November 28, 2020

Is It To Late To Become A Photographer

Photographing an unusual subject has given me a new awareness of the freedom to do your own thing. With subjects rarely photographed you have a new playground to perform in. We must open our interior field of play
to the changing atmosphere of photography and be ready to photograph the weird, wild and unique.

We are separate from others external reality and what we choose to make images of is our own personal expressions.

The intent of your photographic vision is the most important aspect of your image creation. Why are you attracted to this particular subject, what is your intent.

When it comes to image creation you must be fully present, immersing yourself in the landscape, seeking your moment of visual revelation. 

Your unique purpose in photography is to be true to your inner preparation, your skill of knowing your self in relation to your subject and then creating a photograph that reveals your inner creativity externalized.

When we photograph in the abstract we leave little clues as to what we are making images of. Not to many clues but enough so a viewer of your image can piece together the absence of details, rebuilding the image, making the image into his own visual reality.

Taking a household product and reducing the object to an abstraction and seeing if anyone could recognize what the pieces of the puzzle are was very enlightening. 

When we reduce an object to limited details of recognition then the mind can’t form a coherent wholeness of your subject in its usual visual form, the clarity of subject matter, so our experiencing the photograph becomes a puzzle to solve.

For the object is no longer real in its physicalness to excite our intellect, the sense of visual understanding is missing.

When we look at an image abstraction, we need to let go of our preconceived ideas of what we are looking at, and try and piece together the puzzle before us without an anchor of normalcy.

Immediate impressions of images don’t have to follow a static formula of experience. Shake things up and look for details and compositions that will create for the viewer a new way of seeing an old boring, familiar subject, a cliche known immediately, by mixing things up in a unique visual way through a composition and exposure that attracts the viewer to really look at your image with a more intuitive vision rather than the dullness of one more copycat image creation.

Photographers must break free from the cliche’s of copycat photography and build their own personal image portfolio of unique personal photographs.

By creating a new arena of abstract photographs you entice the viewer to enter your visual imagination.

The intuitive force of perception, finding a piece of the puzzle which breaks open your unique visual excitement from the dull reinforced commonality of societies fear of being themselves and not pawns to narrow mindedness of imitating what other's have created.

In photography is there anything new being done when it comes to innovation and artistic talent?

We can’t all be Jackson Pollock creating a new vision of experimentation and expressing his unique vision and being able to demand the attention of the entire world.

Photography is now a limiting artistic expression. We can’t reinvent the wheel and create through talent alone a new vision for the masses to believe in. And lets face it follow they will. 

Life is corrupt in every sense of the word. Cheaters, healers, fantastic liars, incomprehensible mutterings of madmen and the writings of of poets without substance.

Photography is now a means to copy and exploit. It is photoshop and dull lights of a lessened imagination. 

Our utensils for eating haven't changed in the sense of a quick exposure and then move on. Everyone can look through the viewer and press a shutter and take an image. 

But that certainly doesn't mean the image will be a reflection of intent to create something personal worth studying.

What does photography lack now that makes images seem so redundant?

The fact of the matter is photography was never redundant in the early years of photography, it was a mind altering experience, a means of seeing the world as it was through the individual photographers ability to be present in the right moments to express the people's lives through great imagery.

These photographers created iconic images that made people see the truth and falsehood behind the glory and sorrow of America and a lot of it wasn’t pretty.

The poverty of millions of people, wars brutal depravity, hunger a means of exterminating other cultures, people living in lies, people living in extravagance as people slept out on the streets,  all were explored by these creative photographers that saw the importance of imagery as truth.

Now in America we never see in our shallow news reporting anything to do with the continuation of violence and oppression of people all over this planet. But we do see ads demanding we buy these products for our own personal gluttony.

For our own awareness we must seek information that brings us truth not surface news with no depth, as the early photographers did, they awakened our controlled, mindless existence by the corrupt governments and oligarchs around the world, to force us to see beyond the words and begin to find our truth by opening our minds to new sources of information not from the models mouthing nonsense on news shows that give us nothing but surface glitter without substance, distractions, undermining our knowledge of what this country has become.

These bought politicians owned by the wealthy make laws that exploit the people and make the wealthy's off shore accounts bulge with our hard earned money. 

The illegal money these criminals take from taxpayers should go into rebuilding our infrastructure, long overdue, but the oligarchs don’t care about the people and their suffering for they have parties to attend and their egos want to show off their diamond and gold robberies. It has always been this way. Power and fear are synonymous with mind control.

Through the centuries these brave men and women photographers have seen life’s ugly mess and have decided this abomination of cruelty must be seen and heard by all humanity.

These photographers went out and showed the world what was truly happening around this planet and the cruelty of life people lived every day of their lives.

Theses iconic images made us stop and think about the cruelty of wealth and we began to make changes that opened the door for awareness of other cultures poverty and we opened America to them to enter our country without fear and hate that was eating away their lives under dictators.

The changes in photography are mostly technology driven making it easier for anyone to pick up a camera and make a decent photograph without having to think. We call that kind of image shooting snapshots. These images have no depth of character but are just surface reflections of ones limited inner vision.

And the majority of these images are made by deliberately copying someone else’s original work.

Human beings are a herd species, what is good for one is good for all and in photography taking pics in a split second is the new norm for creative expression.

Run and gun photography and then quickly post it to your blog and you are a hero of what?

We are cattle following the bull down a road of stereotypes, dependency and betrayal of your own inner originality. 

The primordial instinct of survival is our addiction to be seen and heard for we all want to be noticed even if it is an embarrassing moment but you can believe someone took your photo and it is being downloaded right now and seen by by thousands!

Picture taking is now being turned into a billion dollar social media extravaganza,
for we the people give our images to them for free!

Where does one begin to find subjects worthy of your intensity to create your inner perception? Everything is possible when your intuition begins to formulate a plan to explore the world with new eyes, open to the possibilities of expressing our visual connections of the outer world with your inner visualization of your unique originality seeing deeply the expressions of your inner being expressed through photography.

When we see fake news broadcast on the airways we assume that the truth is being told. We are gullible in the insistence that their words are our truth when in fact they are repeating words known to satisfy the disinterested spirits exhausted from the daily grind of frustration, low pay, racism, forced to make choices that are not ours but someone else’s. Since childhood we have been conditioned to repeat words that became ideas and then became traps that most of us got caught up in.

To express your own choice, your own purpose, your true character in all it’s uniqueness is to just open your front door to the world anew and let go of your prejudices and be true to all the glory of mother nature that surrounds you.

There is a new visual world of exciting original imagery awaiting photographers with purpose for those opportunities that can immerse you in your photographic project, harken back to the days of openness and visual awareness of what was happening to our world slowly being controlled by the elites of criminality.

Your imagery is not a facade built around ads that want you to follow the herded cattle to shop and buy their products for their profit not yours.

This overwhelming distribution of faceless consumerism, this instinctive drive through decades of exploiting the populace to ignore their own uniqueness of choice and to follow the ads domineering enticement to be someone else when you buy their product, is manipulation of your mind to choose an exterior purpose instead of your interior purpose of inner revelation and your own individual perceptions that can be made into photographs.

In creating photographs with purpose you must release your burden of the exterior reality pulling and scaring you into a submissive role of follow the leaders. These leaders do not have your interests at heart, they have money emanating from every pore on their body, it is greed and power that they are addicted to and not your unique perspective. Conformity to worthless lies is the new dawn of our confined future obeying the oligarch demands and not our own.

 

 

November 23, 2020

New Photography Blog

We are in a hectic world running around in fear and anger as our lives get more complicated. We are being attacked by the covid19 virus that will bring us to our knees if we don’t follow the plan of safety before gathering with others in a party atmosphere!

We make images of importance to us and the viewer when we are faithful in our witness to the beauty of life.

Photography’s purpose is capturing a moment in the fluidity of time. Humans need the stability of external
subjects to be stagnate not fleeting moments of our lives. This gives us a sense of power over the illusion of reality we experience everyday.

Humans need control over the forces of nature to feel empowerment over mother earth. Our gaps in life are made true when we capture a moment of beauty, anger, wars, poverty, portraits, nature, industry, travel, people… that shows our being present and involved in our unique space and time.

Life is transitory always changing and to be able to capture a good image you must be present in your ability to uncover the composition that best fits your visual consciousness, your visual experience being present in the scene.

You have entered another realm of being when you immerse yourself into becoming more than just a tourist snapping pics and then moving on.

You must have a connection with your subject in order to create a composition that is real and true to your visual talents.

By being present you absorb the beauty that surrounds you and you put it securely in the camera’s memory card as a witness to your visual perspective. The camera is your link to experiencing the external world without a need to race through your life and miss the important moments of truth connected with your unique style and nature’s willingness to share with you these precious moments.

In photography when we are intensely present in our moments without our mind wondering, over thinking these present moments we enter a new dimension. Once a connection is made you begin to see with open eyes the potential of the scene before you.

The world has always been in chaos but our job as a photographer is to find moments of form that will allow the viewer to see into your unique vision, your expressive character and your determination to make an image worthy of your talent.

Photographers can stabilize their angered perceptions of a reality built around money. Money is only a tool but for some it is an addiction. Instead of worshiping a god we have replaced god with the worship of cash as our means to a physical paradise.

This greed for power is an illusion of grandeur and it undermines the natural flow of living a life that is intuitively connected around your love of creating photographs.

To see external reality not as means to power but a means to create images that inspires our youth to follow their hearts and intuition and not be sidetracked by envy, for your power is in your focused attention on your subject and the composition beginning to form.

When we come upon a scene that has potential to be
a good image we must pause and take in the entire landscape searching for the right elements of composition to inspire us to formulate in our photographic eye details that will become the foundation of the forthcoming image.

As photographers we are detail oriented, we make judgements based on our intuitive recognition of
a scene that has potential.

Photographers must clear their minds of cliches and copy cat images seen in travel magazines. We must focus our attention on our own inner composition and express it through the layers of possibilities present in the external world.

As we approach a scene worthy of our photographic efforts we begin to feel a complexity of choices we are reacting to because our senses are getting hyper aware of the possibilities just beginning to surface.  

There are times when you enter a scene and you have already sensed where you want to be and what lens best fits your inner visual composition.

Your years of experience allow you to dissect a scene quickly and know exactly what you want to express.
 
This comes from years of experience and understanding your inner selective vision and the purpose being given you through mother natures infinite expressions of beauty.

Photography is a symbol of your visual perspective, if it is less defined then your subject will communicate to viewers weakly as if the photographer just snapped a shot and moved on without a focused purpose in the composition and exposure.

What do you look for in a scene when you find a potential image to be created? Is it drama, emotion,
action, a person or is it a potential unique composition and the strong play of light and dark contrast in the scene made by mother nature that excites your visual stimulus.

Image creation is always through your unique inner vision!
 
Any place you choose to make pictures of has the potential for you to create a classic image.

Beauty isn’t in the eye of the beholder but in the eye of a photographer!

You need to develop a deep core relationship with nature. Let nature express its beauty to you and be sensitive, patient and aware of damaging nature through careless disregard for the beauty deposited in front of you.

The more you spend time in nature, the more respect you will have for mother earth and the beauty reflected in your choices that will create a composition that will draw attention to your unique vision.

Your talent is blending your personal vision with your choice of subject matter.

Don’t settle for the average stock photo, really look deep into the scene and make images through finding the perfect angle possible that gives the viewer something unique to appreciate, a new better perspective of an iconic scene.  

Always be looking for the moment of awe when your determination to find and compose your image is a personal revelation of your unique vision.

 

 November 15, 2020

 

The Abandonment Of The RM Photographer
 

Great photography is intense immersion into the interior or exterior scene with a rush of adrenaline that opens your eyes to the possibilities present, which one you choose is up to your emotions on that particular day, your self-awareness and a deep connection with the emerging subject finally showing parts of itself, details opening, becoming possibilities as mother nature helps you with your visual creations.

Once we entered the digital era of taking photos not making photos then the photography universe broke apart. The ease of use of these digital cameras, auto exposure, built in filters, auto focus in the camera bodies allowed everyone the potential of making a good image. To take images and get good results was now only a lucky accident away but soon with a little practice the making of great images was possible.

But this new automated technology undermined the professional photographers way of life by cheapening the cost of taking images for now instead of sending your film to a lab to have processed all you needed to do was dump your memory card onto your laptop and edit and submit to whoever was interested. It doesn’t matter in today’s climate of over saturated image creation whether you are a professional or an amateur, it is the image that counts and really always has been that way.

And what photo agency you are with, Rights Managed or Royalty Free either way your sales are diminishing yearly as I write this for with the overwhelming amount of images being taken and uploaded to stock selling sites the buyers have basically an infinite amount of choices to choose from and all the choices are being sold for pennies on the dollar.

What a great return to the photographers working hard to spend money traveling and making images that reflect their inner nature to see one of their images being sold for peanuts.

And let’s face it Rights Managed image creations are over and done with. Why would anyone want to send in RM imagery when no buyer will even look at them? Getty Images my agent for decades has eliminated RM imagery from its photo site and like all the other big Photo Agencies goes strictly with RF.

With so many images uploaded around the world every second how can a photographer earn a living from his craft. You can’t and you won’t, those days are gone forever.

Those billions of new photographers out there just snapping away and through luck and timing creating images that could compete with the old school professional photographer is the culprit for the evaporation of any worthy sales.

Once this explosion of image snap shots grew exponentially the professional photographer was an old relic of the past era when artists felt their talents in connecting with the deep internal revelations of purpose seeking more than just an image but a masterpiece by creating something from their inner intuitive force, by seeking images that others couldn’t take and these photographers roamed the world in making images of unbelievable beauty no matter what the cost to them mentally and physically.

When film became obsolete you no longer had to worry about processing costs it changed photography forever now everything is done in camera with memory cards and then uploaded to computers and then submitted. Now everyone is a potential photographer and this undercuts the professional photographers ability to make a living by selling his images to news papers, magazines, art galleries, etc., and submitting these classic images to the photographer’s photo agencies.

Back in the day all agencies were rights managed and usage of their photographers  images was regulated and sold for a specific purpose and priced accordingly, the photographer received 50% of the sale. Then came Royalty Free and this undermined the chances for a RM photographer to make a living created images. 

Now everyone is a photographer and the billions and billions of images taken hourly, daily, monthly overwhelms the senses of the viewer and photography is seen not as an art form anymore but a product like lettuce, a hobby, a means to take images of your life and post them on social media to get likes and to be seen by others!

And also why not send my images to a photo-agency they are paying me pennies on the dollar but it feels good to get my image bought for peanuts.

By allowing your images to be reduced to cheap products on sale at grocery store prices you have undermined the natural flow of reasonable pricing and allowed the buyers to dictate to the photo agency the price they demand no matter how hard you fought to create the image you are now at the mercy of the buyer and the photo agency that makes their money on volume pricing that creates a billboard ad of look at our lower valued pricing and this they claim is a new model, a win win situation for the agency and the photographer bull shit!

This will demean the image and the photographer’s talent by accepting anyone calling themselves a shooter and any image they submit that is almost in focus and has detail in some shadows areas and highlight areas and this is the new outlook of what photography is becoming. It no longer is an art form with intense purpose through the image creator efforts to make the image but now anything goes as long as the agencies
can take advantage of the new photographers and at the same time say bye bye to the old guard of image creators that know that stock photo business is now a dollar store bonanza of selling peoples lives away by pricing photographs for peanuts.

Who cares about the aging photographers that made their livelihood through creating beautiful landscapes, portraits, underwater images, mountain climbing and more. 

There is no honesty and integrity now in photography, a once creative art form!

In the past your goal of image creation could be a slow process with your subject revealing itself to you in parcels as you get more familiar with the details becoming realized and the scene begins to dictate to you your inner vision its possibilities, at this stage the photographer doesn’t push his intuition toward any detail but allows his consciousness to let go of his narrow thoughts and just flow with the landscape before you until you have that fluidity of sight and reflection that allows you to see beyond the details of the physical space before you and opens your vision to encompass the reflection in your mind of a unique presentation of nature no one else has made. Your visual foundation is special and only you can see through the infinite details of a scene to create your inner cohesive image vocabulary.

In order to become your truth, your purpose you must merge with your individual self and not the socialites commonality of the herd instincts. Don’t be fooled into following the crowd, that is a dead end, your photographic vision is to understand the complexity of your physical nature present fighting in a vacuum of mental conformity unwilling to free themselves from the tyranny of fear, accepting their narrow vision as the truth unable to break free from the easy manipulation of redundant behavior and false gods.

These milestones of seeing beyond the surface glitter and not to be duped into ignoring the plain details that when composed properly succeeds with a new vision and better still a vision that you have recognized and explored with full understanding and precision once the scene presented itself from the clutter of details trying to misguide you to their commonality.

There are times when you find that your one subject is immersed in the infinity of details and it begins to hinder your ability to relax and go with the flow of your selected, potential scene. You are present but stifled and you need to just step back and allow the scene to formulate a new series of details that intrigue your artistic talents and by relaxing and letting the scene settle itself in your eyes you begin to unravel your frustrations and begin to see the composition that will become your inner vision externalized.

Your new found subject suddenly opens your emotions and gives you a necessary foundation of details, light and composition that will compliment your patience by capturing this unique landscape.

Photography even in a crowd is an isolating journey.  Each of us have our own path to take. The question you must asked yourself is do you have enough self-awareness to free yourself from the bonds of the addicting cliche, societies need for redundant snap shots without depth or persuasion, all of us meek sheep without a unique voice.  

With the explosive conformity of images created for social media overwhelming our senses, reducing photography to a cliche without purpose, just ego’s trying to be seen but what good photographers need to do is just keep on trucking creating images that mean something more than pennies on the dollar.

November 7, 2020

 

Photography Is Your Bridge To Inner Awareness

A good image is like finding a needle in a hay stack. You can hike for hours and still in that time not find an image you feel is with shooting.

Eventually with perseverance you will finally see the light opening your visual inner door and the composition you were looking for in its natural beauty has been waiting for you to finally see.

You were determined to find images that represented your interior insight to mother nature. In order to create great imagery you must immerse yourself in nature with respect and awe!

Your image must not be over manipulated, that will ruin the natural beauty we all need to be part of.   

The captivity of elusive imagery, your number one goal, the abrupt tiredness when hunting that perfect landscape in beautiful light.  

There are many barriers to creating great images but you must steel yourself to endure the ups and downs, the frustrations and blown exposures and keep hunting for those perfect moments.

Whether it is sports, people, abstract expressions of inner consciousness and mother nature you must let go of the conditioned response to external vision. You must seek through your own eyes the beauty you feel present in and not a past image scene in a photo book that you want to imitate.  

Light is never stagnant it is constantly chaining and you must always follow the light in your unique vision to capture the essence of your inner world externalized.

What does authenticity mean in todays image creations? Really nothing at all with all the copycat landscapes being photographed, we have given up on seeking an original, personal image and now click and run to the next subject to exploit without showing our own unique perspective.

You must feel the excitement of discovery when you enter a scene and feel that this place is calling you to just be present and wait as the light changes in infinite directions, to the small details, to overwhelming magnificent landscapes and your subjects move forward with potential then retreat as you narrow down the details being given you through earth’s natural beauty and your sense of what is important to your inner artistic vision.

It can be overwhelming to begin recognizing your own inner world of perceptions. Seeing for the first time subjects that mean more than just snap shots but a representation of your passion, a revelation of your wholeness of reality, inner and outer coalescing into a visual image of perfection.

To be present in vision and deep awareness of your surroundings is a gift given to all but most don’t listen to their intuitive inner voice that would allow them to perceive the outer beauty inside themselves.

We are corralled in our human skin to follow the leader don’t rock the boat do what you are told keep your head down and don’t make waves all these ways of defining you done to control your restless visions to remain stagnate in your own revelation of yourself in time.

The culprit in your narrow beliefs, your narrow vision and hate of change is your intellect that wants everyone to be on the same page doing the same repetitive actions over and over again without the freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

Our system of power has always been to keep the population under strict ways of feeling and seeing this paradise called earth. And controlling your mind, your thoughts was the easiest way to keep ones vision under the rule of strict repetitive dullness, make a living so others will profit, to keep one from experiencing the joy of freedom of your internal senses becoming alive and aware of the external worlds potential of energized caring about others and your own expressions of your inner world whether it is through a lens now open to all nature’s beauty and ugliness or in painting, writing and speaking your own unique truth.

Release your mental stereotypes you have been conditioned to believe in, think about your unique eyesight opening up to the explosion of details, light, composition, your inner instincts quickly become alert to the changing light and as the landscape reveals itself, you anticipate the composition that will bring your connection with the external world to a new visual exclamation of this paradise we live in.