Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: fine art photography

  • If It Doesn’t Excite You, Why Should It Excite Anyone?

    If It Doesn’t Excite You, Why Should It Excite Anyone?

    This idea is taken from one of the greats, Jay Maisel. One of his quotes, paraphrased, is “If the thing you’re shooting doesn’t excite you, why makes you think it will excite anyone else?” Good advice. I try to remember it all the time, but I sometimes find myself trying to force it.

    Sometimes when I am out shooting (most of my shooting is outside) I can feel it. There is a tingling in my gut, my pulse is racing, I just know I’m going to love this image and I hope I don’t mess it up. Please let the light hold for a few seconds more; please don’t let the person move until I get the picture; please let me get to the place I need to be to get the shot before things change. This is one of the adrenaline moments of photography. It is like being is a flow state when you are working. Everything aligns and falls into place. Things get easy. It is a joy.

    Sometimes, though, it seems like you can’t find a good image anywhere. You look and look and nothing excites you. It is a natural tendency to force it. To talk yourself into believing it is better than it is. Yeah, I can make something out of this in Photoshop. This will composite with something and it will get better. It’s really not so bad. It is actually kind of interesting…

    All artists probably have a lot of self talk in our heads telling us all kinds of things. This wishful dialog can be dangerous, though. It can fool us into settling for mediocre instead of holding out for a higher standard. Mediocre is always going to be mediocre. No amount of wishful thinking is going to magically transform it into a portfolio image. Be realistic with yourself. Sometimes you just have to pack it in and move on to someplace else.

    However, nothing is black and white (except black and white prints ☺). The muse, if that is how you view the creative spirit, works in strange and non-obvious ways. Sometimes you don’t get the tingle in the gut at the time. There are times when a scene just calls to you without necessarily exciting you. I have learned to go with it and shoot what seems interesting, even if I don’t fully understand why. This is not the same as trying to make something out of nothing.

    Sometimes looking at images later on the computer, maybe weeks or months later, the light bulb goes on and I realize my instinct was drawing me to something very interesting. Maybe I did not get “the” shot that time, but it opened the idea and the vision. If possible, I will go back to the location later with this new inspiration and capture what the little itch was trying to tell me.

    The basic idea from Jay Maisel still applies. If it doesn’t excite me, why should I expect it to excite you? Maybe I am sometimes slow to pick up on the excitement, but that is part of the creative joy. You, the audience, deserve the best, the exciting ones. I should never try to pawn off mediocre images on you just because that was the best I could find at the time.

  • Living a Rich Life

    Living a Rich Life

    I have come to a place in my life where I understand that living a rich life is much more rewarding than recognition or even money.

    But what is a “rich” life? This will vary for different people. For me, I find it to be having a great, supportive spouse, family, good friends to share things with, enough money to do many of the things I want without worrying, and time and opportunity to pursue my creative interests. It rests on a foundation of peace that comes from a secure relationship with God.

    There are 2 words that summarize a lot of this for me: Contentment and Gratitude. Contentment is not the same as happiness. Happiness is a momentary state caused by circumstances. Riding a roller coaster may give you happiness (and fear). A few minutes later you may be sad when the ice cream falls off your ice cream cone. Contentment is a decision to accept and get the most out of whatever comes. I can be content when things are going great and also content when trouble comes. It is a state of mind, a decision, something I have determined beforehand to do. I’m l lucky, too, that I can be content being alone with myself. A lot of my time is spent alone. I’m OK with that. When I’m driving I seldom even turn on any audio. I would rather spend the quiet time just thinking or letting my mind wander. That ability is a blessing.

    Gratitude comes from the knowledge that I am very fortunate. Hard work and determination do not always lead to success. I know I am very blessed in my circumstances. I don’t think anyone inherently deserves anything, and the fact that I have above and beyond what I need is something I am grateful for every day. This is not just a result of my hard work. Those blessings do not necessarily mean riches in a monetary sense. But I consider myself one of the most fortunate people I know. I have good health, I can eat or drink what I want, we can plan a trip with good friends and have a great time enjoying each other’s company, we can get together with family and like their company. Basically, gratitude means I do not believe everything I have comes from my own talent and effort. I am blessed.

    But this blog is nominally about art. How does that apply? I now approach my art from a place of joy. I have a vision and it is unique. Life has put me in circumstances that let me spend time pursuing my art and vision and that gives me contentment. Since I see interesting things all around me, my art focuses mostly on out of the way things I find that I hope to have you see in a new way. I am grateful to see these things and be able to show them to you through my vision. I hope to bring convey my sense of wonder to you.

  • Prolific, not Perfect

    Prolific, not Perfect

    This was inspired by a great blog by Benjamin Hardy. One of his points in this article is that it is better to be prolific than perfect. I believe this translates directly to my journey as an artist. Perfection is a dangerous and elusive goal. Being prolific and creating a lot of work leads to better craft and many more new ideas.

    Benjamin illustrates the point about being prolific with this story taken from a book  Art & Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

    The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

    His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”.

    Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

    I have seen so many times in my life that the demand for perfection leads to paralysis. If you take the perfection requirement seriously it creates such a high bar that it is impossible to meet the goal. Instead you delay, study the problem, try to think of new or “creative” alternatives. But mostly you avoid doing anything, because you know you cannot create perfection.

    On the other hand, when faced with a difficult goal or a creative block, just getting busy and doing things will usually lead to progress. Planning is good, but in art and creativity working seems to clear out roadblocks faster. Many psychologists and business leaders have established that a bias to action is a predictor of success. Action brings confidence. Action gets us in motion and builds momentum. To follow the story above, doing and learning, trying and rejecting and keeping going will lead to much better work than sitting waiting to figure out how to do the one great and perfect thing.

    One word the story authors used that jumps out at me is theorizing. This is a great trap. Art is ultimately a very practical and pragmatic discipline. It is about making things. We have to make a lot of things to figure out how to make the things that please us. Theorizing about how great something ultimately could be actually inhibits us from doing the work. The fear of not living up to the theoretical perfection makes us not try.

    So cast off the inhibitions. Just do it. Make things. If you’re stuck, make something, even if just to throw it away. The process of making something gives us momentum and stimulates our creative spirit. Good writers have a habit of this. They write a certain number of words a day, even if they know it is not great. Doing it exercises the writing “muscles” and lets ideas flow. Visual artists should do the same thing. Work every day, whether or not you feel like it. Work when you are uninspired. Let your creativity flow through your work and lead you to new ideas. Being prolific really is the way to create better work.

  • Questions, not Answers

    Questions, not Answers

    Photography, being by its nature realistic, tends to present facts or answer questions. But I believe fine art photography and some other genres have a different point of view. I try to raise questions rather than answer them for my viewers. By participating in the creation process I believe the viewer is more engaged.

    Much traditional photography is based on presenting a realistic and recognizable subject to the viewer. This includes landscape photography, nature photography, product photography, fashion and portraiture, food photography, photojournalism and others. That is not to say these are of less value, but they tend to avoid ambiguity and represent the subject clearly and relatively unobstructed. Doing this is a skill, and if done well great images can be produced. I cannot resist taking pictures of great landscape and nature scenes when I find them. I love doing it and value the images.

    But I concentrate mostly on “fine art”. I quote it because there are few good definitions of the genre. One I like is: an image taken as art. That still leaves a lot of ambiguity. On a practical level I take it to mean the image should raise questions; it should usually be abstract rather than projecting a clear “meaning.” A fine art image does not have expectations of realism, accurate colors, traditional focus, frozen in time subjects, or even recognizability.

    I don’t try to force different media into compartments. If you look at one of my images and say “that looks like a modernist or abstract painting” that does not bother me. Chances are that is exactly the idea I was pursuing. If you look at one of my prints and have to ask how it was created I will probably be delighted. When you ask “what does it mean”, I will probably not answer directly. Look at it, ponder it some; it means whatever you take it to mean. Your interpretation may well be different from mine and it is equally valid. I am elated to hear some of the meanings viewers come up with. They may be far different from what I had in mind, but that’s OK. I am thrilled when an image can evoke very different responses.

    So when you look at one of my more abstract or surreal images, like the one at the top of this article, go ahead and ask yourself “what is it” and get it over with. Then go on the the more important questions, such as how was it done, what is the context, what does it mean to you. I. hope you, as the viewer, will care enough to ask the questions and to participate in the art.

  • Ephemeral Moments

    Ephemeral Moments

    Ephemeral moments come and go in an instant. But those short moments often make all the difference between an interesting image and a plain one. It is a unique advantage of a photograph to be able to record fleeting scenes. It is a challenge for the artist to recognize and capture them.

    Ephemeral means fleeting, transient, short-lived, brief, momentary. In a sense all of our life is ephemeral, as the Bible says in James 4:14 “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” Setting aside the more existential viewpoint for now, I want to focus on capturing brief moments.

    For a photographer, capturing brief moments is both a technical problem and a mental problem. The technical is easy: choose a vantage point giving good framing on the action, arrange for the lighting to be sufficient and of the quality you want, select a lens to fill the frame with the subject, use a fast enough shutter speed for the result you want, then just wait for the subject to do something. ☺

    Obviously it is much deeper than that. Many books and tutorials have been created on how to do it. If you’re a Creative Live follower I suggest this short class by Steve Sweatpants. What I want to talk about is what’s going on in the photographer’s mind.

    To capture ephemeral moments the artist has to be aware, hyper-aware, of what is happening around them. If it’s a couple that interests you, one small gesture lasting less than a second may make all the difference. An interesting reflection may be completely altered when the sun pops out from the clouds for a moment or if a colorful bus drives by. Be ready. That old car coming down the street may be just perfect when you notice it is moving toward a framing by a building in the right light with complimentary colors – wait for it.

    For the artist it is a mental process. I have to really “be there”. I have to free my mind of everything else and let it be receiving and evaluating input constantly, waiting for my mental processing to trigger a recognition of a significant moment. With practice I can get fast enough to recognize and compose and adjust camera settings and capture the fleeting moment. When you first start be ready for frustration. You beat yourself up constantly with the realization that there’s a great picture there, but it was over, like, 2 seconds ago. If only you had recognized it in time to act on it. It takes practice.

    Part of the fun of it is the mental challenge. I have to forget about everything else going on. Email doesn’t exist; Facebook does not exist; being cold doesn’t matter; ear buds are distracting. I have to be entirely focused on the scene at hand. With practice, you learn to anticipate better. After observing behavior for a few moments you anticipate that the person or object will move a certain way or direction. You plan it into a future shot. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does and it makes for better images. If you are really there in the moment you will pick up the rhythm of the dance and move with it naturally. And it gives you a lot of satisfaction.

    I believe one of the best modern masters of this is Jay Maisel. View his web site here. HIs philosophy is to “go out empty.” Meaning that he goes out to shoot without any preconceived notion of what he is looking for. He sees what is there and tries to make something of it. He would go walking around New York City every day with his camera. I don’t know if he still does since he moved out of “the bank” (a great story to look up). In regard to leaving your preconceived notions at home, Jay says “You can be looking for a long time and while you’re looking you’re going to miss everything that’s really there. The less specific the demands you place upon yourself are, the more open you can be to what’s in front of you.”

    Being open to what is in front of you is a key to capturing ephemeral moments. Be there. Be in the moment. The world around you is a beautiful and joyful place. Go out and react to it.