What is the point of these Photography Clips? This podcast includes snippets of my thoughts on various aspects of photography, art, and creativity. The goal of Photography Clips is to get you thinking about your own unique points of view.
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There is a strange point in learning photography when instruction begins to work against you. At first, advice is useful. You learn how aperture changes depth of field, how shutter speed affects motion, and how light shapes a subject. You begin to understand the camera instead of merely hoping it gives you something usable. Then the advice keeps coming. Every image should have a clear subject. The…
Every now and then, I look back through old photographs and wonder why I kept certain ones. Not the obvious ones. Not the family photographs, birthdays, holidays, faces, or moments that clearly belong in the archive. Those explain themselves. I understand why they are there. I am thinking more about the quiet images. A road. A tree. A field. A lake. A building I passed once. A patch of light on an…
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but attention is not automatic. That is something I think about more and more when it comes to photography. We can make the photograph. We can print it, post it, frame it, share it, and send it out into the world. But none of that means anyone is required to stop and look. The viewer still has a choice... Podcast Notes:…
I do not think a photograph has to be famous to change you. It does not even have to be understood by anyone else. Sometimes an image works on you privately. You see it once, and for some reason, it stays around in your mind. You may not know why at first. You may not be able to explain what it did. But later, when you are holding a camera and standing in front of something ordinary, you realize…
The camera only records what is in front of it, but the photograph begins before that. It begins when something makes me stop. Sometimes it is a certain kind of light. Sometimes it is a face in a crowd. Sometimes it is a shadow falling across a wall, making an ordinary place look different for a moment. Other times, it is something quiet that most people would walk past without giving it much…
I have always loved old photographs. There is something about them that pulls me in. A faded print. A family face. A place that no longer looks the same. A street corner that has changed. A house that is gone. A person who was young then and old now, or maybe no longer here at all. Photography has a way of keeping those things close. That is one of the reasons I love it. A photograph can take…
Wedding photography is one of those subjects that can feel confusing before people even understand what they are paying for. One photographer may charge $500, while another may charge $5,000 or more. To many couples, that difference can feel overwhelming, especially when they are looking at online portfolios that all seem beautiful at first glance. I understand why professional photographers…
I've always asked questions. That's how I've learned most of what I know. I've asked other photographers. I've read. I've tried things. I've made mistakes. I've gone back and looked again. I've taken a photograph, wondered why it worked, then taken another one and wondered why it didn't. That's always been part of photography for me. I don't see "I don't know" as giving up. I see it as the start…
By the time we reached this part of the semester in my Media Law class, the room felt different. Copyright had been structured. Privacy had been layered. But now we were talking about public confrontation. Cameras on sidewalks. Musicians are being recorded without permission. Journalists challenged by police. Business owners are angry about being filmed. The professor, who was a Pittsburgh-based…
When I was studying videography and photography in college, I expected to spend most of my time thinking about lenses, lighting ratios, audio capture, and editing timelines. Then I walked into a Media Law class that changed the way I looked at everything I was creating. The professor was not just an academic. He was a practicing media lawyer. He represented music groups, photographers, and…
