HT1486 - Potential Is Not the Same as Accomplishment

It seems to me that what a camera can do is not nearly as important as what you actually do with it. Come to think of it, the same can be said of photographers. Results always trump capabilities.

HT1485 - Grand Landscapes, Landscapes, and Intimate Landscapes

The more we know something, the more we work with something, the more subtleties and variations we both see and understand. Thirty years ago I would not have differentiated between grand landscapes, landscapes, and intimate landscapes, but now I can't imagine thinking about all these landscape types as being indistinguishable from one another.

HT1484 - God's Own Softbox

I first heard someone refer to a high thin cloud cover as "God's own softbox" years and years ago. Because I never spent any time as a studio photographer, I didn't know what a softbox was. I did know I loved the soft shadows and lovely contrast that high, thin clouds create. It's an almost perfect lighting for landscapes.

HT1483 - What's Old Is New, Really New

It's perfectly natural for us to be most excited about our most recent work. That thing we finished years ago is, well, old news. But for an audience who has never seen that old work, it's brand new to them. Don't neglect those older, finished projects that might deeply touch someone who is new to your work, or has never seen that body of work before.

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LW1343 - Photography Is About . . .

This week (as I record this), it was announced that DPReview.com is closing down. For most of you, I suspect this won't be much of a loss because you may not be in the market for a new camera. For some of you, it's a concern. Here are a few random thoughts about this news.

You might also be interested in. . .

Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com.

and...

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HT1482 - Photograph as Conclusion

An interesting way to think about photographs is to perceive them as the conclusion of all the events that led up to the moment of photography, or as a beginning that will serve as a starting point for some as yet unknown destination.

HT1481 - Photography and Idealism

We do not live in a perfect world, but if your only knowledge of life here on earth were from landscape photographs, you would naturally conclude that this is a perfect world. Or, it's opposite. So much of photography is either pro idealism or anti-idealism.

HT1480 - When Realism Isn't Real

I visited Yosemite for the first time in 1983 expecting to find there the landscapes I had become so familiar with through the photography of Ansel Adams. That was my first experience in which I discovered that the realism school of f/64 photography was anything but realistic.

HT1479 - Mortensen Had a Point

In books on the history of photography, there is no doubt that the quintessential outcast is William Mortensen. He represented a kind of photography that the f/64 group rebelled against most vigorously. But Mortenson had a point, and one that we should not ignore.

HT1478 - Soft Blacks and the Printed Book

Not all blacks are black. There's some photographic media, for example platinum palladium prints, but have a soft black. Reproducing these tones in a printed book always present a unique challenge.