A Whole Lot of Pictures of A Whole Lot of People Doing A Whole Lot of Nothing

I was at an antique auction yesterday and there was a whole box of photo albums with snapshots all from one family from the 1920s to 1950s. I was, of course, interested in the lot, and hoped it wouldn't go for too high of a price. It didn't. It closed at $25, but without my...

The Future of Photography Books: Printing Photographers’ Legacies

In many things, what used to be is no more. This is true in the state of published photography monographs. We used to gauge a photographer's worth by their printed output. Those wonderful photographic monographs. Robert Frank's The Americans. Stephen Shore's American Surfaces. William Eggleston's Guide (which is actually by John Szarkowski.) That model has...

Photographs Made! Not Shot, Not Captured, Not Taken Nor Snared

I make photographs. Sometimes that involves photographing news events, life on the street, and other times people posing for my lens for a portrait. But all those photographs are made. I make an effort to create an image the way I want to, using photographic and compositional techniques as well as my experience on how...

You Don’t Deserve Credit! You Deserve Pay!

"Great photograph/video. Could I use it if I credit you?" I see this constantly on social media--Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Please learn why it's important to say NO! There are working pros--photojournalists--who make photos and videos as their living to feed their families and they don't get paid when you give away your photos and videos...

Working to Create a Portrait of F. Murray Abraham

I had been trying to get a portrait session scheduled with F. Murray Abraham when he came to Boulder for the film festival, but I couldn't get it set up. The festival couldn't accommodate me, the podcast host, The Hollywood Reporter, was and then wasn't communicative, and I was on my own to get a...

When I’m Out in the Street, I Walk the Way I Want to Walk

Every time I go out to photograph in the streets, I get out of my car and it looks like nothing to photograph. People walking, doing nothing. Nothing interesting, that's for sure. "Nothing to see here, move along." And so, I do. I move further up the street. But there are stories that inevitably cross...

Ideas Are The (Elusive) Gold That Needs Mining

Harvey Stein is a documentary portrait photographer having photographed the people of Coney Island for over 50 years. He's published, he's known and his work is collected. In the photographer world, he's a made man. He may not be a household name with Tom Cruise-like fame, but he's known among his peers, the best kind...

“I Don’t Want to See the Photo of Me You Just Took.”

Why are you showing it to me? It's not a memory. I'm right here. It just happened. Like. Just. Now. Save it and show it to me in a week, a month. Sometime later when we can relive the moment together. Yep, that's me. I was there. Still am. That to me is what photography...

The More People Turn to Exclusively Using Their Phone for Cameras…

...the less people there are who look like real photographers out in the field. Hence, the more the real photographers stand out. (Yes, I am calling phone photographers not real photographers--to me they're not.) Not to take anything away from phone photographers--they're documenting their world for a moment's look. They're notetaking their life. That's not...

Working On Possibilities: “You Get an A!”

I'm reading a book I like very much titled (But first, a little aside: Why do people put "entitled" when it's 'titled'? It's not 'entitled' to anything! Okay, back to the book 'titled'): The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. He's the conductor of the Boston...