Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Mastery

Eliminate Scale
Photography makes it easy to visualize the world differently. By using various lenses and changing our position we can get closer to or further from the subject and we can change the composition dramatically. A technique I like to use sometimes is to eliminate scale to give a fresh view of a subject.
Not intimate landscapes
Intimate landscapes are popular and common. This is simply getting in close to a section of a landscape. It allows us to call attention to shapes and colors and relationships that would be lost in the immensity of a wide landscape scene. It is a classic technique and I use it a lot. I love it.
But this is not what i am talking about today. Most often in an intimate landscape, it is clear that the scene is a segment of a landscape or nature view. We get in closer to isolate the part we want to call attention to, but we keep the context of the overall landscape. If I make a close view of a rapidly flowing stream, it is clear that the context is a cascade in the mountains.
Aerial Photography
It is popular to make abstract aerial landscape shots. They can be beautiful and compelling. The shapes are organic and pleasing yet the scene is somewhat abstract because we can’t place what it is. Some well known photographers like Peter Eastway and Tony Hewitt are known for this technique.
Drone photography is also increasingly popular and available to more photographers because it is a lot cheaper. Drone photography is typically done at a few hundred feet elevation, as opposed to conventional aerial photography that is typically up to a few thousand feet.
The common characteristic of these is that the views are looking down, usually straight down, to a relatively flat plane. Scale references are usually missing, so the viewer is left to imagine the size of what is being seen. That is part of the fun of viewing them.
Macro
Jumping much further down the scale, another technique to eliminate scale is macro photography. This usually refers to images that are life size or closer. A life size shot is termed 1to1. This signifies that the image is the same size on the sensor as it was in real life. For a full frame sensor that means shooting a scene that is 24mmx36mm. That is getting close. Macro photographers routinely get much closer than this.
This type of shooting tends to get very technology-heavy. There are special optical techniques with extension tubes and bellows and reversing lenses to give the required magnification. Special tripod fittings are used for focusing, because the whole camera system has to be moved to focus. No auto focus here.
Lighting is another consideration that gets difficult. Macro photographers use multiple flash setups with bounces or ring lights or even light tubes to direct the lighting to the very small area being shot and eliminate glare.
On top of that, macro shots have extremely small depth of field. It is more and more common to use focus stacking techniques to record many, sometimes hundreds, of “slices” at different focal points. Special softwar combines it all to produce a final result. I have a friend who designed and built a robot system to automate macro and micro photography with steps of microns.
I am not saying these things as a negative against macro photography, I am just trying to place it in context of what I am discussing. Macro images are often great and intriguing because they show a realm we do not see with our eye. But I don’t have the patience to do it seriously. I prefer a more spontaneous style.
Pseudo-aerial
The particular kind of scale elimination I am talking about today I call pseudo-aerial. I haven’t seen the term anywhere. As far as I know, I coined it.
I do not lay out the big bucks to book a plane or a helicopter for a shoot. And I have not gotten a drone yet. I already said I don’t have the patience to do serious macro work. So I figured out a way to do my own brand of simulated scale-less images that mimic aerial photography.
I find small scenes with interesting shape or texture or color and with few if any clues for size and typically shoot straight down from a standing position, basically about 2-3 ft above the scene. The results are my own brand of abstract aerial photography that I call pseudo-aerial. It is sort of the macro version of aerial photography.
One advantage over true aerial photography is that subjects I shoot are often static. I can spend more time composing and moving freely, compared to being in an airplane. And I can spend longer on a scene, maybe waiting for the light to become “right”. Of course, the subject does not actually have to be horizontal, as long as I can get perpendicular to it.
Challenges
There are some challenges, but they are pretty minor. Making sure my feet or the tripod feet are not in the frame is something to always check for. Likewise, being careful not to let my shadow intrude in the scene.
I often shoot these without a tripod. Without a tripod there is the balancing act of leaning out far enough to be perpendicular to the plane of the image and get my feet out of the frame and not fall over while making sure the shutter speed is fast enough to stop and motion. Yes, I have been off balance. Embarrassing but not yet damaging.
A bigger challenge is to visualize a small scene as if it were an aerial shot. Making sure there are no clues of scale, like grass or twigs or leaves to de-mystify it. Imagining the final image printed to check the impact and interest. Dare I say “pre-visualizing” it?
Example
I will make it concrete with an example. The image presented today is one of these pseudo-aerials. It reminds me of an angry sea breaking on the beach, changing color over the sand and diminishing the violence.
In “reality”I shot it at my local car wash. The camera is upside down on the center console of my car, pointed up through the sunroof. In that position I had to use the camera’s app on my phone to view and control it and take pictures. Very little was done to the actual image data except to color it to match the effect as I visualize it.
A lot of experimenting (and luck) was needed to get the timing of the water and soap and brush movement to get an effect I liked. Plan to throw a lot away. But when it works, it can create a unique and interesting scene.
After describing my pseudo-aerials as shots looking down at a small static scene, I turned it upside down to show an example shooting up at my sunroof at a dynamic scene. I wanted to emphasize that the original orientation and details don’t matter. What matters is if the final result will be accepted as an abstract aerial shot. To me this does.
I like pushing the boundaries of the medium. This technique to eliminate scale seems to me to be a rich area for exploration. I intend to pursue it a lot more.
What do you think?
May 24, 2023
Overcoming Cynicism
Other than doubt and discouragement, cynicism is probably one of my worst traps. Do you ever think there is nothing left to do or no use trying to do it? Overcoming cynicism is a constant battle.
It’s been done
It has been done already. Everything has been photographed. Trillions of photographs are taken every year (“Trillions”, not a misprint). How can I find something new and interesting?
It is hard to look around at all the work that is out there and not be cynical. And depressed.
But occasionally I see something that looks new and fresh to me. That gives me hope that there are still opportunities to be creative. It can be hard to hold on to the hope, though.
Nobody wants it
There are probably millions of people with web sites selling photographs. And there are probably thousands of galleries carrying art, including photography. This is in addition to the limitless supply of photos on social media. It is an over saturated market. What makes me think my work can stand out and be noticed and bought?
It seems like most photographers who have to support themselves with their art do workshops to earn enough money. There seems to be more money in teaching than in sales.
Why try?
Given all this discouraging news, it sometimes seems like none of us should even try to sell photographic art. The probability of success (however you measure it) seems remote.
It appears that an artist needs to become a marketing machine to survive. Marketing has to be an almost full time job. Promoting our self, contacting outlets, getting recognition, talking our self up constantly seems necessary to be noticed. But a lot of us are rather introverted and would almost prefer a root canal to doing these things all the time.
So why bother? It seems useless.
Antidote
When I am feeling like this, one of the things that will sometimes pull me out of it is going back through my image catalog. When I do, I sometimes decide maybe I do bring something to the market that is useful. Maybe I do have some occasional creativity. My point of view, my vision might be fresh and different enough to be welcome by some people.
I find that reviewing some of my favorite images can, if not cure cynicism, at least diffuse it enough for me to go on. It can reinforce my faith in myself and encourage me to believe I should keep on, because I have something for people to see.
Sure, a lot of my work is mediocre and “me too”, but some, well, seems to me to be extraordinary. When I can get out of my own way, when I can take the pressure off to try to produce great images, I can occasionally create something nice.
I find that feeling like I have to create an outstanding image in a given situation is self defeating. It is like sitting down with the goal to write a world class bestselling novel. Too much pressure.
Instead, my working style is to let it flow. If I can get excited by what I am seeing, it draws me in and inspires me to create. Feeling too much pressure chills that creativity. I am better off to relax and just be me.
For me, that is what art is about. Being myself, expressing my vision, my point of view in my art. If I am doing that, maybe that is enough. Maybe I don’t have to be famous or rich. The first and most important person to please is myself.
Move
Being creative and producing art that pleases me is the reward. That is what I can control. I cannot control how it is received or if galleries are contacting me to get me to exhibit with them. The internal reward of being satisfied with my work is for me to create in myself. No one else can give it to me.
So the way to combat cynicism is the same as the way to combat depression or fear or inertia: get up and get moving. Being in motion – doing something constructive – will help overcome the doubts and negative thoughts. Doing something positive almost always beats sitting and feeling sorry for yourself.
Today’s image
This is a train. An “ordinary” fright train. Actually, they are extraordinary. Have you ever seen one like this? Probably not. You would have to be stupid close to a fast moving train and shoot it with a slow shutter speed a certain way. I think it captures the moment in a creative way. What do you think?
April 26, 2023
Photographing the Unseen
Photographing the unseen? That is impossible isn’t it? If you can’t see it, how could you take a picture of it?
Ostranenie
Osranenie is a concept. It is based on showing things in a new way, from a new point of view. I have written on this before and I want to circle back to give some practical applications. No, I still don’t know how to pronounce it.
Central to the concept is that the artist tries to force the reader or viewer outside of their normal state of perception. The goal is to make you break your normal habits and look at things different.
A unique ability of photography
Photography is uniquely suited to help see things outside of our normal perception. Other types of art, like painting, are generative. That is, you start with a blank canvas and what appears is what the artist envisions.
Photography is totally the opposite. It is basically subtractive. The camera captures everything in its field of view. It is up to the artist to be selective in framing and composing to restrict the image to what he wants to present.
That is well understood, but in addition, the camera settings and attachments allow exploration of states that we cannot perceive with our normal sight. Without any special tricks, my camera allows shutter speeds from 1/8000th of a second to 30 seconds. And the long exposures can be extended to any length I desire. I can also change lenses to give different perspectives on a scene.
Photography may be, at heart, a mechanical and technical based art, but that technology allows us to peek into the world in unique ways.
Camera vs eye
As humans, our marvelously designed eyes work in a totally different way than a camera. We constantly scan around and “snapshot” small slivers of our field of view. Our minds seamlessly stitch this constantly changing stream of images together, kind of a real time panorama. We don’t notice it happening. What we think we “see” is actually a model built from these scans and our interpretation of its meaning and our experience with similar subjects.
The camera has no built in biases. It just represents what it gathers in one exposure.
Time extremes
I have mentioned time as a variable of photography. But so what? How can that give us a new perception?
If I adjust my camera to take a frame at 1/8000th of a second, it does it. The result is a frozen slice of an instant that we cannot perceive with our normal vision. A cascade is a classic example. Shooting at a very short shutter speed freezes the motion of all the water and allows us to examine what is truly happening in an instant. All the complexity and the turbulence we cannot perceive.
On the other extreme, if I expose it for seconds, the water will blur into streaks that give an impression of the overall motion going on. We sort of understand that this is what it might look like over time, but we can’t actually see it unless we take a picture.
Here are a couple of (not very good) examples. Actually, I seldom use short shutter speeds on water so I had to go out to the local river and generate an illustration.
Short shutter speed, 1/4000th second
Long shutter speed, 1/10 second
In the first case, the water seems crystal-like, frozen. In the second case there is a distinct impression of motion and flow. The point in each case is that this is not what we actually see when we’re looking at the waterfall. Each is a bending of our perception, revealing new views on the world to us.
Space
Our cameras also have the ability to give us different perspectives on the space around us. Our eyes have a fixed focal length that is around 40-50mm equivalent for a 35mm camera. And we see the world in a horizontal format. But we can put a variety of lenses on our cameras to give views from extreme wide angle to extreme telephoto. And we can rotate our camera in different orientations.
We’re used to seeing our “normal” point of view – that’s why 50mm is called a “normal” lens. A wide angle stretches our view, Things converge in unexpected ways. Lines make distinct new compositions. Buildings “bend” in funny ways. It brings together much more width of view than we are used to seeing.
And the opposite, a telephoto lens, compresses our view. It narrows in on a small area, like when we look through binoculars. It gets us closer to something we would not normally be close to, such as a wild animal. And it lets the artist draw our attention to details of small parts of a scene.
Each of these effects is a distortion or exaggeration of our perception. It is not what we actually see, but it allows us to discern the world around us in new ways.
Motion
Our perception of motion is another effect the camera can record but that we perceive much different. Try an experiment: move your head rapidly from side to side. You don’t really notice much as your head is moving. As soon as you stop you have a clear view of the scene before your eyes. Our mind kind of “skips over” the motion.
Or try another experiment: stand beside a road and start straight ahead as cars go by. What do you notice? Something obscures your vision briefly, but we tend to ignore it. It’s more of a distraction to what we are watching.
The camera, though, sees all that passes in front of it. It doesn’t know to ignore some things as immaterial. I often use the technique knows as intentional camera movement (ICM) to achieve reality distortions to show the world in new ways. The image at the top of this article is such a motion capture. You know what the scene is, but you also know that you have never actually seen the world like that. It helps you think of it is a different way.
Color
Another thing we have excellent control of now is color. More or less, change the hue or saturation – it’s easy with our tools. These things could not have happened in early photography.
I feel the need to single out one significant category of color manipulation that we are very familiar with. Black & white. This is not the way we see the world. By presenting an image without color information, our perception is changed drastically. It keeps us from getting distracted by color and helps us to really look at the shapes and tones and forms in the scene.
We don’t produce a black & white print now because we are limited by the medium. A black & white print got there by the artist deliberately deciding to remove the color. We may not think of it this way, but black & white images are a deliberate distortion of our perception to help give us a new point of view. It is an alternate reality.
Bending reality
Photography has the ability to bend reality in many ways. That is one of the things I love about it. I am not ashamed of it. It is not cheating or an artifice. It is using our creativity to create art.
I think this quote expresses it well:
In our time it seems entirely appropriate that the widest choice be open to artists. Those using the camera or other photographic means to produce works of artistic merit should seek to exploit their medium in the most adventurous ways … The derogatory use of the term artifice is more often than not a bugaboo. Art is artifice. Its reality is of another nature than that of the purely physical world.
Aaron Scharf
A different perspective
I really appreciate that photography has abilities to give us different perspectives on the world. I am tending to push in these directions more and more in my work. Of course, artists in other media can do most of these things, but they would have to either have an amazing ability to visualize the unseen, or they would likely take a picture to show them the unknown and then paint it. Photographers do it directly.
Maybe it is stretch to call this bending of perception ostranenie, but I don’t think so. I doubt if the term will ever catch on. Probably a good thing, because then I would have to learn to pronounce it.
There are few actually new things in the world. The idea of ostranenie was penned in 1917 – 106 years ago as I write this. But I am happy that photography lets us push the boundaries into new visualizations of reality. It is a uniquely capable art form.
Let’s go out and shoot the unseen and impossible! Keep on bending! Get outside of normal perception.
March 22, 2023
Constraints
I have written about this before, but I feel it is time to revisit it, maybe from a slightly different point of view. We have constraints on almost everything we do. Usually we try to find ways to avoid or relax the constraints. I am suggesting that they can actually be useful, Working within constraints can make us a better and more creative artist.
Constraints
Constraints are anything that bounds us, that limits what we can do. We all have them. You aren’t able to go on a 6 month art sabbatical because you have to work to earn a living. I would like to get the latest super mega pixel camera – no, I need it, really. But I can’t afford it. I feel limited because I don’t have a great wide angle zoom or super telephoto.
Wherever we turn we bump up against constraints. Time and money are the overriding classics. And there are technology limitations and constraints imposed by our families, school, and job. Maybe the inability to travel to the locations you want. Everything seems to be conspiring against us.
They seem to limit us as artists
I was having a discussion recently with a friend I respect a lot. A very good professional photographer who you would know. He was observing that he has always taken multiple camera systems with him on shoots, along with all the associated lenses, batteries, etc. But he is getting older and all that slows him down and makes the experience less pleasant.
Isn’t this common for photographers? We feel like we have to have LOTS of equipment. You may need that 600mm for a bird shot. You may need that tilt/shift lens to do architectural photography. The portable flash system would come in handy for portraits. Having a small mirrorless camera is good for travel photos, but you might want that medium format system for fine art scenes you find. We always need more gear.
How can we capture the image we want unless we have that exact, perfect piece of equipment? Well, maybe we have to think. More on this later.
How to work around our constraints
We have freedoms of choice in our lives. Don’t have enough money? Earn more. Don’t have time? Get out of the working world and use your time for yourself. Can’t carry all your gear? Get a photo van and outfit it with storage for all your equipment. Drive it to your shoots. Can’t carry all you need to a location? Workout hard to get strong enough to carry a huge backpack. Family taking up too much time? Cut them loose.
How’s this working for you so far? Yeah, I thought so. Doesn’t work for me, either. We have choices we can make, but I can’t snap my fingers and wish up a life of luxury to feed my art desires.
I guess we had better resolve to accept most of our constraints. They are there. They are real. We don’t have a magic wand to wave to make them go away. Sure you can adjust your life goals to better accommodate your art. But we will probably not have unlimited money or time or equipment or travel opportunities. That’s life.
So we have to deal with our constraints and work with them and still create our art.
Turn it to your benefit
In some types of self defense programs you are trained to use an attacker’s momentum against them. That is sort of what I am advocating. Our constraints seem to be working against us and limiting our freedom and ability. Use them for our good instead of fighting against them.
Constraints can be a road block or a creativity enhancer. It is a matter of attitude. Don’t sit around moaning because there is a constraint in the way. Accept it as a challenge. Use it to rise to a new level.
An example of constraints
A story to illustrate. In 1974 a young upcoming director named Steven Spielberg was hired to direct a movie called Jaws. It was the first major motion picture to be actually filmed in the ocean. It turned out to be beset with problems. One of the producers later said if they had read the book twice, they would have not made the movie when they realized how difficult it would be.
There are many interesting examples of constraints with this movie, but one in particular fascinates me. The mechanical sharks turned out to be a nightmare to make work. Even when they were working it took a team of 14 “puppeteers” to operate them. The sharks caused so many production problems that they had to be cut out of most of the first half of the movie. The result was that in the final product, the hidden presence of the shark, combined with John Williams brilliant music, built much more tension and drama than their original plan. The movie was a blockbuster hit and still viewed today.
It was made better because of the constraints that had to be overcome. Spielberg later said of the difficulties that “The film went from a Japanese Saturday matinee horror flick to more of a Hitchcock, the less-you-see-the-more-you-get thriller.”
Our constraints
We may not be making a multi-million dollar movie, but we encounter constraints all the time in our every day lives. How we deal with them makes or breaks what we get.
Maybe you can’t fit a photo safari to Iceland, Africa, New Zealand,… (fill in your blank) into your life or budget. Does that mean you should put up your camera and sulk and not take pictures? Of course not. Shoot where you are and what you find. The reality is you will have more insights on familiar areas than you do seeing a tourist spot for the first time. Learn to really see what is around you. Let your curiosity lead you to an attitude of awe about what you find.
You’re a fine art photographer and you feel like you need to have a medium format system to shoot 100MPixels or more with great dynamic range. So you should sit and wait until you can afford to put $20,000 or more into a good medium format system? No. That is something you defined. Get out and work.
Most fine art photographers I know do not shoot medium format, at least not exclusively. The fact that they do not shoot it exclusively means they recognize that it is not always required. They can do excellent and very salable work with their DSLR. It is more about vision and insight and technique than it is about technology.
Do the best you can with what you have. Maybe someday you can upgrade, but that will not change your vision or your style. It will just make your images printable at a larger size.
I could use many other examples of constraints. Many are common to most of us and some are unique to each of us individually. Whatever yours is, embrace it and work with it.
Become a problem solver
Embrace it? Yes. You have to live with it, so use it to your benefit.
Working around constraints is a problem solving exercise. We have to think. We use our creativity to come up with an even better solution to what we wanted to do originally. Like Spielberg in Jaws.
Looking to shoot a scene, but it would take a super telephoto that you don’t have? Re-evaluate your composition. Maybe there is a different POV that you can shoot with your 200mm. Or get up and move closer.
Working on a composition that requires a super wide angle to bring in all the lines and shapes you envision? Re-think how to make the image using your 24mm. Maybe get closer. Maybe re-compose it to change the relationship of the elements.
This is a significant part of creativity. Creativity is not just coming up with wild new ideas that no one else has ever thought of. A lot of it is solving problems to remove obstacles in order to realize your work. Your vision should transcend your constraints.
So when an obstacle or constraint presents itself, don’t let it derail you. Put your creativity to work on it. It can be a good thing. It can stretch you and grow you as an artist. Find a creative workaround. Let it spur you to produce something better than you originally envisioned. If you react to it positively and exercise your creativity, you may end up being thankful for the constraint.
March 15, 2023
Out There
My previous article discussed being an explorer based on curiosity. I absolutely, intensely believe that. But I don’t want to leave the impression that most of the exploration can be done in books and videos and trips to museums and even on the computer. For what I do, I have to be out there. Out there in the outdoors. Thinking about images is great, but you haven’t created art until you actually make an image.
Exploration can happen anywhere
Exploration is partly a mental activity. Feeding your mind with new ideas and new images causes growth, new connections. This is a vital activity for artists – and for everyone if you care about growing. There is a limit to it, though.
Creativity is a balance between thinking and doing. Thinking allows us to consider new possibilities and imagine what we would do. Actually getting out shooting lets us test the ideas, see unexpected things, apply the ideas and discover new ones.
The craft of making something balances and perfects the ideas of what we might do. It is a feedback loop. They reinforce each other. Thinking new ideas helps us see more possibilities when we are out shooting. Capturing images helps refine what works and doesn’t. Then when we see what works we discover new possibilities to try another time. Putting theory to practice is necessary to perfect both.
I shoot outdoor images
At some point we have to stop just thinking about what we want to do and actually go do it. Get off the couch and out the door.
Occasionally I set aside time to travel someplace specifically to shoot pictures. That is a joy. But i don’t get to do it as much as I would like. Some reasons are:
1. It is expensive
2. I have to be at my studio to process images and take care of all the things that need to be done.
3. New places are enjoyable but I’m a visitor there. I feel the need to find fresh images where I live.
So I force myself to get out frequently and explore in my own backyard, so to speak. I consider it great discipline to find new, interesting images in familiar areas. And I do find many that I consider good.
I will confess that I am naturally something of a couch potato. Getting out in all kinds of weather is a significant act of will. Especially when you consider that where I live the temperatures can range from -10F to 110F. It can be easy to convince myself that is is just not fun. But it is a habit I force myself to do. When I am home, then 4 to 5 days a week I go our walking with my camera.
Yesterday, for instance, it was 2F and snowing and we had about 4 inches of fresh snow on the ground. I walked over 4 miles. I’m not bragging. Probably many of you do much more. My point is that it is a conscious decision that I will go out with my camera and explore every chance I get. I am somewhat amazed at what I find.
When I am looking at an image I like, I always remember what the conditions were when I shot it, but that is not a factor in my evaluation of the worth of the image itself. The image must stand on its own. But I sometimes find the best pictures in the worst weather.
Practice makes perfect
Exploration is largely a mental activity. Feed your mind. Take in new ideas and possibilities all the time and assimilate the learnings into your vision. But you have to do it, too. Make images. Express the creative ideas you formed. Realize the idea in a finished product for your viewers. It can be hard.
In his e-book “10 Tips for Aspiring Photographers”, William Patino said
One thing that I feel greatly helped my learning was the amount of time I was willing to invest in being outdoors, playing with my camera and observing light and the land.
Invest the time. Be out looking and feeling. Getting good at anything takes time. Practice. Play.
I find that creative ideas tend to be rather vague. They tend to come as an idea of something that would be interesting. But actually making it happen can sometimes be difficult. It may require planning or more research or travel or, typically, many attempts to capture the idea in a real image.
When I was working on my Speeding Trains project I threw away hundreds of attempts before I learned how to capture the impression of motion and speed and power and presence that I envisioned. Even after I sort of figured it out, my “hit rate” was probably about 1 in 10. Practice makes perfect. Or at least better. 🙂
Believe you are very lucky
Being an artist is hard work. If anyone tells you different, they haven’t tried it. You have to create a huge body of work and continually refresh it. You have to deal with rejection. Gatekeepers are everywhere proclaiming themselves to be the arbiter of taste and style and you are not fit to be allowed in to their select club. You will want to give up. As an artist you have to believe in yourself and your work. Regardless of what others say or do. Push on.
It seems a contradiction, but on the other hand, many people admire and look up to you. They dream of being able to step out of their drab world and create. To have the freedom to make art and tell the world they don’t care if no one else likes it, because it pleases them. We seem an independent rebel, living the creative artistic life. They are right.
In a private correspondence my friend Les Picker said:
It’s like a colleague of mine once said: There is no such thing as a bad day for a nature photographer. We’re out there. We’re walking the path. How fortunate we are!
So when it’s 0F and I am feeling frostbite or it’s 100F and I’m about to pass out from heat exhaustion, I remind myself that I am out creating and following my vision. How can this be bad?
My vision leads me to shoot outdoors. So this is where I have to go. I can’t cherry pick and just say “Oh, today is not totally perfect , so I will just stay in”. That would never get anything done. Get out in it. Get dirty or wet or hot. Look past the conditions and discover what is there to see.
Being an artist is about seeing. I have to be out in the place I plan to shoot before I can see. I want to make art, not just think about art.
Your mileage may vary
It sounds like I am saying that you have to shoot landscape scenes to be an artist. Not at all. I think the principles apply to anything you do. If you do portraits, do them, a lot. Don’t just think about doing them. If your thing is commercial or food or street photography or abstract still life studio shots, it doesn’t matter. Do it. Practice. Get in the reps.
My thing involves outdoor photography. I have to kick myself out the door to shoot. If you do your work in the studio then make yourself get up and go do the work there.
You’re not an artist unless you are creating art.
Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.
Andy Warhol
The image this week
I mentioned suffering in the cold. That is the time of year I’m in as I write this. What would be worth going out in that kind of weather? Well, things like this. I love patterns and reflections in ice. It is a very interesting subject to me. This kind of shot makes me forget the discomfort and think of the beauty in unlikely places. I hope you get out and find things like this, too.
February 22, 2023