June 17, 2019

Photographs created with purpose becoming your truth, your visual relation with the outside world, our external playground where one finds a growing distance between himself and the subject, something breaking apart the intuitive vision and demanding one bend a knee to a reality someone else formed but not yours to know with certainty, the props already present at birth and corridors of the mind blocked from entering doors of your future reality.

Changing surfaces, a transition of light within boundaries. A natural flow of your imagination. 

With a true understanding of your personal, revealing vision you begin to understand not the external world but your own relationship with it. 

How does one translate light into an image? Does one seek the mood of the subject before the image is created? Will, willing something to happen begin ones journey of your independent visual journey? 

Who decides the right moment to interrelate with the subject you have chosen? Do you care, is your inner sight focused enough to look deeper into the details that begin to form a possible image, trying to understand or know on a more personal, a deeper level the scene before you?   

We seek the surface reflections that don’t cost us any time, that limits our addiction to self gratification and this brings to your soul a nagging suspicion that you are missing an important truth by pushing forward without a direction, addicted to the pleasures of being someone else rather than our true nature.

We think human beings are above the natural law.  We are superior to all creatures big and small and we control nature to bend to our egos and our lust for extravagant material gains, we think owning things brings us closer to the godlike idols, spoken of in myths and stories of great deeds done for humankind that gave one a feeling of absolute control over the earth and its people. 

We all know this is just a mental illusion of people scared of their environment and in order to relate and adapt to the impossible world present before them, created myths to counteract their terror of death.

We have no control over ourselves or mother nature. We limit our actions by controlling our emotions. We have learned through generation of redundant behavioral patterns which one works best and which ones work even better. To break the behavioral foundation of repetitive, dutiful actions we seek wealth to break free from our caste system. For as you move higher on the ladder of greed you find that your behavior becomes less about control but more about pleasure and gluttony. 

One thing is missing from this egocentric need to be more than anyone else and that is love of self and the ability to seek within yourself your visual connection with the outside world and in this connection you will be able to create your artistic expression. Being a human doesn’t mean avarice, being human is being present in your moments, taking a ride with those moments and express your image creation through your inner perspective, your unique vision that is yours only.

Your inner vision is the path you must follow.  All else is hallow doing someone else’s thoughts. You must be independent and listen to you inner motives before you can compose a scene that is worthy of your intuitive vision.

Changing surfaces, like changing imagery creates a desire to move beyond you're limiting age and societal control. Life is constantly evolving and changing but is it really changing or is that the illusion the wealthy want you to believe. For all the moneyed interests want is a buying public with a new toy to admire and purchase.

Have we really changed that much over the centuries? I don’t think so! We are still dependent on something we perceive outside ourselves something we have been conditioned to believe is higher than us on the evolutionary scale of deceit.  An outer force that demands we worship it. Call it a god or call it capitalism it means the same thing. You pay to go  church and you pay to live in a controlled conformity entangled in dull status quo like herded cattle being corralled waiting for the prepackaged emotions and thoughts being instilled in you making you conforming to the menial job of hiding behind a facade of someone else created. Your inner mind is your visual journey you must travel alone. 

There is no solid representation of our reality to make. It is in constant flux, changing not for our good but for the powers that be. In order to break free of redundant illusions you respect and acknowledge you must become an independent self capable of creating your own perceptions and your inner art externalized through image creation.

In knowing yourself as a separate being from the masses is your first step toward your inner freedom and external control.  Through image creation you express through your visual senses a concept, a word, a presence visually seen through your independent perspective, your inner self reflected in the chosen landscape. You are no longer isolated from your freedom of choice but you are becoming this freedom to choose a subject that is calling to you whereby in the past you ignored the calling, out of fear and conditioning to be obedient servants of the ones in power.  

The mindful representations of your inner perceptions, your inner world anticipates the calling of your truth that is present all around you in nature if you are strong enough to focus your intuitive insight into the external realm of falsity, seeking your own true unique vision.

You uniquely see how controlled you were previously, your vision succumbed to the prevailing redundant stereotypes until you began to express an independent voice and a sharp visual sense of your newly acquired inner freedom to choose your own subjects.  Not only choose your subjects but to relate to them, empathize with them gaining a deeper understanding of the lost years you spent in a narrow vision of this preposterous reality that we call real.

The herd will roam together for their narrow truths, lies ingrained in them from birth but until they break free from the crowded holding pen there is no hope for independence but rather a redundant vision that is sold to them repeatedly, shamefully, in order to control their inner spirit, caged and afraid to break away from the manipulative forces of pervasive ideas that don't free someone but instills in a person fear of change. For change is a natural propensity to evolve and develop new perceptions without the herd, just being yourself with a visionary plan. 

Images of lasting value must be made by your full participation in the act of creating them. This process of visual understanding doesn’t happen overnight but evolves through related visual emotions until you have found yourself being present in your moments and seeing for the first time the external worlds beauty and immaculate grace. And once a visual sense is understood than you will be on an evolutionary trajectory to become your inner voice through image creation.

An example of surface pictures is of course the Family Album. These albums are filled with snap shots that do not dig deeper under the surface of family relationships but only gives the viewer a shallow representation of the families relatives, not allowing them to be themselves but must be posed in order to depict the family in such away that a viewer will come away from the image not knowing anything about the personalities photographed.

This family album syndrome is alive and well in today’s fast paste lifestyles where no one it seems has time to slow time down and focus their visual intentions on the scene but instead looks for a surface facade that gives a minor feeling of what the image creator's intent was.

In order to touch someone visually you must go beneath the fabric of appearances and dive deeper into the undercurrents of the scene that are present, if you have the courage to create your visual study.

To have depth in your image creation you must have that deeper understanding of light and subject, which creates its own relationship as an exterior potentiality and all you need is patience, be visually alive in your moments, understanding that the real momentum is about to happen in your caring connection with the developing scene through your intuitive insight.

Expressing your inner sight through image creation gives one an understanding of the connection between the inner world and the outer world. Each subject has a potential to be a great image revealing your inner being but you must be diligent in finding the correct subject to photograph.  I have always made images of subjects that caught my eye and I have forced myself to look deeper into some subjects that didn't until the image was present in me. 

As always we must be on guard not to shoot randomly, hoping one of the image you took represents the subject in its originality.

  

Even though luck sometimes plays a role in image creation it rarely can take the place of a concentrated visual effort to look deeper into the landscape and through intuitive intensity begin to separate the formal structure of the scene from the main subject you are beginning to discover.

The goal of all great photographs is to find the image present in your reflection, present in the scene, your truth of vision mastered in a personal image revealed.

June 5, 2019

Control

What is the future plan for stock imagery?  What will the future look like for the photographers trying to make a good living creating images for the stock mega companies?

The photographer is a relic of the past. His importance has been wiped clean with the new age of see something, anything and click without a personal vision in the new era of everything needs to be photographed because everything in the modern age has an importance, a newness to the eyes of the young photographers doing their best to copy each other without a unique vision for themselves.

The new photographic vision is contained.  For who wants to think and perceive an image when in this fast paced life we live, who has the time to think, compose and reflect before entering the stage of making an image, a powerful external vision of your thoughts at the moment of exposure.

The run and gun model of image taking and then moving on as quickly as you can without understanding your present moments undermines the connectivity to the elements that are being seen and diminishes your ability to create a unique expression.

Without reaching a connection with the scene exposes the inherent detachment of the new generation of photographers with their external vision on high alert and denying their unique perspective their intuitive vision. 

If you missed the exceptional image tough cookies the next quickly composed image will be worth it. This rushing around with our sight blinded by misconceptions of visual selection imposes on the shooter a time limit on how he will approach the subject and in thinking about how to approach the subject the person gets bored and assumes that nothing is worthy of his presence here in this landscape and waiting is not an option and it is not what a photographer does, for he is a new breed of photographer attacking his subject, creating a scene without content. 

His method of seeing, being anonymous to himself and the scene in front of him climaxes the existential experience of seeing the world as a physical presence only and not a means of your personal expression. 

Surface reflections will do just fine for he doesn't even identify with the subject present and why should he spend time looking for a subject within the subject when he can grasp the entire field with one click of the shutter and then move on to the next straggling moments without understanding his infinite physical world and the means to overcome the external props that distract and ultimately through perseverance find in the reality you live in an image with purpose that expresses something that you find meaningful through your inner senses.

Instead of a connection of just a cold surface taken with narrow eyes unwilling to explore the external world through your inner visual intuition.

Snap shots have the ability to present themselves as authentic when in fact the photographer never even reflected on his subject but instead used a mechanical devise to exploit the burgeoning scene before him by creating a shallow performance of himself dulled by thoughts without focus in the scene that had potential if studied in depth by the photographer instead the photographer decided to take a few images casual anyhow and his only motivation was to hurry up and get them posted on social media. 

We are not living our lives we are running through our lives without grasping the corner stone of living in our unique present moments in the now of life. 

Image creation is a personal expression of your inner intuitive consciousness and when respecting your inner vision you want to be present in the scene, connecting with the changing light and interpreting the scene and it's details to become more than just a picture, it becomes your individual expression of this present moment.

What a gift photography can be to you as a means to express yourself without having to follow anothers vision but your own.

 

If you are at first not feeling a connection with a scene, why stop exploring it, look deeper into yourself, and find what is visually attracting your attention.  Look for new compositions that create a unique perspective, that might have the potential you were seeking to express. Don't leave a scene until you have at least explored its potential and captured some of what made you stop and look in the first place.

Stop ignoring your presence in the world. Stop just living without a purpose, just living as you passerby those unique moments of revelation.

The explosiveness of the snapshot, the ability to take images of anything has undermined and created a vast wasteland of surface perceptions that deceive the populace into thinking they are creating art when in fact they are creating a reflection of their shallow connection of exploitation. For without understanding the external world and its illusive character we are imprisoned into believing that this world is a unique expression of everybody when in fact it is the expression determined by a few to control the populace into believing they are free and are perceiving the world in their truth.  When in  fact they are experiencing an others world and their own inner uniqueness is imprisoned in someone eleses con-game.

There is too much activity for the mind to focus on and that is the intended purpose of social media.  We are being taken from our internal lives and being forced to play in the fast paste deception of a reality controlled by corporate media as a means to pull a bait and switch scam on people by keeping them distracted by an overwhelming amount of details that aren't worth anything but a means of misdirecting people from their truth and the truth of their exploitation by the hands of the accumulated wealth of a few, distracting people from the con game they are pulling each hour of each day.

The image world, a monopoly game controlled by the hands of a few major business, controlling the pricing of our image creation to suit their profit margins for their investors. We are the low man on the totem pole and will never be able to explore our abilities to create great images under the pressure of lessened value and without a means to make a living at what we must do in order to feel complete and that is create images from our inner being and express these images in an openness to willingly share our inner world with others.

The photo industry has lost its integrity and purpose.  The explosive accumulations of image creation has exploded and been detrimental for photographers thinking they can make a good living out of shooting stock photography.

The con-game guarantees that you will see a diminishing return from your unique efforts not just your image creation but also your written words. I remember decades ago when the photo agencies started to dabble in Royalty Free and tried to sell it to their photographers on its potential as a great way to sell their hard earned work. The truth is that RF is cheap and it destroys income for the full time photographers and the winners of this rat race are the buyers and the photo agencies that can automate their buying systems and cut more jobs and leave the photographers with pennies on the dollar!

The photo agencies I worked for in the 80's and into the 1990's had their priorities correct, protect their photographers making sure they were paid fairly for the effort they had to go through in order create a beautiful expression of their inner landscape.

May 15, 2019

In image creation there is a mysterious force brewing as one finds that documenting his/her life and where they have travelled is more important than just experiencing those moments by just being present in the scene. The camera between you and your subject is a great hindrance in creating great images. Your obsession with taking pictures of everything before you, without a since of your latent visual organizing power, creates a haphazard journey of images without a theme, images without character, images taken as random footprints of where you were but never showing what you really saw of importance to your inner self, that can move you and excite you to create an image by using your unique perspective.

What most people seem to believe is that taking photos is being present in their moments, but it really distances them, with a camera in front of their face, creating a barrier to the experience present in that moment, ignored by an addiction to present oneself in snap shots on social media rather than becoming immersed in the scene with your visual unique sensitivity.

One image created with intuitive force and with feeling can express everything you felt deeply and experienced in that one frame, one timeless exposure that you became intimately connected with.  And there was nothing else you needed except your visual awareness of what the scene was revealing to your inner presence.

In creating images you must be present in your unique moments, allowing time to experience and appreciate the scene that is beginning to develop, as you connect on an intuitive level with the physical space before you. If you don't have a concentrated focus to be present in the developing scene why are you there in the first place. 

To allow yourself the confusion of continuous distractions brings your level of creativity to a complete halt. We are so caught up in social media it is becoming a true detriment to a healthy perceptive mind, an individual seeing. If we believe that the external world is set in a rigid normality, a universal perception of conformity, and this is all we have to look forward to in this endless distracting minutia of inconsequential personalities and backyard images of food, then we are doomed to live lives of mediocrity and we will never reach our own unique individual point of view, with our own defiance of the standard composition, of a controlled life, a life whose present and future is determined by someone else, whose future is anger and frustration at what we should have become, our own unique point of view. To become you, you first must know yourself.

We take in each second of the day, an easily digestive series of images and surface words that never give us a deeper understanding of the lives we are forced to become. 

 

Why are we so blatantly opposite of our own personalities. Our own inner core of purpose and observation of these shallow moments that are constantly bombarding our visual senses. 

This redundant, repetitive sleep walking in our physical presence is a learned conditioning we received through our early years and made us afraid to think for ourselves. To have faith in our own unique perceptions.

If we open ourselves, our minds to this world, the only world we will ever know, you can begin to immerse yourself in the nature of being present and aware of the infinite choices you have in creating an image from your inner unique perspective. You must look deeply into the black void of your mindful necessity of adaption and begin to free your genuine universal presence, an independent thought. That can reach deep into the depths of your uniqueness that has been chained to a known formula of obedient actions instilled in you, the fear of choice. 

One must perceive himself in his own unique actions. If he doesn't see and feel his own complexity of information then he is unaware of societies deliberate means to control all behavior.  This fast paste life we live is a construct of known origin. It is the business mind, the hypocrisy of social justice, making you feel that you are behind and you must work faster and harder in order to reap the benefits of your actions. All along your actions are limited and determined by the industrial pollution of this planet for profit. 

The exhaustion we feel at the end of our work day, slaving to make enough to feed our children and maybe just, maybe a little more to celebrate a dinner out.

Think about your choices that lead you to this present moment. Did you seek this path with excitement and vigor, soaking in all the books and all the seminars that you could attend in order to gain a better perspective on the decisions you will have to make. Or did you accept your future, allowing others to dictate to you who you would become. 

 

Were you defeated in your quest for individuality by fearing your responsibility to become more than just words repeated by parents and friends, a surface reflection of your repetitive inability to challenge the status quo, your journey to hide from your uniqueness and follow anothers rules without questioning their validity. Allowing someone elses perspective to become  your truth and you assumed your defeated acceptance of a road you thought was unique, that you would never have taken if you were aware of your unique inner being.

Your insightfulness into your own inner explorations becoming aware through intuitive discoveries of an external facade that is illusive and domineering is the beginning journey you will have to make as you delve deeper into the earthly formations, the facades of untruth, that will guide you to your inner revelations present only to those that can see beyond the structured deceptive limiting manipulations.

When you are creating images you are in complete control of your composition. Your perspective is unique and it is demanding a vision that will express your inner world.  These created images sometimes are very simple to make. There is flow and movement of your mind that enters the scene and and quickly understand the landscape before you and moves you to a point of interest that summarizes the scene in your unique perspective. Other times you come to a scene and you must stop and reflect deeply with your inner intuition to find a path that brings you to a place that first enhances your initial visual thought and unfolds the nature of the scene so you can enter it with a knowing of your unique intuitive voice giving you a revelation of a landscape you could have missed if you were in a state of anxious departure.  

We all want to find the perfect expression of the scene before us. What has drawn us to this place in this moment under these lighting conditions. We could accept our initial perception, shoot the image and then move on to the next best thing or we could stand in the presence of nature’s beauty and relax and breath in the atmosphere of the landscape and bond with the scene on a deeper level.  

By having the patience to wait and not start blitzing the scene with frame after frame hoping for a lucky composition and exposure you will be immersed in your subject, a communion of body and soul and the image expressed from this intimate bonding will be your inner world externalized for all to see.

Freedom of choice is the mantra of an independent self becoming a perceptive visionary of their inner world becoming externalized. Your visual development, your freedom, is to express your inner world with external details, your intellect will want to categorize and label your approach as a structured repetition of other’s thoughts and composition. That is not what a true artist does. A true artist expresses his inner world with his truthful interpretation of his inner life. We may not fully grasp his intent but his unique perceptions are worth the trouble of studying.  His unique vision expressed through image creation is a personal revelation of his uniqueness. 

We can’t express our true selves without looking deeper into the structured environment we are born into. The controlling forces of this world are moneyed interests that do not look for revelations of the spirit but a conformity of the spirit to work and slave for the few that keep a tight lid on their extravagant nature that consumes them. 

Don’t narrow your visual experience to a set of images already known, explore and experiment with your perceptive nature and create a unique vision that only you can express.
When creating personal images we need to research where we are going. What is there to stimulate us into creating our unique vision.  We never want to copy the image brochure that can guide us to reinvent the images shown through your own creative nature.

May 6, 2019

The image present in the environment is not real, your interest in this particular field of sensory data is your inner vision eliminating the contraband of the landscape that are not part of your unique perception.  You are becoming selective in your photographic expression, listening to your intuition, seeing deeper into the external reality realizing this outer realm is not your reality for you see through your own inner sight, realizing you are now able to see in a unique visual sensation, by being present in this moment and not taking images because of a memory or a visual copy of something you saw before. Your unique vision is becoming a revelation in the external world of your inner being.

Your visual sensations are only a reflection, these visions have the making of a unique personality but it is a copy of your internal self projected outward that provides the authenticity of your inner expressions.

And even then your transition from your inner perspective to outer form is still not a representation of self but only details arranged that were perceived and made valuable by the composition of the outer reality that surrounds you. No one can really see your inner world without a visual artist projecting herself/himself beyond the tethers of personal confinement. 

You must fight through the conformity of beings herded together, labeled and accepting of their unrelenting conformity to dull ideas and perceptions that claim them and not vise-versa. Their perceptions are dull mimicking of someone elses vision. They are afraid to step beyond their neatly settled intellect that has them on a short rope of confining thoughts and simple repetitions.

To express your inner self takes courage and the ability to see past the nay sayers and to evolve through your inner core feelings and ideas, to experiment with and try all avenues that will lead you closer to your own individual style.

You must shed your ego and its ability to deceive you into believing your talent is rich with individuality when you haven't yet experienced the full impact of intuitive perceptions.

The intellect likes unity in perceptions not a unique view of the world. The intellect likes redundancy and repetition for it hates to have to think for itself and become something more than just a recording but an actual individual self.

Don't be fooled by your first learning impressions, in youth and later in work, of the structured reality we live in today. 

Fear reins supreme in the greed fest we live in today. The insatiable appetite to control the worlds viewpoint by wealth for the wealthy. Our lives not our own. We are told what to feel and what to become. Not our own uniqueness but instead a pawn in someone elses game of take and control.  Confusion is a hallmark of the intellect's manipulation and it affects ones perception of the world and how you perceive yourself in it.

We lie on the surface of our expressions, limiting us to repeat what has already been deemed worthy and has been copied billions of times each day, each second.  Don't believe in yourself but an outside force of corruption and greed.

You must strengthen your inner being to fight the powerful forces of imitation. Seeking your unique perspective takes a deep seeded need to be yourself and a deep faith that what you are creating in your visual art is unique, it is you uniting your inner world with the outer world. And in that unity you will find balance.

For to be your own person you must claim yourself and your own unique artistic expression.

You must fight off the controlling voices trying to over analyze each work of art as if it was on an operating room table being dissected for no other purpose than for the ego of the critics. Ignore those that want everything to conform to a simple equation of follow the leader.

You must work hard to have a unique vision where others appreciate it or not. You create because you have an inner drive to see yourself externalized and not for the purpose of approval. When you make a photograph with substantial uniqueness then you have found a focus that slows down the flow of time and makes you aware of the myriad of possibilities present but you see with determination, of insight and you begin focusing your attention on the details of the scene that represented your internal intuition, that made a connection with your subject, that allowed you to perceive the important details in the scene that expressed your visual purpose.

We seek our reflections in society, the in-crowd, a popularity contest being scene but not represented.  We imitate what we desire, what we think will become our true existence, our true personality, our truth.

The snap shot becoming art. A moment of reflection in a scene we passed without any thought of becoming deeply connected with the external influence of a mobile reality constantly in flux. We don’t see beyond the created structure that determines our factual existence. 

We adapt our senses to conform to the existing formula's of living in someone elses present moments, forced to anticipate our actions in a ritual of repeating motions, feelings and dull inner values and we call this movement in time our reality in a constant quagmire but we try and tame it, control it and thus become a pawn in a bad play with our words dictated to us without the freedom of a unique thought and an original expression of our truthful presence.

We are fearful of our potential. Afraid of what we will create. Our potential never realized because we accepted our physical presence as a means of success. We lost contact with our intuitive-self that demanded a strong voice from our inner being to overcome the demanding voice of the herds mentality. Living in fear of our uniqueness we stumbled and accepted the unimportance of our individual life so we buried our faith in ourselves for the meaningless dribble of medias hideous distractions. 

April 23, 2019

Gordon Parks, “The camera revealed them as they were, human beings imprisoned inside themselves.”

Images have emotions, it is how you create your images that can instill in the viewer a deeper understanding of the world without trying to manipulate them in to buy products he doesn't need or want.

A great photograph lays bare your inner approach to your subject. There are no formula's to copy if you are trying to express your inner vision through creating a photograph of the truth objectified. 

This need to become cattle herded by corporations to believe in their ways and not your own is a demeaning representation of your inner truth. If you act without an inner voice asking why, what is the purpose of your inner gifts? what is the underlying assertion being made for me and not by me? then you are truly under the thumb of mass media and the trolls that live by the code of misrepresentation. The underlying current of social media is profit. Using your information to exploit your posted thoughts for material gain.

To achieve greatness in living a life free from the evil stereotypes that shackle our mind toward hatred you must let go of the fear the pundits words express, deliberately seeking an attempt to stifle your inner intuitive recognition of the perpetual history of lies told endlessly to distract us from the obvious greed these voices share amongst themselves. They seek to complicate the truth and put truth under many hats to confuse the issues that they don't want reconciled.

Our gift to them is our financial collapse. And the incarceration of our freedoms deemed radical when all we are asking for is to be seen and heard. The wealthy demand silence from the masses and we are to be grateful accepting pennies on the dollar as they abuse the power they stole by taking everything they can before our world collapses in wars and climate aggression.

It is their will that creates the perfect intersection of wealth and poverty.  Here at the intersection, the wealthy pass with smiles and promises of a better a future.  All the time knowing that these people waiting to cross the street will never reach the other side.  For as they begin to cross there will always be an obstruction in their way, this obstruction is called stealing their lives away financially and by taking their truth and submerging it in fear and anxiety to work jobs that will kill them before their time.

Photography is no longer an art form.  It has become a commodity. A photograph is now used as a prop to sell products using the words authentic, real and powerful while the ad places in convenient location products that express a manly or womanly lifestyle.

The image seen becomes an awareness of the photographer's role in its creation. His assignment was dictated to him for a specific ad and his intellect used the words in the rough draft as a golden light to copy as best he could in the field the idea the product represented in a casual, open feeling of liberation. When in truth the image was a culprit in the exploitation of the viewers senses, targeted to directly to him as a response he made on social Media to his friends and family. 

There is no relationship built around dogma and specifics of image creation.  Photography is a freedom to become more than your image creation.  It is a chance to broaden your intuition and your connection to the external world demanding attention, if your eyes and heart are ready to enter your own internal universe.

The photographic image use to reveal the impossible. It was a window into another world of beauty, realness, terror, anger, insight... It revealed a world we didn't know existed and it made us aware of the power of documenting this world with honesty and integrity. 

This documentation whether it was wartime, (how many image do you see today of the wars raging in the middle east), migrant workers, race riots, war protests, pollution, sports, the migration of peoples due to climate change, etc... all this was done by photographers willing to sacrifice themselves to get images to bring light on the subjects people were ignorant of. The camera was the eye into a world it seemed forsaken by god. It was a sacred commitment by the photographer to seek out images that revealed the poverty, racism and despair of the people without a voice. And these men and woman photographers changed our world with their intuitive force of compassion to fight the overwhelming reality of greed that still exists and is exemplified by the beauty of this planet being destroyed by the self indulgent power of the wealthy for profit.

These moments captured for what? Why take an image that you don't feel to the very marrow of your soul? Why look through a viewfinder if all you shoot is a shallow reflection of who you might become?

It seems we treat photography as a copy machine an impersonation of our world that we didn’t create but fear changing our role in it. We feel tied to the complexity of earning a living, doing the opposite of our inner instincts because we are afraid of the forces of greed that has exploded in this new century beyond any sense of honor or caring for the people of this earth.

We now document our lives with images to parade our facade before others. To show others our journey in the self indulgent look at me world of shallow truth and understanding.

Our behavioral vision is one of simplicity of character. Remain in your present state without growing more intimate with your own unique visions of your world. 

Your truth never revealed in your shallow expressions of your own glossy picture perfect existence in a photograph that limits the viewer to a surface reflection of your shallow depth and easily ignored as just another player skating on the surface of intuitive knowing, the deeper existence present but ignored.

Image creation, your vision, should be open and honest, a living presence in your journey through your unique existence and your images expressing a truth that you visualize each time you put your eye to the view finder.

The herd instincts are strong, behavioral forces enticing mankind to conform to the powerful structures that have risen to control ones outer shell and to indoctrinate his intellect into the understanding that the world is controlled by the elite power of money.

Photography today has become a one view perspective on a world that must demand openness. The photographer that begins to build a relationship with the external visual stimulus by looking deeper under the hood by allowing his intuition to direct himself to those moments of pure singularity, a possession of passion that embraces all humanity and nature as one and creates an image expressing his, only his unique perspective without props that undermine the honesty of photography in this media frenzy of material domination.

By changing ourselves we could begin to control the external appearance of this realities solidity and mold it into a form of beauty through our image creations that could empower others to shed their facades of physical prisons and begin to explore their unique insights into their personal inner world.

Listen to your inner voice, your destination is further away than you think and closer too when you find your path of commitment to your photographic vision.  

We all struggled earlier in our careers as we began to explore our own inner voice allowing us time to become our visionary future through the creation of photographic moments that caught the subject and we hoped its essence.  But a photograph is not the essence of the subject but the external representation of a piece of our very essence.

We can’t hide from what we take pictures of. We intellectually know what we like and what we don’t like (in our structured existence). Partly from our parents and partly from our friends as we grew up. We have been led to our likes not by our own discoveries but by an external force of needing to be accepted as a part of a larger whole. We are basically animal instincts and as such we want to be part of something. We want to be herded and liked for our conformity, to the norm, the structure of our external reality never changing. This reality is not a stone tablet but in constant flux and malleability if one looks deep into his own unique inner form. We assume sameness but that is because of fear and loss of our position in the community whether good or bad.

But our herd instincts are strong and we want to follow leaders instead of being one.  

We must begin to tear down the walls we have assimilated, barriers to our inner intuition, as we grew up and begin to see the world through our own unique eyesight.

Images have become ubiquitous, they have lost meaning. We are over saturated with similarities of image taking because the majority of people look for sameness of patterns in their lives. We seek a need to be accepted. To be plain and ordinary without faults just a person living day by day. What ever happened to individuality and desire to be your own being present in your unique moments?

We have been given a toy, a toy that distracts us by conditioning us to participate in ads aimed at soliciting viewers to buy products from companies that know more about you than you know yourself.

Tyranny oppression, cruelty, reign of terror, despot, welcome to the 21st Century of organized global criminality. 

The value of photography is becoming lessened by the proliferation of snap shots and an underlying sense that photographs are nothing more than digital files without any deeper necessity than promoting oneself on social media. Images used to be a means to communicate a message of importance.

We must fight the urge to move on, ignoring our existential physical nature. As herded animals we like to roam and see new things. We are part of something bigger and this something bigger controls our lives. But when does this need to belong infiltrate your consciousness and your intellect measures your worth and assumes that where you belong is not of your making but of earning a wage to become a boredom of false facades. A character acting in someone elses plot and your inner intuition melts into pools of sorrow and regret.

Open you mind to your unique vision. Look deeper into nature and your subjects that draw you to them. Explore beyond your inner fears, reach out into the world and see with open eyes those images demanding to be made. That is, if you can open your mind to new possibilities and see these subjects without conditioned stereotypes interfering with your inner perceptions.

April 6, 2019

The creative process is becoming obsolete.  Artists love to get their fingers dirty examining the soil of life on this tiny speck in a vast universe of emptiness. Artists love to be hands on and explore their inner potential by experimenting with different intuitive concepts to find that inner revelation that expresses their personal being in its fullest. Why create art if it isn't an external representation of your inner world? 

To interact with the the external world is the only solution to an artists individuality, his/her loneliness of isolation creating a personal, inner vision that when expressed in its inner origin gives this compromised world a view of a unique personality.

We must realize that the structure of this world, this outer reality is a prison of conformity. A copycat existence where human beings like to repeat what they heard as if they themselves speaking it makes it original. We are a herd roaming through our existence without a deeper understanding of ourselves and our ability to change our perceptions of our existence. 

We are the cattle the wealthy instill with fear and loss so we will just go along with the extortion of hopes and our lives being lessened on a daily basis from the external pressures of money and fear.

We are blinded by monied interests to abandoned our true selves, our true visions in order to fit in a slot of performance necessary in order to make a living without living our true nature.

We live in a technology of oppression! A separation of society with the haves and have nots! We are being pulled away from an interaction with mother earth that is beginning to make humanity callous and amoral. As computers begin to dominate out lives, taking from us our individuality, we become autonomous. We become controlled by technology rather than technology being controlled by us.  We are the pawns to be played in a chess game rigged in the wealth's favor.

Every aspect of our lives is becoming known to outside forces of monied interests. Ads are being created especially for you even though you didn't realize that your movements on your computer have been followed by the major corporation for years. This accumulation of likes and dislikes are now being processed for direct ads to your mind/ego.  Even though you haven't yet realized in present time you needed that product.  Manipulation of your physical presence your intellect is the next frontier of human exploitation.

The herd instinct is a powerful force of compliance and security. This security however is an illusion like any other manipulation of your senses especially your ego.  We live in today's hypocrisy to be liked on a screen as if this has any thing to do with living in your life.  Human herds are being exploited without understanding the controlling forces of technologies power and pervasive influence.  

We are being manipulated in a battle of intellect over intuition. Our intellect loves redundancy and doesn't like new perceptions of individuality to surface in an otherwise controlled mind and physical presence. The physicality of the world is dominant by industries greed and power to manipulate perceptions that seem to placate the masses and ignore the few that see the avarice and greed behind the words of persuasion. The words that have been used for centuries, controlling the minds of the many with emotions of togetherness, of belief in the greatness of this America, of this exploited population herded into the corrals of words that ultimately are meaningless. This belief that America is our land, is your land is a lie. This land belongs to industry and technology and if you open your inner intuitive mind you will see the destruction of this planet is only the symptom of a deeper aggression, a protection of a way of life not for the people but for the few that rule this world with their ability to use propaganda as a means to separate us from becoming united against their perverse destruction of people and nature. 

Projection of their own inner fears. We seek compliance with the herd instincts to become part of and not separate from the masses.  But of course this limits your ability to become your inner essence and express your unique vision of the external world that is being corrupted by the psychopaths that control this world through intimidation and blatant corruption.

When we explore our world free from the webs of influence in the external world we begin to find connections that were present but not seen.  We begin to see through our own eyes the multiplicity in life and it's influence on us when we are present in our moments.  When we begin to explore our world through our inner intuition, we see the fallacy of the controlling forces trying to make our voices meek in their wealthy presence. But once you begin to see the world through your own eyes and not someone elses influences then you begin to create your inner vision. 

With technology creating more and more barriers to experience external life we begin to conform to the status quo.  And we succumb to the popularity of hand held devices that don't allow us a vision of our future.  We have become slaves to the technology and its powerful internal and external demands. 

 

When we go out of ourselves to explore nature and humanity we enter into the world seeking an image that represents our feelings in the moment.  Sometimes these feelings are oppressive because we had too much involvement with the outer chaos that is created by the powers that be to subdue our inner revelations and force is to huddle down afraid to seek our intuitive vision. But we must be strong and fight through these moments of despair and seek our inner world externalized in powerful images generated through our unique perspective. 

 

When we sit in front of a screen hour by hour what has our lives become. Our life is no longer unique but repetitive and focused not on our inner vision but someone else's controlling nature.  

Technology never stops it explodes with new means of distractions and controlling influences. We see it now in the ability of technology to generate life like people without the need for a photographer through computer generated images.  We can sit in front of a screen and create our images without ever going outside and interacting with nature or with other human beings that are alive and trying to be present in their unique moments.  What is life becoming if we never take a walk outside ourselves and into our unique universe and express this inner vision through our external efforts to become more real.

April 4, 2019

Part 2

The State of Stock 

From an Article I wrote on Stock Photography back in 2006

Royalty Free

I feel the big three agencies,  Getty, Corbis and JupiterMedia are trying to paint a more rosy picture of the industry and especially their cash cow RF than there actually is.  

They claim micro-sites and subscription pricing models won't have a big impact on the Stock Photo Industry and then turn around and embrace these new models, expand these new models, advertise them and market them over RF and RM and say with a straight face they will not effect the very RF and RM licensing models there undermining.  Cigarettes don't cause cancer people smoking them do.  They must see the traditional RF market peaking in terms of pricing and volume.  Why is that?  

We know that our income from RM peaked a few years ago and is on the decline.  We can expect more of same as these new price points dominate the stock industry.  I am not saying we can't have some good sales even some great sales but these kind of sales will happen less and less.  The question you have to ask yourself is should you continue to submit and I say YES!  You have to in order to keep up with dwindling returns on your images.  Without new blood in the system you are guaranteeing your failure.  

If you go to most big agency portals and do a generic keyword search more often than not RF images come up heavy on the first pages.  At some sites there home-page is a walking Billboard for Clip, you can see discounts offered on their clip products even gifts given if they sign up for one of their subscription services.  Check out Index Stock Imagery and WireImage for just a couple examples of what I am talking about.   

Everybody is using clip, it is mainstream.  The proliferation of images from studio production companies is undermining the perceived value of photography.  With so much content to wade through what image buyer has the time to really examine an image and fit it to their ad campaign, the motto now is "just good enough".  

The speakers talked about opportunities for themselves in this changing market place especially when it came to wholly owned images.  This offers them multiple ways to market images at different price points without having to give royalties to an assortment of individual photographers and other content suppliers.  They can then use these images in a subscription service ( with monthly download fees), individual RF sales online and RM sales in Stone+ or any other business scheme they feel can make them money.  I also look at the wholly owned image issue as a bargaining chip when these agencies sell out to a Multi-Media company.  With wholly owned images the new company doesn't skip a beat in marketing these images in their own products.

Wholly owned imagery is probably the worse news for the independent stock photographer because it means his images are competing with heavily art directed concepts that target the very clients his spec images are trying to sell to.  Royalties are an albatross around Jonathan Klein's neck and he wants to get rid of it now as he begins the last restructuring of Getty before he sells it.    

Many photographers see 'work for hire' or simply an employee of a distribution portal or studio production company as a more secure future rather than shooting on spec and hoping your images sell.

The image distributors don't want to wait for images.  Speed is profit.  They want more now to take advantage of this insatiable appetite for image content.  So they tap other smaller agencies, studios and now the amateur market that are looking to sell their content on a world wide distribution platform.  

I feel this is one source of my stress, is how can I keep up and shoot enough good imagery to increase income given that millions of imagery are uploaded daily onto the web.  Is there another way my images can reach the client?

These distribution portals are under the illusion that volume sales will make up for lower 'return per image'.  If you base your licensing model on low price and volume sales only and don't control the production of your product then all you have is a glut of new imagery being created for that market place by you and your competitors and pricing once again becomes the only way to gain market share and that is gained by lowering prices even further.  It’s a no win situation and the RM photographers are feeling the heat.  Also,  in any market place once you begin slashing prices there will always be some new venture capitalist who can lower prices even further by introducing another business model that further reduces pricing.  

Rights Ready and Riser

I don't think these new pricing schemes will increase my income much even though I will participate in them.  Bahar Gidwani former owner of Index Stock Imagery (he is selling Index to PhotoLibrary) says that he is not afraid of Getty's simplified licensing models because they still have the flavor of RM.  Clients demand simple straight forward online transactions.  My belief is this will further erode our income by once again competing on price alone to gain market share.  A bad deal for the individual photographer.  

Will clients look to PC (Photographers Choice) Rights Ready and PC RM as viable brands with quality imagery?  As more and more photographers get discouraged because of the lower income return from PC and move on to other distributors, the PC collection could lose its depth and quality of imagery and make it ineffectual to compete with the growing number of brands on the Getty site.  

Notice once again the treatment of the independent stock photographer.  The only way for us to get images posted on the Getty site is to pay.  Notice no open invitation to submit to Riser.

And what about this new brand called "Open".  Once again the marginalized independent photographer will be left out in the freezing cold and only the big shooters and major suppliers will be invited to participate.  I can feel a breach in the levee now and like New Orleans we are sinking.

CAN THE INDEPENDENT PHOTOGRAPHER SURVIVE

We are fighting against ominous trends in the Stock Industry and all of these trends are put in place to benefit the distributors and not the independent stock shooter.

" The image has to standout from the common place subjects that we see on a daily basis.  Mediocre images have little power anymore".  BS,  all I see are mediocre images parading around as insightful, cutting edge propaganda stroking some creative researchers ego but what real value do these images posses.  In my experience more often than not a great image is what fits the clients picture needs and usually this is a straight-forward and clean concept or subject that is composed, lit, and presented with good color saturation and photographed in a unique way.  Another words the traditional stock shot.  Who defines a great image the client if it fits his photo needs, society if the image transcends the ordinary and touches some internal chime in us all, the consumer if its trendy and hits them on a pop chart level.  We all shoot great imagery but if we are segmented out, marginalized into a lower priority brand (PC) who is going to see our stuff.  

I do think we need to push ourselves to shoot more intuitively instead of a straight capture of our subjects.  Evolve out shooting style, experiment with lighting, see deeper into the subject looking for that gesture that hits the universal.  Also, shooting for the web the images need to be well lit and have a clean concept presentation.  No extra clutter.  Clients are searching at the speed of clicks for that one in a million shot (literally).   

I have a recurring image in my mind of a sinking sail boat.  The boat has been hit with many torpedos.  The torpedos have names attached to them, clip, subscription services, micro-sites, copyright violations, wholly owned images, technology, overhead, work for hire, studio production companies, amateur market etc... and the photographers have climbed the mast and are clustered on the look out platform holding on for their lives and all are saying ," look I think I see a safe harbor ahead all will be OK".  

Declining budgets are driving image buyers to cheaper sources of imagery.  Just like WalMart corporations are squeezing their vendors to reduce costs and crank up the volume of image production if they want to see an increase in their income. On another level the internet allows companies to by-pass the middle man (ad agencies, art buyers) all together.  This in turn lowers the budget at the ad agency which in turn forces them to lower the image costs to stay within budget in order for them to compete when a corporation comes a calling.  

Check out the new trend at some companies web sites.  They are using customer images to sell their product. Consumer/crowd sourcing at its best, www.becu.org.  Some resorts are now crowd-sourcing imagery from customers that have visited their resort and are posting these images/videos as ads on their website.  This trend will continue and expand,  further eroding our chances of making sales. 

We have all heard this before but now it has become a standard reality.  The internet needs content and small image files are just fine.  I have a question that I think poses the main question facing Getty and the individual stock photographer.  How much would you charge for an image to be used as a 5 second ad on a ipod?  Folks that is where we are heading.  This insatiable appetite for cheap images is where the image market is going.  And that is why subscription clip and wholly owned images are the future for the distributors.

Jeffrey Burke talked about the long awaited media convergency that has finally arrived with accessible broadband.  Rich media delivered to the desk top.  " The new big wave that will hit the Stock Photo Industry will be to incorporate in the ad, pictures, text, spoken word, music, motion graphics and more all woven together into a seamless presentation.  He thinks that video/graphics is the next big opportunity for the distributors.  I agree, check out www.mediastorm.org.  This is more editorial/journalism but you can see the commercial potential.  

As the years progress consumers will demand this rich visual experience and where will that leave the still image?  

Jeffrey also talked about a concept introduced by Joseph Schumpeter an Austrian economist called "creative destruction".  "His theory of, gales of creative destruction, refers to the concept of industrial transformation that accompanies radical innovation.  For us this means that new technology or business practices become prevalent and create new market opportunities many older established business or whole industries might suffer serious decline or extinction".  Can you say the Independent Stock Photographer.  

The industry keeps touting how picture needs are increasing but I feel the more important question for us photographers is how are they getting those picture needs met.  The independent photographer cannot be only committed to the same old way of doing business.  We need to try and reach those customers, we used to make a living off, by having our images at many different price levels and yes as much as I hate to admit it at sometime in the near future, the micro-site level as well.    

Can we offer new related service that can re-connect with a distinct market segment we once sold imagery too?  Maybe we can offer along with our images a website that also offers consulting services, articles on shooting, lecture series on topics that hit your target image buyer business needs.  Nothing new hear but action is needed.  We see these kinds of websites happening all over the web now.  Can we bring something new to the table and attract a client base?

Can we change the way we shoot, not radically but enough to give image buyers a fresh perspective on an old theme?

We know its a buyers market.  We know photographers keep creating imagery even though this very creation is the cause of sinking prices.  We know distributors benefit more because it costs them nothing to have these lemmings produce more and more content.  We know it will get worse as China/India and others start ramping up their image content .  We know clients are looking for cheap/free images or they will just steal them off the web.  We also know we have no other choice but to keep moving forward and create imagery we believe will sell and look for the best portals to distribute our imagery.  

Gary Shenk from Corbis thinks that by doing these 4 things the professional can offer the client value that will seal the deal and make the sale.

1) Great Imagery

2) Strong Rights Management

3) Metadata and Search (good keywords)

4) Global Marketing and Distribution

I would add a fifth one,  Consistent high-res 50mb files cropped, cleaned up and ready for download.

What about these that could also separate out your talent from the growing mob.

1) Consistency in producing great images not a one image wonder

2) Knowledge of commercial standards ( model releases, invoices, copyright etc...)

3) Solutions to clients problems

4) Experience

5) Service

I have ranted long enough and I think sometimes the best thing is not to over think things but just act and move on.  I will be shooting and editing more images getting these images out there,  looking for new opportunities that can level the playing field and bring back the Independent Stock Photographer as a viable piece of the stock photo industry puzzle.  

Your friend in an archeological dig finding the bones of an early 21 century creature called dinophotograsoris,

Jim