Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Photography

Generalist or Specialist
We are often told that we must specialize in a genre of photography. Otherwise, we will not make a name for ourselves and become successful. Is this really true?
Specialist
Conventional wisdom is that a photographer must specialize to have a market and recognition. After all, the overall field is so crowded that you need to focus your efforts on a narrow slice to be able to compete. Only by becoming one of the best ____ can you ever be seen.
Specialization gets very selective. Are you going to be a portrait photographer or a pet photographer? A fashion photographer or a food photographer? The list goes on endlessly. Aerial, underwater, astro, street, wedding, event, etc. There are probably dozens if not hundreds of narrow genres.
The advice to specialize is probably wise from a financial perspective. The more you can narrow your market the easier it is to identify and reach customers. If you work at it, you can probably become one of the well-known pet photographers in your city. That can become a good business.
Plus, in theory, a specialist should become an expert in the nuances of their field. They should be familiar with the subtle signs that elevate a common moment to an extraordinary one. And they should be completely familiar with the “tricks of the trade” that other pros use to make outstanding pictures of their chosen subjects.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Generalist
A generalist usually covers a broad set of subjects and locations. Like a small-town doctor who treats everything from kids to the elderly and everything in between.
The equivalent in photography might be the artist who says they do not restrict themselves to a single subject but shoots anything that interests them. A generalist, again in theory, may have a good working knowledge of the overall field but lacks deep knowledge in any area.
Such a photographer will probably have a difficult time of making a name for themselves. A natural human tendency is to label people. Galleries or dealers or museums want shortcuts. They want to say this photographer does this type of subject. Then they can file that away until they are looking for works of that subject. But if we say we do “everything”, then to this audience that effectively means we do nothing.
That is not them being mean or overly narrow minded. They are just efficiently dealing with an overload of information. One way to do that is by pigeon holing people. And that is reinforced by their underlying belief that artists must specialize to become well known.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Only choices?
Are specialist or generalist the only choices? Is that even the right question?
In my simple-minded view, there are only 2 reasons to be a specialist. The first is because you truly love a subject and want to devote your life to studying only that. For some it may be flowers. For others it may be dogs. It doesn’t matter what it is. The point is that for you, it is big and important enough to block out everything else.
The other reason to specialize is to make more money. As I said, specialists can develop a reputation and generate lots of business. In this case the focus is on business rather than art. I can’t say that that is bad. That is for you to decide.
But maybe the question is do you execute a business plan or follow your artistic instincts where they lead you? They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Photographers Joel Grimes and David duChemin come to mind as examples of changing their subject matter focus over time as their artistic vision changes. And in painting, Picasso is a significant example. He went through several periods of distinctly different art styles.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Omnivorous
I’m not a specialist and I am not really a generalist. At least in the sense that a generalist does a little of everything.
I see my artistic style as being omnivorous. In the sense of taking in or using whatever is available. There are some subjects that interest me greatly. These are things I will nearly always shoot when I find them.
But the larger space is things I encounter that pique my interest because they are a creativity challenge. Things where I see a situation and think it could make an interesting, even good picture if I work it right. The challenge of making something attractive out of an ignored or inconsequential seeming scene motivates me. It is kind of like making something out of nothing.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Is the subject really important?
Is the subject the overriding concern? This seems like a strange question, because the discussion of specialist or generalist revolves around the choice of subject. Looking back on my work over the years, I see a strong trend of moving from a small set of subjects to a broad interest in more things.
Along with this is the realization that particular subjects are less important to me than they used to be. I get excited from making something interesting out of what I find where I am right now. It is not the subject in this case. It is the graphic or composition possibilities or the lighting or possibly the symbolism. The challenge of making an interesting picture out of what most other people would ignore.
So, I have discovered that now, I seldom go looking for certain subjects. Instead, I seek compositions that are interesting. I try to find what would be considered mundane or uninteresting things and make them interesting. I understand that, once I capture the image, it is not that subject anymore. It is a 2-dimensional image containing that subject. What the image becomes is often independent of the actual subject.
I think this is one reason why I seldom photograph people. A person is a dominant element in an image. Almost any photo containing a person becomes about that person. I prefer to control my composition more. If to me it was about the lighting or the graphical design, I want to be able to make it so.
Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along.
Cass Elliot
Specialist or generalist?
Is it true that we need to specialize in one genre of photography to make a name for ourselves? Probably. It is easier that way. But is it true that we must specialize to be a creative and good photographer? My feeling is: absolutely not.
At this point in my life, photography is a personal challenge and a creative exercise. I feel compelled to make beauty out of uninteresting things. That is my personal reaction to the world today. And I prefer spontaneity, even chaos. Sifting through the clutter to find something interesting is fun.
I am more closely related to generalists. But with a difference. I pick and choose based on what interests me, what draws my eye, what poses a challenge I am willing to accept. I love some subjects more than others, but the subject itself is becoming less important to me than the creative challenge.
December 10, 2025
What Do You See?
We all have different interests, which triggers different perceptions of things around us. What do you see? That determines a lot about what you will photograph.
Visual mechanics
If we are an average human beings, we have fairly similar optical equipment. We have rods and cones, corneas and irises, an optical nerve. In the brain we have the occipital lobe doing the major image processing, the parietal lobe handling spatial recognition, and the temporal lobe interfacing to memory. Memory is important to the scene recognition process.
This is fascinating in a general way, but I’m not interested in any of that for this discussion. I don’t care about the mechanisms of how we see.
If I was shopping for a car and the salesman insisted on going on in great length about the design details of the engine, he would probably lose a sale. I’m not uninterested in that, but I am more interested in what the car will do for me.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Perception
In a similar way, I’m not very interested in the mechanism of sight. I want to know how we use our vision. Why do we see what we see? Do we see the same things others around us see?
I refer to this as our perception. That is not based on how well our visual system works, but in what we are drawn to notice and decide to photograph. Basically, what we choose to see.
I have heard it said that if you take 2 photographers and put them side by side in a 10×10 foot area they couldn’t leave and have them take pictures, they would be different. Sure, they would image many of the same subjects, but their work would be different. One may favor wide angle shots taking in all the field around them. The other may favor telephoto views narrowing in on details. Even if they used the same cameras and lens, their compositions would be distinct. Basically, they are perceiving different stories. They see and feel different things.
I haven’t tried this literal experiment, but I have been on photo walks where a group traveled through the same area for an hour or two. When we compared results there were significant differences in treatments and subject selection. We each had different perceptions.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Insight
To me, our perception is closely related to the insight we bring to a scene or subject. Insight in the sense of intuition. A Psychologist’s definition of insight is “when a solution to a problem presents itself quickly and without warning.” I believe that is too limited for our application to photography.
I prefer to broaden it to include more of our consciousness. The term noesis better captures it. Very simply, it is “the power of acute observation and deduction, discernment, and perception.”
In our photography, that is basically saying we are looking, we recognize the interest to us, and we know what to do with it. That allows that we could be intentionally looking to photograph the subject, or we may just suddenly recognize that it is interesting. But either way, our perception is working, our eyes are open, and our mind is engaged.
Selective attention
Most people are not open and engaged most of the time. We are glued to our tiny screens for much of our day. Even when we put them down, we tend to be lost in thought about our to-do list or an important meeting coming up or a problem we are trying to solve.
It is a human tendency to have tunnel vision when we are worrying or focused on a problem. Psychologists call this selective attention. There is an old but famous video used as an experiment in this. Try it before reading ahead to the next paragraph. Really focus on counting the passes.
Did you notice the gorilla? About half the people who are concentrating on counting the passes didn’t. This is selective attention. Even when something bizarre passes through our field of view, we can miss it completely because we are concentrating on something else.
There is a second finding that came out of this. Most of the subjects who missed the gorilla were very surprised they had done it. They seriously overestimated their ability to multitask. It seemed inconceivable to them that they could miss something so obvious.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Are you open?
When we have the privilege of getting in the “doing photography” mode, whatever that means for you, we must fight to free ourselves from the things that are stealing our attention.
When we are distracted, we will miss amazing things. Doing photography means to take ourselves out of this, to invert our attention to what’s going on around us, to be receptive.
This is being open. It is letting the noesis I described earlier function: “the power of acute observation and deduction, discernment, and perception.”
There is power in this. It turns simple seeing into deep observation and insight. We are aware of relationships and gesture and color and composition and beauty and detail that would otherwise flow by unobserved and unrecorded. It allows us to capture moments that others around us did not perceive.
I love it when I show someone an image and they say ‘Wow, I pass by that every day and I have never noticed it!” I treasure a memory of one time when I was setting up to take a picture and a woman passing by dismissively said “I don’t see anything interesting here.” But I did. That was satisfying.
It is very natural to be thinking about our daily worries. I can’t help you with that. I do too. But some of our significant distractions are self-inflicted. If we are photographers, I believe we need to set aside blocks of time where we put the phone down and out of sight and pay attention to what we are missing all around us.
We only have a certain amount of attention. Moment by moment we choose what to spend it on. Multi-tasking is very ineffective for creative tasks. When we try to do our art and something else, both will suffer.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Give yourself permission
One joy of being a photographer is that we can give ourselves permission to step out of the flood that carries most people along. Picking up our camera is an excuse and an opportunity to be immersed in the moment, in a creative flow. Eyes open, mind engaged, not distracted. This is tremendously energizing. It makes us feel very alive. We start to see.
We photograph what we are looking at. That’s the direction our head is pointing, so that is where our field of vision is. That limits what we could see. But what are we seeing? That is our choice. We “see” with our mind. What we notice in our field of view is determined by our interests and curiosity. With practice and experience we can learn to see more. To more clearly see things that are not obvious to other people.
December 3, 2025
Critique Your Own Work
It is important to be able to honestly critique your own work. Can you objectively see it as others do? I believe it is a learned skill.
It will be critiqued
Every time we look at our images, we are critiquing them. When our friends or even our spouse look at them, they are critiquing them. They will probably keep their real opinions to themselves, but inside their head, they are being honest.
And, of course, when we approach a gallery or enter a contest, we are explicitly inviting critique. The gallery manager or judge is seeing hundreds or thousands of competing images. They will be brutally honest and severe in their comparison and criticism. They are only going to choose a handful of the many competing entries they are given.
Even if we are just posting on social media to show other people where we are and what we are doing, they are forming opinions of the pictures. I would theorize that, if you care at all about images, it is impossible to look at a picture without forming an opinion. And everyone who looks at yours does it.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
First do it ourself
That may sound harsh, but I believe it is reality. Since it will happen, shouldn’t we jump in and be the most severe critic of our pictures before others do? Shouldn’t we eliminate weak pictures and fix the problems in the others? If we are very deliberate to only show our best images, that will save us embarrassment and make us look like a better photographer.
You will never see my unedited images unless I am teaching a workshop on editing and want to prove a point. I shoot a lot. Most are not great. And I don’t even intend some of them to be very good. Some are purely experimental. “What if” moments where I am exploring to see if what I did seems to lead in a useful direction.
It is common to make several shots of a scene. But I will typically pick only 1 as the best. That is the only one you would ever see. And even then, the best of a set still may not be a very good image.
And it is much more than the technical perfection of an image.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Study
My friend Cole Thompson believes in what he calls “photographic celibacy“. He does not look at the work of other photographers so that he is not influenced by them.
That does not work for me. I consider it valuable to study all forms and genres of image making. There are things to be learned from photography and painting and movies, graffiti and magazines and advertising. Most any genre from Renaissance to Romanticism to Impressionism to Abstract to post-modernism can give us insight in how other artists have chosen to express their ideas.
Read books where artists discuss their thought process. Go to museums and galleries. Cultivate friends who have artistic perception. Take in as much as possible.
But learn. Don’t follow.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Learn your taste
We are artists. That means we have a point of view to share with the world, and particular visual styles we use to do it. We each must find and understand our values and style. These preferences guide our photographic decisions.
If you are new at photography, it is natural to look at an artist and say we want to make work that looks like theirs. That is OK, for a while. Copy someone we are studying to internalize how they do it. But it is important then to re-center ourself and decide what, if anything, of what we learned we want to adopt to our own art.
Maybe it is nothing. We may greatly admire their art, but conclude it is not applicable to what we feel and want to do. For example, I really like some of Joel Grimes‘ portraits. But it is unlikely I will ever do an image in his style. I don’t shoot portraits, and the edgy, high-tech style is not mine.
My point is that, with lots of experience and practice, I am learning how I see and what kind of images I want. Anything that makes me better at that adds to my skills and is valuable. Anything that doesn’t may be interesting and educational, but probably not valuable.
Give it some time
We are all basically using the same tools. It is not the technology that differentiates us.
Famous jazz musician Miles Davis said, “Sometimes, you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” This is probably true of any art form. I believe it is true of photography.
We learn and practice and imitate other artists and chase “likes”, but eventually, if we persist, we learn to be ourselves. I don’t think there are shortcuts (sorry). If you have been at it for a while, you are probably not producing the same type of work now that you did 20 years ago. Hopefully, you are now creating images that are uniquely you.
Each of us is a mix of genes and education and experience and values and motivations, tempered by our unique life experiences, and wrapped in a frail human body. No one else’s mix is the same as yours. That’s why we should not try to “be” some other artist we admire. We can’t. We can only authentically be ourselves.
But even when we learn to be ourselves, that doesn’t mean our work is good. The sad truth is that most of the trillions of photos shot every year are unexceptional. We must learn the skill of critically evaluating our own work.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Make a portfolio
An excellent way to examine yourself and understand where you are artistically is to put together a portfolio. I find that I am not as critical as I should be unless I do this. Pretend you are going to submit your portfolio to a gallery. The portfolio can’t have more than 20 images.
That limit is the problem and the beauty. It is not difficult pulling out 300 pictures you like. Forcing that down to 200 hurts some, but isn’t too much of a problem. Then grit your teeth and make the cuts down to 100. This is getting painful. You are having to cut some of your favorite pictures.
Then it gets hard. You think you can’t possibly take any more out. But the goal staring at you is 20. From here on out, you are having to do serious self-examination. Each image must be scrutinized more carefully. Every one must be justified to stay in the select set.
Liking, even loving an image is not enough. We must objectively decide if it is a strong piece of art on its own. Is the technical craft and the composition solid enough to stand up to criticism? Does it go beyond a record shot, having that “something extra“?
This is painful. When it gets down to about 30, every one you eliminate feels like you are giving up one of your children. Each picture must compete head-to-head against every other one. The weaker must be eliminated. You try to talk yourself into cheating and keeping 25 or 30 for the portfolio. But push on. Cutting the last 10-20 images is by far the most difficult. But also, the most instructive.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Self-examination
Congratulations! You have put together a portfolio! The regret over the ones eliminated will fade quickly. You just eliminated them from this portfolio. You didn’t delete them from your disk. Now it is time to reflect on what you have created and try to learn.
Just look at your images for a while. Consider each one individually. Why do you like it? How is it better than all the ones you eliminated? What do you learn about yourself from it? Then reflect on the whole set. You might be surprised to discover a harmonious style or approach, even though each may be a different subject.
Forcing yourself through the process of narrowing down a set of good pictures to a very small set of great pictures is an excellent way to learn to critique your work. Having a fixed goal forces us to make hard decisions instead of being vague.
You will probably discover that you have a set of images that you are proud to show anyone. Ones you believe will stand up to close examination by experts. And that you have a style that is your own.
Critique your own work, severely. Be such a severe critic that you are sure you will not be ashamed to show anyone the survivors. And make sure your work proves you are human, not an AI.
November 26, 2025
How Did You Think of That?
Most of us are not limited by our knowledge or our equipment or our environment. We are limited by the boundaries we place on our imagination. The question is not “how did you do that?”. It is “how did you think of that?”
Self-limiting
Maybe it is harsh to say we limit ourselves. But I have come to believe it.
I have gotten a lot from a quote from my friend Cole Thompson:
Many photographers will see an image they admire and ask: how did you do that? They want to know the techniques used, thinking that once they know those, they could create that image.
The question they should be asking is: how did you think of that?
Do we tend to follow what other people do, or do we create our own path? I believe we are afraid because we are not confident in our own creativity. It is safer to imitate.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Equipment
There are many excuses for our perceived limitations. One easy one is that my equipment is not good enough.
Photographers seem to lust for new equipment. If I had a medium format camera I could … That new super zoom lens would let me …
I understand. I have equipment lust like anyone. But on the other hand, I have come to believe that if you hand a Brownie box camera to a good artist, they will make good images. They will embrace the limitations and use them as part of the art.
This tells me that, in general, equipment is not the fundamental limitation. There may be specific situations that require certain technology, but artistry is independent of technology.
So, I don’t think I can use the excuse of not having good enough equipment. What I have is perfectly adequate to make art. I just must learn how.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Knowledge
Learning how brings up the excuse of not enough knowledge. I understand. I am a constant learner. Almost everyday beings a new video or article or book I consume to learn to be better. I have hundreds of hours of videos and a library of books. Photography is more closely aligned to technology than most other arts, and it is supported by huge amounts of training material.
But I also know this can become a crutch and an excuse. When will you get to the magic threshold of knowledge required to be an artist? Sometimes needing more study becomes an excuse for being afraid to go out and do it.
Again, I know. I’m talking to myself, too. I get caught up in this. Today I watched a presentation on photographic abstraction, including techniques for in-camera multiple exposure and intentional camera movement. It was educational and motivating. But I didn’t immediately go out and apply it. And if I was not an artist before seeing it, I still could not call myself one after it. Maybe the amount of raw knowledge is not the key. We do not become an artist by a certain amount of training or a degree or certificate.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong believer in learning. Our tools are complex. And I believe that the more examples and points of views we have seen gives us greater fluency with our art. But as an artist, the knowledge must be internalized, then re-expressed in our vision. If we are studying but not doing it, we are not making art.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Environment
I get stimulated and energized by travel. I am lucky in getting the opportunity to take a few trips a year. The places and things I see while traveling seem newer and more interesting than the stuff where I live.
But travel is a bonus, an extra stimulation. The reality is that I spend most of my time around home. I must discipline myself to see the ordinary things around me with fresh eyes.
Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like you can’t make any interesting images because you do not have the chance to travel to exotic locations. Great photo opportunities are everywhere if we learn to see them. This is the type of mindfulness I recommend. The ability to see the ordinary with fresh eyes.
I live in a relatively small town along the Colorado front range. But I seldom take a day to go into the mountains. Almost every day, though, I go out and walk a few miles, starting from my studio. I try to vary my routes, but there are only so many directions I can go.
This means I see the same areas frequently. Finding something interesting that I haven’t seen before or that looks fresh and different is a challenge. But it is a challenge I have accepted as a test of my creativity. I have been doing this for years and I can still find engaging things.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Imagination
This may seem to have wandered far from the question of “how did you think of that?” My point is that our art is not limited by our equipment or our training or our environment. Our limitation is our imagination. Can we look at something that everybody sees all the time and see it different? Can we think something new?
That is a problem, but it is a good problem. If the limitation is in our head, we have some control of it and can fix it. Or at least make it better.
I believe an important step is reclaiming the curiosity we had as kids. Remember that curiosity you had, or your kids had? Why is the sky blue? What is the moon made of? In the olden days, was everything black and white?
Curiosity like this leads to asking “what if?” questions and to looking at the world different. We can begin to think of new ways to photograph, new ways to see things. The same thing we have always seen may be perceived in a new way. Answering the questions is less important than that we were able to ask them. The questions challenge us to look again and deeper.
So, maybe, to be a better photographer, I don’t need the latest equipment (bummer), or more training, or a trip to New Zealand. Maybe I just need to re-learn how to ask interesting questions. To be curious about everything. And to not be afraid to ask ourselves “what would happen if…?”
Try it. Be a kid. Follow your curiosity. Make mistakes and enjoy them. Don’t imitate other people. Create something no one else has ever seen.
As the great Jay Maisel said: If you want to make more interesting pictures, become a more interesting person.
November 12, 2025
What Does It Mean
We’re artists. Artists create art. We’re told art is supposed to have meaning. Do we always know what does it mean?
High art
We’re repeatedly told that art has meaning. It should educate or challenge or at least raise questions. To many, art should support a cause and try to change the world.
But when we read artist statements and gallery statements, it can seem they are speaking a different language. One too high for us commoners to understand. Therefore, we are not in the inner circle. But remember, they are selling a product. The more elite it appears to be, the higher the price it can command and the more collectable it is. I understand, but I don’t like the game.
This is from the point of view of photography, because that is the main art I understand. I can somewhat understand that if you have a very labor-intensive product that takes weeks or months to create, it may be necessary to do whatever you can to make it more valuable. And putting all that time and work into it makes you want to believe it must have great artistic significance. After all, if I can create a finished photo in a few hours but you need weeks to create your painting, the painting must have deeper meaning, right?
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Where does meaning come from?
But where does meaning come from? Do I put meaning in when I create a photograph? Or does the viewer assign meaning to it? Or is there even meaning at all?
Maybe all of those.
Sorry to be vague, but that is the way it seems to me. There are no clear, definite answers. Like many important things in life, the answer is “it depends”.
I think sometimes that I have meaning in mind when I make a photo. Sometimes not. I am occasionally surprised by meanings that viewers of my images describe to me. I have to try to keep a poker face while I’m thinking “where did they come up with that?”
And when I read some artist statements about images I can’t help being a little skeptical. They must be incredibly deep thinkers to have visualized all of that meaning and symbolism at the instant they took the photo.
But I typically do not operate on those lines.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Whose meaning?
This brings up the question of whose meaning are we talking about? As the artist, I may have visualized a meaning at that moment. This would be based on my cumulative feelings and experiences. But each viewer will form his own interpretation of meaning in the image. And each may be different, based on their own feelings and experiences. The viewers are experiencing the image in a different context than I shot it.
As the artist, do I have the right to decide the meaning and require everyone to line up with it? I don’t think so. The picture is mine, but each viewer’s meaning is theirs.
An art critic or curator may analyze one of my images in detail. They can talk about the composition and lighting and placement of elements and use of color and how those formed or contributed to the meaning. They could go into the symbolism it contains. How the symbols connect to some event or period and what meaning that has.
I might say thank you for complimenting my (probably instinctual) compositional design. But at the same time, my BS meter will be pegged. Maybe at some level I was aware of the symbolism and meaning he describes, but maybe not.
Do I create meaning?
I have often wondered if I create meaning in an image. I believe I occasionally use symbolism. Occasionally I touch on themes much larger than my work. But it is not my style, when making art, to be heavy-handed on meaning. I probably was unaware or only dimly aware of any symbolism when I make the image.
For example, a Sierra Club photographer might show hunters clubbing baby seals for their fur. This brutally makes their point, and it has “meaning” in the context of their cause, but it is not necessarily art. It is propaganda photography.
My art always expresses an opinion. But I do not believe I should try to force my opinion on you. If you look at my image and come to the same opinion I had, great. If not, I hope you form an opinion that makes you appreciate the image.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Do I know what it means?
I am continually asking myself if I even know what an image means. This is especially true when I am editing and culling images. We all occasionally ask ourselves “why did I take that?” But at a deeper level the question is “what does it mean?”
I often have to say, I don’t know. It triggered some emotion. Maybe that emotion was just that it was pleasing. But I know that sometimes I had a feeling that it had some meaning I might not have been able to express then.
I’ve stopped trying to over analyze my images as I am shooting them. That can come later during editing.
And another aspect of this I find very interesting is that the meaning or worth of an image often changes for me with time. I usually use a technique I call slow editing. That is, I try to wait for days or weeks before doing serious edits. This lets the emotion of the shoot fade and allows me to examine the images in a more detached way. Obviously, I don’t follow the common practice of downloading daily and rushing some images out to the eagerly waiting internet.
A side effect of slow editing is that my opinion of some images changes between the time I shot it and the time I edit it. Sometimes dramatically. I have been known to throw out most of a shoot that I thought was going to be significant. On the other hand, there have been times that an image I was about to throw out ends up being my favorite of a shoot. My understanding changes. A realization grows of something I must have been drawn to when I captured the image, but it did not break into my consciousness until I gave it time.
So, do I know what my images mean? Maybe over time, after reflecting on them long enough, I might have a glimmer of understanding. Perhaps I see a connection to my beliefs or values. I might, occasionally, even say an image has meaning.
But in general, I resist the presumption that my images “mean” anything of themselves. If I or a viewer give them meaning, that is wonderful. Meaning only makes sense for a human.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Make art
So, what about meaning? If you are making fine art, I recommend not worrying too much about what does it mean. Instead, concentrate on making what you consider to be your art. Pictures without art are advertising or propaganda or snapshots. Art without obvious meaning is still art.
I try to be gentle about conveying meaning to my viewers. To me, being heavy-handed robs an image of depth. Viewers will assign meaning to it. Or they won’t. It is fine with me if they just like it.
And worrying too much about meaning when I am shooting robs me of much of the emotional attachment I felt at the time. I don’t appreciate a meaningful but lifeless image. I want my images to feel fresh and lively and maybe, in a way, humorous. Sometimes just being pretty can be enough.
Make the best art you can. Put your feelings and intensity into it. Let yourself be surprised by the meaning. The best ones will have meaning, because it is an expression of your deep attachment to the subject. Your viewers want to see the meaning you felt. And they are free to create their own meaning.
November 5, 2025