You Can’t Script It

I recently did a four-day shoot for a client with planned scenarios and a shot list. We’d bang things out like “Let’s get the shot of Dad in the morning with his first coffee on a camping trip” and it would be like 1pm. We’d also have to light it like it was first morning light. So we’d light it with thick orange gels and then call Dad in, holding a mug with nothing in it, who needs to look like he just woke up, but didn’t. When you shoot from a script, nothing looks quite right. The mood, lighting, and even posture are off. You lose any sense of what was magical in the first place. I feel like that’s the definition of advertising these days, unfortunately.

via Q&A with San Francisco Photographer JAKE STANGEL | POP | Photographers on Photography.

The art market is corrupt

Salmon concludes that “the art market, more than ever, is controlled by a handful of large international galleries.” But swap “banks” for “galleries” and “global financial system” for “art market,” and we get closer to a more relevant truth.

via Salon.com.

Time is the raw material of creation

Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work: the work of becoming expert through study and practice, the work of finding solutions to problems and problems with those solutions, the work of trial and error, the work of thinking and perfecting, the work of creating. Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when we feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes.

via Creative People Say No — Thoughts on creativity — Medium.

He has on occasion pulled me back from the abyss

Firstly, I became a photographer. This may sound easy but it went against the very fiber of my upbringing. He helped me allow this part of my life to flourish. There have been so many roadblocks along the way that he helped me fight off and allow me to focus my energies on my work.

But most importantly I began to understand myself and my feelings. How I thwart myself from succeeding, how I made others miserable with my anger and frustration, and most importantly no matter how unhappy or critical I am with myself he always believed in me.

via The End Starts Here.

the do-it-yourself disruption has led to a flourishing of book making creativity and innovation

They have resolutely camped out in no man’s land, bring prose that is more than a caption but less than an essay into direct conversation with individual images, allowing each photograph to open up further. And they have rejected the notion that such a product need thump down on your coffee table, and have instead offered us a physical form that can be enjoyed with unassuming pleasure. All in, Soth and Zellar have taken a bunch of obvious risks and delivered something of unpretentious grace and genius, a product that elegantly fits both who they are and the way they see the world.

via DLK COLLECTION: Book: Alec Soth and Brad Zellar, LBM Dispatch #5: Colorado.

Don’t go to art school

By their own estimation, the cost of a four year education at RISD is $245,816. As way of comparison, the cost of a diploma from Harvard Law School is a mere $236,100. This is embarrassing. It’s downright shameful. That any art school should deceive its students into believing that this is a smart decision is cruel and unusual. Artists are neither doctors nor lawyers. We do not, on average, make huge six-figure salaries. We can make livable salaries, certainly. Even comfortable salaries. But we ain’t usually making a quarter mil a year. Hate to break it to you.

via Medium.

Being smart is highly overrated, according to Kenneth Goldsmith, the Museum of Modern Art’s first poet laureate.

“Dumb favors re—recontextualization, reframing, redoing, remixing, recycling—rather than having to go through the effort of creating something from scratch. Dumb embraces the messiness of contradiction and revels in the beauty of the ridiculously obvious. … Since dumb has nothing to lose, dumb owes nothing to anyone, and in that way it is free.”

via In Praise of Being Dumb | IdeaFeed | Big Think.

Instant gratification might not necessarily be a good thing

That seems to be the lesson to take from Mr. Metzker’s long career, and perhaps from Modernism as well. Instant gratification might not necessarily be a good thing, and we could all do with a bit more patience. “If people will give it the time, they’ll find things that speak to them,” said Ms. Tucker. “There is meat on these bones. It challenges and engages us. God knows it’s not the social media world. And that’s maybe its biggest handicap. It’s work that takes time.”

via, NY Times Lens Blog

The True Cost of Filmmaking in the 21st Century

“Here’s a surprising fact that independent producers may want to consider before they write off film as “too expensive”: There were 120 films in competition at Sundance this year. Based on our research and conversations with Kodak and Fuji only 5% were shot on film… and yet that small minority took 100% of the most coveted Jury and Grand Jury prizes in the US and World Dramatic competitions, as well as winning the Excellence in Cinematography Award in the US Dramatic category.  It’s true that producers of sub-$1M independent film need to watch the bottom line… but isn’t the ultimate goal to win awards and thereby sell the movie?”

via James River Film Journal.

Photography Is A Passport Into Any Social Situation

The most brilliant thing about photography is that it’s a passport into any social situation whatsoever,” says Nick Knight. “It’s a ticket to photograph the President of the US, or a heroin addict in Camden, or a prostitute in Paris, or the biggest recording star in the world. Becoming a photographer is a way of finding out about people – finding out about life – and experiencing what they experience.”

via The fabulous world of Nick Knight – Features – Fashion – The Independent.

Can Photojournalism Survive in the Instagram Era?

Photojournalism has become a hybrid enterprise of amateurs and professionals, along with surveillance cameras, Google Street Views, and other sources. What is underrepresented are those “metaphotographers” who can make sense of the billions of images being made and can provide context and authenticate them. We need curators to filter this overabundance more than we need new legions of photographers.

via Mother Jones.