Justification

I'm constantly trying to justify why I insist on doing some things the hard way. Like black and white photography. My friend/co-worker and fellow serious photographer Joe Brygadier insists he can do anything digitally that can be done "the old fashioned way" and I have to agree with him on so many levels. In fact he agrees with me on most levels too, but we have a healthy film/digital dialogue going.

I read something completely unrelated today on the Time magazine website (a neat article about travel) that actually articulates how I feel about the genuine quality of film and traditional darkroom prints:

"No matter how much we crave it, authenticity is hard to come by in this country. We don't get it from our wide-stanced politicians, we don't get it from our lip-synching pop stars, and we rarely get it during our travel experiences."

Oh how true

The Masters

There are some great photographers out there who blog. David Hobby AKA "Strobist" has a world famous tutorial blog that will make any novice photographer an advanced amateur. Chase Jarvis is one of my favorite current commercial photographers and is on the cutting edge of the industry. But Joe McNally is one of the best storytellers in the business. He's been there and done that. He admittedly has been fired from every job he's had but is arguably one of the most successful photographers of his generation.

He has a lengthy blog post this morning. He starts with quip about the economy and being a creative type in a down market. He goes on to talk about some of the jobs he's been fired from and ends with quite a profound conclusion:

"It ain’t the way it used to be, but what is? There’s never been any guarantees, or forgiveness, or for the last 10 or more years, fairness, in this industry. But here’s the thing.

"...We make pictures. At the end of the day, we create something potentially significant that did not exist at the beginning of the day. We go forward, despite the uncertainty. Because this is an act of love and passion, which defies reason and prudence.

"And we make that occasional good frame, the one that sings, the one that lifts our hearts and the hearts of everyone who sees it. That well and truly is as good as it gets."

I know some people don"t share my love for photography, but I count my blessings everyday that I'm able to do my work through a lens. I cant imagine it any other way. It may come at the cost for my family of a more lucrative traditional career, but enjoying what you do with a wonderful family who supports you, is truly as good as it gets.

Photography Lesson

Every once in a while people will ask me learn photography like me. Well, here's a good answer:



No, but seriously, the Digital Photography School online has this tutorial today about 5 Elements of Composition in Photography. The author also defines the "Rules" of photography (like the rule of thirds) uniquely:

"Instead of looking at composition as a set of ‘rules’ to follow - I tend to view it more as a set of ingredients that can be taken out of the pantry at any point and used to make a great ‘meal’ (photograph)."

Pretty good advice for those of you just starting out with a camera. Or for those of you more technical minded folks who have the camera mastered, but can't seem to get good pictures. We learned a lot of these principals in design school, and every design element can also apply to good photography.

EDIT: [EV +/-] Exposure Compensation blog had a great post the other day "Of Design and Photography". It's actually more of a book recommendation. He gets a little more philosophical about photography and design as it relates to viewers, but is worth a read (the blog that is. I cant vouch for the book).

EDIT 2: There's a part 2 of the Digital Photography School article mentioned in the main body of this post. I knew there were a few of the design principals left out. I just didn't remember which ones (since it's been so long since school). Anyway, he goes over the rest there.

The Economy

So I was pretty excited about selling stock pictures. That is until the agency I used decided to stop licensing pictures. Yea, Photoshelter had traditionally been a hosting service for photographers digital files, but decided to try to improve the photography market by charging a more reasonable price for photographers instead of the microstock agencies who undercut photographers. They also insisted on giving photographers 70% of the sale instead of the ever decreasing percentage the bigger houses are passing on. Good idea in theory, but as long as there's photographers willing to undercut themselves by selling to microstock or the big houses charging subscription rates, there will not be room in the market for agencies like Photoshelter to do the right thing.

So thanks to those of you friends and family who were willing to sign model releases and tolerate me asking for "Active Senior" moments. I might still try to find a place to license these pictures for me.

Maybe I need to look no further than doctors offices. Maybe the insurance companies will pay for a couple prints if the Md's will write a perscription for a nice picture series.

Politics

So I've been seeing a lot of politics showing up in my photography blog reading and I don't like it. If I see a great photographer making a political statement I don"t really agree with, I feel like I cant like his/her work. If I wanted to talk politics, I'd tune into CSPAN. It started very subtle with a mention of this or that, but Photo District News ran a piece where famous photographer Jill Greenberg was commissioned to shoot the cover of the Atlantic magazine. I'm not going to rehash it here, but it's been all over the photography blogosphere. This guy who writes a right wing blog has been writing a lot about it and has included some screen shots of the extra stuff she did to the pictures. One of my new favorite photographers, Mark Tucker, an Obama supporter, condemns her on his blog.

If you must use photography in politics, another of my new favorite photographers, Richard Avedon (or shall I say recently discovered. He died in 2004.), did it well in 1976 to chronicle the bicentennial presidential election in Rolling Stone. In order to NOT express his personal opinions, he allowed his subjects to choose their own pose and clothing so his biases would not skew the picture. Please check out his work. He's got a great timeless style.

Check out some of the people outlined in 1976 and their job titles.



I was only born in the late 70's, so I didn't realize that George H. W. Bush was the Director of the CIA.



I think I knew that Donald Rumsfeld was the first Pres. Bush's Sec. Def., but I didn't know he was even before the Regan Administration. There are some other neat pictures in there like JFK's mother:



Part of why I love photography is that it freezes time. Look at the styles: