Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: Artist

  • Shoot What Interests You

    Shoot What Interests You

    Should we shoot what we are paid to do, or what we love, or what interests us? Yes, probably all of them. But perhaps the most important thing is to shoot what interests you.

    Motivation to shoot

    We are motivated by different things at different times. Everything from paying the bills to self-actualization are motivators. We must bend to the circumstances.

    When a client is paying you to create a shot, we have to rise to the occasion. We give it our all, even if our heart is not in it. Chances are we are not in love with the product they want to sell. The executive’s head shot is probably not our idea of the pinnacle of creative artistry. And this wedding. Well, maybe we would rather not be here.

    But if we receive money for it, we must give good value to the client and make them happy. Paying the bills is often a motivator.

    Neon and incandescent abstract at night©Ed Schlotzhauer

    What we love

    It is often said that we should shoot what we love. I have probably said it. I agree in principle, but there are other considerations.

    What we love may inspire us. But long term, we could trap ourselves. We can get burned out on a subject. We still love it, but at some point, it does not challenge us anymore. It is easy to get into a rut. Doing the same things over and over with little new thought. See it – shoot it.

    This becomes a comfort zone trap. It becomes too easy and safe. We may believe our favorite subject is the most beautiful thing there is. But if we run out of things to say about it, our images get stale.

    This happens sometimes with “experts” in a field. They become more interested in protecting their position as expert than they are about learning new approaches or even contradictory ideas. We can sort of build a mental fort around our thoughts to protect ourselves from being challenged.

    I see this myself with 2 dispirit things I love to shoot: landscapes and stained glass. I live in Colorado. Rich sources of landscape opportunities are all around me. But as time goes on I find it harder to create something new with them. Similarly, I am drawn to beautiful stained-glass windows. I can’t help but shoot them. But I recognize when I am doing it that this is the same old record shot of a window. It is very hard to find much new to say about them.

    Tunnel through the mountains©Ed Schlotzhauer

    What interests us

    I have come to believe the greater motivator is to shoot what interests us. This may not be what we think we love.

    More and more I believe that our curiosity is a searchlight that will lead us to challenging and creative new work. I love a phrase from David duChemin: “Go in the direction your brain is already running.” This beautifully captures the idea that our interests and our curiosity is pulling, nudging, directing us forward to new things. We just have to follow. And marvel at how we got there.

    He points out that this might take us far from what other people are doing. But that is great! It lets us play in exciting new areas that other photographers are not trampling all over, working to death. Our curiosity will lead us to areas that are uniquely our own vision.

    Antique reflections©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Practice

    Everyone is naturally curious as kids, but it seems to be squeezed out of us as we “adult”. But we can relearn. it. How can we practice being curious? Easy. Let go and don’t try to force it. Ask yourself questions.

    Curiosity is our brain making connections between things and asking questions to learn more. The more sources of connections we have, the better that works. We must encourage the questions.

    One way to learn about curiosity in practice is to be around a 4-year-old. They have questions about everything. Many of their questions are things we might wonder about but wouldn’t ask because we are too “mature”. That’s the advantage of the kid. They feel free to ask any question. Imitate that. Ask the questions, at least in our head.

    And since curiosity is about our brain making connections, it helps to feed our head, Dabble in all sorts of different things. Get a little information on everything you encounter, even if you don’t think you will be interested in it. No telling where that path will take you or how that random bit of information may emerge later.

    You know that Google makes an extensive dossier of you based on your searches (don’t use Google search). Be so eclectic that their algorithm gives up on you because it can’t pigeonhole you.

    Going around in circles©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Challenge

    Creativity needs challenge. Without challenge, it will atrophy. Staying in a safe comfort zone does not challenge us. This is why I believe it is important to shoot what interests us. When we are shooting pictures, always be asking “What if…?”

    Our interests are fluid. They shift and move to new ideas as we learn and think more. And if we accept the challenge to experiment with those ideas, we can see new things in even the common things around us.

    Following our shifting interests keeps us fresh and challenges us with learning and adopting new viewpoints. It is based on our curiosity rather than a particular subject.

    Always be curious. Always be asking questions. And give yourself permission to follow your curiosity. No one is stopping you except you. Follow your curiosity and shoot what interests you.

  • New Year’s Greetings

    New Year’s Greetings

    This is scheduled to come out New Year’s Eve (on the Western calendar). This is going to be mainly a new year’s greeting. I am going to ramble on non-photographic topics this time.

    Reflection

    It is just a date on a calendar, but there is something about a new year that makes us thoughtful. Maybe it is the act of having to take one calendar down and replace it with a nice new one – if you still use paper calendars. That seems to make it clear that an old year has ended and a new one is starting.

    Whatever the reason, there seems something more solemn than the Times Square ball dropping. We think to the past and the future.

    Looking back

    Despite our social media profiles that show everyone constantly happy and successful, we know that is not true. It is the illusion we want to have everyone believe.

    The reality is we are all human and share the human condition. We get sick. We have conflicts. People close to us move away or die. Some of us lost our jobs this year.

    But, on the other hand, most people recover from illness, new jobs are found, new friends are made, babies are born. We see that life goes on.

    Life is a churning mix of good and bad. Sometimes we are being tossed in the waves rather than surfing skillfully on top. But we rise. How we rise depends on our attitude.

    Some ride these waves better than others, even though the problems are the same. Please let me suggest that one of the big differences is our faith. What is your faith centered in? How strong is it? A strong faith in God goes a long way toward helping us take a long view that things will work out for our good, because we know that right here, right now is not all we have to look forward to.

    Looking forward

    That new calendar you hang up is empty. Waiting to be filled with all of our activities. Over the course of the year, it will mark what we choose to do, where we spend our time, what we consider important.

    Right now, it has the promise of a blank page. We can choose what to write. That seems to be what occupies our thoughts at this time.

    Many of us make “New Year’s Resolutions.” Suggestions to ourselves of things we would like to do different the next year. I have stopped making New Year’s resolutions. A resolution has no weight of commitment. It is just saying some should do’s: I should lose weight, I should get more fit, I should go back to school and get a new career.

    Let me suggest this is a good time to actually commit to a different path. If fitness is your problem, decide what kind of exercise is best for you, make a realistic plan – not “6-pack abs in 2 weeks”, and commit yourself to doing it. Start today. No excuses.

    Whatever we choose to do requires determination. January 1st all the usual problems and demands start piling up. They fill our time and thoughts and quickly sweep away resolutions. Let your commitments stand strong. If you don’t make it happen, they will not get done.

    The things we don’t do are often the things we regret most later in life.

    Place of photography

    Photography is very important to me. But it serves as a creative release I need. It is not the core of my life. I suspect it is the same for you.

    If it is important but not the center of our world, we must look at it correctly.

    We have a life to live that is not totally centered on photography. We must earn a living and probably support other people, we have family and friends who are very important to us, we take vacations, we learn, we take care of ourselves physically.

    Life goes on. Photography is an important part of what I am, but not the center. I am much more than a photographer. I photograph when life lets me. After I take care of the important things.

    Best wishes

    I wish you sincere best wishes for the year ahead. I hope you will have clarity of purpose and alignment with your faith. Take care of yourself and others around you. And I hope you will shoot some amazing pictures!

  • Love The One You’re With

    Love The One You’re With

    Good general advice is that we should photograph subjects we love. I want to bend it some and suggest we love the one you’re with.

    Love our subjects

    It seems good advice to say we should concentrate on photographing subjects we love. Then we will feel a strong draw and affection for it. We will think more and look deeper into what it means and what it can be.

    We see it all the time. Some photographers only shoot landscape, others only portraits. People focus exclusively on food photography or mini-figures or architecture. There are hundreds of specialties.

    That’s great. I agree that if we have an affinity for a subject, we should photograph it. It will be fun and rewarding. But it can be limiting.

    But what if your only true photographic love is reefs in Fiji, or volcanoes in Iceland, or hidden temples in Malaysia? Unless you are retired with fat investments, most of us would not have the opportunity to do that very often.

    Have you painted yourself into a corner in that case? Do we have to resolve that there’s nothing for me to shoot here where I live? I must wait until I can go to my dream location. But when I get there someday, I will kill it.

    This is where Paradox's come from©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Song

    For some reason I was reminded of the very old song by Stephen Stills, “Love the One You’re With“. Yes, I go back that far. I don’t remember hearing it recently, but this idea of shooting what you love must have triggered it.

    The main theme of the song is “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”. That is so 1970’s. It is good advice for causal relationships with groups of friends, but terrible advice for couples. But no marriage counseling here.

    Love the one you’re with

    Yes, it is great to be able to photograph the subjects and themes you love. But we don’t always get to do that. I recommend adopting a more mindful attitude of being attuned to what is around you.

    If you are so exclusive that you will only photograph certain subjects I suggest getting checked for obsessive/compulsive tendencies. You are passing by many joys of discovery that happen when you let your curiosity take you down unexpected paths. And being so selective means, you miss the practice that comes from taking the opportunity to explore how to photography other things. Anytime we use our camera to take a picture, we are practicing our craft.

    Instead of waiting exclusively for the thing you love, fall in love with what you find. It is great photographic practice, it is great mindfulness exercise, it keeps you engaged where you are, and you might find new love interests.

    Rock creatures©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Mindfulness

    Accepting the challenge of photographing things you did not know you were interested in requires re-orienting your mindset. It is that scary idea of practicing mindfulness.

    Mindfulness used to have a negative connotation for me. I associated it with some of the ridiculous examples I see on the internet involving a deep spiritual philosophy, incense, yoga poses, chants, and, what seemed to me to be mind games. It is that for some.

    But I already have a strong spiritual path, I don’t bend the way a 20-year-old yoga instructor does, and if I started changing mantras, I would burst out laughing at myself. Few of those things have much to do with photography, in my opinion.

    Mindfulness in our art involves the mental discipline of staying aware of what is around us. Looking, being in tune with what is there, being receptive. And, going back to the original idea of this article, looking for and learning to appreciate the interest, even beauty, in what we find. Even to the extent of falling in love with the ordinary things around us.

    Dry docked. Permanently.©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Challenge

    Exercises like 52 Week Photo Challenges are popular. That is one reason there are so many of them. I know from experience that they are good learning experiences. They keep us trying new things and having to creatively find a solution for a word problem.

    I don’t do these anymore, but mostly because am not competitive and because I find so many challenges around me all the time that I don’t want to distract myself. That’s just me. Don’t let me discourage you if you have not tried it.

    If you are not going to do one of these scripted challenges, I encourage you to challenge yourself. Ignore your one great subject love. Go out wide open. Turn off the music and your phone. Walk around and look around. “Force” yourself to look more closely at what is there. Determine that you are going to shoot things you never photograph. See something and think “that is mildly interesting; how could I make it very interesting?” Discover that there are endless possibilities besides what you normally focus on.

    it seems like I often come around to the idea of mindfulness in our photography. I guess it is one of my ongoing themes. Mindfulness seems to be joined to creativity. Mindfulness helps us discover interesting things. Creativity stimulates us to do something interesting with them.

    It’s simple. That’s why it is so hard.

    In your photography: Love The one you’re with.

  • No Learning Required

    No Learning Required

    Photography is a craft we traditionally spend years learning and practicing. What if we could shortcut all that and have some “hacks” that would let us make great images with little work or training?

    The click bait

    It seems like I am getting more and more click bait like this (actual names redacted to protect their anonymity, and to not support their sales offer):

    Most photographers spend years trying to figure it all out on their own—slow progress, scattered tutorials, lots of frustration.

    But what if you could skip that?

    What if this is the year you jump straight to clarity, consistency, and results?
    That’s exactly what the [program name] gives you: the proven system that pros actually use.

    If you’re at the bottom of the learning curve this seems attractive. Who wouldn’t want to be able to leapfrog to the top of your game with little effort? This would save years of hard work.

    For a little money, I could buy my way to success, fame, and fortune. I could become a respected artist quickly. What’s not to like?

    There are 2 things: there is no secret knowledge, and it still involves a lot of hard work and learning.

    Decrepit railroad tie, no track.©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Secret knowledge

    It is a popular and successful sales pitch to insinuate that there is secret knowledge known only by elite practitioners in a field. If someone shares this secret knowledge with you (for a fee), you, too, can be one of the elites.

    The problem with this is that photography does not rely on secret knowledge. Rather than being a closed league, like a guild, the field is very open. Most photographers readily and openly share their knowledge and insight.

    Why would they make all this knowledge available? I think it is for 2 reasons.

    First, many photographers rely on workshops and book and tutorial sales to supplement their income. It is just a reality. The number of people who live solely on image sales is relatively small.

    Second, they know their knowledge is not secret. It does not need to be closely guarded, because it is wisdom based on years of experience. Every photographer who has been in the game long enough basically knows the same things. Most of the ones I know are eager to share their experience and help others benefit.

    Learning required?

    Are there “hacks” you can use to get you where you want to go faster? Maybe. Depending on where you want to go.

    If you are the family photographer, there are simple things you can learn to make your images more enjoyable. Making yourself aware of the lighting and how to control it, framing the subject more deliberately, using shallow depth of field to isolate, and seeking a “decisive moment” are techniques to raise yourself above the norm.

    Or if you want to make your vacation pictures less boring to others, there are “hacks” that can be used. Learning to see and use the light, actively looking at what is going on all around your frame, use wide and close and high and low views. Culling out most of your shots will help a lot, too.

    If these are the kind of specific goals you have, then certainly learn the “tricks” and be satisfied. You will take better pictures but not be an artist.

    One tree leaning on another one©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Results or creativity?

    So, what is the goal? Many people, probably most people, only care about getting a decent shot to put on social media or in a memory album. I do not criticize this at all. That is where their values lie. Learn some simple techniques that will improve your photos.

    But if you aspire to be an artist, if your goal is to make creative and interesting images that express your point of view, that is an entirely different path. If you go to photography school, you will learn techniques like I described above. Probably in the first semester. Then you will be pushed onward to learn actual image making.

    Creativity is hard. You must know the basics of the craft very well, but then you must develop your own unique way of seeing and have something to say. It goes far beyond just being able to take a good picture.

    Are there shortcuts?

    The ad I quoted talks about “slow progress, scattered tutorials, lots of frustration” being involved in the way photography is usually learned. Maybe they have synthesized a program that guides a person through this messy time. Or maybe they just have a rigid program to follow to make a novice a clone of the instructor.

    I believe. that learning to be a creative photographer is hard work. Personally, I don’t think there is a reasonable shortcut. A good mentor can help immensely by pointing things out and giving good feedback. But you still must do the work. It is long and frustrating and sometimes you want to give up. We want to be progressing faster, but we don’t seem to be getting there yet.

    Henri Cartier-Bresson famously noted “Your first 10,000 photos are your worst.” That is true. It does not, however, mean your next 10,000 will be great. As someone who has shot many multiples of 10,000, I know that it is a long and difficult road.

    But we keep pushing, because something compels us to do it. Psychologists tell us we learn more from failures than from successes. As aspiring artists, we generate a lot of learning opportunities. And we do learn. Practice and ruthless evaluation eventually pays off.

    Night landing at the airport©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Doesn’t AI do the work?

    An elephant in the room these days is AI. Won’t AI provide the shortcuts we want? Can’t we rely on it to make our images better?

    Yes, we can. It already happens every day with AI “enhancements” when we take a picture with our phone. And there are many AI “enhancements” that can automatically be applied to our images in Lightroom or Photoshop or whatever your tool of choice is. It will only get more powerful and more pervasive.

    If your goal is to make your image better, then yes, it will be glad to do it for you. But you didn’t do it. And by letting AI do it, you didn’t learn how to do it better next time. We become a tool of the machine rather than it being the other way around.

    If our goal is to become a creative artist, my opinion is that this is going the wrong direction. An artist is responsible for all the creative decisions in making an image. We delegate some simple things to our tools, like when I put my camera on Aperture mode and let it choose the shutter speed based on the aperture I selected. That is a simple technical calculation, it is not taking creative responsibility for the image.

    Maybe AI is one thing driving the resurgence of photographers shooting film and doing chemical darkroom work. They remain firmly in charge of all aspects of their image.

    Foggy night in the park©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Look back

    Sometimes looking back helps us look forward.

    In my blog I have given some glimpses of my culling and evaluation techniques. I will not describe them in detail, just to say that I do not use a basic 5-point ranking scheme. My images must go through several rounds of critique and editing to progress up to my top set. The ones I would be proud to show anyone.

    Recently I was going back through to catch up on my backlog of hundreds of images that are still “in progress”. It is a time to look realistically at each image and decide if it deserves to be promoted to the next level.

    An interesting thing occurred. Having to revisit these hundreds of images, I couldn’t help thinking that I have been making some pretty good and occasionally creative pictures. I shoot so much that I sometimes forget to look back and see the arc that is traced by the past. It was encouraging.

    Art is hard

    Becoming a better picture shooter is easy. Becoming an artist is hard. It involves lots of learning and practice and self-examination. And suffering. At least the mental suffering of falling short of your expectations. But even then, there is no certificate, no award ceremony, nothing to tell you that you have arrived. You keep pushing and reaching forward.

    It takes time and effort. I do not believe there are any magic shortcuts that will get you where you need to go. Put in the work. Put in the time. It is worth it.

  • Generalist or Specialist

    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.

    Bicycle wheels©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.

    Dead tree in snow. Bent, broken, but still trying to stand.©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.

    Steam locomotive in Fall©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.

    Layers of grafitti©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.