Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: psychology

Critique Your Own Work
It is important to be able to honestly critique your own work. Can you objectively see it as others do? I believe it is a learned skill.
It will be critiqued
Every time we look at our images, we are critiquing them. When our friends or even our spouse look at them, they are critiquing them. They will probably keep their real opinions to themselves, but inside their head, they are being honest.
And, of course, when we approach a gallery or enter a contest, we are explicitly inviting critique. The gallery manager or judge is seeing hundreds or thousands of competing images. They will be brutally honest and severe in their comparison and criticism. They are only going to choose a handful of the many competing entries they are given.
Even if we are just posting on social media to show other people where we are and what we are doing, they are forming opinions of the pictures. I would theorize that, if you care at all about images, it is impossible to look at a picture without forming an opinion. And everyone who looks at yours does it.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
First do it ourself
That may sound harsh, but I believe it is reality. Since it will happen, shouldn’t we jump in and be the most severe critic of our pictures before others do? Shouldn’t we eliminate weak pictures and fix the problems in the others? If we are very deliberate to only show our best images, that will save us embarrassment and make us look like a better photographer.
You will never see my unedited images unless I am teaching a workshop on editing and want to prove a point. I shoot a lot. Most are not great. And I don’t even intend some of them to be very good. Some are purely experimental. “What if” moments where I am exploring to see if what I did seems to lead in a useful direction.
It is common to make several shots of a scene. But I will typically pick only 1 as the best. That is the only one you would ever see. And even then, the best of a set still may not be a very good image.
And it is much more than the technical perfection of an image.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Study
My friend Cole Thompson believes in what he calls “photographic celibacy“. He does not look at the work of other photographers so that he is not influenced by them.
That does not work for me. I consider it valuable to study all forms and genres of image making. There are things to be learned from photography and painting and movies, graffiti and magazines and advertising. Most any genre from Renaissance to Romanticism to Impressionism to Abstract to post-modernism can give us insight in how other artists have chosen to express their ideas.
Read books where artists discuss their thought process. Go to museums and galleries. Cultivate friends who have artistic perception. Take in as much as possible.
But learn. Don’t follow.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Learn your taste
We are artists. That means we have a point of view to share with the world, and particular visual styles we use to do it. We each must find and understand our values and style. These preferences guide our photographic decisions.
If you are new at photography, it is natural to look at an artist and say we want to make work that looks like theirs. That is OK, for a while. Copy someone we are studying to internalize how they do it. But it is important then to re-center ourself and decide what, if anything, of what we learned we want to adopt to our own art.
Maybe it is nothing. We may greatly admire their art, but conclude it is not applicable to what we feel and want to do. For example, I really like some of Joel Grimes‘ portraits. But it is unlikely I will ever do an image in his style. I don’t shoot portraits, and the edgy, high-tech style is not mine.
My point is that, with lots of experience and practice, I am learning how I see and what kind of images I want. Anything that makes me better at that adds to my skills and is valuable. Anything that doesn’t may be interesting and educational, but probably not valuable.
Give it some time
We are all basically using the same tools. It is not the technology that differentiates us.
Famous jazz musician Miles Davis said, “Sometimes, you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” This is probably true of any art form. I believe it is true of photography.
We learn and practice and imitate other artists and chase “likes”, but eventually, if we persist, we learn to be ourselves. I don’t think there are shortcuts (sorry). If you have been at it for a while, you are probably not producing the same type of work now that you did 20 years ago. Hopefully, you are now creating images that are uniquely you.
Each of us is a mix of genes and education and experience and values and motivations, tempered by our unique life experiences, and wrapped in a frail human body. No one else’s mix is the same as yours. That’s why we should not try to “be” some other artist we admire. We can’t. We can only authentically be ourselves.
But even when we learn to be ourselves, that doesn’t mean our work is good. The sad truth is that most of the trillions of photos shot every year are unexceptional. We must learn the skill of critically evaluating our own work.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Make a portfolio
An excellent way to examine yourself and understand where you are artistically is to put together a portfolio. I find that I am not as critical as I should be unless I do this. Pretend you are going to submit your portfolio to a gallery. The portfolio can’t have more than 20 images.
That limit is the problem and the beauty. It is not difficult pulling out 300 pictures you like. Forcing that down to 200 hurts some, but isn’t too much of a problem. Then grit your teeth and make the cuts down to 100. This is getting painful. You are having to cut some of your favorite pictures.
Then it gets hard. You think you can’t possibly take any more out. But the goal staring at you is 20. From here on out, you are having to do serious self-examination. Each image must be scrutinized more carefully. Every one must be justified to stay in the select set.
Liking, even loving an image is not enough. We must objectively decide if it is a strong piece of art on its own. Is the technical craft and the composition solid enough to stand up to criticism? Does it go beyond a record shot, having that “something extra“?
This is painful. When it gets down to about 30, every one you eliminate feels like you are giving up one of your children. Each picture must compete head-to-head against every other one. The weaker must be eliminated. You try to talk yourself into cheating and keeping 25 or 30 for the portfolio. But push on. Cutting the last 10-20 images is by far the most difficult. But also, the most instructive.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Self-examination
Congratulations! You have put together a portfolio! The regret over the ones eliminated will fade quickly. You just eliminated them from this portfolio. You didn’t delete them from your disk. Now it is time to reflect on what you have created and try to learn.
Just look at your images for a while. Consider each one individually. Why do you like it? How is it better than all the ones you eliminated? What do you learn about yourself from it? Then reflect on the whole set. You might be surprised to discover a harmonious style or approach, even though each may be a different subject.
Forcing yourself through the process of narrowing down a set of good pictures to a very small set of great pictures is an excellent way to learn to critique your work. Having a fixed goal forces us to make hard decisions instead of being vague.
You will probably discover that you have a set of images that you are proud to show anyone. Ones you believe will stand up to close examination by experts. And that you have a style that is your own.
Critique your own work, severely. Be such a severe critic that you are sure you will not be ashamed to show anyone the survivors. And make sure your work proves you are human, not an AI.
November 26, 2025
What Does It Mean
We’re artists. Artists create art. We’re told art is supposed to have meaning. Do we always know what does it mean?
High art
We’re repeatedly told that art has meaning. It should educate or challenge or at least raise questions. To many, art should support a cause and try to change the world.
But when we read artist statements and gallery statements, it can seem they are speaking a different language. One too high for us commoners to understand. Therefore, we are not in the inner circle. But remember, they are selling a product. The more elite it appears to be, the higher the price it can command and the more collectable it is. I understand, but I don’t like the game.
This is from the point of view of photography, because that is the main art I understand. I can somewhat understand that if you have a very labor-intensive product that takes weeks or months to create, it may be necessary to do whatever you can to make it more valuable. And putting all that time and work into it makes you want to believe it must have great artistic significance. After all, if I can create a finished photo in a few hours but you need weeks to create your painting, the painting must have deeper meaning, right?
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Where does meaning come from?
But where does meaning come from? Do I put meaning in when I create a photograph? Or does the viewer assign meaning to it? Or is there even meaning at all?
Maybe all of those.
Sorry to be vague, but that is the way it seems to me. There are no clear, definite answers. Like many important things in life, the answer is “it depends”.
I think sometimes that I have meaning in mind when I make a photo. Sometimes not. I am occasionally surprised by meanings that viewers of my images describe to me. I have to try to keep a poker face while I’m thinking “where did they come up with that?”
And when I read some artist statements about images I can’t help being a little skeptical. They must be incredibly deep thinkers to have visualized all of that meaning and symbolism at the instant they took the photo.
But I typically do not operate on those lines.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Whose meaning?
This brings up the question of whose meaning are we talking about? As the artist, I may have visualized a meaning at that moment. This would be based on my cumulative feelings and experiences. But each viewer will form his own interpretation of meaning in the image. And each may be different, based on their own feelings and experiences. The viewers are experiencing the image in a different context than I shot it.
As the artist, do I have the right to decide the meaning and require everyone to line up with it? I don’t think so. The picture is mine, but each viewer’s meaning is theirs.
An art critic or curator may analyze one of my images in detail. They can talk about the composition and lighting and placement of elements and use of color and how those formed or contributed to the meaning. They could go into the symbolism it contains. How the symbols connect to some event or period and what meaning that has.
I might say thank you for complimenting my (probably instinctual) compositional design. But at the same time, my BS meter will be pegged. Maybe at some level I was aware of the symbolism and meaning he describes, but maybe not.
Do I create meaning?
I have often wondered if I create meaning in an image. I believe I occasionally use symbolism. Occasionally I touch on themes much larger than my work. But it is not my style, when making art, to be heavy-handed on meaning. I probably was unaware or only dimly aware of any symbolism when I make the image.
For example, a Sierra Club photographer might show hunters clubbing baby seals for their fur. This brutally makes their point, and it has “meaning” in the context of their cause, but it is not necessarily art. It is propaganda photography.
My art always expresses an opinion. But I do not believe I should try to force my opinion on you. If you look at my image and come to the same opinion I had, great. If not, I hope you form an opinion that makes you appreciate the image.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Do I know what it means?
I am continually asking myself if I even know what an image means. This is especially true when I am editing and culling images. We all occasionally ask ourselves “why did I take that?” But at a deeper level the question is “what does it mean?”
I often have to say, I don’t know. It triggered some emotion. Maybe that emotion was just that it was pleasing. But I know that sometimes I had a feeling that it had some meaning I might not have been able to express then.
I’ve stopped trying to over analyze my images as I am shooting them. That can come later during editing.
And another aspect of this I find very interesting is that the meaning or worth of an image often changes for me with time. I usually use a technique I call slow editing. That is, I try to wait for days or weeks before doing serious edits. This lets the emotion of the shoot fade and allows me to examine the images in a more detached way. Obviously, I don’t follow the common practice of downloading daily and rushing some images out to the eagerly waiting internet.
A side effect of slow editing is that my opinion of some images changes between the time I shot it and the time I edit it. Sometimes dramatically. I have been known to throw out most of a shoot that I thought was going to be significant. On the other hand, there have been times that an image I was about to throw out ends up being my favorite of a shoot. My understanding changes. A realization grows of something I must have been drawn to when I captured the image, but it did not break into my consciousness until I gave it time.
So, do I know what my images mean? Maybe over time, after reflecting on them long enough, I might have a glimmer of understanding. Perhaps I see a connection to my beliefs or values. I might, occasionally, even say an image has meaning.
But in general, I resist the presumption that my images “mean” anything of themselves. If I or a viewer give them meaning, that is wonderful. Meaning only makes sense for a human.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Make art
So, what about meaning? If you are making fine art, I recommend not worrying too much about what does it mean. Instead, concentrate on making what you consider to be your art. Pictures without art are advertising or propaganda or snapshots. Art without obvious meaning is still art.
I try to be gentle about conveying meaning to my viewers. To me, being heavy-handed robs an image of depth. Viewers will assign meaning to it. Or they won’t. It is fine with me if they just like it.
And worrying too much about meaning when I am shooting robs me of much of the emotional attachment I felt at the time. I don’t appreciate a meaningful but lifeless image. I want my images to feel fresh and lively and maybe, in a way, humorous. Sometimes just being pretty can be enough.
Make the best art you can. Put your feelings and intensity into it. Let yourself be surprised by the meaning. The best ones will have meaning, because it is an expression of your deep attachment to the subject. Your viewers want to see the meaning you felt. And they are free to create their own meaning.
November 5, 2025
Lean Into It
I can’t be passive about my art, my photography. The only way I know to approach it is to lean into it. To boldly and confidently attack it.
Different styles
We all have different personalities and different working styles for our art. A portrait photographer or wedding photographer might need to be in positive control of the situation. To direct the subjects to get the shots and results anticipated. On the other hand, a street photographer may unobtrusively “stalk” the shots he wants. He works completely in the background and usually without the subjects being aware of being photographed.
A landscape photographer may plan a trip long in advance to be at a certain location at what he determines to be the best time for the shot he wants. Or another one may just go wandering with no preconceived plans or shot list.
These are examples. All show different methods of approaching the craft. But regardless of the approach or the personality, one of the common ingredients in our art is intensity.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Intensity
All good artists I know share a certain type of intensity about their craft. When they are doing their art, they are “on” – focused, earnest, single-minded.
In my limited experience, this seems to be true no matter what genre they work in. Their personality modifies the way this intensity is expressed, but it is usually there.
I think this intensity helps to focus us on where we are and what is happening. On our goals or what we are experiencing. It helps us to stay in the moment.
People talk with some longing about flow states and how desirable they are. But in my art and in the career I had before that, I find them common. Valuable and wonderful, but fairly easily achieved.
That is not bragging. I think the intensity and focus I can bring to my work enables flow. It is not uncommon for me to be so caught up in my photography or writing or editing that hours can pass without me being conscious of them. From talking to other artists, I believe this is a shared experience for many.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Mindful
I often talk about the desirability of being mindful. The intensity of our focus on our work leads to this type of mindfulness. Mindfulness in the sense that we are completely caught up in the moment. We are immersed in our art and the creative process. Other concerns and considerations do not exist for us at that moment.
Let me emphasize that I am taking about lower case “mindfulness”. Not some system of chants or meditation. It is not a semi-religious experience for me. I hold my own religious beliefs, and they are separate from this.
I believe this type of mindfulness is a result of my intense focus on my art, not a cause of my creative output. That is, my focus leads to creativity and mindfulness, not the other way around.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Do it
We all get into creative slumps. No new ideas are popping up. We aren’t even enthusiastic about getting out and taking pictures or editing. That’s natural.
But I feel that one of the worst things we can do is just sit around waiting to feel inspired. At these times, I believe it is important to get up and get out and work. Go out to “do” art and do it until we loosen up and get into the moment and things start to flow.
This is what I mean by “lean into it“. It is a process of embracing what we are doing and the situation we are in, making it into something good. It is a matter of overcoming a situation or our inertia. We push back against what is resisting us, and deal with it, with confidence and determinism.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Resistance can often be a good thing. That is what exercise basically is. Forcing our body to work against the weights or the track builds up strength and endurance. I believe strongly that it works the same way for our mental powers. We need to read and think about challenging material. Things that exercise our brain. I can’t prove it, but I believe it also works for our creative powers. We learn to create better by going through the pain of creating.
Same in our photography. We often blame circumstances, and they are real and inescapable. But much of the time the real barrier is our attitude. We are not willing to change our attitude and put in the work to overcome the situation. Get out the door (or go to where you do your work), get switched on, find your intensity. Lean into it.
Nike was right: just do it.
Do one thing every day that scares you. Those small things that make us uncomfortable help us build courage to do the work we do.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Inspiration is for amateurs. Us professionals just go to work in the morning.
Chuck Close
October 22, 2025
If No One Ever Saw It
Would you still take this shot if no one ever saw it? The answer to that can tell us important things about our goals and motivation.
There are many reasons for shooting images. I am focusing on “serious” pictures. Not just selfies or simple travel pictures or sunsets. Rather, ones where we are motivated to put our best effort into it because it is important to us. Where we are trying to create something lasting.
Shoot for hire
Some photographers are hired to create images for a client. It may be commercial photography or weddings or other things. but the result is that you will shoot images as specified by the client. They expect to see most if not all of the shoot.
This is a good way to earn money and build a reputation. If you can impose some of your style and personality on the result, it can also be a creative outlet. But ultimately, the client dictates.
In the context of this article, the point is that the client expects to see most of your shots. They will pick the ones they want to use.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Shoot for a competition
Sometimes we shoot for a competition. Whether it is International Photographer of the Year or your local camera club monthly contest, the process is generally the same.
We probably are given a subject or genre to focus on. We may have a deep catalog of relevant images to choose from, or we may go out and shoot specifically for the contest.
But ultimately, we will have to go through the painful process of deleting all except the one (or 5 or 10, depending on the contest) that will be submitted. Then it will be judged and, hopefully, shown to the “world” as a winner.
The point is that this is an outward focused process. The result of the exercise is to carefully present our star image to the world to compete. Sometimes we even study past winning images and the judges to try to game the system and give ourselves an edge.
The goal is to win in a public arena. Maybe at the expense of what we really like best.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Shoot for exposure
Many believe the siren song of “likes”. That lots of clicks, comments, and followers makes us a “real” artist, maybe even important.
I am having to talk here from what i have observed. I do not personally participate in this. Sorry if I overstate it.
I will just ask what has that social media presence earned you, versus what it has cost you? Becoming well-known and widely followed, maybe even becoming an ‘influencer”, is usually a long process with lots of time and effort. It involves learning the algorithms used by your social media channels of choice and trying to optimize for them. Maybe this involves conforming to the type of work that is popular with their viewers. The things that usually get “likes’.
This may not be the work you resonate with. Perhaps your real creative work is unpublished.
Keeping up with this takes a lot of time and may involve bending our artistic vision to the popular taste du jour. I can see that if you are a commercial photographer this might be a way to get visibility and some new clients. But I do not play this game. It is not worth it to me.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Shoot for ourselves
Or, if you are very lucky or strong minded, you decide to shoot primarily for yourself. You are the audience who matters.
It is hard to get rich or famous like this, so why would anyone choose to do it? Well, I believe that comes down to our goals, our personality, and our situation.
Is your goal to be famous and, maybe, rich? Or is it to satisfy some creative need within? I shoot to fill that creative need. I am an introvert. The marketing and self-promotion required to shoulder my way into the mainstream art world is alien to my personality. It is too big a price for me to pay. Trying to do that made my art drudgery, not creative fun. Plus, I am very lucky and grateful that my situation doesn’t require me to earn my living from my art. At this point in my life, I can reserve it for my personal joy and expression.
I realize that everyone is different and has varying goals and needs. This is just being honest about my motives.
You won’t see it
So, back to the question of what if no one sees it. I think I have established that my primary audience is myself. I’m not trying to make my income from photography, and I do not really care about likes or comments. They are welcome when they happen, but they are not the reason for making an image.
I do share some images with friends and the occasional show entry or online article, like here. Even an infrequent hanging in a gallery. Most of my images are for sale. But I would give a print away to a friend who appreciates it rather than sell it for an insulting price that doesn’t even cover my costs.
And the ones anyone does see just are the tip of the iceberg. I would not show an image I am not proud of. That means only a small portion of the images I shoot might ever be seen.
If I shoot thousands of images but only consider a few of them worthy of being seen, am I a failure? Not in my mind. My standards are high, and I am not motivated to try to get much seen publicly.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Would I shoot it?
Photography is mainly a creative exercise for me. I resonate with the challenge of trying to do something above average with the scene I find. If I am learning and growing and making fresh new work that pleases me, I am content. That is my standard and reason for making pictures. Your mileage may vary.
So, would I take the shot if no one ever saw it? Trick question. I will see it, and I am the audience that matters for my work. Yes, whenever I get the chance, I will shoot it. It may not be a “money” shot. It may not make me famous. But if it excites me, that is what is important.
Note: The inspiration of the phrase “if no one ever saw it” came from Nuno Alves on Medium.
October 8, 2025
Depth of Insight
In a recent Medium article, Marc Overmars gave a good introductory description of depth of field (DOF) This is a technical term uniquely applicable to photography. I want to take the concept in a somewhat more philosophical direction. Maybe there is a concept of depth of insight.
Purely technical
On the surface, depth of field is purely a technical concept. it only applies to photography, because it is associated with the physics of focusing through a lens.
I went into some of the issues in a previous blog. Sorry for the math. 🙂 I know most people don’t like that. I don’t have much use for it either, and I would never use it when I’m out in the field shooting, but some level of understanding is helpful for mastery of the art.
Maybe the most challenging concept from that article, and a fundamental concept of DOF, is “circle of confusion”. The idea that there are acceptable levels of unsharpness. Very briefly, only one point in the frame is technically “in focus”. But practically, a certain amount of unsharpness can be tolerated before we would consider something blurry. The size of this allowable unsharpness is called the circle of confusion. So, when your DOF calculator gives you a distance range, those are the points where the focus becomes unacceptably blurry. The math is exact, but the concept isn’t.
Perhaps there are analogies in our understanding of what we shoot.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Looking deeper
Let’s set the math and technical details aside for now. I can hear the sigh of relief.
I propose that there is an analogous concept concerning the sharpness of our intent when we are shooting. That is, did I just point my camera at a subject, make a decent composition, and shoot? Or was I clear in my mind why I was taking the picture and what it was really about?
I have often referenced the Ansel Adams quote that “There’s nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” There are 2 reasons for that. First, it is a brilliant observation. Second, it is something I struggle with, so it is very real and close to me.
Yes, I can compose, and I can use good technique to get the sharpness I want. I can use light to my advantage, and I have a lot of experience post processing. But even so, I often look at my images in despair. Too often they are sharp images of a fuzzy concept. When I am honest with myself, I know that sometimes I didn’t have much in mind when I shot them.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Art happens in our head
Maybe it is too obvious to state, but art happens in our head, not in the camera or the computer. As with any definite statement about art, this is a generalization. Sure, there have been many times when I was working with a scene and experimenting (e.g. playing), and things seemed to come together. That is the exception, though.
All too often I look at my images and realize they are, at best, just record shots of a place I was at. No depth of insight. Not much below the surface to give you a reason to pause over it and consider it.
The fault is entirely my own. I didn’t have anything to say, and I said it.
There is a marked contrast with the images I get when I go out to shoot a project, or ones I shoot when I feel strongly about the subject or the situation. Many more of them are strong and satisfying.
We all know this: the more we put into something the more we are likely to get out of it. Why don’t I remember it more when I am out shooting?
My excuse, other than simply laziness, is that I like to go out exploring and shoot interesting things I come across. I don’t always find interesting or “deep” things. That is just that, an excuse. Maybe it is as much that I didn’t have much to say that day. I try to remind myself of Jay Maisel‘s quote that “If you talk with nothing to say, that’s bad. When you shoot with nothing to say, that’s worse.”
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Circle of confusion
So, is there a “circle of confusion” concept for our shooting? Maybe so. If we can’t get our ideas into focus, maybe we shouldn’t shoot. Do our ideas have to be in perfect focus? No. Like the technical term, maybe there is an acceptable level of unsharpness. I hope so.
What do I mean by this? Well, sometimes I realize exactly what the scene means to me, and I can determine exactly how to shoot it. That is great. I am often happy with the result. Sometimes, though, I just have a feeling, a sense of what I am experiencing. I have learned to follow those instincts even if I cannot clearly express their meaning at the moment. If something is drawing me, there is probably a reason.
Later, while editing, I may realize what was calling me to it. Sometimes an image I was initially dismissive of emerges as the strongest of the shoot. It could be that’s just luck. I prefer to think my instincts were trying to tell me something.
Maybe I am being too hard on myself. Jay Maisel also said “You always end up with too many pictures to edit and too few that you feel ‘got it’.” I suppose the feeling is common to all photographers, but it still is frustrating.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Projects for focus
I am learning to use projects to help me focus more clearly. A project is a chance to think deeply about something, decide how I feel about it, and then find opportunities to express it.
It is basic psychology that when you are concentrating on something you are more attune to it. A simple example: a friend was thinking about buying a Nissan car. I don’t think about there being many of them around, but after that conversation it seemed like every other car I saw was a Nissan. I was more attuned to them.
A somewhat more relevant example is from a recent trip to France. It was a family trip, not a dedicated photo expedition. But I didn’t want to come back with just random tourist shots. So, I created a few projects to keep in mind to focus my thoughts and energy. One of them I called Sacred Places. It helped me be much more aware of cathedrals, of course, but also monuments and memorials and standing stones. Even a small village celebration of their liberation in WWII. I felt it helped me to see more opportunities, and I looked deeper at the occasions I found.
If I don’t see it, why should you?
Circling back to Jay Maisel’s quote: “If you talk with nothing to say, that’s bad. When you shoot with nothing to say, that’s worse.” If we can’t focus our feelings and experience, are we shooting with nothing to say? Just taking a sharp or well composed picture isn’t enough. If you can’t participate in the experience I felt, then I’m not bringing you anything other than an “I was there” picture. Maybe it is pretty, but there isn’t much to feel or remember.
Perhaps I do not have to be able to precisely express what I was feeling at that moment. Maybe there is a “circle of confusion” associated with our understanding of the image we are creating that gives us some margin for imprecision. But the circle of confusion in focusing helps discuss a range of acceptable sharpness, not permission to be out of focus. Maybe there is a range of acceptable understanding of our feelings leading to making an image. But little or no understanding is out of range. With no real understanding or feeling, there is little interest for viewers. Have something to say.
I am starting to concentrate. much more on depth of insight than depth of field.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Head image
I mentioned having Sacred Places in mind and encountering a memorial celebration in a small village in France. The image at the top was a result of that. We happened, by accident, to be there on the day of their annual celebration of liberation in WWII. They still remember and memorialize it to this day. That is heartwarming.
This flag display was presented while local dignitaries and military officials made speeches. I didn’t understand enough French to follow it, but it was moving.
Having the Sacred Placed project in mind made me more attuned to this. We stayed for all of it and loved being there. When they discovered that we were Americans I barely avoided having to give a speech at their village celebration afterward.
I hope a little of the dignity and solemnity of their memorial comes through.
October 1, 2025