Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Attitude

  • Don’t Repeat Yourself

    Don’t Repeat Yourself

    Your parents or teachers probably told you this when you were growing up. Generally it’s good advice, but I am going to take it to a different context. In our work as artists, we must be careful to not become complacent and stop trying new things. Don’t repeat yourself artistically.

    Stuck in a rut

    We’ve all been there, haven’t we. Going over the same ground all the time. Playing it safe, Not trying anything new. It is the easy path. Or, it seems like it for a while.

    Sometimes we feel trapped by success. Gallerists are quick to label us as something to make it easier to know who to sell to a client. So we may become known as that flower photographer, or a street photographer, or the guy who does abstract composites.

    Whatever our label is, it often serves as a limit on our freedom. If our success is measured in sales then we become reluctant to do anything to jeopardize our supposed success.

    Let me use Thomas Kincade as an example. I’m not criticizing him, and besides, he is dead. If you say his name you immediately know what one of his pictures looks like. He was a factory. I never talked to him, but I wonder if he ever wanted to paint something other than the cute little English cottages with dramatic lighting. Some of his work was interesting to me until it became monotonous.

    I can’t be critical of you, either. I don’t know your motivation. Perhaps you love a certain subject so much that that is all you want to do. Great. But still look for ways to bring freshness to what you do. Don’t just do the same thing over and over. That is crippling and repetitious.

    Challenge yourself

    Who are you competing with? Isn’t it yourself? You may have a favorite artist you would like to be like, but you can’t. They are them and you are you. You have your own set of talents and values and perceptions. No one else will see the world quite like you do.

    If that is so, then you are your own standard and critic. I better be doing work that matches my standards and interests. I am the one I have to please.

    It is apparent to me from my history that without new challenges to excite me I become stale, bored. Once I have done a subject or a theme enough to feel I “got it”, whatever that may mean, I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m done with that. I need continued challenge to keep me fresh.

    Some of my students are surprised when they learn that I am still experimenting and trying new things (for instance, I have started only recently to use focus stacking with regularity). They assume that my creativity has fully matured because I am somewhat established (old). But when we experiment — testing not only our tools’ limitations but also our creative sensibilities — we help ourselves to grow creatively and our work to remain fresh.

    Chuck Kimmerle in Nature Vision Magazine, #1

    Going back over the same ground too many times makes me complacent. No new challenges remain. I have nothing fresh to say about it. And it doesn’t hold any terror for me.

    It should be scary

    Terror??! Yes. Maybe that is too dramatic, but trying something new is scary. There is a strong fear of failure. The old “imposter syndrome” kicks in big time and makes us doubt our capability.

    But for us, the fear is overwhelmed by the knowledge that I have new ideas that I have to try it. It could be a complete failure, but I won’t know unless I try. And I have to try, because it could be the next step in my development as an artist. Without trying this new thing I am cheating myself and letting myself believe I’m not good enough or creative enough to do it.

    The fear of the unknown becomes less than the pressure within us to try it. Holding back is the beginning of a death spiral. Fear and inertia sets is and it becomes harder and harder to move on to new experiences.

    Doing something new is scary. You are not sure you can do it, you won’t be good at it at first, you are not sure it even works for you. but you won’t know unless you do it. An artist has this drive in him that compels him to push on to new things. To shove aside some of the limits that are around him now and let his creativity flow in a new direction. The challenge of creativity makes the obstacles seem small.

    Moving target

    I don’t know if it has occurred to you or not, but the line where we move into the challenge area is a moving target. That is, as we confront our fears and push into new areas and become proficient, now we need further challenges. You may, at first, see this as a problem, but actually it is a good thing.

    It is a good thing because we will never get stale. There are always new challenges to confront. Your art should excite you. To excite you, you will have to keep it fresh and alive. We can find new limits to push against. So we have a lifelong learning and growth opportunity. It is up to us. It is like a fractal figure. No matter how far we push into it, there is always new shape to discover. Will we accept the challenge to grow or stay in our comfort zone and eventually stagnate?

    What limits you?

    What limits you? It is easy to blame external things: those judges didn’t appreciate my work, those galleries can’t see what I am trying to do, I can’t “break into the club”. Don’t waste your energy on blaming those things. They are just there, like taxes. Keep trying, but realize you can’t control them.

    And remind yourself that the only judge and critic of your work that matters is you. Are you happy with your work? Don’t be complacent. Set your standards high, higher than is reasonable. Exciting work doesn’t come from low goals. They are your standards. This is the bar you have to try to clear. Not something someone else sets for you.

    I started with the idea of not repeating yourself. I hope you see it in a higher context of pushing yourself to new levels of vision and technical achievement. It is your art, it is your life. Be the best you can be. If you are happy with your art, that is the audience that counts most.

    Don’t repeat yourself means be always growing and finding new ways to express yourself.

  • Seeing the Invisible

    Seeing the Invisible

    A camera records what it is pointed at. But is that all we do? Shouldn’t we be seeing something no one else sees? This is what I call seeing the invisible.

    Not just recording

    I have written before about the camera as a recording device. That is the nature of its design and that is what the vast majority of people do when taking pictures. The big advantage of a camera is that it immediately records what is sees. Its disadvantage is that it records what it sees.

    Not to get Zen on us, but yes, it is an advantage and a disadvantage. I’m not good at drawing and I am fairly impatient. The camera is a near perfect tool for me in my creative process. But on the other hand, what value have I added if I just show you exactly what was there? True, maybe it saved you a trip there. But is it really art?

    I hope to do more than show what you would have seen for yourself in the same place.

    Make something

    I can take a picture or I can make a picture. To me, the difference is the thought and perception and interpretation that goes into it.

    If I am driving along and I think “Oh… Pretty” and stop and step out and shoot a picture, it may be beautiful. Many people may like it. I will do this almost every time I see a pretty scene. But usually I won’t show them to you.

    I want to feel like I have gotten deeper into the scene. Maybe it is to take a few minutes to move around to find a better vantage point. Maybe it is to work through various compositions to find a better way to see it. Perhaps it is to zoom in to a part of the whole or go wider to emphasize the space. Or even to note to myself that this should be black & white.

    Whatever it takes, I hope to make something special and different out of the scene. To put my particular stamp on it to bring you something new.

    One of my tests is my wife’s shots. She shoots everything with her phone. After years of being with me and picking up some hints, she is good. But she basically just shoots to post selfies and pretty pictures to Facebook. My test is that if my picture looks like hers, maybe I haven’t really created something yet. Maybe I haven’t found the key to distinguish this from the conventional shot. It is a pretty high bar.

    I’ve taken a picture but I haven’t really “made” a picture. I haven’t discovered the invisible something that is there.

    Project our feelings

    It really is about the artist’s emotional response to the scene. I felt something. What was it? Have I captured it? Can I articulate what I am responding to?

    Tony Hewitt is a great photographer in Australia. He has been known to write poems about images he likes. I am not suggesting we have to do that, although I think poetry is one of the highest art forms we can aspire to. But we can and should ask our self questions. And force our self to answer them honestly. Even if we just keep asking “Why?” over and over. Probably about 3 layers of that will peal away our complacency and help us to discover what it was that appealed to us in the scene.

    Now that we understand what drew us, we can work the scene. Refine and elaborate on our initial view until we really make something.

    For myself, I usually find that it was a feeling or emotion that triggered the process. I may not have been able to put a name to it immediately, but there was something: joy or disgust or wonder or excitement or just the way things looked together. Something drew me to the scene. By understanding what it was I can better develop the shot into something that may have the ability to stir the same emotion in you.

    More than a rock

    It is what it is, but it can mean more. That is a lot of the magic, isn’t it? How can we have a picture of something we recognize, but it seems to have some added significance? Edward Weston famously posed the paradox as

    This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.

    Edward Weston

    It is a photograph of a rock. But can it be more than just a photograph of a rock? If we take a moment to reflect on it, is there a deeper layer to it? Can we get a glimpse of something the photographer saw on a deeper level?

    Guy Tal even wrote an entire book on the theme: More Than a Rock: Essays on Art, Creativity, Photography, Nature, and Life. It is a worthwhile read and he brings up good points.

    The fail

    I hate to end on a down note, but I think we will fail more often than succeed. Our intent is not clear to the viewer. They do not see the depths we wanted to show them.

    There is a notion of equivalence, meaning the process of transferring our intent to someone else. The basic takeaway is: it’s hard. I know that even in Guy Tal’s good book, a lot of the pictures I look at leave me flat. I don’t see what he obviously saw. To use Weston’s metaphor, it’s just a rock to me. I have a different experience base and different values. Meanings and emotions do not transfer easily in the best of circumstances.

    So should we give up and not try? Impossible. We’re artists. We have to try. That’s what we do. When it works, it is magical. Sometimes, we can really help someone see things that were invisible to them before. In that, we can share our joy and wonder. That makes it all worthwhile.

  • Purity in Photography 2

    Purity in Photography 2

    Because of its nature of recording the scene in front of the camera, people assume that photography is some kind of “pure” imaging form. That is, that what you see is reality. I take opportunities when I can to dispel this myth. Never assume purity in photography unless it is explicitly presented as such. This is a theme that just won’t go away.

    Recording

    Our excellent digital sensors do a pretty good job of reproducing what the lens images onto their surface. For good and bad. Because of this, some people assume that photographs represent exactly what was captured.

    This is just an assumption that in no way restricts me in my art. And it does not restrict anyone else unless they make the explicit determination to not do any manipulation. What the sensor records is often just a starting point in my photographic vision. Not an end point.

    It is so easy now to alter images that you should always assume it has been done.

    Manipulating

    From nearly its beginning, artists have manipulated photographs. Black and white film photographers quickly invented ways to alter their images. Sometimes these were done to overcome limitations with the technology of the time. Sometimes to correct or improve the images, for instance by “spotting” defects and removing distracting objects. More and more commonly alterations were done for artistic improvements.

    For fun sometime look up a “straight” print of Ansel Adam’s famous Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico compared to one of his later interpretations. The later is almost unrecognizable as the original. Does that mean there is something false about the later prints? No, it is considered one of the great examples in the history of photography. The artist chose to alter it heavily to make it appear as he wanted it to look.

    It is never safe to assume that a photograph exactly represents reality.

    What is truth?

    Is a photograph “truth”? Is it some form of purity? Why? What makes you assume it is?

    The technology of its capture process leads some people to assume a purity or truth that may lead you astray. Yes, the sensor recorded all the light falling onto its surface, but there is still a long journey from there to a finished image.

    Some might say that Photoshop eliminated truth. That is overstated, but not entirely false. The positive statement is that Photoshop enabled greater artistic expression. Photoshop and other image manipulation tools, along with powerful home computers and large disks, opened a new world of creativity to artists.

    Now most photographic artists do extensive manipulation of images. Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Capture One, and other tools open new worlds of creativity to photographers. Photographers have always done this, but the modern tools add new power and possibilities.

    But this power is just a modern convenience. It has always been true that images are created in the artist’s imagination. A great example is Albert Bierstadt, a German painter who helped popularize the American west in the 19th Century. His paintings created a lot of interest, but they were often, let’s say, fanciful. For example his work Rocky Mountain Landscape does not depict any real scene I have ever found in the Rocky Mountains where I live.

    The artistic view is that an image is the expression of the artist’s vision and feeling for the image. It seems the truth comes from within rather than being a property of what is represented.

    What is the intent of an image?

    Does this manipulation make an image less “true”? That depends on the intent of the image.

    Maybe it seems obvious, but any image presented as truth must be true. If I see a picture in a news article that claims to show a certain event, it better be exactly that. If it is altered to manipulate the scene or misrepresent the event, that is false and the reporter and their organization should be severely censured.

    In my opinion no AI generated “news” or images can be presented as truth. They were generated by a machine rather than being a direct capture or observation of an event.

    Let’s go a little away from news and talk about a portrait. Must a portrait be a literal, completely truthful depiction of the subject? Well, they never have been. Portraits are always “retouched”, maybe altered extensively to hide blemishes. Perhaps to make the subject look slimmer or taller or a little more handsom. So a portrait should be a recognizable representation of the person, but do not assume it is literally true.

    But I live in the world of art. Art is fantasy and imagination and vision and creativity. We should never get confused that art is reality. I am free to do anything within my image that I think expresses my artistic vision. This makes Bierstadt’s Rocky Mountain Landscape acceptable art, even if not reality.

    Don’t waste your effort thinking photographs are always reality. Most do not even pretend to be anymore. Photographs are another artistic expression, unless explicitly presented as reality.

    Today’s image

    A high altitude aerial? Maybe. Maybe not. Since I have been talking about photographic art not being real, it might be best to assume this isn’t exactly what it seems.

    I won’t say more about it now. This is part of a series I am working on.

  • Go Out Empty

    Go Out Empty

    I often advise us to go out empty. This, at least, fits my working style and my personality. I don’t always follow my own advice. And regret it.

    Go out empty

    Go out empty is famous advice from the great Jay Maisel. What he meant is to not have preconceived ideas of what you want to photograph. Instead, be mindful (I doubt if he used that expression) and react to what you find.

    That way you will get the maximum good from the situations you encounter instead of being disappointed with not finding exactly what you wanted to find. What’s there might make an interesting picture. What’s not there, well, that doesn’t make much of a picture.

    When he lived in downtown Manhattan, Jay was famous for going out on the streets every day just wandering and taking pictures. He would occasionally get great images. Sometimes nothing. But even with nothing, he was not disappointed in not finding what he was seeking, since he wasn’t seeking anything in particular.

    I have been to New York City and I will be quick to admit that the streets there are far more interesting than the streets of my small little town. But still, I believe the principle applies wherever we are.

    I believe the basic premise of what he is advocating is to find joy in what you are shooting. Really look at it, Discover the interest. Be receptive. Inspiration is overrated. Shoot interesting things.

    No planning?

    Does that mean we should never plan anything? No, there are times to plan. Even Jay would plan carefully when he was doing commercial shoots. For instance, he shot the first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit covers. He had a crew and models and scouted locations, etc.

    When someone is paying you for results, you have to deliver what they want. This will involve careful planning and preparation.

    What I am discussing, though, is what most of us “fine art” photographers do when we are shooting for our own satisfaction and creativity. Different people have different personalities, but I am in the group that does best when reacting to scenes rather than trying to set them up.

    Falling into the expectation trap

    I advocate going out empty and I usually do it. But on a recent trip I fell into the trap of setting expectations for what I wanted to photograph.

    I was in central Florida visiting family. One afternoon I was able to slip away for a few hours to visit a favorite nearby place, Lake Louisa State Park. It has lakes and beautiful trees and swamps and incredible red water.

    A few times before I have found and photographed some gorgeous trees. In my mind, that is what I wanted to revisit and explore. It didn’t work out well. This was summer, not winter, and the foliage was very different. Some trails had been re-routed and I could not find the trees I wanted. And it was miserably hot and raining. Not al all pleasant or condusive to what I wanted to do.

    I was very disappointed until I reminded myself to explore what is there, not get stuck on what wasn’t. It was actually beautiful when I let myself see it. With the storms, the sky was very different from what I had seen before. The rain give a different look to the tree trunks and foliage. After some false starts, I was able to get some interesting shots before the thunderstorms and pouring rain chased me out.

    Don’t do what I did

    Do not fall into the trap of letting preconceived ideas block your creativity. Be mindful of where you are and what is there. Get into the flow and work the scene. Make something out of what you find. Look at your surroundings fresh and discover the good that is there.

    Today’s image

    The image today is from this aborted trip to Lake Louisa. It was during the calm before the storm. That really is the color of the water. It contains lots of decayed vegetation that has flowed slowly through the swamp and turned that color. Not what I expected to shoot, but beautiful and interesting.

  • Passion

    Passion

    I believe the best art is based on passion. We hear advice about “follow your passion” all the time from self help gurus, but what is it? What does that mean? Do you know how to find your passion?

    What you think you want

    In these times I think it is harder than ever to find our real passion. There are too many demands. Too many competing voices calling for our attention.

    My personal opinion is that we are seldom equipped to know our passion until we get more experience of life. True, some people have a clear “calling” for something. They may know from childhood what they want to do. I don’t meet many of those. Expecting to identify your passion when you are young seems as unfair as expecting a 17 year old high school junior to pick their major when applying for college. They don’t know. They haven’t experienced enough life to really know what they will be good at and want to do for the rest of their career. That’s why so many change majors. Sometimes several times. Nearly half of older millennials — 47% — wish they had chosen a different career, according to a CNBC Make It survey.

    So some people might say their passion is landscape photography. Next month it may be French literature. Another month later it may be organic cooking. But they are not being dishonest. They really don’t know. They are trying to figure it out.

    Maybe our friend likes a certain thing so we think that is our passion too. Often a celebrity feels strongly about something so we get caught up in it for a while. But those are someone else’s passion, not necessarily ours. We quickly get tired of following other people’s passions.

    What you’re willing to work for

    Passion demands work. I think a lot of times we discover our passion accidentally. We find our self putting a lot of time and work on something, and to our surprise, it doesn’t seem like work. It actually energizes us and makes us happy.

    That is a passion. They are usually not easy. If they are too easy they will not hold our interest. It takes a lot of time and effort to master something worthwhile and even more to practice it and keep learning and exercising our creativity. Our passions are those things where this work seems almost like play. We would rather be doing this than almost anything else we can think of.

    What are you working for and what can you effect? You may be “passionate” about homelessness, or the environment, or inequality, but what are you doing about it? If you are just saying “someone needs to work on that”, then it may be a value of yours, but probably not one of your passions.

    In A Beautiful Anarchy, David de Chemin makes the point that a lot of people tell him they envy his lifestyle. They would love to travel to exotic places and do interesting projects that benefit people. But, he says, the reality is they won’t make the sacrifices required to do it. They “wish” they could do it but won’t pay the price or go out on the limb to risk it.

    What price will you pay? And what is worth paying it? Those questions help you understand if something is really you passion.

    Learning is part of it

    Ramit Sethi promotes the idea that we should always be willing to invest in our self, to constantly learn. I completely agree with this. He goes on to offer actionable advice. He discounts the time honored “10,000 hour” rule as being what is required to be an elite expert in a field.

    Instead he says that for a great many things, if you put in 20 hours learning it, you would be better at it than most people and far enough along to know if you are interested in going deper. So he advises if something appeals to you even a little, get a book on it, take a class, spend a week focusing on it and trying it. If after a week it has run it’s course and you feel done, then you know. But if you are still interested, keep digging.

    This is great to build a base of experience to build on and it can be a great help to identify your passions.

    But whatever our passion turns out to be, we need to be a student of it. Be familiar with what has been done in the past. Stay somewhat aware of trends and directions in the present and who the thought leaders are. Learn the technology involved. Master the tools. These things are just a base to build on.

    Long term

    When we find our passion, our commitment to it is usually long term. While it is true that our passions can change over time as we mature and our experiences change our values, we usually hold on to a passion for quite a while. Years.

    It may take years to build sufficient expertise in our area of passion to achieve mastery. Then we can enjoy pursuing it at a high level of skill and satisfaction.

    But mastery is an illusion. We may become quite proficient in the technology and the practice of the subject. If we feel like we have learned it all and there is no more challenge, then our drive and our passion will evaporate. The reality is that for most art we learn that no matter how far and deep we go, we are a beginner. We can always look at it fresh and discover new paths to explore.

    This is the challenge that keeps it engaging and captivating for us.

    More than a feeling

    Your passions are not just a matter of feelings. Feelings are ephemeral. They come and go with our mood. Our passions are like love. Love is not a feeling, it is a commitment.

    Passions touch something deep inside of us. Something that is a need that seems to be fulfilled by pursuing the passion. I like the quote “What is it that you can’t not do? This is your art”. And your passion.

    We have many demands on us. Sometimes we just have to block things out and go spend time on something else for a while. Like, you know, a job. That is life. But our passion is what we daydream about when we have a few moments. It is what energizes us when we think about it. Subconsciously we are usually planning new projects or envisioning new creative things to do. We can’t not do it.

    Your value in the work

    We pursue our passions because they have value to us. It may not be monetary. It can just be a sense of fulfillment. Or just the joy it brings us.

    For those of us who are artists, our passion is often our art and much of the joy comes from creatively engaging in the practice. Speaking personally, my value derives from being able to do creative things, to grow and stretch my limits, and my love of the things I create. I get little pleasure in doing the same things over and over. Creatively discovering new ways to present my vision is what I need.

    It’s ours to make

    We are all unique and different. All were born into a situation we did not control. Each of us is given a certain set of talents and capabilities. It is up to each of us individually to decide what we do with what we have. Saying we are disadvantaged or not capable of doing what we want is just whining. We each will chose what to do with what we have and can do and the time we get.

    I could never have played NBA basketball and I can’t even draw well. OK. Those are some paths that are closed to me. I will do other things. It may turn out that the particular things we do may not be important in themselves. The important thing is our fulfillment of our needs and the benefits we may bring to other people.

    Today’s image

    I would not call it great art, but I appreciate this image. It shows an aspect of railroads we usually don’t notice. I wonder sometimes how trains are able to stay on their track.

    Beyond that, it reminds me that our path is usually twisted and with many branches and turns. It is seldom clear at the start where we will end up. But the choices we make lead us somewhere. Following our passion involves making choices and tradeoffs. Do it consciously. Let’s choose the best outcome for our self that will help us become the best person we can be.