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Composing Emotion
The rules of composition help us make conscious, technical decisions about placement of a subject within the frame and tell us how we can add emphasis to the subject by using various techniques such as...
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Haiku and Photography
Haiku, in its traditional sense is a form of Japanese poetry but, in its basic form it is the art of saying as much as possible with as few words as possible. It is a state of mind. There is a direct...
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Technology That’s Liberating
Technology plays an important part in my creative workflow, from taking a photograph to creating a final image. Although I use a combination of film and digital cameras to take my photographs, all of...
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Images About Something, Not Of Something
One of our goals in photography is to create images that tell a story. Much like how the author of a novel needs to capture his or her reader with the first few sentences, the photographer needs to...
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Look Down
I recently went out for the day with my camera to photograph at a location I have visited on several occasions over the past two or three years. On the days leading up to the trip and during the two...
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Return to Eastern State Penitentiary
A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia with some friends. It was the first time I had been back since I completed my Failed Penitence project almost two...
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I have written previously that images are not just a recreation of what the photographer sees but what he or she also feels, experiences or imagines. I firmly subscribe to this belief as well as the...
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Story Behind the Image – The Cleveland Way
I grew up in the North East of England, very close to where I took this image. When my brother and I were kids our father would take us and the dog for walks up this path on Sunday mornings. Rain or...
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A Tricky Question and a Mumbling Answer
This past weekend I took a day trip to photograph the Fonthill Castle along with fellow photographers, John Barclay, Tony Sweet, Rad Drew and Charles (Dick) Maclauchlan. Fonthill Castle is an amazing...
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Developing Your Photographic Style
I was recently reading an interview with Michael Kenna, one of my favorite photographers and whose work I draw a lot of inspiration from. While there are many interesting points in the interview, when...
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Slowing Down
One of the things that I enjoyed when I first tried large format photography is that you are forced to slow down and think about what it is that you are photographing. One thing that I disliked when I...
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At Play
In one of my recent posts (Family Portraits) I talked about how on a particular photo shoot I had taken candid photos of my kids to let their natural personalities reveal themselves rather than posing...
View ArticleRethinking Developing Your Photographic Style
In my recent Developing Your Photographic Style post I ventured into the world of personal photographic styles and how they identify us as individual photographers. In response, my friend, John...
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Fonthill Castle
Earlier this year I had an opportunity to photograph Fonthill Castle, located in Doylestown, Pennslyvania. It is a truly amazing place. Built by Henry Chapman Mercer between 1908 and 1912, Fonthill...
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Gear, Technique and Vision
Nikon released its D-100 DSLR in 2002. I was just getting started in “serious” photography and so I bought one for an upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon. I was hooked – it was awesome. In 2005 the D-200...
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Story Behind the Image – Forest Haven
A few years ago I visited the abandoned Forest Haven Asylum in Maryland. It was my first urban exploration (urbex) adventure. I knew nothing about the place except that it had been closed down since...
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Connecting With Your Subject and Yourself
I recently took a weekend-long trip to West Virginia with some fellow photographers. It was an intense weekend, trying to get in as much photography as possible, allowing for only necessary...
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Looking Beyond Color
I recently took a trip to the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia with some friends who wanted to photograph the Fall colors. We got up early the first morning to capture the sunrise in the...
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Inspiration from the Masters – Alvin Langdon Coburn
Inspiration for my photography has many different sources, including the work of other photographers. Although most of the photographers I follow are contemporary, I also maintain a list of “masters”....
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An Hour to Spare in Puerto Rico
I recently took a business trip to Puerto and had a little over an hour to spare after my meetings before the sun went down. I always take a camera with me on my business trips and since my hotel was...
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Thinking of Home
At this time of year my thoughts turn to friends and family back home in England, which prompted me to go through my archive of images taken from the north east where I grew up. This part of the...
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Stop, Look, Listen and See
When photographing a new subject or a new place it is so easy to set up as soon as you arrive and start shooting, subconsciously working through the toolbox of techniques that you have been...
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The Road to Creativity
I haven’t picked up my camera since I returned home from my trip to Death Valley three weeks ago. Everything around me looks so mundane in comparison to the magical sights I saw there. So, for the...
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Don’t Look for Great Images – Look for Different Ones
In Edition 105 of his Lenswork Magazine, Brooks Jensen talks about some of the things he does to help unblock whatever it is that is preventing him from being creative at various stages of a project....
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New Folio – Winter Trees (Folio 1)
I have been working on a new folio of my Winter Trees images, which can be found by clicking this Winter Trees link.
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Same Subject, Different Perspective
The Lonaconing Silk Mill in Western Maryland is an Aladdin’s Cave of artifacts from a bygone era. The old silk weaving looms and possessions left behind by former workers provide an amazing insight...
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Faking Reality
The sudden chatter of rifle fire heralds the start of a new day in the killing fields of southern Pennsylvania. Men and boys are startled awake and stumble from their tents to join their ranks....
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Self Portraits
Minor White argued that “all photographs are self portraits”. I certainly subscribe to this thinking and believe that every image I create says as much about me as it does the subjects I photograph....
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Ten Thousand Photographs
“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst”. Henri Cartier Bresson. While downloading photographs from a recent trip to West Virginia I realized that I had achieved the landmark 10,000 photographs,...
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A New Day
There is something surreal about standing in a field early in the morning surrounded by nothing more than fog, your thoughts and the sound of some unseen creatures far off in the distance....
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Fog as Metaphor
Fog covered the river we were trying to photograph during a recent shoot. I asked my friend if she could get a focus on a barely recognizable clump of trees in the middle of the river. She could,...
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Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
I was recently presenting my Recreating Vision and Emotion program to a local camera club when a member of the audience asked me which photographers influenced my work. My immediate response was to...
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Escaping Reality
It is all too easy to believe that our everyday lives represent our purpose and being. Although the repetitive cycle of things we do from the moment we wake until we return to sleep represents a...
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Gliding
Wary steps eventually turn into dreamlike glides. Laughter and joy fills the air as the dancers once again become children, void of inhibition, relishing in their short escape from the daily drama of...
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Alone
Alone I stand, perched high on a hill looking down into the valley below. Fenced in, with no room to move and no exit I feel alone. Although reaching for the sky, alone I stand in this field with no...
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An Ocean Full of Bowling Balls
J.D Salinger’s prequel to Catcher in the Rye tells the story of the death of Holden Caulfield’s brother Kenneth (later Allie) after going for a swim in the ocean during a brewing storm. Kenneth and...
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Walking Through A Different Door
In preparing for a recent trip to Iceland I surrounded myself with images of a magical and pristine place. Warmed by opportunity and possibility I arrived with my mind filled with images of...
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Windows – Framing Humanity
Since pride is a sin I am an unrepentant sinner when it comes to the pride I have for my working class heritage. It frames my existence and supports me in my journey through life. Long ago I learned...
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Sparrows Point – Baltimore
Bethlehem Steel, Sparrow’s Point, Baltimore 1889 – 2012. Like a giant tombstone, its rusting remains remind us of a way of life whose beating heart provided lifeblood to the surrounding communities....
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Iceland | A Journey Into Dreams
A new portfolio of my Iceland images has been posted in my gallery. See Iceland | A Journey Into Dreams.
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Old Town Mall, Baltimore
Constructed in the mid 1800’s, Old Town Mall in East Baltimore was once a diverse middle-class neighborhood whose residents spanned socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. It has lived through periods...
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Puerto Rico – Where it all Began
I lived in Puerto Rico between 1998 and 2004 and picked up a camera for the first time in 2002 and the rest, as they say, is history. I recently went back for a short time and took along my camera...
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Pinnacles Desert, Western Australia
I recently visited Western Australia and took a trip to the Pinnacles Desert, which is about a 3 hour drive north of Perth in the Nambung National Park. The area gets its name from limestone...
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The Importance of Titles
Think for a moment about your favorite books, your favorite music, your favorite photographs, etc., and the feelings they stir up inside of you. For the Charles Dickens fans, do you conjure up images...
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Discovering My Self
They are everywhere and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are modern, sleek looking digital SLRs, while others harken back 50 years or more with their retro looks. Some are often used as...
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Style as Signature
I often hear the term word “style” being used to describe a photographer or his / her work and it makes me ask the following questions: What is style in a photographic sense? What is my style, or...
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Rethinking Creativity
I was driving my 8 year old daughter to school the other morning and we got into an enlightening discussion about creativity. She had spent the past weekend writing a short story to be submitted for a...
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Seeing the art, not the Artist
Several weeks ago, Leo Lubow (lubowphotography.com) judged a competition at my local camera club (www.baltimorecameraclub.org). He has judged here on several occasions over the years and I enjoy...
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The Treachery of Memory
Sitting on the banks of a fast flowing river on a spring morning, listening to the sound of a cool mountain breeze rustling the leaves of the pine scented forest I close my eyes and commit the moment...
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A Strawman for Creativity
I recently read an article suggesting that creativity starts with darkness. The author argued that in order to be creative, one must start from a place of nothing where one’s mind is free of ideas...
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