Episodes

I often times get asked about how to price a photograph for sale. When looking at basic models for pricing, you only need to know a few things. The cost of your expenses plus your required profit equals the price. If you want to break it down even further. You should look at the cost of your materials (paper, frames, ink, film, matte board, et)+Labor (what you make an hour..which is not much if you are an artist)+Expenses (rent, electricity, cameras, printers, memory cards, etc)+profit is equal ...

A recent trip to an antique store where I purchased a vintage box of Crayola crayons from the 1910-120s time frame got me thinking a lot about how we children we are rarely creatively blocked. We can pick up pretty much anything and make a fun game out of it. We draw, paint and build with our imaginations in ways that disappear as we age. There are a lot of methods for getting your creative juices flowing. Behind the camera are the classics like shoot with a new lens, try black and white verse ...

In part 2 of this series on photographic books, I recommend a number of books that you should consider for the photography section of your bookshelf. With hundreds and thousands of books available, it is often time overwhelming knowing where to start. Even as I started pulling a list of books together, I was paralyzed by the number and direction to take the recommendations. I think it is easier when you are trying to recommend books for a specific genera of work. It is easy to recommend Winogran...

There are so many great books out about photography, and I love to read and collect books. If given the choice between new camera gear or new photography books, I always choose books. In this podcast, I have gone into the bookcase and pulled out some books that I think every photographer should own. The books cover a wide range of styles, genera, and topics. Rather than focusing in on just one type of photography, I tried to pull from a variety of sources. Most of the books are a combination of...

I recently saw an article about how the iPhone 6s was a better video camera than a Nikon D750. The headline was something along the lines of iPhone 6s outperforms $3, ooo DSLR. The gist of the articles was that in daylight and under certain conditions the iPhone was better technology than a DSLR for video production. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise given the power of the iPhone, the headline-grabbing nature of the media and that the whole idea misses the bigger point. Technology doesn’t ...

There is so many great things happening in photography today. The combination of technologies, history and experimentation has the art form moving in so many new and exciting directions. No matter how much technology or education is out there, it is hard to underestimate the value of experience. Sure accidents will happen, but for the most part just handing someone a camera doesn’t mean that they create amazing work. Sometimes life is amazing and a camera is put there to record it, but other tim...

I was working in the darkroom recently and came across an issue that I hadn’t seen before. It is not uncommon to find yourself in situations where you might find yourself in a void of knowledge. As I experimented over and over trying to figure out what happened, I realized that one of the most important traits of an artist is curiosity. I have always believed that there is a strong relationship between art and science. At their core, they are both about curiosity. Each disciple goes about it in...

I am in the market for a new camera. After several years of shooting one of the most reliable cameras I have owned, I am ready to embrace some new technology. For those of you who don’t know me, I was very much a gear hound in my earlier days. Having well paying jobs afforded me the luxury of upgrading all the time and buying as much gear as I wanted. Of course, none of that gear made me a better photographer. It was the practice and dedication to the craft that made me a better photographer. W...

This week Apple, Inc announced the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus to much fanfare and hype. By all accounts, the phone will be a runaway success toping the record-breaking sales of the iPhone 6/6 Plus. From all the press and demos, the phone does appear to be an engineering marvel. As I read about the new phone decided if it was time to upgrade (it likely is), I got to really thinking about how Apple markets the iPhone. From the opening phrase, the only thing that has changed is everything to the la...

In this podcast, we focus on the nature of content and form as the essential aspects of composition. In most great photography, composition acts as more of an intuitive process behind the camera rather than the direct application of a series of rules or guidelines that are normally taught in photographic classes. Idea such as rule of thirds, leading lines, mirrored objects are all ways to explain and understand works of art, but in photography they are concepts that should be discussed more in t...

I had a career change that has resulted in me doing my photography full-time now. In talking about that process, I have always said that I am going to do full-time photography, but several of my friends have said something to the effective of “Oh, so you are about to become a professional photographer.” That notion struck as nerve. As if to say that what I was doing before wasn’t good enough, professional or valuable. As I started to look at my own reaction to that word and what it means to me,...

I was recently asked by a listener about what makes a good critique session. While we have talked a lot on the podcast about language and critiques, in this episode we take a deeper look at the content that, in my own experience, makes critiques valuable. While some of the ideas might seem common place such as being honest and focusing on new insights about the work, the reality is that staying present in a critique is tough work. You have to set aside you own ego and need to feel validated and...

A recent trip to a conference had me packing up a lot of my camera gear. To keep my own sanity and make sure that I don’t leave anything behind in the hotel room, I like to make a checklist of things to pack. This time I thought it might be helpful to look at some other packing list so I did a little search on google for top photo travel list and was amazed at the number of top ten list for photography that showed up in the results. After playing for a few, there were list for everything from p...

As I have been thinking a lot about my own work and how I want my work to matter, it occurred to me that often times I am chasing the wrong things. Photography isn’t about finding the right style, being in the right magazine. It is about a story. The best stories are stories that you connect with. Stories that you love to tell. The photographer’s work should reflect that. I think that is the reason the best wedding photographers love telling the story of a wedding. The best portrait photographer...

I was thinking about a conversation I had with a mentor a number of years ago about how we feel when we are present in our work. I was spending way to much time on the technical and brain side of photography and not enough on the emotional. As I got sorted out what it feels like to take a photograph vs think about a photograph, it resulted in a leap forward in my work. In this podcast, we take a look at how recognition of these moments of impact in photography are not just a function of living ...

It is important to keep yourself organized as a photographer. As I was cleaning up the darkroom, I found a pile of contact sheets from my film shooting. In looking at those contact sheets I remembered how important those sheets were to my photographic process. I have found that there is huge value in having those contact sheets to look at and review images when making editing and printing decisions. Those sheets allowed me to look at images from the entire shoot, get a sense of the shoot, remov...

I was recently watching the Incredibles from Pixar again. In the movie Syndrome talk about how how when everyone is special no one is special. This reminded me of a quote by Robert Frank about how if every moment is captured then nothing special is captured and that there are to many cameras and to many images now. Those two quotes got me thinking about how we look at and view photographs and photography as art. I love that we have put so many cameras and images out there. I don’t necessarily t...

So really what should we focus on when looking at our own work? What makes for a good foundation for analyzing and critiquing your work and the work of others. Inspired by the literary critic, Kenneth Burke, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to use a variation of his dramatistic pentad to critique or analyze photographs. I came with with these five areas: actor, action, form, scene and intention. While his foundation and approach offers up a way to think about motivation and philoso...

A recent conversation with a fellow photographer about all the technical settings for setting up your camera for the right type of focus got me thinking more about how much focus matters with photography. While it is easy to focus on all the cross-hairs, points of focus, servos, manual vs auto and phase detections, it is hard to realize that focusing on the wrong things and having a lack of clarity and purpose in the work can be just as damaging to the overall focus of an image as can selecting ...

As a very busy month comes to a close, I got to thinking about the notion of time. I have so many tools for helping me better deal with managing my time. From multiple calendars to computer programs to help me manage my task list, I am still always at a loss for time. As I was working on getting ahead, I got to think about how my approach to time might be seen in my photographs. With a tendency to prefer to shoot longer shutter speed images, it got me thinking about the idea that maybe my subco...

I love night photography and the tension that is created from the juxtaposition of light and shadow. The forms that move in and out of the darkness. I think it goes back to my rather fast run home from staying at a friends house to watch Alien late one night on HBO. I have little doubt that much of the inspiration for my night photography and how I photograph at night is directly related to that heart-racing run home. Learning and understanding where our inspirations come from and where our bia...

I was working with some wet plate processing this past week. For those of you who don’t know about wet-plate photography is is a wonderful process that is crazy hands-on. You have to coat the glass or metal with collodion, silver, expose the image while the plate is wet–hence the name, develop, fix and varnish the image. It is absolutely an amazing process. The great part of the process is that every image is a unique photograph. The downside is that every image is uniquely created which gives y...

There are so many places that we find inspiration and mentorships when we live the life of an artist. One of my greatest influences and inspirations in my photography is the great Miles Davis. In this podcast, I talk about how he has influenced my work and a couple of his quotes that have really impacted how I think about my photography. As you listen I would encourage you to think about those non-photographers who have influenced your life and how they show up in your work. I think you will be...

10 Keywords In looking back at old emails I found one where I was asked to photograph a wedding. As I recalled explaining to the person that I don’t photograph weddings and not all photography is the same, I was reminded that while we as photographers do a good job of talking about what type of photography we do; we are horrible at talking about our own work. One of the hardest parts of improving your photography is learning to talk about photography. In this podcast I talk about a method that...