I Can’t Help But Want to Shoot a Ten Dollar Nikon

It was the end of an estate sale. No one had bought it for $20. It had a couple, maybe three rusty screws on the bottom. Batteries were dead, so of course, it didn't power on. No one knew if it worked. I offered $10, they said sure. Glad to sell it. Move it along....

Making It Means Photographing One Day at at Time

Well, I suppose I can call The Photo Game a success. We have 11 photographers in the group from around the world, including the U.S, England and Poland. Photographers are completing the weekly prompt and making work. We're eighteen weeks in and going strong. The participants send me notes saying thanks for doing this, putting...

Ah, The Good Old Days

Of course, I'm talking about today. What a time to be alive. What a wealth of opportunities for everything from learning to having new experiences. We are in a unique time with plenty of knowledge at our fingertips. Want to learn about f-stops, because they've been befuddling you, there's a resource online that will help....

A $2K Leica M2 or a $30 Nikon N80

The difference in price is perhaps $1970 (possibly much more!) That amount will buy 328 rolls of Ilford HP5 film. That's 11,808 exposures, frames of film or pictures. Each line represents one roll of film, picture your refrigerator full of film. |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| ||||||||||...

Building a Photographer Community: an Artists Salon, a Virtual 1920s Paris Cafe, the Modern-Day Algonquin Round Table for Photographers

I really enjoy writing about photography. I think as photographers, we have a lot to share and we should offer each other everything we know. There are no trade secrets, nothing one photographer knows that can't be told. I often say, "Share everything." We are not in direct competition but colleagues, all working together to...

Show Me What You Like, But Also What You Don’t Like

At many restaurants, after asking about how some menu item is and the waiter or waitress replied, "Really good," and then when I asked about a different dish and again they repeated the same answer--in fact multiple times for every item I asked about--I've said, "Tell me what's not good or that you don't recommend."...

Play Your Own Photo Game

I run The Photo Game with a weekly prompt, but you can do the same thing and you don't need me to do it. Come up with a word prompt and by the end of the week, make a photograph that fulfills the assignment, that is inspired by the prompt. Some of our past prompts...

We Are Sorcerers With Our Ability to Stop Time

That's what we are as photographers. What is this strange power we wield? We tell this thing--time--that we're going to arrest it. Freeze frame. Put it on hold. It's incredibly bold to think this thing that never stops, something so precious, that we each only get so much of, something a part of our natural...

When I Have No Ideas, I Go To Work

At times, I sit at home with my thoughts and my cameras and I have no idea what to make photographs of. None. Is it because my home doesn't inspire me? I see it too frequently. It's all too familiar, commonplace. Ho hum. I am extremely prolific even though I have no ideas. Because I...

Creative vs. Analytical: Battling the Monkey

I met the director of The Afflicted years ago, Paul Schrader, who also wrote Taxi Driver and many other films. He said when he wrote it, he was afflicted with the urge to start every writing session on page one, meaning he'd start over each day, editing what he had already written until he caught...