Tag: photography

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2023 Workshops Update

Iceland – only 1 or 2 spots left! May 19-28

If you would like to go with me to the south coast of Iceland, May 19-28, I have 1 or 2 spaces remaining. This is a trip for photography, and we’ll have 19 hours of daylight with the remaining in twilight. So there will be 24-hour opportunities. We’ll visit the famous Vestrahorn, some glaciers, Jokulsarlon and the black beach of Reynisfjara, Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) to photograph puffins and the Viking Church, hot springs and, of course, waterfalls (Skogafoss, Gullfoss, Seljalandsfoss, Urridafoss, and more). Finishing in Reykjavik for walks in downtown (all the building artwork) and a visit to the beautiful Harpa Concert Hall and Hallgrimskirkja church. Interested individuals or couples should contact me ASAP. For more information and to register, check out: Iceland Workshop

Kyrgyzstan, June 2-14, only 2 spots remain!

Following the Iceland Workshop is nothern Kyrgyzstan, June 2-14. I have 2 spots available for this workshop. Also, contact me ASAP if you are interested. I and some Iceland participants will arrive in the capital Bishkek on May 30 to spend the intervening days exploring the city and surrounds prior to the workshop. During the workshop, with co-lead Tim Vollmer, we’ll visit the highlands, lakes, and mountains of northern Kyrgyzstan, meet the people, stay in a yurt a couple nights, photograph the Berkutchi (falconers who hunt with golden eagles) and the various styles of architecture, old and new. Information, itinerary, and registration are at the link.

My other workshops are still open and available. You can see them all Here.

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Photography vs Photograph, Part III

Part III

But for me photography is essentially not about art, society, or representation; I find seeing is essentially solitary, and photography is one of the emblems of that solitude
James Elkins, What Photography Is, 2011

The photograph is as complex a thing as the gesture of photography (as I’ve defined them in the previous two parts). The photograph, as Ansel Adams stated, is the performance, from the culmination of the preparation, practice, seeing, and imagination of the photographer. It is also the product of the use of the mechanical device of the camera recording the quality, quantity, and color of light reflected from, transmitted through, emanating from, and wrapped around the elements that lie before them. A photograph is a means of expression, artistically or otherwise, a way to communicate a concept, emotion, instruction, evidence, in a form and detail other types of communication lack. A photograph can be fact or entirely false or lie somewhere in between, can deceive, persuade, or inspire, but almost always serves as a prompt to memory, whether the memory is directly related to the content of the photograph or not. Photographs are part of our legacy, what we leave behind as our footprint marking our passage, A way for our descendants to know something about us when we can’t speak to them directly.

A photograph is both an image and a thing. As a thing, the photograph is part of the material culture of photography, something physical we hold in our hands, put in books and albums, burn, tear up, write on, send to loved ones, put in frames and hang on walls. When asked what possessions they would rescue from a burning home, one of the most frequent answers is photographs. We grieve when they are lost, as if part of our memory, our past, or our accomplishments has been taken. Most of the photographs made during the 19th Century have not survived to the present. Those that do still exist have acquired a value well beyond their original intent. Many of those surviving photographs have no more information to them than the image, no place, time, or name. Who are these orphaned people? What is their legacy?

In 2014, more photographs were made than in the 100 years of the 19th Century. In 2022, it’s estimated that 54,400 photographs were made worldwide EVERY SECOND, 196 million every hour, 172 TRILLION photographs in that year alone. These numbers are increasing. In 2014, the number of photographs made was a little over 1 trillion. It’s likely many of those photographs made in 2022 did not survive the year, and most will likely not survive another 20 years, never venturing beyond taking up space on a memory card or hard drive, lost during a power outage, hardware failure, or accidental hard drive formatting. The digital photograph is much more fragile than the analog photograph and film of history.

The photograph as image is the content representing the context in which the photograph was made, interpreted by the photographer and current culture, whether that is today or decades from now. The photographic image can be used differently than the physical print, especially in these days of electronic images. A physical print has a front where the image is and a back where information about the image can be placed. An electronic image may have meta data embedded into the file or in a separate location. If those parts, the image file and the associated sidecar .xml data file or other data file, for example, are separated, knowledge about that image is lost. I would argue that most digital photographs made today do not have embedded meta data, even information about who the photographer is. But it’s easy, and almost habit, to write something on the back of a printed photograph. An ongoing philosophy is a photograph is not a photograph until it has physical form as a print, which then begs to be shown and displayed. Though a physical print in a drawer is the same as a digital file on a hard drive. But a physical print also begs some other questions, such as how large should it be, what type of surface and display (mat, frame, paper, canvas, glass, metal, wood, fabric), where should it be displayed (wall, wallet, photo album/book, magazine) and the location (home, gallery, coffeeshop, pop-up, art show)? What is the appropriate way to showcase your photograph once you’ve created it?

The use of photographic images is also quite varied, from family memories to advertising, education to forensics, photojournalism to art. These days the distinctions are becoming more arbitrary, with the exception of forensic photography, perhaps. Though given enough time separation from their creation and use, even some forensic photographs could be used for commercial applications or art.

The use and meaning of a photograph changes with time as it moves from place to place and hand to hand. A family snapshot today is history tomorrow, or art. The camera in the hands of the photographer creates what Henri Cartier-Bresson called “a sort of visual chronicle.” Roland Barthes called the camera “clocks for seeing.”

The first (surviving) photograph is by Joseph Nicephore Niepce of rooftops seen from his upstairs window in France, in 1826 or 1827, although there is evidence others made photographs as early as 1800 (Thomas Wegdewood) or earlier, but they did not survive. Niepce’s photograph, as it is, must be kept in a light-tight box to keep it from turning black from exposure. Once photography reached the public, around 1839, it took off. Everything was fair game for the camera. A list of “firsts.”

1826-27 first surviving photograph, Joseph Nicephore Niepce
1839 first portrait, a selfie
1840 first hoax photo, Hippolyte Bayard photographed himself as a drowned man, reportedly in protest against the French Academy for failing to recognize his contribution to photography in preference to Daguerre. So, perhaps also the first protest photograph.
1840 first photo of the moon
1840 first nude portrait
1843 first photo of a US president (John Quincy Adams, after being in office). The first sitting president to be photographed was James Polk, 1848)
1843 first photo book, Anna Atkins cyanotypes of algae
1844 first commercially printed book illustrated with photographs, The Pencil of Nature, Henry Fox Talbot, calotypes
1845 first photo of the sun
1847 first war photograph, Mexican-American War, photographer unk
1848 first news photograph and first photo printed in a newspaper (not the same photos)
1860 first aerial photo
1878-1886 Edweard Muybridge pioneered the photographic study of animal and human locomotion and high speed photography (chronophotography)
1879 Edweard Muybridge invents the zoopraxiscope, precursor to the movie projector
1882 first photograph of lightning
1931 electronic flash invented by Harold Edgerton
1946 first photograph from space, camera aboard a V-2 rocket from 65 miles up
1957 first digital photo
1976 first photograph from Mars
1985 first personal video camera
1988 first digitally-manipulated photograph, by Thomas Knoll (inventor of Photoshop)
1995 digital videotape
1997 first camera phone photo
2000 Apple’s iMovie

Imagine, today, a world without photographs. It’s almost impossible. Photographs have become an integral part of human culture, although such a photo-less world existed for hundreds of thousands of years of human culture before the invention of the camera. Our current world is stuffed full with photographic images of all sorts and the convergence of audio-visual technology and the ability to nearly instantly transmit digital images around the planet to billions of people in the 20th Century fundamentally changed the importance and prevalence of photographs and how people record, interpret, and interact with the world. There are many important, inspirational, and influential photographs. Creating a list of them is a subjective exercise like Top Songs of History. Everyone has their favorites. Here is a list of 25 I’ve compiled, not necessarily in order of importance, or complete:

1. View from a Window, 1826/27 Joseph Nicephore Niepce
2. Earthrise, 1968, Astronaut William Anders, Apollo 8
3. Blue Marble, 1972, Astronaut Jack Schmitt, Apollo 17
4. Falling Man, 2001, Richard Drew
5. Man Jumping Puddle, 1930, Henri Cartier-Bresson
6. Clearing Winter Storm, 1937, Ansel Adams
7. Mushroom Cloud over Nagasaki, 1945, Lt. Charles Levy, Bombardier
8. Tank Man, Tiananmen Square, 1989, Jeff Widener
9. Pillars of Creation, 1995, NASA Hubble Telescope
10. Deep Field, 2022, James Webb Space Telescope
11. The Terror of War, 1972, Nick Ut
12. Pale Blue Dot, 1990, NASA Voyager 1
13. Woman & Child Falling from Fire Escape, 1975, Stanley Foreman
14. Child Coal Miners, 1908, Lewis Hine
15. Tutokanula Pass, Yosemite, ~1880, Carleton Watkins
16. Men on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin by Neil Armstrong, in reflection), 1969
17. Little Rock Central High School, 1957, Elizabeth Eckford
18. Nelson Mandela Becomes President of South Africa, 1994, Walter Dhladhla
19. Starving Child and Vulture, 1993, Kevin Carter
20. Shell & Rock Arrangement 15S, 1931, Edward Weston
21. Horse in Motion, 1878, Edweard Muybridge
22. Bullet Through Apple, 1964, Harold Edgerton
23. Atomic Bomb Explosion, 1952, Harold Edgerton
24. Cotton Mill Girl, 1908, Lewis Hine
25. Migrant Mother, 1936, Dorothea Lange
26. Bonus – Black Hole, M87, 2019, Event Horizon Telescope collaboration

When photography was first introduced, photographs were perceived as a perfect documentary medium because the detail recorded by the mechanical camera left no question about the “truth” of the subject depicted in the photograph. “No one”, writes philosopher Susan Sontag, “takes an easel painting to be in any sense co-substantial with its subject; it only represents or refers. But a photograph is not only like its subject, a homage to the subject, it is part of, an expansion of, that subject; and a potent means of acquiring it, of gaining control over it. Photographs do more than redefine the stuff of ordinary experience (people, things, events, whatever we see – albeit differently, often inattentively – with natural vision) and add vast amounts of material that we never see at all.” From the beginning, though, the perception that the camera doesn’t lie has been exploited by charlatans, propagandists, advertisers, and others to persuade and influence. In 1861, a jeweler named William H. Mumler, accidentally made a portrait photograph on a previously-exposed negative plate. The result was a ghostly, superimposed image of a previous client. The resulting photograph was passed around as a gag, but eventually found its way into the hands of someone at The Herald of Progress, a spiritualist journal, who printed the photograph in the journal, and “spirit photography” was born. Mumler latched onto the opportunity, perfected his double exposure technique, and embellished his marketing with spiritualist rhetoric. For nearly two years, Mumler was a very successful spirit photographer, making portraits of clients and capturing the “spirits” of lost loved ones looking over the living. Spiritualists caught up in the phenomenon claimed the photos were scientific evidence of their belief in the afterlife. Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, was a client of Mumler’s.

In 1863, a doctor (perhaps someone who should have known better, but representative of the popularity of the fad) sat for a Mumler portrait. However, when he received his photo he recognized the “spirit” as someone who was still quite alive. The doctor led a campaign to discredit Mumler. Mumler was also sued but was acquitted. By then his reputation was ruined. Other spirit photographers popped up all over the country, capitalizing on the belief by consumers the photographs were real.

Photographs today are much more easily manipulated than 140 years ago, yet photographs are still widely believed to be factual records, or disbelieved based on the perception they have been altered, regardless to what degree. The interpretation of the photograph, its subject, content, meaning, is almost entirely the responsibility of the viewer. Interpretation is formed by the viewer’s own knowledge, understanding, experience, prejudice, with the subject and content, just as it is in the creation of the photograph by the photographer. A portrait can be disbelieved by the sitter if they perceive, or wish themselves perceived, differently than the camera reveals, just as a photograph of a landscape or event (UFO sighting) can be disbelieved – or believed to be true – based on the expectations of the viewer.

Once a photograph is “released into the wild”, control by the photographer, how the photographer intended the photograph to be received and interpreted, is lost. The job of the photographer is to include in the photograph enough clues and information to solidify the intended meaning or message, whether it be factual or fanciful. Revealing the methodology used to make the photograph, especially in the fields of photojournalism and science/engineering/forensics, allows for “peer review” and assessment of the validity of the photography. Such a statement is also useful for differentiating the photograph as a type of art. Even manipulated artworks would benefit from a simple statement regarding the type of manipulation, such as sky replacement, composite, or element removal for clarity.

Obvious manipulations probably don’t need any such declaration, though there will always be someone who points out the manipulation or who thinks it’s real. Though what constitutes manipulation has also been debated since the beginning. Henri Cartier-Bresson went so far as to oppose the use of flash for a photograph, “if only out of respect for the actual light – even when there isn’t any of it. Unless a photographer observes such conditions as these, he may become an intolerably aggressive character.” László Moholy-Nagy, in 1923, expressed the problem and benefit with photography, photographers, and photographs: “The photograph enables us to experience space in new ways through an enlargement and sublimation of our appreciation of time and space and the perception of our surroundings, and its existence, with new eyes…The camera allowed for phenomena imperceptible to the human eye to be perceived, revealing aspects of existence never before seen or contemplated.” Edward Weston, in his Daybooks, Vol II, wrote in 1932, that “The variety of options available to the photographer for self-expression beyond the exact reproduction of subject/scene by the machine of the camera, give the photographer a myriad of possibilities for personal choice – one has far greater opportunity for self-expression through material opportunity than is granted the painter. The trouble has been with photographers, not photography!…for to produce work of any value in any line of creative endeavor, one must bore into the spirit of today. Old ideals are crashing on all sides, and the precise uncompromising camera vision is, and will be made so, a world force in the revaluation of life.”

The gesture of photography and the making of photographs provide one way for the discovery of oneself at the same time of exploring the world. The two processes are separate and interconnected, with intent and meaning, knowledge and experience important, even critical, components of both. Photography can mold us through the act and by viewing and discussing photographs. Photography, as I’ve described before, can be a Way of Life, not just professionally, but personally and experientially; a gateway to exploration and personal growth. Photography is a mode of specialized and personalized communication. Ansel Adams eloquently stated “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” The photographs left behind are a record of the time, a visual chronicle of a person’s experience and existence in the world, a view of the culture and associated events, and a story of each generation for future humans to view, interpret, and learn from. There is much more about photography and photographs, a treasure trove of information waiting to be learned, explored, and discovered. Review the history, read past and current interpretations, view photographs, explore and reflect on your own part in all this, and above all, engage in photography and make photographs.

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Review: USB Memory Direct Branded Flash Drives

Blue Planet Photography USB drive from USB Memory Direct
Back in April, I was contacted by Patrick Whitener, the partnership coordinator at USB Memory Direct (https://www.usbmemorydirect.com), maker of custom and branded flash drives. He wanted to know if I’d like to partner with them, try out their product, and write up a blog post about my impressions. I’d been thinking about a ‘giveaway’ for my workshops and classes, something like a USB drive loaded with lesson materials for my classes, writings and other materials for my workshops. Since it wasn’t going to cost me anything other than a review of the product (which I would likely be doing even if I purchased it), I agreed.

He contacted me on April 2 and I spent a few days thinking about it, whether I wanted to get involved or trust this offer. I did some research on USB Memory Direct and discovered they have a pretty good reputation. I’ve dealt with other promotional product companies before that were less than desirable. In the meantime, Patrick sent me a couple emails asking me if I was still interested. Not pushy, just checking in. I appreciated that. No hard sell, no stupid jokes. Just email, too, no phone calls.

I chose the type of USB drive from the offered selection, the Tower style. Made of wood (the description says “pine.”), the cap is attached by a couple magnets which are strong. Personally, I’d prefer an integrated cover, like their Ninja model, because a separate cap without a lanyard or other means of attachment is just going to get lost eventually, but that one wasn’t available for the promotion. I like the natural wood look. It goes with my business name and “nature” theme.

USB drive showing magnetic cap attachment

I had to tweak my logo to fit the dimensions of the drive space available for printing (but they will do that for you if you wish) and sent Patrick the file. I asked if he could print my website on the back and he replied, no problem.

USB drive showing front logo and back website address printing

On April 21, I received a pre-production image of a drive they had made up for me to review. It looked great, except for some reason my logo had been shifted slightly and “photography” had been re-typed and misspelled as “photogrphy”. I let Patrick know and it was corrected without fuss. Patrick asked me if there was any content I wanted them to pre-load to the drives for me. I hadn’t decided what content I was going to put on the drives, so declined the offer. This is a service they offer, though, free of charge, as far as I know. So, if you are ordering a bunch of drives (even 25) having them add the content saves me/you a ton of time. Loading 25 drives from a single or double USB port would take a decent amount of time that I could be spending doing something more productive. But, having a blank drive gives me the freedom to customize how many drives receive what content, whenever I get that figured out.

The 25 8GB drives were shipped on April 24 and I received them on May 5, 7 business days (12 calendar days) later. Their estimate for shipping is 5-7 days once the drives are ready. The drives came individually wrapped in plastic envelopes, like a plastic sleeve for a greeting card or matted photo, rubber-banded in groups of 5, then wound with bubble wrap. There were no additional papers (that I remember) in the typical plain brown box. Though, I think there must have been an inventory sheet. The full color printing is crisp, the color accurate, and appears to be quite durable. I’ve had a couple other promotional items where the printing flaked or peeled off after a short time. This printing looks and feels like it will last longer than the average bear.

Being the cautious type, I ran a couple of the drives through a virus scan and they came up clean. Of course, a company selling promotional USB drives wouldn’t want to send off products infected with a virus or malware, but I had never dealt with this company before and, despite the great reviews, it never hurts to check.

This style of drive, the Tower, fits nicely on my desktop machine and my Surface, and doesn’t impede adding a second USB drive where there are multiple ports. I have another novelty USB drive I received at a conference that’s shaped like a rabbit, and it takes up all the space to either side of the port, so it’s nice to have a thin drive in case I need to transfer from one drive to another or grab files from a second drive without removing the first. My logo is clearly presented, also, which is good promotion for me.

Single drive in USB port on desktop
Single drive in USB port
USB drives in adjacent ports
USB drives in adjacent ports

Next came the big question. If I ordered these drives without the promotion, how much would they cost? The Tower 8GB drives are USB SLC (Single Level Cell) which are faster and more reliable than typical consumer type USB drives. The drives I received are USB-A, but there are USB-C styles and also dual USB-A/C, like the Ninja model I referred to earlier. So, the price for the tower drive, as of around mid-May, 2020, in a quantity of 25, is $9.75 per unit, or $244 total. Increasing the quantity to 50 reduces the per unit cost to $8.00 each. The Ninja, all metal integrated construction, USB A/C, is $15 each, or $374.50 for 25. An order of 50 reduces the per unit cost to a little over $13. Capacity up to 64GB is available, priced accordingly.

With that price, comes free printing, free data loading (check that to be sure), lifetime warranty, and a price match guarantee.

The drives I received are fast-loading. I haven’t tested them all to check that they all work, but the two random ones I grabbed do. If that changes, I’ll post that additional information here. I will assume they are all fine. Overall, I’m pleased with the experience and the product from USB Memory Direct. This is the first promotional item like this I’ve tried and once I figure out exactly how I’m going to incorporate these drives in my classes/workshops and other promotions I’ll likely go back to Patrick for more. Since I let Patrick know I received the drives, I have not heard from him. No pestering about whether I wanted to buy more, when was I going to get my review up on my blog, etc. No hard selling, which I really like. It makes me more comfortable to go back to USB Memory Direct when and if I decide this is a promotional item I would like to incorporate, without dreading the follow up. I appreciate that.

The one thing I might change is to put the web address on the front, so it’s more visible (promotion, you know). However, I like the simple logo front.

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Point Lobos Dreaming – limited edition handmade book

Indiegogo campaign
Please help support my project to learn bookbinding and create a limited edition handmade book for you

I’ve been learning bookbinding on my own for the past 3 months or so and have decided it’s time to learn from someone who knows more than I do. I’ve started an Indiegogo campaign to help me attend a week-long bookbinding workshop at the San Francisco Center for the Book, and to create photographs to include in a handmade, signed, limited edition book (20) in its own handmade slipcase, titled “Point Lobos Dreaming”.

For more information, and to help support this project please go to https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/point-lobos-dreaming-ltd-edition-handmade-book#/:

10% after 4 days! Thank you! Thank you for your continued support! I’m really excited about this project.

What is an artist book, or artists’ book, or artistic book? There are many ways to label it and many more types of artist/artists’/artistic books, which makes this type of book difficult to define. The type of book is recognizable, for the most part: hand made, looks different than the ‘typical’ mass-produced book, can use non-traditional material, and may even not look like a “book” at all. I’ll use the term artists’ book just to keep the typing to a minimum and to refer to the book as “artist owned”, meaning the artist took ownership in its creation by being the maker of all or nearly all of the book’s components; structure, design, content, appearance, from determining the size to cutting the paper to making the cover and hand-stitching the spine.

One predominant aspect of the artists’ book is this type of book tends to cross boundaries and preconceptions and definitions of what a book is, often using cross-disciplinary media and various modes of construction. Instead of the book being about art, or containing something artful, the book itself is an artwork. The book maker has total freedom and control in its production (which creates a bit of anxiety and fear as well as excitement in the artist, especially if the artist hasn’t explored this mode of artmaking before). One thing commonly agreed on; the artists’ book is not simply a book of artwork or a representation of an artist’s body of work, not a diary or sketchbook or blank book, even if it is handmade. Artist’s books are made to be interacted with, the same as with any other book form. Artists’ books are more often than not made in very limited editions compared to machine-printed books or even other limited edition artworks.

The artists’ book can be more deeply or expansively personal than other types of art because of the opportunity to include different media types, from the obvious writing to painting and drawing, photography, collage, augmented reality, even carving and sculpture. Any type of media can be incorporated into the artists’ book form and be used as an appropriate means of expression, as the artist demands. “Artists’ books exist at the intersection of printmaking, photography, poetry, experimental narrative, visual arts, graphic design, and publishing.” (https://blog.library.si.edu/blog/2012/06/01/what-is-an-artists-book/).

While book form has been around for centuries (3500 BC or so), the machine-printed book arrived in 1475 with the Gutenberg press, and artists’ book didn’t really come into being until the 1950s when European artists began experimenting with and exploring the book form. The artists’ book, like sculpture, printmaking, and photography before it, is having a tough time being accepted as a valid form of fine art, and many people have no idea this form of art even exists.

The books I will be making are not artists’ books according to that definition. They are handmade books, for sure, and there will be artistic aspects to them. But each type of book I make for this project are essentially the traditional book form. There may be a time, likely will be, that as I become more experienced with assembling the book form I will explore and experiment with an artists’ book. And it may be sooner than you or I think. I already have a concept for an artists’ book that I may try in the near future based on some photographs I made in the Redwoods of California, with the concept of landscape ecology, fire ecology, and a land ethic (a la Aldo Leopold).

Overall, the hand made book, the artists’ book, is another form of artistic expression and communication based on the artist’s experiences with the world. It’s a way to make the abstract visible or the visible abstract or to be completely and unambiguously literal.

“When we make something with our hands it changes the way we feel. The way we feel changes the way we think. The way we think changes the way we act.” — Carl Wilkens

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Creativity

Being creative is one of the most multidisciplinary things a person can do. When making a photograph, you don’t just wave the camera around, randomly pressing the shutter release. Admittedly, you could do that if your intent was making abstract images. But, that’s not the usual practice. For all the parts involved in making a photograph to come together, even a mediocre photograph (a “snapshot” in the opinion of some), the photographer consciously and unconsciously dips into their internal resource of knowledge and experience, pulling inspiration from education and practice, other interests, from family, culture, and from occupations. The photographer actively and purposefully selects the subject, elements, arrangement of those elements in a pleasing and/or meaningful composition, and sets an exposure to achieve the result visualized in their mind. From the relative chaos of our surroundings photographers create the appearance of a selective world, define a visual space with boundaries in which we decide what is relevant, what is worthy of our attention, and what we want to bring to the attention of others. We select the elements of the story we want to tell and the meaning important to our intent.

Around 2500 years ago, philosophers began trying to answer the question “what is creativity?” Well, they’re still at it. And in the last 60 years or so the philosophers have been joined by neuroscientists who are attempting to tease creativity out of the cells of our brain and the wiring of our body. In all that time, there is still no agreement as to where creativity comes from or how it’s generated or a single definition of creativity. There are even different aspects of creativity: general creativity (as defined several ways), the creative person (who is a maker and/or thinker), the creative process (the process/steps in being creative), creative thinking (solving intellectual puzzles), and the creative object (which can be creative in and of itself in addition to being a created thing). What is, though, the essence of creativity? In this article I’ll be describing a definition of creativity, characteristics of the creative person, and the creative process.

In my research and through a bit of thinking on this question, a common denominator seems to form the foundation of creativity, in both humans and other animals: curiosity. The act of curious investigation involves a recognition and comprehension of things inside and outside our mind and body. The simplest definition of curiosity is exploratory behavior, the recognition that knowledge about something is missing which creates a desire to know and understand that missing information. Curiosity is seeking the answer to the question, “why, how, what?” and answering that question often relies on non-standard ways of finding out the answer; relies on the making of devices or formulas or ways of thinking or processes that previously didn’t exist. And humans are not alone in their quest for the answers to curiosity.

It’s a fact that the once held belief humans were advanced above other animals because we used tools and communicated has been debunked. We have to choose another criteria because in the last century we’ve discovered that birds, other primates, marine mammals, fish, and even invertebrates use tools, and often in a creative and innovative way once reserved strictly for us. The male bower bird of Australia builds an elaborate performance arena from grass and sticks, clearing an open “dance floor” then decorates his construction with specifically-colored items to attract females. Crows, ravens, and jays have been shown to possess advanced puzzle-solving skills equivalent to that of a 5-yr-old human child and even invent tools on the spot to solve those puzzles. Herring gulls and some hawk species drop hard-shelled prey onto hard surfaces to crack them open. Chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas use tools to get food from hard to reach places, use stones and sharp sticks as weapons, and leaves to make noises to warn of predators. Octopus have been observed using coconuts as “armor” against predators and for camouflage and their skill in figuring out how to escape enclosures is well known. Humpback whales expel air while rising from the deep in a circle to create nets of bubbles trapping fish they scoop up at the surface. So, curiosity leads to novel solutions to discovered “problems”. I put problems in quotes to refer to the general idea of solving puzzles or finding solutions, like how to get a termite out of its home, to eat, without destroying it so more termites will be available later, to eat, in the same place.

I mentioned earlier how creativity is more than a single thing, that creativity applies to people, processes, things, and thoughts. The definition of creativity is somewhat separate from the creative person, the conditions for creativity, and somewhat separate from the creative process, but let’s see if we can narrow down a definition of creativity to start with. Almost every definition agrees that creativity is the ability to bring various elements together that previously were related, unrelated, or believed to be unrelated to form something new or innovative, involving an agent (person), a process, and a product. Newness and innovation are important criteria in all the definitions I’m aware of. “Original” pops in now and then, too, but there’s a different discussion about originality, and a person, thing, or process can be creative without being original. Another aspect of creativity is the product must be of some value. The thing has to have some utility, which I think is meant to differentiate actual innovative creativity from things that are made for no other purpose than simply to be weird or shocking, or otherwise generally useless.

The creative person can refer to a person who devises or makes innovative and new things, or a person who lives a life outside of convention, conformity, and habit. These two characteristics are not exclusive to creatives, though many creative people, as I’m sure you’re aware, live lives somewhat different from the “norm”. There are four or five components to the creative person, as determined by observation and psychological study:

1) Openness to experience, the ability to recognize novelty and to seek out novelty. It’s the way the creative person views the world and the various situations that make up a given experience. It’s an awareness of how things are in an open, nonjudgmental way that allows for connections, juxtapositions, and nontraditional associations to be examined and explored. This is called observational learning by some authors working on the theory of creativity. Novelty and seeking out novelty has a significant impact on the brain and how we feel, both releasing amounts of the neurotransmitter dopamine into our system, which makes us feel good. Our brain and body, once it tastes the “high” of dopamine can, in some people, enforce what we might call risky behavior like rock climbing or BASE jumping or car racing. For most of us, we don’t directly notice a sudden flood of euphoria but, when we make or do something that makes us happy, dopamine is one of the primary motivators to “encourage” us to try again.

2) An internal source of evaluation. The creative person values the creation based on internal criteria; Is this creation satisfying to me? Does it accurately express a part of me – my emotion(s), thoughts, interpretation of my experience and knowledge? The value of the creation isn’t based on external praise, validation, and criticism by others, by acceptance or rejection to one show or another, by sales numbers or mentions in the news, and not by likes and numbers of followers on social media. There’s an old saying that the harshest critic is yourself (or should be, though I’m not 100% behind that part, because as the harshest critic you could also be the worst). Self-evaluation is important to your growth as an artist, and there is an external component to that evaluation, to be sure. The primary self evaluation is “have I created something I intended, that meets the standards I set for myself, that has meaning to me and my experience with the world?” rather than “have I created something of value others have requested or others have told me I should be doing?”

3) Innovative behavior. The ability to see beyond form and function, beyond labels and categorizations, to be able to play spontaneously with ideas, colors, shapes, relationships, combining elements into impossible or previously unconsidered juxtapositions, to shape wild hypotheses and express the ridiculous (Albert Einstein once said “If at first the idea us not absurd, then there is no hope for it”), and to translate from one form to another the wild, nonjudgmental exploration of what if? Creativity is, in many ways, problem solving. Creative, innovative, behavior is risky. But without pushing boundaries we never know where that boundary lies or what potential lies beyond. History is full of individuals, partnerships, and groups who thought to themselves, “that’s interesting, what if…?” or “there’s got to be more to it than that…” I’m sure you can name several off the top of your head right now.

4) Interest. This is a characteristic I haven’t seen in the literature I’ve read so far, but one I feel is as important as the others. A person might be extremely talented, but what if they don’t have any interest to pursue or apply that talent in any way? We read about talented individuals who “just had to do it” as if compelled by some unseen force or internal mission. How many piano concertos or computer systems or architectural designs or theories of everything have never been made because the individual had the capability, but was more interested in something else? A couple relevant examples that come to mind is Ansel Adams, who was an accomplished, trained, concert pianist, but chose photography instead, and Henri Cartier-Bresson was an accomplished painter before switching to photography. What if Elon Musk wasn’t fascinated by transportation?

5) Dexterity. This is another characteristic not addressed in the literature. Is dexterity a characteristic or requirement for creativity? Must we be a Michael Jordan or Alex Honnold or Picasso or Beethoven to be considered creative? Certainly, some creative endeavors do require some physical skill and coordination; dance, rock climbing, basketball, playing the piano. But there is mental dexterity and dexterity of leadership; Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, Ernest Shackleton, Abraham Lincoln. Included in this group are those with savant syndrome, who can solve complex equations in their head or play impromptu original musical scores without training, but not tie their shoes or tell you how much to pay for a hamburger. These people are no less creative, in my mind.

6) Knowledge/Experience. What you know and what you’ve experienced play a big role in being creative. Sometimes, not knowing anything can produce innovative results by not being caught up in the rut of “we’ve always done it that way”. I’ve had a couple jobs that I wasn’t as experienced as someone else might have been in that position, but being able to see processes from an outside perspective allowed me to make suggestions and change procedures to make improvements. But, in general, the wider your experience and knowledge the more likely you’ll be able to make those unconventional associations between unrelated or related elements. Throughout history, many of the most creative individuals had interest, experience, knowledge, in a broad range of subjects. Called polymaths, these people were (and are) philosophers, scientists, musicians, painters, chemists, mathematicians, all rolled into one, and through this broad range of exposure to different things were able to make connections that were unseen by specialists.

Being creative also involves some type of process, not just in the making or creation of the thing, but in the period of time leading up to and after. Nearly every study of the creative process concludes the same way: there are four stages to the creative process. They might use different terms to define the stages and slightly different descriptions of what happens in each stage, but they are essentially the same.

1) Inception/preparation/exploration. This is the stage where wild ideas are born. This is usually the point in the process that inspiration strikes you in the face, when you suddenly have an insight into associations you may never have consciously considered before. And, often, you’re not consciously aware of the mixing and thinking that goes on in your brain behind the scenes, putting things together like a puzzle with no picture to follow…..does this fit here? What about there? This process involves what has recently been discovered as the default mode network, the unconscious or subconscious brain processing that sometimes comes to our awareness when we’re not occupied thinking of other things or concentrating on an activity – like when we’re in the shower or taking a walk, watching television, or in the moments right before we wake up (or makes us sit up in bed in the middle of the night – better write it down or you’ll forget it!). We may also be inspired by a news report or movie or event we’ve witnessed, and this puts us on track to see where that inspiration leads. Sometimes we can visualize the end product, other times we’re heading down a blind alley. But there is always an initial idea or concept that propels us forward and keeps us moving.

2) Incubation/illumination/development/selection. This stage potentially incorporates separate, but related, processes. Each of the stages in the creative process are interactive in many ways, it’s seldom a linear path from beginning to end. Here is where we ask “will it work?” and “can I do it?” Do I have the skills to pull it off, can I learn these skills? do I have access to equipment needed? How much will it cost and where will I get the funds? It’s in this stage we sift through the various ideas and select the one we’d like to pursue. Maybe it’s the most interesting, or most challenging, the one we’re most prepared for and able to complete, or the one we’re finally at the stage of experience and knowledge to do it justice, to bring out the essence. It’s also the stage at which we’re most likely to quit. Answering our questions may reveal we’re not prepared, and self-doubt can creep in. We begin to feel isolated, anxious perhaps, about embarking on a new project. We tell ourselves, “nobody has done this before, maybe for good reason”, or “this has been done before, and much better”, “I’m foolish to pursue this, nobody will be interested”, “I’m not good enough to do it justice”, “I don’t have time.” These are strong thoughts and anxieties to overcome, but everyone has them, whether they admit to it or not. Most often what overcomes this anxiousness is the desire to communicate your idea or concept, especially to others who share your idea (even if the creator has to also create or imagine such a group).

3) Completion/verification. Completing the project depends on your personal evaluation: is it done? Has it answered the questions you intended to answer or asked the questions you wanted others to consider? Is it of the quality you envisioned? Will this be put out for others to see or is it only a stepping stone to something else and will be kept private? This is where external validation/feedback can come into play (also during the incubation stage), where you find out if your efforts translate to others the way you intended. While your creativity should primarily engage your own enjoyment (photographer Vivian Maier, is perhaps a recent example), there might be interest by others in your work that inspires you to keep expressing your creativity, and provide the funds to do so.

Creativity is complex. It can be argued that creativity is more highly developed in humans, yet other animal species exhibit profound creativity where it was once thought not to exist. There is in creative development a beginning, middle, and end, like any good story. We have to start somewhere on that journey, and each step forward adds something new, which may change the project entirely or improve it beyond previous imagination. That step forward always holds the potential for making things worse, too. And we either go back and try again, give up, or transform it into something else. The creative process, if I now include the creative person, the process, and the thing, is a contiguous process, each stage is connected to the previous and following stage. All along the way, elements are connected, discarded, discovered, often by their appearance, familiarity, placement, and perception of the element in space and time. Elements, like words in a poem, are associated by their similarity and by their structure – rhyme, rhythm – and other elements become contiguous because of common elements, like mathematical or chemical symbols. Anytime otherwise remotely related or unrelated ideas become related, a creative solution can be formed.

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Canon EOS R: Review

For a trip to Iceland in November, I rented a Canon EOS R mirrorless camera as my workhorse for 10 days. I hadn’t shot with a mirrorless camera before and my expectations were mixed. I’d had a Sony Ar series in my hand at one time and didn’t like it. The small form factor ergonomics and menu-driven operation turned me off, as did the off-balance feel I had with long lenses attached. But, recently I read a couple good reviews of the EOS R and decided to give it a go. What pushed me over the hesitancy is the larger body. I’m used to shooting with larger DSLR bodies with controls ready to hand, relying on the menu system only for specific situations and for “set it and forget it” types of operational controls.

Canon EOS R front

So, here we go. I received the camera on rental from BorrowLenses, a company I have rented from several times in the past. I’ve recommended renting gear, camera bodies, lenses, etc. if you’re deciding whether to buy. Renting for a weekend or a week is an easy and inexpensive way to “try before you buy”. Anyway, if you followed my posts on Facebook and saw my first Facebook Live video from that trip, you might guess that I wasn’t at all pleased with the camera. At the time, you’d be right. While the EOS R is, internally, a mirrorless version of the 5D, getting used to a new operation can sometimes be frustrating, even though I’d received the camera a couple days before leaving. The ergonomics of the EOS R body is great. The size, weight, and how it fits in my hand were all very familiar and comfortable. I’ve been a Canon shooter for a long time, and my current DSLR is the 1D Mark IV, a camera that is very near its end. But the body plan, the large grip (also similar to the 1Ds which I used for a decade) lets me hang on to the camera securely while operating most of the controls and while carrying it in hand.

I’m not going to give any technical specs. This review is based on my own personal preferences with how and what I shoot. Any “technical” information is more or less going to be subjective and based on practical use. I hope that’s useful to you.

When I first fired it up and began setting it up at home, there was a mysterious shutter lag of about 1/2 second that was “fixed” just as mysteriously as I worked through the setup. I suspect it had to do with one or more of the shooting control operations, but I wasn’t able to pin it down. It could have been related to the dual pixel focus setting, which I eventually disabled. I didn’t run into that specific issue again during my trip (but see below for more info about shutter lag I experienced).

Operationally, here are my critiques:

1. I set up operation for back-button focus but the shutter release focus wasn’t disabled. So, I would back button focus then when I pressed the shutter release it would refocus. It’s possible I missed a step somewhere, but I’m pretty sure I had it set up properly.

2. I’m not a fan of the electronic viewfinder. It’s nice to be able to review the image in the viewfinder, but with review turned on you get the preview in the viewfinder while you’re trying to shoot. Several times I was fooled into thinking I was looking at the actual scene when it was just the preview image. I eventually turned off the preview function (which also disables it on the large rear LCD and you have to manually press the preview button. Not completely a problem, but sometimes was inconvenient). It would be nice to be able to have a setting of preview only on rear LCD.

3. Another aspect of the electronic viewfinder I didn’t like was I couldn’t look through the camera if it wasn’t on. If the camera is off, so is the viewfinder. There’s no way to compose prior to making a photograph if powered off or in sleep mode. This, of course, will apply to all cameras with electronic viewfinders, so this is a characteristic I’m not liking across the whole spectrum of mirrorless cameras. This reduces battery life.

4. On the body that I had, the light meter tended to overexpose by about 1.5 – 1.75.

5. Rear LCD touch screens are both a help and a hindrance. Useful sometimes for focusing in odd situations and for adjusting camera settings. But a hindrance at other times when the focus point shifts at random when your hand or nose brushes across the screen while you’re composing or carrying the camera and the screen gets activated.

6. The viewfinder shut off sensor became a frustration when I used my rain cover, which has transparent panels so I can see the camera controls. The sensor kept shutting off the LCD screen when it sensed the rain cover, treating it like it was my face at the viewfinder. I had to hold the panel away from the sensor with my thumb, hand inside the rain cover.

7. The menu touch strip, located just to the right of the viewfinder, turned itself on at random when I had the touch strip turned off. I would get a notice in the viewfinder asking me if I wanted to enable it or not if I brushed my thumb or face across it. I’m not sure of the utility of this feature.

8. I’m also not a fan of the toggle setup for the back control. I have a pair of waterproof/windproof gloves I can easily use with my 1D and its control wheel and buttons, but I found operating the rear toggles and the buttons (which are slightly recessed) very difficult with these gloves on and often had to remove them. I prefer the rotating control wheel over the toggle.

9. The low light focus was pretty good, but with my EF 70-200 f2.8L there was a lot of hunting in low light after sunset (that’s probably more of a lens issue, I think).

10. The menu system is familiar to me and organized in a logical way that’s easy to navigate, though there are more categories on the EOS R than on the 1DS. It would be nice to simplify the menu system with an option to disable categories that aren’t used, like the picture style/JPG processing features, that some photographers like me may never use.

11. Perhaps it was just me operating a new camera, but at slower shutter speeds, 1/4 sec or slower, there was no shutter release indicator (no sound, no “click”). It was as if the shutter release timer (2 sec delay) was engaged. Sometimes I wouldn’t realize the shutter had been released and moved the camera during the exposure. This didn’t happen at faster shutter speeds when I had a tactile signal from the shutter button that it had been depressed enough to release the shutter, and no shutter release delay.

12. The jack for the cabled remote is a mini-plug and the remote for the EOS R doesn’t have an intervalometer or timer. I prefer the TC-80n3 remote.

13. Battery. The EOS R uses the same small battery as the 5D. I also rented the battery grip and an extra battery, so had extended use as well as a bit more body to hang on to.

Instead of a control wheel on the top for switching shooting modes, there’s an LCD screen, a mode switch, and a wheel. I found this somewhat inconvenient to use, though you can see the modes in the viewfinder when the mode switch is pressed. It wasn’t a showstopper and eventually I would probably get used to it.

Image quality

I’ve been going through the files from the trip and I don’t have any image quality complaints. I do notice more pronounced chromatic aberration than I do with the 1D, but that may be due to the larger file size making it more apparent than it does with the sensor (yes, CA is created by the lens).

One of the reasons I rented this camera was for the reported high ISO quality (much better than the 1Ds) specifically for night shots of stars and Aurora borealis. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much opportunity for the Aurora, but I did shoot some night scenes at reasonably high ISO (2500) and the noise was easily taken care of with Photoshop noise controls. One very useful aspect of mirrorless cameras is with long exposures and telephoto shots. It’s essentially a permanent mirror lock-up situation and camera vibration is greatly reduced, especially when using a cabled remote.

My frustration abated somewhat as the trip progressed and I became more familiar with the EOS R’s operation and particular idiosyncrasies. For me, while I ended up liking the camera overall, it wouldn’t be a camera I would buy as a replacement for my 1D at this time. I would likely still opt for the 5D, even though it seems that model is on its way out. Here’s another issue. Lenses. The EOS R has a different lens mount, so your EF lenses won’t work without an adapter. And, the RF lenses for the EOS R line are amazingly larger and heavier than EF lenses (and there are fewer of them at this time). I think there’s promise in the EOS R line if a “Pro” model was made with the larger NP-E3 battery (and the associated larger grip) and a control wheel on the back instead of the toggle, an optical viewfinder option, and remove the touch strip. These are, of course, operational critiques. Camera operation, where controls are and how easily they are to use – bare handed or with gloves – is just as important (to me, anyway) as image quality, focus accuracy, and ISO performance. You can have the most advanced camera with amazing image quality and performance, but if it takes you 15 seconds to change the ISO or shooting mode or focus point selection, or you can’t operate it under certain conditions, it will be mostly worthless, no matter how much money you spent for it.

I did like the articulated rear screen. It makes low and high angle shots more pleasant. I’m not a vlogger or selfie taker, so the forward-facing capability didn’t concern me, but might be a feature others would appreciate.

The weather sealing on the EOS R is pretty good. I used the camera with a rain cover in heavy rain and without in light rain conditions and there were no problems with water affecting controls or getting into the body. Weather sealing is better with lenses that also have that capability.

My conclusion is the EOS R is a pretty good mirrorless camera. Of the cameras I’ve had in hand, this one is more practical in the hand for me, easier to handle, better balanced with long lenses, and a familiar layout which is easier to transition into. This is, of course, because I’m a long-time Canon shooter and they’ve kept their layouts fairly consistent. It’s larger than the Sony and that body type, especially with the RF lenses. If you’re looking for a compact mirrorless, the EOS R isn’t it. But if you want a camera that fits your hand and is comfortable to use, that is balanced, performs well in all weather and puts out a nice image file, the EOS R might be what you’re looking for. I’m just hoping future models will accommodate a more practical “field layout” that is functional using gloves.

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Review: The Photography Exercise Book

Some time ago I was asked if I’d be interested in reviewing Bert Krages book The Photography Exercise Book: Training Your Eye to Shoot Like A Pro. Published by Allworth Press in 2016, I’d seen it while browsing in the bookstore. I picked it up and thumbed through it, wondering if it would be a good reference for me and my classes and workshops. At the time, nothing stood out to me about the book other than it seemed to be written for beginning photographers and, at the time, I was working on my own book and there were more advanced concepts rummaging around in my head. So, I put it back on the shelf.

When I was asked to review the book, I remembered looking at it that one time and thought I should give it another chance. Bert Krages is an attorney and photographer living in Oregon with a couple other books in his bibliography; Legal Handbook for Photographers and Heavenly Bodies: The Photographer’s Guide to Astrophotography. I’m pretty sure I’ve also seen and thumbed through both of those books at the bookstore. The Legal Handbook for Photographers delves into an aspect of photography that has many fewer references available than for any other aspect of photography. If you are a photographer interested in your legal responsibilities and liabilities, that book and others would be beneficial to you.

Mr. Krages begins The Photography Exercise Book by describing its purpose and who it is for. In my own classes, I describe three groups of photographers; those who are technically-inclined, those who are not, and the largest group that’s somewhere in between. This book is for people who have at least a comfortable understanding of camera operation, in terms of using the various exposure modes and making exposure adjustments, but it does not discuss exposure settings, focal lengths, filters, flash, the “Rules”. This book is not a “how to use your camera” book, but a “how to explore your surroundings” book. It’s for photographers who are starting out and for those who need a little inspiration for exploring. It is a book of photography exercises after all.

I agree with most of the author’s premises: to become a better photographer you must make photographs, you must pay attention to the world around you, you must experiment, you must keep an open mind and always look for opportunities. The Photography Exercise Book is divided into sections that begin with letting you know you should have a basic understanding of how your camera works, some general tips about composition, and the importance of evaluating your work. The rest of the book includes the exercises. The exercises are a bit open-ended, which is good because it allows you freedom to find subjects and situations at the time you’re doing the practice. You don’t have to seek out a specific situation, wait for a certain time, or amass various props and equipment to do the exercises. This approach may not work for some individuals because the exercises are not “recipe-driven”. This is why I mention the need for comfortable understanding of camera function and photography principles. None of the exercises instruct you to use f8 at 1/125 and ISO 200 with a 85mm lens. You’re given the concept of the particular practice, like photographing people who are in action or light, shadow and shapes when clouds are passing overhead, or revisiting a location multiple times.

The final two chapters are about “photographer vision” and Thinking Like an Artist, with a little history of art and the relationship of photography with other art forms, discussions about defining your own individual approach to photography and what you would like to express with the medium, inspiration, and work ethic. Nothing too deep, but put straighforward and simply.

Some of the exercises, admittedly stated in the introduction, won’t be for everyone. But, like the author suggests, try them anyway. You never know what you’ll learn that will apply to other situations. Overall, The Photography Exercise Book is a useful reference for photographers who are starting out and who would like a little guidance for exploring and improving your craft.

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The Fugaciousness of Favorite Things

There are recurring questions photographers are asked when discussing photography: What is your favorite photograph you’ve made? What is your favorite photograph by another photographer? What is your favorite place to photograph? What is your favorite camera/lens? etc. Questions about a photographer’s opinion of things that more often than not have no actual relationship between the photographer and the person asking the question. Sometimes it’s genuine curiosity, but most often these are “easy” questions as a conversation starter, perhaps. But, do you really want to hear why I like a certain photograph or location or piece of equipment? Because, from me at least, you’re likely going to get more than you asked for. Besides, how do I describe a photograph you’ve probably never seen in a way you understand why it’s a favorite of mine? Without the ability to show you the picture you form in your mind from my description won’t be close. Even if I could show you the photograph, my reasoning is probably going to be too long, too short, or lack relationship with your own experiences or expectations. The same for locations, gear, and my praise of another photographer’s work. These and other “favorite” questions are difficult to answer or are even irrelevant because favoritism is temporary, and because we don’t favor THINGS.

Make a list of your favorite things. Do it now in your head or write them down. It’s likely a long list: movies, food, people, events, beaches, music, cars, clothes, cities, countries…the list goes on. Then review your list. What’s missing? I’ll bet what’s missing are some of your favorite things from last year or when you were 40 or 25 or 12 or 3. Why aren’t your favorite things from high school still your favorite? Do you have a singular favorite that has withstood the ravages of time? If so, examine it, analyze for yourself why this favorite thing has persisted. Brainstorm and write down everything you can think of that makes it a favorite. Compare the characteristics with your favorites that have come and gone or are in your “favorite bin” at the moment. Any similarities? What are the differences?

Our favorite thing is not actually a thing, but an experience or emotion. It’s what moves us to feel good, strong, empowered, empathic, safe, smart, accomplished, alive, accepted. The list of favorite things changes with our knowledge, experiences, preferences and skills. How many times have you said on vacation “I want to live here”, only to have that feeling replaced by the next awesome place you visit?

Our favorites can be fleeting or grow in stature over time, like the accumulation of a patina. A favorite dessert of mine is cherry pie. But not just any cherry pie. There are certain characteristics of texture, flavor, intensity and consistency that elevate a cherry pie from simple preference to the favorite bin. The mixture of sour and sweet (more sour than sweet), the consistency of the filling (not thick), the texture of the crust (flaky, not doughy), and the addition of complimentary spices that add an element of surprise, all add up to a pleasant emotional experience that I will return to as long as that experience is maintained. It’s the experience I enjoy, not just that I like sour cherries.

Your favorite location might be the beach, but if you think about it, it’s not just any beach and it might not even be a specific beach. It’s a beach with certain characteristics that can exist at many different locations – a certain slope of the beach, the composition of sand or rocks making up the beach, the sound of the surf, solitude or bustling with activity. And, if you’ve visited several beaches, you likely have more than one favorite type of beach depending on your mood at the time, or your “need.”

In photography, our taste in photographs, equipment, locations, is controlled by similar criteria. Our favorite camera is the tool that is easiest to use and/or gives us the ability to control the factors that allow us to create the visual image we have locked away in our head, that allows us to make a photograph when we need to. In some situations, my favorite camera is my smartphone because of its simplicity and I can make a complete photograph while in the moment, a spontaneous creation inspired by the subject, event, and emotion of the instant. At another time, my favorite camera is my 35mm DSLR because of its flexibility and sometime need for deliberate contemplation, exploring the subject, composing visual elements, choosing the aesthetic appearance of depth of field, shutter speed, focal length, lighting, etc. Previsualization of how I’m going to process the image, it’s final appearance, may or nay not have an influence or relationship with my experience of the moments surrounding when I make the exposure. But there is almost always influence and inspiration from the external and internal environment as I make the many decisions needed to make a meaningful photograph (meaningful to me, primarily. If you as the viewer also find it meaningful – Bonus!)

Our favorite moments are juxtapositions of ideal circumstances – atmosphere, companions, emotions, location, etc. We often try to replicate these circumstances to relive the emotional high produced by these special happenings. But it rarely works. However, there will be other such moments that eventually replace the previous moment as a favorite, and those older moments join the others in the group of favorites we can lovingly recall from memory.

The basis of our favoritism can be complex. A significant object or event is often connected to a significant experience. The favorite thing is a memento mori of sorts, reminding us of our vanity (how good we felt, how good we made others feel), mortality (you can’t take it with you), and the transience of everything (this, too, shall pass). Emotions and memories fade and are replaced, material objects break and decay. A true favorite, though, withstands time, trends, fads, and vanity. It remains because of its influence on you, its emotional importance, and despite negativism and ridicule by others.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow wrote A Theory of Human Motivation in which he proposed a hierarchy of needs. Diagrammed as a pyramid, physiological needs necessary for survival form the base, or foundation. This is where food, space, shelter, and mates exist. Moving up the hierarchy are safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization (the motivation to realize one’s full potential). It’s interesting to note that 3 of the 5 levels in Maslow’s hierarchy are emotional motivations – esteem, belonging, potential. The association of motivation and favorite things has been exploited by salesmen and marketers since the dawn of history. Creating pleasurable emotional experiences engages customers, helps control their buying impulses, and retains them as repeat customers. In some circumstances, people will be repeat visitors or customers for the experience even if the product is not considered a favorite.

For photographers (and other artists), our satisfaction comes from creating beautiful, interesting, meaningful work as the result of experiences we have in life and in making art or making photographs for a client. A photograph of a landscape can be as much of a favorite as a corporate headshot or a sporting event. And as our experience grows and our skill set improves our list of favorite photographs and locations and gear will change. Even the much-discussed and promoted concepts of personal style and vision are just the current ways a photographer uses to interpret their world and communicate their message. These, too, change over time.

Favorites are fugacious: transient, temporary, ephemeral, ever-changing. That’s a good thing. It’s improvement, variety, growth. Don’t hold too tightly to favorites. It can be sad to see a favorite go, but the new ones will be just as good, if not better.

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White Sands National Monument Photo Workshop & Giveaway

White Sands National Monument photography workshop, March 20-27, 2018

Join me March 20-27, 2018 to explore the beautiful, minimalist landscape of New Mexico’s White Sands National Monument, a dramatic environment of shifting contrasts, lighting, patterns and textures with a backdrop of the rugged San Andres and Sacramento Mountains. Emphasis during this workshop will be your interpretation of the stark dune environment using your senses and perceptions to search for simple, elegant compositions using elements to give depth, graphical design, and abstract impressions from broad panoramics to up close macros. We’ll discuss in a group and individual one-on-one guidance about using light and shadow to create form, improving composition, setting exposure under difficult lighting conditions, abstract impressions, and sensing and perceiving the environment to help find subjects and make meaningful photographs. Each student will also receive a copy of my book The Ecology of Photography.

Also, I’m excited to share that this workshop has been chosen as an Unordinary Trip of the Month by Infohub.com, the #1 portal on the internet dedicated to out-of-the-ordinary, special interest vacations. If you book my White Sands National Monument photography workshop before January 5, 2018, you will be entered in a random drawing among those registered for my workshop to receive a one-year full membership to the GPSmyCity app for Apple and Android, from InfoHub’s sister company GPSmyCity. Since there is a maximum of 8 for this workshop, your odds are pretty good!

The GPSmyCity app features offline city maps, self-guided walking tours, and travel articles for 1,000 cities worldwide. Because the app works offline, there’s no worry about roaming charges when using the app abroad. One lucky person who has registered for my White Sands photography workshop will be randomly selected to receive a one-year full membership to the GPSmyCity app and the over 6,500 self-guided city walks, offline city maps, and travel articles, a value of over $8,000 (includes all in-app guide purchase options).