A Bit Of Confusion?

I am quite pleased that I had two prints juried into a multi-artist show commemorating Pittsburgh's 250th birthday. The show is entitled "Pittsburgh Through AAP Eyes", with AAP being the Associated Artists Of Pittsburgh. The show runs from Feb 8th to March 9th at The Pittsburgh Center For the Arts and includes both two and three dimensional art. The two prints of mine that are going to be on display are:

"Escape"
Copyright Howard Grill

"Old And New"
Copyright Howard Grill

So where does the issue of confusion come in, as the title of this post would suggest? Twice in the past I have written about the rights of photographers in Pittsburgh. Those posts can be seen here and here. In addition, fellow blogger Billie Mercer recently wrote about two even more concerning episodes involving photographer's rights. Those posts can be read here and here.

Again, what is the source of confusion? The issue is that, on the one hand, there are apparently areas in the city where security guards feel that they can stop people from photographing, despite the fact that it is perfectly legal to do so and, on the other hand, a show can be put together to honor the city that contains images that, on another day, might have been unable to be obtained because of over-zealous security guards and building owners. The image entitled "Escape", for example, was actually taken while standing on PPG property, though not of the PPG Building. So, they stop you from photographing there, but, if you manage to get some shots, the images can be in a show commemorating the city! Figure that one out.

Gadgets That Work: Lowepro Photo Gloves

This is the second post (with the first post being about McClamp) in my thus far short series entitled "Gadgets That Work", which is about relatively low cost items (can anything with the word photographic attached to it truly be low cost?) that work well.

I believe I have mentioned before how much I dislike the cold (and it is below freezing here in Pittsburgh at the moment), and for that reason anything that lets me make photographs more comfortably in the winter is a big help in motivating me to get outdoors. One thing that I had always found very frustrating when trying to photograph in the cold is trying to keep my hands warm. Until recently, my best attempt was to use a thin glove 'liner' under a pair of mittens that was split in half with the finger part flipping back to allow the liner glove to be exposed. It was better than other alternatives I had tried, but there were two problems. First, the liner glove wasn't particularly warm when the mitten opened and, of even greater importance, it was very difficult to grip and work the camera controls with the inner glove. In fact, for that reason, I often found myself having to take the glove off.

Then I discovered Lowepro Photo Gloves. Usually I find myself being very cynical when a company takes what is generally a non-photographic product and attaches the word 'photo' to it. That usually means that it is going to be overpriced and may not be better than the same type of product without the magic word association.

But this is truly a superlative product! What makes it so different? First of all, the gloves are somewhat thicker and warmer than glove liners (but still not warm enough to use solo if it is very cold), but still fit under a mitten. In addition, the palm and the palm side of the fingers have little rubber 'treads' to allow you to grip and work camera controls, including wheels and dials, with the gloves on. They really work! If you are going to be out in cold winter weather you will definitely be glad you have a pair of these. If it is really cold, get yourself some small chemical warming packets to put between the mittens and these gloves and you will be all set for all but truly harsh and dangerous conditions.

Using Flashlights For Macro Photography

I have written before about the photography workshops run by Nancy Rotenberg, Les Saucier, and Don McGowan. They are superb, and I recommend them highly for anyone considering attending an intensive workshop. Just recently, Les Saucier wrote an article on their ‘Photography With Heart’ website that has provided me with some useful answers to questions that I have had about using flashlights for macro-photography.

What? Flashlights? You heard it right. For some time, in addition to using fill flash, I have played around with various flashlights to try to accent or add sparkle to subjects in my photographs, particularly flowers. While fill flash works very well for me in general, at times I would like to more selectively accent edges or portions of the image, which can’t easily be done with fill flash. In addition, if I just want to see what a bit of extra light will do, it is easier to just pull out a small flashlight and play a bit instead of setting up the flash.

But what flashlight to use? Incandescent, xenon, LED? Adjustable or fixed power output? How to adjust color cast.....with a gel or in Camera RAW? Though I have tried two or three flashlights, they have always seemed lacking in one way or another. And yet, in the back of my mind, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that there is a light out there that can do what I want it to.....if I just knew which one to buy.

That is why I was excited when I found out that Les had just written the definitive, up to date article that answered all these questions! The article is packed with great information and can be found here. I am putting in my order for a Fenix L1D and some Roscolux #17. I haven’t gotten them yet, but I am looking forward to giving them a try. Thanks Les!

The Changing Light

Sunrise is one of the things that many people who are not photographers often miss. Even though I frequently do take the opportunity to get up to photograph the rising sun, I still am almost always amazed at how quickly the color, intensity, and quality of light can change at this time of day. These changes are some of the aspects of light that are often missed by folks who are not photography oriented, either because they aren't awake for sunrise or don't pay as much attention to the nuances of light.

Several posts back, I wrote about a recent family vacation I took in Florida, at Sanibel Island. On a few of those days I got up early to photograph the sunrise. Here, in Western Pennsylvania, we often don't get a good view of the horizon because of the rather hilly terrain. On Sanibel, there was horizon visible all around. Being able to see the actual horizon so easily made the changing quality of the morning light even more evident. Because you could see so far 'out', the changes seemed to occur much more rapidly than I had ever appreciated here at home. It was truly an amazing, almost surreal experience.

As I was looking through some of those images, I recognized two that really brought this point home, as they were of the same subject and taken only about 20 minutes apart, and yet the difference in the quality of light is startling:

Driftwood I
Sanibel Island, Florida
Copyright Howard Grill

Driftwood II
Sanibel Island, Florida
Copyright Howard Grill

Though I personally prefer the first image, partly because of the color of the light and partly because I like the way the slower shutter speed smoothed the water, I feel they each have their own special feel and appeal.

I should also add that I wonder if the image would look 'tidier' or better composed if the upper branch of the driftwood that breaks through the horizon line were cloned out. From a compositional standpoint, and without arguing about whether that type of cloning should be done, what do you think?

At any rate, one thing is clear. Among the highlights of photographing is the chance to be awake to see, experience, and appreciate spectacles like this. Hard to believe that it happens most mornings!

Going Too Far

Printing is tough......it is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. I may try to make an image look great on screen, but that always pales in comparison to the effort I end up putting into trying to make a print that looks"perfect" to me. By the time I feel the work is done, I have generally gone through many iterations of the image, making local changes in tonality, contrast, and satuaration to get it to look just the way I envisioned it. I have always felt that the print is the 'final common pathway'; that it is where the artist's final statement is made. Much like the old adage that 'if you love it let it go', the final print is where the photographer lets go of his creative effort and lets it loose on the world. Perhaps a little melodramatic, but I put great stock in the importance of the final print.

Ah, but the purpose of this post is not necessarily to talk about my philosophy of printing. It is actually to pass on some advice I took from from Brooks Jensen regarding making prints. It is advice that I have found to be very helpful and that I thought might be useful to others as well.

Many months back, Mr. Jensen made a brief comment in one of his LensWork podcasts to the effect that (and this is not going to be a word for word quote) "you never know if you have pushed an effect far enough until you have pushed it too far". I realized just recently that this advice has been,for some time, in the back of my mind as I work on making prints.

With Photoshop, it has become so easy to add more saturation, more contrast, make local tonal changes etc, that it becomes hard to know before seeing the print on paper (yes, I know about soft-proofing and color management...but, still, while those may be important clues as to how the final print will look, they still don't replace seeing the hard copy and making appropriate adjustments) to what degree adjustments should be made. How far do you go? How much contrast, saturation etc? If some is good might not more be better?

Mr. Jensen's thoughts ring true to me. If you identify where the point is that you have gone too far, you know what the limit is. That is not to say that what is too far for me is also too far for you. That's what makes us all individuals. But once you know when an effect or idea has gone too far for you, then you can work within those boundries to fine tune an image and decide what type of feel you want to give it. It seems more manageable to work within a range or a zone than to work in a sea of endless possibilities.

The Candid Frame: Interview With Rob Sheppard

I have previously written about the superb podcast by Ibarionex Perello entitled The Candid Frame. During each episode Ibarionex interviews a photographer, some well known and others less so. The interviews are always insightful and fascinating.

During the current episode Rob Sheppard is interviewed. I had expected to hear a lot about Outdoor Photographer, for which Mr. Sheppard is editor-at-large. However, this was not the focus of Mr. Sheppard's comments at all.

I found this episode particularly inspiring. Specifically, there was discussion about finding one's own personal vision, the role of Photoshop in photography, and the continued relevance of the craft of photography in the digital world.

I never miss an episode of The Candid Frame. If you haven't listened before, this is a great episode to start with!

Mark Story: Living In Three Centuries

I recently ran across an amazing set of portraits by photographer Mark Story, taken as part of his project entitled "Living In Three Centuries: The Face Of Age". His project started as an effort to photograph people who, because of living extraordinarily hard lives, appeared worn and aged beyond their years. It ultimately morphed into photographing those who have lived during three centuries, the centenarians and 'super-centenarians', whose life has encompassed the end of the 1800's, the 1900's, and,now, the new millennium. I find it interesting that the original idea of photographing those that appear worn beyond their years ultimately turned into making portraits of those who have lived longer than most of us can hope to.

The portraits are haunting and extremely expressive. They are accompanied by fascinating text that tells the viewer a bit about the subject. Well worth having a look. Once you are there, I bet you stay awhile, as I found myself somewhat mesmerized going through the images and reading about each person.

Mark Story's website can be found here. It is worth taking time to read about the project before going right to the images.

By the way, "Motivation" was one year old yesterday. When I started this blog, I wasn't quite sure how long it would last or where it would take me. Now, 156 posts in and going strong, I am very glad that I undertook it and am particularly thankful for the opportunity to have 'met' a good number of people who have contacted me along the way. It has also served to 'motivate' me to continue my photographic journey. I hope you have found it of some use as well.

Photographing With Flatbed Scanners

Lately, I've been reading about and have become fascinated by the use of flatbed scanners for photography. I am not talking about using them to scan film, but rather to produce primary images by placing objects on the glass and scanning them. Using this technique with today's scanners, one can make extremely detailed high resolution images.

That could open whole areas of exploration in and of itself. However, what I find even potentially more interesting is the ability to scan objects that could be used as background textures to be blended with camera generated images. These would be things that are easy to scan. Think about it....old, weathered paper, cloth, wood, metal etc.

So how many of these types of scans have I made. None! I did say that I was merely at the reading and learning stage. But it does seem to me that there could be a great deal of potential here and it is something I plan to experiment with.

I thought there might be some interest in the background information I have been reading, as well as in seeing some of the artwork that has been produced by others using this technique. Therefore, I thought it might be useful to post some links to resources about using flatbed scanners for photography, much as I did for experimenting with Holgas and pinhole cameras.

So here we go:

1) This article by Vincent de Groot is perhaps the best general article on the subject I have come across.

2) Another source of general information can be found here.

3) Flowers may or may not be your thing, but prepare yourself for what may be the most three dimensional appearing images you have ever seen by photographer (yes, I do think that 'scanographers' should be categorized as photographers) Katinka Matson.

4) Marsha Tudor has also made some beautiful images, I just wish her website would allow one to view them at a larger size.

If anyone reading this has had the opportunity to do this type of imaging, please comment, as I would love to hear what your experience has been!

Serendipity

I made an image about two weeks ago that made me smile. I smiled not only because I was on vacation, not only because I was happy with the decision to get up before sunrise and do some photographing while everyone else was still asleep, and not only because I was outside in the midst of an unbelievable sunrise. Sure, all those things played a role, but what really intrigued me was the role serendipity can have while photographing.

There I was on the beach at dawn with a most amazing sunrise unfolding. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, a Great Blue Heron flew up to me and landed a very short distance away. This in itself fascinated me because near my home in Pennsylvania there are some areas where an occasional heron can be seen, but they are very skittish and hard to approach closely. In Florida, where the birds seem much more accustomed to human presence, close approaches are not uncommon.....but, in this instance, it was the bird's choice to land right nearby.

After he landed, we sort of looked at each other, and then the heron seemed to look out at the sunrise as well. I know that is anthropomorphizing, but that is just what it seemed like despite the fact that, in reality, it was probably looking for fish in the water.

I had my 24-70 mm lens on my camera, and quickly racked it out to 70mm. The heron was still a bit small in the frame, so I slowly moved in a little closer while swinging the camera around towards the heron. He let me get a bit closer before I felt like I better stop the approach. Once he knew where I had stopped he didn't seem to pay much attention and let me shoot away. I tried to isolate his dark silhouette against the reflected colors of sunrise which seemed to emanate from the water.

'Sanibel Sunrise'
Sanibel Island, Florida
Copyright Howard Grill

He ultimately flew away, but it was an experience that really ingrained that unbelievably beautiful morning into my memory. When I returned back to our condo everyone was still asleep and I very contentedly crawled back into bed to catch a few more z's myself.

It was a particularly fun experience that day because I wasn't the only one out at that 'crazy hour'. There were three types of people up for sunrise that morning: the serious photographers, the serious shellers, and the serious fisherman. As I have frequently told my wife, I never feel more alive than when I am out photographing sunrise and have the opportunity to watch the world wake up.

The B Side

One of the things that I have been thinking about lately is how to deal with the idea of making photographs that I know ahead of time are not likely to be among those that I consider to be my best, or even likely to make it into print. I found myself wondering about the importance of making images under these circumstances and, in my mind, ended up comparing this situation to other fields of artistic endeavor, particularly music.

I found myself realizing that this situation surely occurred with even the best of the best. Didn't The Beatles and The Rolling Stones know that the songs they put on the “B Side” of their singles were not their strongest work. (For those too young to remember, ‘back in the day’ bands would release their hit singles on 45rpm vinyl records which had a song on both sides. Typically the ‘A Side’ had the hit single that was played on the radio and the ‘B Side’ had a lesser known work.) Even on full album releases it seemed, at least at the time, pretty clear what the ‘weakest’ songs were. So why put those on the album? Why not wait until a few more ‘good’ songs were written? If it were as simple as this, however, there would be no album that contained ‘filler’.

I think the answer goes far beyond the obvious issue of it being difficult to predict what will become a hit. And I think the answers are directly applicable to photography as well. It just somehow seemed clearer to me when I thought about the issues in the realm of music, perhaps because I am an ‘outsider’ to the field.

Surely there must be times when a musician is pleased with a piece they have written, only to find that most listeners would not categorize it as being among their best work. Similarly, I recently posted about how difficult it can be to predict what images people will find most appealing.

I am sure there are times that a musician feels a need to change something about their style: to experiment a bit, as it were. For me, this immediately brings to mind The Talking Heads and Joni Mitchell. From a photography standpoint, even though landscapes, for example, might be your strongest point, when you are feeling in a creative rut you might well want to do macro or street photography. Does that mean that this 'experimental' work should not be shown? Of course not.

What about the creative process in general? Maybe it simply isn’t possible to collect 14 ‘A Side’ songs at once. What if to generate that many hits you simply have to work through all the other tunes going through your mind first? What if you have to keep ‘practicing’ in order to make hits?

As I have been working through these issues and ideas in my mind a few things have become clear to me:

If you don’t keep practicing photography with vigor, then when the opportunity to take that ‘killer shot’ comes along the results will surely not be as good as they could have been.

If you don’t change your style, at least transiently, in order to climb out of a creative rut, you are doing yourself a creative injustice. Try macro, landscape, street…try playing with a Holga or pinhole camera. And don't hide the work.

Sometimes, to tell a story, not every image will be a ‘Best Of’ shot. (Not every song on The Who’s “Tommy” was a hit.) But each image may well play an important role, acting as a chapter, in delivering a complete and autonomous tale.

Even though you may not be going to a beautiful location, you can never tell when something will catch your eye and the subsequent photographic exploration may turn up something unanticipated.

It may well be that a passing texture or pattern that you make an image of might not stand on its own, but, at a later time, that image might well play an important role in a montage, as a texture blend, or other use.

I am not advocating showing your photographic ‘outtakes’ or what you consider to not be your best work, but surely there are many images that might merit that ‘B Side’; work that might not be one’s “Best Of” but still occupies an important spot in your creative history!

Quick Quotes: Albert Einstein II

"Creativity is more powerful than knowledge"
Albert Einstein

Unquestionably one of the greatest physicists and thinkers the world has ever known, I have always been fascinated by what Einstein has written and said outside the world of physics. It initially seemed unusual to me that a man as steeped in knowledge as he was would have deemed the value of pure creativity to be so high. After thinking about it some more, however, it became clear to me that those that truly bring a new level of understanding to any field generally do so by thinking 'outside the box', an endeavor which often requires the rejection of commonly accepted knowledge and the application of creative thinking.

Lightroom Presets II

I have previously written about the use of presets in Adobe Lightroom. With presets, you can just scroll your mouse over the name of the preset in the Develop Module and get an immediate idea of how the image might look if treated in a certain fashion, such as black and white, cyanotype, sepia toned etc.. The preview one gets is not necessarily how the finished product would look, as the application of a preset serves only as a starting point, but it does give a very good idea of whether it is going to be worthwhile following a particular creative route.

With the winter being quite dreary where I live , I recently bought some lilies to photograph, and the results, I think, give another nice demonstration of how presets can really guide one down a path. Here was my original image of a yellow lilly, which I thought was somehow lacking, but yet seemed to have some promise:

Copyright Howard Grill

I felt that it just needed 'something else', and so brought it into the Develop Module of Lightroom and quickly scrolled through a number of my presets. I became intrigued by the look of the image both sepia toned and done in a cyanotype appearance. I ultimately decided to go with sepia toning and after applying the preset and tweaking a few of the settings ended up with this image, which I personally like quite a bit more than the original:

Copyright Howard Grill

Just another nice example of the benefits of Lightroom, which I use in conjunction with Photoshop. Need to get some presets? Try here and here.

Beth Moon

Recently, I have seen Beth Moon's black and white photographs of the world's most ancient and unusual trees in at least two fine art magazines, with LensWork being the most recent. While the trees themselves have inherent interest because of their history and how unusual they look, her images really bring out their character and, depending on the image, really makes them look either spooky, wise, aged, solemn, powerful etc.

As is usually the case with great photography, these images speak for themselves. Nonetheless, in the magazines there have been captions associated with the images that tell where the image was taken and the significance of the trees. Unfortunately, the individual images on her website don't provide this interesting information about the trees that her magazine portfolios have had.

Have a look at her amazing portfolio of ancient trees here, as well as her other fascinating work here.

Fakery

Several months ago I wrote a short post entitled “Photography And Truth”, which can be read here (Pt. I) and here (Pt. II). “Photography And Truth” was ultimately published on Uwe Steinmueller’s Outback Photo as an essay which contained more photographs than the original post, with the added images being used to illustrate the points that were being made. If there is an interest, that version of the essay can be read here.

The reason I bring up the essay, is that I ran across an interesting article on the Photopreneur blog entitled “The World's Most Famous Photoshop Fakes“, which I thought served as an interesting follow up to it. In “The World's Most Famous Photoshop Fakes“ , the Photopreneur authors present some of the most notable historic ‘news’ images that were ‘doctored’ in some way, many through the use of Photoshop. Several of the fakes were images taken on film and subsequently altered without the use of Photoshop. Oh my, you mean analog photographs can also lie?

It is an in interesting article and well worth having a look!

Textures III

If you haven't read at my first two posts about textures, they can be found here and here.

Having been intrigued by seeing what others have done with blending textures into their images, I was interested in seeing what I might be able to do. I am certainly no expert, as this is the first image that I am attempting to apply the technique to. Here we go.......first, the image with no texture applied:

'Days Of Yore'
Copyright Howard Grill

Now, the image of the texture itself that was used:

Copyright Michael Smith

And, finally, the image with the texture applied to it:

'Days Of Yore'
Copyright Howard Grill

The effect doesn't overwhelm the image, but, nonetheless, I think effects it in a positive way. What do you think?

Without question, too much of a good thing can be bad. I do not mean to imply that all, most, or even many of one’s images should be treated in this way. But, I personally find this an interesting technique, the intensity of which can be easily controlled, that can really enhance creativity and put a certain feel into images that would be hard to do any other way. It can’t make a bad image good, but it certainly holds the possibility, in some instances, of making a good image better.

In closing, I should address how one gets textures to try out. You can make your own by shooting things like concrete, canvas backdrops, old wood, sand….anything where the texture is the main subject. There are also some sites where textures can be downloaded for free, such as from Texture King .

I purchased a series of textures from Michael Smith, as I found the ones that he offered to be particularly interesting and well done. They can be seen and, if desired, purchased here (I myself have no connection with Mr. Smith, except as a satisfied customer).

I would also like, once again, to thank Cate for her willingness to share her post-processing technique with me and subsequently with anyone that might be reading this!

Textures II

In my last post, I presented some of Cate's images that I found mysterious and ethereal and which motivated me to contact her in order to find out about her post-processing. I mentioned that I don’t usually write about Photoshop techniques in this blog, but, every so often, I do find something that is directly Photoshop related that I would like to share. Needless to say, this is one of those times.

As it turns out, the post-processing is done with textures. What are textures? Any image that consists mainly of abstract color and shape can serve as an underlying texture to blend with another 'real' image. So how is it done?

Texture By Michael Smith
More On Michael's Textures In My Next Post

Open the 'real' image that you want to apply the texture to as well as the image of the actual texture itself (an example of a texture is posted above). Change the name of the texture image layer (it should consist of a single layer) from ‘Background’ to anything else (so that it can be dragged out to the other image). I just rename the layer ‘Texture’.

Next, resize the texture image to the same size and resolution as the image to which it is to be applied. It is just a background texture so one need not worry about maintaining image detail in it when upsizing. Then, while holding down the shift key (to make sure the texture is centered over the entire image) drag the renamed texture layer onto the image to which you want to apply the effect.

Whoa…..now that the texture layer is the top layer of the 'real' image, all you see is the texture. That is because the blending mode of the layer is set to ‘Normal’ by default. Now comes the fun. Change the blending mode and experiment. Once you change the blending mode, the texture blends with the underlying image in different ways. Start with ‘Overlay’ or ‘Soft Light’, but, by all means, try them all to see what effects can be had. Change the opacity of the layer to control the amount of the effect. Use a layer mask to localize the effect. Apply a clipping layer so that the texture layer, and only that layer, can be manipulated by changing its tonality or color with an additional curves or hue/saturation adjustment layer respectively. Go wild if you like.

I am just learning how to work with textures myself, and, so far, find that I lean towards their ‘gentler’ use. In my next post I will show an example of an image I have been working on along with the separate texture image that I have 'gently' applied for a subtle but, I think, important improvement in the image. I will also mention some places and people from whom one can obtain texture images, in addition to shooting your own.

Textures I

Having read about the positive and negative aspects of participating in Flickr in several blogs, I decided to join and see what it was all about. My principle reason for doing so was that I thought it would make it easy for me to see what type of interesting work was being done by others. I was looking forward to finding other photographers whose worked I enjoyed, as well as finding new ideas that might inspire me.

One of the first people whose work I found myself drawn to was “Cate”. Let me first say that I have never been one to go for Photoshop ‘tricks’ or gaudy Photoshop manipulation, but, despite being manipulated, there was something I found enchanting about her images. I found them to be full of emotion; eerie and mystical. I really wanted to know how she achieved this look and to at least have the opportunity to try whatever the technique was on a few of my own images.

So I e-mailed Cate and asked if she would be willing to share with me how she had post-processed her images. She was gracious and kind enough to do so, and, despite the fact that I write very little about using Photoshop (there are many others that could do so far better than myself), I would like to take the opportunity to share the technique, which I will do in my next post.

But, first, let me share with you a few of Cate’s images that had motivated me to contact her. I reproduce them here with her permission:

Emerald
Copyright "Cate" On Flickr
Used With Her Permission




Goldspun
Copyright "Cate" On Flickr
Used With Her Permission

Enchanting

Copyright "Cate" On Flickr
Used With Her Permission

A Matter Of Taste

I know which of my prints I like the best. I know which ones I feel have subtle tones, richness of detail and composition that draws me in. Funny thing though, when I show my prints to others, they don’t always ‘pick’ the ones that I think are my best work.

Case in point. In my last post, I wrote about two images of mine that were published. I had sent eight or nine images to the publisher and the two that were chosen were actually my least favorite of the entire group. I have had a few small shows of my work. Some of the images that I have sold have been ones that I liked quite a bit, but I have also sold ones that I did not find as compelling, though to have included them I must have also ‘liked them’ to some degree. In short, I am frequently surprised by what photographs people are drawn to compared to the ones that I think are my best.

Here is one example of this that particularly stands out to me. This image, entitled “Yellow Morning”, is one that I really enjoy. There are smooth and subtle tonal changes in the print and the stark simplicity of it tends to keep me looking for more subtleties within. Perhaps I like it because viewing the image brings me back to that place on that magical morning. But, interestingly, no one else seems to see much in the image. I have never sold one and no one has really even ever given it a second look. When I tell people that I really like it they tend to just shrug their shoulders.

Yellow Morning
Copyright Howard Grill

I find it interesting that it is so difficult to predict what other people will like. On the surface, it seems simply a matter of taste……some people will like some images, subjects etc and others won’t. But it does raise some questions. Let me state at the outset that I am not implying that one should create their art in order to satisfy anyone other than themselves. That said, I think we all have images that we have created that we liked (I am speaking of images that we felt strongly enough about to spend the time and effort to print), but which, as time goes on, we feel are no longer representative of our best work. In situations where one is trying to, say, sell their artwork or submit work for publication, should these types of prints be removed from ones portfolio? What if it is apparent that many people like them? What would have happened had I not included the two prints that were published with the submission?

I don’t know how to answer these questions. I am curious as to how others have dealt with this issue.

Quick Quotes: Dorothea Lange

"While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see"

Dorothea Lange

While this concept has been expressed many times, it has perhaps not been expressed as simply or as succinctly as it was by Dorothea Lange.

Published

In the beginning of the year, having had some small shows of my work, I decided it was time to start submitting images for publication. Truth be told, I ended up putting off the process for some time. But I did ultimately send out some images to two magazines. It was my first attempt and I therefore wasn't going for any of the big names. After my blogging friend Marc Graf had written about Whisper In The Woods Nature Journal, I decided to send them a few photographs.

I am pleased that two of the images were published in this months issue. So, I am motivated to try submitting more and elsewhere. I am not one to toot my own horn, but I am happy with this accomplishment and so thought I would share the images:

Wild Blueberries
Copyright Howard Grill

Last Leaf Of Fall
Copyright Howard Grill