March 30, 2019

Most of the time, we don't have time, to contemplate the scene before us, the ability to immerse ourselves into the thoughts of nature reflecting in our own inner being and then outward to create a unique vision. 

If we interpreted our relationship with nature the same we interpret our relationship with human beings then our ability to communicate on a deeper level would prevail. We wouldn’t have to use words that communicate a surface relationship with the reality we share. Our truth would be intuitively recognized. 

Coming on a scene without an intuitive realization that can connect you with the core expression demanded within the cameras frame shows how limited and repetitive our imagery can become.

Intuitive realization is your photographic eye awakening in the presence of a growing foundation of visual purpose.  

A recognition of your unique burgeoning relationship with your inner visual senses and your external subject.

You must not hurry through the beginning relationship with your subject by attempting to force an image on the external forces hampering your visual craft. 

Patience is always a key to success. Allowing the relationship to grow and blossom into a unique understanding and a vision that explains your inner world at the moment the exposure was made. An inner truth revealed through a visual stimulus.

An image worthy to be taken is to wait until the roots of your intuition are firmly planted in the external soil and then and only then will your composition instill in you a need to click the shutter.

To finally see the overpowering connectedness of ourselves and the external forces of nature is a blessing of inspiration.  

The infinite choices present, where to begin your journey to your individual expression. What is it that drives you forward and without a safety net of conformity to lessen the degree of fear present in you, to step out of the formula's you have been taught?

Your purpose is present in you but you need to break free from the redundant behavior that is confining your vision in a narrowing perspective. 

Your conditioned journey through your young life instilled in you a need to conform.  When you take pictures now you are following the herd, you are being accepted into the patterns of your friends and other photographers that found their rhythm not in their individual expressions but by copying from others. This need to copy others limits your ability to create your own visual art.

This slows your maturing visual sense. This allows you a standard of representation that is quickly understood and accepted.  But it will not set you free to becoming the individual that you are destined to be.  

Your images will not be found in repetitive actions, going to the same formula over and over again without changing the composition of your internal awareness, your intuitive force of inner perceptions becoming your external vision.

Coming upon a scene you are the craftsman taking these infinite possibilities and narrowing them down to an individual perception that is your unique vision.

Don’t rush through the scene. Be present and accept your place, your perspective, as only one of many possibilities. Study the light and its angle on your potential subject. Begin thinking of your lens choice and the need for a tripod to get the depth of field necessary to complete your internal intuitive vision.  

The scene before you begins to take shape.  You are now in the moment and time’s movement is unnecessary for you are focused, unaware of you're meddling intellects attempts to make you change your perception to a known composition taken millions of times before. You focus harder on your potential creation and thus begins your partnership with nature and the external force of revelation. 

Now you are not an outsider you are one with your subject. The subject has accepted your deliberate motives, a unique vision, only you saw and is accepting your diligence and your inspiration. 

Before over thinking too much you just click the shutter. You are present in this moment like never before. Being one with the external world is the greatest high a photographer can experience. And in that moment of connecting with your inner intuition and the external scene you created a unique beauty that others might have missed but because you entered the scene through your intuition you were able to represented your inner being.

There are times when we don’t have the time to study and unfold the layered scene in creating our own vision.

We sometimes must act instinctively, quickly recognizing the scene rapidly unfolding before us and quickly position ourselves to take advantage of nature’s forces.

By moving quickly anticipating the movement of you subject you were able to recognize the potential possibilities and bring yourself into the reality present by immersing yourself in the fluidity of the scene and

your unique sight, seeing the potential and acting on it instinctively.

Always be present in your moments. To hurry through them you are falling into the trap of expedited time. That overwhelming feeling that in order to accomplish everything at once we must keep pace with our limiting wants and do as much as possible in the now, in order to feel we have done our best. This is training in the reality of someone else’s structured existence not yours. This need to hurry past your most precious moments undermines your natural gifts bestowed on you by your own uniqueness.

March 17, 2019

When I first started creating imagery I was lucky enough to be accepted at some of the best photo agencies in the world. 

When you were signed up with these agencies you felt that your images would be in safe hands and that you and the agency would both earn a decent wage. 

The photographs we took were called stock imagery because when you submitted your images to the photo agency they were put in file cabinets waiting to be asked for.  Just like any unique product stock imagery blossomed with the explosion of magazines and advertisers demanding better, higher quality imagery and more unique images to choose for their projects (ads). One of the many things I liked about stock photography was that you didn’t have to deal directly with the clients wanting to buy your images, the stock agencies handled all that for you which freed your time up to travel and create more images.  

And the photo agency handled the final captioning, filing and client contacts. 

They received 50% of the sale. Back in the early eighties and up to the mid 2000's this was still a viable business arrangement. 

Two things happened during the late 90's and early 2000's that completely devastated the Stock Agencies ability to maintain a decent income for themselves and the photographers that worked for them making images.

The first thing that darkened the clear water of successful agencies was the introduction of Royalty Free Images. Royalty free shattered the dominant Rights Managed model of pricing based on usage. And also the ability to track sales and charge the buyer if they used the image for some other purpose without paying.

The other big change to Stock Photography was the transition from film cameras to digital cameras. One of the key factors in this transition was the cost of film. Processing film can get very expensive especially when you are shooting 100's of rolls on a single trip through some spectacular, iconic American landscape.

The average amateur in the early days of Stock Photography didn’t have the funds or the time to travel and create tens of thousands of imagery to process, edit, caption and then submit to the photo agencies. So the competition to submit to these agencies was restricted to mostly professional photographers. 

This didn't mean of course that there weren't some great images being created by woman and men outside the so called professional level of image making, that were just as good and sometimes better than the pros but the pros had the time to create great images consistently for the agencies they worked for. 

But once digital cameras proved to the agencies that their digital sharpness was good enough to be included in the files of the Stock agencies then the cozy relationship photographers had with the photo agencies was pretty much over. Now anyone could create good images without worrying about the cost of film. 

The other thing that helped spur the amateur to taking more pictures was that digital cameras allowed you to set an auto exposure and focus, as did the newer film cameras, that could automatically adjust the settings to get a decent image in all sorts of lighting challenges. 

And when you add in the ease of use of camera phones you can see why there is an explosion of images circulating through stock libraries and social media and these images are being trolled by ad men sent to find the all important realistic image for their next authentic ad.  

And you can be assured the photographer will not get what his image is worth. And for that matter if you tried to bargain with the ad man he would just go pick another image in the stack of billions of images visible on the social media sites or the agencies web pages and get the price he wanted in the first place, pennies on the dollar.

The transition has been made and the amateur has become the source of image taking and the so called professional are livid that they have to take a back seat to the new wave of image takers, making their once golden egg relationship, the 50/50 split between the agency and the photographer, obsolete, leaving them struggling to make any kind of living off there efforts when now they are competing with billions of photographers and trillions of images being taken with the understanding that those images are not worth what they once were worth. 

I received just recently from one of my agencies a sale of one of my exclusive images for pennies. Because of steep reduction in image pricing many professional photographers have quit making images and retired. 

Since we now live in a society where more is better we have more images created on a daily basis than we did when photo agencies came into existence.  

What has this massive amount of imagery done to the once Rights Managed photo agencies and their professional photographers?  They are becoming obsolete. 

Rights Managed Exclusivity, imagery that the photographer created and was able to get a signed release from the people or product in the photograph. These images were tracked by the Photo Agency to make sure they weren't being used by similar companies selling in the same competing markets. This protected the buying client and the photographer for possible litigation.

Not all images were Rights Managed Exclusive, there were RM images that didn't have the appropriate releases and they were mainly used for non-exclusive editorial use.

These RM images are no longer needed. Most agencies now, are almost all Royalty Free! Buy a one time use and you have that image forever to do with it as you like. The agencies say no, we monitor the usage and will make sure the photographer who created the image in the first place will be paid more if the usage is beyond the contract agreed upon. That is a load of garbage, royalty free is just what it sounds like. Many buyers using the same image over and over again in different markets while the photographer that created the image never gets his fair share of the license fees. 

Royalty free to the client but also royalty free to the creator of the image, the photographers. They receive pennies on the dollar for their time and effort to capture a unique subject.  

The question is how can any photographer nowadays make a living at creating imagery and sending them to photo agencies to sell for them.  Simply they can’t. Once royalty free was introduced the business community flocked to that marketing scheme and has never stopped getting imagery on the cheap as compared to what photographers received when they were with agencies selling Rights Managed Imagery.  

Think about the over saturation of images in the photo market place, the trillions made in a year. These images are mostly created by the general population. 

And now they are being sent in to Royalty Free photo sites and getting paraded around the business world as a cheap way to buy images for your product or website.

Without much of a photo understanding.  But because of the ease of use and the simple controls necessary for getting an image with sharpness and ok color you see the social media bandwagon of uploaded images of all possible subjects.

This in turn discourages the photographers trying to create their own unique vision of the world and to make a living as a photographer.  

Photographers are losing ground to the masses that create imagery of all possible subjects and then post them top sites that sell them for peanuts on the dollar. Or give them, away for free.  What does it mean to be a professional photographer in today's fast paste need to be seen not very much.

The photograph is losing its value as an artifact of our history.  The creation of a great photograph is undermined by the simplicity of picture taking. How much time does anyone now a days take, really studying an image to understand and feel the images importance.

Photography as an art form is doomed. The instant image taken and uploaded without a purpose instills in the viewer an overwhelming sense that the photograph is not art but a product, an over saturated look at details and scenes that are repetitive and dull.

We live in a world of surface level perceptions without depth and empathy for the subject matter. We cruise by the importance of image creation like we do fads when buying clothes. Photography is now a byproduct of making images.  It is their for show and the product the ad man is selling is the star.  

March 16, 2019

The Future of Stock Photography

I was looking back at some old letters I wrote back in 2006 to my Photo Agencies and photographer friends concerning the major upheaval that was breaking apart a once profitable arena for photographers to make a decent living by shooting stock imagery. 

Some of the Photo agencies have changed especially when ShutterStock started out in 2003 and is now strictly RF images and is making the executives at Getty nervous about their future.

Some of the agencies mentioned in these letters are no longer in existence or have been bought by larger agencies.

Jupiterimages was bought by Getty Images and Corbis, Bill Gates photo agency, was bought by a Chinese company but images are distributed by Getty.  On a side note Bill Gates got tired of his agency, Corbis not making money and having him fork out millions a year to keep them afloat.

Part 1

November 1, 2006 

    

STATE OF STOCK

November 1, 2006

I reviewed some articles on the future of the Stock and speeches given to a PACA (Picture Archive Council of America) conference in the spring to see if anything they said back then would foreshadow the changes that have happened in the last 3-4 months in the Stock Industry and low and behold if you read between the lines they have laid out the distributors strategy right down to embracing of micro-sites, wholly owned imagery and subscription services.  The speeches were given by Mark Berns at Jupiterimages, Lewis Blackwell at Getty, Gary Shenk at Corbis, Jeffrey Burke past president of PACA and Roger Ressmeyer present president of PACA. 

"Once an industry reaches saturation, customers stop buying new images and are only trying to replace ones that have gotten old or over used.  This leads to a drop in volume.  This drop in volume leads to hyper competition between sellers and eventually negative propaganda toward their competition in order to gain market share".  

We are about to enter the mud slinging stage.  

Make no mistake about it the independent stock photographer is in a free fall without a main parachute, thrown off the Getty cargo plane to make room for wholly owned imagery that can be utilized in many licensing models without having to pay individual photographers royalties.  Do independent stock photographers have a back-up chute?   

The main thing that comes out of reading these speeches is the positive spin they put on the state of the Stock Industry and how micro-payment sites are not really going to be a threat and yet at the same time they say this there is an undercurrent of anxiety that just maybe these $1 sites will affect their business and harm the traditional stock sales.  I believe not only will these new micro-sites wipe out many existing distributors and small Agencies we have now but they will become the standard in 5 years or less.  Some of these Executives are talking about creating a super Rights Managed Exclusive Portal that deals with the highest quality imagery out there, this elite core of images would maintain higher prices against the steady decline of RPI (Return Per Image) that the Stock Industry is seeing now.  Not a chance once you open the flood gates to the consumer market the whole system will collapse and it will be a free for all with all of us in hand to hand combat with each other.  Think Walmart and what it does to the Mom and Pop neighborhood store and you know your days are numbered as an independent photographer.  Once we became content providers the writing was on the wall and just like other manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the US to foreign markets we are next.  I read where Getty is in India giving photo lessons to the locals on how to use digital cameras.  We are already being outsourced.  

One of the things that stood out was how these distribution portals put more emphasis on volume sales, speed and profits over the relationship with the independent stock photographer.  I think alot of us are still hoping for a return to the old traditional stock agency relationship where we were once partners in the business model.  It won't happen.  We supply the content but not just content but massive amounts of content and if you can't supply thousands of images a year to these portals you will probably end up losing money in the long run.  

Micro Payment Sites

They discussed micro-payment sites and one speaker believed that these micro-sites will have to eventually raise their prices per image download if they want this business model to flourish.  The question is will production costs go up enough that the photographers submitting to these sites begin to demand higher prices for their imagery?  I hope so but doubt it.  Right now I feel most of the shooters on this site enjoy the community feedback on their images ( all very positive) and they like the instructions they get on how to improve their photo skills.  And besides they have a job and don't need to make a living on these images so small sales are just icing on the cake.  Many have stated that they couldn't of imagined just a few years ago getting paid for their images, for now that's enough.  

The one making the money is the distributor and they are making big money on the backs of the photographers.  Getty and others are moving to a micro-site business model. We know Clip destroyed the main bread and butter sales for the RM photographer and $1 sites will wipe out the bread and butter income of the RF shooters.  But it won't stop there I am afraid, we are seeing the end of a livable wage in photography.  Right now if I added in my hours of scanning and computer time plus travel and shooting and equipment etc.. I am making pennies on the dollar.  What will I make once these micro-sites proliferate the market place.  For that matter what do I make now.  Some of my exclusive images sell for lower than $10.00 and some of these sales lock that image up for years.  

There will be four main licensing models I believe in the near future.

1) Wholly owned imagery

   A) RM 

   B) RF

   C) Subscription

2) Micro-payment sites

3) Open systems like Alamy

4) Pay to Play Model

Open systems like Alamy create their own problems one of which is that the shear numbers uploaded on a monthly basis makes it pretty darn hard for any one particular photographer's images being seen by a client.  Corbis has dumped over 75,000 RF images on the Alamy site already. But what else is new!

Each image has a shorter and shorter life span.  Ad agencies are asked to target a specific demographic with customized ads, picture one image being sent to 30 desktops as a pop up ad, how do you price this using a RM system.  Lower priced stock images are becoming a necessity and where do you think they are going to get these low res images, you guessed it from the crowd, the mob, the community, the consumer, call it what you will but it will be the micro-sites or free sites like Flicr (which by the way has some of the best imagery I have seen on these kinds of sites). These sites are beginning to proliferate the market and these sites offer new content in huge quantities on a daily business and the image quality is getting better and better all the time.

The music stores can only carry and sell a certain amount of packaged goods, they have limited space, so they sell only the top favorites in very selective categories. 

Traditional agencies in the Stock world acted similarly but with the tech explosion and the internet all that has changed.

They call it the "long tail" on the internet, businesses can store hundreds of thousands of cd’s with coverage and depth in all music categories.  They make money when someone buys the most popular cd by Madonna or an obscure blues artist from Alabama.  What matters is satisfying the customer and when that customer finds his oldy but goodie he might look for similar cd’s on your recommended list and buy even more obscure artists from your site.   Amazon.com is like that.  

This is happening also in the Stock Photography world but on a much larger scale.  Alamy is getting a long tail ( close to 7 million images and counting) so are micro-payment sites and now Getty is introducing a new "Open" portal that will flood the already saturated market with even more imagery.  The problem for Getty and other distributors that are sure to follow is pricing.  Micro-payment sites are all about pricing but Getty wants to keep prices higher.  I don't think you can have it both ways high prices and a glut of images and expect prices to stay high, they will fall.  My RM sales are getting obscenely low and this is at the beginning of the micro-site craze. 

Don't forget Google as a place to search and find imagery.  Google is already crowd sourcing by having a game whereby you compete with other consumers to add keywords to images on their search engine and of course people are doing this for free.  Once images can be sourced better using their search engine the consumer and clients will bypass the distribution portals altogether.  

Next Royalty Free and Getty Charging Photographers To Upload To Their Site.

March 6, 2019

Beginnings

looking in the mirror

anticipating the known face,

a redundancy of vision,

but incomplete

we assume that the act

of seeing is seeing 

oneself as you are,

a physical presence

just as others appear

in your sensory vision

this reflection is you,

you remember the face

and your eyes questioning, 

but not seeing your truth,

this is you and how

you should be, stop doubting,

the demands of society,

this illusion is becoming

a safety net for your deep

seeded fear of change, 

your desire for a stability of

your physical purpose

a permanent anticipation

of self, a conditioning

of your intellect to assume

what is present and to discard

what is not, don’t be fooled

by your outer reflection

it is a facade without 

truth, it will age and deteriorate

before your eyes, accepting

its final breaths with despair

inside you is your realm to 

to inhabit and explore,

beginning to know your true self 

without the makeup of personality, 

condemned to be what others thought 

you should become in your physical

presence, 

we see and believe the facades 

created through an others labeling 

demands for you to follow the crowd

but this tag is their purpose

externalized not yours, it is 

a plaster cast over your uniqueness 

of vision that will change your

relationship with the outer world 

without it becoming your intuitive 

natural palette for creation  

you will need strength of character, 

your personal representation of

yourself objectified not in the flesh

but in artistic expression

what is greater the blindness of self

without inner vision or the apparent

realness of a created universe you

are not part of? where is your strength 

of purpose when you realize your

inner self was being used by a 

suffocating collar of conformity to 

someone else’s perceptions of what 

ideas and behaviors will be tolerated, 

an economic system with herded ideas 

ingrained in minds without independent 

thoughts of their true nature, and a vision 

of who they want to become

explore your inner world, you have

a talent that needs expressing, use

your intuition to dig deeper under the 

classifying words that are limiting your

personal uniqueness, the constraints 

you were born into and told this is your 

future with roadblocks already set up 

in cozy relationships with the minds of avarice 

and greed to control the path you 

choose and when you hear “there is no 

future for your kind,” don’t fall for that 

human trait of ego’s demeaning hostility 

toward powerful change, express yourself

in your own unique way, don’t listen to

the herded minds that have given up

on expressing their unique insights, 

give yourself that added push to experience 

your inner truth, the truth that was 

always present but you couldn’t focus 

your energy to find it find until now, 

stand tall and listen to your internal voice 

getting excited that you have found each other 

so grow and blossom into your true self, 

your natural gifts beginning to fight 

to be seen and heard. 

March 5, 2019

Corporate media is our true god. 

We have been force fed a false ideology, a pacification of the masses by material wants that stifle our artistic expressions into copying lives of others not only in clothes but also in image creation. We are instinctive animals, when we see something we like we will imitate it. 

Photography now is imitation. There is a surface quality to images seen not only on social media sites but on the news sites as well. It is as if the photographer wasn't even present when composing the image but instead was driven to shoot quick and look for something more substantial in his mind down the way when if he was aware of his surroundings would have been able to find those moments that bring revelation. This failure of patience reflects the hectic pace of our world right now. 

We live not in our moments but in a controlled environment of pacification of our senses through long work days that drive a wedge between your intuitive perceptions and the demanding, centering manipulation of your senses to see the external world as a built structure impenetrable to your vision,being controlled by technology so you will give up hope of a personal expression.

We are becoming dull fearful beings of capitalism. A need to be controlled so we don't have to become other than what they label us as.

We are insulated from our truth we experienced in childhood, the freedom to use your imagination and become whatever you wanted to be. 

As we grew smaller in our own unique thoughts we fell prey to the  structured existence of the external exploitation of our natural tendency to conform. 

The subliminal messages that nurture your ego and activate your sexual desires and you are feeling important in the drudgery of contained possibilities.  

For after all we are animals that think in terms of the herd and following rules that undermine our ability to be unique in the presence of natural beauty and our unique perspective. 

We create our outer authority, an instinctive need we all share to form a herd for protection and acceptance. And the wealthy take advantage of the herded flocks meek voices becoming the masters of the herds powerless individuality. 

We ignore our inner consciousness so we will be accepted. This is a social demand that the wealthy instill in us with threats of failure, job loss and your freedom to be yourself vilified by the media's control of the air waves.  

Our intellect is programmed to find the easy path of self hood. Do what others do and remain quiet in your despair.

We are all made for great adventures and the ability to produce art from these original paths we all seek that reflects our inner being. Reflects our inner world externalized for others to see, discuss, understand and disagree. We need that balance of character that accepts our unique art as being individual and not representative of the mass confusion now instilled in us through technologies lies and its ability to influence our perceptions and actions without our consent.

Great art demands attention! The artist spotlights a subject that he discovers and through the process of discovery understands the absolute need to create the subject in a new light. His discovery of the subject was an intuitive bonding between subject and photographer, an immersion into the details of composition, light, perspective and exposure.

What is art but an inner revelation?  One seeks uniqueness in expression. We all have the ability to look deeper into the eyes of our subject and connect on a deeper level than even we can fully understand.

The money lenders are flocking to the pulpit of social media trying to convince the majority of people that all you need to do is remain still and keep your head down and follow the leader to your poverty stricken physical and impersonal consciousness, cursing your wasted years following leaders that corrupted the system of artful grace in us all and herded the people into roles to play that dictated to them their fruitless lives. The wonder of life squelched by the structured wealth of a poor divine nature.

As people we are being dumbified down with false facts, the media machine is in full gear and we accept the false narrative as we slowly move into repressive state of illusion until all that is left is people doing godless work.

We have become objects to promote a fashion to others, a personality in our own minds with no deep personal revelations only a surface glitter.

Our image making is now image taking.  Our greedy sight takes everything in, in a split second, as the shutter is released and the ego is fed once again on trivia and embarrassing moments of his or someone else's life. 

What is the point, the purpose of these billions, trillions of images being made and then exploited on a social media site with commercial and financial rewards not for the image creator but the money men using technology to get free subjects and exploit those images for personal wealth?

There is no point to the massive amount of images being produced except to define our lives, our history that was once produced for a  family album, for personal use, not to be sent around the world in a mad frenzy to be seen and heard as the populations voices are being stuffed with gluttonous need for exposure, their personal lives being exploited with the wealth's investment. The social media's ability to comb the airwaves finding obsessions, moods, desires, needs, wants, all there for these people's personal lusts to be sold to corporations for ads directed at their vices without the understanding by the ones being manipulated.

We have no center of intuitive consciousness now in this tower of Babel of words and images whereby our minds are dulled into a faster and faster pace of life with no reward present except a false belief that one is making a life for oneself by exploiting others.

These moments now are not personal moments of intimacy and unique internal struggles to express with passion your inner most thoughts. These moments we live now are forgettable without focus, without meaning. 

You are being exploited to give away your imagery to a technology that gives you permission to post on their site without you receiving monetary gains.  We are supposed to feel privileged with the views we get and the accolades of comments of your work but no reimbursement of the time it took you to create the images.  Because now through hardened conditioning everything you do is photographically necessary and easily uploaded to all social media sites for greedy eyes to view and comment on.

Since when do people give their lives away in pictures for free.  Why would you want to express your moments in your own personal life to strangers that no nothing of you or could care less?

Human nature is the answer.  We all have a desire to be seen and heard. We want our lives to be something more than just being present but that is exactly what life has to be, being present in your life and not a picture of your life posted for others to see. We must demand something bigger from us than just playing it safe, keeping a low profile. We must start now to develop our unique perspective and rebel against the static interference of our intuitive force by those puppet masters controlling us with shiny objects of deceitful immediacy.

The remaining days of a life are usually misguided advances of someone else's profit. The construction of the reality we share is only a facade of concrete power. We are not alone in our fears.  Our dreams dispersed over a vast inner stillness. Waiting for the purging of extraneous banter and looking deeper into what your inner world looks like through your unique perspective.

We are not children with meek voices accepting the status quo, we are individuals with our unique take on life and nature, strong enough to express our gifted insights on a totally commercial nightmare of our personal needs being exploited for monied interests by social media and the billionaires who profit from our misguided realizations…

March 2, 2019

Photography Is Awareness

Don McCullin, "So I realized that my photography was finally succeeding.  I could see the reactions, and I began to work even more precisely, searching out the really bad scenes to make people aware of them."

In the past photography was a means of expressing something personal, something unique that the photographer felt compelled to create. And bring forward, from our inner motives, into the present tense to be seen as inspiration and a warning that things are beginning to get overwhelmed with the selfish burden of egos taking images without understanding the significance of the scene hidden under layers of easy compositions and an urge to move on before the revelation overcomes the objective moments and you immerse yourself into the subjective scenes created through your intuitive mind.  

Image creation of the past was a stream of consciousness, a representation of our inner landscape externalized. The great masters of photography would be appalled at the shallow character of image making now. There is no burden of self, no deep relationships with the subject but a surface of details that look pretty but do nothing to express the moment in your own unique visual sense. That gives the viewer a real appreciation of the subject and composition chosen because it reveals something inside the photographer and through his deep relationship with the subject he showed the world a truth in himself and in the external universe.

Photos represent an artifact of our existence, yes we lived and we passed into the dark purpose of infinity. Image creation is our means of showing others our inner make-up. What interests us and what we think is an important subject to explore and express through our own personal vision.

To photograph your inner landscape you must know your internal personality not the facade you show to others in the public domain.

The bottom line is that before the onslaught of image takers there was a since of our world being represented in photos that gave us awareness of our unique time on this planet and images specially created in the photographers courage to witness human aggression toward each other in this world that was belligerently evil.

Now the evil is so prevalent that we are overcome by the physical nature of mankind that we don't exist to explore our surroundings but to destroy nature and humanity at the same time.

The physicalness of these shallow, present moments are used not for inspiration but for self indulgence in pleasures of the flesh and crimes against humanity. 

How many times have we felt as photographers the feeling that we are missing an image.  An image that is right in front of us in the present landscape we chose to explore but you still can't get the elements of the scene to come together and you feel the frustration of the mind demanding that you move on down the road but in the back of your consciousness you have an inkling that there is something present and then your intuition kicks in and you see for the first time the scene that was hidden, instead of listening to your domineering intellect you let go of the movement of time and focused your mind on the present moments that were waiting to be discovered and you opened yourself to the possibilities your inner vision saw waiting to be discovered.

The mysterious intuitive voice in our head is stating a fact of life. We sometimes get sidetracked by the hustle and bustle of life and it’s demeaning nature. Like cattle we commute and we slave in order to survive the intense pressure to buy and multiply our possessions without any plan of letting go and becoming yourself and not the social butterfly of conformity.

I think about the energy I spend creating images. I would plan the trip and focus on places I had never been. Planning didn't include a time limit on where I was making photographs. I would get up for sunrise and then travel to a new location I scouted during the day before, for a sunset.  

Photographers still do this and I feel their commitment to the cause of self-revelation. But if you look at the economics of your photography career you are in a vice of low RF pricing and an overwhelming amount of copycat imagery. 

Our senses are being dulled to the photo shopped images with blazing colors of enhancement and not the true colors of nature's rapture.

We are exposed to the human gluttony of avarice and the demanding nature of the 21st century beings of greed to take something from their moments not because they want to remember and understand what they saw and what they felt in those moments of picture creating but because they want to own it, they want to express their ego in the pictures by showing clips of the scene, surface reflections, as if they really experienced the moment in complete unity with their subject. 

Instead of becoming one with their subject they look for the showing of a product, a way to say look at me everyone, instead of making something visually stunning from their inner discoveries projected outward in natures beauty they produce the cliche, the expensive product shown in the foreground.

To be a good photographer you must first embrace your gifted inner dialog, the external world will wait patiently for your inner revelations to be expressed through a growing visual sensitivity. 

By first grasping your inner vision that you were unaware of you began to explore the possibilities with a concentrated effort, to make contact with your vision externalized and then create a moment in time that you were mentally and physically aware was happening.

If you want to compete with the billions of images flooding the stock market on a daily basis you have to create uniqueness on a personal, individual level. And through the process of creating your own personal imagery you gain confidence not from the viewers looking at your work but because you had the strength and determination to create your unique inner expression outward for the world to see. This takes courage and intense determination to focus and not retreat from your inner personal vision. 

February 19, 2019

Portraits are fleeting moments in time captured for our own physical history. It says nothing about the internal struggles one experiences all through our individual life. In the external make-up we reveal a composition of self that pleases another and not always ourselves. 

In a split second we can create images of evil, murder, war, hypocrisy etc... but these images do not tell us anything under the surface of the photograph. They show us an image recorded but nothing concerning what happened before or after the event. Who are the bad guys, what was their purpose? Who are the good guys and what is their purpose? What is the root cause of the mayhem? 

More likely than not if we see a controversial image we will decide not by the objective history leading up to the event and the aftermath of the image sequence but we will determine our opinion from the conditioning we received from our parents and friends growing up.

There is not an image taken that a whole book couldn't be written concerning the event or a person, child or animal etc...

When we externalize our selves we are trapped in the conformity of necessary lies. These lies create a system of composure and structure that allows us to express convenient dismay when tragedy happens as we retreat back to our shallow motivations, our inherent moving away from conflict, back to everyday rituals of survival, causing our focused attention not on our inner life, self realization but on making ends meet to pay the rent. 

If we would take that focus and turn it inward seeking our true perspective, our true intuitive self hood we would be able to express our thoughts with purpose and change our perceptions of the reality we are forced to participate in.  Our participation is to cater our views, to agree with the forces of structured wealth domineering our visual senses and not our individual perspectives that have greater clarity than the gluttonous power grab for more, always more, these men and women of avarice that are addicted to taking everything without mercy.

We do not stand and praise our own gifts of insights, no, we are forced to control our individuality and enter at an early age, the hustle, bustle and manipulations of this reality we are born in too. Our individuality and the civilized demands that are needed now in this time of growing military control over our domestic lives, we must seek justice for the masses as the wealthy make another major land grab for their private estates with mercenary forces protecting the affluence of their merciless greed. 

But we are herded together like cattle to celebrate mankind for the profits they managed to squeeze out of the forsaken, to weary to care. Our minds are exhausted with work, fear, anger, intolerance, religion and the excesses of the flesh. We are placated with sports, games, alcohol and sex. The Internet is always in our palms waiting for a response, not of inner personality, our true selves, our true beliefs but a facade of ego playing at being important. 

Just another wannabe human of little importance that must exemplify the greed that is emerging in us all with full force and in which we haven't reaped the benefits of their selfish ways yet. But that doesn't mean everyone isn't trying to position themselves for mercenary benefits.

After all we all sink in the same boat, this planet holds us afloat in an infinite universe without any one planet or human being worshiped for their criminality. For to exploit the weak is not criminal but good business and when profits rise so do the expectations of the investors, that high five each other on their quarterly goals being met with the blood and sacrifice of other human beings.

For better or worse we are all in it together, we are all slaves to material gain, our prowess to compete for the riches of physical stimulation without understanding the consequences, allows the greed and physical pleasure trump our responsibility to see that all share in the beauty of this world and have a chance to partake in the developing richness of experience that we all should be demanding and not just those that worship the almighty dollar. 

If we abandoned our inner life we can't become our true nature but must display the attitude of the herded sheep. Just going along for the ride without standing our ground and saying enough, we need to become other, not the same. Individuality is not a rite. Individuality is a focused attention on your inner self. It is coming to grips with your pre-adult rituals, your physical self playing roles as you matured and began to focus your intent on your inner being becoming more than just words spoken by your parents but a physical presence. 

In our youth we began creating our selves. We felt strongly on subjects we deemed important. We struggled with parents and with a structured society that demanded conformity of the many while the few reaped the benefits of the earth's wealth. We saw the path we wanted to become but through frustration and external pressures we succumb to the forces of the intellect and took a path that gained us a position in the structured exploitation of this created reality.

Our politicians seek their own conformity, to stand with the wealthy as this world dies, every faster by the day. Our congressional representatives are child like, fearful of losing their place in the status of societies celebrity obsessions. These performances of importance, to the visual technology controlling our lives, is just another means for the oligarchies to display their greedy power.  They stand in the background, behind the curtain as their actors perform for their meals of cash and popularity.

Closed off separated, eyes tightly closed, the reflection of a bright light creates the instant photograph that keeps one knowing his time and physical space is real, known and unchangeable. A fixture of light play that we exist only through the image determining our future lies. How else would we be able to say I existed but not for images of your former existence. 

Control of structure, visual illusions that give us a feeling of power but we as the consumer are limited in our abilities to find success. We are the eyes and ears they need to create an illusion of freedom but when push comes to shove we are the ones in a cage, albeit decorated with the latest and greatest image fads.  Created from the mind game of power and control.

We can see through our facade to our true inner nature if we have courage to face our divided nature. But this facade hardens as the years pass and the mind accepts his created persona of a superficial lifestyle that he/she must protect at all costs. 

The costs are heavy burdens on the children and the parents forced to migrate to lands of hope, only to find hatred for something they had no control over. As if they were responsible for global warming or wars fought not against hatred of evil but control of the final resources of this precious earth.

We witness life through scripts written in worded stones imprinted in our minds since birth.  We are forced into behavior and thought patterns that instill in us a foundation of control over our fear of change. And fear of our self hood being expressed that is contrary to the rituals of dominance we now submit to because we are afraid of our truth lying in wait to be rooted and to grow into who we were meant to be. Our existence is our gift to others only if we speak our truth through understanding our own internal and physic experiences. Seen through your eyes only, expressed through a lens that captures your inner self in a subject you explored and kept on exploring until you found that moment of light and connection with the truth of your subject and were able to make an image representative of your powerful will, your image created in an external moment becoming your internal revelation.

Our confusion is necessary in order to maintain a corrupted system of greed for the few. We are moving through space on a speck of dust and our liberation is not one of inner knowing but a system of events that supports the intellect and diminishes our intuition. We are stunted for a purpose, through limited knowledge, as a controlling measure to be fitted into place as a cog in a vast wheel of inherent decline of our inner being. Our inability now to see past the lies of the few, so we fall in line and set our goals not to help make changes of equality for all but how to control the moneyed needs of the oligarchs and their stipends for the politicians passing laws that flow upward to these selfish few, never downward to the human beings that struggle everyday, as our world is shrinking and avenues of escape are narrowing and closing with or without a border wall.

We are given delusions of grandeur when we are humbled into obedience from the the strict rule of monied interests.

The reality we are in on this earth is never the same moment to moment. We demand continuity but the continuity is in yourself relating to the exterior world. The exterior world has its own structure and it is expressive only to those that can exploit the people with false gods of technology and progress. For technology now is lawful spying on the population with individuals gladly giving their private information over for exploitation and for a few likes in return.

Change is the continuous revelation of self.  We are in constant flux and constant ignorance to our true powers of perception.  We must still these moments with intuitive force to find our truth in a mirage of another dominating thoughts.

We are trapped in sensory charades not creating our own unique self but imitating the fads of the controlling structured illusions that keep us guessing our future without us actually manifesting it with our intuitive knowledge of self expression.

You ignore your present moments of intuitive perception, your unique vision, because your intellect has a grip on your behavior, conditioning you to stand straight and don't slouch, move forward and don't look to the sides, keep your blinder in place, it is necessary for your success. Without your blinders keeping you moving in a certain controlled direction, the one path they put you on, you might be get yourself sideswiped by an individual idea and our goal might get lost in your new perspective.  

That is the new world view.  Keep up with the program, we have formulated for more profit in a growing economy of the few, respect this economy we made because if we make money you will make money too. Obviously not as much as the gluttonous elite but you can glimpse the wealth they have stolen, that they will never share with you peons of ordinary existence. 

Your mind can create scenarios and memories unique only to you, your personal being, present in this moment, feeling a creative force inside you, a new motif of interacting with your subject, your exterior world, a new perceptive connection that assault's your senses with a force of clarity and originality.

The brain demands order and in the face of anxious fears accumulating with growing lies from the corruption of our democracy through monied interests we precede through the 21st century in growing fear that our true lives have been stripped from us and now only an outer shell of conformity exists seeking refuge in a peaceful take over of our independence. 

The free revelations of independent thoughts accuse words of determining our future and put a strangle hold on freedom of creativity, which is your own personal inner vision externalized.

We are insulated from the world that surrounds us and begs us to see the natural beauty beyond the metal forces of illogical concepts that are destroying this planet for monied interests. Human nature is afraid of it's obscene use of nature for private gain and sees the end coming for this beautiful planet because of wealthy investments in the destruction of the earth and it seems there is no turning back. All greedy hands are on board grabbing whatever they can before the economic collapse of our social, political and financial structures. 

Solitude is a witness to your inner world, a means to experience the infinite duration in us with intuitive visions of your potential subjects to create purposeful imagery. That ability to look at the subject with interest begins your journey in creating images that reveal your inner landscape. You can listen to others or listen to your inner unique voice.

The words, thoughts, images you create are spoken only to you, you must explore them with intuition and forceful determination to block out the voices of jealous conformity.

Is it a good idea to keep creating your unique images for future generations to see what was once a powerful force, a revelation for the senses and what became of this once Eden of nature and human kind?