I have a few prints from my Still Life Series left over, if you’re interested.
The 8″ x 10″ prints (lower left and right) are $20 each, and the 5″ x 7″ prints (upper left) are $10 each.
Love to see them find a good home. Send me a note if you want one!
When I scope out an abandoned building, I always run the risk of it being gone by the time I’m ready to photograph it.
It’s happened plenty of times. Luckily, this past winter, I had a chance to document an abandoned building before it was leveled just weeks later. Other times, I have not been so lucky. There are plenty of places that disappeared before I had a chance to photograph them.
So it is with people, too.
If you love someone, or are fond of someone, take the time to get a good photo in before they’re gone. Even if it’s uncomfortable or awkward.
A few recent passings are good reminders that I need to grab portraits of people I care about. You should do the same. You’ll be glad you did.
Everyone talks about 50mm being the focal length for 35mm photography. And I mostly agree.
But lately, my 40mm pancake lens is getting a lot of use – for good reason.
Five millimeters north of a 35mm lens, and just a hair wider than 50mm, 40mm sits in a sweet spot. It’s wide enough to get landscapes and cityscapes, and yet short enough to do people well, and get details.
I took a chance on my own Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens. Not that it’s not a good lens. It’s a great lens. And very affordable – especially when you buy it refurbished, like I did.
No, I took a chance because I thought, “I so love 50mm, why do I bother with 40mm?” It turns out that because of the lens’s size, weight, and utility, it’s now my most-used lens. It’s almost permanently strapped to my 5D. I just pick it up and go.
The 40mm doesn’t stick out from the camera, making it great for close-up shots of the kids at home, or of people out in the city. It’s a great front-seat lens that goes with me to and from work every day for the random landscape shot. It’s flexible for the kind of shooting I do, and I appreciate it more and more every day.
And now that I’ve had it for about a year, I’m getting to see the world in 40mm – just as I did with 50mm (both are natural, of course, being “normal” lenses). My Canonet probably helped warm me up to 40mm before that, as did my Fuji X-E1 with the 27mm (40mm equivalent) pancake lens.
While the 50mm gets all the creative credit in the photo world, it’s good to know there’s a handy, slightly-wider alternative in the 40mm lens.
Friday, during my lunchtime walk, I discovered a new camera store here in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
I walked in, and it had the usual suspects of a camera shop: new tripods, fancy bags and straps, a bunch of new Fuji and Nikon and Canon cameras sitting on shelves. And, a wall full of film.
Joy!
Because there are fewer and fewer places selling honest to goodness film these days, trying to snag a roll was random and difficult. If I didn’t want Kodak instant cameras or Fuji Superia, I was stuck using Amazon or B&H – especially for my favorites, Agfa Vista and Ilford HP5.
But CameraMall had those and more. Medium format film! Kodak Ektar! Weird Ilford film I had never heard of! My beloved Agfa! It was like a candy store. As a bonus, they also develop 35mm film.
It felt really, really good to plunk down the $10 for two rolls of film, knowing that I had a local place to shop from. They benefit (yay, camera stores!), I benefit, and somewhere down the line the photography industry benefits.
And really, the film costs the same in store as it does online, I get to geek out with the guy behind the counter, and it’s an excuse to get out of the office and go for a walk.
Find your local place, if you have one, and shop from their film selection (or memory cards, or tripods, or whatever). Order some prints. Check out their used gear section. I know ordering online is super handy, but the benefits of shopping local are numerous.
I’ll bet that after you do, like me, you’ll feel better about doing it.
I’m just going to leave this here, as a kind of in-public to-do list.
Patrick LaRoque, at his usual best:
We can never capture everything. But seeing at all times, under any circumstances, is entirely up to us. And for this we don’t need the best camera money can buy or the most expensive lens on the market…we just need awareness.
My brain is full of missed shots.
I remember driving through the upper peninsula of Michigan and passing by an abandoned train sitting next to a pond. It would have made for a great photograph. I hesitated, because to pull over and grab the shot would’ve been something, but I was traveling at a good pace and didn’t feel like stopping. That shot haunts me.
There’s a collection of these shots in my brain, and I add new ones all the time. Maybe it’s as LaRoque says: it’s mostly in the seeing. I’ll remember these scenes in the camera of my mind. The important skill is to recognize new opportunities when they come up.
Or I’ll head back to the spot, and take the shot I missed.
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.
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?”
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
We are, each of us, dripping wet with photographs. Culturally speaking, we are drowning in them.
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.
Most people give up early. Projects and creativity are hard work.
That’s why you should keep going, and keep at it. There will be dips in enthusiasm, or stuck spots, but you’ll survive.
And, you’ll outlast 80% of those other people, the ones who gave up long ago.
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.
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?
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]
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.
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.”
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.
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.