Postcards from the Creative Journey

It’s Now or Never. Or Is It?

Hell's Half Acre, Wyoming

When photographing the landscape you always have a decision on whether or not you want to make a photograph. If the choice is to make something that’s just OK, or pass it by because it’s not perfect, choose making the photograph. The worst that can happen is that you have a passable photograph and maybe “wasted” some bytes on your card. If you don’t like what you see later, you can delete the file and no one will be the wiser. It is not like the olden days where you had a real investment in the cost of each piece of film and your time to develop the film and process the prints.

Consider what happens when your return to the very same spot for the last time and the situation is even less favorable that it was previously? All you have left is the memory of a lost opportunity. While memories are wonderful, you are a photographer. When you go out to photograph there is some expectation that you will return with photographs.

The Gesture

The Grotto

Lvzu Temple

I made these photographs at two different places. One is a Catholic University in the Midwestern United States. The other is a Buddhist Temple in Inner Mongolia. Both pilgrims journeyed to a Holy Place. I was there with my camera both times. The odds of me being at two widely disparate locations to capture both moments are astronomically small.

I don’t know what to write about these photographs.

Mystery Photographs (Further thoughts on Reality through the Viewfinder)

Brasenose Lane, Oxford

Post on Reality Through the Viewfinder.

“Who took that photograph with my camera? I don’t remember making that photograph, so who did?” Don’t we all have some of those photographs? The surprising thing is the mystery photograph is an exceptional effort. It is either exceptionally bad, or exceptionally good. The fact that you cannot remember making either the good one or the bad one is really puzzling. My theory is the exceptionally good one is made in a Zen-like state of mindlessness when you have cut loose your creative inhibitions and are creating art on an intuitive basis. The exceptionally bad photograph comes from the empty headedness of carelessness and stupidity. The difference between having an empty mind and an empty head is truly dramatic.

I have also noticed that these mystery photographs have a higher likelihood of becoming enduring favorites rather than the ones you “know” are good the minute you take them. I think that might be because the mystery photographs are closer to your soul than ones that are closer to your intellect.

Not Wanting to Leave.

Late Afternoon Storm,  Near Capital Reef

Have you ever made a photograph so good that even after you make your exposure, you hang around for a few more minutes just looking at the image on the view screen (or ground glass) because it’s so beautiful? A photograph so good you go ahead and make a few more exposures because you love the image that much. Then you go back and check the corners and edges to make sure everything is perfect. And make a few more exposures? And then you make a few more bracketed exposures just because you want to make sure that the exposure is dead solid perfect. A photograph so good you make up excuses not to leave the spot because you know there is absolutely no way the next photograph will be better than the one you just made?

Me neither.