Photographers are not creators, they are editors. Unlike the painter, who starts with a blank canvas, we start with the whole world and our job is to remove all the “stuff” that doesn’t make our picture better; to pare down to the essence of the image. Ideally, we do this with the camera’s viewfinder, but sometimes, ya gotta crop.

Matera, Basilicata, 2006 – Photographs by Jeff Curto
(click images for a larger view)

Pictures of “cropping Ls”:
(click for larger images)

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Who is in your critical circle? Who looks at your work to help you define what is good and what “works”? Do you do it yourself? Can you trust yourself to be a good critic of your own work? This episode examines the idea of being your own best friend and your own best enemy.

Tuscany: Cloud, Tree and Hillside, 2005 – Photograph by Jeff Curto
Click image for a larger view

“Image Sorting” software:

• iView Media Pro
• Extensis Portfolio
• Adode Photoshop Lightroom
• Apple Aperture

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Another in an irregular series of suggestions for the photographic bookshelf. My selection this time is the Aperture monograph of the work of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, but you may substitute that one book that made you realize new and different things about your medium; that changed your ideas about what photography could be. I also briefly examine the work of my mentor Neil Rappaport and note a panel discussion by Neil’s former students (including me!) that is taking place this coming Saturday, October 21, in Bennington, VT.

Above: Photographs by Ralph Eugene Meatyard – Click for a larger view

Above: Photograph by Neil Rappaport – Click for a larger view

Ralph Eugene Meatyard Links:

• Book available on Amazon
• Meatyard at Masters of Photography
• Meatyard at George Eastman House
  

Bennington Museum Panel Discussion about Neil Rappaport:

• Museum Link
• iBerkshires Story Link
• Neil Rappaport’s book (essays by Susanne Rappaport) – Messages from a Small Town

Art Institute of Chicago “So The Story Goes” exhibition

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The order in which we see images changes how we perceive them. In this episode, we look at how sequencing photographs can take one set of images and change the message they convey.

Sequence 1 – Click Image for a larger view
photographs by Jeff Curto

Sequence 1 – Click Image for a larger view
photographs by Jeff Curto

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This brief “Thirty-Three-and-a-Third” epsisode of camera position is just a quick “pointer” to my guest-host appearance on Chris Marquardt’s “Tips From The Top Floor” podcast. I hope you’ll check it out.

Click my “Liguria, 2003” image above for a larger view.

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