Tag: fear

Posted on

The Hardest Part

Canterbury Cathedral

I have figured out what I consider the hardest part of photography. Excluding Marketing. It is selecting a portfolio.

Pick a few

It’s a common situation. Perhaps I am entering a selection for a gallery competition. Maybe a client has requested a few choices for a job. It could be just needing to pick some images for this blog post. Whatever the reason, I am faced with the problem of selecting a small set of images for a certain use.

Oh sure, I have the images that would work. It’s not like I”m not happy with my choices. The problem is selecting only a few.

I’m calling what I am doing here making a portfolio. That is not precisely correct. Formally, a portfolio is a collection of images designed for presentation to an audience. Often one-on-one. However, the process is substantially the same for that and the situations I described. So I will not distinguish them.

Embarrassment of riches

Please don’t take it as bragging, but I have lots of images that I like. I have been at it a long time. Lots as in many thousands. That’s just the ones I promote to my top level selection category. A lot of others in my catalog would be useful for certain applications.

Yes, I have a disciplined filing system. Everything is culled through multiple levels of selection. I find it is hard to pick the ones I like best from a shoot, so my process is oriented around rejecting the ones that are not as good. I don’t know why, but it is easier for me to say “I don’t like that one as well” than to say “I like that one best.” That is repeated through multiple levels. I apply more stringent criteria at each level.

Giant bear peeking into an urban building©Ed Schlotzhauer

Most of my images are filed geographically and I have an extensive keyword system for tagging all sorts of information. And I use it.

All this should make it easy to find just what I want. You would think, but no. It is easier in that I am only wading through thousands, not hundreds of thousands of images to pick. But that’s not even the most difficult part.

No guidance

We are awash in training material to help us become better photographers. Some if it is actually good. There are thousands of hours of videos on camera operation and composition and visual design. Many more on techniques in the field and techniques for post processing. And gear guides are limitless. As are books to supplement the videos. All of this can help boost our knowledge and improve our technique.

But when it comes to pulling together a portfolio, the advice is: it’s hard, keep editing, get it down to a few great images.

Thanks, but that is not really helpful. Well, it is helpful to find out that I should expect it to be hard and I have to do it myself. But where is the video that shows me to pick this image instead of that one?

Should a choose a tight theme with carefully coordinated image selections, as for a project? Or would it be best to present a range of subjects and styles to show the breadth of my work? Would it help to research the curator of the exhibit to try to guess what they would like? Why would this image work better than that one?

I feel kind of left hanging out there.

I’m on my own

That’s the point and the conclusion. We are on our own. We have to be grown ups and make responsible decisions. That is no fun. It is downright hard. That’s why, to me, this is the hardest part.

Very abstract created image. Representa the evolution of an image.©Ed Schlotzhauer

So a typical scenario is that I have to select, say, 4 images for a gallery. Open theme. I’m on my own. No guidance. It is very easy to go through my catalog and pull 50 images that I would like to submit. Another pass or two might get it down to 30 images. Then it gets harder and harder as I push on. I love every one of these images. Eliminating one seems like I am abandoning it. I know that’s not the case, but the feeling is there.

It is sometimes easier if I set it aside for a few days to let the emotions settle down. Then I do my best imitation of being coldly realistic to screen out some more. But what seems to happen is that I get down to, say, 8 images. I can only have 4. That final cut is extremely painful.

i envy people who have a colleague or mentor they can work with to advise the process. I don’t. The decisions have to be made by me with no help. I have an awesome wife, but she isn’t an artist and cannot help with this.

Well, I get there. It is painful. I come away with sadness because I had to eliminate some of my favorites in the final mix. That disappears with time, though. After a few days I can look at the final set and be proud of them.

Overthinking it

A reality is that I tend to overthink it. What I know is that the images I pull are all very good. And I know, and have demonstrated to myself often, that, with a set of excellent images, every time you eliminate one, you make the overall set stronger. That is, if you make intelligent choices. I try to remind myself of great advice I got one time that you will be judged by the worst image you show.

So why do I agonize over it so much? It’s not like I throw a great image away if I remove it from the set.

I think there are two problems. First is that I love these images and feel bad about taking one out, because I’m emotionally attached to it. I can live with that. But the second and bigger problem is, how do I know I have made the best choice?

Self doubt

That is the core of the problem. There is no guidance. I am on my own. There are much bigger and more important choices in life that are like this. Who to marry, what career to pursue, where to live, what investments to make, etc. We must use our judgment to make the decision. It hurts. We want someone to look over our shoulder and tell us we did the right thing. Unfortunately, being an adult doesn’t work like that.

Picking some images for a use is way down in importance from those big life events. Why is it so painful then? I think it is the same fear of failure and the consequences. But I try to be realistic.

So I try to convince myself that the final set I choose will be excellent. Even though I feel like I am in the spotlight and I am being examined to see if I am worthy, I know that if I do the best I can, that will be good enough. And if not, well, nobody dies.

I tell myself that, but it doesn’t feel like it when I am in the pain of the process.

All parts of the photographic process are interesting and challenging. All are subjective, But there seems to be a lot of help to be had in all phases of it up until the final image selection.

Resources

There actually are a couple of resources I have found to help give some education in this. Unfortunately they are not freely available. Peter Eastway, editor of Better Photography magazine, has written an excellent ebook on creating a portfolio. As it says, it is specifically oriented to putting together a portfolio or exhibit. But it still gives a lot of good insights.

Creating a Portfolio might be available at www.betterphotographyeducation.com without a subscription. If not, it is an excellent publication and you will enjoy it. 🙂

Another option that I have found out is not paywalled is a three part series of newsletters in the Paper Arts Collective newsletter. This is a hidden gem of a publication. The series I’m referring to was titled Evolution of a Small Project, and it traced the decisions and selection process he went through to put together an exhibit. If you do prints then you should check out Paper Arts Collective.

But I come back to my original problem. It is hard, no one can really help you, you have to make hard choices yourself based on your judgment and artistic vision. And you have to have confidence in your decisions. To me, it is the hardest part.

Posted on

It Looks Like a Painting

Flowing green shapes and lines

This comment used to make me angry. But I have now rationalized that most people mean it as a compliment. If it looks like a painting then it must be art.

Is painting the standard?

For most people, painting means art. It is what they were taught. Photographs are those low value things they do on their phone. They’re mostly for memories and bragging rights on social media.

I believe most people view painting as “high art”. Like they might view classical music. After all, both are remote and fairly difficult to understand. Removed from their daily lives. High art is something they have been taught that they should value, but they seldom partake of it.

And paintings are viewed as difficult, labor intensive works requiring lots of training and “suffering”. That instills them with high value in many people’s estimation. It is not unusual for painters to encourage an aura of this being something so great and high that we cannot understand it. We viewers are lucky the artist will share a glimpse of such truth with us.

And on a practical note, a painting is one of a kind. The artist paints one original. This increases the value of the work in some markets.

Some people, looking at one of my images, describe it as “painterly”. To them, this is a compliment. Even photo reviewers occasionally use the term. Internally, I usually cringe, unless it was actually my goal to look like a painting.

So for my peace of mind I have decided to accept “it looks like a painting” as a sincere compliment. It may be alien to my goals and values as a photographer, but is probably the best way a lot of people know of to say “it is art”.

What does a painting look like?

I will consider that a “painting” is some type of color medium applied to a substrate like paper or canvas by hand. I will stretch the definition to include pouring or throwing paint. Typical color mediums are oil, acrylic, watercolor, or pastel.

The “by hand” seems to be important. Until print reproductions are made, all paintings are originals. Many people consider a “mechanically created” print inferior to a painting because it was too easy to make.

Brushes are most often used to apply the color. Although they come in a wide range of sizes, and it is possible to create very detailed paintings, generally paintings are a somewhat coarse expression of a scene. That expression is considered part of the artistry.

This is what people think of as a painting. It is an Albert Bierstadt painting titled “Rocky Mountain Landscape”. As someone who lives in the Rockies, I can attest this is purely fictional:

Albert Bierstadt painting, 1870From the White House Collection. Image from Google Art Project

An artist typically paints a scene they can observe (or make up). This means the scene is fairly static. Unless, of course, they take a picture of it and paint from a photographic print. Is that allowed? Does that make the painting something else? 🙂

So paintings are generally relatively large, static scenes, less detailed than a photograph, and created by hand.

Do I want my image to look like a painting?

Do I want my image to look like a painting? Great question. Sometimes yes. Usually no.

This is a fairly typical image I do that screams PHOTORGRAPH. It could be painted, but then that would be a painter trying to make his work look like a photograph. 🙂

Classic B&W photograph.© Ed Schlotzhauer

Why would I want an image to look like a painting? I do occasionally enjoy creating abstract images. Sometimes they work best done as a dreamy, blurry, hand drawn look. I love that photography can achieve a wide variety of effects. I enjoy pushing the boundary and creating an unexpected look.

But in these cases, I have chosen to create the image with this look. My goal was not to “make it look like a painting”. Sometimes an image tells me what it wants to look like. Sometimes what it wants to look like is what most people consider “painterly”. If that is what is right for the image, then OK.

Don’t feel inferior

I think photography is an amazing art form. Its versatility is unsurpassed. Being technology based allows it to operate somewhat outside the limits of the artist’s mind. We can explore time and scale and space and even non-visual realms in ways that other artistic mediums can only copy.

With photography, we can make one print and stop or we can make 1000 prints. We can re-scale a file to make a print very small to fit into a locket or up to wall-sized for a gallery or to decorate a large room. Or even billboards or the sides of buildings.

Never let the intelligentsia convince you you are somehow inferior to painters or other “real” arts. They are just trying to protect their self interests. Photography is as real as any art. Be proud of your art.

So when someone tells you your image looks like a painting, be gracious. Don’t launch into a lecture about why they are wrong and how they do not understand. This would be rude and even insulting. Accept it as a compliment. They are using terms they know to tell you they like your work and consider it good art. Be happy. But also be confident that it does not have to look like a painting to be great art.

Today’s featured image

The image at the top would be considered “painterly” by many people. Did I want it to look like a painting? No. I was exploring possibilities of long shutter speeds with flowing water and reflections in a river. I knew from experience that I could often get abstract results I like. This is an example.

I like it. It is abstract, and it flows and has a lot of subtle details of interest. Does it look like a painting? That is for you to decide. If you think that, great. But it is not a label I try for when I am creating. I would not market my work as “looks like a painting”.

Posted on

Sustainability

Watching paint run - creatively

Sustainability is a common buzz word these days. It is applied to everything. Every company and product claims it. For this, I’m going to redefine sustainability from an artistic point of view.

Creative sustainability

As artists, we live on our creativity. Do you worry that the well may dry up? What if your creativity goes away?

If we produce hard, do we use it up? Or is the engine somehow fed by using more? Is creativity a “sustainable” resource or does it get used up?

Since this is the core of what we do as artists, it is natural to worry about it. Probably all of us at some point have concerns that we may use it up. What would we do then?

So, an ongoing concern for many of us is, should we ration and conserve our creativity so we don’t use it up? Is it even possible to conserve it?

Sustainable creativity

I don’t believe creativity actually gets used up. It is like a good well that always seems to be full when we need it. If anything, creativity thrives on being challenged and used. It seems like the more we call on it, the more there is.

But is it sustainable? I think so, but we can be our own worst enemies. If we keep doing the same stuff over and over we get less creative. When we try to stay in a safe rut, there is less need to exercise creative. We’ve done it all. Many times. It is a major challenge to apply new creativity to repeating the same things.

Unless we are following the lead of where our creativity wants to take us, we risk getting stale. When that happens, we seriously fear we are not creative any more. And we are right.

That doesn’t mean our creativity is gone. But if we do not give it free rein to take us in new directions, it stops challenging us. For all practical purposes, our creativity is them used up.

Creativity is like a good friend. It will be there for us, but we have a responsibility to nurture the relationship. If we ignore it, if we do not make time for it, it will eventually give up on us.

Burnout

Everyone goes through cycles. Creativity, and everything else in life, can ebb and flow. That is natural. But burnout is an extreme. It is a depressed state where it can seem impossible to ever again do the quality of work we want to do. It can persist for months or years if we let it.

I know. I have been there. There was a time in my career when I worked long hours for years in a job that was not fulfilling. It caught up to me. I crashed. I pulled back, working less hours and not being as satisfied with the quality of my work. Eventually, by changing position and increasing the creativity of my role, I became productive and happy in my job again. It was probably a 3 year process.

In burnout, it seems evident that creativity must be unsustainable. That’s not true, though. It is not creativity that lets us down, it is the other parts of our context. It is important to manage our lives and environment if we want to stay creative.

Creative stimulus

Like an athlete trains constantly, we must exercise our creativity to stay on top of our game. Everyone’s needs are different, so it is impossible to lay out a plan for you to follow to do it. You have to figure that out for yourself.

I can provide some creative stimulants I have seen and used. Consider them. Try the ones that seem to fit you. Develop your own methods.

I will just bullet point some of them. Each could be a topic on it’s own.

Read. And not just the same old stuff. Read new things. Read things by people you disagree with. And also read some light stuff just for fun.

Study something new. Don’t plan to get a PhD in it. Just learn something about it. If you like it, go deeper. If not, try something else.

Write

Go back and review your old work. Put together a new portfolio.

Go to a museum.

Travel to a new place that is NOT a major iconic photo location.

Put blocks of time in your calendar to do nothing. Turn off your phone. Let your mind wander. Doodle. Look around. Intentionally be unproductive.

Spend time with friends, just living life.

Take your significant other out for a nice and unexpected meal.

Find things that make you happy, but that are not just entertainment. Try to do more of them.

Take walks, with and without your camera.

Just do it

The theme here is to fill your mind with new information. This connects in strange and unexpected ways, leading to who knows what. And to give yourself space and time to just think, ponder, consider, unwind. The more pressure we put ourselves under, the more it shuts down creativity.

And like the inspired Nike tag line, “just do it”. Get out and work. Take pictures, Don’t worry so much about the results. Going through the motions is comforting and leads to results. Eventually. Creativity is not just inspiration, it is a process.

Relax and try to de-clutter your head. Follow your instincts.

Is creativity sustainable? I would say definitely. It is one of the most important traits we have as artists. We can consciously take actions to keep our creativity healthy and flowing. But we have to listen to ourselves and recognize what our needs are.

Posted on

It’s OK to be Uncomfortable

Nice landscape. Taken in rest area

I recently read an article from a photographer who admitted he sometimes doesn’t stop to take a picture he wanted because he was afraid of what people would think. I understand that. I have been there many times. But I have come to the conclusion that it’s OK to be uncomfortable.

What will people think?

You’ve probably been here. I know I have. You are driving down a crowded road and you see a scene you want to photograph. But we decide not to pull off and get out the equipment because we would look foolish standing there beside the road taking a picture. All those people going by would think we’re weird.

The reality I have learned, though, is that no one thinks about you as much as you do. That is a fact. We overestimate our importance. We will be more free and inventive if we stop worrying about what they may think.

People go about their dreary lives almost totally focused on themselves and their needs. If they do momentarily notice you, even if they criticize you, you do not know what they are really thinking. Most often, they are responding to something in themselves. Because they do not really care about you.

I love this quote from Susan Sontag: I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them.

And from Olin Miller: You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do!

If that random person driving by thinks you are doing something foolish, so what? How did that affect you? Did you feel it? Did it hurt? No. You do not know what they are thinking and besides, you are doing your art, not theirs.

The anxiety we feel is internally generated.

Attract attention

I understand. I’m very introverted and I am uncomfortable attracting attention. An interesting dynamic because of where I live is that I do attract unwanted attention sometimes.

In my area there is a lot of wildlife, such as elk, deer, moose, bear, mountain lion, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, etc. I guess I am missing the right genes, but I have little interest in them, other than to observe them. I almost never take wildlife pictures. But if I am setting up to take a picture beside a road, it is not unusual for people to pull off and eagerly ask me what I see. They seem so disappointed when I point to a tree. It’s actually kind of funny.

And for the occasional street photography I do, I am one of those people who wants to be totally anonymous, unseen. It is uncomfortable when someone “catches” me taking their picture.

They won’t like me

So what do I do about this fear that people will think badly about me when I’m out shooting? The right answer is, ignore them. Easier said than done, but that is true of much of life.

I have learned to try to put them out of my mind completely and get in the zone focusing on setting up the shot I want. Generally this works. Replace the negative concern of fear with the positive action of taking a picture.

But even if it doesn’t work, more and more I come to the realization that I don’t care what they think. I am not trying to get them to like me or post a Facebook note about how much they admire that photographer they just passed. I don’t care.

The results I get in these situations validates and justifies my callous “don’t care” attitude toward them.

What are they going to do to you

Let’s say some of the passing people give you enough attention to say to themselves “that’s dumb”. So what? What happened? Did you feel it? Did they throw a rotten tomato at you? Did they stop to get your name and take a picture of you to post on Facebook to shame you?

Of course not. Absolutely nothing happened. They went on down the road and immediately forgot about you. If they were stopped 20 miles later and asked, they probably wouldn’t remember someone standing beside the road taking a picture.

This is the quandary: we fear what people might think, but the reality is they don’t bother to think about us. And even if they did, it has no effect on us.

Do what you need to do

If you do what other people do, you get the results that other people get. – Bill Miller

We are artists. We see things differently. That means we do things differently. Other people cannot know what our vision is at any moment unless we tell them or show them. Showing them is typically what we do.

So do what you need to do to make your art. Do not be concerned about what anyone may think about you. First, they probably don’t. Second, it doesn’t matter. You have art to do.

If you were embarrassed taking the picture feel doubly joyful when you see the great result. You can say to those people passing by who you imagined felt you were silly, “see what you missed”!

Get over it

I hope I have encouraged you to forget about your fear of people’s opinion and go for your art. Art is action. It is only an idea unless we create something.

Act while you feel fear rather than waiting until you feel unafraid. – David Richo, in How to be an Adult

How sad it is to think about what could have been a great image, except we were too embarrassed to stop and take it. I have done it both ways. I have passed by and regretted it and I have overcome my fear and stopped and usually been happy I did.

I am old and calloused enough to believe now that I shouldn’t be overly concerned about what I think other people may be thinking. It’s OK to be uncomfortable. If being uncomfortable is a price for making our art, that is what we have to do.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. – Anon

To you who have never been intimidated by other people’s opinions, congratulations! You have a talent most of us do not have. Use it well. Don’t be an ass.

Today’s image

Do you like this image of the vast Utah plains? I do. It is not a result of trekking hours across the barren desert, watching for rattlesnakes. I took it in a rest stop on I-70, right next to the restrooms. It felt uncomfortable at the time, but I loved the scene and had to take it. At this point, I don’t recall the discomfort. But I still like the image.

When you see something you like, stop and take it, unless it is dangerous or you have higher priorities at the moment, like a critical appointment. There are some things more important than our art. Not many, but don’t ignore them.

Posted on

If We’re Not Moving Forward…

Rise Against, representing the daily struggle

We can get trapped in our own mind. Fear can pen us in. We must constantly remind ourselves of what happens if we’re not moving forward.

Can’t stand still

The actual quote, attributed to Sam Waterson, is “If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling back.” There is a lot of truth in that. As much as we sometimes would like to lock things down, we can’t. Time moves on. We move on. Relationships change. People grow apart or together. Our knowledge and tastes and perceptions change.

Have you ever gone back and looked at some of your art or writing from a few years ago? It can be depressing. Our first reaction is probably that our work was terrible back then. But no, that is not necessarily true. That was the best work we could do at the time. We are seeing what we were at that moment in the past. But we have moved on now and are in a different place. And it’s an ongoing process.

Fear

Some of us get trapped in the past by fear. We did some work we thought was very good. Maybe we received some recognition for it. Perhaps we even were so unfortunate as to become famous. Now we are afraid to move away from what we became recognized for in the past, even though we are feeling a pull in a different direction.

Past work becomes an anchor on our creativity unless we consciously cut it loose. But it is all to easy to fear that we have peaked and will never be able to do any more work as good.

Well, maybe that is true. Maybe the next body of work we do will be inferior. We won’t know until we do it. When we strike out in a new direction it is quite natural to grope around hesitantly for a while until we find our footing. The first versions of new work could be fairly bad. But if it is where we are being pulled, we will find what we are looking for.

Growth

We are growing creatures. Life constantly gives us new stimulus, new knowledge, new ideas. We meet people and have good discussions. We learn new things and connect ideas and resolve old questions and ask new ones.

At least, we are intended to do that. Some people stay in their rut, doing the same thing over and over without advancing. It’s like the question do you have 10 years of experience or 1 year of experience repeated 10 times? When put like that it seems obvious there is a big difference. But a rut is safe and comfortable. There is no risk. No one criticizes us. But where there is no risk, there is no change, no growth, no reward.

As artists, we should be comfortable learning and changing. Experimenting with new ideas and ways of looking at our art and the world. Having confidence that our best work is yet to come.

It really is true that there are only 2 paths. If we stop growing, we start dying. When we find ourselves in the inevitable rut, they can be hard to get out of. You have to very deliberately and carefully steer out. Let the wheels grab the sides and climb out slowly. Your car will complain, but change always causes criticism. Hopefully, you are not in too deep.

We are different every day

We are not the same person today that we were yesterday. Like the expression that we can never step in the same river twice. Of course, that does not mean we are jerked around in some type of schizophrenic fugue. We don’t bounce randomly to wildly inconsistent states. At lease, I hope you don’t.

Who we are, our values and beliefs, stays relatively constant. We build on that base and develop as a person. Growth is usually incremental. Hopefully becoming a better person as we progress. Our art may seem to jump more as we embrace new expressions of what we are feeling. Like Picasso going through a blue period or an African period or a cubism period. He never changed who he was, he just responded in different ways at different phases of his life.

Our art changing as we grow is natural and healthy. It is much easier said than done, but we should not fear letting go of what we have done in the past, even if we are well known for it. We should trust that we are growing as an artist and being led to new and better work.

It is exciting to look forward to what is to come and what we have yet to create.

What would be of life if we didn’t have the courage of doing something new?

Vincent van Gogh

Today’s image

I chose this to represent the daily battle we all face. The internal struggle to rise above conformity and create what we have inside us. Don’t settle. Don’t give in.