Tag Archives: blog

Commentary

An Interview With… Me!

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Fellow California photographer Ivan Makarov has posted an interview with me at his blog. It was a special pleasure to do this with Ivan in that I think there are some real connections between his work and mine. In his introduction he notes that he can recognize my photographs from small thumbnails, even when posted among those of other photographers. It turns out that Ivan also has a characteristic style in his work that I can recognize quickly – and it is a style that I find quite appealing.

Thanks, Ivan!

Commentary

Kudos to Michael Frye for His Weekly Critique Series

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Michael Frye just posted the second in his weekly series of photograph critiques. It is no surprise that he offers insightful and relevant commentary of the photos, but I want to especially note the nature of his critiques.

A lot of what passes for photo criticism on web forums and elsewhere is less than wonderful stuff. I see all too many that fall into a couple of predictable and not very helpful categories. On one hand I see the shallow and quite meaningless one-liner comments: “Great work!” and “Stunning photo!” and “It sings” and the like are, of course, positive – but they provide very little to the photographer than a momentary warm feeling… which quickly when one realizes that the lack of depth in the responses suggests that the photograph didn’t really engage the viewer. On the other hand we see plenty of examples of the “let me tell you why you suck” school of criticism: these often inform the photographer than he/she ignorantly violated some “rule” of photography and can sometimes degenerate into little more than lists of “everything I can find to dislike in your work.” A lot of this stuff comes from people who honestly think that this is what “criticism” is supposed to be, but some of it comes from folks who should know better.

Given the prevalence of poor public critiquing, I’m especially grateful to Michael for demonstrating the features of good criticism. Some things you’ll note in his series: He begins by finding and acknowledging the admirable and interesting in the work being critiqued; he avoids the “this is wrong” or “you shouldn’t do that” commentary; he shares his reaction to the image, letting the photographer know how and why he responded to it; when he has a different idea he offers the alternative to the original artist rather than insisting; he illustrates what he might do differently; and he concludes by looping back to the positive aspects of his observations.

I’ve never had the opportunity to observe Michael lead a workshop, but if the approach he uses in the online critiques is any indication, I’ll bet that there is a lot to be learned from him at his workshops.

Commentary

I’m Considering a Change to the Discussion Software – Perhaps Moving to Disqus?

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Recently I ran a little experiment and replaced the built-in discussion/comment feature at my dan’s outside blog with the Disqus equivalent. The experiment seems to have gone well: people continued to post a few messages on that low-traffic site, there were no complaints, and Disqus seems to provide some interesting features.

With that test under my belt I’m considering making the switch here as well. It appears that previous comments will all be ported over to the new service and will still be available here – on the same pages if I’m not mistaken. If anyone has any warnings, concerns, or advice… now would be a great time to drop me a line or leave a comment!

Commentary, News, Shows, Workshops

Night photography news – time to catch up!

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It has been far too long since I’ve posted on the subject of night photography, one of the subjects that interests me a great deal. There is so much other stuff for me to photograph during the summer months – urban and natural landscape, “my” Sierra Nevada, the coast, and so on – that I tend to slack off on the night photography this time of year. However, as summer draws to an end, night photography is one subject that seems to increasingly begin to interest me again.

So, with that in mind, a few notes related to the subject.

Late last week fellow SF Bay Area photographer Ivan Makarov contacted me to say that he was organizing a group of photographers to do a night photography shoot at the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard. He knew that I have shot there in the past (lots of examples in my night photography gallery) and asked for some advice about access and locations. I shared with him a bit of what I know about the location and also connected him with Tim Baskerville of The Nocturnes, the SF Bay Area night photography group since Tim is our local guru of all things related to night photography. After consulting with Tim and getting permission from the folks at Mare Island, Ivan got back to me and I decided to join his group. I won’t spoil the fun by saying too much here, but I’m currently working on photographs from the outing and they will show up here in a few weeks. (Impatient readers can get an early look by checking out my Flickr stream.)

So, since the pump was primed with that bit of night photography last weekend, I’ll catch up with the night photography news.

One great source for night photography information – and especially for coverage of shows featuring night photographers – is Andy Frazer’s Night Photography Blog. Recent news at his blog includes the following:

  • An opening this week of a night photography show in Alameda featuring the work of several well-know local night photographers: Troy Paiva, Mike Hows and Joe Reifer. Follow the first link in this bullet to find more info about the location, times/dates, and the opening reception.
  • Also during the month of August Any kept up a steady stream of posts highlighting a number of compelling examples of night photography – visit the blog and take a look.

Over at The Nocturnes Night Photography Blog you’ll find some seemingly random quotations… mixed in with some very interesting posts on local night photography events and shows.

I’m hearing rumors of an upcoming Mare Island Reunion for previous participants in The Nocturnes workshops. If you are a  past Nocturnes participant and you haven’t heard from Tim… you might want to check this out.

Finally, if you are looking for some information on how to do night photography, let me point out two resources:

  • The Nocturnes web site is the portal to a ton of information on the subject, ranging from technique to photographer to workshop opportunities. I strongly recommend that you visit!
  • For a very quick list of some basic considerations for night photography, take a look at my own Hints for Night Photography post.