Photography Tips | The Inner Path of Photography

April 4, 2012

“They are stealing our work!” – Alain Briot, photography theft

A friend forwarded me this article today, and I think it’s well worth sharing. (Alain Briot: “They are Stealing Our Work!”)

Written by Alain Briot, photographer, it is a story about unaware people feeling free to use images from the web for their own creative work, a University then thinking it’s fine to use for their commercial purposes, and a photographer ending up with no credit at the least, or financial renumeration at worst.

As well as telling his short story, Alain has great suggestions of what to do to try to prevent this from happening, and what can be done if it does take place.

Copyright issues and posting images on the web will always be an ongoing challenge. Just like musicians, we need to have more discussion about how we can carry out our intentions to share our creativity with others, bringing pleasure and inspiration, and also protect our creative work, the means of making a living, through copyright.

As part of this discussion, I suggest a bigger issue:

How can we increase awareness, sensitivity, and appreciation of art, and especially photography, in our country? Is there a way for us to help people to understand the value of what photography brings to their lives, and to treat it as something precious, rather than something that is just images to be used for commercial purposes?

With digital cameras, computers, and ease of printing, the person behind the photograph and the process they have gone through, spiritually as well as technically, becomes forgotten.

More later…

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March 27, 2012

“I have never taken a picture for any other reason than that at that moment it made me happy to do so.”

– Jacques-Henri Lartigue, photographer

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March 20, 2012

Annie Leibovitz – The New Yorker – Thoughts about “Pilgrimage”

Nice piece in the New Yorker today Sarah Boxer about Annie Leibovitz and her latest body of work and show, “Pilgrimage.”

Some thoughts that I particularly enjoyed:

“It is this physical, and yet somehow ghostly, aspect of photography—its “spooky action at a distance” quality (to quote Einstein out of context)—that gives photography its particular aura.” (On noticing that Leibovitz gets much closer to her subjects (dresses, desk, etc.) than usual, the effect this has on the photographic experience, and its sensate as well as spiritual impact.)

But maybe pure receptivity—becoming “a transparent eye-ball”—is what it takes to tap into what Emerson (another one of Leibovitz’s subjects and heroes) called “the currents of universal being.” (On Leibovitz’ comment, ““There was something beautiful about not being in control all the time. Not being totally proficient.”)

The book…the show… now on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum)…

Leibovitz has gone through a lot of changes in the last few years of her life. She’s still the artist, and still exploring.

Go Annie, go.

Read the article here…

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January 17, 2012

What about sequencing?

Minor White had much to say about the concept of “sequencing” – where you use the flow of a series of photographs to tell your story, rather than depending on one image to tell it all.

After spending most of today reviewing, editing, and printing photographs for a Galveston portfolio – lots of fog, subtle tone, blue-grays, silence – I had to take a break and work with something with COLOR!

So I visited some images I created last Halloween, when I unexpectedly found teens roaming the Galveston beaches in costumes.

As I was deciding what to print, I found it was difficult, because often there would be two images that were similar, but had changes in movement – the “characters” had walked to different places on the beach, and were having new interactions.

When I shot these images, I was intrigued by exactly that – the flow of teens, how they come and go, change groups, photograph each other, group, go away, regroup, etc. And that can’t be captured in one definitive photo.

So I’m sharing with you tonight several images that reflect what I’m talking about – sequencing – arranging images so you build a feeling – an understanding – a glimpse into someone else’s world.

This my first-time playing – we’ll see what my final body of work becomes –

What about you? Are you remembering sequencing as an option, or do you prefer the “ultimate image?”