What happens when you give your viewer some visual tension? What does that visual tension feel like when it gets resolved in the viewer’s mind? By having a quick listen to an edited version of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, we get a sense of what it means to create tension in your work.

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I worked with my Italy workshoppers this summer on the idea of creating tension and resolution as they edited their images and told stories about the places and things we saw. Here are their results.

Tuscany Workshop Slideshows:

• Amanda Dussault
• Ruth Guthrie
• Keith Guthrie

Venice Workshop Slideshows:

• Amanda Dussault & Amanda’s Faces
• Ann Marie Barry
• Lewis Dunn

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” This great quotation by the important 19th century chemist Louis Pasteur is a springboard for some thoughts on preparedness for photography, both physically and intellectually. In the podcast, I mention the great Alinari Archives in Florence, Italy and its online resource of amazing images of one of my favorite places to visit and photograph.

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A pair of emails from podcast listeners provided the impetus for this episode and its brief discussion of “a real time for things.”

Kristian wrote, “But when looking back at the time (especially after a by a PhD degree and two years of intensive R&D work) I realize the most important thing to learn, is how to learn and how to take your skill set and apply it in new ways to form something new”

Jim wrote, “It’s interesting, years ago I took photographs with more concern over the mechanics of it. After many years, I came back to it and now I see things better than before and I am more concerned with the artistic aspects. Makes me wonder if there isn’t a real time for things…”

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In my fifth and final piece of conversation with Mary Virginia Swanson, we talk about the relative importance of story and narrative in photographic work.

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• Mary Virginia Swanson’s website
• Publish Your Photography Book – a book about making books from M.V. Swanson and Darius Himes
• Todd Hido – Pier 24 in San Francisco – at Stephen Wirtz Gallery
• Photobook Dummy Award
• Indie Photobook Library

After a wonderfully rich week of wandering beautiful Tuscan hilltowns and sublime landscapes, photographing, talking about photography and editing through our best work, here are some slideshows from my talented workshop students.

• Amanda Dussault

• Ruth Guthrie

• Keith Guthrie