Episodes

Episode 275 Ah, the great American past-time of complaining. Nothing beats hanging out with friends over a beer and complaining about all sorts of things in life. We love to complain about lots of things such as politics, weather, work, and even our photography. Photographers love to complain about all things photographic. Subscription fees, cameras, software, editing techniques, other people’s work are just the tip of the iceberg of topics photographers like to discuss. In this week’s podcast,...

Episode 274 A couple of the things I hear photographs talk about all the time is hitting a wall, not getting good feedback, and fear in the face of change. In this week’s podcast, I tossed all of those issues into the Vitamix blender and hit high speed on the dial. No matter what problems you face, odds are you try to solve it by repeating the same behavior over and over. When we do that, more times than not, there is no change in the outcome. When we need to have a change in our work, we need ...

Episode 273 In her classic essay On Photography, Susan Sontag makes the statement: Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention. So in this week’s podcast, I thought we would take a look at that quote and discuss how photographing and the viewing of photographs can be a non-intervening act. The photographs we make that are significant to us, and some of the photographs we view have a lasting impact. These things become acts and objects of the intervention. These photographs and the ac...

Episode 270 In this week’s podcast, we focus on two aspects of the nature of critique. The how and the why of taking a photograph. The how is the technical side of things in creating the image. The why is who you are as a photographer in the photograph. The story of the image so to speak. When we work on images, ideally, we would have both aspects in our images. The image would be our best foot forward in both technical and story. However, in my experience, this isn’t always the case. There are ...

Episode 270 In this week’s podcast, I talk about some of the impacts that might appear in your photo editing and viewing as a result of binge-watching. While it is fun to sit down and consume a show from beginning to end as fast a possible, there is a cost to this approach. Much like eating good food, without a palate cleanser, our ability to sense subtle nuances in how we see, taste, and experience the object of our affection is lost. We need to have a way to reset our visuals and start fresh. ...

Episode 270 This week’s podcast focuses on the impacts in our photography when the days, projects, images, and seeing seem to drag into each other over and over again. The groundhog effect, so to speak. I don’t think there is a person out there who hasn’t had a negative sense of deja vu when it comes to there photography. Maybe you are stuck working locally rather than getting to travel. Perhaps you think you are editing what seems like the same image again and again. The mundane comes in all so...

Episode 269 I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. This week’s podcast is based on a request from one of our listeners regarding a question of ethics in photography. Ethics, our sense of doing what is right and wrong, is at the core of each of us. As photographers, our understanding of right and wrong regarding what and when to photograph should be a key consideration we make.. While those ethics are different for each person and depending on your job might be di...

Episode 268 I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. This week’s podcast is a direct response to conversations I have been having with my friends and associates as they struggle to deal with their creative process during the pandemic. As the days drag on from one to another, the creative spark for many people has become less enjoyable and harder to maintain. This week’s podcast focuses on the importance of doing a daily check-in. Really looking at how you are doing...

Episode 267 I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. I have been having some conversations with people lately about how they create their work. In the course of those discussions, I have found that a lot of people seem to focus on the next thing. However, in my experience, there is a lot of information to be gained by returning to your own photography library and looking at it with new eyes. In this week’s podcast, we talk about a few different ways to dive deep int...

Episode 265 I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. As we all have been forced to make changes to our daily routines, it got me thinking about time. Time is one of those things at the foundation of photography, and I believe, defines a unique aspect of photography as a medium and form of communication. I also have begun to really realize the awareness impact of having less time everyday can have on my approach to my work. As photographers, we are bound by our sense...

Episode 265 I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. We recently added a new family member, Cora the dog, to the house. She is a loving, energetic ball of Aussie Shepard fur. Lori and I are working at training her to be a happy, well-adjusted, non-cat chasing member of the family. Part of that training is Lori, and I getting on the same page about the language we use when talking to her in training. After all up, down, lay, sit, stay, come, here, touch, and a ton of...

Episode 264 I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. For a lot of us, we are following stay-at-home orders and not going out much. For those of you stuck in essential jobs, thank you for continuing to do your job. I have had several conversations with my photographer friends about how they are dealing with all of these changes. For many of them, while stressed about the general situation, they felt it was an opportunity to really dive into their work. While this has...

Episode 263 In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the importance of recognizing when you hit a turning point in your work. This might be technical, where you finally learn your workflow tools and feel confident editing. It might be in learning how to use some camera features that you always planned on learning. The turning point might also be more in your artistic vision as you learn to communicate more deeply what you are thinking and feeling behind the camera. No matter where you are in yo...

Episode 262 I am often amazed at how often we get caught up in the most simple of problems. It doesn’t matter if it is as simple as picking a new camera or picking out what image to edit and print. We can spin around and around trying to get a problem resolved that we have made more complicated than it needs to be. Many times, the best images, solutions and ideas have a simplicity to them. Not that they aren’t complex in composition, meaning or structure, but rather our experience of those image...

Episode 261 As photographers, we should be making prints. There are a whole host of reasons why we should make prints: the materiality of it, shareability, improved seeing, longevity, or some other reason you might have. We also spend a considerable amount of our time looking at photographs that are mere reproductions of the original image. In this week’s podcast, I tackle the importance of looking at the best prints and reproductions possible. Often when we think about someone’s photographs, it...

Episode 260 Photographers are an odd bunch. We often find our conversations drifting from one absolute to nothing be absolute. One area that I have always found interesting, and seems to fit this back and forth, is how approach and talk about composition. When you learn about photography and photographs, we talk about the rules of composition, elements of composition, and how they should be followed. Then as soon as tell people to follow them, we ask them to break the rules to be exciting or sho...

Episode 259 It is really easy to feel overburdened when working on your photography. There is so much to learn, photograph, and share that you can quickly start to feel like you are under a tremendous amount of pressure to deliver. It might be pressure for time, expectations being met, desire, or just plain ego. No matter the cause, the notion that we are under so much pressure to produce that we get stuck might be caused by how we think about production and creating meaningful work. When we ge...

Episode 258 I was having a conversation about the advances in camera technology and how at some point in the not to distant future the camera will make a perfect captured frame with exact colors, focus, infinity depth-of-field possibilities, etc. My friend was all excited about that possibility. I, in turn, asked what happens when the camera is no longer to blame for a bad photograph? And if it isn’t the camera, how is that different today. In this week’s podcast, we dive into that question of ...

Episode 257 A sacred place or thing historically as been often associated with the worship of a deity or god. However, something can be sacred, even outside the context of religion. There could be places, people, ideas, or things that inspire, stimulate, are worthy of honor, or hold meaning in our lives. These sacred things could be very personal or allow us to connect with something bigger than just ourselves. In this week’s podcast, we talk about how our approach to sacred can impact our phot...

Episode 256 A friend recently recanted a story to me about how, when he was in school, they were only allowed to shoot one roll (36 frames) a week for homework. No more than that one roll for any week. He talked about how each frame became more critical because of the discipline and experience you had to have to get the best of the week in those 36 frames. As he was talking, he mentioned that each frame was more precious than he imagined when he started. That got me thinking about the notion of...

Episode 255 A recent trip to the store had me overhear a couple talking about how opposites attract. I couldn’t get that idea out of my head and how it might apply to photography. I eventually made a list of opposites that I could think of related to photography. As I completed the list, I realized that many of these are no opposites that attract or repel but rather work together. This week’s podcast takes a look at how to develop a list of opposites and how diving deeper into the word pairs ca...

Episode 254 Ok, maybe there isn’t really wrong research. I do think there is the research we do before a trip that can have us create work that isn’t our best. In this week’s podcast, I talk about how your approach to researching where and what to photograph at any given location can be a problem in creating your work. I think research is essential when planning for a trip or outing. However, I do believe that if we spend most of our research time looking at other’s photographs online of the sam...

Episode 253 This week’s podcast takes a deeper dive into the question we discussed last week about facing difficult times in your creative process. I think everyone gets stuck sometimes and ends up in a dark place when creating. There are times when you have to take photographs because the bills depend on them being made, but even then, those photographs can be hard to make. You have a voice in your head telling you that things are hard, can’t be done, and you just aren’t feeling it. At times ...

Episode 252 As we kick off 2020, I thought I would make this week’s podcast all about the five most common questions I got asked in 2019 that weren’t related to camera gear or printing. I thought each question was exciting and provided an interesting insight into the creative process. Here are the questions I talk about in the podcast this week. I hope that you find the questions as enjoyable as I did. 1. What was the biggest lesson you learned in 2019? Importance of saying no. 2. How long d...