My email address is: amolitor at molitor-design dot com
To follow this blog, you need to be able to log in the blogger.com, or google, or something. Anyways, go to www.blogger.com and if you see a "Dashboard" you're in the right place. Look down, and you'll see "Reading List" and under that a button for "Add". Click that!
Friday, February 7, 2014
Workshops
The web is, it sometimes seems, simply littered with people offering workshops on photography.
I occasionally think to myself "I write an incredibly unpopular blog, I know some stuff about photography, should I do workshops?" and then I start mulling over what on earth I would say.
There's plenty of really smart knowledgeable folks out there doing technical workshops. You wanna know how to light people? There's probably 100 people out there offering really excellent workshops. Also probably 1000 more offering terrible ones, but that's beside the point. The world is full of crap.
There's a whole bunch of dudes (why is it always dudes, anyways?) who will, ostensibly, teach you how to make pictures more or less like they shoot. These guys tend to produce flickr-ready landscapes or flickr-ready street photos. Technically solid, utterly derivative, very very popular on sharing sites with some equivalent to Trending Photos, and completely uninteresting to me. If you like that sort of thing, shop around, there's a lot to choose from.
I'm not a particular expert on anything technical, although I can generally muddle my way through the technical details of whatever to make a pretty good picture when technique is necessary. As a muddler, though, I probably shouldn't be teaching.
I'm haven't got any special skill in shooting exceedingly derivative 500px-ready photographs of any particular stripe. It's another thing I can muddle through, but usually only by accident, because frankly the whole thing skeeves me out entirely. I hate that crap. So, I probably shouldn't be teaching people how to do that either. Partly because I haven't got any special insight and partly because I'd end up screaming at the students.
The only things I can think of that I could legitimately do a workshop on is some sort of history of photography (after a bit of brushing up on the subject matter) or on the processes of inspiration.
And, to be honest, you can just look that stuff up, or read old posts on this blog. You'd have to be some kind of idiot to pay someone to teach you that stuff.
Beyond that I could probably yell at you to stop producing derivative garbage, to stop pixel peeping, to stop fucking around in photoshop.
Not sure there's a really big market for that, though. Maybe I should do a youtube video.
I occasionally think to myself "I write an incredibly unpopular blog, I know some stuff about photography, should I do workshops?" and then I start mulling over what on earth I would say.
There's plenty of really smart knowledgeable folks out there doing technical workshops. You wanna know how to light people? There's probably 100 people out there offering really excellent workshops. Also probably 1000 more offering terrible ones, but that's beside the point. The world is full of crap.
There's a whole bunch of dudes (why is it always dudes, anyways?) who will, ostensibly, teach you how to make pictures more or less like they shoot. These guys tend to produce flickr-ready landscapes or flickr-ready street photos. Technically solid, utterly derivative, very very popular on sharing sites with some equivalent to Trending Photos, and completely uninteresting to me. If you like that sort of thing, shop around, there's a lot to choose from.
I'm not a particular expert on anything technical, although I can generally muddle my way through the technical details of whatever to make a pretty good picture when technique is necessary. As a muddler, though, I probably shouldn't be teaching.
I'm haven't got any special skill in shooting exceedingly derivative 500px-ready photographs of any particular stripe. It's another thing I can muddle through, but usually only by accident, because frankly the whole thing skeeves me out entirely. I hate that crap. So, I probably shouldn't be teaching people how to do that either. Partly because I haven't got any special insight and partly because I'd end up screaming at the students.
The only things I can think of that I could legitimately do a workshop on is some sort of history of photography (after a bit of brushing up on the subject matter) or on the processes of inspiration.
And, to be honest, you can just look that stuff up, or read old posts on this blog. You'd have to be some kind of idiot to pay someone to teach you that stuff.
Beyond that I could probably yell at you to stop producing derivative garbage, to stop pixel peeping, to stop fucking around in photoshop.
Not sure there's a really big market for that, though. Maybe I should do a youtube video.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Done!
No, no, I'm not done talking. I'm never going to be done blathering on and on about things. Don't worry!
Ambrotypes, tinytypes, Daguerreotypes, all these processes share the same general shape: You make an exposure, you follow a series of well-defined steps, possibly with some variation along the way for artistic effect, or not, and then you are done. The result is a unique object, which exists, sui generis, and is essentially immutable. You've made the picture, it is what it is, there is no more.
Glass negatives, film, and wet darkroom work began to change this. Now you could, and still can, revisit an exposure. You can break out the negative, load it into the enlarger, pour out some chemistry, and start burning money on paper. So there's some dis-incentive, at least, to endlessly revisit a picture. You need to have a bit of motivation to go pull some new print from and old negative. There is real effort, time, and money involved. So, even though it is not impossible to tinker forever, you are generally motivated to declare a picture done at some reasonable point.
I find myself, mostly, to be done with a negative after I have pulled satisfactory prints from it. When I am motivated enough to get my hands wet and ruin paper, there is always a new negative I could work on.
Digital has altered this, fundamentally. There is now almost no barrier to going and reworking an old picture. People can and frequently do revisit an old picture merely because they are bored. In the modern "correct" conception of digital, you're shooting RAW (because you have to! everyone serious shoots RAW!) you can back quite far toward the beginning of the process, and re-imagine much of the exposure. With enormous pixel counts, you can re-frame the shot with a crop. You can damn near go back in time and re-shoot this thing.
The online environment in which we now share and critique one another's pictures assumes this malleability. Critique from "serious" photographers almost always boils down to unwinding and re-working. There is no recognition of the idea that a photograph might be done and that perhaps we could talk about it as it exists.
There is almost no pressure on you to declare a specific picture done, the door can always be left open to go back. If you share your pictures online, you may find yourself urged to back through the door, again and again. The default critique, online, includes "go back and tinker with the picture". Rather than influences urging you to declare the picture done, there are instead influences urging you to never so declare it. Somewhere between 35mm film and the DSLR, the pressure changed subtly, just enough to reverse the direction.
Anyone who has written software professionally knows that a lack of a firm endpoint is not freedom, it is not luxury. It is to be strapped eternally, screaming, to a great burning wheel. It is a terrible fate, although it often feels like luxury and freedom. You will endlessly chase perfection, you will endlessly tinker, and after a while you will imperceptibly begin to make things worse rather than better. Eventually your software has 1000s of features that don't quite work, and your photograph looks like a ghastly plastic object with no concept, no idea, and no reference to the original scene.
A project I am currently working on involves some rules I have made up for myself. Among them are that I shoot the picture with my phone, that I edit on the phone, and then I am done. The picture either is, or is not, good enough. My phone has a very decent camera, the editor isn't photoshop but is surprisingly capable for a phone app, and the ultimate portfolio is aimed to be 6 very small pictures, more or less. So, I have more wiggle room than you might think.
The salient point here, though, is that the rules include: And then I am done.
Ambrotypes, tinytypes, Daguerreotypes, all these processes share the same general shape: You make an exposure, you follow a series of well-defined steps, possibly with some variation along the way for artistic effect, or not, and then you are done. The result is a unique object, which exists, sui generis, and is essentially immutable. You've made the picture, it is what it is, there is no more.
Glass negatives, film, and wet darkroom work began to change this. Now you could, and still can, revisit an exposure. You can break out the negative, load it into the enlarger, pour out some chemistry, and start burning money on paper. So there's some dis-incentive, at least, to endlessly revisit a picture. You need to have a bit of motivation to go pull some new print from and old negative. There is real effort, time, and money involved. So, even though it is not impossible to tinker forever, you are generally motivated to declare a picture done at some reasonable point.
I find myself, mostly, to be done with a negative after I have pulled satisfactory prints from it. When I am motivated enough to get my hands wet and ruin paper, there is always a new negative I could work on.
Digital has altered this, fundamentally. There is now almost no barrier to going and reworking an old picture. People can and frequently do revisit an old picture merely because they are bored. In the modern "correct" conception of digital, you're shooting RAW (because you have to! everyone serious shoots RAW!) you can back quite far toward the beginning of the process, and re-imagine much of the exposure. With enormous pixel counts, you can re-frame the shot with a crop. You can damn near go back in time and re-shoot this thing.
The online environment in which we now share and critique one another's pictures assumes this malleability. Critique from "serious" photographers almost always boils down to unwinding and re-working. There is no recognition of the idea that a photograph might be done and that perhaps we could talk about it as it exists.
There is almost no pressure on you to declare a specific picture done, the door can always be left open to go back. If you share your pictures online, you may find yourself urged to back through the door, again and again. The default critique, online, includes "go back and tinker with the picture". Rather than influences urging you to declare the picture done, there are instead influences urging you to never so declare it. Somewhere between 35mm film and the DSLR, the pressure changed subtly, just enough to reverse the direction.
Anyone who has written software professionally knows that a lack of a firm endpoint is not freedom, it is not luxury. It is to be strapped eternally, screaming, to a great burning wheel. It is a terrible fate, although it often feels like luxury and freedom. You will endlessly chase perfection, you will endlessly tinker, and after a while you will imperceptibly begin to make things worse rather than better. Eventually your software has 1000s of features that don't quite work, and your photograph looks like a ghastly plastic object with no concept, no idea, and no reference to the original scene.
A project I am currently working on involves some rules I have made up for myself. Among them are that I shoot the picture with my phone, that I edit on the phone, and then I am done. The picture either is, or is not, good enough. My phone has a very decent camera, the editor isn't photoshop but is surprisingly capable for a phone app, and the ultimate portfolio is aimed to be 6 very small pictures, more or less. So, I have more wiggle room than you might think.
The salient point here, though, is that the rules include: And then I am done.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
On Use and Idea
Having thought about the idea of use as part of the process of photography I now see it all over the place, of course.
I tend to print small, usually 8x10 at most. This is partly due to expense and equipment, but I have tried to make a virtue of necessity. It is certainly true that it is fashionable to print quite large and I am never one to bow to fashion. I like the intimacy of little prints, it turns out. To the topic at hand, though, one result is that my subjects tend to be quite simple. If your goal is a print 4 inches by 4 inches, you really ought not be putting in a complex and detailed scene. There can be detail of course, but the picture needs to make sense seen simply.
These days I tend to think more and more in terms of the final disposition of the work, use of the work as a whole. Do I see this as a book? How big? Is this a small portfolio of bigger prints? A large portfolio of tiny prints? My vision of the final product drives the work to a surprising degree. How many pictures am I going to need?. How shall I pace myself? How broad of an area should I be exploring? Do I need to expand my concept, or refine and shrink it? If the prints are tiny I need such-and-such a kind of subject, if the prints are bigger I need these other things. If the prints are to be square I need to think of that as I shoot.
It doesn't matter if the final product ever happens. More of my projects due on the vine than get completed, by quite a wide margin.
The point is that by having that use clearly in mind from near the beginning, my overall concept is dramatically sharpened.
Of course I do not begin with a blank slate, and fill in the subject, rendering, idea, and use all at once before making an exposure. It's an iterative process that begins, usually, by more or less random tinkering with a random snap. The tinkering generates the germ of an idea. More pictures generate refinements and an evolving concept. Use crystallizes along with everything else somewhere in here. then I am, as we say, "of to the races"and know what to do next. This might happen half way through, or earlier, or later.
Then, usually, the project doesn't come together anyways, and I shelve the portfolio-in-progress, and return to the beginning. I snap, I tinker. Perhaps I revisit a previously shelved project.
Sometimes, though, it really comes together. That's nice.
I tend to print small, usually 8x10 at most. This is partly due to expense and equipment, but I have tried to make a virtue of necessity. It is certainly true that it is fashionable to print quite large and I am never one to bow to fashion. I like the intimacy of little prints, it turns out. To the topic at hand, though, one result is that my subjects tend to be quite simple. If your goal is a print 4 inches by 4 inches, you really ought not be putting in a complex and detailed scene. There can be detail of course, but the picture needs to make sense seen simply.
These days I tend to think more and more in terms of the final disposition of the work, use of the work as a whole. Do I see this as a book? How big? Is this a small portfolio of bigger prints? A large portfolio of tiny prints? My vision of the final product drives the work to a surprising degree. How many pictures am I going to need?. How shall I pace myself? How broad of an area should I be exploring? Do I need to expand my concept, or refine and shrink it? If the prints are tiny I need such-and-such a kind of subject, if the prints are bigger I need these other things. If the prints are to be square I need to think of that as I shoot.
It doesn't matter if the final product ever happens. More of my projects due on the vine than get completed, by quite a wide margin.
The point is that by having that use clearly in mind from near the beginning, my overall concept is dramatically sharpened.
Of course I do not begin with a blank slate, and fill in the subject, rendering, idea, and use all at once before making an exposure. It's an iterative process that begins, usually, by more or less random tinkering with a random snap. The tinkering generates the germ of an idea. More pictures generate refinements and an evolving concept. Use crystallizes along with everything else somewhere in here. then I am, as we say, "of to the races"and know what to do next. This might happen half way through, or earlier, or later.
Then, usually, the project doesn't come together anyways, and I shelve the portfolio-in-progress, and return to the beginning. I snap, I tinker. Perhaps I revisit a previously shelved project.
Sometimes, though, it really comes together. That's nice.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
It Is what It Is
Photography is, ultimately, an act of selection. You might hire a model or set up a still life, but then you select. This is why, unreasonably often, the first crop is the best. By cropping and re-cropping you begin to enter the world of digital art which is something else entirely.
All photographs are of course more than a simple selection of things to frame, there is always some sort of postprocessing that occurs. Still, the more selection and the less tinkering after the fact, the more it looks like photography and the less it looks like some sort of drawing.
In an ideal world, when you press the shutter button, you have a fully realized previsualization in your head, which you then simply execute to make the final print. In reality not so much. For good work, though, it's fair to say that the photographer often or usually has a fairly clear concept in mind. If not, then this artist isn't really doing photography. This artist uses the camera to generate raw material for digital art. That's a thing, and by no means a bad thing, but it's not photography.
It is for this reason that the most common sort of critique we get from fellow photographers is so insulting. The vast majority of photographers, when asked to comment on another's work, won't. Instead they will chatter on about other pictures, pictures they would have made. Frequently, in fact, they will insist on demonstrating their Photoshop skills, or lack thereof, and render some different picture. They will completely ignore the actual photography, the selection part of the process, and will work instead on making something new and different.
In short, they refuse to acknowledge the original picture except to imply that it sucks because it's not the picture they would have made. They will insist instead on talking about other pictures, their own, and finally they will insult you by doing some digital art loosely based on your photograph to show what they mean about how awesome their picture would have been if you hadn't fucked it all up with this terrible starting point.
Consider the kind of critique we get from non-photographers:
I like it!
I don't get it, what is it?
What a sad picture, it makes me cry.
How beautiful!
I don't like black & white.
I love the shadows!
Compare with the kind of critique we get from photographers:
The white balance is wrong.
It's soft.
I would have put a hair-light on her.
You should clone out that thing, let me show you Have you tried it in black & white?
An actual artist is likely to circle back around to what non-photographers say, but perhaps with some explanations and discussions of artistic intent and methods. Only the photographer spends all this time on dumb technical choices which you have already made, and ignores absolutely everything about whether the picture is any good. The photographer focuses mainly on rendering issues, mostly ignores the subject, and apparently doesn't know that the idea or meaning might even exist.
A photograph is what it is. When I show you a picture there is very little about it that isn't there on purpose. When you show me a picture, I assume the same is true unless you specifically state otherwise. What I want to know is not what your pictures are like. I'm sure your pictures are very nice, but what I want to know is how this picture right here works for you.
Yes I'm sure Romeo and Juliet would be much better as a rom-com and I see that you don't like sad plays. Please stop writing a comedy about Romero and Julie, I don't care. Please stop.
In the absence of request for some specific kind of response, the only respectful kind of critique is whether the picture works for you, how it works, how it makes you feel, and perhaps why you think it makes you feel that way. If you don't get it, say that. If you really think you get what the original photographer was going for, and you see a way to get at that better, maybe a little editing is in order, but only if you're pretty damn sure you're in the artist's head. Don't waste the artist's time talking on and on about your own damned pictures.
It's rude.
All photographs are of course more than a simple selection of things to frame, there is always some sort of postprocessing that occurs. Still, the more selection and the less tinkering after the fact, the more it looks like photography and the less it looks like some sort of drawing.
In an ideal world, when you press the shutter button, you have a fully realized previsualization in your head, which you then simply execute to make the final print. In reality not so much. For good work, though, it's fair to say that the photographer often or usually has a fairly clear concept in mind. If not, then this artist isn't really doing photography. This artist uses the camera to generate raw material for digital art. That's a thing, and by no means a bad thing, but it's not photography.
It is for this reason that the most common sort of critique we get from fellow photographers is so insulting. The vast majority of photographers, when asked to comment on another's work, won't. Instead they will chatter on about other pictures, pictures they would have made. Frequently, in fact, they will insist on demonstrating their Photoshop skills, or lack thereof, and render some different picture. They will completely ignore the actual photography, the selection part of the process, and will work instead on making something new and different.
In short, they refuse to acknowledge the original picture except to imply that it sucks because it's not the picture they would have made. They will insist instead on talking about other pictures, their own, and finally they will insult you by doing some digital art loosely based on your photograph to show what they mean about how awesome their picture would have been if you hadn't fucked it all up with this terrible starting point.
Consider the kind of critique we get from non-photographers:
I like it!
I don't get it, what is it?
What a sad picture, it makes me cry.
How beautiful!
I don't like black & white.
I love the shadows!
Compare with the kind of critique we get from photographers:
The white balance is wrong.
It's soft.
I would have put a hair-light on her.
You should clone out that thing, let me show you Have you tried it in black & white?
An actual artist is likely to circle back around to what non-photographers say, but perhaps with some explanations and discussions of artistic intent and methods. Only the photographer spends all this time on dumb technical choices which you have already made, and ignores absolutely everything about whether the picture is any good. The photographer focuses mainly on rendering issues, mostly ignores the subject, and apparently doesn't know that the idea or meaning might even exist.
A photograph is what it is. When I show you a picture there is very little about it that isn't there on purpose. When you show me a picture, I assume the same is true unless you specifically state otherwise. What I want to know is not what your pictures are like. I'm sure your pictures are very nice, but what I want to know is how this picture right here works for you.
Yes I'm sure Romeo and Juliet would be much better as a rom-com and I see that you don't like sad plays. Please stop writing a comedy about Romero and Julie, I don't care. Please stop.
In the absence of request for some specific kind of response, the only respectful kind of critique is whether the picture works for you, how it works, how it makes you feel, and perhaps why you think it makes you feel that way. If you don't get it, say that. If you really think you get what the original photographer was going for, and you see a way to get at that better, maybe a little editing is in order, but only if you're pretty damn sure you're in the artist's head. Don't waste the artist's time talking on and on about your own damned pictures.
It's rude.
Monday, February 3, 2014
A Passtime
Next time you run across some dunderhead rattling on about IQ, meaning Image Quality, mentally pronounce it as "ick". For example:
The J9400 has better ick at high izzos than the J9300 does.
This should provide a useful referent for how actually useful and interesting this sort of thing is. Obviously if you shoot sports, blah blah blah, if you don't know by now that in the first place I know, and in the second place I don't care, you need to spend either more or less time reading this blog.
The J9400 has better ick at high izzos than the J9300 does.
This should provide a useful referent for how actually useful and interesting this sort of thing is. Obviously if you shoot sports, blah blah blah, if you don't know by now that in the first place I know, and in the second place I don't care, you need to spend either more or less time reading this blog.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Ugh
To first order, the internet is people arguing about how much rocks weigh.
I weighed a rock. Rocks weigh 7 ounces.
What?!! This link clearly states that rocks weigh 12 tons.
You people are all fools Rocks come in 3 sizes, maybe even 4.
A thinking human being can only gape in astonishment. This goes on and on about cameras and camera gear all the time. Aperture and full-frame and this lens and cell phone cameras and everything else. Is it the photographer or the gear? Blah blah blah. Film! Digital! Medium format!
This is what you need to know. Anything you own that can take a picture at all, in this modern era, can probably make excellent work. Your mission, if you're interested in pictures, is to work out what the character of those pictures is. What can your picture-making equipment do? What kinds of pictures does it take?
Now find some pictures to make that will be well served by the character your equipment will imbue them with. The one truth is that no equipment is neutral. All equipment, every combination of sensitive medium, camera, and lens, will imbue the resulting pictures with some character.
Of course, if you mainly like gear rather than pictures, I urge you to start saving for the next generation wunderkamera immediately. As soon as you have purchased it, be sure to start saving for some lenses, or the generation after that, or a medium format whatsit thing. Don't even bother taking pictures with it, except a few test shots to verify that it is more of whatever it is you paid for than the other thing. Low shutter counts will help with the resale value. Be sure to keep the original packaging as well.
I weighed a rock. Rocks weigh 7 ounces.
What?!! This link clearly states that rocks weigh 12 tons.
You people are all fools Rocks come in 3 sizes, maybe even 4.
A thinking human being can only gape in astonishment. This goes on and on about cameras and camera gear all the time. Aperture and full-frame and this lens and cell phone cameras and everything else. Is it the photographer or the gear? Blah blah blah. Film! Digital! Medium format!
This is what you need to know. Anything you own that can take a picture at all, in this modern era, can probably make excellent work. Your mission, if you're interested in pictures, is to work out what the character of those pictures is. What can your picture-making equipment do? What kinds of pictures does it take?
Now find some pictures to make that will be well served by the character your equipment will imbue them with. The one truth is that no equipment is neutral. All equipment, every combination of sensitive medium, camera, and lens, will imbue the resulting pictures with some character.
Of course, if you mainly like gear rather than pictures, I urge you to start saving for the next generation wunderkamera immediately. As soon as you have purchased it, be sure to start saving for some lenses, or the generation after that, or a medium format whatsit thing. Don't even bother taking pictures with it, except a few test shots to verify that it is more of whatever it is you paid for than the other thing. Low shutter counts will help with the resale value. Be sure to keep the original packaging as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)