Between editing software and artificial intelligence, photographs are no longer trusted as presenting an absolute truth. It’s a different world from the one nearly 150 years ago when Eadweard Muybridge showed racehorses can briefly fly through the air. But even an unedited photo represents only one version of the truth. That’s because there is no such thing as a completely unedited photo.
Being rejected is a terrible, terrible feeling. But in art, let alone life, I’m not aware of any way to avoid it.
We’re conditioned to only share the positive. We worry that if we show any sign of weakness, it will taint our public image and close the door to future opportunities. Who wants to work with a loser?
Would you like this picture more if you knew I was in pain when I made it? That my fingers ached after I removed one of my gloves in the sub-freezing temperatures in order to work faster in the fleeting light? That a half hour earlier I injured my back while trying to speed through waist-deep snow with my heavy camera bag?
It is a somewhat serious question. Anybody can take photos and most people always have a camera with them. The number of pictures taken in any given day is approaching the population of Earth. So, what separates the dedicated artists from anyone with a smartphone? The amount of suffering is becoming that measuring stick.
This photograph looks like dusk at a saltwater marsh, but that’s not what it’s really about. It is my first image of 2021 and it has a lot to say.
I create only a few black and white images per year. I don't have anything against monochrome; I just find that most of the time, color is a critical ingredient that helps me express what I want to say. But there are also times that color gets in the way.
I’ll be honest with you. I’m sharing this image because I know it will do well on Instagram.
Even though I consider myself a nature photographer — I photograph wildlife and wilderness! — on social media, my wildlife images take priority. It’s the animals that get the digital hearts from my followers.
This image should hit all the right buttons. Owls are always cute. Burrowing owls are among the cutest. Two burrowing owls cuddling should be off the charts.
The art that we create today stands on a foundation built by the imaginations of the artists who have come before us. No matter how original any new work of art may seem, the artist who created it was able to draw from thousands of years of experiences of other artists. Nothing truly comes from scratch.
Even though I am a nature photographer, for the past several years, I have found my inspiration in the work of Impressionist painters. Last month, I got a chance to travel to the Normandy region of France to photograph locations featured in some of my favorite paintings.
While I learned the art of nature photography through independent study, there’s no question that Galen Rowell was my professor. We had never talked and he had likely never seen any of my work. He died 15 years ago, just before I landed my first major publishing credits.
But about 10 years ago I got an opportunity to visit his Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, Calif., which had become a museum for his life’s work. In addition to showing his classic prints, there was even a display case housing one of his lightweight Nikon 35mm cameras. I’m heartbroken on hearing the news that the gallery will close within the next few weeks. Everything — including the last prints bearing his signature — is priced to sell.
To be an artist, it’s imperative that you find your own voice, but you start that journey on a path others have laid.
When I first took up photography, I read a lot. I hadn’t studied art previously, so I didn’t know about composition, lighting, design — the elements that turn a snapshot into a photograph. And the more I read, the more I was turned off.
A common refrain was that there was a “correct way” to photograph everything. It quickly became obvious why all of the animal pictures I had seen in local photo competitions looked the same and why there were so many images of flowers growing out of old wagon wheels.
There’s been a lot of talk lately in nature photography circles about what constitutes art. This discussion comes up every so often, but this latest round was spawned by what seems to be an absolutely amazing accomplishment from one of our own — not that many of his fellow nature photographers want to claim him.
The Wilderness Act, which has preserved some of the most pristine areas of the United States, turns 50 next week. My absolute passion for nature photography has just turned 14.
The two are more related than they might seem.
While it is a new year, I do want to take a moment to reflect back on 2012. Compiling a few of my favorite images from the past year has become an annual affair. This task isn’t easy. Artists generally aren’t all that good at editing their own work. Boiling an entire year down to 10 images can seem like an impossible task.
But it can also help you look at your work in new ways. The passage of time has helped me evaluate some of my images with new eyes, freeing me from some of the emotional attachment to the image at the time of capture. That, in turn, helps me figure out what I like — and don’t like — about the work I’ve been producing, helping me to grow and set a direction for the new year.
In no particular order, here are a few of my favorite images from 2012:
We are creatures of habit. That's well documented. In stores, we buy a particular brand simply because that's the brand we always buy. Many of us regularly check our messages whether or not we're expecting anything because we've gotten into that habit.
And as photographers, we're inclined to photograph a familiar subject a particular way simply because that's the way we've always done it. It becomes habit and we probably don't even think about why we're setting up the shot that way.
I'm waiting in knee-deep snow for a natural light show that may or may not happen. So are hundreds of other photographers. Any parking space within a half mile of good vantage point was claimed three or four hours before show time.
We're all waiting for the setting sun to light up Horsetail Falls, a thin thread of a waterfall that occasionally glides down El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. For a few weeks in February, if the conditions are just right, the setting sun will make the waterfall appear as if it were on fire.
A great image, whether used in a magazine or a textbook or on an art collector’s wall, says something. It creates a feeling. It tells a story.
Quick! There’s a bald eagle across the river. What lens do you use?
To make art, we need to break ourselves from the habit of always answering “the longest lens I have.”
