photography

The Open Road

The Open Road

Last week I visited the Detroit Institute of Art to check out The Open Road exhibition, a fantastic collection of photography road trips by some of the great photographers. It was right up my alley (so much so that I bought the accompanying book).

It got me thinking: What if I had been into photography, like I am now, back when I took my country-crossing road trips?

Surely I could have made some sort of project or publication out of my Route 66 trip, or my New England trip, or any of the other big road trips I took in my 20s and early 30s. I went on some pretty great adventures, and I took lots of photos, but I wasn’t into photography. I didn’t have the eye I do today.

Now, seeing what other photographers are doing with Route 66, it makes me wish I could go back in time, hand my younger self a camera and a bit of wisdom, and say, “Fire away.” But that’s not possible.

What is possible is to maybe go on another, similar trip, or somewhere totally different, and do what I do now with a camera.

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Todd Hido on Books

Putting together a photo book.

Lots of good stuff from photographer Todd Hido in this interview, but he drops some truth on photo books:

A book is an enclosed and encapsulated medium that you can actually come pretty damn close to perfecting. I also tend to think that the book is sometimes more important than the show, as the exhibit is a temporary thing, often hanging for a month or six weeks and then it goes away.

Maybe a couple of thousand people see it?

But a book is something that I always say is on your “permanent record” and it never ever goes away—so you better get it right!

He also highlights the importance of playing around with the physical layout of a photo book:

As far as putting together the books, I spend hundred & hundreds of hours shuffling around my photographs, making dummies, turning pages, and switching them around and all that. To me that is really the only way to do it, to print the pictures out, paste them in a physical blank book dummy, and turn the pages.

For my Artists In Jackson book, I didn’t quite know what the layout was going to look like. So I printed a bunch of horizontal and portrait-shaped squares, taped them to pages, and moved them around to see how the look and flow would go. It was super helpful to see the book take shape, even if only in the abstract.

It also helps to give it to someone you trust, and ask, “What do you think?”

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Walk About

University of Michigan Law Quad

It’s a big campus.

Luckily, my workplace is centrally located at the University, so branching out on my lunch hour is easy to do.

That’s what I do, usually, on my lunch hours now. I wander, and explore, and try to find a spot I haven’t seen before. It’s hard, because I’ve been here so many times, and walked around so much.

For one, it’s a great way to get some exercise on a beautiful summer day. For two, it really is a lovely campus.

And three, as I’ve mentioned, it’s how I explore. Grab a camera, lace up the walking shoes, and hit the road. Chicken out at asking people to take their portrait. Find little slants of light. Remember to look up at the architecture.

Keep walking.

Until time runs out, and I head back to the office.

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Stretch First, Then Run

Stretch First, Then Run

I’m taking a new way to work these days, with the new job, and so I can’t rely on my old familiar commute photography stops anymore.

It’s a good thing in that new places equal new adventures. New sites to see. New places to explore. Heck, even a new direction for light and sunrise (I’m heading East now instead of West).

The thing is, it takes me a while to get used to the new commute. As I drive, I study the landscape and look for new opportunities.

This week I made it a point to actually get out and make some photos. After a while, you have to stop looking and actually shoot, right?

A running metaphor, because I’m running these days: My drive is the stretching, the warming up. The shooting is the actual running. For me, it’s important to stretch first.

That’s how it goes for me. It takes me a while to get warmed up to the scenery. After that, I’ll do the work. And after that, I’ll find new paths to explore. On and on it goes.

Call it “getting into the zone.” Whatever. I know this about myself, and I’m watching the process unfold.

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VSCO Open Studio

How frickin’ cool:

We know how expensive it is to rent studio space, and that it can be especially difficult to justify the price when it’s for your own passion project. But if it’s a project that excites you, that drags you out of bed at the crack of dawn and keeps you up late at night, we want to give you the opportunity to create it.

BYO camera? Free?

Not many excuses now to not do that thing you want to do, New Yorkers.

Kudos to VSCO. They’re providing platform after platform for photographers (and “”creatives””) to do their thing. It’s fun to see them stretch and grow beyond film-looking presets for Lightroom (that I still enjoy and use).

I’d give anything for a space like this in my area. My next project is dying for a location to shoot some portraits. I don’t need equipment – just space.

 

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Take A Break

Don't feel bad about taking a break from photography.

Such good advice from Eric Kim:

If you’re bored of photography, don’t feel inspiration, or feeling lost– take a break. Discover new artistic avenues, and replenish your creative fields.

Feeling like you have to take a photo every single day? Don’t.

This runs counter to a lot of advice out there. And there’s the idea of a 365 project, which Kim says often ends up feeling like a chore.

I’ve felt the pressure first-hand, and the lack of gumption to get out there and shoot—especially after my big portrait project last fall—so I took some time off. I’m taking breaks from Instagram here and there, too.

The kicker to getting over the guilt of taking a break. That’s what I’ve learned to accept lately.

Why feel bad about not doing something that’s totally voluntary anyway?

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Race to the Bottom

Samuel Zeller on giving away his photos on Unsplash:

But stock photography is dying, people pay less and less for images. I know, I worked for years in a design agency were we regularly had to buy images for clients, and our clients budgets were always getting smaller.

Why should I need to sell images if I have clients paying me to shoot specific images ? To me working for a client face to face is rewarding, way more than making money on digital sales to people I will never interact with.

Zeller’s approach won’t work for everyone, but it is an alternative to trying to make a few bucks off of an online store.

A lot of workers in the United States are worried about computers and robots taking over their jobs. In the photography world, it’s guys like Zeller that worry the stock photographers. Facing a race to the bottom, photographers may have to give their stuff away and hope a client stumbles on them.

Or you can give your photos away and not worry about the rest.

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Travel Season

Lobster Landing - Connecticut

Taking a vacation is a good excuse to make some photos. You’re in a new place, with new sights and people to see. Everything is fresh and wonderful (especially when they have lobster rolls along the Atlantic Ocean, as above).

But most of us can’t take a vacation all the time.

So what if you took little trips, around your hometown, or to the cities you’re next to?

I started a little project based on small towns around Michigan a few summers back – little towns that I had never visited, or had only traveled through. I’d take a lunch hour and prowl around main street, and shoot what I see.

You don’t have to go far to see a new place. Chances are, there’s something to see within a few miles of where you are right now. This idea is not new.

August is travel season for a lot of people. Now, challenge yourself to travel a little more local for a new perspective.

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How to (Maybe) Make Money Selling Photos

Make Money Selling Your Photos

Here’s the deal: money shouldn’t be the main reason you make photos. The reality is, you probably won’t make very much.

But it is possible to make some gas money selling your photos online. Take this old chestnut:

  1. Make photos
  2. Post them online for sale
  3. ???
  4. Profit!

Step three is the tricky one. Here’s what I’ve found in the few short years I’ve had an online store.

For one, don’t expect any sales. Start there. No one will buy your photos.

Good?

Okay, accepting that, keep doing what you’re doing: Instagramming, sharing your photos on social media, giving prints away to friends and family, and keep shooting.

Then, when someone asks, “Hey, do you sell your stuff? Can I get a copy of this-or-that photograph?” you say, “Sure do!” And send them a link to your store, with a link to the photo they’re looking to buy.

Boom. There’s your profit. And be grateful for it.

You may get a few sales through searches or people stumbling on your stuff. But that’s what all those question marks in step three are: dumb luck.

It’s different if you attend art shows, or do wedding photography, or shoot on commission. Those all involve hustle, investment, and time. If photography isn’t your main gig, it’s more difficult to make a buck.

I have a few sales here and there every month or two, and then it’s only a few bucks – enough for a coffee. If that’s as ambitious as you get, you probably won’t be disappointed.

Me? I put almost every dollar I make from photography—online sales, wedding gigs, etc—right back into my hobby. Because I’m not doing this stuff for money, I’m doing it for fun.

Make the photos you want to make. Post them online for people to buy. And when people do want to buy your photos, make it easy for them. One, two, three.

I can’t think of a better, less sleazy, way to do it than that.

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Marketing, Not Photography

Setting Up A Photography Store

Brooks Jensen on LensWork Podcast ep. 948:

The minute people starting thinking about money—about selling their art work and marketing, etc.—the art of photography was diminished.

Jensen says his wife enjoys gardening, but doesn’t expect to be paid for planting something in her own yard.

So maybe the switch between “I make photos for art/fun/etc.” to “I make photos for money” is what makes so many people take the same kinds of photos.

It’s marketing, not photography.

 

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Why Buy Photographs

Why Buy Photographs?

We are, each of us, dripping wet with photographs. Culturally speaking, we are drowning in them.

Limited Editions are a Useless Floodgate: the ocean of images cannot be tamed. — infinite industries — Medium

So why buy photographs?

“Value is not held within the [physical] object,” Travis Shaffer writes. “Rather, it is the opportunity to stand before the work which we desire.”

Which is exactly why I’m a small-time collector of the photographs I enjoy. The idea of (a) supporting emerging artists and (b) collecting appealing work is reason enough to spend a little money of not-so-limited prints.

I don’t do it because it’s a potential investment. And I surely don’t do it to be Mr. Art Collector Guy.

I do it because I want it hanging on my wall.

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Making Up Limitations

Making Up Limitations

Craft inhabits whatever medium or tool you work with, if you let it.

I revisit Craig Mod’s articles every once in a while, just to feel what he’s feeling at these times of digital/analog transition.

The above, from 2014, recall Mod’s thoughts about how mobile phone photography – always connected, quality digital files, the idea of a singular photograph changing – was growing into its own.

With everything set to automatic, where was the craft in an iPhone photo?

Mod’s point: It’s all in the restrictions you put on yourself.

It’s one reason why I love using a 10 year old digital camera to make most of my images. Almost nothing is automatic, there’s no video setting, and only 12 megapixels. Every day is a limitation.

But even with cameras with auto HDR and leveling and intervalometers and all that, you can make using your camera feel like driving a manual transmission car if you still want that experience.

Turn the display off. Turn auto everything off. Set your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO on manual. Don’t use built-in filters (or do, and treat it like film stock). Etc.

Cameras these days have few limitations. So make up some, and start a new project.

Until They Start to Care

Ann Arbor, Michigan

People don’t take the time to read, says Steven Pressfield, via Dave Trott:

Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchoupitoulas. It isn’t that people are mean or cruel.They’re just busy. When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, your mind becomes powerfully concentrated.

Think about that. All the hard work we put into creative projects, or blog entries, or advertising campaigns – nobody really cares. They have better things to do.

Until they do start to care. But that’s only a fraction.

I try to bring this viewpoint to my job. We fret over the little things, and we polish the text to a buffed shine. Luckily, Ann Arbor (a true college town) is more literate than most cities. Still, at the root, nobody cares.

So give them a reason to.

Or: set your expectations accordingly. If no one cares what you do, doesn’t that give you some freedom to do what you want to do?

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The Art Life

The Art Life

Photography itself is its own reward…The art life is a privilege we should be willing to pay for.

In other words, don’t do it for the money, says Brooks Jensen, or for fame. There are plenty of other reasons to do your thing.

In Jensen’s list, most of the reasons are internal, as it should be.

For me, it’s good enough to be a hobby. Like many hobbies—car repair, painting, collecting shot glasses, playing flamenco guitar, film history—it’s not cheap. And that’s okay.

I play guitar because I love music, and because it’s relaxing, not because I’ll be in the Rolling Stones.

I play with a camera for the exact same reasons.

[via CJ Chilvers]

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On Ornery Artists

On Ornery Artists

There’s something noble about being the “ornery artist.” The one who switches it up when he or she shouldn’t. The one who you can’t pin down. The one who avoids fame and publicity.

As I walked around the Ann Arbor Art Fair on Thursday, especially looking at the photography booths, I couldn’t help but notice how similar they all were: landscapes, sunsets, flowers, bodies of water, animals, HDR (blah!).

Art fair artists are there to sell things, I get it. It’s hard to be ornery and sell in mass quantities.

For me, it’s more fun to root for the curmudgeon.

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Three Things

Three Things

Doesn’t get much more simple than this:

Wanna be a better photographer? The simple answer is: shoot every single day, study the work of other photographers, and try your darndest to find something new to say in your work.

Bingo.

I struggle with that first bit the most. It’s so hard to get out and shoot on a regular basis.

And “study the work,” not “mindlessly consume and copy.” Get the difference?

That advice appeals to the academic in me. Seeing the world as the “great” photographers saw it is a quick to realize how much farther I have to go, and what I do and don’t enjoy.

The part that surprised me was the question about clichés. Most of the photography editors said there’s no such thing.

So much good stuff throughout this roundup.

Eric Kim: “To find your style in photography is to find who you are as a human being. What interests you in life?”

Laura Austin: “Style is about authenticity.”

Eric Anderson: “Finding your style comes with a lot of practice and being true to yourself.”

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Welcome to Art Fair

Every year, during the hottest week of the summer, Ann Arbor puts on a giant art fair, shutting down streets downtown and welcoming thousands of people over four days.

I’ve been to Art Fair several times, but this is my first time working on campus during the event. As the artists set up their booths, I walked around town grabbing some of the behind-the-scenes shots.

It’s fun, seeing the event before the event starts. A lot of the art was already on display, but many artists didn’t have their tent up yet, and their wares were sprawled out on the University of Michigan lawn, waiting for hanging.

There were these weird juxtapositions, like fake cactus and palm trees baking in the Midwestern sun, or giant metal sculptures just hanging out on University Ave. And hot. Everything was hot.

Should be a fun couple of days, trying to get into work.

For a few minutes yesterday, though, the setup gave me a great chance to wander around and see what I could see.

A suggestion: If you find an artist you like at one of these art fairs, a good way to support them is to buy a small print or notecard, especially if you can’t afford one of their bigger prints. I found one from photographer Amber Tyrrell that I really liked, so I bought a notecard from her. Three bucks and some change is an easy vote of confidence.

Any little bit of support helps the artists, helps the arts economy, and makes the whole humid thing seem worth it.

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Move ‘Em Out

Move 'Em Out

With an impending sale of Yahoo!, there’s a lot of hand-wringing about what’s going to happen to Flickr.

I’m worried about Flickr, too, for the same reasons Jim Nix is worried – namely, that if someone buys Flickr and messes it up, where can we photographers go? Especially those of us that have dumped most (in my case) or all (in other photographers’ cases) of our photos onto the site.

I, like Nix, enjoy Flickr’s organization tools, the Groups, the social aspects, and the ease of use. Flickr can be used in all kind of ways, whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional, and a lot of us pay the annual fee to keep the premium features. To me, it’s always been worth the $25 a year.

In recent years, Flickr has tried to Instagram itself by becoming more mobile and more in-the-moment. But what if it just stuck to being a photography enthusiast’s site?

“Growth” and “scaling” make you money, over time, but don’t memberships and providing value make money too?

I’d pay $5 more every year to make Flickr stay healthy, stick to what it does best, and listen to its customers. It’s an important tool in my photography tool belt.

I can’t worry too much, because I don’t have any control over who buys Flickr and what happens to it in the long haul. But I do have a wish list, and at the top of that is that Flickr sticks around and keeps chugging along, even if it’s not in the Who’s Who of social media/photography platforms.

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Exploring Ann Arbor

Liberty Street - Ann Arbor, Michigan

After starting my new job in March, I did what I always do: got out and explored.

I’ve been to Ann Arbor, Michigan, many times, and done a lot of shooting here. Now that it’s my jobby-job town, there are a lot more opportunities to get out and see the city. Lunch hours, in between meetings, after work – all good excuses to get out and make photos.

This is, at its most basic, the best reason to make photography a hobby. You get to really learn about and know a place through the viewfinder.

A new place also provides that little spark of freshness you might need to practice your craft.

Do your everyday surroundings get stale? Go somewhere new, and – bam – instant inspiration.

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On Greatest Hits

 

Ghost, performing in Grand Rapids, Michigan

You know that new thing where a band goes out on tour and plays an entire classic album of theirs live?

For the fans, it’s great, especially if it’s a truly beloved and well-known album. It’s a well-worn reminder of why you love the band and their music.

What if we could go back and try our hands at an old project, and reinterpret it years later?

William Christenberry made a career out of it, coming back to the same location year after year, watching it fall apart.

I often wonder what i would do if I took my life-changing Route 66 roadtrip and did it all over again, but with the photo skills I have now. It would probably be a longer trip out of necessity.

Pulling over, after all, takes time.

A greatest hits in photos, knowing what I know now? Let’s hit the road.

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Fail In Private

 

Failing In Public

Here’s the thing about failed projects:

It’s fine to start something, and give up after you begin – midway, almost done, whatever. Sometimes things don’t work out.

I’ve done that quite a few times. A new project will pop into my head, and I’ll start on it, but then I give up. Lack of interest, lack of time, whatever.

The trouble starts when you share a project you haven’t thought through to completion. You make a big announcement, “Hey! I’m doing a thing!” You share the thing. Everyone’s excited.

And then? Crickets.

People that follow your work are left in the lurch. Nothing more comes of your big project after that first big thing, or the announcement. Do that a few times, and people start to question your credibility.

Maybe it’s better to fail in private. Then you’re only disappointing yourself.

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Outlasting

Outlasting

If you have critics, maybe you’re on to something. Adam Smith, in You and Your Work Aren’t For Everyone, says that the Wright brothers had their share of naysayers, but they kept experimenting, until…liftoff.

“Nothing shuts critics up faster than producing results,” Smith says.

But just because you have critics doesn’t mean what you’re doing is great. You just have to outlast them, and keep producing the kind of work that’s right for you.

(via Jon Wilkening)

A Confession

 

University of Michigan Museum of Art

Sometimes, when I just need to unwind at work, or kill some time in the grocery line, I’ll look at the For Sale board on Fred Miranda.

I don’t need anything, and I’m sure as heck not going to buy anything. But it’s fun to read the equipment listings, especially when I don’t recognize something. That’s always a good research opportunity, and I love few things more than doing research.

Granted, I have picked up a few good finds on Fred Miranda. My go-to Canon 5D is from that listing board, as was my Fuji X-E1 and my 20mm lens.

I look at Fred Miranda like a car person reads a hot rod mag. No harm in that.

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