I recently received an e-mail from a photographer who said that he desperately needed my help, that he needed to free up space on his hard drive, and had to do it “that day, right now.” The e-mail came on a Thursday afternoon, I had just gotten home from work and had an already full evening and upcoming weekend, so there was no way I had time to try and help this guy for several days, let alone that very minute. I sent him an e-mail suggesting that he just move some of his photos to one of his external hard drives, then come back later and figure out a permanent solution. I never heard back from him so I assume he figured out his problem. I can’t help but think that there was a lot more to the story than he was letting on, and I had and still have a nagging feeling that his actual needs may have been well beyond my ability to help.

I understand that dealing with computers and digital files and managing our photographs can be very stressful. One of the things I liked about the film days was being able to pull out a binder, toss a couple of pages of slides or negatives onto a lightbox and look at them. The voodoo that has become digital photography is wonderful but sometimes it is scary as heck. And to do it right it is a lot of work!

In hindsight I consider myself very fortunate that I recognized early on, well before I had photos in dozens of folders in different locations on multiple hard drives and several computers, that there was enormous potential for mayhem. I’m not the most organized person in the world, but I have always subscribed to the idea of “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” My workshop is that way, my sock drawer is that way, and my photo files are that way.

Not everyone has the foresight to organize their work from the beginning, and once a workflow is established, no matter how haphazard it might be, it’s tough to change. I understand that. We gain a comfort level in the way we do things, and once we are comfortable it can be very scary to think about making a change. That is especially true when changing software, because not everything “translates,” there is often a steep learning curve and it can be really intimidating to think about changing our habits. I emphasize in my Lightroom teaching that everyone needs to learn enough about the pros and cons of the different choices that they can decide on the method that works best for them.

Things like full hard drives don’t happen overnight. I’ve been shooting with digital cameras for 7 years and have scanned slides from before that. My photo collection is tiny compared to a lot of people I know. I started with 250GB hard drives, stepped up to $500GM drives and now use 1TB drives. I’m just about ready to step up to the next size. You have to manage this stuff, and it’s an ongoing process. If you are the type of person who can live with disorganized files and don’t worry whether you can find stuff, you don’t have much of a problem. If you are the type of person who worries about every minute detail and has to have every contingency covered, you can drive yourself nuts. But if you take the time to think about it a bit, learn what the options are and get some expert advice it doesn’t have to be difficult. But don’t wait until you have 30,000 images and a full hard drive. Make ongoing evaluation part of your process, budget for newer and bigger hard drives and make sure you have a plan in case something goes wrong. You’ll be much happier in the long run and will have more time and attention for making photographs instead of worrying about managing your assets.

Does the cost of your gear keep you from getting out and enjoying it?  Does thinking about/worrying about/paying for your equipment keep you from using it?

David duChemin recently wrote a blog post titled “Buy the Tickets” where he compared the cost of buying less-expensive but still good-quality gear instead of “pro” gear and investing the difference in the experience of photographing.  By his analysis the difference between the cost of the “high end” kit and the so-called “budget” kit would buy an around-the-world plane ticket with money left over for food and lodging.  Not 5-star food and lodging perhaps, but good enough.  Fascinating concept.

“Don’t spend money on gear. Spend it on plane tickets.”

Whenever someone writes an article like that they get a lot of “must be nice” and “that would never work for me” and “what about the kids and the mortgage” comments.  Happens to Kathy and me when we talk about the vacations we take.  Our ability to do the traveling we do is because of the choices we have made and make.  What people too often fail to realize is that once you have established a goal, any choice you make that doesn’t directly help you accomplish it is an excuse.

If your goal is financial security for retirement you need to be making choices and saving enough to get you there, and hopefully you started a long time ago.  If your goal is to be able to travel the country or the world – whether you are a photographer or not – how does owning a house/buying a car/watching TV help you get there?  If you are fortunate enough to be able to do both, great!  If you have to make choices you need to make them.  If the cost of doing those things – and that includes the opportunity cost associated with the money, time and attention – keeps you from getting where you want to be then you either need to make different choices or set different goals.

“Forget the shiny stuff, it gets tarnished fast. Put your camera into the bag and book a flight instead. Go make memories and photographs. Live. Buy the tickets.”

I write a lot about how I don’t need to have the latest and greatest equipment to take good photographs.  I have made what I feel are very successful photographs with equipment that for a lot of people would have been traded in or sold off years ago.  I’ll admit that part of my writing is probably to console myself for not jumping on the bandwagon, but I truly believe that the choices I make – to spend the money on the destinations and not the equipment – is part of what will allow me to achieve my own goals.  If I had to choose between a new camera and a vacation – and sometimes I do – I would choose the vacation every time.

I get comments and questions all the time from people, especially those I work with, that ask why I am working at a day job when my photography is so good (their words) and I enjoy it so much.  As much as I love photography, becoming a full-time photographer is not my goal.  It’s not even my dream.  I enjoy photography a lot, but I enjoy it for the places it takes me and the things it allows me to see.  I enjoy the learning and the creative expression and the continuous development.  I love sharing my work with people who appreciate it, whether they pay me for it or not.  The sacrifices it would take to be able to do photography full time – and especially to make a living from it – would first and foremost take a lot of the fun out of it for me, but most importantly it would keep me from achieving my personal goals.  Many of the full-time photographers I know are only able to do it with the help of a willing spouse who provides the income to pay the mortgage while they spend their time being a photographer.  I think that’s great if they can swing it.  But my goals include Kathy & me traveling and experiencing the world together, and if that means we have to do it on a few weeks’ vacation time every year until we are finally able to trek out on our own, that’s fine with me.  That moment is getting closer all the time.

My ultimate wish would be for everyone to be able to do whatever they want to do for as long as they want to do it.  Unfortunately not many of us get to do that.  So we set goals and make choices.  Sometimes we make sacrifices.  But I prefer to call them compromises.  Hopefully your goals are clear and your choices will allow you to meet them.  If not, take a look at what’s getting in your way, make the changes necessary and get going.  It’s not too late!

A few weeks ago I entered 4 prints in a juried photography show.  There were a total of 140-some submissions, and 2 of my 4 entries were chosen out of about 30 overall, with 1 of mine receiving an Honorable Mention.  All 4 photographs were taken with my now-ancient and so-called obsolete Canon G9.

The prints were done on canvas at an 11×14 size.  Admittedly that’s probably about as big as they will go without losing some quality, but I can live with that.  There’s no reason why they need to be bigger.  The main point – and one that brings me great satisfaction – is that the type of camera I used was immaterial.  All four of the photos I entered were made while I was on vacation.  If I had taken only an SLR I probably wouldn’t have made the photos at all, because more than likely I would not have had my camera with me.  Having a compact and easily-portable camera that I was willing to carry made the difference.  I could have made the photographs with any camera – and made them just as well – but I could only have made them if I was carrying a camera at all.  If I had taken only a bulky SLR I probably would have left it in my room.

I recently attended a photography workshop with Les Saucier, who has been one of my mentors and has provided much of my recent photographic inspiration.  In part of his presentation Les uses as an example a phrase that represents his choice of camera brand and pokes fun at those of us who favor the superior make.  It’s all in fun and we know it.  At one point during the class he mentioned that while he can easily tell the focal length of the lens used and can sometimes tell whether the lens was high-quality or not, he has never been able to look at a photograph and tell what brand of camera was used.  The images reveal a lot of things but they do not reveal the brand or type of camera.

During the critique session four of the six images I submitted were made with my G12.  No one even hinted at knowing or wondering (or caring) what camera I used.  In fact, the two that I shot with my G12 got favorable commentary from Les as well as the participants.  This only serves to emphasize my point.

I know this is a subject I probably beat to death, but it’s one I feel strongly about.  It’s the photographer that makes the photograph.  The camera he uses is obviously the most important tool, but the end result is about the photograph itself, not the equipment used to create it.

As I’ve traveled on my photographic journey one of the things that continues to fascinate me is the art side of the medium.  I pay attention to it not necessarily because I fancy myself as some kind of “artiste” but because I am interested in learning about the historical influences and hopefully a little about what makes “good” photography good.  I think it is helpful to see what the possibilities are and use that knowledge to form and cultivate my own vision and refine my approach to my own work.

I understand that art – and what makes Good Art – is very subjective.  And there seems to be sort of a consensus, at least to the casual observer, that art has to be weird to be good.  And the weirder the better.  Terms like “cutting edge” or “pushing the boundaries” or even “visionary” are thrown around like compliments in a singles bar.  After spending time looking at various mediums and what people do and don’t consider “Good” it becomes quite apparent that art, and one’s taste and appreciation in art, is highly personal and very subjective.

Kathy & I recently attended the opening for The Light Factory’s Annuale and annual Member’s Show.  The Annuale is a juried show, where they bring in a prominent curator or director to be the juror, and submissions come from all over the world.  This year they had something like 120 submissions and 6 were chosen for the show.  I’ve entered the Annuale for the last 3 years.  Not because I think my work has a chance to get in, or even because I think that my photography would ever even be considered Art, but because I find the exercise of choosing a theme, editing the photos down to the required 5-7 choices and writing an Artist’s Statement that describes the work and outlines my intention to be a fascinating exercise and a worthwhile educational process.  For me that’s pretty much all there is.  It would be great to have my work chosen, but there’s not much chance of that.  And that sentiment is only reinforced when I see what work is chosen.

It’s interesting to me that for the last 4 years’ shows there is always work that I look at and think, “yeah, I get that.”  I see the photographer’s intention, can somehow connect emotionally to the work and appreciate what they have done.  And there is always at least one selection, often two or more, that I look at and think, “huh?”  And this is not unique to this particular museum or this particular show.  I find myself wondering these things any time I look at a show where the work was somehow “chosen” based on someone else’s interpretation of artistic merit.  And I don’t necessarily mean to imply that I think there is anything wrong with it, I just find it fascinating.

After the opening we had dinner with some friends, several of whom had also submitted work to the Annuale and at least one who did not enter because he didn’t feel like his work stood any chance of being picked (although I disagree).  All of them had the same conclusions about the same selections.  They tended to favor the same ones I did and were shaking their heads at the same ones that make me question my own taste.

It would be easy to get discouraged by all this, and many people do.  I find it to be a fascinating part of the educational process and am actually encouraged when I feel that I have been able to come up with a series of photos that work pretty well together and write an Artist’s Statement that sounds – at least to me – cohesive and coherent.  Whether my work gets picked or not doesn’t really bother me.  It would be great to have my work chosen, but that’s not why I do what I do.  I truly feel that I would rather have people who appreciate my work find me, and not force my work on others and try to convince them to appreciate it.  That’s probably backwards and not the way a true artist would work, but that’s the way I do it.

I recently traded e-mails with a student from one of my Lightroom classes who told me that she liked my teaching style because I showed her how to do things then gave her time to try them out while being available to give feedback or answer questions.  I appreciated that feedback because that’s always my goal.

As someone who is mostly self-taught – after a great introduction from a photo class taught by my now good friend Emilie Knight and a few other valuable mentors – I am a firm believer that while it is good to get inspiration, knowledge and information from workshops, websites, videos and the classroom, it is absolutely critical to “complete the circle” by taking the time to do the work.  Sit down at your computer and figure out how to use whatever software you choose to create the images you envisioned.  Watching me doing it and taking notes isn’t going to help you.

People like to tell me about how hard they think Lightroom is.  It’s not hard – in fact it’s remarkably simple – provided you take the time to learn how to use it.  If you’re looking for that big “Easy Button” you won’t find it.  But if you take the time to learn how to use it you won’t need the Easy Button.  For me the goal of software is to not have to think about it.  Learn what the capabilities are, just like you learn the capabilities of your camera.  Before you know it you’ll be taking photographs and visualizing the results because you will know exactly what the capabilities of the software are.

Get out and photograph.  Apply the inspiration you get from others and get to work making your own photographs.  You need to get out and take pictures – YOUR pictures.  Not your version of my pictures or someone else’s pictures.

When I do my classes or presentations I show people my photography, show people how Lightroom works, talk about what inspires me or how I see, but I don’t want to do it for them.  Enjoy my work, hopefully be inspired by some of it (hey, inspiration can inspire to do or to not do, you know!), see what the possibilities are then go do your thing.  That’s one of the problems with sharing technical data.  When I show a photo and someone asks me what lens I used, or what the shutter speed was, they’re not thinking about the photograph.  They’re distracted by the how and not paying attention to the why.  I encourage people to think about it instead of asking the question.  That’s how we learn.

If someone asks me for the technical information and I say “Canon 5D with the 70-200 2.8L IS USM at 190mm, f16 @ 1/30, ISO 100” and they write it all down what does that do?  It’s just a bunch of gobbledygook.  But if they look at my photo and think to themselves “looks like a longish lens because he got in close, shutter speed is pretty short because he froze the movement and there’s pretty good depth of field so he probably used a small aperture” guess what?  They get it!  It doesn’t matter whether you get the exact numbers but as long as you get the idea that’s close enough.  Then take that and apply it to your own situations.

Don’t get me wrong.  Going to the classroom or attending a workshop is great.  It’s fuel for the fire.  Another tool for the toolbox.  But take that fuel or that tool and go out there and make something with it.  Something that’s special.  Something that’s yours.