Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Photography

  • 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.

  • Bring Mystery

    Bring Mystery

    Some art lays everything out for you. What you see is what you get. Some art, though, seems to bring mystery to the image. You, the viewer, must become involved with it and imagine what you cannot see. I find I am being drawn more to the mystery side.

    Note: this article was inspired by an article "The Imaginary Shadows" in Better Photography Magazine #112.

    Reveal all

    I used to think full tonal range realism was the ideal for most art and photography in particular. I loved hyper realism. Honestly, I still do. Super detail throughout, Textures so crisp you think you can feel them. That is one reason I use a camera with good lenses and lot of pixels.

    You know the drill, especially if you are were in a camera club. Expose to the right, but no blown out highlights. Full histogram down to a few spots of rich blacks. The subject must be in the sharpest possible focus. Well sharpened overall, but with no halos. Printed using the best available paper and techniques so another photographer can come right up to the print as close as he can see and it all looks smooth and sharp to his critical eye.

    All these things are good ideas, but not a formula for making great art. I spent years honing my craft to be able to capture all those pixels in the best way. And more learning how to process the files to bring out all that detail. The technician in me loves the technical challenge. And the purist in me loves to see all that gorgeous detail and texture.

    Contrasts

    There is a problem I am starting to see, though. When you clearly show the viewer everything there is to see, it gets boring quickly. There is little holding power in the image. It is like a movie preview that gives away the whole plot. There is no mystery left. Viewers pass on fairly quickly.

    It is starting to sink in to me that in art and life, a lot is about contrasts. Contrasts put things in opposition. We are drawn to regions of sharp contrast. It is in our hard wiring.

    Contrasts are a way of comparing things by showing opposing qualities. The contrasts can be light vs dark, in focus vs out of focus, warm colors vs cool colors, moving vs still, hard vs soft, textured vs smooth – there are too many to enumerate.

    But we instinctively know that contrasts define a comparison that is important to the image. So we are drawn to the contrasted areas. We spend time looking and trying to figure out the meaning or importance of the contrast.

    It helps guide our understanding of the image and we become more involved in figuring out the artist’s intent.

    Use contrasts

    So, perhaps, viewers actually appreciate some need to think about and spend some time with an image. I call this introducing mystery. The viewer wants to get engaged and invest some energy in it. Contrasts are one primary way to do this.

    Unlike just a flat field of pixels, contrasts help the viewer understand the artist’s intent. It shows what relationships the artist wants to point out. What comparisons he wants to make. Contrasts help point out what the artist wanted us to notice.

    The mystery of black

    There is a special type of contrast often used in black & white images: areas of black. An article by Len Metcalf in a recent issue of Better Photography magazine brought this to my attention. It was kind of an “Aha” moment. You know how when you know something subconsciously, but then you see it written down and it is like a flash of insight?

    Len is an excellent photographer and teacher in Australia. He was describing a realization that came to him while teaching one of his master classes. They were surrounded by prints from great photographers, from Ansel Adams to contemporary artists. He says

    As I looked around the room, I became acutely aware of the intense blackness in each of the prints. As I stared, I realized that these were not little black speckles as we are cautioned about by judges in camera club competitions. … These were humongous areas of beautiful, deep rich velvety, black black, blacker than black blacks.

    He goes on to observe that some artists, like Ansel Adams and Bill Brandt for example, tended to make their prints darker and darker as they got older.

    Why? What were they seeing?

    Hold back

    One of his conclusions was that they realized that, in some cases, the less said, the better. That is, areas of blacks added a new quality to the images.

    He speculates that areas of highlight show all their information clearly. You see everything there is to see. The whole story is laid out clearly for us, so we do not have to work or use our imagination. But the dark areas, the spaces where we can’t see what is going on, hold interest for us. We wonder what is there. We make up our own story. it engages our imagination.

    Maybe this is why artists like Ansel Adams printed larger and larger areas of deep black as they evolved in their art. By holding back some information from the viewer the image actually becomes more interesting.

    Crush the blacks

    So I seem to be on a campaign to crush the blacks. What this means is intentionally pushing some of the darkest grays down to pure black. Yes, it eliminates information from the image. That is something we were always taught not to do.

    But it is an artistic choice. It brings the benefits I mentioned about introducing mystery and drama into an image.

    It is not for all images in all situations. But when you decide to use it, go for it. Be heavy handed. Overdo it to see how far you want to take it. When I overdo it and back off some, I find that I do not back off as far as I would have if I didn’t overdo it. In other words, after seeing the result, I often want to retain more of the effect that I would have thought

    It is surprising. Sometimes less is more. Experiment with making your blacks darker to see how it feels to you. I like what I am seeing so far. I used to consider dark images as somber and melancholy. Now I would more likely refer to them as mysterious. Try it and see if it feels better to you.

    Today’s image

    For fun and an experiment, I went back to an old image and re-processed it to crush the blacks even more. The result is more dark and mysterious than the original. I like it much better. Maybe it is approaching the “humongous areas of beautiful, deep rich velvety, black black, blacker than black blacks” that Len was talking about.

    One other reason for doing this is to investigate a point Len made that an advantage previous generations of photographers had was that, to re-print an image, they had to go through the whole darkroom process. This gave them a chance to think about the image anew and re-interpret it according to their current sensibility. We tend to just hit print to make a new print. No thought involved.

    I found, indeed, that I changed the image when I took a new fresh at it.