Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Emotion

  • Waiting for Permission

    Waiting for Permission

    Are you using all your artistic talent and showing the world what you really see? Or are you waiting for permission to be an artist? Guess what, no one is going to give you permission.

    Priorities

    You are an artist. As such, you have to be fiercely independent and confident. Yeah, I know. Few of us are really that confident, especially when we get criticism. But criticism comes with the job. We are an artist if we let it roll off and not distract us from what we feel we have to create. It hurts just as much, but it can’t derail us.

    As an artist, we each have a unique viewpoint. This is what gives us our own style. Expressing our viewpoint has to be a priority for us. Even if it is not popular. Even if it seems to be going in a different direction to the mainstream.

    Our priority has to be making the art we see and feel. If we are not following our own heart artistically, we are not authentic, we are an imitation of someone else. Sorry to be harsh, but if we are copying someone else’s art to be popular, we are a fake.

    Agenda

    The world has an agenda. Never believe otherwise. Galleries are not interested in the creativity or uniqueness of your art. They only want to include what their customers have historically bought. Curators have built a reputation for promoting a certain style or type of work. They are only going to select art that matches their program. Art consultants seek to maximize sales by choosing safe, known styles for their applications.

    If you are creative and following your own path, you may well not be a match for their agendas. Anything even slightly outside the norm or expected will be rejected.

    Does that mean your work is inferior? No, If it is your heartfelt creation, it is your art. Just because the gatekeepers do not embrace it does not mean they have the authority to deny you being an artist.

    It may not be popular

    There are people selling programs to “help” us sell our art to a wider audience. Usually they are based on some version of “look on Etsy or Artfinder and see what is selling, then do that.” These programs probably work, and if your only goal is to sell things, that is OK.

    But I’m assuming you feel a burning need to create your own art, not a copy of someone else’s popular work. Now things get more difficult.

    In his marvelous little book “A Beautiful Anarchy“, David duChemin writes:

    Of course, public reaction, either negative or positive, in not the point. The point is that the long history of creativity – in every imaginable field – takes us inevitably into places where we have to pour new wine into old wineskins, and that invites criticism, which in turn invites fear, and soon we’re back to hiding in the shadows, letting others take the risk while we abdicate the responsibility to do the one great thing we can do with our lives – be fully ourselves and make art of our lives.

    A Beautiful Anarchy, David duChemin

    What you see and feel

    As an artist we have to be able to stand up and say “This is what I see and feel; look at my view of the world.” We are out in the world seeing with fresh eyes. Capturing images to present to our viewers from a new perspective. No one should be able to take that away from you.

    As Mr. duChemin puts it, we cannot shrink back in fear and hide in the shadows. If we do, we have robbed our self of creating our art and we have robbed the world of what we can give them.

    Go your own way

    One of the sayings I live by, to my wife’s alarm, is “ask for forgiveness, not permission”. Actually, I seldom ask forgiveness either.

    Asking permission gives someone the opportunity to say no. Why give this person the authority to place rules or limits on your creation? They should not have the right to deny you your art. Do not be left waiting for permission.

    An artist is driven by his vision and a need within to create. Do not let the world discourage you or quench your creative spirit. Do not accept labels or let the world pigeonhole you. Take responsibility for your own art. Avoid the trends and whims of the gatekeepers around you. Be what you feel is right for you. Create for the joy of creating.

  • Directing the Eye

    Directing the Eye

    Directing the eye is a hot topic with photographers and workshop leaders. Even some psychology researchers. It involves understanding the psychology of how viewers look at an image and techniques to encourage them to look at it the way we want.

    Psychology

    There are certain principles of perception that seem to have a lot of agreement. By understanding the principles, we can use them as tools to increase the probability that people will spend the time to look at our images.

    Understand that these are characteristics common to a lot of people, not hard and fast rules. 2 + 2 = 4 is a rule. Not every individual in every situation follows a principle like “the eye is drawn to the brightest region”. Usually, but not always. So while learning and applying these understandings we increase the chance of people relating to our work, we can’t guarantee it.

    Brightness and contrast

    We are drawn to bright areas and we are drawn to areas of high contrast. Use this to draw people to the area of your image you are particularly interested in them seeing.

    Since we tend to look more at light areas and less at dark ones, that is why vignetting is commonly used to “push” the eye away from the edges of an image and into the interior.

    The lighting wasn’t right to give the effect you wanted at capture time? So what? That is what post-processing is for. Don’t be afraid to change the lighting and contrasts for the effect you want. If you do it skillfully, no one will know. If you don’t… well, it’s a learning experience.

    Color and saturation

    Color also effects how we look at an image. Highly saturated colors attract us. Even normally saturated colors are seen differently. Warm tones seem to advance. Cool tones seem to recede. Placing warm tones next to cool tones gives a subtle 3D effect. This is why at concerts or plays you often see warm light on one side of a performer and cool light on the other. It gives them more shape.

    Spots of color attract the eye, too. If a scene has fairly even pastel or monochrome tones with a few small areas of a brighter color, we are drawn to those colorful areas.

    Lines

    Our eye is a marvelous pattern matching engine. We try to make connections whenever we can. Check out Gestalt Psychology for much more information. So lines, especially diagonal ones, tend to lead the eye to find something interesting the line is leading to. We are actually disappointed when we are fooled and the line didn’t mean anything.

    Wide angle lenses are sometimes used to accentuate this effect by exaggerating diagonal lines and bending them. It is difficult to shoot some scenes wide without introducing diagonals. Make sure to not disappoint the viewer. Provide a target to reward them for following the diagonal.

    Faces and words

    Human figures, especially faces have a high visual weight. We are designed to recognize faces and we have a high interest in them. If there is a face, or part of a face, or even an eye in an image that will be one of the first things a viewer is drawn to. A face trumps most other elements of a picture.

    Likewise with words. We recognize words as information. We’re conditioned to read them. I think it is fascinating that we are drawn to them even if we do not understand the language. Besides, by it’s nature, characters making up words are fairly sharp edged and high contrast. We have already seen that viewers are drawn to high contrast areas.

    Since faces and words are so powerful, we have to be careful with them. Having a person walking through the background or a sign off to the side can destroy your composition intent. Or they can make it if you use them well. The point is, you have to be very aware of them and what they will do to your image.

    Depth of Field

    A simple attention focusing technique is to use a shallow depth of field ( a small aperture number such as f/2.8). We are drawn to sharp areas and tend to ignore blurry ones. A shallow depth of field tells the viewer to pay attention to the slice of the image that is sharp.

    This is a excellent trick to eliminate the complexity of busy scenes.

    Techniques

    These eye catching techniques are means we can use to help make the viewer look at our image the way we want. Many photographers seem to obsess about eye paths through an image.

    Eye tracking studies have been done, where subjects are instrumented with devices that can determine what their eyes are looking at at any moment. These studies produce maps, sometimes called “heat maps’, of the viewing patterns.

    This used to be done a lot for web sites. After all, companies spend a lot of money producing their sites and they want to know if customers are seeing what they want them to see. Eye tracking has also been used to instrument image viewing. Researchers are interested in the order in which viewers see things, what they spend the most time on, and what path they use to scan over the image. Much of the information I presented above comes from studies like these.

    This says that techniques can be used to direct viewers to parts of the image we want them to see. Maybe we can even encourage them to scan the image in a certain order.

    Why direct the eye?

    We’ve looked at some of the principles and techniques that can be used to direct viewer’s eyes. But why are some of us keen to do this? There must be a reason.

    A photograph captures everything in the field of view of the camera when the frame was exposed. This can lead to a complex, even chaotic image. There can be many things competing for the viewer’s attention.

    Sometimes the photographer feels the need to help out by saying “here is what I want you to pay the most attention to.” Eye directing techniques are good for this. This is a good use of the techniques.

    Something else I see, though, I feel is unfortunate. We live in a short attention span world and we tend to accept that as a universal truth. It is said that people only glance at an image for less than a second online, unless it really grabs them. So photographers think they better use all the tricks they can to let their potential viewers grasp the image in 1 second.

    Therefore there is a belief by many that we must make our images absolutely clear and unambiguous and immediately graspable. After all, if we only have 1 second, we better package the information clearly. Maybe that is the case if your world revolves around the ephemeral whims of social media.

    I fear this makes images shallow and boring and is a self fulfilling prophecy. Images have less depth so viewers dismiss them more quickly.

    Introducing mystery

    I follow a different path. Most of my work is intended to be viewed as prints. The relationship between prints and the viewer is a little different. If someone is walking through a gallery viewing prints, they are likely to spend a little more time contemplating each one.

    While I occasionally do work that is very clear and unambiguous, even minimalist, I often do the opposite. Sometimes I enjoy presenting images that are rich in content, that I want viewers to spend time looking at and discovering new things.

    I occasionally even misdirect attention from a subtle interest I hope the viewer discovers. Not to be mean or devious, but to reward viewers, to give them a joy of discovery for exploring more carefully.

    The image with this post is an extreme example. The eye is immediately drawn to the lower left side. That is where the brightest area is and the presence of the high contrast branch silhouette insures it. There is interest there and I hope people like it. But after you’ve explored that and you follow the cascade up to the top right corner you might discover there is a plaintive, maybe melancholy figure under the water. It is not a face, but you see it as a face. There is a moment of recognition that reignites interest and it raises questions, I hope.

    What do you think?

  • When Do You Make a Picture?

    When Do You Make a Picture?

    When do you make a picture? Have you thought about that? On the surface, it seems an ambiguous or simplistic question. I have been asking myself this, though.

    Time, place?

    I could be flippant and say I make pictures Tuesdays in the canyons west of my home. That is not true, though. I capture images at least 5 days a week, in general. And I make pictures most places I go. There is no special place for making images.

    Looking for things to satisfy my curiosity is not about a time or place. Even traveling to an “exceptional” destination is a special case of just making images wherever I am, of whatever interests me, whenever I have a chance.

    The click

    OK, so you could say I make a picture whenever I click the shutter of the camera. While it is true that the shutter release is the event that causes the recording of the data in front of the lens, I have written before about sometimes needing to think about and process the data before I am done.

    When I go out shooting and come back with 200 images on my memory card, does that mean I have made 200 “pictures”? No, but it is a subtle semantic distinction. My answer would be that I have 200 new possible pictures at this point. However, I am going to go through them, cull out the defective ones, decide which of the duplicates I want to keep, and then try to decide if there is any merit in the ones that are left.

    When all is done, maybe I would end up with 0-10 that are worth doing something with. Your mileage may vary. Mine does, too, depending on time and place and my mood. Note that I still have to do things with them. In my mind, they are not “pictures” yet, since I am not ready to show them to anyone.

    Post processing

    So, of course I have to post process the ones I have kept so far. This may only involve simple exposure processing, especially corralling highlights and shadows, color correction, and contrast adjustment. Typically there may be some spotting and minor blemish removal.

    At this point I “may” have a picture. For straightforward scenes, this may be enough. I am done. It may be beautiful or interesting and no more than the literal scene before the camera. A lot of pictures are just that.

    Deciding what it is and it is going to be

    But not always. Sometimes an image is trying to tell me that it is something more. It may take a while for me to hear it. This often manifests as a discomfort I can’t quite identify. A suspicion that I am missing something.

    When this happens during the initial culling process, I usually keep the frames I am struggling with. I might not be able to articulate why, but I know I’m not ready to eliminate them yet.

    Even after the image is processed and is a nice picture on its own, sometimes it keeps trying to talk to me. Deep down inside, I know I have not understood or brought out all it means to me.

    Sometimes I realize I have been capturing images of a certain subject or mood. I may recognize a theme that is emerging. Recognizing it helps me identify and clarify a truth I was not consciously aware of. This could put me on track to follow the idea for a while as a project. With these nagging images in context, I learn more about why they were talking to me. All seems different. Sometimes I don’t even need to modify the images more. Just understanding what I was feeling may be enough.

    Combining

    And sometimes I recognize an image is an interesting piece, but not complete in itself. I will often file these away as raw material, expecting to revisit it is the future and decide what it needs to say what it wants to say.

    There are times when it comes to me and I know that these pieces have to fit together in a certain way to create a new image. This can be satisfying, fulfilling, exciting. It is a true creative journey.

    It is time consuming but often very rewarding to spend sessions in Photoshop playing with various combinations of pieces and parts, doing “what if?” games. These often end up in “failure”. Failure in the sense that I did not create a new picture. But it is seldom actually failure because I explored ideas and tested new things. It often sparks new ideas for the future.

    Disconnected from capture

    This comes around to an idea I have presented before. Sometimes I have to let an image age before it becomes whole. It can take me an indeterminate time to recognize what the image wants or needs to be.

    Images are raw material until I become comfortable with how they should be expressed and presented. This is a separate creative process from image capture and a necessary part of how I make a picture. It is not until the end of this journey that I feel I have a picture to share with the world.

    Today’s image

    The image with this article is a minor example of what I describe. I was fortunate to find this scene late one winter afternoon in what I considered an unlikely place in the back country of northern Oklahoma. I’m a sucker for lone bare trees silhouetted against the sky.

    I liked it, but I know it was not “done”. A few months later I added the birds, because I felt they built and reinforced the mood of the image and added some dynamic interest. Just today when I came back to it again after about another 6 months, I saw I wanted to eliminate some distracting foreground elements, crop it to emphasize the sky, and make it overall higher contrast and more saturated. I’m good with it – for now. 🙂

  • A Handful of Days

    A Handful of Days

    The best images come from a handful of days. I have observed this from my own work and I have come to recognize it as a pattern. This is both comforting and frightening.

    Ups and downs

    Our creativity and our productivity is not linear and always increasing. It is more like the stock market: generally rising, but always fluctuating – especially lately. We can’t control our passion and interests much more than we can control the stock market.

    I have heard photographers almost brag about the number of shots they take at a location and the percentage of “keepers” they get. Good for them, if that’s the way they work best. It doesn’t work for me. I do not follow metrics or rules. Quantity is not my goal.

    Something has to draw me to set up and snap the shutter. I have to believe there is something there worthwhile of capturing and editing.

    Beauty isn’t enough

    I hate to admit the number of times I have been to a beautiful location and felt like I had to take a number of pictures. Even though I wasn’t really feeling any great draw to the scene. It’s just that I knew it was beautiful so I had to shoot some.

    What do I end up with in those situations? Usually a few nice record shots of the location – and a lot of throw-aways. It is a shame to throw away nice pictures of a beautiful scene, but the reality is, there is no substance to them. They are just looking at the surface of the scene.

    While I’m at it, let me vent a pet peeve. When it is known that you are a photographer, everyone around feels compelled to guide you to shots they think you should take. “You’ve got to go here and shoot this! You’ll love it!” No, actually I don’t. Maybe, occasionally, very rarely yes. But these are their visions; their beauty and meaning. It seldom aligns with my interests. So I politely shoot a few frames and thank them. Sigh. I’m better now. 🙂

    Don’t be discouraged

    If beauty is not enough, then what is?

    My friend Cole Thompson once said “I used to think that vision was what inspired a great image. Now I believe that it’s both vision and passion; something that just gets you excited and you can’t wait to work on it.” I think he hit on a great truth here.

    Sometimes you have a vision of something that would make a great image. Or perhaps you are at a location where you know you could make a pleasing picture. That’s great, but if it is not touching something within you that gets you excited, it is just another pretty picture.

    A few weeks ago I was at a favorite area up in the Colorado mountains, a historic old mining area up at timberline. I love the location and the sights there and I have shot many images here that I like a lot. This time, nothing. Oh I shot, of course, I was there. But nothing was inspiring me. The images were technically OK, but not exciting me. So far I have not pulled any of them for a portfolio or collection.

    This can be discouraging. I feel like a failure for not being able to “make” a great image in such a location. But if I’m not feeling inspired, the rest is just mechanical image gathering. That was not one of the high value days.

    When we’re “on”

    But then there are those times when we do feel that passion. Those times it seems we can’t turn around for being called to shoot something. Everywhere we look it seems we can make an interesting image.

    What’s the difference? A lot of it is how we feel about the subject or area or theme that day. Or maybe how we feel about our self. When everything resonates with us it just clicks. Everything works. At those times we get a high percentage of images we like. And more that we are drawn to and only realize later why and they become even more special.

    These times are is like Cole said – I can’t wait to shoot and I can’t wait to work up the images to see what I will get. I’m loving it. Things are flowing and I’m in the “zone”. Images seem to be competing for my attention. I can’t shoot fast enough. Those peak days make it all worthwhile. Adrian has a very good description of the sensation here.

    It’s not work for hire

    Let me point out I am talking about the fine art images I take for my artistic expression. These only have to satisfy me.

    If I were doing a commercial shoot for a client, I would have to produce good results at the scheduled time, regardless of how I was feeling about it. Luckily for me, this is not the situation I am in.

    I do not worry about good, consistent, professional results. I want to seek those peak times where I can produce special things. That is what drives me.

    Embrace those days

    Let me suggest, to both you and to me, that rather than getting discouraged that we aren’t always at a peak, instead joyfully embrace those exciting times when everything comes together. That special handful of days. It is a game of quality, not quantity.

    Sure, it can be disappointing when we have a great opportunity and we come away empty. Just accept that it was not the right time for you to be there. Another day it may be different.

    Trust your intuition. That is your guide to creativity. Listen to what it is telling you. It may tell you something completely different from what your logical mind says. If you are trying to make art, logic will probably not get you there. Producing a few great images is much better than a huge stack of mediocre ones.

  • Am I A Failure?

    Am I A Failure?

    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.