Here's a thought…

HT2428 - Volumes 1, 2, and 3

Large bodies of work are difficult to consume. Think War and Peace versus haiku. Novelists know the advantages of breaking their narrative into smaller parts — chapters, sections, volumes. We can do that, too, as long as we remember that each section is its own entity and doesn't repeat the previous ones.

HT2432 - Even 2500th Second Can Blur

During the initial review of images from the trip, I was surprised to see some handheld shots that were not sharp even though they had been shot at 1/2500th of a second and used image stabilization. How does this happen? How can I fix this issue in the future?

HT2433 - 1,000 Captures

When I used medium format film, I got 8 shots per roll of 120. I took 200 rolls of film with me to Japan in 1990, well over half of which came back with me unexposed. I came back from Colorado last week with 1,000 shots just of fall colors. My how times have changed.

HT2434 - Anticipating the Ways a Picture Might Fail

There are many ways a picture can fail. Instead of thinking about what we need to do to make a picture succeed, what if we turn that around and anticipate the ways it might fail?

HT2435 - Processing and the Time of Day

As strange as it might sound, I've noticed that how I process an image depends on when in the day I do it. Finicky details and complex processing steps are best done in the morning when my eyes are fresh and I'm most energetic. Aesthetic decisions and experiments are best done late in the day when I'm just a bit tired and my subconscious has an easier time poking through the barrier of the intellectual mind.

HT2439 - The Space That Supports Your Work

Once I had seriously committed myself to photography in the 1970s, I didn't fully realize the implications that would govern my choices of living space over the next five decades. Whenever I found myself needing to move, the first and determining question in any place I considered was where to put the darkroom and the print finishing studio. Over the years, I've slowly come to realize how the space influences what I produce.

HT2440 - Bit Rot Might Be Destroying Your Backups

Have you heard of a thing called bit rot? I hadn't either, but it turns out it can be slowly leading your backups to failure. And speaking of backups, it's that time of year again when it's a good idea to back up all your computerized data, images, and those 1s and 0s that are the measure of your creative life.

HT2441 - No One Will Ever See It

The often insurmountable distance from production to consumption. Rick Beato has a YouTube channel all about contemporary music. It's surprising how many times his topics pertain perfectly to our lives as fine art photographers. Here is an example that is so spot on that I thought he was talking directly to me — art without an audience.

HT2442 - Limitations

Money is limited. Time is limited. Access is limited. Equipment is limited. Techniques are limited. It's a wonder we can get anything done with all these limitations. But that's the thing about the art life, we are surrounded by limitations that conspire to interfere with our productivity. If we let these limitations inhibit our work, it's not the limitations that need to be removed, but rather our willingness to allow those limitations to intimidate us. Artmaking is always about what we can do, not about what we can't.

HT2446 - Caravaggio Ignored His Eyes

Caravaggio, the Italian painter from the 16th century, is well known for his use of a technique called "foreshortening." Today we would call it " focus stacking." It's curious to me that this view of the world is impossible for the human eye. Essentially, Caravaggio had to ignore his eyes and what he saw in order to paint using this technique that seems so real.

HT2447 - Zines vs Chapbooks

A couple of days ago, I received three "zines" in the mail that came from a LensWork reader. They were lovely and I enjoyed her photography a great deal. They were very close in physical dimensions to my 6R chapbooks. This got me thinking about what's the difference between commercially printed zine and a handmade chapbook. Is it as simple as one is disposable and the other is collectible? I'm not sure about this.

HT2448 - Each Project Has Its Own Aesthetic

How many different genres of music are there? Beyond that, each song has its own mood. Beyond that, the same song can be performed in different ways. Aren't we just as creative as the musicians? Why, then, do so many photos look the same, that is have the same aesthetic? Perhaps we need to let go of what an image should look like and think more about what it could look like.

HT2449 - Bonus Images

I'll bet that most of you, from time to time, watch the bonus features after you've finished watching the movie. Or perhaps you watch the director's cut with commentary from behind the scenes. Is there any reason why we still photographers couldn't use this idea with our projects? After the last image in a PDF, for example, why not have bonus images for people who want more?

HT2453 - From My Distant Past

Twice now in the last few months, I've received a kind-hearted compliment about one of my pictures — in both cases, however, from images I made more than 25 years ago. I'm always grateful when someone compliments my work, but it does leave me wondering about my more recent efforts. I suppose it makes sense for us to receive compliments about our ancient work with grace and humility. There is a part of me, however, that wants to bring out a few hundred examples recent work and bring them up to date.

HT2454 - Decisions vs Execution

Art making is the fusion of decisions and execution. It's not at all uncommon for photographers to explain that they became a photographer because they can't draw decent stick figures. That is to say, execution prevents them from being a successful pen-and-ink artist, or painter, or musician. Unlike in photography, with these media, there is a barrier that cannot be crossed with luck. With photography, however, we can both be lucky and master the execution of the craft with relative ease, especially here in the digital age. This seems to imply that the decisions we make in the process are even more weighty than in other media.

HT2455 - To Prime or Not to Prime

There is no question that prime lenses have a reputation for being superior in comparison to zoom lenses. The most expensive lenses are often the very best primes. They are often faster, sharper, and many photographers swear by them. There is a trade-off to a prime lens, however, that's not always obvious but one that persuades me convincingly against primes. Think "optical cropping."

HT2456 - The Most Memorable Photographs of our Age

Time has a way of filtering out the unimportant. Think back 500 years ago. We don't remember local politics, but we do remember the great art from that era. What will people, 500 years from now, look back at our era and find most remarkable? I'll guarantee you it won't be your work or my work, nor even the photographs of the masters like Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. No, they will look back at the images the astronauts captured while on the moon, the Voyager, Cassini, and Juno expeditions to the distant planets, the Hubble and Webb telescope images of distant galaxies.