A Couple 6×6 Portraits and Some Documentary Photographs

It's always a treat to take out the Rolleiflex. You never know who'll you'll meet with it, and you always get to interact with people who are enamored by the camera and thus willing to pose for you. I'd written in the past about how the camera you're using will dictate the photos that you'll...

Creativity Does Not Come in Presets!

I can trust the photographs that film photographers make from negatives, specifically real photographs--those prints that are developed in chemical trays and have no connection to the digital world. Because in the digital realm, there is no guarantee of genuineness, authorship. Of authenticity. We are in a world full of advertisements for cookie-cutter photographic looks,...

Making Great Photos in Unlikely Places

As photographers, we can't wait for the perfect light to make photographs. We have to create where we are. I carry a camera wherever I go, and it's on and ready to shoot at a moment's notice. Recently, I was at a kickoff party of a new event center inside the Dickens Opera House, a...

A Bit About Berenice Abbott

Women have been at the forefront of photography since its invention. From Julie Cameron to Alice Austen, Imogen Cunningham, Hansel Mieth, and Frances Benjamin Johnston. But I am impressed by the work of Berenice Abbott. She was born in Ohio and moved to New York City which many people said you can't do. But she...

If New Camera Equals Inspiration Then Go Get It

Whatever it takes. Call it GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), JWSN (just wanting something new) or NWCIB (now what can I buy), but if a new camera is what it takes to inspire us to create, then get the new camera. The end result is all that matters. The photographs. They don't care what they were...

Don’t Be Good (There are Lots of Good), Be Remarkable, Be Unforgettable

I heard an interesting interview with the celebrity photographer, Albert Watson, and he made a couple of points that resonated with me. You can listen to the whole interview on The Candid Frame's podcast. When he had other photographers show him work, some his own assistants, the photos would often be proficient but forgettable. He...

The Difference Between Going Out to Make Photos and Simply Going Out to Live (and Finding Photos)!

There is one way to make photos that involves taking the camera down off the shelf, dusting off its (n)everyready case, peeling that leather wrap off and setting it aside, removing the lens cap, putting the camera in hand and heading out to make photographs at the birthday party, holiday celebration, or ___________ (your event...

Here Comes the Flood, Save the Photos (What Photos?)

Last week, Hurricane Ida tore through New York and New Jersey and one of the towns that was hard hit was one I used to live in, Lambertville, New Jersey. It's a sweet river town situated beside the Delaware River just north of the Capitol, Trenton, and across from its more famous neighbor, New Hope,...

Saving Faces (Or Not) in the Modern World

It's difficult to imagine, but for most of the time humans have walked the earth--117 billion humans since the dawn of time; there are 7 billion on the earth presently--there was no way to save the face of a loved one. People lived and died without ever having a way to preserve the faces of...

“We Want a Portrait, Not a Snapshot”

Some days are better than others as a professional photographer. Like today, for instance. A prospective client called looking for a portrait of her family members and mentioned her husband was a graduate of a prestigious art and photography school some years ago, and he's since retired his cameras, but she was looking for a...