A la Polaroid
I was digging through a box of stuff a friend left—I find myself doing this fairly often here in China, we leave little traces of our lives all around the place—and found a Polaroid camera and one cartridge of film, or paper, or whatever you call it for Polaroid. I have been excited ever since [...]
Full Life Empty 己生丑牛
Serving to a Fault,
Defaulting to Service.
A life spent striving to be spent
Poured out as an offering.
A farm girl caught in a city life,
Primal simplicity wasted not
On the severed souls she helped.
O, that we too could find simpleness.
That we have,
In the picture of love among us,
Like the servant farmer before her,
The daughter’s incense rises above.
Why Do I Never Get Perfect Light?
The other day, a friend of mine was showing the photos from his daughter’s wedding. Initially, I was only in the same room and enjoying some conversation with someone else, but then I started to realize how incredible the photos really were. I asked who had taken them, because the wedding was out here in [...]
Duane Michals Thinks Most Photographs are Extremely Boring
I heard a snippet of this quote yesterday from photographer Duane Michals, and liked it so much, I found it online and will share it here.
“The best part of us is not what we see, it’s what we feel. We are what we see, we are not what we look at. We are not our [...]
Changed My Mind About Budget Radio Flash Triggers
It is called the Cactus. Why so, I have no idea. They are about $40 for a pair, and once you have them, you attach a radio transmitter to your flash hot shoe and the receiving to your flash. Place the flash anywhere you want and you have wireless radio flash triggering.
Of course, you could [...]
Photography Not Just For My Fancies
A few days ago, I put up a tweet referring to my article here about my new photographic journey (the focusing on telling stories thing). Of course, I was too brief, because it is Twitter after all, but it started a strange series of replies that brought up another topic entirely, one worth thinking through [...]
LensBaby Photojournalism
The day has finally come: I saw a news photo that used a LensBaby. That is just too rad for words, at least for words besides “rad”. I love the LensBaby lens concept. It gives us a very different approach to photography and helps us break out of our auto-focus, tack shap, wonder world.
I just [...]
How Normal Amateurs Develop Their Shooting Skills
This post is for a friend of mine, who, like many of us, really wants to improve his photographic skills, but cannot seem to find the time to do so. How do we improve our photography when we already have a busy life? Well, I am in the same situation, really: just another amateur who [...]
Closing the Creative Gap
Chase Jarvis mentioned the “creative gap” in an interview the other day, “creative gap” being the “difference between what you want your pictures to look like, and what they actually look like.” It is the gap we need to jump to take that next step in the development of our creative muscle. Basically, we have [...]
Photographer More Important Than the Tools
It all starts with that new camera in your hands. You got sick of your point and shoot and wanted something faster and better, or maybe you wanted to rekindle that long lost desire to be a photographer that the cost of film and developing had extinguished out of your junior high budget.
Now, you have [...]
