Episodes

Episode 311 Each one of us has a different level of patience when it comes to time. I think each of us has to answer how long I am willing to wait to get a great photograph? Often, I find that I might give up a little early or stay way too late in my work. The balance of time always seems a little off. In this week’s podcast, we jump into the question about how long you are willing to wait to get that photograph. We look at the pros and cons of various approaches and the importance of setting u...

Episode 310 For many photographers I work with, one of the consistent pieces of feedback I hear is that there is never enough of something to do the work they want. There might not be time or money or gear. A lot of effort and energy goes into thinking about what is needed to achieve our goals and what is missing. I like to imagine and brainstorm as much as the next person and have often suffered the same fate of what can’t be done because of something. I was having a conversation with an artist...

Episode 309 When we think about approaching our photography, we often put things in buckets or bins. These classifications can help us identify areas of the images to work with and projects to pursue or find meaning in our work. Over time, I have grown to think about these ideas as more of a continuum or spectrum of ideas where they overlap and push into each other. Rather than creating edges, they offer up some softer transitions to more meaningful work. This week’s podcast looks at how this ap...

Episode 308 I work with a lot of different people on different aspects of photography. One of the big areas that I help people with is developing a deeper connection to their work and others’ work. In that process, one of the issues that comes up repeatedly is the idea of what makes a good photograph. On more than one occasion, I have found myself in the conversation about something being a bad photograph or not. As I have looked back over my notes from these conversations, I have begun to wonde...

Episode 307 Throughout our lifetime, we have a lot of friends and acquaintances. Some people are around for a short time, and others might last that lifetime. I have been thinking a lot lately about friendships and how they shape and shift us. They provide support, honesty, humor, companionship, and so much more. As I started to think about photography, I wondered about friendships in photography and the impact they can have. This week’s podcast focuses on the question of who your photo buddy is...

Episode 306 I have been working on some images in the studio recently and some start of the new year cleanup work. As I bounced back and forth between those two projects, it occurred to me that I was missing one thing oftentimes. That thing could be a screw for a tripod leg or a lens cap or an emotional feeling in a print. But as I worked on the projects, I started to wonder how many things in my photography could be fixed with just one thing. So in today’s podcast, we talk about how our approac...

Episode 305 This week’s podcast is a chat about how we feel about photography and photographs. In my teaching experience, I have found that many people think a lot about their photographs, but in some ways how we feel about our photographs can matter more. As always, I hope you and yours are safe, and please remember to keep safe and wear your mask.

Episode 304 This week’s podcast is a quick chat about setting goals for the new year and the importance of looking back at the past year and celebrating what was good. In a year harder than most for people, 2020 gives us a chance to celebrate the flexibility and durability we all have to continue adapting and creating. As always, I hope you and yours are safe, and please remember to keep safe and wear your mask.

Episode 303 This week’s podcast topic came about because of some maintenance on the car. It came time for new brakes, and the tire light kept coming on even though the tires were fine. As I dug into the manual about causes for the tire light, I came across the scheduled maintenance list. As I got to thinking about how that works with the car, it occurred to me that something similar might be good for photography. I think there is maintenance for both camera equipment as well as our digital ass...

Episode 302 This week’s podcast is about the importance of having traditions in your photography. No matter how big or small traditions are something we can look forward to each year and reflect back on the past. As always, I hope you and yours are safe, and please remember to keep safe and wear your mask.

Episode 301 This week’s podcast is all about homework. One of the areas that I think all photographers could improve is understanding what makes a good photograph or a good photograph to them. We dive deep into that topic this week with an exercise to help you better understand how and why you react to photographs the way you do and apply that knowledge to future images or discussions. As always, I hope you and yours are safe, and please remember to keep safe and wear your mask.

Episode 300 This week marks the 300th episode of the podcast. So first off, thank you to everyone who tunes in and listens to the podcast. It really means the world to me that you all tune in and check out what is going on with the podcast. As I mention about a third of the way into this week’s show, this podcast is about all the experiences that I have about how photography impacts my life both just every day and creatively. It isn’t about gear, techniques, or fads, so I know it has a niche mar...

Episode 299 I have been asked a lot recently about what I think about some of the new tools digital photographers have at their disposal. Many programs now offer “AI or machine learning” to help edit photographs. Now with the click of a few buttons, you can replace skies, change expressions, or quickly composite images together. Now I have never been on enough drugs to think that photographs are without manipulation. They are manipulated by point of view, lens choice, depth of field, color vs....

Episode 298 In this week’s podcast, we start with a quote by Edward Weston about composition. “Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.” Edward Weston I have often thought that this quote has been misunderstood by people who teach photography and composition in photography. When I hear this quote, most of the time, instructors are talking about breaking the composition rules to make more interesting photogra...

Episode 297 In this week’s podcast, we look at the impacts of muscle memory on our photography. Muscle memory, or the body’s ability to do something without thinking about it, is an important aspect of working as a photographer. This memory allows us to be able to quickly and efficiently do our jobs. From settings on the camera to keyboard shortcuts in a program, being efficient can really make a difference in how we can do our work. Yet, there is a downside. Anyone who has spent too much time h...

Episode 296 In this week’s podcast, we look at a possible photographic approach and discuss how you approach knowing when enough is enough when creating the image. For many of us, our approach to getting an image completed is incremental. We take small steps in our approach to framing, editing, shooting, and printing. While this method works, I propose that by making more grand shifts earlier in our process, we can get to a better result faster. We can get a better image, better concept, and bet...

Episode 294 Please make sure you vote this week if you are in the US. Election time is an important time. After reading a brief snippet about how Forbes creates its top 200 most brand valuable companies, I got to thinking about what formulas do we use in our photography when we assign a photograph a star value of 1-5. Is there a basic structure to our photographic approach that defines what we think is desirable in an image? If there is a unified approach, what elements would we consider in mak...

Episode 294 Please make sure you vote this week if you are in the US. Election time is an important time. Everything is connected. When you photograph a leaf, it is part of a tree. A leading line doesn’t just start and stop in your frame. It extends beyond the frame. In this week’s podcast, we look at how our approach to seeing the whole and its parts can impact how we view the world and the images we make. Small shifts in our awareness of how everything is related in an image and how those rel...

Episode 293 I had a conversation with a friend a while back about photography and at one point, relating to photo editing, I asked him, Why do you care what someone else does so much? There was a long, almost uncomfortably long pause. The answer that he gave didn’t really matter much to me, but that pause really got me thinking about the idea of why do we care about things the way we do. As we look at photography, I think we care about work because of its impact on us as we make it, and we hope...

Episode 292 When I was younger, I worked for a high-tech startup that had to lay most of the company off to survive. They didn’t do anything but prolonged their demise, but the language used during the layoffs stuck with me. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time but recently heard someone say it when talking about photographs. The phrase used when I was laid off and in the review was This isn’t personal. It’s just business. The thing that stuck with me all these years is that it is business t...

Episode 291 Sometimes when we look at a photograph, we just don’t get it. We move on and don’t give it another thought. However, assuming the photographer was attempting to make something meaningful with there work, the photograph does have something to say. I have grown to think that it is our job to try and understand our reactions to photographs so that we can better understand the photographer. While we may not fully appreciate the images, if we can walk a mile in their shoes we might gain s...

Episode 290 In a follow-up to last week’s podcast on the value of interviewing others and yourself about photography, this week we talk about some possible subjects or ideas to consider when planning your interview. I always recommend that you start with the work. Look closely at the images and projects someone has created to get focused. Think about what you want to know about how the work came about, what they learned from the work, and their approach. As long as your asking questions that foc...

Episode 289 One of my favorite exercises I use to teach photography and learn about my own work is called the interview project. This process involves you doing enough research about a photographer you are inspired by or want to learn from and then create a set of 10 to 20 interview questions that you would want to use to interview them. In some cases, you might be lucky and be able to use those questions to interview the photographer. Still, sometimes they might no longer be alive. Either way, ...

Episode 288 Sometimes it is the little things that can make all the difference. In a photograph, it might be a shift in POV or depth of frame. In our printing, it might be the right paper selection. No matter what you are working on a small change can be a big deal. However, as the days seemingly run together in this year of COVID, I got to thinking about how easy it is to miss the small changes since everything and every day seem to blend. For me, there have been five small changes that I have ...