Month: January 2012

Dumping the darkroom?

A friend wrote me recently with something of an existential question for a photographer. I knew that answering it was going to be tough, for her and for me. Whichever direction I suggested she go (and whichever direction she chose to proceed) was bound to impact the lives of many photographers for years to come. Like any good existential question, half the fun was simply working through the problem. Knowing that no certain answer was possible (or preferable,) made the process both interesting and frustrating. Read More

Back to the future with prime lenses

What goes around comes around. There is nothing new under the sun. Everything old is new again. I have been rolling those cliché’s around in my head as I have been using a couple new lenses. The most interesting part of the process is how these lenses have taken me far back to my beginnings in photography. Yes, I use the latest in digital imaging gear, but I occasionally go back into the history of the medium to find technologies that make images look the way I want. The funniest part of putting this blog together was learning how a technology that I grew up with as a photographer has been relegated, by many photographers, to the status of a historical anomaly. Read More

An introduction to histograms (a video)

Understanding histograms is the key to getting a good exposure in digital photography. In this podcast, I walk you through the basics of the histogram. I show images of histograms (and scenes I have photographed.) Understanding histograms is the key to mastering exposure, which is at the heart of good photography. Read More

the old fashioned way….

I am well aware that the media world as we know it is moving to the web and that social media is fast becoming THE media channel of choice. Something popped in my e-mail box recently from the web, via a social media channel that nearly knocked me out of my chair. It was not some incredible image or fancy animation, though I see plenty of those on the web these days. It was actually a text-based promotion and what it said left me dumbfounded. It was a reminder that words and especially the message are more important than the delivery channel. Read More

Privatize it all, let God sort it out

Sometimes, when I am blogging, I think that the art is connecting things that initially seem disconnected and pondering them until I can organize disparate threads into a good blog entry. That exact process started when I was recently in Los Angeles for a few days at the start of a long road trip. I kept coming face-to-face with reminders of the ways that privatization is ruining much of our society. Even worse is the thought that as bad as these changes are for someone like me in the middle class, they are much worse for the working poor across this country. They are the people who will really lose when no one (other than God) sorts out the privatization mess we are making. Read More