September 4, 2020

Photography is having the courage to look your subject in the eye, sincerely, honestly knowing your own insecurities and yet communicating your determination by expressing your connection with the subject that eases confrontation and opens up the potential for an image creation that expresses not only your subject’s beauty but your own inner style.

Photography is having passion for creating something that stimulates your inner realizations. It is evolving into your own visual awareness of what you want to externalize.

Your empathy and honesty links oneself with your subject and in those moments of truth, in that slippery time, just for a split second, you are immersed in the infinite universe and you see an expression revealed in beautiful light and you press down on the shutter to create your image.

What is your game plan when you come upon a unique scene are you calm or are you so overwhelmed by mother nature that you end up taking pics of everything and anything without studying the landscape in front of you and familiarizing yourself with your inner vision?

What stands out in the scene that begins to draw you towards it? What is the subject telling you about itself and what details begin to register with you as a natural flowing composition presents itself?

Deep breaths release the tension mounting as you want to start right away snapping photos because you have a lot of other icons you want to take pics of today. First slow down, if you don’t take the time to relate to the subject then your images will be dull, uncomposed, touristy snap shots.

We all have the ability to create works of art. What determines your abilities to create your vision is your unique perspective?

Determination, your steady forward progress, learning the intricacies of exposure, lenses and composition.

Your subject is patiently waiting as you begin to immerse yourself in the scene waiting for the light and shadows to deepen, taking your time to explore and discover a perspective that is original.

What elements in the present scene do you relate to? You are not their to manipulate the scene but express through your skills the beauty that surrounds this present moment.

Nothing remains the same and as a photographer you must be aware of the changes happening right in front of you as you assemble your composition, your camera angle, allowing the light to emphasize your inner resolution, your choice where to make the image from.

By ignoring time and focusing on the scene in front of you, you are connecting with external forces and your inner intuitive vision to will the image into being.

Compositional purpose is your instinctive originality, your unique personality, your novel perspective.

In the past you have tried a lot of technical stuff as if this will automatically create a beautiful image. You must ignore the intellect trying to disperse your energy with ideas that are beginning to jumble your focus and concentration. Take a chance try a different avenue of expression by opening your mind to a natural flow of seeing through your own unique imagination and no one else’s.

Enjoy the beauty before you which is trying to connect with you on a deeper level giving you an awareness you never had before, a true means of making an original photograph through your burgeoning ability to see beyond the standard path of redundant snap shots.

A great image like a great line in poetry takes focused intent and a means to arrange the details of the scene being created with your truth and a strong sense of wonder at the descriptive details of nature that make up the ingredients that make a so, so scene into a great image for you and your viewer.

Photography is seeing the dignity in a moment forever past yet renewed in an ever changing light and experience through the image creation.

Life is continuous motion, a never ending illusion of external time in space.
But when we make an image time freezes and we can view our past moments through photography, for isn’t that the addiction of cameras to stop time and our aging process and make us immortal. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder but the creator of the image viewed.

August 16, 2020

Photography now is not for the faint of heart. Where it once was a brotherhood of respect for the photographers working to make great images for the stock photo agency it now has turned its back on the very artists that made the agency successful. And lets face it, it is now all about money for the investors at Getty, ShutterStock and Alamy! So while the photographers sweat in exhaustion to create good imagery the agencies lower the financial return for the image creators. This puts an unfair burden on the photographers that need to make a living to pay their personal bills and to continue to go out and make unique imagery that will sell.

It is the same story all through the American economy.
Money flows up the ladder to the powerful never down. The money men have turned their backs on the photographer giving them peanuts on the dollar for their hard earned efforts while the photo agency sucks up billions in revenue off our hard earned talent.

Once agencies introduced RF imagery it was only a matter of time before Rights Managed imagery was abandoned. We have entered the fast paced life of our future economy. Where people don’t look for the beauty that surrounds them, the beauty that is being destroyed from pollution and new buildings exploding across our country and the world so the wealthy can look down on the masses and feel themselves above the peons scrambling to make a decent wage to survive. These ego’s of unrelenting greed, the new gods of avarice.

We must keep a focus on new ways to make a living from our unique perspective. Our ability to see in an ordinary scene something that catches our eye and in that moment of realization the drab scene becomes alive with possibilities and you become immersed in the scene tuning out all the distractions that surround you and you are focused on details that illuminate your intuition and your composition will be endlessly discussed but you see the entirety of your personal vision as your subject was taking shape and being created.

All image creation can be interpret differently from the photographers point of view that is what makes photography so important. We see through our own private vision and what works for one creator might not work for another. It is called art and art is always open to discussion and personal interpretation that is what sustains the artist, his creation being looked at,
studied and analysed.

We must not feel that every image we take will be perfect. And It will automatically reveal to the viewer what your unique vision was. Each of us have our own unique qualities of perceiving the external world, our own intuitive force that alerts us to seek a certain train of thought, a photographic idea we are drawn to. Contemplating your subject is the starting point of experimentation before you hit on the composition that reflects your inner mode of seeing the subject with fresh eyes.

When we seek perfection we end up with mediocre images. But when we go with the flow, have an open mind to just look over a scene without trying to fit the landscape into a standard copy of someone else’s published image we are allowing our imagination to guide us to our true potential, we have made our beauty where it didn’t exist.

July 23, 2020

Photography

How do you express externally your inner vision?

Each image created is part of an overall journey toward your inner discovery your inner self demanding to be seen.

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.

To create great images you must be involved with your subject, studying the nuances that can make or break a classic image.

Your subject needs to be respected and you need to be intuitively aware of your relationship with the subject and have a deep personal respect for the subject you are creating in a photograph.

Before you can create any image you need to be aware of the landscape you are viewing. Whether it is a person, animal or scenic you need to be present, intensely aware of potential compositions that will enhance your subject and bring out in the landscape your personal vision.

This means knowing the subject and the terrain in such a away that it becomes second nature to approach your subject from a certain direction with confidence and empathy of spirit and a willingness to spend the time exploring this unique view, your unique presence in a landscape speaking to your intuitive nature.

The important approach is not to waste time flitting here and there taking snap shots that tell us nothing of your relationship with the subject before you.

Use your time wisely forget about your past and your future thoughts and just be present in your now, each moment goes by so quickly for those that rush through life thinking they are accomplishing something of importance when in fact most of us get worn down as we age and feel the pains of regret for not exploring our intuitive interests more fully that would have taken us into our future lives with a greater understanding of ourselves and our beautiful surroundings on this isolated planet more fully and not with an indifference of spirit, a cold impersonal outlook toward others and our own personal life.

When you begin to meld your thoughts into the landscape and feel the terrain with your visual senses heightened with awareness a detail is seen and then another detail and the puzzle that was fragmented before you is now coming together to become an expression of your inner landscape externalized.

Western thought is built around intellect, functionality and profit. Eastern thought is more introverted and focused in contemplation and reaching toward a new becoming. Western thought is controlled as always by the intellects redundant nature, a nature of order and selective focus, a consciousness easily exploited by powerful forces of monied interests.

Our elites have an addiction of greed not to be intimidated by our external nature but to control it, harness its power for profit from it and ultimately destroy mother earth.

Western thinking wants physical things and wants them now. This in turn also spreads in to everyday life and especially photography. We are in constant hurry mode running from one thing to another without taking the time to immerse oneself in the landscape of self and nature. Our minds are blinded by anything that shines but this isn’t getting to know your subject, this is capturing something quickly, without purpose, treating our existence as if we had no existence outside our working lives. We are caged animals exploited by the powers propaganda of a fear based existence.

All great image makers look at the scene and study the important details of the scene that they want to include to get the viewer of his image to stop and really look at the subject, studying the movement of the visual dynamics, levels of creating and eliminating details that interfere with the vision behind the photographers intuitive perceptions.

As the light gets better and the suns beauty shines over the scene in front of us we find ourselves living in a wonderland of possibilities that will push our intuition to find a perspective that will be your trademark.

A great photograph shows the viewer an insight into the photographer’s purpose by through his composition. A personal relationship with the subject that respects the subject and allows the viewer to also appreciate in the image the play of light, composition and exposure.

Your personal relationship with the subject is an acceptance of the scene and your intent is to create an image that keeps the viewers eye from roaming through the image frame trying to see the center of interest in the details and failing exits and turns the page.

June 1, 2020

Photography Is A Job Done Dirt Cheap

The photographer gives his/her all to create a wonderful image and then to be told that your image you have worked so hard to create will have to go into their Royalty Free files because we have given up on profits for the photographer  from our Rights Managed imagery that once protected photographers with a contract that limited usage and charged a much greater royalty for the image creator. 

What a systematic destruction of a living wage for the photographers, an undermining of good business practices by not sharing the income with the very people that made your agency profitable. 

Stock photo agencies in the past were in partnership with their photographers. There were meetings and advice given but not a narrow perspective on the world but a vision of wonder for any image, back in the day, was an expression of the mindful photographer and the image uniqueness was always welcome.

Now the agencies want to fit the image creators in little slots, to define them as this or that kind of a photographer. How pathetic, if you give someone the go ahead to create from their heart then you have opened the talent door wide open.

But it seems the agencies now want to be an assembly line of dull repetitive photos with no depth or meat on them.  Shallow minds more interested in their titles than on the truth of a photographers hard earned vision.

Now everything revolves around profits not the actual means of profit which is great photographs. 

All the photographers efforts are undermined when they get their first deposit and find themselves stunned at the peanuts the agency is sharing.

But the photo agency does very well because they take 85% of any sale and the photographer gets 15% of a low priced bundling of his imagery with others, a give away to corporations that are demanding cheaper and more cheaper payouts every year. For you see the creator is the pawn in this game of greed, they are the ones doing the hard work and getting less and less for their efforts.

Now think about this, that image you submitted took you days of hiking to locate that perfect landscape and then have the patience to wait for that magic light that created a wonderland of color and beauty in nature. Now you have been told that your image isn’t worth peanuts and you feel betrayed by an agency that seemed honest and worked for the photographers benefit.

Photography is no longer an art form it has become a commodity for the rich to exploit the photographers that are new to this new business model. It is appropriately called screw the artist creating the image in order to pay investors their fair share of sitting on their asses buying and selling people’s livelihood!

Royalty Free imagery is the biggest con game in photographic history. The agency that started this destructive business transaction had no intention of allowing the producers of the images, the photographers to take more than the investors.

And as each year passed both in Rights Managed imagery and Royalty Free images the dollar split between agency and photographer began to slide downward. What a great scam they played, claiming they were protecting the rights of the photographer and his imagery and at the same time allowing

the buyers to exploit the give away of imagery for less and less forcing the old-time photographers to leave this bad business arrangement. The newbies that were coming up as the old guard  photographers business model was being shredded enjoyed just seeing their images published and liked by others. For them this was a hobby and they didn’t have any idea what their images were really worth and they didn’t care. But as the years past even these once amateur photographers realized they were being screwed by the photo agencies but couldn’t stop the fast paste slide into the poor house. 

Photography was a means to express something personal in a visual articulation of your feeling toward your subject. We all seek to express our inner world to the external reality of cruelty.  And just maybe our image creation would help some people realize the beauty of this planet earth and the inhabitants. Photography has always been about influencing popular beliefs and opening the eyes of people to the real issues needing correction.

But in the long run it was a scam to entice photographers to bring their original imagery into an agency from children, landscapes, sports, older folks in their 80’s… What the agency was doing was demanding more and more imagery so they could unload the agency to the three big photo agency conglomerates leaving their photographers in a precarious situation for the new agency could care less about them all they wanted was more images to sell cheap and in volume.  Bundle the images into a sweet deal for the businesses and also a sweet deal for the agency. What does the photographer get, well next to nothing? The creator of the sale, his image, is just a dupe allowing these photo agencies to exploit the very source of their wealth.  What a business arrangement you supply us with the product and we will give you almost nothing in return. Welcome to the new rodeo of stock photography. How long can you stay in the saddle and not be thrown for a loop as you hit the ground and your agency still steps all over your ability to make a decent living.

What a trill the new photographer has when his images are accepted by the RF agency and he sees a grand future coming and he is proud to be part of it. And even after his first sales for pennies on the dollar he still believes that he can make a decent living by shooting stock images. And he buys the latest and greatest lenses, camera bodies, tripods, memory cards, filters and he is now set to journey into the realm of price shock photography, and it is not for the faint of heart. 

It is hard to believe that these mega agencies can be so manipulated to destroy the income of the very people that made them successful, so cowardly to succumb to money, to worship cash, over their photographers, as the new god of power, the investor class that demands profits over the image creators time and effort making them wealthy.

What a con game these agencies are playing on their stock photo shooters or should I say “fools on the hill!” Why even make images to sell for they all end up in the same bed, cheap prices for cheap labor!

What is your motivation to make imagery? If it is money, I hate to tell you this but your chances of making a living at stock photography is pretty slim nowadays. There is just too many people taking images and giving them away for free. 

If however, you have that inner compulsion, that intuitive need to create something of value for yourself and others then I applaud you! You are of the old guard of photographers that have to keep making images no matter what the cost. It is part of our nature since childhood, the need to express our feelings through a lens. To immerse ourselves into the subject becoming part of the scene as we focus on details that when combined with others will tell a beautiful or ugly story that had to be told.  

Photography of the past was an art form but now photography is a cliche a redundant expression of dull ideas copied from the handbook of agencies telling the photographers what to shoot.  The main theme for the stock photo agency now as in the past is smiling faces and food. But now you have no authenticity of character because they all look posed and out of place, a studio set up rather than an honest and open get together of friends, not models. 

Photography is a means of expressing a deep inner emotion, a battle with nature to study and take your time exploring the possibilities of the landscape that reflects something within you.

What has been created is your inner expression externalized for the world to see? And you would like to think that your time and effort in making the image is worth more than just a 10 cent sale!

May 31, 2020

Photography is a lost art doomed now to become just another expression of the mundane world without depth of character. Our love of life is dwindling with each new revelation of pollution, wars, crime, rape, murder as the 1% continues to put profits over human beings and mother earth. 

Photography is no longer about intervention in the cruelty of life by documenting the horrid conditions of people, slaves to the criminals and the rulers of countries. 

The photojournalist used her instincts to put herself in a precarious deadly situation in order to tell the world, is this who we are, is this the best we can rise too by showing us the brutality of violence of wars against the poor and the abandoned people with no voices to yell to their rulers why have you murdered us and the answer was profits.   

We are just stick figures without an underlining intent or motivation to really perceive the world as it is and then try and make changes that are necessary for this planet and people to survive.

The cameras can think for you. Every photo taken is a replica of someones earlier work. Originality is no longer necessary for what is original when we can just make it up and photoshop the image to represent a lie or even better yet a crime.

Just think of it you will not have to make an effort to create images of your family anymore, those insightful moments that tested your patience in order to capture that one moment of your son’s first birthday party, trying to blow out the candles on his cake with such a proud expression on his face, to the cheers of your family and friends.

Now you can host a birthday party, a dinner party for your friends or an impromptu get together with business partners and all the documentation of the event you need is just a flip-a-switch away, your own in-house and office surveillance cameras hidden in every room strategically placed behind framed prints that once marked you as a photographer now take images of the festivities.

This is done automatically without a personal intuitive purpose, now just set the quantity of images you need taken and let the technology do the work for you. How simple is that? I know what you’re thinking, what about when I am out and about on the town or having a quiet moment with a friend how do I get pictures of that. I don’t want to stop anything and ask for people to pose, I just want pictures taken pronto and the images sent back to my home computer so later I can see myself and others and know I looked good and they looked ok but I need to be discreet. No one must know I am stealing photos of them. You never know when they might come in handy. And no I am not a spy or pervert just cautious when it comes to get togethers. 

Welcome to the new world of scheduling your very own photo shoot. Not with lights and assistants but hidden cameras installed for your night out or your night in. Just call ‘sneaky photos’ we have cameras set up everywhere, just let us know where the event will be held and voila, your covered no flashes distracting your get-together and our prices are reasonable and we do ask for a little hush money to keep the media quiet from investigating privacy issues.

Instead of thinking about the person you are interacting with you will be thinking about how you look and act towards the hidden camera. You can't wait to see what pics this mechanical beast took of your little foray.

And once the party is over you won't live your life through conscious memories of that day but will have to look at your life through the eyes of an objective device that has no feeling toward you or your purpose, a surveillance camera in your own house. What a brilliant idea for those that don’t have time to think before they take a photo, now something else can do your thinking for you. Just kick back and lose site of your own unique personal vision and let a mechanical device do the job for you, or who has the time to create images and then download those images and edit those images and caption those images and color correct those images and spot those images, that is just too much work for the new man and woman in this world of ego’s and image status, facades of speciality when in fact all prominent change has been worn in high fashion, a spectacle enjoined by the wealthy put on in centuries before we were even born and then are suddenly regurgitated again as new in a cycle of a copycat existence with originality of spirit ignored and demeaned. 

So don’t fret why not have all that taken care of by the hidden cameras documenting your life for you, so you can relax and just ignore others for your own pleasure of ego.

We are living lies and we are helpless in our inability to take charge of our own feelings through the force of the photographic experience by allowing technology to worm its way into creating an easy way not to take your own visualized images through pictures taken not only by camera implants in rooms and homes but also the automatic cameras now a days that have auto exposure, auto focus, auto wind, auto color corrections, and the best part about it you don’t have to think or spend time seeing the beauty of people or of nature but you will feel secure in allowing a mechanical device to do the thinking for you. Lets not call it photography, lets call it instantaneous visualization of surface nonsense, these images don’t do anything for your creative heart and your personal unique visual expression but just a quick documentation to let others know that that is me, me, me see where I was and what I was doing, Look At Me People!! here I am and here I was. 

This selfish existence we live in is now an automated system of a collective intellect telling us what is good and what is bad and what we can’t do and what we are allowed to do! Freedom of our intuitive self is being undermined by technology and the incessant eating away of our mental and physical worth as human beings as the powers that be experiment in controlling our lives through redundant copycatted experiences, the latest fads that distract us from the real truth the absolute control over our lives through social media and military madness. Your had held devices are a means of psychic manipulation and it works as an ankle monitor so they know exactly where you are at all times. And then the ads show up, buy this, buy that, everything is on sale, even your personal life is a mirage of individuality.

We have already crossed over the line, becoming impotent, lackadaisical representations of the status quo and when anything of importance happens to spur us into our real selves again and act in unison with others as a unified powerful force expressing the outrageous control of our lives by the elites that own our government and control the population through key words that ring true to the bullying minds of racists to do their bidding through propaganda that is coherent misdirection, we the people buckle and retreat in self pity for who are we to fight the corporate monsters of avarice and think first and read between their words of lies and exaggerated truths that they have invented to protect their monopoly of control over us.

If only people would let go of their external facade and just be present in their own moments with a camera or without one but just be open to the infinite universe of unique experiences for what it holds in front of you is a life journey worth taking.

Instead you have substituted, that which can give you insight into your life and others by immersing yourself in your perceptive intuition of a scene, your courage, and replaced it with a narrow understanding of empathy for others, only those that have the same hate and bigotry you do, your selfish anger at loss of your self worth and then projected onto others, your anger and blame and you have convinced yourself that other people are taking something away from you when in fact you have been duped by the powerful forces of greed by using words that incite in you hatred toward an enemy that is an illusion, a bad movie script.

When violence around the world is escalating along with poverty and wars how are human beings supposed to act. Human beings will naturally sacrifice everything to save their family’s from poverty and death. The rich oligarchs are the ones that have put this planet in peril and they are the ones manipulating these racists thugs to do their dirty work for them. And they act just like Pavlov's dog looking to jump for their treats toward self annihilation by blaming innocent people for the corruption in politics and in corporate businesses. 

“The Fool On The Hill” how can people be so blind to the fact that they are being manipulated to hate others when the true hate comes from the elite’s wealth and the military industrial complex.  

We are objects being placed outside our visual consciousness diverted by the media as products to sell hate and hair cream to. 

This will continue your growing awareness of the existential reality of your own non-existence. We have experienced existentialism on a massive scale throughout our individual lives and we will reap the benefits of being alone in a dark foreboding blackness by the increasing fear of others, hate, violence, greed, manipulations etc... and in order for you to feel superior and “real” you will be told you have to dominate the human species with promises of an illusion of power that only exists if we allow them to continue their crimes of disillusionment. 

We are living this today. The continuing reality of people as objects, a narrowing of the mind's perception of individuality between independence and the herd mentality. The wealthy see themselves as 'Titans of the old Roman Empire of profit'.

The way to beat existentialism is to open your mind to the new possibilities of triumph over self indulgence.

Social Media controls the information that is fed to us in diluted form in order to pacify the masses in corralled thinking, one answer fits all their con games.

Are we strong enough, determined enough to finally realize that a good life exists for those that can move away from the automated formula's of the wealthy and begin again to use their own mental capabilities to explore their own inner directions with confidence in their purpose?

We all carry our own albatross around our necks that deny us our hopeful vision at some quality in a person or a nature scene that is new and original not for profit but the sharing of a personal  idea.

Technology as it becomes more and more invasive will demand more and more power from the masses. The ultimate goal of technology is to do the thinking for us. Any questions you may have can be instantaneously answered not by your own individual study of the facts but by a wordy cliche that answers nothing but siting the meekest of sources. These sources are owned by the corporate wealth paid to use attacks on anything that will undermine their quarterly profits.

As life becomes more and more complicated humans do not want to have to think for themselves that is too much pressure on an already stressful work environment and home life. So we look for words and actions that can pull us along with the flow of times cruel endings whereby we don’t do much in the way of helping others by look away and we then allow ourselves to feel better for doing nothing.  

Why be an independent thinker that can put stress on your delicate skin and confuse an already stunted mind.

As we distract ourselves more and more by words and ideas that are at best trivial, our conversations become more repetitive. An accumulation of junkyard thoughts that have as much purpose as a devout atheist becoming pope. 

We allow our minds to take the least path of resistance and this leads down the path of fascism which the united states is severely in the grip of right now this very second.

Photography is creating a newness to the visual scene. Not a cliche of another’s hard work.

But now in this streamed lined repetitive necessity of the herded instinct we seek an assembly line of casual, meaningless imagery that doesn’t excite or instill in the viewer anything at all but ordinary feelings of a lost existence, people deprived of their individuality now seek the comfort of conformity within the workings of their constructed lives of ignorance or false hope. 

Nowadays new imagery with an intuitive truth has a limited value, a passing fad of human folly and violent aggression. The powers that be insist on violence to regurgitate the simple minds inability to think out of the box he is confined in. By ignoring the path toward deliverance and independence these men of greed intrude and control all our feelings by a misrepresentation of truth for their own deadly profits.

When you create a worthy image from your subjective intuition you have transgressed the formality of controlled thoughts and have entered into a world of anarchy.

The only meaningful subjects for prints nowadays is hollywood glamour. And the tidbits of truth that make us jealous of the perfect hair, the perfect eye, the perfect nose and body. Exterior perfection hides a shallow interior an interior conformed to live in material dependency.

Native American Pow Wow at Day Break Cultural Center, Dicovery Park Seattle, Washington State

March 21, 2020

I am startled by the light, how it curves around my subject and is upon me with subtle warmth. My chosen subject is illuminated in pure wondrous revelation.  

Just a few minutes ago the landscape was dull without a pure foundation of details struggling to be represented until the sunlight broke through the clouds. This was the final ingredient that elevated my chosen subject before me into art.

My intuition ignored the intellects preconceived construct of the scene before me. 

I sensed the possibilities of mother nature and her ability to change light on a whim and this particular subject demanded that I wait and set up my equipment to capture the beautiful light being revealed over the scene toward sunset.

Without patience we tend to ignore the primary subject and go for the easy snap shot so we can move on gliding on a surface facade without depth and originality.

Photography is our means to extend our lives. Photographs tell our story and allows us the ability to remain alive for our families and buyers of our work. For our image creation is our means of an after death resurrection.

The importance of creating a legacy of images is a freeing of oneself to just live your life as best you can and let others see and discuss your work after you are gone. 

But what is happening now in the photo industry is the commodifying of images as a product like ground meat. And the proliferation of images in the market place reduces the respect images once had in the hey day of what I call the iconic expression, the truth of our lives through the integrity of the photographers work. 

Especially when there is an over saturation of image cliches and redundant images being taken.

Photographers once had the respect of the people but now are seen as glory seekers taking images of anyone and anything just to capture something without a purpose or a cause just for chance of making some money.

Photographers are creating an epidemic of run and shoot photography.  A carless attitude toward the creation of great imagery. In order to make important imagery you first must become entwined with your subject, studying the details and the composition that will best express your connection with your subject. And give the viewer a sense of being present when the image was made.

Without a personal vision that is unique and visually powerful you will become part of the shoot anything club and call it a good days work. 

Being self-centered just exasperates the loss of momentum in understanding the patience that is required just to make one exposure.

The new generation of photographers are seen as worker ants as they roam this world seeking images without purpose, just snap shots of details they hope will sell for pennies. 

These mega agencies couldn't care less about their photographers. Why should they care for there are 100s of millions of shooters that give their images away for free and the ones that hook up with an agency gets virtually nothing for their efforts? But for new photographers it is an ego trip just to see your image taken in by the agency and then to receive in your bank account virtually nothing. You are not going to be able to make a living on your images like you could beginning in the 1980s and ending in 2008, when the economy collapsed.

Anyone can take snap-shots but these won’t pay your bills. 

I better qualify this by saying that the condition of photography as an art form is dying. Everybody is a photographer and everyone has access to photo agencies gobbling up images just to sell them for peanuts. Why would anyone want to supply their images to a photo agency that takes 80% of your efforts without demanding from their buyers a higher price for their photographers time and efforts?

Because once again it is not the image, the image is not that important, it is the volume of image sales that makes a difference. Lets get real for a moment, if you don't know you're being suckered by putting your images in the mega agencies as RF then wakeup! Any agencies that spouts off about how you will get your return through volume sales, run for hills. The agency will make their profits and you the lowly photographer will be the ones that lose in the transaction. They will gain because 80% of any sale will be theirs and tell me how many times will your image will sell that even come close to equaling what the mega stock houses receive for every sale.

Stock sales are lowering the quality of images being created. Anyone now is a shooter with the ability to submit their work to the mega stock houses is free.

Simply put the photo agencies now don’t really care about the photographers, only the images they create,

which will be sold for less than a candy bar.

Some photographers know how to create and sell stock images and do make a good living submitting their work but they are the few amongst the millions 

of shooters taking snap shots of anything and submitting these run and gun images to the mega agencies and getting really nothing in return.

We need to separate our image making from the control of the super agencies. We must create unique images with purpose. Exploring the outer world and reflecting on what we feel and see and bringing our vision forward, realized through our photography. 

I will be creating photography books and putting these online. This isn’t new but at least it moves me away from the photo agencies that have lost all respect for the people that make them billions. To them we are just workers on the conveyer belt line putting our photography efforts in small boxes that are later sold with coupons at the stock house grocery outlet.

February 19, 2020

What is it about photography that is so addictive? Why do we love to take images of ourselves, our foods, our bodies, our faces our lives?  

Memories express something about us, how we live, what we like, what our interests might be. Memories can guide us forward or they can cripple us to a life not lived.

Photography is a means of escape, a path to explore the external world and to seek an image that can express an emotional moment without distracting, jumbled subjects, mismatched assembly of in-cohesive details, which allows them to be absorbed by the reality they are present in, unaware of the photographer capturing their moments.

We as a society really like conformity. We don’t like conflict, having to argue with someone about their lives and who we are. We seem to demand privacy when it comes to sharing our inner being, our inner thoughts.  It is time to break free from the fear of expressing your inner nature. 

You need to be strong, have faith in your inner voice ready to express your intuitive vision and hurdle over the mental blocks that are hindering you from becoming your true expression, externalized through image creation. 

We should be fed up, tired of hiding in ourselves missing our only chance to show the reality we live in through our own personal inner visual relationship we have with the outer world. We need to break free from the chains of imitation. To become yourself you need to acknowledge your intuitive force within, which is trying to get you motivated to see your true self through inner awareness outer perceptions.

Life doesn’t end with one set back or two or a hundred. If you believe in your vision then you must follow that path that gives you your inner focus!

In today’s culture living is more copying what other people do rather than expressing your unique visual voice. As technology takes over our mental capabilities, making it easier for us to be manipulated, whereby we don’t have to have independent thoughts of our own perspective, our own unique interpretation of the reality we were born into, because it is easier to flow with the crowd and accept another’s observations as our own. That is demeaning your inner realization of selfhood by substituting someone else’s visual beliefs as your own. 

You can’t be yourself, your true self, if you project outward someone else’s unique talent  that doesn’t represent your inner insights.

This inability to be a unique human being with your own personal thoughts displayed through your artistic imagination will not bring you any closer to your truth, your own exploration of your inner talents.

You must fight to find yourself and what you admire in this world and what you are truly interested in. And more importantly how will you express this knowledge through your own visual originality.

Imagination is the beginning steps of self revelation. Creating something through your own inner will begins your journey towards personal freedom of thoughts. You are an individual without puppet strings attached to your physical presence or your mental perceptions of this old and contaminated reality of wealthy greed determined to control your thoughts and your will to improve your reality.

Singular expression of your subject that has been photographed to infinity and beyond and yet you were able to capture a detail, a landscape that brought a new understanding of the subject to the public eye, a new perspective which separates you from the herd. 

It can be intimidating and sometimes a lonely journey, so we retreat to an easier path, a solution dictated to us by others that have a very different idea of your future life. If you are going to be manipulated why not be manipulated by immersing yourself in nature rather than allowing someone else to dictate how you should live through your future years.

Is it the ability to capture a scene, a person and then have a history represented to you through that image that allows you to remember the scene and its significance as you age and reminisce about the time you were present taking that particular picture or were you the subject of the picture and someone else captured you in the scene. And by being the subject you had no control over the composition or exposure and seeing yourself posed in a way unfamiliar can be an extraordinary feeling of hopelessness. As if that person in the picture is someone else, not you.

Being present in your moments is the gift that photography gives the photographer if he realizes the importance of his involvement in the scene. First, by having an interest in the subject and a feeling of  inner connection with the landscape and allowing his personality, his ego to step aside and just bring forth his inner unique feelings to merge with his presence as the subject is slowly revealed. A revelation that doesn't always happen immediately but over time, you begin to see details that are important but something is holding you back, hindering your ability to find that unique perspective that will free up your mental focus that is obsessing with another aspect of the scene and then as if by magic you see perfectly the  relationship that is beginning to unfold with connective possibilities.

Or is there something else going on that attracts someone to photography? You the photographer have a certain power, an ability to document the world and all its horrors and pleasures.  

The ability to make from the physicality of existence another piece of a unique puzzle, creating an image that can’t be duplicated, framed and admired through your lifetime is just one of the powers in photography. It is a means to describe the world through your own personal expression whether it is a snap shot of a scene or an in depth study of a person or place, a subject that you are attracted to and want to be immersed in because it has a meaningful purpose for yourself and you hope others.

Break free from the structured control society demands of its citizens. All get in straight line and follow all the rules we have set up to control your intuitive self that is bursting with ideas for exploration.  

We are bombarded all our lives with conservative ideas and ways of living. Our existence is determined by the forces of technology and mental propaganda on how to behave in living a dull, bored existence.  

The ruling class doesn’t want you to break free from the role you are playing. You are their pawns to be manipulated for their profits.

We have a natural need to belong to something perceived bigger than ourselves. How can we be part of something bigger than our own unique presence? Our own individuality is bigger than any life worth living. Our uniqueness is our gift to ourselves and our means to freedom and a unique expression.

Once we have summoned our intuitive forces to begin unraveling the structures that limit our ability to be perceptive and innovative in our lives then we can begin to choose wisely by slowing down and studying our subject before we begin making images.

Random shooting is the cliche of street photography. We need to go beyond the unrelatedness of the subject with our inner creativity that seeks harmony with the outer world represented through your inner intuitive force.

The outer world is preoccupied with controlling our lives and stunting our ability to express a personal vision.

Your special presence, being alive, with your individual perceptions is your ticket for freedom and your visual preparations are as unique as you are if you have the courage and a willingness to express yourself in a natural expression of your unique truth.

Photography is a means to capture memories. But whose memories? If you are a wedding photographer you are capturing someone else's memories. 

If you are a photojournalist then you are capturing historic events for future generations to see and feel the past and its powerful influence of the wealthy on our freedoms of expression.

If you are a tourist then you are capturing images that are your memories to share but without the depth of perception and a deep personal connection. In other words you are taking images not making them!

You could be the designated family photographer that clicks his shutter anytime he sees an image he feels might have value even if the subject disagrees months later that that is not what they look liked. He is creating memories for the family to see their own progression through the years, how faces and bodies are aging and those life events that mean something for everyone.

He is taking memories not making them.  He is objective and sees only the surface of a scene without realizing the need to penetrate deeper into the scene with his own unique viewpoint. Instead he settles for an image already framed from a repetitive visual sense that he is tied to, that is solidified as the subjects line-up and pose as they have for decades without any depth of character!

If you are a visual artist then you are creating an inner perception externalized. This could be instigated by a past memory or it could be the revelation in process of an inner intuition that has finally surfaced and presented the photographer with a means of expression, an expression of a deep personal revelation.

The moments that need to remembered lose value as we move forward in times destructive nature, age lessons the need for individuality and religion takes a bigger chunk of your inner life. Mental capabilities lesson and we seek easy answers to our inherent passing.  We feel the longing we missed in youth and we appeal to the maker for a second chance. We don't get second chances in life, what you need is the stamina in youth and the singled minded purpose of your unique visual sense to become, to evolve into your unique perspective. If you wait to long your life begins to unravel and shrivel up, you become unbalanced and your focus is hindered by death's all encompassing determination. 

Your life needs to be constantly on the alert for that unique perspective you were born into but lost as society determined your future.  

Don't let someone else's structured existence influence you to conform to their status quo. You are unique and need to express your inner world through your individual  expression.

We seek the duplicate experience that gave us pleasure and hope and we move forward always trying to duplicate a moment that was unique in our minds eye but can never be identical to your previous moment. Time moves forward, changing us and changing the outer reality we live through. 

Your first truth in making an image of your subject became an ideal you wanted to duplicate. This truth in your subject dissipated through time, a loss of a deep connection, which you always need to bring forth a memorable visual counterpoint that will not imitate an already existing image taken years before. You only get one chance to click that shutter and create an image that you are pleased with. 

February 8, 2020

Stock Photography a Bad Business Model For Future Photographers

Once the genius’s of Getty and Shutterstock began competing with each other by lowering and lowering the price structure and royalty percentages for their photographers image creations on their web sites the only conclusion a photographer could foresee in his photographic career was that this is the end of making a living at creating great Stock Images. Why would a professional photographer continue to submit to an agency that gives him 20% of the penny sales?

And not only the disgusting split with their photographers but also the fact that they have eliminated Rights Manage Images from their vocabulary and everything they sell now is Royalty Free where their buying clients get to use the photographers hard earned efforts, our images, over and over again without any further penalty of cost.

A great business model for the agencies but a lousy one for the photographers. So what sayeth the goliath’s of the Stock clearing houses, we are in charge and you are the suckers that still contribute to us so we must be doing something right. Wrong, you have imploded a business model that worked well for decades but you didn’t like the photographers getting their fair share of their hard earned efforts so you created a destructive business model that now is coming back to haunt you. 

And the name of this terror with more to follow is called UnSplash a stock company that doesn’t price their images at all but gives the images away for free.

Yeehaw how about that for a business model. The writing was on the wall for a long time given the free images the Creative Commons has been giving away for decades.

Currently, according to statistics that Jim Pickerell’s ‘Selling Stock’ has published in Weekly Digest, it looks like UnSplash has 70,263,886 downloads per month compared with Shutterstock’s 15,433,333 downloaded per month. You don’t need to be a mathematician to see the writing on the future wall of stock photography, it is dying a fast death and soon it will go extinct.

Getty has known for years what the outcome would be if competition began to intrude over their victory platform at the pinnacle of the Stock Photo Market HayDay. 

Getty knew this day would come and late last year decided to abandoned Rights Managed image sales on their website. I believe this was not because they couldn’t make money still off the rights managed imagery but they decided a while ago to become strictly royalty free because they wanted to eliminate jobs.  It takes a knowledgable editor and sales person to negotiate a good price for Getty and thus for the photographer. By eliminating these jobs Getty saves money because selling RF images doesn’t need any negotiations. Each price is set and the client buys the image or not, all done electronically.

What are we left with in this mad dash to the bottom in the stock photo business? Well, we have less professionals and millions and millions of amateurs taking images and giving them away for free in an ego massage of look at me I got my image published for nothing.  A great business model for everyone to get excited about.

I believe with the erosion of professional photographers leaving the stock field we will see a decline in the quality and subject matter from the new kids on the block. What I see now is not photography as an art form but rather a snap shot of something that might or could be interesting, if the new-bees stayed around longer and explored the subject instead of clicking away and missing the real revelation of perception, your unique vision.

The redundancy of images being submitted is unnerving with no originality that gives us any hint into the purpose and the personality of the photographer. What we see now is mostly generic images with no depth and authenticity.
  

Only a slew of copycat photos that are saying nothing more than surface value. What we are seeing is millions of photographers running around copying someone else’s image creation on a lesser note and then submitting to an agency that doesn’t care about the image maker but only sales volumes.

What we see is cookie cutouts of smiling faces with happy families that will be used by wealthy corporation basically for free.

Give me a break in this exploitation of photographers that do all the heavy lifting creating great images only to see them selling for pennies on the dollar. And now the competition is giving images away for free.  What a business this stock photo agency debacle has become. 

In this devastating economy of greed there is no happy photographers, the stress and lowering of image prices basically undermined any purpose to keep submitting to these stock houses that have basically destroyed the livelihood of their suppliers.

I could go on and on with the undermining of a photographers hard earned efforts to capture a great scene, sometimes under hair raising difficulties. But why bother, we know that end result is always the same. Times change and the new elephant in the room is not a business model but a carnival of deception and a lowering of standards for generations to come. The big question is why would you give away an image for free after the effort it took to create it?