The People Who Never Say Anything | WM-581
Photography Clips
Every so often, someone mentions one of my photographs and catches me completely off guard. Not because I don’t remember the photograph, but because I didn’t know they had seen it. That happened recently. Someone told me they had enjoyed a photograph I used with an article. I thanked them, and then it hit me that I had no idea they followed my work at all. There had been no comment, no email, no message, nothing that told me they were reading or looking. As far as I knew, they weren’t there. But they were... Podcast Notes: Photography Clips Podcast: Music From the Doctor’s...
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One Photograph Can’t Tell the Whole Story
Photography Clips
Suppose someone found one photograph of mine and knew nothing else about me. What would that single image tell them? Podcast Notes: Photography Clips Podcast: Music From the Doctor’s Office:
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For Five Days, I Thought I Found a Loophole
Photography Clips
This was my perspective earlier this week. I found myself on the crow’s nest floor with my feet up, trying to figure out what to do next. To explain how I ended up there, I have to go back several months... Podcast Notes: Photography Clips Podcast: Music From the Doctor’s Office:
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Was Her Dress White?
Photography Clips
I recently attended a wedding as a guest, and afterward I had a chance to look through some of the photographs taken by the wedding photographer. One detail kept pulling my attention away from everything else. The bride’s dress didn’t look white. It had a tan cast, almost as if a light sepia tone had been applied to the image. Maybe that was part of the photographer’s style. Some photographers like warm skin tones, softened greens, faded shadows, and a vintage look. I understand that. We all make choices that shape the way our photographs look. But I kept coming back to the dress because...
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The Things I Keep Walking Past
Photography Clips
After all these years of photography, I know what will make me stop. A beautiful sunset can do it. So can wildlife, a waterfall, an old building, an interesting street, or a moment that suddenly comes together in front of me. Sometimes it’s the light more than the subject. I can be driving somewhere and notice the way late afternoon light is hitting a field or the side of a building, and immediately I start wondering whether there’s a photograph there. That’s what experience does. The more we photograph, the faster we become at recognizing the things that interest us. But recently I...
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Do I Give Myself Permission to Get Away?
Photography Clips
For the last few weeks, I've caught myself doing something I don't normally do. I'll open a map and start looking around. Not because I have somewhere I need to go. Just because part of me wants to. I find myself looking at mountain roads in West Virginia, waterfalls in North Carolina, little historic towns, state parks, and places I've never visited before. Before long, I'm imagining what it would be like to get up before sunrise, grab my camera, and spend the day exploring wherever the road happens to take me. Then, almost as quickly as those thoughts appear, another thought follows. "You...
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When Advice Becomes a Substitute for Seeing
Photography Clips
There is a strange point in learning photography when instruction begins to work against you. At first, advice is useful. You learn how aperture changes depth of field, how shutter speed affects motion, and how light shapes a subject. You begin to understand the camera instead of merely hoping it gives you something usable. Then the advice keeps coming. Every image should have a clear subject. The shadows should be opened. The highlights should be protected. The background should be simplified. The colors should be corrected. The horizon should be straight. The eyes should be sharp. The...
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The Photographs We Keep
Photography Clips
Every now and then, I look back through old photographs and wonder why I kept certain ones. Not the obvious ones. Not the family photographs, birthdays, holidays, faces, or moments that clearly belong in the archive. Those explain themselves. I understand why they are there. I am thinking more about the quiet images. A road. A tree. A field. A lake. A building I passed once. A patch of light on an ordinary afternoon. At first, some of those photographs do not seem to say very much. They may not be strong enough for a print. They may not belong in a portfolio. They may not be...
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Earning the Viewer’s Eye
Photography Clips
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but attention is not automatic. That is something I think about more and more when it comes to photography. We can make the photograph. We can print it, post it, frame it, share it, and send it out into the world. But none of that means anyone is required to stop and look. The viewer still has a choice... Podcast Notes: Photography Clips Podcast: Music From the Doctor’s Office:
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Images That Changed How I See
Photography Clips
I do not think a photograph has to be famous to change you. It does not even have to be understood by anyone else. Sometimes an image works on you privately. You see it once, and for some reason, it stays around in your mind. You may not know why at first. You may not be able to explain what it did. But later, when you are holding a camera and standing in front of something ordinary, you realize that the image has taught you how to look. That is the part of photography I keep coming back to... Podcast Notes: Photography Clips Podcast: Music From the Doctor’s Office:
info_outlineI’ve always asked questions.
That’s how I’ve learned most of what I know. I’ve asked other photographers. I’ve read. I’ve tried things. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve gone back and looked again. I’ve taken a photograph, wondered why it worked, then taken another one and wondered why it didn’t.
That’s always been part of photography for me.
I don’t see “I don’t know” as giving up. I see it as the start of learning. It means there’s something I haven’t figured out yet. It means there’s an answer worth looking for.
That’s why I like the phrase “I don’t know yet.”
That one word changes the whole meaning.
“I don’t know” can sound like the end of the road.
“I don’t know yet” leaves the door open.
Photography has taught me that there’s always more to learn. No matter how long you’ve been doing it, there’s still another way to see. There’s another way to frame a subject. There’s another way to use light. There’s another way to wait, move, crop, edit, or understand what you were trying to say with the camera.
That doesn’t make photography discouraging to me. It makes it worth returning to.
If I already had every answer, there wouldn’t be much reason to keep picking up the camera.
When I was younger in photography, I thought the goal was to reach a point where I always knew what to do. I thought experience would remove doubt. I thought there would come a day when I could walk into any scene, know the right settings, know the right composition, and know exactly how the final photograph should look.
That day never came...
Podcast Notes: https://www.moneymakerphotography.com/the-power-of-i-dont-know-yet/
Photography Clips Podcast: https://www.moneymakerphotography.com/podcast/
Music From the Doctor’s Office: https://www.moneymakerphotography.com/music-from-the-doctors-office/