“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.”—George Eastman
Intense competition for price and market share in the photographic lighting business produces lots of copycat and me-too products, making real innovation a rare commodity. Gary Regester is perhaps...
“Human mechanisms are made by human hands, Robin. None of them is infallible.”—Adam West as Batman
What’s in your utility belt? This month, I’ll introduce you to some useful Mac OS and Windows imaging software that will enhance productivity, increase your creativity, and often costs just a few bucks. To add some spice I’ve included a few useful hardware accessories that will make life in...
October is my favorite time of year: not only is it Mary’s birthday month, but the mornings are brisk and the aspens are turning gold. Winter is around the corner, so there’s still time to get outside and make photographs before the snow gets too deep and the temperatures get too chilly for my old bones. Shutterbug’s editorial offices are in Florida and sometimes when it’s cold and snowy I envy those lucky sun worshippers, and yet I still love October in Colorado. The crisp air gets me anxious to make new images and to capture infrared photographs before the leaves are gone with the wind. Just remember, as always, to have fun with your photography no matter what the weather is like.
“They say it’s your birthday. We’re gonna have a good time.”—John Lennon & Paul McCartney
May is National Photography Month that was originally started by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 as a week-long American Photography Celebration but now it is a full month. It’s also the former home of the “Take Your Camera to Work Day” that I...
“Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.”—Garry Winogrand
History was made on October 11, 2008 when 200,000 people at Lowe’s Motor Speedway—167,000 in the stands, another 50,000 in the infield—stood for a moment of silence before a NASCAR race to honor the memory of...
At this time of year some Shutterbug readers are getting ready to go back to school while others, like me, feel they’ve already put in enough classroom seat time, but that doesn’t mean we should stop learning. One of the best ways to improve your photography is the self-assignment. Many people think they need to travel to exotic locations to do this, when chances are there are great photo ops just around the corner. For the past 30 years my personal self-assignment has been making images near my home. How close? I prefer making photographs I can easily walk to from my front door. This self-assignment wasn’t done for any commercial purpose and it’s personal projects like this that help us stretch our talents, skills, and imagination. What’s your self-assignment?
Richard Avedon once said, “I think all art is about control—the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.” That’s what a dedicated studio, no matter what size it may be or where it may be located, provides a photographer. It is a safe haven from the real world where, like the Outer Limits voice says, you can control the lighting, the background, and the subject. When working in this kind of environment, I control everything from the subject’s pose to their clothing and makeup and the resulting photographs tend to be as much a portrait of me as they are of my subjects. What often emerges from all that control is a style. Photographic style is not something I’m conscious about when shooting but the truth is that over time we all develop a signature way of shooting. The danger is, of course, that we keep shooting that same way or different versions of the same shot for the rest of our lives, so any style you develop must grow and change as you learn. To get you started, here are a few tools that will help enhance or define your style.
“How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? Fifty. One to change the bulb, and 49 to say, “I could have done that!”—Anonymous
I wanted to kick off this month’s column with an old trick that gets better every year: green screen photography. Lighting considerations are extremely critical when shooting against a green or blue background. Your...
"The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told." --Cindy Sherman
Two quotes again this month: The first by Ansel Adams, the second by Cindy Sherman. There are six photographers in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential artists and entertainers of the 20th century: Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene...
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." --Isaac Asimov
I've tried to dump my Windows computer many times over the past few years, but the reality of writing Digital Innovations dictates it should be cross platform. So when my eMachines motherboard was fried, it was easier and cheaper to replace...
“…everything looks better in black and white.”—Paul Simon, Concert in the Park
Proving that you can, in fact, change your tune, Paul Simon altered the lyrics of his 1973 hit song Kodachrome from the original “…everything looks worse in black and white.” When he performed the song at a concert in Central Park on August 15, 1991 everything looked...
"I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor's office was full of portraits by Picasso."--Rita Rudner
I n more than 50 years of making images, I've never photographed a resolution chart. I have always judged a lens or camera's performance by how much I liked using it and how the photographs looked. I care about how...
For the past 10 years, my personal photography has enjoyed a burst of creativity that Mary alternately credits to a change in camera brands and a change in my home office environment. Certainly living and working on Daisy Hill has renewed my interest in personal assignments, but I think improvements in imaging technology are another catalyst. How can hardware and software increase or help a person’s pursuit of creativity?
“There are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.”—Thomas A. Edison
I’ve always felt the most important photo accessory you can own is the bag that holds your gear. That’s why I worked with Adorama (www.adorama.com) to develop the Joe Farace Reporter Backpack and the smaller Mary...
As a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, I attended a class on color and my very first assignment was landscape photography. I wasn’t then or am I now a serious landscape photographer, but as a serious student I developed a set of personal guiding principles on the “what” and “how” of photographing landscapes that I still follow today. These four principles are not cast in concrete and are presented here only as guidelines for your own explorations in landscape photography.
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