October 23, 2021


Burt Uzzle wrote, "Work gains in depth and importance as more and more aspects of life experiences and eloquence are apparent. Slavish, ill-proportioned devotion to limited offerings and compensating distortions suggest limited capacities and formula work. Growth and depth are required on life's zig-zag course as we take visceral risks and extend ourselves within the medium.  We reach out."

Each of us has an individual talent no one else has.  When we acknowledge it and develop this talent we begin the journey of our inner discovery.  When we are present in the moment and accomplishing through purposeful effort our skill we enter a unique state of mind. 

We have all at one time or another tapped into our unique genius and found that time was not an external force imposed upon us but rather we were separate, outside time's limits and our moments of doing what we enjoyed expressing seemed infinite. Time wasn't necessary for us to organize our lives. We didn't have the constant pressure to reflect on our actions to see if we were measuring up to external standards.

Time does not have to be linear, trapping us with narrow expectations, limiting our ability to open up and express our stories.  When we are present in the moment, we then find outside ourselves, subjects worth our attention. 

We must have the courage to see differently.  Accept feelings more than words.  Words confine us to sterile boxes of mundane repetition.  Learn to see around corners not in a straight line.  Don't be directed by the word police telling you what to feel and how to feel.

Become inquisitive, we know very little about the undercurrents in our lives dictating our thoughts and reactions to events and lessening our ability to follow our own vision of how we want to see and create photographs in this world.

 

October 18, 2021

Everything It Seems Is A Photo Op

Everything has the potential to become a great image but is it an image with depth, reflecting your inner vision or is it just an image the photographer was playing around with and liked what he felt was a good image, not necessarily a great, unique one, but worthy of publication.

In Sontag Book, Weston described his own work, "showing to them what their own unseeing eyes had missed."

Weston calls photography, "A way to self-development, a means to discover and identify oneself with all manifestations of basic forms-with nature, the source."

Sontag responds to Weston's claim, "contrary to what Weston asserts, the habit of photographic seeing-of looking at reality as an array of potential photographs-creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature."Sontag, "beauty requires the imprint of a human decision: that this would make a good photograph and that the good picture would make some comment. It proved more important to reveal the elegant form of a toilet bowl, the subject of a series of pictures Weston did in Mexico in 1925, than the poetic magnitude of a snowflake or a coal fossil."

All photographers at one time or another made an image that was humorous without depth of expressing an inner vision but an image that the photographer wanted the viewer to enjoy.

The image present is not real, it is a reflection captured digitally, it has the making of personality but it is just a copy of an outer expression of a subject and not a purposed inner revelation of a unique idea with substance, but just your inner self trying out subjects that haven’t been photographed before?

We seek our reflections to be noticed in society, the in crowd, a popularity contest for the wealthy to like your work.

We imitate what we desire, what we think will become our true unique perspective. A calling card recognizable because of your unique photographic expressions.

What we see and what we feel are two roads that one must reckon with!

Most good photographers hunt for a subject that expresses a deep unique feeling, possibly a memory from childhood, and have the instinct to see and anticipate the sun’s light that would illuminate your composition and bring out details at first invisible as you press the shutter.

In today's anything goes, the snap shot has become art. A moment taken of the place we passed without any thought of digging deeper into the mental vision demanding you stop and look, your process of creating your inner world externalized has nothing to do with uniqueness but a run and gun approach of snapping shots of subjects without a visual plan. 

The graffiti artist becoming a Picasso, the blending of art with reality, confusing the senses.

A popular website becoming a hit and advertisers wanting to use your images as a means to sell products and you ok it without realizing your being used.

Your growing ability to look for details in the landscape that will enhance your choice of composition that highlights the subject from a new angle giving the viewer an original insight into the scene you created.

By isolating certain elements in the scene you were able to compose a unique representation of your inner vision for others to enjoy.

Why create an image if it is not your own personal representation. Your own interpretation of the scene discovered. You must have time and the physical will to concentrate on your subject, slowly accumulating details that will be part of the final photograph. In this way you will not be copying anyone else’s attempts to transcend what has already been accomplished but vying for that composition that truly expresses your inner mood at the time the shutter was released.

Having an independent vision of the scene before you, a concept you have been waiting to try, looking for what is important in your frame that will begin your journey to discovery, that will lead you to your original concept that challenges your intuitive inner sight and will give the viewer an image they have never seen before.

A unique quality of light, an inner revelation that gives the scene its originality for why create an image others have done. You might as well snap a couple of images without a purpose, you need more than a lazy mind to make great photographs.

But with depth, and a new perspective your subject can intrigue the audience viewing your inner visual uniqueness to actually pause and look deeper at what you have created.

We don’t see beyond the created structure that determines our factual existence. We adapt our senses to conform to the existing formulas of living in the present moments with our growing doubts and painful realizations that we have been duped to think in a certain confined way as herded donkeys caring the weight for the wealthy landlords.

There is an overload of images being taken, a helter-skelter approach to taking picture. This tsunami of pictures is overwhelming the senses. In the past image creation had a purpose and your home images were just that your memories of your family. Now everything it seems is a photo op and your family is just a means to exploit your children and relatives on social media.

People just give their personal lives away without thinking of the ramifications of targeted advertisers using your images to promote and sell you products you don’t need.

 

 

September 12, 2021

Photography Is Easy Money In The Shareholders

Photography used to be creating personal work, now you are herded cattle being told what to shoot.

Creativity is reduced to redundancy of vision doing the same subject over and over again.

Originality is not in the stock agencies vocabulary in today’s run and gun mentality of snap shots.

Photography once was a career now it is a free for all, everybody is a photographer and the cameras basically does all the work.

Point and Shoot and hope you get a picture so/so but accepted by the agency and see the pennies role in!

Who would have thought that photographers would revert back to the era of snap shots. Weren’t those images put into their family albums as momentous of their lives. 

Now our lives are exposed through billions of people snapping pics of their family and posting them on web sites that exploit the suppliers of their personal lives.

Do we even live a private life now when we are lost in a reality based on taking pictures of an external object whether it is of a portrait, a landscape, city lights, objects, night shots, violence, riots, wars, deadly hurricanes, temperatures rising, pollution destroying lives and we insist that these subjects are necessary to guide the people not into an awakening of ones duty to protect this planet for future generations but force human beings into a maze of self doubt and fear for ones life.

Photography as it stands now is not an art form. Photography is a consumer product just like anything else you would buy at a store.

What once was a great way to earn a living now is a living hell just to survive.  Photography in the past could make you a great living wage doing the thing you love most creating images of substance and beauty and getting paid a nice size paycheck.

To buy an image for an ad, editorial usage or personal use now it is much cheaper to go to a stock photo agency. There you can pay pennies on the dollars to get a professional image while the creator of that image gets 20% of the pennies for an image that cost the photographer days of hiking, days of being persistent in finding that one composition that can enlighten the viewer, creating images in violent protests, paying for his own travels only to see his images being given away for almost nothing. 

Welcome to the new stock photography life in the twenty-first century where the photographers give their images away just so their egos will feel better over their lost income.

Money has always been an addictive, self satisfying for the elitist’s that control the flow of cash away from the photographer that made the image and into the investors big pockets, all in the name of good business tactics.

I would say that is a crock of shit and the ones that make images need to be paid for the profits they allow go to the photo agency and we should get back to a 50/50 split and not these bank robbing thugs taking almost all the profits away from the image contributor.

What keeps one coming back for more losses of profit while the 4 big agencies take and take from the naive photographers making great images but getting a poor share of their efforts to make a great photograph, when the agency didn’t do anything more than take a bigger slice of your hard earned payment.

These companies have one thing in common they are in the photo business for profits and more profits and couldn't care less if the photographers that do most of the grunt work making their classic imagery and can’t earn a decent living wage.

Yes, these mega giants of the stock photo industry do pay photographers for imagery but these photographers are a professional breed that know what to create and how to curate it for profits.

These photographers are portrait photographers, food photographers, travel photographers, war photographers, nature photographers, animal photographers and they have one thing in common they are known to produce sellable images that make money for the photographer and the photo agency.

In the old days, 1980s to 2010s I was one of those photographers that made a good living making images for my agencies. I had 13 agencies selling my images and then changes began to flourish!

Getty began buying up other photo agencies, consolidating their power base and branching out into sports, hollywood movie stars, editorial photos, videos, music and of course stock images.

There is a transition happening in stock photography and that is a lessoning of ones insight in creating a personal image with meaning and purpose and now following the stock agencies needs. So in a sense we are not creating our own internal vision of the subject present in front of us but are pawns moving around a chess board taking images for someone else needs and purposes.

We seem to enjoy being herded cattle feeding on dry ideas and just being closed minded of your talent to make photographs that are original.

What we have now is a leveling off of images with depth and emotion and have replaced them with the ordinary, redundant clichés, copycat images of smiling faces and beautiful homes where the rich live and play while the rest of us suffer!

On a side note I have been with Photo Researchers in New York for decades and they are great people to work with. They still believe in a 50/50 split but they too had to adapt and move a lot of their imagery into a niche where science related photographs are in demand.

I am also with Alamy a good photo agency to submit to but as time passes they had to lower our slice of the pie and it seems are moving toward an all Royalty Free Agency just like Getty did to compete with Shutterstock.

What we have here is a melting away of ones purpose. Photography is now taken over by corporation beholding to their share holders. We are pawns to be manipulated by a force of wealth that doesn’t have our best interests in heart but their own bank accounts.

In the old days, in the days when the agency was our friend and we new the owners and had meetings with them and our fellow photographers, making new friends and feeling that we were being in the forefront of something special in stock photography.

And we made a good living traveling and making images from our unique perspective by experiencing the beauty of mother earth.

Now stock photography is not about image creation, respecting the photographers that went to the ends of this earth to create in their own personal style iconic images of life on this planet, but selling imagery  cheaply in mass quantities without respecting the efforts of the photographer by giving away his unique style for almost nothing.

Photography is not art but a commodity. And these millionaire owners will sell our hard fought battle to get the best image possible for their files by undermining our ability to make a decent wage and have a decent family life.

It is a photographer’s purpose to show the world what our reality is made of, both the beauty of our lives and its ugly, murderous side, profits off war, pollution, greed, poverty, racism, hate, as these rich cons ultimately will destroy the true purpose of photography and that is to give the viewer a since of our reality created by visionaries world wide trying to document the powerful forces of greedy billionaires destroying our economy for profit by exploiting young photographers to shoot and submit and get ready for that big pay check, income you can’t make a living with.

It is now a commodity like celery on sale in a super market. But if you think about it the celery would probably make more money than your images.

We hike, we fly, we wait for the good light and then we create the image. We send our hard work to the stock agency and we wait patiently for the sales to come in. But they don’t, they can’t! There is just too much excessive imagery being circulated to make even a modest living in this collapsing photo market because of copy cat imagery and the brutal low pricing of our hard earned efforts to create an image worth more than just pennies on the dollar.

Soon photographers will realize that their unique ability to be present in the photograph both mentally, physically and creatively is now in our past life as image creators, for snap shots, out of focus subjects, lighting issues is trying to become the future of  photography.

But it is more than just the impatient photographers running around out in the world taking images of redundancy, with new technology increasing the ability to take images without worrying about composition, light, exposure and a personal perspective, we find that the saturation of imagery being uploaded onto photo agency sites undermines the artistic nature of photography and its deep expression of the human condition.

What do the photo agencies want, what subjects do they ask for more often? They don’t ask for that unique image that shows the good and bad side of our environment under attack but they demand happy, smiling faces, a love nest of actors being paid to sell the all american products you don’t need, corporate products that become distractions from the underlying bait and switch, to take your minds away from pollution, climate catastrophes happening right now, keeping people buying, buying as the world begins a nose dive into climate meltdown!

Photography is your eye on the world. Photography’s importance has been lessened by the amount of imagery being produced with a major percentage of these snap shots, copies of someone else’s vision.

Good photographs have emotion and a deep bond with the subject before them. A photographers perception is enhanced when they can immerse themselves in the scene, letting go of stereotypes, preexisting notions of what a good photograph should look like and just be present in the moments leading up to your composition that gives you solace in your ability to have patience in those moments that bring your subject to fruition. 

In today's world of photographic overload, where everyone now is a photographer, and communication is not personal, one on one, but a means to say look at me on social media, giving your images away for free allowing anyone to repost your work undermining photographers that are trying to make a decent living making images with meaning and visual necessity.

As this planet erupts in violence, enormous storms and heat waves beyond comprehension the oligarchs shy away from the truth of their pollution and want to show only a facade of the good life that is now deteriorating!

Photography was a means to earn a living wage by selling your unique style through the photo agencies that were your friends, your mentors and for a few years everything was going well for the photographers and the photo agencies and then wealthy business men arrived on the scene to destroy the trust between photographer and editor, photo agencies began to go on sale and the corporations of greed bought these agencies and welded them into a price scheme that benefited the agency and investors and not the photographers.

Breaking apart the very fabric of the copyright laws that were made to protect artists from losing control over their hard earned work.

  

 

August 20, 2021

Cheap Images

Lets face it photography as we know it is done. It isn’t the competition that did me in for I enjoyed the challenge of bringing something back to my photo agency they could sell, it is the billions of images made each day and the photo agencies selling those images dirt cheap.

As with all supermarket products volume sales is the key to success and now that is the new wave of mega photo agencies that will screw the photographers out of their hard earned efforts in creating a great image by selling the image for pennies on the dollar to anyone and everyone.

Who gets rich, well of course the people working for the photo agency see a glimmer of profit by working for these multi-million-heirs that own a share of the profits off the backs of the image creator.

This beautiful mother earth, the bright skies, the cumulus clouds dancing around in a blue sky but now we have image overload, too much of one subject after another where is the innovation, the unique viewpoint that can give the viewer a sense of the photographers motive for stopping and setting up his tripod and camera to wait for the potential light to burst through and illuminate the landscape before him.

Images are so cheap because of digital cameras mostly taking the pictures for you, there is no depth to image making now for in the past creating images was first, studying your subject and then plan the visual details that will enhance the possibilities of you creating a landscape you will be proud to photograph.

But in todays modern frivolous desires to take images not for the beauty before the photographer but for the fast paste run and gun approach, for time is precious nowadays demanding people don’t stahl around and study your subject but breeze by like a dancing fly snapping pics without depth and certainly not a reflection of your inner unique perspective.

And because of this, taking pictures are as easy as talking on a phone. Oh yeah, that is where must snap shots are taken anyway from your phone and then from your automatic hand held camera.

Photography used to be a job that allowed you to slow down your life and focus on your inner ideas that could be expressed if you would just study the landscape you are hiking through without feeling you should be somewhere else. The here and now is where all good photographers should be. Life is distracting enough with the covid pandemic but as image creators we must still be present in our own unique reality seeking subjects that inspire us and make us push on to find the composition that will enhance our visual senses and the viewers of our hard earned work.

There is an over saturation of images and because of this the prices are dropping to compete with other mega agencies while the photographers get shafted for their hard earned efforts.

And now with the advent of stock agencies giving their images away for free, how is a photographer going to survive in this constant lowering of prices and the ease of surface gleam photos without character supplying every continent on this polluted world with cheap pics.

To make a living in photography nowadays is almost impossible, what once was a competitive market place with dozens of good photo agencies competing to sell their stable of photographers great imagery, has been reduced to four giants of low cost image volume sales. These corporate agencies pay their photographers almost nothing, how does anyone make a living when your images are sold on the cheap.

The new wave of photographers get their egos stroked just by the agency selling his/her image at bulk pricing along with thousands of other photographer's work.

In todays climate of greed, the corporate investors demand a good return on their investment and this undermines the income of the photographers once again as their percent of the sale dwindles to almost nothing.

Since everyone takes pictures and can sell them why go out looking for images if you work for a company.

You can take the images yourself and the company can pay you on the cheap and save themselves a bundle of money. 

It is not empathy, a connection to the scene in front of the photographer that he will study to make the best image possible, oh no, this employee needs to move on quickly keep racing around just to get a few pics that will be just good enough because this employee has a big date tonight and he isn’t going to miss that for some stupid image of a tin can.

And this attitude grows amongst the younger generation, it is basically to get somewhere and just get the pics and send them directly to their photo agency and their job is done without breaking a sweat.  

Without fully grasping the beauty of the scenes before you, you ignored the possibilities starring you in your closed eyes, oh no! you have to hurry through the city landscape snapping pics at anything that moves losing sight of your inner voice screaming at you to slow down and think the photograph through without letting go of your personal artistic vision!

There seems to be no depth to image creation in today's lackadaisical need for the photographer to be seen as the one with an importance vision with blinder on and not the external world one could study for ever and not fully connect withfully mother nature and her beauty now being demolished by greed from the wealthy crooks of me first and you last.