Jeff Curto's Camera Position
Photography podcasts that deal with the why of photography over the how and discuss the essential qualities of the medium from the point of view of the creative photographer.
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Camera Position 213 : What's Your Hashtag?
05/15/2021
Camera Position 213 : What's Your Hashtag?
How do you consider yourself as a photographer in terms of the work you do? Is it important to tell your viewers how you define your work as being a particular kind or made with a particular camera, or does the work you make define you instead? If I make more images, like the one in this post, am I a #lunarphotographer or a #GreatLakesPhotographer? If I shoot it with #film or with #digital, how does that change what the image says? I think my intent as a photographer matters more than the label or the gear and if you make photographs that are genuinely yours, your own personal hashtag will write itself. Rather than think of myself as this kind of photographer or that kind of photographer, I prefer to think of myself as photographer - I'm interested in subject matter as it presents itself to me, or as I think of it relative to things I've read, music I've listened to, places I’ve gone... Rather than pigeonholing yourself into a particular genre of image-making, or that you use a particular kind of camera, think rather of how the work you make defines who you are and let that be your “hashtag.” Links for this Episode: - Follow me and I'll follow back Blue Hour Moonset – Lake Superior - photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 212 : Sources & Resources
02/17/2021
Camera Position 212 : Sources & Resources
This episode covers some practical details. I go over the places where you can listen to Camera Position and list a number of online resources for you to explore photography that go beyond the “usual suspects" of - - . – Sources – Where to Listen to Camera Position – Resources – Where to Find Quality Photography & Photography Inspiration Online - "an online platform dedicated to supporting and celebrating the photographic arts and photographic artists through exposure, discussion, community collaboration, and education." - "LensCulture is one of the most comprehensive and far-reaching resources for discovering contemporary photography talent around the world." - "Artsy features the world’s leading galleries, museum collections, foundations, artist estates, art fairs, and benefit auctions, all in one place." - Over 1,000,000 artworks online - "The MoCP is the world’s premier college art museum dedicated to photography. Our mission is to cultivate a deeper understanding of the artistic, cultural and political roles of photography in our world today." - "The Griffin Museum of Photography is a nonprofit organization dedicated solely to the art of photography. Through our many exhibitions, programs and lectures, we strive to encourage a broader understanding and appreciation of the visual, emotional and social impact of photographic art. " - "The George Eastman Museum is located in Rochester, New York, on the estate of George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography and motion picture film. Founded in 1947 as an independent nonprofit institution, it is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives." - "The Center for Photographic Art inspires the artist and the audience by nurturing the personal growth essential to creating and appreciating art. CPA works to increase understanding of and respect for photography and its important role in contemporary culture." - "Through its programs, CPW fosters opportunities to create and explore photography, and celebrate its role in contemporary culture." - "En Foco is a non-profit that supports contemporary primarily U.S.-based photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander heritage." - Adobe's new-ish image sharing platform. I've been impressed with the work I've seen on there - check it out. Last Sunset of 2020 Over Lake Superior photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 210 : The Calming Camera
12/20/2020
Camera Position 210 : The Calming Camera
I can't think of a time in my life that has been more disconcerting than this last year. The pandemic and the disruption to our daily routine. We don't work the same, we don't socialize in the same way, we don't go out or see friends or family. We are certainly in strange and uncertain times, a situation that brings anxiety to many. I’ve discovered that for me the disquiet of our time is calmed by the camera. I’ve learned that spending some time exploring some part of the world through the lens takes me away from the chaos and uncertainty and brings me back to center. It doesn't matter if I just take a walk around the kitchen in the warm morning light or grab the camera and spend a few minutes just outside the front door seeing what the siding looks like in the rain, if I take some photographs, it helps push disquiet away. Moving my cognition over to the right side of my brain - the creative side - lifts the weight of the world from me. How about you? Do you find that raising the camera to your eye is a component of helping you create balance in your life? Let me know what your routine is below or on the .
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Camera Position 209 : November 22, 2020
11/22/2020
Camera Position 209 : November 22, 2020
During this pandemic time, we have been forced to trade in the allure of travel for the allure of the backyard. As I return to the podcast after a long absence, I explore the idea that you don’t need to go somewhere special to make special photographs. Instead, you need to go deeper wherever you are.
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Camera position 208 : Bringing Ourselves to the Photograph
04/05/2019
Camera position 208 : Bringing Ourselves to the Photograph
By slowing down as we look at photographs - ours or someone else's - we can more easily bring ourselves to the photograph, and by doing that, learn more about the medium and ourselves. Links for this Episode: - Follow me and I'll follow back - Planning is underway for the 2020 Italy Photography Workshops Life Saving Museum, Eagle Harbor, MI Snow Drift, Eagle Harbor, MI A couple of images from my winter in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
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Camera Position 207 : On Warming Up
10/09/2018
Camera Position 207 : On Warming Up
Musicians warm up before they make music, but what about visual artists? Do photographers need to warm up before they create photographs? I think yes, and with the help of a podcast listener, we posit some ideas for getting warmed up visually. Links for this Episode: - a great opportunity for any arts-oriented college student - young or old! - a couple of spots are left in my 2019 Tuscany Photography Workshop Rainy Day - Arezzo, Tuscany - Photograph by Jeff Curto Rainy Day - Arezzo, Tuscany - Photograph by Jeff Curto Rainy Day - Arezzo, Tuscany - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 206 : The Artful Life
07/29/2018
Camera Position 206 : The Artful Life
Some thoughts on living an artful life, led off by poet Mary Oliver's "Instructions on Living a Life" Pay attention Be Astonished Tell about it. Links for this Episode: - The American poet at the Poetry Foundation - a brief video of some of Tharp's choreography - Some information about the poet & playwright - A collection of paintings, quotes and a bio Summer Cloud, Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, 2018 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 205 : Your Life Is Your Art
07/08/2018
Camera Position 205 : Your Life Is Your Art
Rather than trying to make art your life, work instead on trying to make every day of your life into art. "You just have to live and life will give you pictures." -Henri Cartier Bresson Birch & Sun, Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, 2018 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 204 : Always A Reward
06/14/2018
Camera Position 204 : Always A Reward
The act of making photographs connects me to the world, to my medium and to myself. When I make photographs, there is always a reward. Links for this Episode: Places you can find and listen to Camera Position: Sun, Pines and Water - Lake Superior, Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, 2018[/caption]
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Camera Position 203 : Your Eyes and The Lens
05/20/2018
Camera Position 203 : Your Eyes and The Lens
Many people think of a wide lens as a way to get farther away from a subject, but I think of a wide lens as a way for us to get closer... a wide lens is really a close-up lens, allowing us to create a dominant subject in the frame by emphasizing the difference in distance from near to far. Links for this Episode: - Jeff's Italian architectural photographs - a deceptively simple device to help you sort out camera position and focal length Places you can find and listen to Camera Position: [caption id="attachment_2658" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Fortezza di Radicofani - Tuscany A wide-angle lens was used here, allowing me to emphasize the difference in distance from the nearby bricks to the doorway.[/caption][caption id="attachment_2657" align="aligncenter" width="474"] San Biagio, Montepulciano, Tuscany A longer lens was used here, as I didn’t want to emphasize any difference in distance between objects in this subject.[/caption]
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Camera Position 202 : Exploring The World And Ourselves
05/01/2018
Camera Position 202 : Exploring The World And Ourselves
Podcast listener Tracy wrote: "Photography comes from the depths of who we are. It is not only an exploration of our world, it is also an exploration of ourselves." This episode is a "part 2" of self-exploration and its relationship to our photography, utilizing a worksheet that you can download called "Passion and Mission" to help you think through not only what you care about, but how you can take those things and transform them into a body of photographic work. Links for this Episode: Got a minute? Starry Night (weathered log) - Glacial Park, McHenry, IL 2018 - Photograph by Jeff Curto[/caption]
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Camera Position 201 : Digging Deeper
03/30/2018
Camera Position 201 : Digging Deeper
What is your story? What are you curious about? What do you care about? How can your photographs express those interests? Making stronger photographs often depends on digging deep to determine your passion and then translating those passions into images. Links for this Episode: - Where I'll be speaking on the Creative Process on Monday, April 9, 2018 Got a minute? [caption id="attachment_2613" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Snow & Ice, Lake Superior, 2018 - Photograph by Jeff Curto[/caption]
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Camera Position 200 : Make Interesting Mistakes
03/16/2018
Camera Position 200 : Make Interesting Mistakes
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes and art is knowing which mistakes to keep. Instead of living in fear of "getting it wrong," a better, more useful strategy is to keep moving - plowing through the things that don't work and slowly refining the process to get to the things that resonate for you and with viewers of your work. “Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” ~Neil Gaiman Links for this Episode: - Where I'll be speaking on the Creative Process on Monday, April 9, 2018 Got a minute? Luca, Cortona, Tuscany - Photograph by Jeff Curto[/caption]
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Camera Position 199 : Playing Like Yourself
03/03/2018
Camera Position 199 : Playing Like Yourself
"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself." -Miles Davis One of the most consistent questions I get from students is this one: "how do I develop my own style?" Miles Davis helps with an answer. Links for this Episode: Got a minute? - The 2018 workshops are sold out, but planning is underway for the 2019 Workshops Cloud, Shadow & Wall, Cortona, Tuscany, 2017 - Photograph by Jeff Curto[/caption]
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Camera Position 198 : Losing and Finding Ourselves
02/25/2018
Camera Position 198 : Losing and Finding Ourselves
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” - How can we use the art we make with the camera to grow, learn and provide ourselves with a way of saying new things... to, as Merton says, “find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time"? I’m asking listeners to help steer the future direction of Camera Position by letting me know what you’d like to hear. Links for this Episode: Help steer the future direction of Camera Position: Leave a comment below - The 2018 workshops are sold out, but planning is underway for the 2019 Workshops [caption id="attachment_2535" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Cinque Terre, Liguria, Italy, 2017 - Photograph by Jeff Curto[/caption]
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Camera Position 197 : Let the Subject Take Precedence
07/28/2017
Camera Position 197 : Let the Subject Take Precedence
When the subject takes precedence - when you point your camera at things that are the most interesting thing to you, you are on your way to developing a personal style - the sense that these subjects are the most important things and can only be pointed out in this way by you. “To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care.” Anne Lamott - Bird by Bird Links for this Episode: - Planning is underway for the 2018 Italy Photography Workshops [caption id="attachment_2483" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Piazza del Salvatore, Lucca, Tuscany, 2017[/caption]
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Camera Position 196 : A Sense of Place
05/11/2017
Camera Position 196 : A Sense of Place
How do we go beyond a record of a place and begin to make photographs that convey a real sense of place? The objective is not just to show what your destination looks like, but rather to convey, in photographs, what it felt like to be there. Links for this Episode: Exhibition: - Planning is underway for the 2018 Italy Photography Workshops Carrara, Tuscany – photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 195 : The River of a Story
03/21/2017
Camera Position 195 : The River of a Story
This episode is a little meditation on the importance of aligning ourselves with the messages around us, using Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird as inspiration. “The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes with it.” -Anne Lamott Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this Episode: - Planning is underway for the 2018 Italy Photography Workshops Barga, Tuscany, 2016
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Camera Position 194 : Our Wish To Persist
03/05/2017
Camera Position 194 : Our Wish To Persist
“But the art in an artwork might not be located precisely where you thought it was. Perhaps it was just as much in the damage and decay as it was in the intact original. Perhaps it was in the gaps - in contemplating and rending those insults and injuries - that we find ourselves, by compassion; by bandaging, however imperfectly, those wounds. Art may be a species of faith, the assurance of things hoped for. It contains nothing so much as our wish that we persist.” -Robert Clark Play Podcast: [powerpress] Link for this Episode: on Amazon The River Arno, Florence - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 193 : Is It Art?
02/19/2017
Camera Position 193 : Is It Art?
As photographers, we know that there is a fairly wide range of options available to us that change what *was* to what we show the world in our images. Every photograph is a composite of the choices we make as the person who eventually presents the image. Every photograph is an interpretation of the way the world really looks. Italy Photography Workshops, 2017 - Late Registration May Be Possible: Bevagna, Umbria, 2016 (might be art)
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Camera Position 192 : John Berger, Looking and Seeing
02/05/2017
Camera Position 192 : John Berger, Looking and Seeing
An early influence on my ways of thinking about photography on a deeper level was the great writer John Berger. A poet, novelist, artist screenwriter and more, Berger, born in 1926, and died just a few weeks ago, in January of 2017 at the age of 90. A read of Berger's work gives great insight into what meaning we derive from looking, seeing and photographing. Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this Episode: Books by John Berger: - 1972 - 1980 - 2013 Ways Of Seeing TV Program: Italy Photography Workshops, 2017 - Late Registration May Be Possible: About Looking by John Berger
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Camera Position 191 : Walt Whitman, Poetry and Photography
01/24/2017
Camera Position 191 : Walt Whitman, Poetry and Photography
Walt Whitman's poems in his opus Leaves of Grass mirror the actions of the photographer by beginning with facts and transforming those facts into ideas. I explore how both photography and Whitman's poetry use simple language to convey complex ideas, giving any object or experience new importance by recording it on a previously blank page. Links for this Episode: on Amazon Leaves of Grass - 1856 Edition, Frontispiece and Title
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Camera Position 190 : Watching Photographers Photograph
12/12/2016
Camera Position 190 : Watching Photographers Photograph
"You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra I like to see photographers out in the world and watch them photograph. Observing how photographers photograph can be a great aid in helping us make better, more informed, more personal photographs. There are still a few spaces left in 2 of my Italy Photography Workshops for 2017: Colonnata, Tuscany, 2016 - on the itinerary for the 2017 Tuscany Photo Workshop
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Camera Position 189 : Cultivate The Itch, Not The Scratch
11/09/2016
Camera Position 189 : Cultivate The Itch, Not The Scratch
What drives and motivates photographers to do the work they do? I think that our unifying motivation is curiosity - an unrelenting, never-ending curiosity - an "itch" to know more about something and to learn about that thing through photographing it. I was prompted to think about how we should cultivate the itch - our curiosity - and not the scratch by this quote from photographer Sabastião Salgado: “If you’re young and have the time, go and study. Study anthropology, sociology, economy, geopolitics. Study so that you’re actually able to understand what you’re photographing. What you can photograph and what you should photograph.” Links for this Episode: - View some of his work Steps, Medici Chapel, Florence, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 188 : You Are Worth The Time
10/28/2016
Camera Position 188 : You Are Worth The Time
Do you take time to be creative each day? The creative act is worth taking the time for. It's worth making the time for. It's what holds us up and keeps us going. Thousands upon thousands of creative people are forced to make the time to create. It's worth it because of what we give ourselves and what we give back to the world. Links for this Episode: - by Margurite Yourcenar on Amazon Olives, Tuscany, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 187 : Always Make the Photograph
10/10/2016
Camera Position 187 : Always Make the Photograph
If you see a picture that you think you may have photographed before, take it. Both the subject and the photographer may have changed since the last time you photographed it. Regardless of the reason, you should always make the photograph. Links for this Episode: - a great program for students who want an excellent study abroad experience. - look what happens when a photographer engages the same subject over and over again. - Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy Photography Workshops Pienza, Tuscany, 2016 I’ve stood in front of this very door many times, and photographed it repeatedly, but never in this light, never at this time of year and never with this degree of success.
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Camera Position 186 : Objective and Subjective
09/28/2016
Camera Position 186 : Objective and Subjective
Among the many things that make photography such an interesting pursuit are its qualities of objectivity combined with subjectivity. In the end, photography is an objective medium with a subjective soul. - Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy Photography Workshops. Varenna, Lake Como, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto Varenna, Lake Como, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto Each one of these images is ostensibly of the same subject (or is it object?) but each one dramatically different from the other based on my subjective interpretation of the scene. Thinking through the choices we make is what makes photography tick.
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Camera Position 185 : God Is In The Details
09/04/2016
Camera Position 185 : God Is In The Details
In addition to the phrase "Less is More," the great architect Mies Van der Rohe also had another saying that relates to making creative work, and that is "God Is In The Details," suggesting that attention to each and every detail of your process, from conception to execution, is integral to making the best work possible. Links for this Episode: Bio info - At MOMA - Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy Photography Workshops Lake Superior Shoreline, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 184 : Look At The Path, Not The Mountain
08/21/2016
Camera Position 184 : Look At The Path, Not The Mountain
Whether it's a stack of dishes in the sink, moving forward with yur photography or climbing up a steep mountain, looking at the path that you're traveling is usually the easiest way to the top. Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this Episode: - Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy Photography Workshops Faro Voltaio - Volta's Lighthouse, Brunate, Italy, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto Faro Voltaio - Volta's Lighthouse, Brunate, Italy, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto Faro Voltaio - Volta's Lighthouse, Brunate, Italy, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 183 : Conscious Photography
08/07/2016
Camera Position 183 : Conscious Photography
The difference between a conscious and an unconscious photographer is that the conscious photographer produces more by thinking more and photographing less. Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this Episode: - Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy Photography Workshops Wind, Varenna, Lago di Como, 2016 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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