A few weeks ago, someone remarked in the negative about the shortage of CPA workshops centered on developing artistic abilities. (Note to self: maybe there should be a future blog post analyzing why the people who help the most complain the least, and the people who stand on the sidelines complain the most.) I noted… [Read More]

In my last post, I talked about some really bad lighting in a couple of movies from the 60s. Lighting has improved a lot since then, but there’s one place where, even today, almost nobody gets it right. Picture a scene. The hero and heroine are sitting by a window. He’s telling her some terrible… [Read More]

We photographers are consumed with lighting and light. It’s right up there with where to stand, where to point the camera, and when to release the shutter. In the last two days, I’ve watched two movies with unrealistic lighting – lighting so bad that it shatters the willing suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy a… [Read More]

A few months ago, woman who is starting a magazine (a courageous woman, given the state of the print publishing industry) asked me if she could run some pictures from This Green Growing Land, my series on farm workers. I asked her about context. She said that the publication, Edible Monterey Bay, was a regional… [Read More]

In the latest issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine, there’s an interview with Richard Thompson. In his answer to a question about how much his songwriting is driven by knowledge and how much by experimentation, Thompson says something that photographic artists can take to heart. Just replace the musical references with photographic ones. There are many… [Read More]