Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: fine art photography

  • Transmogrification

    Transmogrification

    Photography is a process of transmogrification – a transformation of one form to another. It’s a wonder an image ends up a recognizable representation of a scene. Some don’t.

    Transmogrification

    If “transmogrification” is unfamiliar to you, you are probably not a Calvin & Hobbs fan. I am a shameless fan. In my opinion, it was one of the most creative and humorous cartoon strips in history.

    Calvin (a little boy) and Hobbs (his imaginary friend who is a stuffed tiger) were always getting into typical little boy trouble. One of his “inventions” was a transmogrifier, a device (cardboard box) that could transform anyone into anything else.

    One of the reasons the comic is meaningful to me is that I had 2 active boys who always pushed the limits, and then some. Now, I have another newborn grandson, so I will be starting over in that world.

    I thought the author, Bill Watterson, invented the word, but it turns out to have been used as far back as 1671. It is a real word, not a made-up cartoon word.

    Not deep philosophy

    This discussion of the transformations that take place in making a photograph will be purely practical. I will not get into philosophical questions. We could do long analysis of indexicality or semiotics or formalism or the photo theories of John Szarkowski or any of dozens of other theories that attempt to explain why we see what we see.

    I don’t avoid this just because I am not capable of the deep thought. My nature is to be more of a pragmatist in my basic life philosophy. That’s why I went into Engineering rather than Science.

    A theory of why I made a particular image may be of a little bit interesting to me. It might help me to understand my process and vision. But I don’t think it benefits my viewers or really changes the final image.

    To someone viewing my image, it is what it is. It has to stand on its merits as they see them. I may have had deep theoretical intent behind what I did. but they don’t care. And despite any philosophical basis I may have used, if I don’t like the image either, it is useless. Don Giannatti recently said on Medium “A good photo is a good photo.” So true

    A series of transformations

    There are 3 main groups of transforms between a scene and a final print: in our head, in the camera, and in the computer. I include our head because it is probably the most important one. I will only describe a raw image processing path, since that is all I use. When I talk about a processing step, I mean a point where the result can be altered.

    Image processing transform in our head©Ed Schlotzhauer

    We see a scene and our brain goes through a lot of steps before we are even close to pressing the shutter release. We evaluate what we are seeing, determine what is significant, decide how we feel about it, what is our intent in taking this picture and if it is even worthwhile, and generally how we will compose and frame it.

    These steps may happen rapidly and instinctively, or they may be a slow deliberate process. That depends on the situation and our shooting style and our experience. But they probably happen.

    Camera transforms

    image transforms in the camera©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Assuming we decide to take the picture, now several processing steps take place within the camera. First, the light from the desired scene comes in through our lens. The lens determines the field of view, wide or narrow. It also “contributes” its own distortions – the MTF, barrel or pincushion distortion, chromatic aberration, vignetting, etc.

    After or within the lens is the aperture. This opens or closes to let in more or less light. As a side effect, the aperture size determines the depth of field – the amount of the image that is in sharp focus. Focus depth is one of the creative decisions unique to photography.

    Then the light is controlled by the shutter. The shutter opens for a precisely controlled amount of time when the photographer presses the shutter release. That opening time controls the amount of light that can pass through. The aperture and shutter work together to provide two of the key variables that determine exposure. The side effect is that shutter speed also determines the perceived motion blur of the scene. This is another creative decision.

    Next, the light hits the sensor where photons are converted to electrical signals. The total number of pixels is fixed here, as is much of the quality of the final image. The sensor also introduces some kinds of noise into our data.

    A deep, dark secret that many people do not internalize is that at the sensor, the information is “analog”. That is, it is varying levels of electrical signals. It goes through an Analog To Digital converter (ADC) to digitize it. Gain is also applied here as determined by the ISO setting. Higher ISO values apply more gain to boost the signal. There is a tradeoff the artist must make about the ISO setting, the amount of gain, since that determines a lot of the noise in our image data. Each pixel’s electrical value is digitized to create the matrix of digital values representing the image.

    Next the digital data flows through the digital signal processor (DSP) section. Each manufacturer applies its own proprietary “secret sauce” of processing to enhance the response of the sensor. This is why there is a Leica look and a Fuji look, etc. A jpg image is also processed from this to create a quick preview of the RAW data. The data is assembled into RAW data format for storage and then written to the memory card.

    The memory card receives the raw data that represents the image as processed by the camera.

    All these steps are just what is within the camera. I have not even mentioned our decisions of how to orient the camera or support it. Is it fixed or intentionally moving? Where is it positioned in relation to the scene? These decisions were probably made at the “head” stage.

    Computer transforms

    Image transforms in the computer©Ed Schlotzhauer

    We typically take that memory card and read its contents into our computer through a cataloging program such as Lightroom. Now the data is stored locally on our computer system for access.

    The type and amount of processing that can be done here is too vast to describe. We might use Lightroom or Photoshop or Topaz or any of several other software applications to operate on the pixels, bending and shaping and polishing them to our satisfaction. We may crop or delete large sections, combine images in various ways, change color drastically, even to black & white. There is little limit.

    Finally, to make a print, our print processing software uses profiles for the printer and paper we will be using to re-transform the image to a new color space. This is necessary to create a print that mostly matches what we see on our monitor. Raster Image Processing is used to do error diffusion and other complex calculations to create a new representation that creatively shapes the pixel values to patterns of microscopic ink dots that will produce the final image. The printer sprays the ink onto the paper substrate.

    We now have an image.

    Uniqueness of photography

    This series of transformations partially serves to define the basic difference between painting and photography. It should be clear that a photograph is a capture of all the light and forms that was seen by the lens. Everything gets recorded.

    The photographer has command of composition and viewpoint and lens selection and exposure to control what gets captured. But everything that was there is recorded. One of our jobs is to carefully select what to record, removing distractions.

    Distraction removal often continues to the post processing steps. And new elements may be added to the image. These happen long after the image is captured by the camera.

    A painter starts with a blank canvas and adds the elements he desires. Nothing can be there unless it was his intent to place it there. If he didn’t paint it in, it does not exist.

    Photography is a subtractive process while painting is an additive process.

    Over time we photographers learn how to control what ends up imaged on the sensor. We must be vigilant as we are looking through the viewfinder. Learning to actually see all the faults and distractions is a skill. Learning how to deal with them is part of our art, as is learning how to process the image to end up with the result we want.

    Looking through clock, Musee Orsay©Ed Schlotzhauer

    The chain

    As we can see, there is a complex chain of transforming steps that an image goes through between the “real” scene and the resulting depiction in a print. Most of these steps can seriously change the final result.

    I take 2 main points from this: all images are modified and as artists we exert the control over the intent of what we are creating.

    An image is not the object or scene. It is possibly a representation of the original. Or it can be completely different. I intentionally avoid any discussion of referent philosophy, other than to say a picture is not the original thing, it is an image that may or may not have something to say about the thing..

    How the image corresponds to the “real” scene is the artist’s choice in creating the image. As artists, we have an abundance of control points in the process. How we choose to use them is our decision. It is what we do as photographers. The result of all these transformation steps is an expression of our artistic vision.

    I called it transmogrification because the complexity of what is going on is almost science fiction or fantasy. But this is what we deal with every time we take a picture. As photographers, we must understand this chain. We do not have to understand all the technical details, but we must be able to use the steps available to us to create the image we want. As artists we must understand how to control all this technology to shape the final image to our vision.

    It’s a great thing, though. Taming all this technology and learning to use it well is part of the joy of being a photographer. It gives us tremendous creative freedom.

    Ultimately, though, our viewers do not care at all about our technology. They only look at the image and decide if it is worth looking at for more than an instant and if it has some relevance to them. Technology, like good magic, should be invisible.

  • Moments 2

    Moments 2

    Moments are frozen instants in the flow of time. Our life is about moments. Most art, but especially photography, is about capturing moments.

    Flow of time

    Time is like a stream flowing around us. It goes from infinity to infinity as far as we can perceive. But we can’t stop it or dam it up. We can’t even jump in the stream and ride a moment forever. Instead, we must watch it flow by and hear the clock ticking.

    Time itself may be virtually infinite, but our time is not. We have been alive a certain time, but we have no idea how long we have left. There may be many years left, or our time may be done tomorrow.

    Many of us live our lives as if we have infinite time left. That is simpler and less troubling than acknowledging the impermanence of our existence. So, we become numb to the passing of time. We bury our self in our job or other responsibilities or diversions. Days flow into weeks into months into years and we barely realize it. Someday we look back and wonder where the time went.

    Lobster shack, Maine coast©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Art is moments

    All we can clearly perceive is the current moment we are living in. The past is a sequence of moments that are gone. The future is a potential sequence of moments we cannot yet see.

    A characteristic of a lot of art, especially photography, is that it records moments. They may be beautiful moments, or touching ones, or poignant ones, or frightening ones. But the moment itself is the art.

    Art portrays these moments so we can look at them from outside the time stream. It gives us a new perspective on the moment. Whether the art captures the moment as a 2-dimensional image to hang on our wall, or a 3-dimensional form, or a poem or story we can visit whenever we want, they re-create for us a moment or a scene we want to save.

    One of the powerful aspects of our art is that it is concrete. That is, it is fixed, unchanging, staying as it was created. This plucks moments out of the stream of time and preserves them for us, beautiful and unchanging. A photograph is a frozen moment.

    What we remember

    Our memories are really a collection of remembered moments. Do you remember what you did at your job last month? Probably not, but you remember that time last month when your boss came to you and praised you on doing a great job on something.

    Do you remember college? Or is your memory based on some great times, some miserable times, a time when a professor said something that opened a whole new world of thought for you?

    In our lives and with our families we tend to remember events, certain happenings – in other words, moments. Everything else is just a blur.

    Sailboat, healed over in the wind.©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Moments we miss

    Astounding moments are flowing by us all the time. Mostly, we don’t notice. Those moments are lost and can never be regained.

    Mindfulness is a practice of being aware and “in the moment.” It attempts to let us forget the past and not worry about the future but instead be very aware of what is happening right now.

    Being mindful is a good thing, but when you look up “mindfulness” it often gets co-opted by types of eastern mysticism. Ignore that. The concept is simple, even if the practice may be hard.

    When I say we should be mindful I simply mean we should practice greater awareness of the world around us and the way we are responding to it. As artists this is especially important. There is beauty and interest almost everywhere. Fascinating moments are happening all the time wherever we are. Mindfulness is teaching our self to see them. We must notice moments.

    This usually involves unplugging from our technology and stepping away from the fast pace of our lives for a bit. A walk is a great tool for me. Being outdoors and getting exercise helps me see more of what is going on. Of course, this only works if we put the phone in our pocket and take off the headphones, freeing our self from our tether to the machine.

    But being there and seeing the moments are two different things. We must be open to the experience. Pause and marvel at small moments. At common, ordinary things around us that can become magical sometimes.

    The way we live our moments is the way we live our lives.

    Annie Dillard

    Sunset with power lines©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Photography is about moments

    By its nature, photography is about capturing moments. The shutter opens on a scene in the “real world” for a fixed slice of time. The sensor records what is happening during that time slice. What we get is not imagined or fake. We have captured a moment. If we are good, it is a worthwhile moment.

    Of course, I can create fantasy art that is impossible or surreal. I enjoy doing that. But most photography is a relatively straight capture of a real scene.

    The typical photograph is a portrait of a moment. It is not the moment itself, but an abstract image of it. We have plucked it out of the stream of time and set it aside for contemplation, to show other people what was there that they could have seen. Since there is such a rich flow of moments passing before us, one of the challenges is to develop the experience, the “eye”, to recognize a worthwhile moment as it is happening. In a sense, what Henri Cartier-Bresson called a “decisive moment”.

    Shoot it when you see it. Painters may be able to hold a moment in their memory well enough to be able to sketch and paint it back at their studio. But photographers must react immediately. Capture it or lose it. The famous Jay Maisel so rightly said “Always shoot it now. It won’t be the same when you go back.“

    Pinocchio?©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Prints freeze moments

    Even in the realm of photography, there is the special case of the print. A print takes this fleeting moment and casts it in a permanent form onto a substrate like paper or canvas or metal.

    The moment becomes a real object. It has weight and form and texture. This is important because by being an object of substance, we have a different relationship with it. An ephemeral moment has been transported to a physical object we can see and touch and hold.

    Even more, it has permanence. Memories are unreliable things. They fade and change. A print holds the moment up for us to see for many years to come. We can come back to it and relive it at will. Maybe only to remind ourselves that great moments are happening all the time and we should be more mindful of them.

    In computer speak, a print is read-only-memory. That is a technology that, once written, can never be altered. Once the print is printed, it is an unchangeable record of the artist’s intent at that moment. The digital file can be altered and a new, modified print can be created, but the original print is fixed for its lifetime.

    A print celebrates a moment that is worth keeping among the continuous flow of time.

    Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.

    Susan Sontag

    Fabric covered head©Ed Schlotzhauer

    Moments

    Be intensely aware of moments. They are our life. Each moment we have should be precious to us. Don’t let them drift away unnoticed.

    As photographers, we should be on the lookout for the moments we want to record. To do this we must be very aware of the world around us, mindful, in other words.

    We have the privilege of capturing moments and presenting them to people so they can marvel at the moments that have gone by. This is one of the things artists do. This is awesome.

  • 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.

  • 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.