The difference between a conscious and an unconscious photographer is that the conscious photographer produces better work by thinking more and photographing less.
In a few past episodes, we’ve looked at alternate ways to get your work in front of an audience, and here’s another one: ‘Zines.Ā This “low-fi” type of publication is a great (and cheap) way of getting your work into others’ hands. I use my former student Michael Jarecki’s ‘Zine “Just Make Pictures” as an example of how it can work.
The great architect Mies van der Rohe is famous for the phrase “Less is More” to describe his approach to simplifying his designs. That philosophy can be applied to photography as well, as it is often better to make fewer, but more thoughtful, images.
From aperture and focal length to shutter speeds and focus points, our modern photographic tools give us a wealth of information about our photographs. We can use that information to learn about the way we approach photography and what strategies lead to our greatest successes.
All of us make photographs that, for some reason, don’t quite work, even though we had high hopes for them. If we embrace those photographs thatĀ almost worked, but didn’t, we can find some tools to help us improve and grow.
Here are some examples of images that are “almosts” for me (and that I discuss in this podcast):
Archway – uninteresting light and no solid center of interest make this an “almost” image.
Blue & Red Paint – if only I’d realized that it was the faded paint that I was most interested in and not the decoration, I might have moved in closer for a more abstract image in this “almost” photograph.Blue Door – Of course I see now that it was the blue door that attracted me and not the carved details of the door. But I didn’t see that then and I have this “almost” image to remind me to be clear about my intention.