Episodes

Michael Gregory, no relation, wrote an excellent article for Aperture magazine in 1961 about the nature of photographic style and idea for how to define and use style in photography. I was recently rereading the article and used it as the foundation for this week’s podcast. One the most common topics I hear about that is related to creating great photography is that you need to have a style, but the definition of style is both ambiguous and misapplied. This week, using the insights from this 55-...

In this week’s podcast, we are talking about how to go about applying some of the basic concepts from minimalism and getting organized to make it easier to work and edit our photographs. At times it is very easy to get overwhelmed with the work required to make a good photograph. However, by learning to focus on a few key things that have been tried and tested to work in keeping organized, you might find that you can make better photographs more efficiently and faster. Focusing on large things ...

I was flipping through Netflix looking at movies and got to thinking about how many movies follow the same basic formula. For example, in most romantic comedies, the couple gets together, and something happens that drives them apart. After some conflict, they are somehow pushed together and end up happily ever after. In our photography, we can quickly end up following the same formula over and over again. In some cases, this might be ok, but I other cases this could cause us to fall short of ou...

This is one of my favorite podcast topics. In this week’s podcast, we are talking about questions you all have sent in over the past few months. I really do appreciate you sending in comments and feedback about the show, and getting a chance to record an episode dedicated to the more common questions is always fun. This week we are talking about the following five questions: What is the best thing you can do for your creativity? How do you go about learning about something in photography? Wh...

Welcome to the 175th episode of the Perceptive Photographer. This week’s episode looks at how to determine what a photograph is worth. Is a picture worth more because it has sold more copies and made a lot of money? Is a photograph worth more because it has a lot of likes or impressions on social media? Or is a photograph worth more because it shares something or says something that pulls at our heart and emotions? It is worth more because it changes the way we see the world around us? Photos t...

In the 174th episode of the Perceptive Photographer, we take a look at how various methods of expanding and narrowing down the photographic process can help us make better images behind the camera. The creative process has a huge influx of ideas from both external and internal sources. If we can find ways to maximize those inputs, it can often times give us a jumpstart on our creative practice. However, at some point, we need to being to cull through those ideas and images so that we can build a...

Welcome to episode 173 of the podcast!. Thanks so much for being a listener, I really do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen to the podcast. This week’s topic is all about how important the concept of getting it right in camera is to make a successful image. Typically, when we talk about getting it right in the camera, it is all about the settings. I find that in my own process, getting it right in camera is more about the mindset to pay attention to all of the qualities that ma...

This week’s podcast focuses on the importance of finding and using the simple pleasures in life to influence our photography. When our creative process is going well, rarely do we describe it as a complicated process. When things in life are not going well, we then tend to talk about it as if it were complicated. If you think about your best relationships, I doubt that you have to start off with–It’s complicated. Our photography should be the same way. We shouldn’t have to talk about how comple...

Over the past eight months, I have been dealing with the loss of my little brother. And while I have amazing family and friends to offer their support, it has been a long creative rut I have been in. Rather than process my feelings with my creativity I tossed myself in to simpler and less introspective work. However, you can’t avoid your creativity and what it drives in. you forever. This week’s podcast is a monolog about how we can move forward and find support from our community of peers if w...

I believe that storytelling is central to humanity. From our earliest days, we have told stories. If you sit in a coffee shop and listen, all people are telling our stories–stories about family, friends, events, and work. At the core of a photograph is also a story. It is the driving element of a need to share something about how we see and understand the world. In this week’s podcast, I talk about how three key areas of a storytelling event are critical to the story. While not the only aspects...

Have you ever taken a look at the names of some of your program and apps that you use to create photographs? Many of those names are all about speed-, insta-, snap- and a host of other quick action words. In Photoshop and Lightroom, we use fast presets and actions to speed up the workflow. Now while I am all for efficiency in workflow, I began to wonder if all the language around our creative tools impact how we view and see our images. What if Instagram was called meaningful photographs or imp...

Do you ever think about what it might take to make the perfect print? This week’s podcast is about what are some of the non-technical considerations for creating the perfect print or deciding if that is even possible. When we are working on a photograph one of the most significant challenges is to let go of what we know and learn to see what is in front of us. This focus has us learning to evaluate and see a given image with a more precise set of eyes not bound by our expectations of the future...

This week’s podcast comes from looking Ricahrd Zakia’s Perception and Imaging. A few podcasts ago, I talked about the Gestalt approach to learning. From that podcast, I was reminded that Richard’s book also had a full chapter on gestalt and meaning. As I returned to this book, I also found the chapter on Personality interesting. In that chapter Richard talks about a lot of methods to understand personality, but Carl Jung’s approach to personality traits sort of stood out. I thought it was inter...

This week’s podcast is a mash-up of topics that I was pondering as I worked on the flower beds around the studio. To extend the creative space to the outside the studio, I have been working with Lori to plant some cool plants to support the creative energy I want on the inside. As I was working in the garden, I got to thinking random thoughts and how they relate to photography. The first was how sports betting sets odds to determine how betting is done. The house attempts to make sure that all ...

Photography can be hard, and it is easy to get discouraged. It always seems like there is so much to learn and so many people out there doing amazing things with a camera. I sometimes find myself getting discouraged and struggling to make sense of my practice. I have learned that one of the most important aspects of a creative life is to celebrate your successes. If you spend time thinking and celebrating how far you have come in your journey from where you started rather than obsessing only ab...

How do we know that something is true or not? In many cases, it is based on our own experiences and at the time of the experience. If I am 6′ 4″ and hang around a bunch of NBA basketball players, I am considered short, but if I am hanging around my friends who average 5′ 9″ then I am tall. It is the context of the comparison that determines if I am tall or not. In rhetoric and philosophy, we call this contextualism. As it relates to knowledge and what we know, it is epistemic contextualism. Whe...

In part two of our series on Gestalt psychology and its impact on photography, we examine how the law of past experience and similarity can help us to better define not only what happens behind the camera but also what happens when we are in the editing and critique process. The law of similarity states that we will group objects and things in an image by how we associate them as one unit. This similarity could be by size, shape, color, texture or some other aspect. As long as our own approach ...

I have been helping a number of photographers recently with editing and sequencing. Some of them have a similar set of photographs that reminded me of my work in one particular way. They were very chaotic images. One of the things that I like to explore in my photography is finding the point of peace or relaxation in a chaotic place. In my work, that is often finding something in nature among the trees, rocks, and waves. As I got to thinking about how we deal with this chaos and create meaning,...

This week’s podcast is all about storytelling concepts. It doesn’t matter how much you work your technical skills as a photographer. Eventually, your work is about how well you connect with your audience beyond f/stops and shutter speeds. One of the most common approaches is to talk about the importance of story and storytelling in an image or body of work. No matter who you are or what level of photographer you are, your work will eventually be about storytelling. Your images will start to conv...

This week’s podcast focuses on understanding who your audience is as a photographer. In general, there are two main groups of consumers of photography. There is the mass audience and then the art-elite audience. Both of these audiences are critical to supporting photographers, but they approach their viewing of photography and what they value is different. The mass audience is looking for artwork that we like and feel good at when we look at it. This is the type of work that you might find to h...

Thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards — never while actually taking a photograph. Heri Cartier Bresson In this week’s podcast, the focus is all about the process of seeing to capture. From the moment we think we see something to the point it becomes a photograph is a journey. Along the way, there are a number of steps that we take to make that happen. In my experience when we are working well, the process seems secondary, but when things are not going well, it is a challenge. As I ...

In this week’s episode of the Perceptive Photographer we discuss two topics that can have an impact on how we create photographs and how we share photographs. The first half of the podcast, we talk about how to learn a new task that can be applied in our photography, and the second half we focus on what a photograph should be as an object or artifact. Learning a new task is all about the creative practice. Learning new things can add a lot of energy and excitement to our creative process. When ...

One of the consistent things that you see when you study working artist is that they are always working. While they may spend some time researching, reading and talking about aspects of their work, they all have their nose to the grindstone. I have learned that this is more than just a desire to create work, but it also is a step forward to understanding the work. It isn’t enough to just sit around and think about the work, at some point you have to do the work. We learn who we are as photograph...

During a recent photogravure workshop, I was standing around waiting for a plate to finish and I started to again think about why we photograph. What is is about photography that compels us to make images? I think for a lot of artists, regardless of their discipline, share some common threads. I believe that an artist is not unique because of some divine intervention but rather a willingness to put in the time. It reminded me of an article by Brooks Jensen from an old Lenswork magazine where he ...