Okay, so they might be a bit chilly …
If you went to a liberal arts university, or a reasonably well-funded high school, you likely took a course mysteriously referred to as “Art Appreciation.” Your instructor, who might have been an art history major if you were lucky, spent the duration of the semester trying to convince everyone that art was cool while simultaneously imposing a list of dates and names one was required to memorize in order to pass the sanctioned tests. The courses are required as part of the accreditation for most university programs in hopes that the institutions produce reasonably well-rounded graduates.
No, it doesn’t work.
A minority of the US population actually appreciates art on any level. Not because they don’t want to, mind you. Ask most people if they like art and they’ll tell you they do. However, actually appreciating the work requires a deeper understanding than just “liking” art. Giving a work the “thumbs up” on Facebook is a long way from being able to discuss the work’s merits or the motivations of the artist.
The general concept of art, for many people, is that it fall into two categories: the pieces where one can tell what the picture is, or those where they can’t. We “like” those pieces we find easy to understand, especially those brightly colored paintings of the Romantic period. More challenging to the common aesthetic are those pieces that demand abstract thought, almost any major work from the late 19th century forward. Hang a Jackson Pollock painting and wait. Someone will inevitably ask if it was painted by an elephant or a four-year-old. Every time.
One of the reasons we have so much difficulty with comprehending visual art is that we are challenged to connect it to what is going on in our own lives. After all, much of the artwork that we find in traditional museums pre-dates most of us by at least 100 years or more. What was relevant to the artist is not necessarily still relevant in a contemporary setting. We are often asked to have an understanding not only of art styles, but history, fashion, and politics in ways that are completely lost to us. People wander through a gallery without hardly a clue as to why a work is important or what makes one more valuable than the other.
The curators of museums feel your pain. They want visitors to appreciate the collections they’ve worked so hard to assemble. Understanding how different works by various artists connect not only to each other but also to our own lives is a struggle every curator feels at one point or another. Obviously, the curators see the connections, but they do so drawing heavily not only on their depth of accumulated knowledge but on their own life experiences with art. Transferring that experience from themselves to their guests is almost impossible.
Enter the Tate Britain, one of the world’s premiere art museums. Each year, the Tate offers its IK Prize for promoting the use of technology in the exploration of art. Named after philanthropist Irene Kreitman, the prize this year was awarded to a team in Treviso, Italy for their entry, Recognition. Created by Fabrica with the help of JoliBrain, an artificial intelligence firm, and Microsoft, which helped fund the project, Recognition uses artificial intelligence to match photographs from current photojournalists with works of art at the Tate. The presumption is that by relating works of art with modern photographs, we might better understand the art.
There are, obviously, a lot of questions to ask about an artificial intelligence program’s ability to understand and comprehend art. The folks at Fabrica are quick to explain that this is an experimental program and that a more accurate technology would require years more research and input. Recognition is not flawless by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, by forcing consideration of a strict set of criteria, even the mistakes help us to more deeply examine both the structure of art and of the images around us. Consider the criteria Recognition uses for comparison. These definitions are taken directly from the program itself:
Images with close similarity in these four categories are selected as a match, and displayed in Recognition‘s gallery. You can watch the process online through November 27. I’ve been watching it most of the morning, absolutely mesmerized. Recognition makes three or four matches an hour. Some of them immediately make sense. Others require more thought. And, inevitably, there are those where one has to conceded that maybe the computer got it wrong. But hey, at least it tried.
Visitors to the exhibit at the Tate have the ability to help Recognition learn by making better suggestions to the matches that it makes. Given that the exhibition is only open through the end of November, however, means that there is a distinct limit to how much the program could learn. If one were to leave it running for five years or more, I would suspect that its ability to match photographs to works of art would become extremely accurate, but such an exhibition would require a tremendous amount of funding and even the Tate’s extensive pockets don’t run that deep.
Yes, there are more than a few detractors. One needs to have a better-than-average knowledge of the Tate’s catalog in order to participate and interact with any level of accuracy. The interface isn’t exactly friendly and the errors are sometimes so mindboggling as to leave one disappointed in the entire technology.
Yet, it would seem that artificial intelligence has a lot it can teach us. The technology is still very much in its infancy. If anything, it teaches us that understanding art is a learning process itself. Applying strict analysis to what has traditionally been seen as a subjective opinion forces different modes and conditions of examination. Art viewers are forced to take on different considerations that may not be especially comfortable. Making those adjustments, however, are what deepens our own understanding of art.
I wish I had time to fly to London and watch other people interacting with Recognition. I think it would be interesting to study how even a basic interaction with the program alters one’s perception of the art pieces displayed in the gallery. This is an exciting exhibition, one that could genuinely improve public appreciation and understanding of art, which could eventually translate into better public funding for the arts and for artists.
At least, we can hope for that outcome, can’t we?
Hey ya’ll! My name is Mortimier Chunkendunck but ya’ll can call me Mort. I’m a good friend, well, actually more of a distant acquaintance, of ol’ Chuck Letbetter and he’s done gone and given me permission to teach ya’ll a little bit about photography. I’ve known ol’ Chuck since he was still wet behind the ears. I’ll tell ya’, that boy couldn’t tell the difference between a lens cap and a shutter button when he first started. That’s a story for a different time with lots of alcohol, though. He’s only giving me one page to do all this learnin’ for ya’ll here.
You see, how this all got started was that an ad from something called Shutter magazine. Not Shutterbug, mind you, which is something totally different about a lot of the same stuff. This here Shutter magazine has been promoting these ads on your Facebook sayin’ they’ll give ya’ a free photography lesson, or somethin’ like that. There’s a pretty picture on the ad and I’m guessing that’s what gets most people’s attention. Click on that there ad, though, and you find out there ain’t nothing much free. You get this page here that says ya’ gotta subscribe to that there magazine to get anything. And ya’ gotta get what they be callin’ an “Elite+” membership to be gettin’ any lessons about anything. Now, I don’t know what neck of the woods you grew up in, but ’round here that’s not what we call free.
So, ol’ Chuck calls me up—well,actually, I been houndin’ him a fair deal on Facebook to let me write somethin’ for him—but anyway, he says to me, he says, “Why don’t you go write a one-page photography course since you already know everythin’ ’bout everythin’?” An’ I says back at him, “Why, I’d be right honored to do that fer ya’>” So strap in an try to pay attention ‘cuz this here is some high-level information I be givin’ ya’ll here.
I know, that pretty young woman in that picture is a bit distractin’ for some of ya’ll. Let me just tell ya’ right now ya’ll probably ain’t got the smarts to keep up with that young lady there. Ya’ might as well just keep your mind on the topic here, which is cameras, and that’s exactly what she’s holding in her hands: a camera. You’re gonna need one of those things if ya’ll plan on being a photographer. No, dangit, your phone does not count. Takin’ a phone to a photo shoot is like showin’ up at church without a Bible, ’bout all ya’ can do is watch.
Now, I know a lot of people make a big freakin’ deal ’bout the kind of camera they be usin’. Let me tell ya’ right here and now that it don’t make one damn bit of difference one way or the other when you’re just startin’ out. Yeah, I know those really pricey ones got all the gizmos and gadgets that are fun and look good in the store, but if’n ya’ll don’t have the first clue’ bout takin’ a picture all the gizmos and gadgets on the planet ain’t gonna help ya’ none. Get yourself somethin’ simple so you can find that there ISO setting without having to turn the dang camera upside down and sideways. Ya’ don’t need 250 on-board filters if’n ya’ keep choppin’ everybody’s head off in the pictures. Like my momma told my pappy, “Keep it simple, Stupid.” She told him that ’bout a lot of things. That’s why I have 11 brothers and sisters.
Jus’ git yo’self a decent little camera there. Get one that feels good in your hands. If’n ya’ have tiny little dainty hands, like that there Republican feller that Chuck doesn’t like, then you’ll be wantin’ one of those smaller little boxes ya’ll can pick up for cheap. If’n ya’ have big ol’ farmer’s hands, though, you’re gonna be wantin’ something heavy enough ya’ don’t break it jus’ tryin’ to put the lens on the front. Try ’em out like ya’ would a good pair of work gloves. Git a feel for ’em.
Now, if’n ya’ gonna be a photographer, ya’ gotta decide what kinda subject you’re gonna shoot. No, De-Wayne, put down that shotgun, that ain’t the kinda shootin’ we be talkin’ ’bout. Ya’ need to decide what kinda pictures you’re gonna take. If’n ya’ take pictures of pretty people, like the young lass in this picture, then us normal folk will like yo’ work. If’n ya’ take pictures of ugly people in black and white, then all them high falutin’ artsy dodgers gonna like yo’ work. HowEVER, though, there’s only one way yo’re gonna make your grandma happy and that’s if’n ya take pictures of old barns and that ol’ oak tree back there by the crik when it turns all them colors and the Grand Canyon and stuff. Ya’ probably don’t want to go makin’ Grandma mad now, I hear she’s been updatin’ her will just in case the good Lord takes her away. Jus’ between you and me, I wish he’d get on with it ‘cuz Grandma’s done past her expiration date an’ is startin’ to smell a bit, if’n ya’ know what I mean. But don’t be tellin’ her I said that.
ANYway, takin’ picture of blank walls isn’t gonna get ya’ very far. Ya’ gotta have a subject and ya’ kinda want to keep takin’ pictures of the same kinda subject so that folks’ll know what to be expectin’ from ya’. Ya’ don’t need no tree photographer takin’ pictures at Darla Mae’s weddin’ next month, for example. That boy she’s gittin’ hitched to is dumb as a bag of rocks an’ twice as ugly. She’s gonna need one very talented photographer to make those pictures come out decent ‘nuf to hang on a wall. Pick yo’self somethin’ an’ stick wit’ it.
Eyes down here, folks. I don’t know why ya’ll keep gettin’ so distracted by the pictures. Ya’ll know dang good and well yo’momma would tan’ yo’ hide if’n she caught you takin’ pictures like that. Ol’ Chuck’s diff’rent. He’s too old for it to matter. The rest of ya’ll, tho’, be needin’ to keep yo’ eyes in yo’ head. Ya’ gotta learns to be proFESSional and not be distracted by boobs an’ such.
Back to the subject at hand, light is the most important part of photography. Ya’ can’t take pictures of nothin’ in the dark. That’d just be silly now, wouldn’t it. Besides, I done know half ya’ll city slickers be ‘fraid of the dark in the first place. Ya’ll wouldn’t know what to do if ya’ got a picture of the boogey man now, would ya’? So, ya’ gotta have some light turned on some place or else the picture just ain’t gonna turn out the way ya’ want. Git that through that li’l pea brain of yo’rs. Ya’ gotta turn a light on somewhere.
Now, ol’ Chuck likes whatcha call that there “natural light.” That is, he shoots where the sun be shinin’. He don’t even use no flash or nuthin’ most the time. Me, I prefer crankin’ up the generator and usin’ some big ol’ strobe lights so that everything is all lit up nice an’ pretty like Chris’mas. Either way’ll work if’n ya’ be careful. Just don’t go draggin’ no ‘lectrical cord through a mud puddle, though. That’ll give ya’ quite a shock there an’ ain’t none of yo’r kin gonna want to be yo’r assistant no mo’.
If’n yo’ takin’ pictures of peoples, then gittin’ ’em to stand the right way is the other most important part of photography. This is called posin’. No, DeWayne, it ain’t got nuthin’ to do with those folks walkin’ ’round with their britches saggin’ below their drawers. We be callin’ those folks “urBane” now, or somethin’ like that. Posin’ has to do with how yo’ subject be standin’ or sittin’ or whatever. Ya’ gotta be payin’ attention to this stuff or else the pictures be turnin’ out lookin’ like the stuff ya’ be shovlin’ out of Merle’s dairy barn.
Now, posin’ standin’ ain’t exactly like how ya’ll might be normal standin’. Ya’ gotta make it interestin’. Like, standin’ with one leg lookin’ like it done got stepped on by Pete’s bull. No, DeWayne, that does NOT mean ya’ll can go around stompin’ on people’s feet. Didn’t yo’ momma teach ya’ll no better’n that? Whatcha gotta do is go lookin’ at them there fashiony magazines an’ seein’ how them pretty ladies in them magazines be posin’. Pauline’s gotta stack of ’em down there in her hair Say-lon. She don’t mind ya’ lookin’ at ’em as long as ya’ keep the stack neat’n tidy.
Ol’ Chuck says ya’ can hire some help who done knows how to pose folk. They be called “art di-rectors” or somethin’ like that. I suppose they be walkin’ ’round with paint brushes in their pocket or somethin’. I ain’t never met one so I can’t rightly say.
Now, once ya’ done takin’ the pictures, ya’ gotta do this thing called editing before ya’ can show them to anyone. Take this here picture of ol’ Chuck, for instance. We both know dang good and well that there’s no way anyone’s gonna git Chuck up on no space ship. He done gone an’ used PHOTOshop to make it look like he was out in Jedi-land, where ever that is. Ya’ see, that PHOTOshop thing is mighty powerful stuff an’ ifn’ ya’ gots them computer smarts ya’ can do just ’bout anything with a picture that ya’ want.
Once upon a time, back when Chuck ‘n me were jus’ pups, folks used to have to do this editin’ stuff the hard way in what was called a dark room. It weren’t actually really dark in there, of course, we wouldn’t be able to see what we was doin’. There was a red light bulb in there and ya’ had to dip the picture in all these strange chem’cals an’ hang it up to dry like June’s laundry out there on the line. Took forever, it did.
Ya’ll be lucky now, tho, all ya’ll gots them computers an’ yo’ wifi an’ I’m tellin’ ya, there’s magic in them there boxes. Ya’ll can edit jus’ bout anything into anywhere if’n ya’ know what yo’ doin’. DeWayne, ya’ might as well go ahead and find yo’self a tudor or somethin’ to help ya’ figger it all out. Not all ya’ll the brightest bunch of bulbs in the box.
Once ya’ll got all them there pictures edited, then ya’ gotta post ’em all to Facebook. This is a re-QUIRE-ment ‘cuz there ain’t no way folks are ever gonna see none of those pictures if’n ya’ jus’ leave ’em sittin’ on yo’r computer there. Now, ol’ Chuck is sittin’ over here shakin’ his head for some reason. I’m not sure he’s feelin’ all that well. But trust me on this, no one is gonna know that yo’r bein’ a photographer now if’n ya’ don’t be postin’ yo’r pictures on the Facebook.
Now, I know some folks be postin’ all their stuff to this other thing called the Instagram. I sup’ose that might be okay if’n ya’ want to be lookin’ like one of them there spoiled li’l brats out in HolLYwood. I myself ain’t found much use for the thing. It keeps tryin’ to make all my pictures square and look funny. B’sides that, most people who be usin’ the Instagram be takin’ pictures of themselves, ya’ know, what they be callin’ selfies. Vanity is what it is, ya’ know, takin’ all them pictures of yo’r own face. Ain’t nobody need to see that many pictures of yo’r own face. Vanity is what it is. Heard the preacher say so jus’ the other Sunday.
This here concludes my photography lesson. I was gonna give ya’ll a test but Chuck is sayin’ we ain’t got time for that. So, I’m jus’ gonna go ‘head and DEclare ya’ll gradjuates of the Mortimier Chunkendunck Skool of Photography. Ya’ll is now o-fish-ally photographers. Good luck to ya’. Jus’ don’t be tryin’ to steal an of my customers.
We like you. We really, really like you. Photographers love their clients, especially repeat clients who keep coming back for portraits or other special imagery. We love clients who understand the value of what we do, who don’t keep needling us when it takes longer than expected to finish their pictures, and especially the ones who tell their friends that they need to use us as well. These are the people for whom we might consider bending the rules every once in a while, and for whom we’ll at least consider their more outrageous requests.
Then, there are the nightmares. These are the clients who are never satisfied with their pictures, the ones who question your quality, whether you even know what you’re doing, and claim that their four-year-old could do better. We stay up at night fearing the client who trashes us to their friends, but then comes back again and has the audacity to ask for a discount or special service that you don’t normally offer. These are not nice people.
Yet, as professionals, we are supposed to take the nightmares with a grain of salt, keep a smile on our face, and attempt to say no to their requests while re-directing them back to our stated policies. I was amused earlier this week when a sponsored article popped up in my Facebook newsfeed offering a chart with answers to the most common objections photographers face. The chart was created by Joy Vertz, a portrait photographer based in Mequon, Wisconsin. The advice she gives is solid. However …
Ms. Vertz is one of those lovely, positive, go-get-’em people who doesn’t take no for an answer. She smiles, redirects, restates, and closes the sale. She’s successful both in terms of her own photography business and also with helping other photographers who are struggling. I’ve never met her, but I’m sure she’s a wonderfully nice person who could sell a block of ice to a resident of the South Pole. Some people just have that right attitude for selling.
The rest of us, however, struggle with closing sales. Not all of us are natural-born salespeople. In fact, the more creative we are, the more difficult it can be for us to function in a business capacity. We work best when someone else handles all the sales closing stuff, leaving us to take the pictures and be creative and occasionally do some really amazing work. Dealing with anyone who is the slightest bit contrarian isn’t our strong point.
As I was reading through Ms. Vertz’s list of objections, I couldn’t help thinking, “Yes, that’s what you should say, but that’s not what I would be thinking.” I’m one of those people who does better when Kat closes the sale. She’s friendly, cheerful, and can keep a smile on her face even when talking to a complete idiot. I can’t. Stupid people make me want to throw things. So, I thought it might be fun, since it’s Saturday and if you’re reading this after 8:00 AM you’re probably not out shooting today, to consider what we would actually like to say to clients who cause us nightmares. The objections come from Ms. Vertz’s list. I don’t have time to address them all, but this should be enough to make my point.
Wrong. You don’t want to pay me for the value of my work. You want a discount. You always want a discount. Yet, you’ll pay $8 for that freakin’ latte you’re holding. You down what, three of those a day? I’m not too expensive, you just have really lousy priorities, are selfish, and fail to value anyone in the service industries. Go away. I don’t have time for you.
Why? Because you want to share them online (which is fine if you’ve paid for the disc) or because you want to take them to the drug store and get really crappy prints instead of paying my prices? Or even worse, you’re not going to try printing them on your home inkjet, are you? After I’ve spent hours getting the tonal and color quality of your images just right, you’re going to ruin them by printing on some non-calibrated crappy little no-name printer you picked up at a garage sale? And then you’ll complain because the pictures don’t “look right.” Please.
Damn, you’re lazy. If you think I’m going to wait around for months while you do everything but choose your proofs, you’re crazy. Make a decision already. Chances are you’re going to go with your first choice, anyway. Better yet, let me decide for you. You’re too distracted to pay attention to what you’re doing. You’re giving me a headache.
[By the way, Joy’s answer to this one is spot on: To have an online gallery is $500 which applies 100% to your order placed within 1 week. It is $25 for each additional week. ]
Take a fucking selfie like everyone else? Pay for a session and we’ll happily give you permission to use the finished photos online with appropriate credit. Re-edit the picture or fail to give credit, though, and I’m SO going to bitch. Okay, not really, but I’ll think bad thoughts about you and complain about you to my dog.
Uhm, no. Part of my job is to make you look good. You know, remove the blemishes from things like really bad acne, or removing those horrid dark circles from under your eyes because you don’t sleep, eat horribly, smoke like a fucking chimney, and drink three bottles of wine a night. You come here wanting me to make you look flawless and glamorous like a model. So no, I’m not showing you all the photos.
Uhm, YES! First of all, pull those kids off the props. This is not a fucking playground. Do I look like someone who has the patience of a preschool teacher? You do realize there’s no way I’m getting five toddlers all looking in the same direction at the same time, even if I had a puppy. I’m going to need half a bottle of scotch after we finish this one and you had damn well better buy the largest package we offer. Your child just peed on my carpet. I hate you.
Of course, we would never actually say any of those things to anyone’s face. We do our best to be polite and nice and not curse too much in front of children. At least two-thirds of our clients are really wonderful people. We enjoy working with them. However, we keep having nightmares. Every photographer I know has nightmares.
If you look on our home page, where we describe our services, we provide the instruction: Please be sure to communicate your needs fully to avoid any surprises. One of those surprises is that we will charge an additional fee to clients who are especially difficult. If someone is going to be a complete pain-in-the-ass, they’re going to pay for that experience.
Now you know what we’re thinking. Be a good client, not a nightmare. Thank you.
I walk the dog every morning at 4:00 AM. Most mornings, it’s a nice, quiet stroll through the neighborhood. Everyone’s asleep. Well, almost everyone. Each morning, in about the same location, we pass a vehicle with its hazard lights flashing as the person on the passenger side flings copies of the Indianapolis Star out the window. The first time we encountered them I was rather surprised that there would be many people in this neighborhood who would still subscribe to the print edition of the newspaper. What I’ve learned since then is that no only do a lot of people subscribe to the print edition of the paper, they prefer it to the digital edition even on mornings like this where the paper is likely to be a bit soggy despite the plastic bag surrounding it.
Some fifteen or so years ago, a fair number of Americans, intelligent people who know how to reason and think critically, became enamored with and perhaps too easily accepted the idea that the future of all media lies in digital content and presentation. Everything was going to be online. The rush to do everything online was so great that many large businesses fell in its wake. Booksellers with hundreds of stores nationwide went out of business. Magazines with decades of experience either went online only or closed completely. The little film-developing kiosks that were once ubiquitous suddenly all disappeared. No more paper. Everything online.
What we’re beginning to realize, though, is that we still need paper.
Those who make their living bringing companies and individuals online have long been evangelists for the digital movement and they have been very effective. Like the big tent Christian revivalists of the 20th century, they’ve made the rounds from company to company, boardroom to boardroom, warning that to remain with paper is certain death and that digital would be their economic salvation. Everyone drank the Kool-Aid. As a result, we are now seeing a shift at the top of corporations, especially in publishing fields. Consider some of the developments this week alone:
At a casual glance, it would appear that everyone’s sold on digital and there’s no significant market for paper.
With everyone rushing to jump online, some assumptions were made that, possibly, were not true. Primarily, print was declared prematurely dead. Paper, we were told, was out. Everything has to be online. That assumption, we’re finding out now, was not only premature, but very, very wrong.
The major piece of evidence in this argument is the paper, Reality Check: Multiplatform newspaper readership in the United States, 2007–2015 by Hsiang Iris Chyi & Ori Tenenboim, both from the University of Texas, Austin, School of Journalism. They make an indictment at the very beginning that is rather damning of this massive rush to kill paper and put everything on the web.
Results indicated that the (supposedly dying) print product still reaches far more readers than the (supposedly promising) digital product in these newspapers’ home markets, and this holds true across all age groups. In addition, these major newspapers’ online readership has shown little or no growth since 2007, and more than a half of them have seen a decline since 2011. The online edition contributes a relatively small number of online-only users to the combined readership in these newspapers’ home markets.
The same seems to hold true for those who declared that print books were deceased as well. Nielsen BookScan unit sales of print books rose 2.4 percent in 2014. Publisher’s Weekly reported earlier this year that bookstore sales for 2015 were up 2.5%, the first time that sector had seen an increase since 2007. Ebook sales actually declined, as did sales of book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle series.
Even in photography, where the push to put everything online has been nothing short of maddening, we’re seeing an increase in the number of articles such as this one (paid content by Canon) that tout the revenue advantages of selling prints, not digital images. Some even claim to be making half a billion dollars off print sales, though careful research finds that those claims are likely exagerated—by a lot. Still, the point is that the financial benefits of being exclusively online, or even predominantly digital, are quite possible overstated. Paper is far from dead.
For starters, let’s consider the fact that, believe it or not, everyone in the United States does not have access to the Internet. Some 20% of American households are not “plugged in” in any way. Think globally, and that number jumps to a whopping 56%, over 4 billion people, without Internet. That means there are millions of Americans and billions of people around the world who are wholly dependent on print publications for their information.
Even beyond those numbers is the fact that a lot of people, especially those over 50 who were not raised with computer monitors in front of their faces all the time, don’t like reading material online. While Baby Boomers are no longer the largest generation on the planet, they are still extremely significant and, more than anything, set in their ways. We grew up reading printed newspapers and magazines and we like it that way. For many people my age and older, trying to read an article online actually hurts our eyes, especially when we’re looking at black letters on a white background. Paper doesn’t hurt our eyes the way those white pixels do.
Rural residents tend to prefer printed publications for local news, especially. Smaller cities and towns (anything under 500,000 population) are less served by online sources. Those communities are heavily reliant on the print edition of their local newspapers, even though, in most cases, an online edition is available. Local news is perceived as being easier to find in a print paper and keeps subscriber numbers at least steady. Eugene, Oregon’s Register-Guard is a good example of a local newspaper that is more valued for its print edition than its online presence.
There is also some evidence that those who would be considered under-educated, immigrants for whom English is a second language, those whose Internet access is limited to public-use facilities such as libraries all prefer print publications as their primary source of information.
Paper is so very far from dead.
For many publications, regardless of size, and for photographers and other visual artists as well, the argument between online and print often comes down to a matter of finances. Newspapers, especially, have seen a steady decline in print advertising. Ad agencies, and in some cases the publications themselves, have convinced advertisers that their ads get more views and a wider spread online than they do in print. That statement is not necessarily untrue.
However, the online concept is challenged when one considers the low conversion rate for online ads. We are all so horribly inundated with ads online that we ignore the vast number of them, even when they are for items for which we might have already expressed a need or want. Have you noticed that grocery stores still send their bulk mail ads on newsprint to your mailbox every week? There’s a good reason. People are more likely to shop at the store after seeing the ads in print versus viewing them online. Online advertisers have to generate hundreds of thousands of more views to generate an equal conversion rate to print ads. For many advertisers, especially small-market advertisers, print makes a lot more sense.
No one, from the New York Times to Joe Schmoe photography, is wise going with a single media solution. There’s no question that digital media is a powerhouse that everyone needs to embrace in some form or fashion. A well-designed website is still a must for every business and even more for anyone involved in any form of publishing. However, whether we’re talking about newspapers or photographs, there is still a tremendous need and market for print products. Where we need to focus more of our effort is in finding that balance that works both from a financial and customer service perspective.
Paper is far from dead. Chances are, if you glance around and see the clutter on your desk, most of that clutter is paper. We need paper a lot more than we think. Digital assistants such as Siri and Cortana are a long way from replacing Post-It notes. Even when I sign up for digital payment with my health insurance, they still send me three sheets of paper to confirm that the payment was received.
Perhaps we need to take a giant step back and reconsider our strategies. Paper is not an enemy. Ignoring it ignores a large number of customers, which means we’re leaving money on the table. I don’t know anyone who can afford that kind of strategy.
I hesitate to write anything sounding too terribly positive. While I want to be encouraging and supportive, every time I do it seems to backfire on me and I have the worst day possible. There are times one might get the impression that the universe is saying, “How DARE you be positive and hopeful? You must be punished for your remarks.” I know I’m not alone. Many days we wake up and absolutely nothing we do goes as planned. Flat tires. Disappointing people. Failed expectations. A stain on your new shirt—before noon. I’m not really expecting today to be any different.
I finally got around to reading President Obama’s article in Wired this morning, though. He presents a rather challenging premise:
We are far better equipped to take on the challenges we face than ever before. I know that might sound at odds with what we see and hear these days in the cacophony of cable news and social media. But the next time you’re bombarded with over-the-top claims about how our country is doomed or the world is coming apart at the seams, brush off the cynics and fearmongers. Because the truth is, if you had to choose any time in the course of human history to be alive, you’d choose this one. Right here in America, right now.
Do I want to believe the President? Sure. Intellectually, the points he makes are valid. What we actually experience is often different, though.
When discussing how things have improved over the years, the President makes some compelling points:
I can’t and wouldn’t want to argue any of those points. Some tremendous strides have taken place over the past several years and, combined, they have made life on this planet better than many of our parents and grandparents could have ever dreamed. Tremendous advantages and opportunities make this a great time to be alive.
At the same time, however, being alive right now, in 2016, holds some pretty significant challenges.
We’ve made progress, but we’re a long way from being where we should, where we want, and where we need to be.
Taking an honest assessment of where we are right now, what it means to be alive in 2016, is both sobering and hopeful. We’ve gotten some things right, but there is still much to do. President Obama refers frequently to the late Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek science fiction franchise as an example of an ideal society:
What I loved about it was its optimism, the fundamental belief at its core that the people on this planet, for all our varied backgrounds and outward differences, could come together to build a better tomorrow.
While such optimism is laudable, it is difficult to anticipate we are anywhere near that ideal when one of the top headlines this morning reads: Russia may be getting ready ‘to level Aleppo to the ground’ While those of us in the United States might be in a cooperative mood, the same can hardly be said of the rest of the world. Uhm, Brexit, anyone? The current mood seems to be that everyone wants to do their own thing. Cooperation will just have to wait.
Looking to the future, though, we have to have some degree of optimism, don’t we? If we can’t find any points of hope, any signs of encouragement, any indication that things might improve, then what is it going to mean to be alive in 2020 and beyond?
I’m sitting here this morning wondering what the future of photography is going to look like. Will any of us manage to stay in business through another ten years of rapid change? We not only face technological advancements that are impossible to predict, but we are also experiencing a complete upheaval in how people view photography altogether. Is it possible for our profession to survive?
The President is sold on the concepts of Science in solving the greatest challenges facing the world. His take is that one of the reasons now is a great time to be alive is because science is poised to develop new solutions to problems that have plagued us for centuries. He writes in the article:
Just as in the past, to clear these hurdles we’re going to need everyone—policy makers and community leaders, teachers and workers and grassroots activists, presidents and soon-to-be-former presidents. And to accelerate that change, we need science. We need researchers and academics and engineers; programmers, surgeons, and botanists. And most important, we need not only the folks at MIT or Stanford or the NIH but also the mom in West Virginia tinkering with a 3-D printer, the girl on the South Side of Chicago learning to code, the dreamer in San Antonio seeking investors for his new app, the dad in North Dakota learning new skills so he can help lead the green revolution.
So, the answer to our challenges is that we need to re-conceptualize? I love the President’s optimism, but when I’m sitting here worried about keeping the lights on and having enough food for my family, it’s rather difficult for me to re-conceptualize anything much beyond how to find yet another way to make ground beef interesting. I’m not even sure what it would mean to reconceptualize photography. I try wrapping my head around that question and end up having to take a couple of pills and lie down for a moment.
I am thankful for all the advantages that come with being alive right now. I’m thankful that we have this thing called the Internet that allows me to share with you both my words and my pictures. I’m thankful that life has improved for whole groups of people and that there are almost endless opportunities for my children.
Still, there is more to live than just being alive. For life to be fulfilling we must also be functioning toward some end.
My AARP card came in the mail yesterday. I am of an age where many of my peers are enjoying grandchildren and looking forward to the joys of retirement. Not all of us are there, though. Many of us look at the potential demise of our careers and wonder how we are going to continue to function in this science-oriented future. We can try to keep up, but doing so is a struggle. We don’t especially have a lot of money to spend on new equipment, or classes to teach us what Millennials inherently know.
Did you catch that line in the President’s statement about “soon-to-be-former presidents?” President Obama is breaking with tradition and remaining in Washington, D.C. after the new president takes office. Rather than running away and retreating in quiet and solitude, as Presidents before him have done, Mr. Obama plans to stay active and stay involved in helping shape the future development of the world.
Maybe we can do the same. Stay active. Stay involved. Don’t let ourselves be pushed aside, relegated to some memory of how things used to be. We are alive now. Therefore, we need to be an integral part of what is happening now.
Will we?
“Bella Hadid, Gigi Hadid, and Kendall Jenner Are All Photographers Now.”
I saw the headline yesterday and immediately seethed with anger. I didn’t need to read any further or see the pictures (though I did after I calmed down). There was no question as to the content or thesis of the W Magazine article. Put a camera in the hands of a spoiled brat, let her take some shots, publish them in a major fashion magazine and call it an editorial. Boom, three new photographers.
Horseshit. We’ve talked about this before. I started to link to the archived articles, but there were too many. This isn’t a new topic and not repeating myself is going to be difficult. The field of photography has become to crowded and too muddied, though, to let an insult like this pass without comment. Yes, I know I’m preaching to the choir—you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t supportive of what we do—but the fact that the topic keeps coming up again and again is evidence of how little respect we get from editors, and major publishing houses like Condé Nast, which owns W Magazine, Vanity Fair, and the Vogue franchise. If they think we can be replaced by know-nothing brats with no experience, they truly have no regard for the experience and professionalism of photography at all.
I understand why the editors wanted to use the particular spoiled brats that they did. The three girls, combined, represent over 100 million potential readers. Thanks to social media, reality television, and a massive PR effort fueled by parents’ money, each of the girls are marketing juggernauts. Any place they go, anything they do is immediately in the spotlight with millions of people—mostly teenage girls with wide-eyed dreams— watching and taking notes. What these girls wear become instant sell-outs. When brands and fashion labels hire them, it’s not because the girls are particularly talented but because of the massive social media following they bring with them. That’s it.
That traditional print magazines are struggling is no secret. Even the massive Condé Nast, which has done better than most in converting its holdings to an online market, just had another C-level shakeup this week, which likely means more cuts coming to the rank-and-file. Money is tight. We get it. Anything they can do to increase the number of eyes coming across their pages they’re willing to try. This is why we see no-talent pseudo-celebrities on the cover of Vogue and Marie Claire.
We have no control over the foibles of celebrity fanaticism. To me, it has never made sense. I don’t go nuts over someone simply because they’ve been on television. I have been on television and let me tell you, it wasn’t all that difficult! Anyone who is breathing can pretty much do the television thing without any additional training or instruction beyond knowing how to talk. Yet, when someone becomes immensely popular, slapping them on a magazine is an easy way to increase sales; it’s easy, brainless content.
There’s actually a video of Bella Hadid’s “photoshoot.” The video focuses on Bella holding a camera and pushing the shutter button. She doesn’t worry about lighting, someone handles that for her. She isn’t seen processing the photos, someone handles that for her. She doesn’t even make any adjustments to the camera, such as focal length or shutter speed. Someone set those important elements before handing her the camera and told her to not touch them.
There’s no question the spoiled brats in question are good at taking snapshots. The Instagram queens have proven quite well adapted at making sure their face gets in the frame. That doesn’t make any of them photographers, though. Their understanding of cameras comes largely in relation to an app on their top-of-the-line cell phones. Do they understand why one might want to use different size lenses? No. Do they understand how digital cameras actually work? Of course not. Neither do they have any real concept of the delicacy of lighting, white balance, depth of field, focal length, or any of the dozens of other issues that real photographers have to consider before they ever snap the shutter.
Our industry has always been plagued by those who get lucky with a few good snapshots and suddenly think they should be photographers. Typically, however, they are put off by the high cost of entry or discouraged by the steep learning curve. None of those barriers exist, though, when one is rich and has plenty of people more than willing to compensate for their lack of knowledge or experience. So, spoiled brats get called photographers. Stand by, a lot of teenage girls are now interested in photography. Be glad cameras cost thousands of dollars.
All the complaining in the world isn’t going to make the problem of spoiled brats trying to be photographers go away. This is the new reality. Magazine editors are much less concerned about the quality of photography and immensely interested in how many eyeballs one’s name might bring to the publication. If you don’t have an Instagram following in the hundreds of thousands, you don’t stand a chance of any editor paying any attention, no matter how wonderful your work might be. We now live in a society where there is a tremendous disconnect between the artistry and talent of being a photographer and the value our perceived to possess. If a photographer is going to succeed, they not only have to take incredible pictures, they have to be champions of social media marketing, something very few of us even begin to understand.
The Hadid and Jenner generation will eventually fade, but they will be replaced by some other group of spoiled brats attempting to claim titles they’ve not earned. It is up to photographers, the real ones, to set a bar high enough that vanity cannot so easily claim a place on the platform. The challenge is ours. We must find an appropriate response.
This is one of those days where I just couldn’t handle the current topics in my newsfeed. The top five news stories this morning all dealt with the same issue which dominated yesterday’s news. I don’t want to add to that noise. Plus, I’m still tired, recovering from a month of fashion shows and trying to get things in gear for next year. This is typically a quiet time where we don’t shoot as much, but we’re extremely busy with business stuff.
Given all that, today seemed like a good day to show you some pictures we’ve revived from the archive. Rather than put them in a slide show, though, which would be very easy, I want to take you through each of them and explain why they were omitted from their original set’s production. Perhaps this method will be a bit more interesting.
Let’s start with the photo above. This is a picture of downtown Dallas, TX taken from the passenger seat of my brother’s vehicle. I love that Dallas is not afraid of modern architecture. There is a lot to that city that will surprise you, despite the large number of morons who live there (No, baby brother doesn’t actually live there). Why was this image not part of the original set? Two reasons. First, the uniqueness of the architecture leaves me uncertain as to where the straight lines are supposed to be. Perspective is a wonderful thing and this image defies it. Second, look in the bottom right corner and you’ll see my reflection in the snow-covered hi … uhm, I mean, car window. Rather creepy.
Why I Revived This Picture: I love the ambiguity of this frame. We see their arms extended upward but have no reason why they are engaged in such a pose. I had only recently met both girls and they were such good sports to be out shooting on a rather cool Sunday morning. What are they actually doing? Pullups. There’s a bar just above them, hence the reason for their arms being in the position they are.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: The very reason I like this image is why we left it out of the original set: it’s too ambiguous. We were doing an article on fitness, had tons of photos, and this one just muddied the water too much.
Why I Revived This Picture: Symmetry. This is the tack room at the stables where my niece rides. I was taken first by the color of all the different tack, but as I looked I noticed the symmetry with which they were hung on the wall. I couldn’t resist the photo.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: We were on a family vacation. Do you see any family in this picture? No. This happens every vacation. I take a lot of pictures and then never get around to processing the ones that don’t include family members.
Why I Revived This Photo: I really love the painting Kelly Oswalt did for this set. Having to cover an entire body in white is a lot more difficult than it sounds. The design she chose was absolutely wonderful and has always been one of my favorites.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: At the time we shot this I was cropping everything to a square orientation and this photo just doesn’t fit. I was also dropping in a substitute background and that didn’t work with this photo, either.
Why I Revived This Photo: Color. It’s not often we have a photo with such high contrasting color, especially with any level of nudity in the photo. Here is one of those rare instances where it all comes together and looks best with very little treatment to it at all.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: Originally, this photo was part of a composite image, hence the blue background. The image was heavily blurred and at a reduced opacity so that the bright contrast of the colors was not evident.
Why I Revived This Photo: This sleeve is one of the best examples of detailed color ink work I’ve seen. There are a lot of times I don’t like full sleeves like this because, depending on how the arm is bent or what clothes might be worn, the flow of the image is interrupted. This piece works nicely, though, even under blouses that cover most of her arm. Very beautiful work.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: When we first processed this series of photos I really wanted to make sure every image focused on the ink more than a model. I was concerned that the nipple might be distracting because, as the past few hours have demonstrated, the world is full of pigs.
Why I Revived This Photo: Because this is one of those sets where we should have done better. We had been shooting all day outdoors and hadn’t taken enough lights to adequately handle shooting after dark. Not many of these photos are worth saving, but this one is.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: The whole set was largely buried. I only processed three images when we first shot them. As an aside, since these photos were taken, the model returned to college and is now an RN. A lot of people called her a lot of not-so-nice names and refused to work with her. To those people, we say, “Fuck you.”
Why I Revived This Photo: Lines. Look at them. The perspective of the hallway, uniquely shaped by unseen staircases, trailing off into darkness, lends itself to so very many stories. My imagination runs wild when I think of all the adventures that might have had their beginning or ending in this hallway.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: This image is not from a public set. We were doing some location scouting and this was one of the images that convinced me we needed to shoot here. However, I typically don’t process photos from a scouting shoot. In fact, it’s rare I keep them at all. I just couldn’t let this one go.
Why I Revived This Photo: Nothing from this set has ever been processed. They were shot a few years ago, the middle set in a three-set shoot. First set was processed, third set was processed, these were skipped. Since I was going through looking for photos that hadn’t been seen before, this seemed like a pretty good choice.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: I don’t remember exactly, but the set that comes after this is a very popular series involving a pocket watch. Some of you might remember having seen those photos. I think there’s still one in my portfolio. Excitement over that last set most likely led to this set being ignored.
Why I Revived This Photo: This poor young woman has had a rough go of it lately. Every time she turns around, someone she cares about is dying. There are other issues as well. This is one of those moments when life is not being kind and there’s not a helluva lot anyone can do about. So, I’m hoping this photo might bring a smile to her day and remind her that someone cares.
Why This Photo Was Omitted: At the time we processed the other photos from this set, this one didn’t seem to particularly fit the narrative. We’d had a fun shoot. She had a fun shoot. This image seemed a little too serious to match with all the smiles and laughter. The photo feels a lot more poignant by itself.
There, ten photos revived from the archive. I hope you’ve enjoyed the stroll. Maybe I’ll think of something important to write by tomorrow.
I don’t have much time to read while we’re in the middle of covering fashion shows, so I was excited to dive back into the pile of articles and books that have been waiting for me. Okay, so some of my choices might have been mistakes. I really shouldn’t even open an article with a title like: 3 Mistakes Professional Photographers Make That Could Ruin Their Career. I found the article on Modern Lens Magazine, which had copied it from Lightstalking.
The article very briefly addresses three basic mistakes:
So, address those issues and everything is rosy, right? If those are the biggest problems a professional photographer has then it should be easy to correct and start making money. Hundreds of my would-be colleagues are already thinking how the article might apply to them while simultaneously refusing to admit that they make any mistakes at all. We are a rather silly lot when one gets right down to it.
I don’t have a problem with the actual content of the article. What bothers me is the inference that there are only three mistakes that are ruining our business. Fact is, we’re so error-prone (as a group, not you individually, you’re cool because you’re reading this article), that it is a miracle any of us make a profit at all. Those who do make a decent living aren’t error-free, either. They’ve simply learned how to either work around their mistakes or turn their mistakes into customer benefits; enhanced services if you want to think of it that way. We’re all fallible.
I’m not sure there is any real benefit to calling out specific mistakes photographers make and saying, “Hey, you, the guy with the viewfinder imprint permanently etched on his face, stop doing that thing you’re doing.” If we are really that oblivious to our problems then we have significantly larger issues we need to address. Professional counseling is highly recommended. Goofs and foul-ups that we’ve already committed are in the past. What we need to avoid are the things that can really ruin our business in the future. A few things that come to mind are:
Yes, every last one of those this has happened. Yes, in each case the photographer’s career was ruined. You’ve been warned. Don’t do these things.
Another reason we probably should be careful about calling out photographers’ mistakes is that there are a few “mistakes” that we actually should make. Sure, they don’t put any money in our wallets, but they put good vibes out into the universe, make people smile, and keep us all from becoming the surly old grouch that I already am. Some of the things that come to mind are:
There are probably other things I could add to this list but I don’t want you thinking I’m getting soft or anything. The point is, any of the things on that list could end in disaster, especially if you ‘re surrounded by people who don’t like kittens and puppies. Of course, I might ask why in the world you tolerate people who don’t like kittens and puppies; that could be a mistake as well.
Look, if you’re trying to be the perfect photographer who does everything exactly right, stop. You’re not going to make it. In fact, you’re more likely to kill yourself trying. We all make plenty of mistakes. Do the best that you can and deal with the mistakes as they happen. Learn as you go and share when it makes sense.
However, don’t make the mistake of thinking that just addressing the three or four things on a list inherently makes you a better photographer. Relax. Be yourself. The person who wrote that article isn’t perfect either.
You’re going to want to bookmark this website: miramira.tv . Photographer Mario Testino, a favorite of Vogue US, launched the new site this week after sponsoring a 48-hour hackathon asking students: “What could the next frontier of visual communications look like?” They told him, and the results are probably not what you’re doing now, but are almost certainly where we all need to go. Fashion website/magazine Business of Fashion featured Mario and the new website in a top-line article this morning. Testino tells them early on:
“The kids don’t have 35 years of experience, but they have hundreds of years of knowledge through access. The mix of that is quite magical. In a way, I’m looking for new ideas, new ways of seeing things, new ways of solving a challenge.”
What he’s saying isn’t that different from how many of us feel. We’re all looking for new ideas, new ways of seeing things. That’s just part of being a photographer. Unlike the rest of us, though, Testino took some serious steps for force a change in his vision: he relied on eyes that are not his and trusted what they saw. The end result of his effort affects us all, though, whether he intended that to happen or not, whether we like it or not.
Testino has hit on something that requires a change in how we do business. Not that we copy exactly what he’s doing, but consider the structure behind the effort.
Who among us doesn’t have tons of pictures sitting around that no one has ever seen? Both of the photos above fall into that category. We took the pictures for an event that never happened. They’ve been sitting in my archives, untouched, since 2009. Testino’s model is to worry less about copyright infringement and more about making sure the pictures are seen; all the pictures. Granted, his archives are filled with pictures of supermodels like Kate Moss. Not everyone is going to offer that kind of appeal in their archives. Still, the point is to get the pictures out there. Curate yourself in a bolder, more dynamic way.
We all have social media accounts sitting all over the place. I don’t know about you, but I have multiple accounts that I can’t even remember. A new website comes along, looks good up front, then goes nowhere. Even on the ones that do have staying power, though, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, our efforts tend to be disjointed, haphazard, and almost accidental. One of the critical aspects of the new website is that it serves as a landing place for all Mario’s social media posts. If he puts a picture on Instagram, it points back to the website. If he puts a video on Facebook, it points back to the website. Everything is coordinated so that social media followers don’t just see one picture and move on. They click and see more.
We have projects, we have themes, and we have those shoots that are just out there. Traditionally, we would organize them into portfolios according to genre: fashion, editorial, portrait, wedding, babies, etc. That’s the way mine are organized now. Testino hits on a key change in how people view photos online, however. They look for stories, not genres. They want to see a series that has a beginning, middle, and end. Maybe they’re all from the same shoot. Maybe they’re not. What matters is that when someone looks at them, they see a story line that is recognizable. Save the portfolio approach for lookbooks, whose usefulness is limited. Mario makes a good point here:
“Today, I feel that the books are limited because you can only reach a certain amount of people. Whereas online, you can reach 2 million people in one go. There’s something about sharing that I find very interesting, and very of today. So it makes sense to put it online.”
Photographers know they’re supposed to do this, but, as a group, we’re lousy at doing it. We tend to develop relationships based on what they can do for us, not whether we can help each other. Part of what fuels the depth of content coming to this new website are Mario’s relationships with people; not just models, but his assistants, makeup artists, stylists, tour guides, etc. He puts their stories on this new website. He highlights people other than himself. The concept makes perfect sense when one thinks about it. What’s missing for many of us, though, is that concerted effort to create and maintain relationships. I’m horrible at it. That needs to change.
On the new website, one not only finds the incredible photographs for which Mario is famous, one finds videos, and podcasts, and stories. Testino isn’t afraid of new and developing media. Instead, he’s mastering it and using it to his advantage. I’ll admit to being frightened by this one. Back when Canon and Nikon first started adding video capability to their DSLRs, I argued that there is a world of difference between video and still photography. There is. But if we stay focused on a singular media the world is going to pass us by. So, maybe we need to take a class or hire a twenty-something kid to show us how it’s done. Staying focused on only still images no longer makes good business sense.
Yeah, it may cost you a bit, but it needs to happen. Get out of the studio, explore different cultures and environments, meet different people, photograph something that isn’t your own backyard. That doesn’t necessarily mean one has to travel far or expensively. Consider volunteering for a charitable activity that takes you someplace different and take pictures while you’re there. Maybe you explore small towns in your own state. There are many ways to twist this. We don’t all need to winter in Abu Dabi. One trick here is to figure out how to get clients to pay for your travel. Don’t ask me, I don’t know. I am certain it can be done, though.
No, I’m not necessarily talking about psychiatric help, though I’m guessing almost all of us could use some. One of the first things I picked up from the BoF article is that Testino has a CEO, and it’s not him. Suki Larson is the chief executive of Mario Testino+. Mario Testino+ is the business side of everything the photographer does. This is where things are kept organized. There are people who schedule travel, organize photos, manage social media, plus his two photo assistants and others. All this business elements are handled by people who are not the photographer. Sure, most of us don’t have the budgets to hire that many people; maybe not anyone at all. Still, we need to find people who can help us. Perhaps we have to do some creative bartering at first, but photographers are notoriously lousy at business. Maybe we need to let go of that side and find someone who knows what a P&L is and why it’s important.
Photographers notoriously look backward and long for the way it used to be. They were doing it 30 years ago and we’re still doing that now. Stop it. Stop yearning for the days of film. Quit looking at old business models that failed 20 years ago. Instead, now is the time to be exploring things like virtual reality and 3D imagery. No, we’re not there yet on either front, but they are coming in one form or another. Being able to adapt to those new media quickly will keep you at the front of your field. Don’t be afraid. Look ahead.
Not everything is going to work for you. Mario is a rare kind of photographer who has a knack for seeing a niche and making it his own. We can’t all be Mario Testino. What we see in his business model, though, is that we have to keep doing stuff. We have to keep taking pictures. We have to keep trying new things in new places with new people. There is no room for us to sit back and bemoan the fact that no one is knocking on your studio door. Keep moving. Explore what is beyond you. I like what Mario says at the end of the BoF article:
“It’s the doing that makes you get better. Everything has changed, I think I should already be over in a way. I think there is something to be said about staying open to everything and anything. Curiosity is the biggest gift that you have.”
Testino has set an extremely high bar and not many of us are going to reach it. One thing is for sure, though, and that’s the fact that the photography business has already changed around us. We will either adapt, or we will fail.
I never thought I’d have reason to use this picture. It was taken in 2005 as Indianapolis Police were conducting what I would consider an illegal search of my assistant’s car. The entire stop was illegal, but we were standing downtown, at 2:00 in the morning, across from City Hall, with my camera on a tripod. The officer felt like that was sufficient reason to create a scene. I never had any reason to use the photo, though, because, after 30 minutes, he let us go. Never mind the fact that the conceal carry permit for the gun my assistant was carrying had expired. We were all white. They let us go.
This morning, I was up at 2:00 AM again, this time getting ready for the first fashion show in Milan. As I sit at my computer, this is the first picture I see:
This photogragher deserves a Pulitzer for this shot. Contrast “to protect and serve” with the reader board on the bus. #KeithLamontScott pic.twitter.com/IVc5acioxJ
— Matthew Robinson (@Robinsonpost) September 21, 2016
Police are in riot gear because, at 2:00 AM, Charlotte, North Carolina is rioting. Charlotte, Noth Carolina is rioting because police saw fit to murder a man who was sitting in his car, waiting on his daughter’s bus. You may have difficulty remembering the name Keith Lamont Scott, but you will remember this photograph.
That photograph spurred some type of response in you just now. All the photographs surrounding this murder as well as that of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, are all you have in establishing your vision of what happened. By the way, we checked and credit for the picture above goes to Adam Rhew at Charlotte magazine. You may not remember Rhew’s name, but you’ll remember his photograph. You may not remember Terrence Crutcher’s name, but you’ll remember that police helicopter photo of him standing in the middle of the road, unarmed and with his hands above his head when he was murdered.
Remember this picture?
Regardless of how you feel about the subject itself, it was the photograph, a still taken from live video feed, that created your vision. This is how you see any number of related topics, from the right to protest, to patriotism, to racism, to football, and any other number of topics that one might choose to associate with the image. Had you not seen this picture, or one similar to it (there are multiple different crops floating around), you would have a concept of the issue, but you wouldn’t have a vision in your mind of how that concept looks.
Our vision, how we see the world, is immensely important. There is very little that we actually get to experience up close and in person. With a lot of news, we don’t want to be up close and in person. If photographers were not present, capturing these issues, giving us a vision where we otherwise would have none, our opinions and responses to these situations might likely be very different. Photographs give us eyes, though, and once we’ve seen pictures like this, we can’t un-see them.
Strangely enough, not everyone likes having such vision thrust upon them; they’d rather stay blind. When we see pictures like these, we are put in the position of having to create an opinion, take a side, maybe even take a stand. Not everyone is comfortable having to do those things.
Plenty of people prefer that you not have any vision or opinion. The Republican nominee for President became rather upset last week when there was photographic evidence of a supporter punching a woman in the face. The matter was easy enough to deny, sweep under the covers, until video popped up of the assault actually happening. Pictures kept the crime from going away and demanded that the nominee respond. He wasn’t happy and more than once during his campaign he has been disparaging against photographers.
He’s not the only one, though. Around the world, leaders would rather we not take pictures of people starving, living in squalid conditions, existing in sub-par refugee camps, homeless on the street, long lines of unemployed. Politicians prefer the Chamber of Commerce photos that show everything bright, cheery, and perfect for your next visit. They would rather no one see the downside, the number of homicides so far this year, deteriorating road conditions, urban blight, or suburban decay.
Yet, pictures that show what no one likes to see are the photographs that motivate change. With a clear vision, we see what needs to be improved, what and who needs to be replaced, and just maybe how our own attitudes need to change. If photographers are not out there taking those pictures, who knows that there is a problem? Words can only convey so much at their best, and in today’s society, fewer people are actually reading those words. We scan headlines and look at pictures.
Photographers have a lot of power when it comes to creating a vision. We decide where we’re going to be and when we’re going to snap the shutter. If we choose to look away, if we don’t take a picture of a crime being committed, then we are complicit in the very act itself. We have a responsibility to take those shots when we see them.
At the same time, however, we have a responsibility to show more than one side of a situation whenever possible. Creating a false vision is reprehensible and does greater harm than if we’d taken no photograph at all. For all the legitimate reasons there are to photograph protests against police, if that’s the only view of law enforcement we provide we fuel anarchy and greater unrest. We have to find the balance, look for the good, and give it at least an opportunity to make a difference. Pictures of good can be just as powerful as pictures of the bad, but we have to put just as much effort into getting those shots as we do those of unrest.
Our job as photographers is not to be apologists for anyone. Our job is to photograph the truth. All of it. Even the portions we find distasteful, even those elements with which we disagree. We do more than provide a record for future generations. We provide this generation with a vision. The job of the photographer is to make sure that vision is accurate.
And shame on those of us who sit on the sidelines and do nothing.
Life is hectic this morning. We’ve already completed three fashion reviews for Pattern. I’ve read about the suspect in yesterday’s Chelsea bombing, the five devices planted around New Jersey, and gas shortages as the result of the Colonial pipeline spill. While you’re having breakfast, I’m having lunch. I have a brief period of time before the next fashion show. I have enough hours in the day, mind you. They’re just not grouped in a convenient manner at the moment. So, for this morning’s article, I had little choice but to run to the garage.
By “garage,” I mean my L drive. This is the backup drive where I keep stuff done prior to 2010. Last decade. Old stuff. You know how it is, every ten years or so you go through and clean everything out. While you don’t really want to throw anything away, you want new pictures on your walls, you’ve found a new author whose books you’d rather have out, or you’ve bought some new clothes but you know the old ones are going to be back in style soon enough. This is why we have a garage, even in the digital world. Some files we just don’t need to access as often.
When looking for something I could pull together quickly, it made sense to select a few images from one of my books. Those are all neatly compacted together, RAW files and finished photos, so I can pull from that source quickly and easily. I go to the garage, grab what I need, and add appropriate copy. No extra research is necessary.
I decided that it might be fun to pull from my 2009 book, Gravity. You can still buy it, if you like. With the book, we were going for a very specific, classical look. The images there are done in black and white, cropped, framed, and finished in a very specific method to convey a particular time period and a certain set of emotions. The blurb for the book reads:
The Law of Gravity is immutable. Without gravity, the entire world would break apart and float off into the cosmos. Yet, while holding everything together, as Sir Issac Newton discovered, gravity can cause unexpected things to happen. Sometimes the result is only a bump on the head. Other times, one’s eyes are opened to a whole new perspective on life, love, and the earth in which we live. In this beautiful set of images, Lisa Marie and Carrie Kellar explore an unexpected gift that has fallen upon them. But the same gravity that brought them this gift also keeps them bound to the earth, unable to become immortal. Ah, if only the goddess Aphrodite would help!
This book is special in part because of how the models responded when they saw it. Neither had shot with another girl before and both were a bit anxious about the whole experience. Yet, when they saw the finished product, both were amazed. One even cried because she never expected to be portrayed so beautifully. This is a truly unique book. You should buy one.
As beautiful as the images in the book are, when I pulled them from the garage this morning I thought they might could use a little work before making them public. Not much, mind you. We did no airbrushing, no body modification, not even any cropping or horizon balancing. You can still see the garage walls where we shot, you can see spider webs, the elevated platform, and other such things that we would normally crop out. We left the images rather raw. All we did was provide a little cross processing to keep them from feeling too washed.
There are only ten images in the slideshow below. The book contains over 100 photographs. Who knows, maybe we’ll pull some more of the pictures from this set the next time our schedule goes nuts on us. In the meantime, enjoy the re-processed pictures and don’t forget to buy that book.
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A lot of people are clueless when it comes to knowing how to hire a photographer. Some just go to the nearest commercial studio, sit down, pay the fees, and try to enjoy the results. It’s easier that way. Those who need something specific, though, and especially corporate entities that need product and marketing imagery, need more than can be found at the Photos-R-Us booth at the mall.
A source on social media led me to this article on Libris: How To Hire A Professional Photographer. The article is well written and covers the major topics one might want to consider before hiring a professional photographer for corporate imagery. The same recommendations wouldn’t necessarily apply to someone hiring a portrait photographer, though. Similarly, there’s a very different set of questions to ask before hiring a wedding photographer, or someone who can adequately capture your four-year-old’s birthday. Hiring a good photographer can be challenging.
At the same time, however, photographers are plagued by would-be customers who don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Most of the time, we can help and guide them toward exactly what they need. For example, if you ask me about wedding photos, I’m going to guide you toward a number of colleagues who do nothing but weddings. They’re good at that. Weddings just drive me nuts. Still, there are always those who get it so wrong we just walk away.
Here’s a humorous list of ways to NOT hire a professional photographer.
I don’t want to hear any more. If all you are interested in is the cost, then you’re not interested in the professionalism and quality of my work, which is a large part of how my price is determined. If you’re shopping based on price, go to the mall. I, on the other hand, am likely to give you my sarcastic (and very poor) Groucho Marx impression:
“How much do I charge? How much do you have? Here, show me your wallet. We’ll just take all those credit cards there and max ’em out and call it even. That works for me, doesn’t it? By the way, who did you say you are?”
“We need someone to take pictures for our company’s website.” comes the typical request.
“Wonderful, what kind of pictures do you want?” we’ll ask. “Headshots of company leadership? Pictures of your products? Photos of your employees pretending to work together?”
“I don’t know. Just stuff around the office or something.”
Uhm, yeah. You need to find someone who has to patience to stand around and twiddle their thumbs all day while you make up your mind. This never works because, regardless of what pictures might ultimately be taken, they’re never the “right ones,” because no one has a freaking clue what the “right ones” are. Call me when you know what you want.
Sure, you can always find a photographer willing to work for next to nothing, or maybe even nothing. They’re out there. You get what you pay for. This applies in double doses to corporate imagery. We apply a formula when calculating the value of corporate photographs. That formula includes various forms of media and how many people are likely to view the image(s). The pictures going into a $3 million global ad campaign are going to cost a lost more than the pictures we shoot for Uncle Fester’s Bait Shop.
Photographers often feel a lot of pressure here and too many companies are willing to take advantage of us. We want the job, especially if the client carries some name recognition. However, we also know the value of our work. If you’re a corporation, it’s beyond rude to ask for anyone to take a shot of your company headquarters for less than $1,500. Try to understand the value of our work and give us a budget that is reasonable.
You want me to take your pictures. You’ve looked at my portfolio and like what you see. But when I mention the cost of my staff, you don’t want to pay for them? Seriously? How the fuck do you think I took those great pictures in my portfolio? There was a makeup artist, a hair stylist, a wardrobe stylist, possibly an art director, certainly an assistant or two, and quite possibly someone whose job is to make sure I don’t fall down too much (it happens). Granted, the size of the staff fluctuates with the difficulty and particular needs of the project. Still, there is almost always going to be at least one other person with me, even if we’re just taking pictures of the grass growing on your front lawn.
Wanting to hire a professional photographer and not pay the staff is like buying a new car and not wanting to pay for the engine. You want them. You need them. They’re professionals as well. Don’t be the ass who doesn’t want to pay them. I’ll just wrap their costs into my fee, plus an extra 20% for the trouble.
Let me expand on that. Don’t diss the pictures, nor the models in the picture, nor the products in the pictures, nor the clients for whom the pictures were taken, nor where the pictures were taken, or anything else involving the pictures in a photographer’s portfolio. If you don’t like our pictures, then why the fuck are you asking us to take yours? You’re not impressing me with your alleged “knowledge of photography” or “commitment to quality.” You’re just being a gripey old bitch who is probably not going to be pleased with anything we do.
I don’t like working with/for negative people. I have better things to do with my time. Plus, it’s really difficult to be creative and artistic when there’s someone on set who just isn’t going to be pleased. You keep that bad attitude up and I’m stopping and making everyone do the chicken dance.
Do ya’ want to take pictures or do you want to start a fight? Hmm? Or do you want me to take pictures of the fight? I add a hazardous duty surcharge for getting that close to the action. I’m unapologetically liberal, but even if we agree on most issues, the photo set isn’t the place or time for political discussions, even if what we’re shooting is inherently political. Let the photographer do his work, take the pictures you need, and then you can discuss the political ramifications of electing a toad for president.
Distractions on the set are a problem. I know sometimes they can’t be avoided, but, by all means, don’t intentionally introduce them where they’re not needed.
Sure, we’re willing to consider special circumstances outside anyone’s control, such as natural disaster, death, severe illness, or sudden IRS audit (it’s happened). However, if you’re cancelling within 48 hours of a scheduled shoot simply because it’s not “convenient” for someone, we’re charging a rebooking fee and it’s probably not going to be small.
Here’s the thing: we create our schedules well in advance. When someone cancels last-minute, we can’t just turn around and take the next client standing in line. That cancellation removes our ability to make money during that time block. You’re effectively costing us money. Your photographer is going to be reluctant to reschedule under those circumstances because if it’s “inconvenient” once, it’s likely to be “inconvenient” again and someone obviously doesn’t value our time. We may not tell you we won’t rebook, but a smart photographer charges a fee for doing so.
There are plenty of other things I could add to this list but time and your lack of interest prevent me from making this article too terribly much longer. Know that most photographers don’t give a damn about your opinions on anything, don’t want anyone second-guessing their work, and yes, we do mind that your second-cousin with an “interest in photography” is shooting right behind us. If that same person had an “interest in medicine,” would you take them to your next OB/GYN exam? Hmm?
As I said, I’m trying to treat the topic humorously. The issues are real, though, and might cause you to miss out on the best pictures you could have had. I’m not the only photographer who is a bit picky about his clients. Not by a long shot.
So, get your ducks in a row, have a reasonable budget, and let us do our job without interference. If you can do that, hiring a professional photographer is easy.
I was getting ready to go to bed last night as my 18-year-old sat down at the computer. I’m old and go to bed early. He’s young and stays up late. The schedule works. As he sits down, though, I look up and realize I still have 24 tabs open. Yes, I need all of them, and maybe a few more.
“Please try to not crash my browser,” I warn him.
He looks over at the monitor and sees all the tabs then looks back at me sarcastically. “I’ll try.” I think there’s an eye roll implied.
I go on to bed with my cell phone under my pillow because that’s where I’ve set the alarm. About 30 minutes into my attempt at slumber, the phone dings; it’s a message from my son.
“There’s music playing from one of your tabs and I can’t figure out which one.”
This is where technology has brought us: music coming from unknown sources, fear over losing track of information we need, and putting our phones under our pillows. We are so indelibly linked to technology that we cannot even start our day without it. Technology does many, many wonderful things for us. Yet, technology often fails and when it does it can take down an entire business along with it. Fashion seems especially vulnerable as our reliance on social media and online shopping continues to grow. When technology fails, everything we’ve worked hard to achieve is put at risk.
We really don’t like to think about just how dependent we are upon technology and how vulnerable that technology makes us. Sure, somewhere in the back of our minds we know that were something to happen to the nation’s power grid life as we know it would be over. We just don’t like to think about that. Instead, we focus on slightly smaller, more immediate issues. For example, you probably shouldn’t use your new Samsung 7 phone on an airplane because it might explode. Or try to not think about the fact that the new iPhone 7 just rendered your $150 earbuds obsolete. We just won’t mention that little detail about a massive solar storm potentially wiping out all our technology. All of it.
One of the primary reasons that such a danger is so horribly frightening is because we don’t know how to do things without technology. Technology has been a part of our lives for so very long that entire generations have no clue that there are, or once were, analog alternatives to the things we do, such as sending messages, operating machinery, or farming. Knowledge that was once ubiquitous, such how to manage a large crop or working a loom or sewing a dress, is now increasingly rare as the generations that contained that information slowly dies off. No one is physically retaining that information. Sure, it’s written down somewhere and stored on a computer, but a helluva lot of good that does us if the computer is dead.
Industries such as fashion, which have become wholly invested in the latest technology through every facet of the business, would crumble immediately were the digital tools they use suddenly gone. Even design sketching, which is still a fundamental skill, is done almost exclusively in digital formats now. Take away that power source and we’re lost.
Investing in technology makes sense. Going digital is more efficient, allows greater flexibility, and reduces response times. I can’t imagine anyone saying that we shouldn’t embrace technology wherever we can. Even the Amish are making adjustments. However, there are times when our total reliance upon all things digital creates problems that can adversely impact what we’re doing.
I mentioned yesterday about problems various fashion labels were having with live streaming. Those challenges not only continued but in some cases became more severe. Twice yesterday we attempted to watch shows that were exclusively streamed on either Snapchat or Periscope. One of those shows, Thakoon, was pretty important. Yet, the technology served neither designer well. One stream was pixelated to the point of being useless. Not only could we not see detail, half the time we couldn’t even make out the silhouette of the pieces! I love cubism in art, but it doesn’t exactly work for a live fashion stream. For Thakoon (which we reviewed on Pattern), the technology was challenged by the fact the show was presented at night, outdoors, on the top of a building. In daylight, Periscope would probably have worked really well as a transmission and streaming method. At night, though, it left a LOT to be desired.
Fortunately, in both cases, a more reliable form of technology came to the rescue when still images were released. I love that photos can be made available almost as soon as they’re taken. With them, we can see the detail that is lost in streaming. The downside is that not every show that streams is covered by the photo services.
Designers are also vulnerable when it comes to the corporate stability of the social media platforms on which they depend. We forget that young technology companies are not necessarily profitable even though they may be popular. While rumors swirl that Snapchat might be preparing for an IPO, Twitter’s stock is tanking, raising speculation that it might be for sale and that its CEO could be ousted. Nothing is ever certain with technology firms.
I still hold on to a film camera, as do several other photographers. As much as the industry has moved into digital formats, there is a strong feeling that the apocalypse will be captured on film. Photographers can be a real doom-and-gloom bunch. At least we still have options, though. Not every industry does. Medical fields would be decimated without modern technology used to find solutions for new diseases. Fast fashion retailers such as Zara and H&M would have no choice but to close if they had to wait on every garment to be hand cut and sewn.
This is why makers programs such as the one at Pattern are so important. We need to not only cultivate skills, we need to make sure they’re being taught to younger generations. This doesn’t mean that we ignore technology or put it on a back burner by any means. Rather, we celebrate the artisanal aspects of doing things by hand and preserving industries that might otherwise die if everything digital were suddenly unavailable.
Technology is wonderful. I wouldn’t be able to share this message without it. But technology fails and we need to maintain alternate methods for when it does.
Kat and I were both sitting in the living room reading Sunday when I looked up and mentioned that I was having to be careful about what I read. Too many articles and books and studies pique my interests. I could jump down any number of rabbit holes and waste untold hours of time chasing a topic that has no application to anything I do. The problem is that I enjoy learning new things far too much.
“Would you like to go back to college?” she asked. The expression on her face told me she was serious. That’s Kat, though. She’s all about tackling challenges head on, embracing one’s passion and hanging on as tight as possible.
I gave her my standard set of excuses. I wouldn’t know what to study. My GPA is too low. Most importantly, I don’t see the benefit of going $60,000 or more in debt at a point in my life where I’m not likely to ever earn enough to pay it back.
We are, by government standards, poor. No, we’re not destitute, but the last thing we have the money to pursue is some random jump into a career or field of study that may prove to be impossible. Our general situation improves only with the careful management of our limited funds. Chasing other interests is a fantasy.
Earlier this month, the Huffington Post started a new section specifically aimed at people pondering some of the same questions I ponder. The description of the section sounds appealing:
When to Jump™ is a community dedicated to exploring the fundamental question we all think about: when is the right time to go do what you really want to be doing? HuffPost has partnered with When to Jump founder Mike Lewis to curate the stories and ideas of people who left something comfortable to chase a passion. Whatever your jump may be, this is the place to help inspire you to make it.
The stories have headlines that sound incredibly encouraging. This Would-Be Doctor Switched Paths To Help People In An Entirely Different Way. How A Former Pre-Med Student Found Another Way To Build Healthy Communities. I Left My Successful Career as a Doctor to Become an Art Student.
Wait, are you noticing what I’m noticing? There’s a trend here, at least early in the community’s inception, to focus on those abandoning the medical field. Reading through these three articles, I could feel happy for each person’s story. They took the risk, made the jump, and it worked. Yay them! I couldn’t help noticing, though, that these people come from a much higher socio-economic class than I do. Financial challenges have a much different meaning for them than it does for me. For the OB/GYN cum art student, there didn’t seem to be any severe challenge beyond her own self-doubts.
Is this whole career jumping just for the affluent? Thousands of people my age who lose their jobs to acquisitions and mergers, economic downsizing, or technological advancement are told to “make the jump” into something they love doing. But when each month is a challenge to keep the lights burning making a blind jump into something that could, at least for a moment, involve a substantial investment, that move isn’t so attractive.
Over the past few years, I’ve taken quite an interest in astrophysics. Neil deGrasse Tyson has done a great job of making this incredibly complicated field of study seem relatable and even obtainable. Being an astrophysicist sounds like an incredible amount of fun, even if the amount of math is intense. I’m sure I would do better with math now than I did back in 9th grade. I think I could come to love astrophysics.
I’ve had arguments similar to this before, though. Back in 1988, I was all in turmoil over whether to go back to school and get my master’s degree in something music related or chasing this photography thing and seeing where it took me. We know how that debate ended. Finances played a large role in that decision, too. Photography meant having a paycheck right then, even if it was small. Going back to school meant not knowing if there would ever actually be a paycheck. In the end, the decision wasn’t all that difficult. Paycheck wins.
This takes me back to the article from a couple of weeks ago, Stop Doing What You Love. I might really like astrophysics from an amateur perspective, but does it really make sense to jump into the field with any hopes of being successful? Probably not. In addition to all the cost for additional education and tutors, there’s the fact I would be well into my 60s before achieving the level of education necessary to become employable. Better I stick with what I’m good at doing.
Personally, I don’t even know if I really want to jump. I still love photography. I’m not yet done taking all the pictures I want to take. As I look into the future of the profession, I cannot help but wonder if my days are numbered. Once everyone can take pictures with the contact lying on their eye my usefulness decreases considerably, Imagining a day when there are no more professional photographers isn’t terribly difficult.
But to jump requires having money. Money to go back to school. Money for equipment and books and materials. Then, there’s that matter of paying bills, feeding a family, while in the course of such a jump. When people have some kind of financial backstops, those worries are not so large. For those who have none, however, such concerns are a roadblock. We have to take care of our families first. Making a jump may put our careers at risk, but we can’t put our families and their well-being at risk. We’re stuck.
Such is the way our country works, though. Anything is possible if you have money. If you don’t, those who do go out of their way to make you feel like a burden on society, no matter how hard one works or how hard they try to fit in. Being poor removes one ability to jump.
I don’t expect anything to change. I might investigate the choices a bit, but I’ll see a price tag and probably back off the idea of making a jump. After all, I’m not a doctor or pre-med student. They get to jump. The rest of us just dance in place. Our feet are too poor to leave the ground.
When one visits the Louvre, there are certain rules one must follow. Actually, there are a lot of rules one must follow. No smoking, drinking, eating, raising your voice, touching artworks, or running in the museum exhibition rooms. The museum houses some of the world’s most fantastic pieces of art and curators there are adamant that guests respect the art. They even put up signs to remind visitors how to act. They look like this:
There are times when I wish I could put a similar label on my photographs. I find it interesting that when a photographer puts any kind of identifying or security mark, such as a watermark, on their photographs people complain that the mark “interrupts the aesthetic value of the picture.” At the same time, though, those same people fail to show any respect for the photograph in the way it is treated and displayed. Comments are brutal and insulting without having any knowledge of all the photographer went through to create that image.
The Internet, and especially social media, thrives on photography. Whether professional or amateur, the Internet needs photography and video or else it quickly becomes boring. Few people realize that early editions of the Internet didn’t have photographs. The first browsers had no way to display images. Everything was text. The Mosaic browser changed all that in 1993 and the Internet has never been the same. But with all those pictures out there, we’ve lost our respect for the pictures and the medium.
Photographs appeared on the Internet a full decade before digital photography became a reasonable alternative to film. Before digital photography, the path from camera to Internet was long and trying. The film had to be developed, processed, finished, and then scanned into a digital format. Scanning was unreliable and often multiple scans had to be created before a usable copy was obtained. It was the fallacies of those early scans that necessarily gave rise to tools such as Photoshop. The digital image had to receive further processing and editing to make it ready for online use. Weeks could pass before a photograph was ready.
Today, even professional cameras come wi-fi equipped so that a photographer can instantly publish a photo to Instagram or other application if they desire. Still, that immediacy does not take away from the skill, talent, and effort the photographer put into that photo. More involved photographs, such as the ones at the top of this page, can take several hours over the course of multiple days before they are ready for public exposure. Months of planning may take place before the frame is even snapped. Nothing about a professional photograph is easy or accidental.
Respect for the process shows respect for the hours of training, the multiple specializations brought to bear, the difficulty of knowing which adjustments to make and when a line has been crossed. Just because one can see a photo instantly after it is taken doesn’t mean that the photo is done. Raw images are seldom as perfect as they might appear on the back of a camera. A lot of hard work and creativity goes into almost every professional image.
One of the biggest disgraces of the Internet are those mean-spirited people we refer to as trolls. The problem has become so severe that Time magazine saw fit to devote a cover story to the topic. Writer, Joel Stein describes the problem thusly:
…if you need help improving your upload speeds the web is eager to help with technical details, but if you tell it you’re struggling with depression it will try to goad you into killing yourself. Psychologists call this the online disinhibition effect, in which factors like anonymity, invisibility, a lack of authority and not communicating in real time strip away the mores society spent millennia building.
Such overwhelming disregard and complete lack of respect for both the creators and subjects of photographs is why you are not allowed to comment publicly on my pages. I would love to hear kind thoughts and might even entertain technical questions. Unfortunately, opening up comments to allow for any intelligent conversation on a topic is an open invitation to trolls who, by their very definition, don’t know how to control the tongues.
I am especially likely to lose my temper when someone shows a lack of respect for a model. Disparaging the physical appearance of a young woman has caused me to block more than one person. I can tolerate questions about a pose or whether a highlight is out of gamut, but insult a model and were it possible to reach through the Internet and punch someone, I would. People who risk their self-esteem and personal identity to pose in photos don’t need anyone tell them they’re too short or their head is awkwardly shaped. Shut the fuck up.
Not all that long ago I would occasionally give someone a signed print as a gift. I would carefully choose a photograph, perhaps one from a set they claimed to really like, go through the trouble of additional processing necessary to pull a print, and then sign and date them for authenticity. After all that effort, only once in the past eleven years have I seen one of those works actually hanging anywhere. Instead, they’re put in the back of closets, forgotten and unappreciated. In one instance, I found a print torn, mangled, and shoved behind a file cabinet. The recipients of those gifts not only showed disregard for the gift, but failed to show any respect for the work.
Image theft, which has been a constant problem on the Internet, also exhibits a lack of respect for the work. Doing a google search for a photograph then copying it and using it for your own purposes, whether online or in a brochure is theft and lacks respect. Failure to credit photographer in the work is another form of theft and disrespect. Cropping out the photographer’s watermark is a sign that one fails to respect the image and its source.
I would be tempted to say you wouldn’t go into the Louvre, take a picture of the Mona Lisa and then try to pass it off as your own work, but, astonishingly, I can’ t. People have so little respect even for masterworks as to think that they can claim some right to misuse whatever they see.
Failure to show respect for others ultimately reflects back on yourself. A lack of self-respect causes a failure of respect for others. We do not value in others what we do not value in ourselves. No one is fooled. All the mean-spiritedness does not hide the self-loathing. Trolls are more transparent than they realize. Photo thieves are merely trying to make up for their own shortcomings. No one is fooled.
I don’t blame photographers who feel acrimonious about the misuse of their photos and pull back permissions. The person who posts photos on Facebook without tagging the photographer disrespects both the photo and the person who took it. After suffering that slight more than a few times a photographer has a right to say, “No more.”
I grow tired of seeing people who know absolutely nothing about photography disrespect my work. I know many other photographers feel the same. If you enjoy the pictures a photographer presents, please say something. If you don’t, there’s no need to say anything at all. Please, respectfully, keep your mouth shut.
We are one year away from an incredible experience. On this date in 2017, a total solar eclipse passes over the United States on a path from Oregon to North Carolina. The premium viewing point is in Southern Illinois. Here in Indianapolis, though, we might actually see something more spectacular. Instead of a complete blackout in the middle of the day, we will be left with just the tiniest sliver of light. Granted, it will still be pretty freaking dark and you do not want to look at that thing with bare naked eyes. Optometrists don’t need the business that badly. Still, I’m anxious to see the effect of that tiny sliver of light.
Mythologies surrounding a solar eclipse are many. Several ancient cultures believed the sun was being eaten by one animal or another. Others believed a god was decapitated and obscured the sun. Ancient Greeks were all about doom and gloom and were certain that horrible, horrible things were about to happen. They were right. They would have been right without the eclipse as well. Ancient Greece was just screwed no matter what.
While we must have light, and lots of it, to live, there are benefits to using limited light, especially when it comes to creative matters. Working within those limits can be challenging, especially when what light exists comes from the wrong direction or a very weak source. Yet, when we take that challenge and bend it to our will, the limits we work within can result in wonderful creativity.
My friend Keith allows me to borrow his creative space from time to time. There are some concepts that really need the tools and effects of a studio, but shooting in any indoor environment comes with some inherent limits. The lights are a different temperature than natural light. There are walls and a limit to how the light will spread. Backgrounds don’t always match the concept as well as we might like. Ceilings, ugh, are never high enough. Yet, there are benefits to working within those limits.
Where we stretch the limits of sanity, and of my camera, are when we reduce that light down as low as reasonably possible. Keith always looks at me like I’m crazy when I ask him to turn off all the lights but one. When working with such a limited light source, it doesn’t take much to generate a misfire and a photo that is unusable. Getting it right takes some experience, some precision, and no small amount of luck.
It’s one thing to employ this tactic on a still object. Doing it with a live model is even more challenging. Every time she moves risks putting her outside the light’s premium arc. We’re looking for highlights we can exploit and her range of motion is bound by the limits of where we know the light is going to hit. Not every frame is going to be usable. Am I crazy to put someone through these limits? Probably, but I’m doing it anyway.
The effectiveness of such limited lights depends on the camera one is using and the settings one chooses. Both the Nikon D750 and the Canon 5DS have insanely high ISO ranges which allow for settings near 3,000 without experiencing a lot of digital noise in the image. To take the pictures below at such a setting would defeat the purpose. The highlights would be totally blown out and the rest of the image would feel off, cold, and awkward. As it turns out, though, I don’t have one of those cameras so I don’t have to make those choices.
The images below were shot at a standard ISO 100 with an aperture of f2.8. Again, more limits. At that setting, only the brightest of light is getting through. Focus is challenging as hell. Composition becomes guess work. We might have ended up with a complete mess. Yet, despite all the limits, or perhaps because of them, we came up with a collection that I like very much.
I have to admit, these photos were taken three years ago and I’m just now processing them. There were others in the collection from the same studio session that were more important. I’m not so sure but what waiting serves the best interest of the photographs. The processing method we used on these wasn’t possible back then. Sometimes waiting is worth the frustration.
Below is the end result. After all the limits came to bear, we still ended up with a set of images I really like. I hope you enjoy them as well.
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Welcome to World Photo Day 2016! This is a day in which we’re going to play along nicely and pretend that the organization behind this day isn’t just trying to sell their book. We like this day because it celebrates something we feel rather passionate about: photography! I mean, who doesn’t like it when someone captures a good photo of you? Granted, for some people that is excessively more difficult than for others. I will also admit that there are times, even when the photography is good, we don’t especially like how we look. I mean, that whole passport photo quote above is way too accurate.
Still, we like to celebrate World Photo Day. Mind you, we don’t celebrate because this was the day photography was invented. The date was determined based on the Daguerreotype, which showed up in 1837. Even that wasn’t really the first photo process. The first fixed-image process was the Heliotype in 1826. What this date actually celebrates, though, is your access to photography. The French government purchased the rights to the Daguerreotype on this date in 1839 and made them open to the public. This allowed for further development of the camera so that you can take selfies with your phone.
Photography has come a long way since 1839. Photography will go a lot farther. This has never been a static industry. Change is constant as someone is continually trying to find a way to take a better, more real photo. Every time someone snaps a shutter, they capture both a moment in time and a moment in photographic history.
I’ve taken hundreds of thousands of photographs over the years. From the first time until today, I still get excited when I look at the finished product and find that I have captured something special. Of course, there are times when I’m the only one who thinks a particular image is special, but many of them hold a lot of meaning.
Your pictures are the same way. Sometimes the pictures we hold most dear are those that are not technically stellar. It’s that picture of someone special, or that moment that gave you an incredible feeling, or the last time you saw the person who gave you life. Photographs tell our life’s story. They mark the moments of highs and lows. They remind us that we’re human.
So, we’ve chosen a group of photos for today that spans a range of events and emotions worth remembering for different reasons. Some pictures were chosen not because of the photo itself but because of the people involved behind the scenes. Danelle French did make up for some really great make-up on several. Some are special because of where they were taken. And several are of Kat. That’s a good excuse on its own.
We’ll take more pictures. It’s not always convenient or easy, but we keep going. Some we share. Many we don’t. What follows is a mix of both. And if you want us to take your photos, just ask!
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This is a first. I’ve had a long-standing rule for myself that only my own pictures would accompany the articles here. Today we are making an exception for the point of education. The picture at the top was taken by Gary Watson, New Year’s Eve, 2012. The photo above was taken by Polina Osherov in June of 2012. Sometimes we have to let someone else take the pictures. That’s an important lesson. See? Education. It’s everywhere.
Well, not everywhere, exactly. Specifically, you’ll not be finding photography education at the Brooks Institute in Ventura, California anymore. The school announced late last week that they are closing. Founded on the heels of WWII by Ernie Brooks, Sr., the Brooks school was unique during the 20th century in that it put as much emphasis on the non-camera-related aspects of photo education as it did the picture-taking portions. Graduates during that period, and there were a bunch of them, were grounded, knew how to handle themselves professionally, and, for the most part, took damn good pictures. I’ve run into Brooks grads several times over the past 30 years.
Visit the school’s website today, though, and on the front page is posted the announcement:
With deep regret, Brooks announces that the school will close on October 31, will continue to offer administrative and student services support.
On the Brooks Facebook page, both current students and incoming freshmen are pissed, and understandably so. Formal photography education isn’t what it once was.
For-profit schools have been taking a beating for a while now. Just ask anyone who has gone to or been affiliated with the Arts Institutes or ITT Tech, both of which have had to weather both investigations and fines from the federal government as well as numerous lawsuits from former students and faculties. Education and profit are not generally compatible in the first place. Throw in the temptation to defraud the federal government through the student loan program and bad things start happening quickly.
There is no indication that Brooks suffered from that particular problem, though. Instead, according to an article in the Ventura County Star, Brooks simply did not have enough students. Only 350 students were scheduled for this fall. In 2005, enrollment was 2,563. With or without federal financing issues, that’s a pretty big hit. While the article doesn’t go into particular detail, I assume that the school had already started laying off instructors and trimming administrative staff. The school had changed ownership multiple times over the past few years and its current owners, Green Planet, were unable, or perhaps unwilling, to turn those numbers around.
In all likelihood, Green Planet is going to be hit with a class action lawsuit for defrauding students. Brooks was not part of recognized accreditation systems, so credits earned at Brooks do not transfer to other California schools. With recent administration changes, the charge that administrators knew that closing was imminent is one that is difficult to deny. What was once a well-regarded photography school has met a very sad and possibly unnecessary end.
On one level, there is a very legitimate argument that photography schools are no longer necessary, if they ever were. Think of the great photographers we’ve known: Horst, Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts. You’ll not find a photography degree among them. Avedon enrolled in Columbia University as a poetry major but dropped out. Herb went to Bard College and majored in economics. Neither Horst nor Helmut gave the matter any consideration. Even now, I’m not immediately aware of anyone I would consider an above-standard photographer who is running around with a photography degree tucked in their belt.
From its inception, photography has been one of those skills developed outside the classroom, most typically as an assistant for another photographer. There are too many exceptions to the rules, too many instances where one has to shoot on the fly, for classroom instruction to hold a great deal of real-world value. Those who do the best are those who learned on the job and developed their own style that allowed them to stand out from the rest.
Yet, even there, Brooks was different than the rest. Talk to the few remaining photographers who came out of the 1940s and they’ll tell you they picked up photography during the war, most often while serving in the Air Force. And who was teaching pilots and others to use photography during WWII? Ernie Brooks, Sr. After the war, his first ten students were vets who wanted to transfer what they had learned in combat into a marketable skill at home and Ernie Brooks was the right person to teach them. His education system was practical, rooted in reality. Only when the school stepped away from that model did their enrollment and reputation decline.
As cameras have developed, especially in this digital age where everyone thinks they’re a photographer, some would argue that specialization is the key to photographic success, at least from a commercial standpoint. While I don’t think that argument holds water universally, within certain locations, such as California, it has some validity. There, formal education might not be such a bad idea.
Brooks Institute included some courses that might be difficult to find just anywhere. For example, Brooks had an in-water diving photography course. First off, getting credit for underwater photography sounds incredibly cool. However, it’s not one of those things one just picks up randomly. One benefits from not only having a professional dive instructor, but one that understands the effects of increasing pressure on their photography equipment and other underwater dangers. Brooks also had degree courses in science and technological imaging and other specialized courses.
When dealing with elements that contain a high degree of difficulty, specialized equipment, or a significant amount of danger, finding a school that teaches those skills is probably a better bet than attempting to learn them while assisting someone else, or worse yet, on your own using YouTube videos. Highly specialized aspects of photography need a highly specialized mode of education. Unfortunately, those programs are expensive and a for-profit school is likely to find the investment not worth the return.
I am not likely to ever get behind the notion that a formal photography education makes one a better photographer. What makes one a better photographer is getting out there and taking pictures. Take bad pictures at first. That’s okay. Lord knows I certainly wasted more than a few rolls of film trying to figure our the whole damn process of measuring light and angles and reflectivity. With practice, most of us get better (I’ve met a few exceptions). If one is dedicated to becoming a good photographer, one will become a good photographer.
The problem with formal photography education, however, is that not everyone who takes a class is truly dedicated. Let me reference back to last week’s article about not doing what you love. While this is true of many areas of study, photography is especially prone to the problem. Someone just loves taking pictures and their friends think they look professional. So, why not go to school and get a degree in what you love? If only what we think we love were the things we are actually good at doing. I know almost as many former photography students as I do former music students and in both groups, there is a high percentage of those who don’t remain in their field of study. I’m one of them (I have a music degree, remember?).
If there is an argument for being part of a formal photography education system it is the camaraderie found among fellow classmates. One of the biggest challenges to survival as a photographer is the ability to network with others. Photographers who attend schools with graphic arts departments, illustration departments, and more, build relationships across those lines that can serve them well in the real world. In fact, to some degree, the ability to build up a network of peers and professional relationships is at times more valuable than learning how to work a camera. Replicating that opportunity in the real world is almost impossible.
I feel sympathetic toward the 350 Brooks Institute students who now have nowhere to learn. Many had traveled from other countries and diverse places across this one. Apartment leases were signed. Arrangements made. Money spent. They have every right to be angry with the school’s owners.
What we ultimately take away, though painfully, is that in photography as in everything else we must learn to change. What Ernie Brooks, Sr. built doesn’t fit well in the modern world of digital photography. Were he or his son still living, perhaps they could have guided the school through the change. But when the eyes are on the bottom line positive change is extremely rare. What’s good for the investors is rarely good for the school. Welcome to the real world, kids. Here’s your first lesson in adapting to sudden change.
The lesson should not be lost on the rest of us. I never thought I would need to understand computers in order to be a good photographer. If I remain in this profession another 30 years, I’m likely to have to adapt to more change, including virtual reality and 3D imaging. There is no way I can sit here and predict the severity of change that might be in our future, but I am sure it will change and we will still need to learn.
And the biggest change of all is still out there: letting go and letting someone else take the pictures. Sometimes learning is hard.
My youngest son, the 18-year-old, has taken to wanting to watch horror movies on Netflix before going to bed at night. There is a severe dichotomy to his reasoning for choosing the last moments of the day to watch something that frightens the subconscious. He likes the emotional intensity of horror and suspense, but the movies give him nightmares.
Last night was a perfect example. I’m sitting elsewhere, reading, when I get a text message:
Why you leave me alone out here in the living room wanting to watch a horror movie?
When I didn’t respond quickly enough, he sent another message asking if I was almost done with my reading. He wanted to watch a movie, but was too frightened to watch one by himself. I stayed up to keep his mind occupied with other things while he watched some tale of creatures that live in the woods. Then, he had to watch something more fun before he could go to bed. Some dreams can be terrifying.
Dreams are strange beasts that we don’t understand in any great detail. For all the studies that have been done, scientists still don’t know why we dream. Neither does anyone really know why some dreams seem to have cognisance while others are nothing more than collections of random nonsense. If there was a failing to Dr. Jung’s research, it was the presumption that all dreams must have meaning. They don’t. Yet, without them, our lives get messed up in a hurry.
Quick biology lesson: There is a part of your brain that, primarily, manages your impulse control, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). This is a very important part of our brain, especially when it comes to social skills. The DLPFC is that filter that stops you before you call your mother-in-law an old cow in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. The same fold in your brain also prevents one from murdering everyone who is slightly annoying. We really need this part of our brain to work, and work well.
Care to guess what part of your brain gets shut off when you sleep? That’s right, the DLPFC shuts right down and takes a nap of its own. Actually, the entire prefrontal cortex takes a much-needed break. We work some parts of our brains harder than others when we’re awake and the prefrontal cortex uses that time to essentially catch its breath so that it can keep us from doing something stupid tomorrow.
Without the DLPFC in operation, however, our minds are free to roam. There is no inhibition in our dreams. All the creative mess on the right side of our brain, including the part that makes connections between bits of information, are allowed to wander at will. As a result, our dreams become full of really random and surreal thoughts as things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other begin to collide. At the same time, though, this uninhibited state allows us to find solutions that we otherwise wouldn’t consider.
Dreams have always fascinated us. As a result, scientists have attempted to study them for years with varying success. While there has been a lot of speculation, only relatively recently with the use of fMRI have we been able to begin to really understand what our brains are doing when we sleep, and specifically when dreaming. There are a number of different portions of our brain that are turned on and more active when we are asleep. Equally important, though, are the parts that stand down and let the creativity flow.
What may be most interesting is that we don’t have to dream all night to receive the creative benefits. Studies show that a good nap wherein we achieve REM sleep can boost cognitive association and creative problem solving by as much as 60 percent.You might want to let your boss in on that bit of research the next time you get caught sleeping at your desk (Ulrich Wagner and Jan Born in Nature, 2004).
Chances are you’ve experienced this phenomenon before. You have a problem to which you cannot seem to find a solution no matter how hard you might try. Then, you go to bed and in that foggy space between being awake and asleep the answer suddenly comes to you. Eureka! Problem solved.
Our minds can be at their most creative when we’re asleep, as well. Rocker Keith Richards tells the story of falling asleep on a night in May of 1965. Near his bed were a guitar and a tape recorder. When he woke up, the tape was at the end of the reel. Upon rewinding the tape, Richards found the opening of a song, along with an entire verse, followed by forty minutes of snoring. The song? (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.
Life can be cruel sometimes and one of them is a nasty disease that specifically affects the DLPFC. While shutting that thing down during our dreams is a good thing, losing it completely kills us. However, before we die, we can get very, very creative even if we’ve never shown an inkling of artistic interest or ability before.
The disease is frontotemporal dementia. There is neither a known cause nor a cure. Like many forms of dementia, the process can be slow and doesn’t present itself the same way in every person. However, one of the things that happens as the DLPFC deteriorates is that people suddenly develop a tremendous artistic interest and ability they have never shown before. People might suddenly develop an interest and ability to paint, or sculpt, or write, or compose music when they’ve never had any training or even any overt exposure to the medium. Their skills develop more quickly than normal because that part of the brain that tells them they can’t, or shouldn’t, is no longer there. The creativity flows unabated right up until the point of death.
Yeah, creativity can be a killer. I’m sorry, did no one mention that to you before?
I don’t think too many of us really want to die for our art. Being creative is wonderful and we love it when the ideas are flowing freely. However, few of us are willing to trade off longevity to capture a new photograph or develop a new style of painting. Is there a way to be so creative without winding up in a pine box?
Turns out, there is. We can actually teach ourselves to temporarily turn off the DLPFC so that, for a moment, we can experience the creativity found in a controlled dream state. The practice is most frequently found in forms of improvisation, especially jazz music and improv comedy. Artists such as John Coltrane, YoYo Ma, John Baptiste, and Steve Martin all learned to develop that ability to let go, turn off the part of the brain that says, “No, don’t do that,” so that nothing stands between them and the pure flow of creativity.
Not that such spontaneous creativity comes easily. Years of practice are involved. There are basics to be learned so that when the creativity begins to flow the mind automatically knows what to do with that information. When it works, though, many artists describe the effect as being in a dream state. Many don’t even realize that they’ve completed a performance. With the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex shut down, it’s like being awake and dreaming at the same time.
What do we take from this? Perhaps we need to take Kierkegaard a bit more seriously when he asserts, “Sleeping is the height of genius.” For some, that may mean breaking up our day so that we have shorter periods between dream states (aka frequent naps). For others, perhaps taking an improv class to learn how to let go of our inhibitions might be appropriate. Everyone is a little bit different, so each solution is going to be somewhat unique.
No matter which path you might take, though, the power of dreaming is real. Let’s tap that source and get creative.
The photographs above are not art. The photographs below are not art. We’ve covered this topic before and those who are long-time readers know exactly where I’m going. Adding a bunch of filters to a photograph to make it “look cool” is not art; it has never been, it never will be. All we have here are heavily and spontaneously manipulated photographs. The whole batch took no more than an hour to process from RAW files. I spend more time processing a single portrait.
So, what has set off this latest artistic angst that has me gnashing my teeth? The use of online filters by people who I expect to know better. When the average pedestrian Instagram user applies some stupid filter to their picture, I typically roll my eyes and chalk it up to a certain level of ignorance; they don’t know better. I don’t say anything about horrendously filtered online photographs for the same reason I don’t correct everyone’s grammar: it’s socially rude, even though both are likely to have me banging my head on my desk.
Yet, what I’ve noticed over the past week or so it the frequent use of a new online filter that gives images a sort of stained glass effect. The filter divides the image into a vertical mosaic, blurring out details but keeping just enough information so that one can infer the basic contents of the photograph. Some impressive math work is behind the filter, to be sure, but it still does not make a photograph a work of art.
Here’s what has me irked: the filter is being used by professionals who should know better. I’ve seen the filter applied by photographers whose portfolios are impressive. I’ve seen the filter used by designers whose normal work is quite amazing. I’ve even seen one graphic artist who applied the filter to one of his works and then tried to sell it as unique.
Why would a professional engage in such cheap and lazy effects when their other work is of such high quality? How does a professional, especially those whose artistic opinions I normally trust, find such corner-cutting applications acceptable? Is this a sign that we are losing our footing in understanding the difference between art and digital doodling?
Artistic integrity has always been a bit of an oxymoron, but when I see professionals resorting to a free online filter and then presenting the resulting image as though it has any artistic merit is extremely disappointing. I expect, fans and patrons of one’s work expect, an artist to present original work, not something that is duplicated at the touch of a single button. I fully expect artistic professionals to have better judgement.
Mind you, in the right hands and administered correctly, there can be an appropriate use of filters. Graphic and digital professionals understand how to manipulate filters in conjunction with other processing and artistic techniques. Filters are generally applied only to a specific portion of an image to generate a specific effect. Dozens of layers and masks blend a touch of one filter here with another effect somewhere else until the whole work comes together as a single piece. I have absolutely no problem with carefully considered and detailed use of filters in this way.
Art, however, is not a global application of a single effect. Art is something conceptualized by its creator, even when it doesn’t turn out exactly as one envisioned. There is purpose, there is intent, and there is reasoning behind every brush stroke, every method, and every experiment. The value of art is in the individuality of the work, even if there are others created in similar fashion. That each piece was given its own concept, was separately planned and carefully created is what separates art from cheap wallpaper,
Globally applied filters are fun at a pedestrian level, perhaps, but they serve no purpose other than as entertainment. A dog’s snout placed over the image of a toddler might be amusing. Rainbow-colored vomit coming from your mother-in-law’s mouth might generate a chuckle or two. Everyone likes to be entertained, but no one in their right mind would confuse such mindless pastimes with art.
To illustrate my point, I took a collection of images from the archives that share some commonality. They were all shot in the same place, under the same conditions, with the same concept and intent. The models were even posed similarly. When we processed the images for their original intent, I painstakingly worked with each one to achieve a careful nuance and style consistent with the project. What we did here, though, was exactly the opposite. There was no plan. There was no conceptualizing. There certainly wasn’t any over-arching purpose. Instead, I took the approach of, “Hey, what happens when we apply this filter?”
Each image has at least five global filters applied. We partially masked some of the filters so as to make comparison and contrast between them a bit more evident and also to keep the images from becoming boring, which was a real and present danger. We didn’t worry about details, we didn’t correct any problems the filters might have caused. We just pushed buttons and giggled. Well, okay, not really giggled all that much. Actually, we just rolled out eyes and drank more coffee.
The results are, perhaps, mildly entertaining. Sure, the images are different and some people might even find them rather cool because they’re not the normal photograph. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I’m not going to bother defending them if you don’t like them. I’ve nothing invested more than a few minutes of time.
Playing with filters is just that: playing. These are not works of art. You can do this at home. You certainly won’t find these in my portfolio. I expect to not see anything like them in others’ portfolios, either.
We’re not going to mention the two political conventions taking place over the next two weeks very often. At least, not unless they do something really wild and crazy like start shooting at each other (which, I suppose, could very well happen). Political conventions are, in general, nothing more than giant pep rallies. Very expensive pep rallies. Neither one is little more than an opportunity for the party elite to get together and embarrass themselves. The voices speaking are nothing more than echoes of bovine feces we’ve already heard.
Both conventions have their protestors, too. Police are a bit concerned as Ohio Gov. John Kasich says he doesn’t have the power to suspend the state’s open carry law. This means anyone can legally carry any type firearm right up to the convention’s doors and there’s not a lot police can do about it. We’ve already seen tempers flare among protesters at campaign events. I appreciate why law enforcement might be feeling a bit nervous.
Not all forms of protest, however, are violent. There are plenty of ways through which people can make their voices heard without risking personal injury to themselves or anyone else. One such protest took place early Sunday morning in an open field not too far from the convention center. Just over 100 women met at the secret location, took their clothes off, held up mirrors, and took a picture. There was no question the act was one of protest, but exactly what the women were saying depends on who one asks.
If you follow the world of photographic art any at all, you’ve heard or read the name Spencer Tunick. For several years now, Tunick has organized some of the largest nude gatherings around the world as part of his photography projects. One recent project involved over 3,000 people. Another had everyone covered in body paint. While he certainly has his detractors, the one thing Tunick does well is organizing these exceptionally large events with precision and accuracy. He is mindful of local laws and is careful to not let matters get totally out of hand.
Tunick also allows the voices of thousands of people to be heard through a single photograph. While others may march and yell and scream, Tunick’s silent photographs carry the voices of their participants beyond a single moment. Whether the event is designed to protest poverty, homelessness, or some other critical situation, Tunick’s work keeps the reason for the protest alive as long as the pictures last. Marches fade into the dust as their echoes die off, but not photographs.
This project, which is part of Tunick’s “Everything She Says Means Everything” art installation occurring later this year, is quite a bit smaller than most. He was likely wise in doing so. A protest of only 100 women drew a lot less attention from Cleveland law enforcement than a couple of thousand would have. He also made sure the event was on private property, which he had permission to use, took place first thing in the morning so the number of spectators was few, and lasted only a few minutes. If someone is going to organize a nude protest, Spencer Tunick is the person to do it.
Tunick had a reason for choosing Cleveland as the site of this protest. He told the assembled women before asking them to disrobe:
The Republican party has given an excuse to hate. We have daughters and we want them to grow up in a society where they have equal rights for women.
The women had their own reasons for being there. These quotes were published in the Esquire article linked above:
I’m here because I’m a trans woman and we’re not supposed to like our bodies and I don’t like that. It’s going to be great! I’m very antsy; it’s like Christmas morning. -Harmony Moon, 25
Because of [Donald Trump’s] negative views on women. I think this is a great way to contrast that. -Monica Giorgio, 19
This 65-and-a-half-year-old Jewish grandma wants to take the best picture I’ve ever taken. -Marsha Besunera Klausner, 65
Donald Trump has said so many outrageous, hateful, inflammatory things. He underestimated his female, Republican vote. I feel like he shot himself in the foot a little bit. I don’t think he knows there’s a black, single, 35-year-old mom, like me, who is listening to what he’s saying. I don’t think he knows I’m in his political party—and that’s unfortunate. -Cathy Scott, 35
For me, it’s less about Trump and more about creating positive energy around the RNC and to create light where there maybe isn’t as much. -Sabrina Paskewitz, 23
Others took their voices, and pictures, to Twitter to announce their participation in the protest.
This AM, The Donald will have a chance to “Kiss my @ss“. #WhatSheSaysMeansEvertything #SpencerTunick #GOPConvention https://t.co/s19xtZ2xEZ
— Megan Browne (@mmbrowne) July 17, 2016
Love your body. Love yourself #EverythingSheSaysMeansEverything #SpencerTunick #cleveland pic.twitter.com/vWRlDERbhL
— Kim Leonard (@LittleMs_Kim) July 17, 2016
#EverythingSheSaysMeansEverything #SpencerTunick #Summer2016 pic.twitter.com/Y11EwhCDQo
— Leah Willis (@mamaofnje) July 17, 2016
A lovely experience at the #spencertunick shoot bringing together 111 beautiful, powerful women. Many thanks to the… pic.twitter.com/ifVFQ3fxzS
— Sharon Yoo (@Sharaoke) July 17, 2016
I would be rather surprised if yesterday’s protest had any effect on the Republican nominee. If anything, I can imagine him using the event to make more derisive and divisive comments about women. The presumptive nominee doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Therefore, protests that don’t actually confront him and directly upset his agenda don’t appear to have any effect on the candidate.
However, that does not mean voices were raised in vain. The pictures from yesterday have already made their way around the world. Every time one of those pictures is shared or published, it takes with it not only the voice of Spencer Tunick but also the voices of every woman who participated. Just because one person chooses to not listen does not mean those voices were not heard. Others do see. Others do hear. When the message is as important as this one, the voices grow until they become a mighty shout that cannot be ignored.
I’m some ways I’m rather jealous of Spencer Tunick. I’ve done some larger multi-person nude shoots, but I’ve never topped 25 people. His ability to organize and complete such large projects amazes me.
Even more important, though, is the fact that these photographs are the voices of thousands of people. Voices that will not fade. Voices that demand to be seen as well as heard. I can’t think of a better reason to get naked.
Take a look at the image above. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t, or maybe you’re not sure. Any of those opinions is acceptable. What’s important, though, is that I did not ask you to look at a photograph. I asked you to look at an image. Photographers understand the difference. What you see here might have started with a camera, but the offset double exposure was manufactured in Photoshop® as was the processing. What you see above barely resembles the photographs at all.
Are we still photographers? I’m speaking specifically of those of us who consider the medium of photography our profession, or at least more than just a casual hobby. British fashion photographer turned media specialist Nick Knight doesn’t think so. In an interview published this morning in Business of Fashion, Knight makes the case that we do so much more with images today that we can no longer put modern imagery in the same class as that produced by legends such as Richard Avedon and Robert Mapplethorpe.
While I found the interview itself rather gratuitous and was annoyed by Tim Blanks anointing of Knight as some kind of creative god, there are some valid considerations. What we do with imagery now can be considerably different than what we were doing 30 years ago. But does that mean we are not photographers? If we’re not photographers, what are we? How do we define ourselves and our work?
Perhaps the question of whether we are photographers wouldn’t such a volatile issue if people would just stop asking us, “what is it you do?” Replying with, “I’m a photographer” has been my answer for more than thirty years. Identifying as a photographer is a role that people understand. Regardless of how manipulated an image might be, publishing entities still give credit to a photographer. We simply can’t think of any other way to accurately describe our work without launching into a detailed diatribe that hits the boredom point after 15 seconds.
Knight refers to what he does as “image-making,” for lack of a better term. His justification is that the end product might include sound or 3D or any number of other elements he might include. He also thinks photography is dead in traditional terms. He refers to his website, SHOWStudio, as “the home of fashion film.” Nick is very good at what he does, but when we strip it down to its core, the base product is still the same: photography.
While what we do with a photograph has changed, however, the base product hasn’t. Nick’s not carrying around equipment that’s any different from the rest of us. The base product of a still camera, even if it’s housed in a phone, is a photograph. If the base product is multiple images strung together so as to infer motion, then it is a motion picture, or film. Therefore, the people who create those photographs or films are known as photographers. We can add additional titles on to that, but for public identification purposes to call ourselves anything other than photographers is just silly.
At the heart of this issue is whether and how we modify an image. Now, let’s be clear: photographers have always modified images. The type of toner being used is the most basic form of image manipulation. Toner changes the base color of an image. This is why some older images are different shades of brown or amber, while others have a more silver or blue hue. To say that photographers didn’t begin manipulating images before 1985 is disingenuous at best.
What has changed, though, is the ease with which image manipulation is done. Global filters are everywhere, even on your cell phone. All one has to do is touch a button and the image is altered in any number of ways. More advanced software allows us to add and remove objects as well as change the shape of things and people. Sometimes those modifications are necessary and welcome. Other times, though, the results are nothing short of a disaster.
Nick mentions his amazement with what people are doing on Instagram. Yet, over the past couple of years, one of the most-used hashtags on the social media site is #nofilter. People are proud and happy when the photograph they take is of sufficient quality, in their opinion, to not require any form of filtered distortion. Much has been made in the media about magazines altering the shape of models’ bodies. A growing number of prominent models are including riders in their contracts that prohibit any physical alteration of the pictures for which they’ve posed. While there are many modifications available, they are often not well-advised.
Nick makes an interesting statement that not only reflects his views of photography but of its relationship to society. He says:
… we must be creating new things. We must be evolving as a species. We can’t be the same physically and emotionally as we were 500 years ago. We’re no longer chimpanzees, but we’re not where we’re going to be. Although they are the same stories, we’re not exactly the same people.
I don’t think anyone would question that the equipment with which we take photographs has changed dramatically. Photography has been in a constant state of evolution, if one wants to continue misusing that word, from its very inception. Wet plates, copper plates, film of various sizes and quality, digital development and everything else has kept the medium of photography in a constant state of flux.
Photographers have always been agents of change. We are constantly looking for a different way to use this tool to express ourselves. While the rate of change has sped up thanks to the technology brought to bear, and the number of people involved, to infer that the medium has ever been stagnant is misguided and, quite honestly, insulting to the photographers like Avedon and Mapplethorpe who helped push the medium forward.
While there is plenty of reason to get all excited over the new and different ways one can use digital images to create things never before imagined, we cannot let go of the fact that all the cool and creative things people like Nick Knight and others do is the exception, not the rule. The primary use of a camera always has been, and still remains, to capture a moment. We see it in the selfie obsession that has consumed the Internet. We see it in the volume of pictures people post to various social media sites. Filtered or not, what matters is that photographs remind us of something we did or something we saw or someone we loved.
A lot has been written about how Millennials are an experience-based generation. They invest less in physical objects and more in doing things. As a result, they are less interested in hiring someone to create a distinctively new and different digital image and more interested in hiring photographers to capture those experiences that mean the most. From weddings to diving expeditions to parachute jumping, photographers are much more frequently asked to capture those experiences than create something cold in a studio.
Not that there isn’t a place or demand for what Nick Knight and others do. There is. But the global demand for their work and innovation is nowhere near being strong enough to warrant completely redefining the entire medium. At the end of the day, all anyone wants is for us to take their picture.
Our medium of capturing images continues to change. We all know that. There are some incredible and mind-altering advancements coming in the very near future that could well change, again, the way we look through a camera and decide what to capture. How we process those images continues to change as well. Wonderful things are coming down the road.
Perhaps, someday, when we gain the ability to take recognizable pictures in the dark, we can refer to what we do as something other than photography. The word means “writing with light.” As long as there is still the transfer of light onto media so as to capture an image, we will still be photographers. There’s nothing in that word to cause us shame. Embrace it rather than run from it. We are photographers and damn proud of it.
June 30. The year is half over. While the month has had its happy moments, such as the wedding of two dear friends, June has also seen a lot of death, a lot of turmoil, and an incredible amount of global stupidity. We’ve suffered the largest mass shooting ever in the US. We’ve laughed about secret sex parties. We’ve mourned the death of a real champion. We even tossed Kat in the water. For a mere 30 days, a lot happened. Our world has changed dramatically from where we were at the end of May.
To some extent, today puts a half-way marker on the year. We look back and see all we’ve lost, all that happened, and we dare the rest of the year to be better. We’ve had enough suffering. We don’t want more bad news. We don’t need more nonsense. We need new champions rising to the cause. We need faith restored in our governments. We need to feel that the entire planet is not hurtling out of control.
Of course, none of us can predict the future, and I’m not sure we want that ability. What we might see there could be too frightening to imagine. We’re also too early to start writing obituaries for the year. We can’t yet give up hope when so many good and wonderful things could yet happen.
Midst all the activity of this month, chances are you might have missed a picture or two along the way. In fact, we’re pretty sure you did because we know which articles received the least amount of attention. So, before we totally close out this month of June and proceed forward with our year, we want to give you a chance to catch up on the pictures. There were some new ones this month, which is surprising given how busy we’ve been. So take a moment, enjoy the view and we’ll look forward to July.
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Learning For Yourself
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn. —Peter Drucker
Learning as adults comes more often through what we teach ourselves
Back-to-school season is officially here. Local news stations are reminding drivers this morning to watch for the flashing lights of school zones as a staggered start to the fall school season begins this week. Stores are packed with parents shopping for school supplies and uniforms while children are making every attempt to get the most out of their summer.
We’re no different around here, though it is rather complicated. Kat is on the closing end of her studies, planning to graduate in early October. My youngest son decided to do his final year of high school here, so we’re busy getting him transferred before the 10th. The one I’m looking forward to the most, though, is when the little ones start back to school next Monday. Finally, peace and quiet again!
At the same time, however, we need to realize that learning isn’t limited to what happens in and around school. Intelligent people have long known that learning never stops. Even more, it’s what you learn on your own that often makes the most difference in our lives as we grow older. The classroom gives us a foundation for how to learn, but learning is something that we must keep doing if we are to have any hope of understanding what’s going on around us.
Learning Versus Obsolescence
Try this on for size: much of what you were taught is already obsolete.The older you are the truer that statement is. Word definitions change. Science changes. Technology changes. Limits once considered insurmountable are suddenly surpassed and exceeded several times over. Our understanding of history changes. Even the difference between political parties change.
Carlin Flora wrote a wonderful article for Psychology Today on “The Golden Age of Teaching Yourself Anything.” The article emphasizes the degree to which both technology and social construct make self-learning accessible across such a wide spectrum of knowledge that most anyone has the potential to become an expert in anything without ever setting foot in a classroom. Perhaps more importantly, though, is that such self-learning is critical to remaining a productive part of society.
What looked like occupations that would have no end 30 years ago are now, in many cases, either obsolete or else employ such a common level of skill as to have become commodities. Basic computer operation, for example, once required considerable training and an understanding of abstract math. Now, the average 16-year-old can perform tasks that exceed the abilities of a masters-level computer science major from the 1980s. Self-learning isn’t an option, but a necessity.
Beyond The School
James Marcus Bach in his book, Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar says:
I happily plunder knowledge wherever I find it. I don’t seek the destruction of schools. I am out to dismantle something else—the popular belief that schooling is the only route to a great education and that the best students are those who passively accept the education their schools offer.”
Schools are wonderful in their ability to give everyone a basic foundation for how to learn. However, they don’t even come close to teaching us everything we need to know. To assume that one graduates from an institution no longer needing to learn is foolish. Learning only increases as life progresses.
Take Dick Drew, for example. In 1925 Drew was a sandpaper salesman for 3M, which was then largely a minerals company. While attempting to sell sandpaper to mechanics at a body shop, he observed the difficulty painters were having with two-toned paint jobs. Skipping over all the fun details, this sandpaper salesman learned about paint, learned about adhesives, and invented masking tape. The world has never been the same.
Learning all we can about as many different areas as we can increases both our critical and creative thinking. The more information we have stored on the left side of our brain, the more creative connections can develop on the right side of our brain. If we are having problems with a creative block, the answer may very well be learning something new.
Breaking Barriers To Learning
Many of us went through school at a time when pedagogical theory focused on different students having a different learning style. One student might be said to be a more visual learner, one who doesn’t pick up information from reading, but does from seeing a task done. Others were said to be tactile learners: they gained information by completing a task themselves. Guess what: the whole theory might have been wrong.
Flora’s article looks at the “rigorous analysis” by Christian Jarrett, a cognitive scientist and the creator of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog. Jarrett doesn’t seem to believe in learning styles. He says:
Although each of us is unique, usually the most effective way for us to learn is based not on our individual preferences but on the nature of the material we’re being taught.
The example Flora uses is this: “Novices learn better from examples; more expert learners benefit from solving problems. And combining activities, such as drawing a diagram of a cell after reading about it, improves learning for just about everyone.”
Taking Jarrett’s theory to an applicable end means that anyone can learn anything. The potential is not limited to a learning style that might make resources unavailable. If you want to learn something, do so.
Conquering The Fear Of Learning
If learning is so accessible, then why aren’t more of us taking advantage of that opportunity? We’re scared. We’re insecure. We don’t want to fail … again. When we are not confident in ourselves then we are less likely to explore. We shelve our curiosity in favor of sticking with what we know.
New and developing technology may be the most frequent example for people of my generation and older. We’re comfortable enough with the technologies that were developed when we were younger. But now that technology is largely obsolete. We hear people talking about the Internet of Things and not only do we not understand what that is, we are, as a group, generally afraid to find out. We don’t like feelings of stupidity, ignorance, or inadequacy. These new technologies raise those emotions so we avoid learning to dodge the emotion.
One factor that may contribute to our shyness is our experience in competitive environments. When we’ve been made to feel that we are not smart enough, that our ideas aren’t quite good enough, that we’re not “winners,” we feel inadequate. We don’t trust our ability to learn enough to contribute to any substantial change.
What we must realize is that how smart you are doesn’t matter nearly as much as being open to learning more from whatever source might deliver it. Having an attitude that you can learn, that you want to learn, allows one to learn in greater quantity, sometimes without being consciously aware that learning is taking place.
Redefining Success
Curiosity drives our growth and spurs our interests into different fields of learning. The final challenge is realizing that we don’t have to know it all. Success isn’t determined by the amount of knowledge we accumulate, but by how we utilize the information we have. The student of physics doesn’t have to run a particle accelerator to relate theories of attraction and velocity to more esoteric applications.
We all have the ability to learn. Learning helps keep our brains active and may (not making any promises here) help ward off early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s. Success lies in the fact that we know more at the end of today than we did at the beginning.
With so much information at our fingertips, learning has never been so accessible to so many. Whether you can create the structure necessary for self-learning or if you need the guidance of a teacher, the door is wide open. Explore. Discover. Be amazed.
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