pitch.

    High costs

    Travel inflation seems to be higher than other inflation in general. It restricts some of what we can do.

    A trip overseas for a few weeks can be out of reach, both in money and the time required. It can suck up our entire savings for a year or more. Even taking a local road trip is getting to be a burden and out of reach for some of us.

    But some of us rely on travel to refresh and relax us. What are we to do?

    Antique narrow gauge steam locomotive snowplow©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Why do photographers travel?

    Photographers seem to have a special fondness for travel. We expect the travel experience to renew us, shake out the cobwebs, invigorate our vision and interest. And we want to come back with exciting new images to show and talk about.

    This has long been the case. From the beginning photographers tended to travel.

    As soon as the technology allowed fairly portable equipment, it seems like photographers were traveling. Matthew Brady traveled and photographed extensively during the American Civil War. Other famous artists like William Henry Jackson and Ansel Adams shot exclusively outdoors. And I’m just highlighting American photographers.

    These artists traveled to places most people couldn’t go in those times. They opened up our understanding of the world and what was going on. In this, they did a great service.

    Our travel expectations are probably more modest. We will seldom go to uncharted lands no one has ever seen. But we go to places new to us. Or at least places outside of our normal routine. It is enlightening and changes our perspective and understanding. That is usually a good thing. And refreshing.

    I think a yearning to travel is an inherent part of society these days. Especially for photographers.

    Shake it up

    But I promised you a cheap trip. Here goes: shake up something you usually do.

    Yes, that’s it. That’s all.

    We all fall into ruts. Shooting the same subjects in the same way with the same lens in the same lighting. It becomes a habit. A habit is where we avoid thought and go through life on automatic. Shake that up by changing something. Force yourself to confront a different situation where we have to think.

    One simple thing is to pick one lens we seldom use and photograph exclusively with it for a while, say a month. Some of us are naturally wide angle shooters. Switch to a telephoto. Some of us see only telephoto shots. Switch and only carry a wide angle for a while. Or a macro lens and only shoot closeups. Or a fish eye, or a tilt/shift. If you are a landscape photographer, try street photography. If you do portraits, try night skies.

    And yes, just carry that one lens. Not your whole kit. It will force you to play the game.

    Maybe try putting aside your “serious” camera for awhile and only use your phone. Or shoot with the expectation that you will process everything to black & white. Maybe it could be as simple a thing as deciding everything you are doing now will be cropped square.

    Chain link fence with frayed cloth©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Just do something different

    It really does not matter what you choose, as long as it is different enough from what you usually do. During this time you are not concentrating on adding to your portfolio. The goal is to break free from your normal habits and learn to see better. Think again.

    How is this a cheap trip? Travel encourages us to see different. We are out of our comfort zone. We become more mindful. Basic assumptions have to be re-examined. Things look new and different so we pay more attention to them. Making a change in our routine triggers similar things.

    One way to simulate that same effect as travel to force our self out of our normal rut. A cheap and easy way to do that is to force a change in how we see through our camera.

    Sound too easy? Try it. You may be surprised.

    Practice mindfulness exercises

    Making a change like this is one example of a mindfulness exercise. I’m not talking about chanting and navel gazing. The purpose of mindfulness is to set aside our preconceived notions and expectations. Wall out the distractions that are enticing us to other things. Learn to be in the moment, and to look around and actually see what is there.

    Some people can get there through meditation. Some others through travel or workshops. Maybe for you going to a museum and looking at the work of great masters does it. But regardless of the mechanism that works for you, mindfulness comes down to creating a still place for yourself. A place where you can set aside distractions and competing thoughts for a while. Where you can free yourself to really see and consider what is around you for what it is. Where you can immerse yourself in the experience of creating.

    In a canal©Ed Schlotzhauer

    A cheap trip

    I am not really joking when I say changing up your normal routine or environment occasionally is a cheap trip. It can produce some of the same benefits we often get from travel. Granted, it may not be as much fun, but it is a lot cheaper. And you can do it anytime or anywhere.

    No, I’m not suggesting that this is an excuse to go buy that great new lens you have been wanting. Of course, whatever excuse works for you is up to you. But that shoots down the idea of a cheap trip.

    Getting out of our normal territory and traveling to a new location often puts us in a more mindful attitude as we shoot. It amazes me that everything we see becomes an interesting subject. Part of that is because we set aside the uninterrupted time to be there and shoot. But I believe a large part of it is that we are seeing things new. That refreshes and energizes us.

    I am suggesting another way to stimulate a similar effect of travel is to change something about our routine. Something to make us think, reconsider, focus more on what we are doing. Something to make us see past mechanics and rules of composition and social media likes.

    Make it a habit to challenge yourself like this periodically. It does not require an uncomfortable 10 hour plane ride.

    Today’s image

    The image at the top of this article is an example of shaking myself out of a rut. This was taken in the Rockies in fall. Normally during this time I am concentrating on beautiful fall colors and aspen trees.

    In this case, I tasked myself with ignoring the leaves and shooting the mountains after dark. No trees or fall colors visible. This is the Eisenhower Tunnel from the Loveland Pass road. Stars are just becoming apparent as the last light fades, illuminating the mountain silhouettes. The trail of lights in and out of the tunnel adds unique interest.

    I felt good about it. Definitely not a conventional fall landscape.

  • En Plein Air

    En Plein Air

    This is a big buzz with my colleagues who manually put pigment on a substrate (e.g. they paint). There is an aura that makes it something exotic about creating “en plein air”. Actually, plein air is what I do, too.

    Plein air

    In itself, plein air art is not a new concept, or even an artistic concept. It has been done commonly by painters since the 1800’s.

    It is sometimes spoken like an advanced technical term. Something your have to be an insider to truly appreciate. But it is just an everyday French phrase. I have been studying French recently (another story) and was surprised to find this in normal use. It literally means “plain air”, or outdoors. Nothing fancy or hidden there. If you go to a “plein air” concert it just means you are going to an outdoor concert.

    Silhouetted tree at sunset©Ed Schlotzhauer

    In painting

    So if you are a painter and you gather up all your stuff and take it outside to paint scenes from nature or whatever is in front of you, you are painting “en plein air”. Does that make it different or special? Maybe. Monet thought so. I”ll talk about that in a minute.

    But to give the painters credit, it required some technical and workflow innovations for this to happen. We forget history sometimes.

    It used to be (pre-1800) that artists had to find or buy their own pigments. Then they had to purify them and laboriously grind them into an extremely fine powder and mix them in a binder, usually a type of oil. By the way, you know those beautiful warm, rust toned palettes favored by Renaissance artists in Italy? Ochre pigment was a common, naturally occurring mineral there. Coincidence?

    But then, sometime in the early 1800’s, the technology for producing and selling pigments already ground and mixed and in tubes was developed. This allowed the artists two things: first, they could get any colors they wanted. But second, and more important for this discussion, it became much easier to take your oils with you. As the desire to move about grew, enterprising vendors also developed smaller, portable easels and pre-stretched prepared canvases. Artists were not tethered to a studio nearly so much.

    Now artists could pack their gear into a relatively small bundle and go where they wanted. One of the places they moved was outside.

    Monet

    I find I use Monet as an example a lot. I like his work, but another thing is that he was an innovator and revolutionary. He fought the entrenched art establishment and helped establish a whole new style. Something photography is still struggling to some extent to do.

    Monet was one of the early practitioners of the plein air movement. One of the motivations of the whole Impressionist movement was his and others desire to paint outdoor scenes in the light of the moment. As Guy Tal put it in his marvelous book The Interior Landscape, (I get no incentives for promoting it) “Monet famously credited the success of his work to the emotions he felt when working out in nature … As Monet himself put it, ‘My only merit lies in having painted directly in front of nature, seeking to render my impressions of the most fleeting effects.’ “

    Working outside and observing fleeting effects. That’s what I like to do, too!

    Moving clouds, moving lights©Ed Schlotzhauer

    I work outdoors

    The same impulse motivates me, even though the technology I use is very different. I find and capture my images almost exclusively outdoors. Shooting in a studio does not motivate me.

    Seeing things most other people do not see excites me. Finding those things, even if they are little, seemingly insignificant things, that I can show you in a new way gives me joy. Especially if I can show you something and you share my joy and excitement.

    I admit I do not have the patience for painting. It’s too slow for me. Spending a few hours or days capturing a scene would be so frustrating to me that I would quickly give up. Seeing something, visualizing what this could be and what to do with it is hard and takes lots of experience. That is one of the fun and creative parts of photography to me. And it is fast enough to not bog me down or interrupt my creative flow. The process of capturing and producing the artifact doesn’t need to be so difficult.

    Other than post processing work on my computer, my images come from outdoors, en plain air.

    A new genre?

    Have I created a new genre of art? Should I trademark the term “plein air photography”? Sign up for my workshop!

    Well, I probably can’t do that. Photography has always been strongly associated with the outdoors. I think the first surviving photograph was an outdoor scene. Admittedly early photographs were outdoors because that’s where a good light source was available. Flash had not yet been invented. Even when it first was, it was difficult and dangerous to use (and smoky).

    But those are technical considerations. The fact remains that photography has always had a strong connection to the outdoors. Especially for crazy people like me who photograph outside year around in a place like Colorado.

    Snow, wind, cold - all the ingredients for a great photo shoot.©Ed Schlotzhauer

    It’s the outdoors that motivates me. I’m a hunter. That’s where I find most of my prey. And my inspiration. It is not an uncommon obsession. Look at publications like Luminous Landscape, Nature Photographer’s Network, Outdoor Photographer magazine and many others.

    To the painters, if working outside motivates you, excellent. We share a common bond. I hope the outdoors inspires us both to do our best work. But working outdoors is not a new concept or unique to painting. Plein air just means “outside”.

    I’ll be looking for you outside. But we will just pass each other. I’ll be moving about a lot discovering and shooting a lot of things while you are painting. Not to say one is better or worse, just very different art forms. Both en plein air. Let’s wave to each other.

  • Have an Opinion

    Have an Opinion

    I spent most of my photographic career just recording scenes. But now I think you probably won’t make a compelling image unless you have an opinion and express it in your art.

    Just the facts

    I started mostly focusing on just the facts. My goal was literal representation of scenes. I wanted to capture what was actually there, with no interpretation. I regret that.

    Being an engineer didn’t help. It is very easy to get caught up in technical details of resolution and depth of field. My excuse is that I grew up in Texas and moved to Colorado in my early 20’s. The mountains were new to me and I wanted to record everything I could. I was basically running around saying “Wow, look at this! I never knew this existed!”.

    If I had an opinion about it, it was something like awe and excitement about the new landscape. I took a lot of accurate, factual representational pictures back then, but very few are in any of my current collections. Beautiful images some of them, but little depth. Not compelling.

    Is it interesting?©Ed Schlotzhauer

    What makes it special?

    What makes an image special or worth lingering over? That is a hard question. Great photographers have been wrestling with that for 150 years. Painters have been agonizing over it for hundreds of years. There are no rules or definitive answers (despite all the rubbish you may find on the internet).

    I am not in a position to give you a definitive answer either. If I could it would make my art a lot easier to do.

    I think we can agree that some images jump out at us or hold us to linger over them. If we can agree on that then we can agree that there must be some quality or qualities that distinguish one from others.

    It could simply be the composition or lighting or the precision of the execution or the decisive moment or something in the scene that grabs our interest. Maybe some combination of all of that.

    I am drawn to believe it is all that but more. We see far too many well executed images of beautiful scenes that seem soulless, flat, uninspired. So there must be an unidentified quality that some get but others do not.

    It is probably oversimplified, but I speculate that part of it could simply be whether the photographer was excited about it. We tend to be drawn to excitement in others. When someone is telling us a story that happened to them, their excitement has a lot to do with our engagement. If it is just a “I went to the grocery store and got some oranges”, well, we quickly drift away. But if it is “I went to the grocery store and the most amazing thing happened…” then, if they can keep the story going, we will follow.

    Could it be that simple with our pictures?

    Express yourself

    I said when I started my photography I believed mainly in literal representation. It seemed wrong to try to project my feelings or opinion on them. Now I think I was totally wrong. That is why most of those early images were completely forgetable. I wasn’t truly being authentic because I was keeping my feelings to myself.

    One thing the great and very quotable Jay Maisel said was “What you’re shooting at doesn’t matter, the real question is: ‘Does it give you joy?’”.

    Now I believe that unless I am feeling something strong, it is useless to press the shutter. I want to believe that my excitement will carry through in some of my images. The good ones.

    Another quote that guides me is “if it doesn’t excite you, why should it excite anyone else?” I think that is a Jay Maisel too, but I can’t find it. If not, maybe I’ll claim it. 🙂 Either way, I believe it. Why should you care about any of my images unless they came from something inside of me? Not just pressing the shutter button and capturing what is there.

    So it is not enough for me to just capture an image of something. I want you to know what I was feeling, how I perceived it. I may have loved it or hated it, but you be able to sense it and participate in it.

    It is not only OK for me to express my feelings, I think it is completely necessary to make something good.

    Curious reflections in a shop window©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Nobody has to agree

    But there is a dark side to human nature: when we express our feelings, some people will not agree. I know now that that is fine. When I took the attitude that everybody does not have to like what I did, it was tremendously liberating.

    So now when someone says “I like that” or “I don’t like that” I basically ignore the comment. It is no use to me without more discussion. Actually, if someone does not like a picture I love to get into a conversation with them to find our why they felt that way. I will not change my image and I do not try to change their mind, but I am always curious about the reasons for negative reactions.

    One of my goals is to create a reaction in you. I’m generally a positive and upbeat person and that is more often the type of reaction I aim for. But I would rather cause you to hate my work than to be indifferent to it. If you are indifferent I failed to move you at all.

    I encourage you to fall in love with your subjects. Or find the subjects that revolt you and you want to have changed. Either way, feel something. Strongly. Your audience needs it and deserves it.

    Today’s image

    This was a quick “grab” shot, but that was because I did not want to disturb or upset the guy looking at me. I was more shy then. This has a lot of feeling for me. I was suffering and I’m sure they were, too. It was in a village in central Italy and it was about 100°F that afternoon. We were dying and the only people stupid enough to be out sightseeing. This old couple seemed to have found a relatively shady spot in the narrow street. Hopefully with some breeze. I’m sure that other neighbors would soon gather for their daily ritual.

    I fell in love with the area and the way of life. They seemed to have contentment in their circumstances and the pace and traditions of their life. I came away with great respect for them. I wish I would have visited with this gentleman, but the heat was about to take me down and I don’t speak Italian. I’m pretty sure he did not speak English. So I let it go be. I’m sorry for that.