Postcards from the Creative Journey

640 There is Good News and Bad News

The Good News is that your photographic exhibits on the web are on permanent display, available to people all over the world at any time; and forever. It’s truly a powerful medium for sharing your images with the entire world. If you don’t like something, find it embarrassing; or have evolved beyond what you once thought was good, I have some Bad News for you. The internet never forgets. Even if you “take them down,” your images are still out there. The photographs are on permanent display. It’s one of the interesting things about life online. It’s permanent. It will always be there. Something to think about before you post something on the internet.

---

Known formally as "La Cuesta Encantada" (The Enchanted Hill), everyone knows it as the "Hearst Castle." A few years ago I toured the castle and found it to be enchanted. We selected a late afternoon tour and we left with the last bus. But not before we experienced the "golden hour" from atop the hill.

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

639 The Siren’s Song First Published on 7/5/2015

As long as we’re talking about sometimes you have just let that project go, I always remember this story:

Being asked to present your photographs at a workshop is a pretty high honor for the non-professional artist/photographer. This type of invitation is a real boost to the ego and the experience can needlessly boost your self-esteem to great heights. And so it was with me. I presented my photographs at a workshop and greatly impressed the participants. They hung on every word I spoke, pored over my photographs and discussed among themselves in hushed, respectful tones my artist’s statement.

After my presentation was completed, one of the participants came to me and quietly said, “We all noticed a spelling error in your statement.” I thought I wrote, “I heeded its siren song.” My fingers typed an extra letter at the beginning of the word “its.” The consonant added at the beginning of the word “its” is already in the word - and it is not the letter “s.”

This is why I no longer rely on spell check. Proofread, proofread, proofread and then let that project go.

---

This photo is one of my favorites from the Academy Street folios. It appears in the "Walk Down Academy Street" project.

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

638 But It Is Not Ready Yet

Here is another thought or two on Procrastinating Perfectionism to help you get by that fear of completing the project. There are times when good enough has to be good enough because no one can produce anything that’s perfect. Sometimes you just have to let go and send that project on its way just the way it is. Even if you think it’s perfect, it isn’t. As soon as someone looks at something you have completed, they will tell you something you can do to make it better or more disastrously they tell you of an error. Once you let it go, you will see something you can do to make it better. You can always make it better later. Everything you do is the sum of what you know and what you can do with what you have right now. Tomorrow, next week, next month, next year you will be able to do it better because you have the experience of today’s work, plus whatever advances have been made in materials and tools since you finished that work.

It’s ready. Let it go. Come back on Thursday for a vintage blog post about what can happen when you do let that project go.

---

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

637 What Type of Vision Do You Have? First Published 3/10/2013

I would suggest there are two basic types of photographic vision. One type is a vision that is based on what your eyes see. The other type of vision is based on what your mind sees. The question is, do you photograph what your eye sees or do you photograph what your mind sees? I started thinking about this a few weeks ago when Brooks Jensen interviewed me about a Minor White photograph for the LensWork web site. Minor White created photographs that were the equivalent of a thought or feeling. Because his photographs originated in his mind and moved out into the world, it really didn’t matter too much where he photographed because he could always find a photographic subject that he could present as an equivalent to his thoughts or feelings.

And the rest of us?

Our photographs start out there in front of the camera and hope that in going through the camera (and maybe a whole bunch of other processes) we can conjure up an image to communicate our thoughts or feelings to our viewers. It’s a much different approach, moving from the physical to the emotional/mental than going in the opposite direction. This method of creating photographs does allow viewers to appreciate the image based purely on aesthetics while not “getting” any of the deeper emotional or philosophical aspects of the image’s intent.

---

Chapel Stairs, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England.

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

636 The Fear of Finishing or Postponing the Inevitable

Boy, that’s not a real encouraging introduction, is it? But it’s something we have to deal with as artists. We can get really comfortable with a project or image or most any activity we need to complete. You know there will be joy and happiness when you complete your porject, but there are two words waiting at the end of the project. The two words: “Now What?”

We postpone the end of the project because those two words are among the most fearsome facing a creative person. I imagine those words are responsible for more half-finished projects than just about anything else.

The only answer I have to that question is another project planned to start immediately after you finish the current project.

---

Old shacks in Bodie, California. Bodie is a California State Park with lots of restrictions that keep the populace from "loving it to death." Just means we have to work harder to make great images in that place. Check out my project "The Only Open Doors" on my web site. 

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

635 Neither Occupied Nor Abandoned, First Published 10/7/2012

My “abandoned building photographs” are buildings not occupied. The difference between empty and abandoned is a loss of hope. Someone once wrote that my images are devoid of people, but not of their influence. There are no people in my photographs, but there is the promise of their return. I have seen lots of photographs of empty places, abandoned buildings and ruined city blocks where you were pretty certain the people were gone and there was no hope that anyone would return. I try to show that even if the buildings are empty, there is enough inherent beauty in the place to entice someone to return and attempt to improve upon what is there.

I think it’s important to try to maintain a positive view of the world and try to show my audience the beauty and artful arrangement of things that they would normally not see. This could happen because they have not been to a place I have been or they have not taken the time to look carefully at the world around them. I feel my role as an artist is show the world in a way to inspire or expand the audience’s view of the world.

---

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

634 Through a Glass and Thoughtfully

Looking through an old glass window you can see the flaws that let you know it is old glass. How many people have looked through this window before you, have seen the changes outside and wondered the same things you are wondering?

---

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

633 - Vintage Is Important First published 10/6/2013

Vintage images are prized by collectors. A close proximity between the date of the negative and the print is supposed to have some significance. In the case of processes where there is a high likelihood of the discontinuation of the materials used in creating the photograph, there is some merit to that increase in value due to rarity.

I think this is completely the opposite if one is thinking of digital images. Cameras and software are improving so quickly and so rapidly that “old” digital images are not as good as the new ones. I found this out a few years ago when I had to re-do some folios. The software and my use of the software had improved so much (not in equal measures, of course) that the images processed with the latest software look much better than the original versions.

The lesson? One should always make photographs. With the improvements in technology that are sure to come (and of course, your improving skills) you might not be able to make the image you want now, but will more than likely be able to do so in the future.

---

This phenomenon is even more pronounced than when I published six and a half years ago. I have been working on several book projects that span three decades. I am going back to the original RAW files so I can get a consistent “look” throughout the project.

This photograph is from the "Patterns and Rhythm" project on my web site. 

Don't forget to stop by the new blog, "The Daily Photograph" and have a photograph delivered to your RSS reader every morning!

632 It All Fits Together When You Think About It

Life is full of chances, choices, experience and sometimes a little bit of luck. Our life is cumulative and where we are and how we respond to a situation can be influenced by our experiences. An abandoned road in British Columbia and the rock walls right next to that road were my experiences on the first day of last year’s Photo Safari. We managed to gather some beautiful images before we left British Columbia because of the rain. A few days later we turned down a dirt road in Central Oregon. My side of the car was smack up against the rock wall of the Deschutes River Canyon. The roadside attraction of a few days earlier was still in my mind. I turned away from the vistas and became fascinated with the plant life hanging on to the steep basalt walls.

I was fascinated by the plants clinging to the side of the canyon and began making photographs. I would not have photographed the rock walls of the Deschutes River Canyon had I not remembered photographing along the Fraser River. The photographs became a project, but the only thing I could say about them was, “Hey, look at what I found!” Not exactly high art. I was stuck and needed to add some meaningful words to the project.

This past Tuesday I was at the gym cycling my way to nowhere pondering the dead end of my latest photographic project. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band began singing, “Hey there mister can you tell me what happened to the seeds I've sown?” Hearing those lyrics I thought about the seeds landing among the rock cliffs of the Deschutes River Canyon. I thought of the parables of seeds being sown on different types of ground. The photographs began to make sense. I had time to compose a new folio statement while finishing my ride to nowhere

“A Hard Land” is on my web site today. (Please go over and visit after you’re finished here. There’s a link to my website at the top of the page.) It is the third folio from last year’s photo safari. The two folios that made “A Hard Land” possible are “The Road No Longer Taken” and “Roadside Attraction” located on the Photos and Stories page of my web site. Oh, that and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band playing "This Hard Land." I bet you can find that on YouTube.

It all fits together when you think about it.