Making Art Requires Showing Up for Life (and Coffee)

I've said it before: The muse exists but she has to find you working. But that doesn't mean you have to know you're working. I wasn't going out to make photographs, I was walking to get coffee and parked a block up the street because that's where I found a parking space, and I wasn't...

Perfection, Huh, What Is It Good For?

I was listening to a Bob Dylan album in my car, Blonde on Blonde, and on many of the tracks I noticed every once in a while, when he sang, he placed the line a bit early or late to the beat, but not on it. Not always, most of them are right on, but...

Just Have To Ask

Mike Johnston publishes a wonderful photography blog called The Online Photographer. Last week he had a call out for work for an exhibition he was doing on his site with a theme of grandparents and grandchildren. I sent this in, and he chose to run it as a standalone story instead. Take a look. It...

What Made Photography Valuable?

Helen Levitt and Walter Rosenblum made street photographs in New York in the 1930s through the 1950s. Vivian Maier made street photographs in the 1950s through the 1970s. What made them relevant, what made their work valuable? It took a special person, a real photographic artist to go out in public and shoot film photographs...

“Enjoy The Journey Folks, This Train Has No Stops, There Will Be No Arrival, There Is No Destination!”

That's probably the most difficult thing for the artist wannabe to hear, that there is no destination. No arrival to some "made it" place. Some magical place of fame and fortune and the easy life. No all-night celebrity parties on yachts and paparazzi on the chase. That's not the real artist life. The artist life...

A Photographic Revolution In the Air

I'm reading a biography of the legendary photographer, Alfred Stieglitz by Dorothy Norman. I'm finding it a fascinating read, how he challenged rules. When he was young and played sports, he often wanted to change the rules of the game. In his photography and his life, he wanted to not "hit the target, but hit...

Humor & Story in Street Photography

Everyone loves a laugh. I think that's safe to say as a generalization, because a joke is a story. But not all documentary and street photography can be comical. But some just are--that's life for you. I spent a day in New York City and was walking through and saw this scene below unfold. I...

Making a Photographic Difference

Legacies. Making a mark on the world. The reason for being here. The point. What's yours? Mine's obvious to me. Like Eugene Atget's goal of documenting old Paris before it changed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which he knew was his life's goal, even if no one else knew about it while he...

Seeking the Fastest Film Camera for Robert Frank-like Lightning-Quick Shooting

Where do you get your speed? What works for you? Because speedy camera work gets the shot when it comes to documentary street work. My quest is to be as fast and nimble as Robert Frank was reported to be, able to lift the camera, shoot and drop it down in one fell swoop that...

Selling the Steak, But Not the Sizzle

I stopped at a camera store in Allentown Pennsylvania named Dan‘s Camera City and the building was a long tan and blue building that didn’t have an interesting creative exterior, the store's sign was partially overgrow with shubbery, and when I went inside and looked around I thought this is exactly how so many camera...