January 23, 2014

The world of Stock Photography certainly has changed.  I have touched on this topic before but I think it is worth mentioning again.  The art culture is deteriorating and losing its ability to sustain itself financially.  As we move forward in this new landscape of snap and post we are overwhelmed with content.  Most of this content is given away free of charge.

In stock photography the standard selling model is royalty free at micro prices.  They claim that you will make up for the low pricing with higher volume of sales.  I have been in this business a long time and have tried this RF model (briefly) and my experience is that the agencies win out and the photographer is left with pennies on the dollar with no chance of controlling the unlimited usage of their images after the sale has been made.

There is no turning back we are marching forward herded by the multi billion dollar social media websites.  We empower them with free content.  And they make their money off the visual art we worked hard to create.

You can hide your head in the sand and hope it will change but it won't and can't. People are social animals and want to be seen and heard.  Social media grants us a momentary spot light on a dull stage to be liked or disliked.  You do not have to know anything about art, all you need is a camera phone, special effects and magically you are an artist.

A culture needs a cohesive identity in order to feel a belonging to something more than themselves.  Art has always expressed our deepest thoughts and emotions in a way that can visually stimulate the dull brain to see more in this life than what is present physically.  It can make us aware of our inner selves and our relationship to the external forces that manipulate us.

We need to examine our motives for continuing in this media climate of manipulation and homogeneous snap shots. How can our images be seen when each second millions of images are bursting forth onto the Internet?  The truth is most of your images won't be seen.  You can have your own website.  You can submit to the agencies.  But this will not guarantee sales.  As a matter of fact the agencies have always been social media websites.  We give our images to them free of charge and they post them and try to attract buyers and then take a bigger and bigger percentage of our image sales.

I feel people do not want to have to think and work at creating meaningful photographs.  They want an instantaneous gratification, a selfish desire to be praised just by their finger pressing a button and a snap shot is born.

These pictures reinforce simple, mundane experiences that attract like minded viewers that
appreciate a certain compatibility with what is going on in their owns lives.  And this allows the hollow details to become transformed into the meaningful, the way of the crowd source.  This limits a persons ability to think out of the box and create imagery with substance and meaning.

We are becoming voyeurs of life and not participating in life.  Without a connection to nature we accept a shallow expression on a small screen to be elevated to the state of the real deal. And thus we are losing our ability to empathize and connect with others on a truly deeper level. We live in a vacuum of our own creations. We accept reality on a screen and have put a barrier between us and life.

January 18, 2015

Authentic definition:

entitled to acceptance or belief because of agreement with known facts or experience, reliable, trustworthy, not fake or copied.

The appearance of posed, young and old good looking people in a photograph doesn’t mean authentic.  It seems to me that imagery is becoming more and more homogenized in this look a like selfie culture.

Authentic, real, natural looking people are all advertising descriptions that companies want to see in their ads to sell their particular product.  If you have to describe your experience while living it you are not experiencing it as authentic you are putting words as a barrier to that experience and thus losing authenticity.  

Authentic is a symbol and abstract concept disguised as the real deal to appeal to a perceived lifestyle and to be exploited and commercialized by ad men to sell their products.  Just like the American flag is used to sell patriotism and loyalty etc…

The ad men laugh at authenticity because they know the end game in using these real looking subjects is sales, period.

Authenticity is living in the present tense and enjoying the moment.  Opening your senses to the sounds, smells, light and feelings that are brought forth when in the presence of natures beauty.  And connecting with your subject first hand not through a hand held device. You don’t get authenticity through the appearance of authenticity in a photograph but only in the intense relationship with your subject.

A photograph is a copy. It is a copy of a scene, an artifact of something that happened. It is a copy of a live experience not the experience itself.  

In being present in the environment you felt, heard and sensed the present moments and felt it first hand.  Not a secondary experience through a photograph or video.

Photography in today’s social media frenzy is entertainment not authentic.  It needs to be visually exciting to attract the visually illiterate to spend a few seconds looking at the subject.

Just the word authentic has lost all meaning. If everything is authentic then nothing is.

Photographs like words can be taken out of context and are used deliberately to confuse or mislead the viewer.

What limits the appearance of authenticity is the motive behind the image creator. If you think about truthfulness as authentic then nothing in image creating is authentic. We yank the subject from it’s mooring in time and lose the moments before and after the shutter was tripped. Was the moment before or after the shutter was tripped more authentic.  Through personal influences and personal choices we filter out the details we don’t like and add the ones that we like. These are not authentic, factual, genuine, or trustworthy, objective truths. These are personal decisions by the photographer to express his vision of what he sees as his truth.

The photographer looks for subjects that interest him.  He explores his environment and begins to make a connection to subjects that appear because he is conscious of the details being presented.  He selects these details and his timing to create his inner connections from past explorations through a mechanical device.  The created scene is only authentic to the photographer.  The details in the scene will connect with some viewers because they see the similarities in details as important clues for themselves as well.  And this connection to the image is authentic for them only in as much as they can connect with the message being presented.

Truth is in a photograph if the image represents the purpose intended by the image creator. But the resulting image is a by product of not the real internal intensity, a revelation not the actual.  A photograph is an appearance of something not the real physical appearance. The image isn’t authentic but has the appearance of something real to viewers that can see and feel the clues given to them by the image creator.

December 20, 2014

In this digital connected world we live in it is very hard to let go of the constant verbal and visual noise surrounding us.  We need to diligently force our eyes to pay attention to what is important to us.  We must fight the inclination to take short cuts through image creation and proceed to the end game before we are ready to be truly present and aware of our surroundings and thus aware of potential subjects just waiting to be photographed.

We must be present in the fleeting now and see our potential subject with a clear relaxed vision. Uncovering details in the scene hidden to our quick glance but visible if we would only take the time to purposely see. 

Do you go out to take photos thinking only of capturing a subject, any subject, as you would chase an elusive jack rabbit.  You hunt your prey and victory is not in the process of discovering your true subject but victory is a quick shutter speed and a glance behind as you move on to the next jack rabbit to capture.

You have to force yourself to take the time to examine a scene, looking at the many details that interest you but also, being open to rejecting some details and accepting others as you build your composition.  As you concentrate more on the visual clues appearing along a new perceptual path, some elements are discarded and others hold more authority in expressing your inner landscape.  You begin to see visually a potential image. And as the gestalt forms through conceptual trial and error your new composition begins to take shape and a cohesive structure appears and like magic your image is born.

Would you have been able to make this image if you listened to your ego telling you to hurry up, hurry up, move onto something else?

Fear can motivate you or cripple your interest in learning how to make better images.   One of the things for me that made a difference was my love of seeing my images on a light table after a shoot.  I enjoyed laying out the slides side by side and using a loupe to examine each frame one at a time.  By doing this slow methodical process I was able to see my mistakes.  I was able to reflect on where I needed improvement in my image creations and where I failed to really see the potential in my subject.  Countless times (even today) I still see where I can improve my image making and I work hard at paying attention to the subject wanting to be seen.  If you just shoot to shoot where is the passion in your work.  Where is the visual growth.  You have to review your work after each shoot.  Taking notes on your subject, time of day, f/stops, shutter speeds, ISO, and angles etc… By doing this you gain valuable knowledge of your image making style.

December 6, 2014

In Freeman Patterson's Book, Photography & the art of seeing, he says, "In photography, observing is the first and most important skill we have to learn.  Learning to observe requires us to set time aside to "see" familiar things.  But, even if we take the time, we may find it difficult to observe carefully because we are tense and preoccupied with other things".

In today's rush hour mentality it is difficult to relax and really see a subject without wanting to hurry up and get the picture taking duty over with so we can move onto the next item on our to do list. This list becomes our safety blanket and a great excuse to why we don't have the time to relax and enjoy the world around us.

These external forces will always be there, always pulling us in so many different directions that we will never be able to truly see our vision and express our selves visually if we don't take a deep breath and still our stormy minds.

The barrier to living a full life, immersed in this world both physically and mentally, is technology.  It hinders interaction with the external world, a one on one experience, and thus limits our ability to see relationships that could enhance our image creating insights.

Do we even want to make a connection to the external world?   Do we even need the external world?

Technology deceives us into thinking we are interacting with the external world but in reality we are interacting with ourselves thinking we are interacting with others. This interface we communicate through is not a live experience.  It is a step removed from the feel and touch of existence.  It is like looking at a picture and thinking we have been there done that.

It is closed system of information only, with no real life experience outside your mind.  To walk in nature and not see nature is now the mantra of today's cell phone fantasies.  Experience now is through a hand held device and not through your whole being.  We have removed our first hand experience and filtered life through a technological device without any real connection to the physical world.

We must stop the illusions of living life through a mechanical device and get back to first hand experience with nature and this can only enhance your photographic eye and you will find that your image creations are more personal and expressive of your inner landscape.

November 24, 2014

Happy Holidays!

November 16, 2014


What will you choose, Selective Focus or Tunnel Vision?  Tunnel vision is a good term to explain what is happening in today's blitz of social media that leads to anxiety and loss of concentration and thus barriers to seeing.

A good example of tunnel vision in today's photography market is to look back at the evolution of stock photography.  In the early days of stock photography image creators focused on the idyllic images of travel, nature, portraits, life style, adventure etc...  These  were clean, sharp, colorful and the lighting was pristine.  These images represented the ideal travel locations with smiling happy people.

Today we want something a little more authentic, a naturalness to the people and to the models.  But if you look closely the images have just put on a more casual costume to make the models more contemporary but the smiles and props are just the same.

Real authentic imagery doesn't hide behind props with pats on the back and happy people enjoying moments of ecstatic materialism.  Authentic imagery comes from the heart with all the ugly exteriors shown for self realization.

Selective focus brings forth in a scene the main subject the image creator wants to present.  This is after his diligent examination of the scene and he has decided to show this detail rather than the infinite chooses available.

In using selective focus the subject of interest in the photograph is sharp (or blurred for juxtaposition and mystery) and the surrounding environment is blurred. The viewers eye will naturally be drawn to the focused area of the image.  We do this constantly in our own lives, ignoring the environment and focusing on details or ignoring the details and focusing in on the entire environment.

When we train ourselves to react to certain stimulus and not others we have confused selective focus with tunnel vision. Our minds need for selective memory hinders our ability to really see a new open vision of selective focus.  Selective focus becomes tunnel vision if we don't seek new and contrasting views to our daily routines.  If you approach a scene already determined to take a picture a certain way with out examining the whole scene then you have tunnel vision and are just putting different clothes on the same process and trying to make it look like something new.

Selective focus in photography can make the difference between an OK picture and a good one.  But you will need to go into the scene with an open mind and through that openness you can make a deeper connection with your subject.  And in that relationship you find yourself connecting to surprising elements in the scene you have missed previously. Maybe you decide to put on a longer lens to isolate your new subject or maybe even a macro lens to blur further an interfering background.  You came to these decisions through reflection and purpose.  By isolating your subject you have created a new vision that represents what you worked for.

Tunnel vision before and during image creation dulls your mind to life's undercurrents and the possibility to see new relationships.  Tunnel vision undermines creativity. Use your unique vision to find subjects that can surprise the viewer and even yourself.

November 9, 2014


When we label things we set a barrier between us and our subject.

In some ways by labeling we have already convinced ourselves what the subject is about and how we are going to take a photo of it. This way of seeing rarely allows for serendipity to happen. We have narrowed our field of interest and limited our ability to understand our subject on a more open personal level.

These types of images are boring because we have framed our subject though a narrow window in our minds and haven't opened ourselves to the infinite ways any subject can be photographed.

I feel a lot of this quick and easy labeling happens because people are caught up in time constraints.  They have other things nagging at them to be done so they hurry up and get this picture opportunity done with and then move on.  When you do this kind of image taking you lose moments of potential clarity and when you see the results of your quick paced shooting you have a nagging feeling of what ifs. What if I would have relaxed and slowed down and thought more about what I was seeing and feeling.  You now see the potential you had in front of you and what you have lost by not connecting your focus with your subject.

In order to create an image with purpose we must tape the mouth of ego shut.  Move away from social media's obsessive distractions and get on with your life.  We have to stop living a life through a mechanical screen that dulls us to living our real life.

The Internet bombards us with so much useless information, it overwhelms our ability to focus on the important things in life.  Don't be tethered to an electrical socket of information. Jumping from one topic to the next.  Let go of the need for speed.  Slow down adjust your life for a new path. One of calm nerves and clear thinking that will enhance your image making.  Let go of your anxious brain when you approach your subject.  Don't over analyze the scene.  Don't give yourself a time limit to shoot.  Take your time to explore the light enveloping your subject revealing to you more and more its true nature.  Dig deeper into the subject, exploring it from different angles.  Listen to your subject, it is telling you its nature.  Once you have done this now you can compose your image through a deeper awareness of your subject because you took the time to interact with it and didn't allow external voices to compromise your perception of your subject.

Fredrick Franck , " By these labels we recognize everything, and no longer see anything. We know the labels on the bottles, but never taste the wine."

November 2, 2014

In today's continual distractions for something new, you can get caught up in the race for more toys at the expense of creating images that have meaning for you and others.  Just having the latest and greatest new lens won't make your images any better if you don't take the time to see the subject with a new intensity.

A thought begins with subtle interest in a subject. An idea begins to form on what your relationship is with the new subject and how you might express that relationship.  You then begin to feel a connection with the scene and begin the creative process of exploring your subject with emotion.

A good image represents more than just an object to be exploited.  If the image is void of emotion you have already lost the intent of creating an image worth showing.  Don't settle for a quick snap shot.  Use your growing personal vision to dig deeper into the scene and thus create a personal expression, a genuine honesty, for others to connect with.

October 19, 2014


Freeman Patterson, "Letting go of self is an essential precondition to real seeing.  When you let go of yourself, you abandon any preconceptions about the subject matter that might cramp you into photographing in a certain way".

We have been overwhelmed in our daily life through technology.  It appears to give us freedom and more choices but instead limits our ability to engage with real situations and interact with those common places we used to have a relationship with.

It is hard to let go of self when you are constantly thinking social media.  Your body and mind are a unit and one effects the other.  Letting go of your need to expose your daily life on social media will give you a chance to breath and step back from your fruitless efforts at fame and begin to decompress from the daily pressure to post.  Take a deep breath and relax your mind and body.  Go to a place you haven't been before.  Open up your mind to new possibilities in the potential subjects you see.  You don't even have to make an image just be present get used to the new feeling of being in the now.

                             Metal art sculpture at the Bellevue Art Festival, Artist Andy Byrne

September 13, 2014


I was talking with a photographer friend and we were discussing the new auto pilot cameras.  He remembered one time a person approaching him and exclaiming wow what a camera it must take great pictures.  My friend said yes it does and to prove it I will leave it here and walk away and come back in a half-hour and I bet it will have taken some outstanding images.  My friend laughed and said he was just pulling the guys leg but wanted to let the person know that the images are created by the photographer and not the camera.  Yes, today's cameras take a lot of the thinking out of the equation in taking pictures. But in order to create images with substance you need to be visually literate.

We have all taken an image and then looked at it and deleted it because it had no visual interest, just another blah image with no purpose.

When I take images I am intensely aware of my surrounding and I am in tune to the mood of the crowd and the subjects presenting themselves to me.

What makes photography fun is creating that connection with your subject and in that bond finding an image you can feel proud of.

Henri Cartier-Bresson states, " To take photographs is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeing reality.  It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy".

August 24, 2014

Erich Kahler, " What else did these great author express, (Nietzsche, Dostoievsky, Tolstoy and others) most of them with the help of a newly developed psychological perception, but the deep unrest, uneasiness and alarm at the effects of our modern middle-class civilization: the increasing hollowness and precariousness of conventional values, the derangement of human relations?

When we go out to take images with a cell phone we tend to free wheel the compositions with a run and gun mentality.  The ease of use makes us think that this is what is required to capture the moments in our daily lives. We really don’t need to think about our subjects because we have other things on our minds and time is a wasting.  We see nature as objects to exploit for our own gain.

The massive of amount of cellphone pictures being taken confines us to an ego driven imagery without a true connection to the external world. They are quick and easy with no thinking involved to finding a purpose but to promote your life on a social media website.   That's ok if you want to follow the herd mentality that weakens your photo making by degrading the beauty of our ordinary life. What I mean by an ordinary life is the true structure of our society .  A life built around benevolence, values and family.  The movement away from the beauty of an ordinary life is a fragmentation of self, leaving us confused and despondent on how to reach out on our own personal trek and move away from the helter-skelter existence of must be seen media, as if we truly belong to the shallow driven image creators vision of the new selfie.

Can we rectify the intuitive creation of an image with its counterweight the selfie.  Are they the same? Gustave Kahn a French symbolist poet resisted stringent rules of meter, rhyme and rhythm. And yet through his intense inner eye described a world fresh and immediate through his unconfined mind.

We are creatures of habit and really don't want to push ourselves beyond an easy road to expression. All digital cameras can take the picture for you without a moments reflection.  Why was I attracted to this subject in the first place is never asked nor answered as we capture the subject in auto mode. This easy road of expression, in this new culture of shallow driven abstractions, creates an atmosphere of non-thinking, an unwillingness to go deeper and analyze the scene beyond its structural purpose.

But when we go out to create images with intent we assume a different mode of thinking.  We have our intuitive antenna’s up and we are seeing things at a deeper level.  We are building a relationship with our subjects and are interacting with them on a more profound level and through this interaction we are not forgetting our inner self and its need to communicate to others a new and different perception. We are searching for an expression through an image that can reveal something of ourselves and the human condition. The great thing about pursuing an image on an intense level is that through that exploration you will find side roads to take that will further enhance your relationship with the subject and will lead to new ideas and compositions that seemed unrelated to your first impression of your subject but now has become the crucial purpose of your inner vision.

August 17, 2014

Finding your photographic voice, having a good sense of who you are and what your capabilities are is very important in determining your future goals in photography.  It doesn’t mean that you stop learning and stop growing as a person and as a photographer.  Imitation, study, experimenting, discipline, being their, fighting through life’s barriers and fears, to get out their and experience the world and create images that reflect your inner light, that is what it is all about.

Knowledge gives you a foundation to step off from and confidence to approach life’s subjects with purpose and empathy.

Continuous creation of pictures produces the necessary images needed for you to learn and grow into the photographer you were meant to become.  We build off our experiments and through accumulative practice discover our photographic path. It is a path that allows for many spontaneous expressions and many varied interests that challenge us to get better and to look deeper into life’s infinite choices.  

Each of us come from a different background with our own built in prejudices and standards of seeing.

We must give the viewer a sense of our purpose in creating the image by allowing them visual clues to your intended purpose. This does not mean these clues are the boring mundane visuals we see everyday. We must always maintain our personal approach to creating our photographs and not bend to pop culture’s instant gratification. Images that hold a viewer’s interest are not taken with a herd mentality.

Slow down and be mindful in your living and this will translate to better image creations.  Nature is the antidote to the hectic pace we struggle in.  

Positive reasons for taking pictures is not the end result but the process of creating something of value not only for yourself but for your family and friends and even possibly a wider audience that is longing for new and exciting photographs that stimulate their minds.  

Get up, go out and create images! 

August 14, 2014

The mechanical nature of photography hinders our ability to dig deeper into our own outer reflections.  We assume that photography is the easy of all art mediums and therefore no thought process is necessary to create a meaningful picture.  All pictures taken become meaningful no matter how banal.  This over abundance of blasé imagery that exploits our daily lives is a nuisance that is distracting us from our life goals.  The camera has become a barrier to seeing and living a fulfilling life.  

For me photography is a means of expressing my private self.  The camera gave me a window, an ability to focus on external details that could be brought together through composition, light, perspective in such away that allowed me to express my inner world.

Nowadays people, when taking pictures, think that the camera takes the pictures.  And they are right.  New cameras can take thinking out of making photographs.  It is the old Instamatic ads stating, all you have to do is point and shoot and you will be guaranteed a perfect picture.  But in today's run and gun and post on social media sites nobody seems to care about the camera as an instrument to create art. And in creating a personal vision for the viewer you are interacting with through your image creation.

This picture taking reality we now inhabit is not interaction nor is it communication with others but a shadow life exposed for the the thrill of the upload. And surely for the comments that follow.  This slowly becomes an intermediary world of quasi word play without the responsibility of discourse and the ability to articulate your true self through expressing your inner feelings.  

We see ourselves through others eyes as spectacles for the masses, entertainment with no depth but a cursory glance on a screen that fits into someones palm while ignoring the world that is present in front of them.

Revealing an image with purpose and depth has been replaced by a snap shot, showing off oneself as if you are the stars in your our own Hollywood stills.

Nature has lost it’s appeal, its luster for our intense interest.  Now we want to objectify ourselves to the world by our ego driven need to be seen, we are the true subject of the snapshot.  We live our lives looking at photographs as if these blah images are the new reality.  Sitting at a screen and looking into the mesmerizing images of other humans doing nothing is what entertains us into today's superficial interaction.

We have taken the place of nature and we have become the essence of the photo. Nature now is just a backdrop to our own self promotions.

By putting ourselves and our close environment into pictures that say nothing about ourselves we are acknowledging the loss of individuality and have joined the collective.  We add our fragments to an image industry already burdened by the destruction of photography as an art form.

We expose an outer shell to the world to laugh at or cry with but with no real personal interaction with the screen, except a like or dislike.

Burk Uzzle, "Too many tools can be divisive, obscuring primary relationships between photographer and subject. Dogma is the desperation of shallowness, while discipline, if used instead of worshipped, is liberating".

July 20, 2014

Good images are created by knowing your insecurities and yet over coming them by communicating your empathy and understanding toward your subject.  Establishing a link between yourself and the subject allows you to let go of the tension bottled up in your mind and by releasing these barriers to true vision you will have a better chance to create something of value.

Images are recordings of the past.  We are attracted to the past because it shows us where we have been and gives us clues to where we might be going.  If all we see are generic images of our lives exposed and reinforced by others on social media, does it make our lives better or does it reveal the mind rut were in.  Imitation is not flattery.  Imitation is an easy expression of banality.  To break free of the repetitive image creating ditch we must think for ourselves and not feel overwhelmed by the herd mentality.

By being passionate about our subjects we will create successful images.  We all have daily routines that limit our ability to break free from our work a day sight and explore our image creating vision from a deeper part of our consciousness.

We must revive our inner childlike vision and discover new avenues of image expression in ourselves that don't rely on the old boring impulses that inhibit our creativity.

I think people still want images with substance.  An image that connects with them on a more personal level and not a shallow drive by image taken on a speeding highway.

July 6, 2014

When you take pictures, do you only look at the surface details of your subject?  The easy composition that doesn't demand patience?  In order to create a good image, you must take your time.  I should say that you must take your time when the subject demands it.   When things are happening at a break neck pace you just react and go with it.  But when you have time on your side to explore your subject on a more personal level, then you will see an improvement in your image creating and a better return on your image selects for the web.

I believe photographers are being distracted by shallow imagery and are missing out on natures mysteries and patterns. The undercurrents of this reality we share is where we will find the true subject we should all aspire to create images of.  We should tap into this magical depth we experience together and journey beyond the mundane and create personal images that express deep emotions and vision.

One way to do this is by getting physically closer to your subject. By moving closer you begin to see recurring patterns that manifest the infinite structure of natures inspirations.

We have become numb to the boundless beauty of nature.  Our early schooling has limited our ability to interact with natures virtue.  It has become a play thing only and not a spiritual journey into ourselves.