What I’m listening to—Podcast edition, Vol. 1

Podcasts have been a staple in my listening/entertaining/learning habits since This Week in Tech and Diggnation started in 2005. The former continues on, but the latter ended in 2011. I’m no longer a faithful listener of TWiT—I’ll listen to an episode if the show notes list anything particularly interesting to me—but as podcasts have been such a prominent thing in my life for so long, I thought I’d create a series of blog posts listing the various podcasts I listen to. Some are still going, while others have gone dead but episodes still remain online to listen to. So with that, here’s Volume 1:

First, what may be the longest-running photography podcast: LensWork—Photography and the Creative Process, by Brooks Jensen. Brooks puts out a daily “Here’s a Thought” episode, usually 3-5 minutes long where he briefly shares thoughts on some aspect of photography, and a weekly longer-form episode, where he goes a bit more in depth on a photography-related topic. Those topics range from wish-list features for new cameras, to philosophical ideas, to dealing with challenges a creative person might encounter. As of the time of writing this post, the long-form LensWork episodes number over 1300, and the “Here’s a Thought” episodes number over 1400, so if you’ve not yet listened to this podcast and are the type to listen to the backlog of a new subscription, you’ll have plenty to binge.

Up next is On Taking Pictures, by Bill Wadman and Jeffery Saddoris. OTP began in May of 2012, then ended 325 episodes later in July of 2018, and for those 6 years, Bill and Jeffery had some truly great and inspiring conversations. Despite the title, this was not really about just photography, but about life, relationships, mental health, art in general, and so much more. The conversations these two had were really on a level with being in a graduate class. Those still subscribed to this podcast got a surprise in October of 2018 when the two decided to roll tape on their discussion after Apple announced new hardware, and then the feed lay dormant, seemingly done for good, until January of this year, when we got another big surprise and found a new episode they’d recorded, followed by another two episodes since then. This one is well worth going through the whole backlog.

After On Taking Pictures ended, Jeffery continued recording podcasts, under three subtitles/topics: Process Driven, conversations with artists of various disciplines, Iterations, along the vein of Jensen’s “Here’s a Thought” episodes, and lastly, Deep Natter, conversations with a different set of artists, most often Sean Tucker, on the more philosophical side of living a creative life. And like OTP, these conversations are about photography, but not really about just photography. Photography becomes a metaphor for living a more fuller life, and the challenges of life become metaphors for dealing with creative and photographic challenges. You can find the three podcasts in Jeffery’s Everything feed.

About 10 years ago, Phil Monahan of Orvis shared a video in his Friday Fly Fishing Film Tour blog post he put out every week. This video featured a fly fishing guide by the name of Hank Patterson. The video was full of the worst advice and instruction a fly fisherman could ever put to use, and the humor and sarcasm coming from him was lost on so many people who viewed the video. But it was so over the top that I’m still amazed anyone ever took him seriously. Flash forward to 2019, and Hank started up a podcast titled Hank Patterson’s Outdoor MisAdventures. If you’re a lover of the outdoors, give this one a listen. Hank is sometimes joined by his very indoorsy friend, Kevin, where they talk about basically how to not do the outdoors. There’s never a dull moment listening to Hank.

And lastly, a podcast called The Wild with Chris Morgan. Each week, Morgan tells a new story of wildlife, and the ecosystems they inhabit to educate and bring awareness to listeners of issues our planet is facing.

What podcasts are you listening to? Share in the comments!

"Awaiting the proper moment"

The words from this post's title come from Alfred Stieglitz in describing how he made Winter, Fifth Avenue. I read them this morning in On Photography by Susan Sontag. In the chapter "The Heroism of Vision," Sontag explains that "...Stieglitz proudly reports that he had stood three hours during a blizzard on February 22, 1893, 'awaiting the proper moment' to take his celebrated picture..." The next sentence carries an important lesson: "The proper moment is when one can see things (especially what everyone has already seen) in a fresh way."

I've spent the day thinking on those words. Finding the "proper moment" is something every photographer hopes to do, as is seeing things in a "fresh way." It's something I, in full honesty, struggle with. But, as I've been thinking about how to see things in a fresh way, I realized that that's why I keep returning to Benson, and Amalga, and Newton, and all the other places throughout Cache Valley.

I also wondered how true, or how literal Stieglitz's story is. Did he really stand in a blizzard for three hours? So, I did a quick Google search, and found this on The Art Story:

“Winter, Fifth Avenue shows the busy New York street in the midst of a snowstorm. Stieglitz stalked Fifth Avenue for three frigid hours waiting for the perfect moment. He had to wait for the ideal composition - unlike a painter, who could manufacture it. Trails in the snow lead the eye up this vertical composition to its focal point - a dark horse and carriage that is swallowed by the snowy atmosphere. The snow blurs the details of the urban surroundings, lending the photo an Impressionistic appearance. This depiction of man - crudely mechanized - and pitted against the violence of the natural world, shows Stieglitz’s inheritance from nineteenth century Romanticism.”

OK. So it's not a direct quote from Stieglitz, but it is another voice that corroborates his account. As I thought about Stieglitz standing in a blizzard for three hours, waiting for that "proper moment," I wondered if he got bored at all. Did he stray at all from from the spot where he made this photograph? Like Weston's peppers, did he make more than just the one exposure? Or did he only make the one after he felt like all the various elements had finally come together? How heavily trafficked was that street? Did he really have to wait three hours for that photograph?

Then I got to thinking: If I were to go stand in one spot for up to three hours or more, how would I handle it? Would I die of boredom first? I think the answer to that one is maybe, though my recent collage work has had me staying at the same location for longish periods of time. But if I weren't already used to that, what would I do? Would I spend time on my phone looking at Instagram or Facebook, thereby missing the "proper moment?"

Questions

As a photographer, I've always tried to show how Man interacts with the Earth. Well, not always. When I first began my formal training, it was my goal to show an untouched, unaltered landscape. I don't remember exactly when I realized that such a goal was almost impossible. Especially if you include the whole of Man's history on Earth. I think the realization occurred either in between my freshman and sophomore years in college, or very early in my sophomore year. I remember feeling a bit deflated. Not necessarily because I lamented the loss of untouched pristine nature, though that lamentation certainly did come. But mostly, because at that time, my goal (as is it still remains) was to capture Beauty. But my definition of Beauty in Nature excluded those places where Man had been. I've since realized that it's a bit like Schrödinger's Cat. Even if Man hadn't been in a spot I desired to photograph, or been in the scene I was composing, me being there had introduced Man in the land.

While out photographing the landscape, documenting and observing the changes that have occurred either via natural processes or Man's construction of all the various features to further civilization, several questions come to mind. Some are very easily or quickly answered, and some take some research. Some are more philosophical in nature.

Here is my list of many of the questions that I think about:

• Why was this feature created?
• When?
• Who made the feature?
• How was it done?
• Is it necessary?
  • Was it necessary at the time it was created?
  • Is it necessary now?
    • If so, is there a way to improve it?
    • If not, how can it be removed?
    • If the thing is necessary, is this the best place for it?
  • What can we learn from the creation of the feature?
  • Can the feature be improved to make it more effective or efficient?

Whether a landscape photographer, street photographer, portrait photographer, what questions do you think of while you've got your camera in hand?

Deadlines

In a recent LensWork podcast, Brooks Jensen discussed the values of deadlines. He and a group of photographers have been in China, and six of them participated in a juried show. They each had three days to photograph, edit and select 20 images, and then have their work judged.

This got me thinking about imposing my own deadlines. Again. Jensen has discussed deadlines before, as well as Jeff Curto of the Camera Position Podcast, and I had many of the same thoughts during this episode as I have with many of the others before. But since this discussion was in the context of having only three days to go out and gather material, or make the photographs, then edit and cull their images down to a group of 20, and display them, I got to thinking about imposing that type of a deadline on myself.

What if I were to impose a deadline, where I have X amount of time to make Y amount of images of a certain topic, concept, place, or subject matter or idea. Maybe I could do this several times, so that I would end up with three or four or however many of these bodies of work. Then, would they all coalesce into one greater body of work? I suppose they could, if they all fell under a grander overarching theme. Or maybe the very fact that each body of work was done with the same guidelines or rules places them under one overarching theme.

The amount of time may dictate the amount of images to include in the final count, and vice versa: fewer images–less time in which to work; more images–more time. Also, the tools used (e.g., pinhole camera, digital camera, lumen print, etc...) would influence both time and scale.

Would an artist statement accompany each group? Would the writing of an artist statement be included in whatever timeframe I impose?

A large difference between what Jensen and the other five photographers did and what I’ll be doing, is the deadline for the contest was placed on them by a third party. My deadline is all self-imposed, and I can see myself making excuses for extending the deadline. Maybe I’ll just have to put my wife in charge of cracking the whip.

The following is the statement that really got me thinking about this seriously:

“The deadline of having to photograph and produce in 72 hours a group of 20 images to be photographed, not only resulted in some very interesting photographs, but some very interesting experiences for all of who put ourselves voluntarily into a little bit of a squeeze box that pushed us to find something creative and personal to say in this landscape. And as an event, I think it was incredibly successful.”

Even if these photographs don’t make it past being posted here on my blog, I can’t help but think that it would be of immense value to me as an artist, as Jensen discovered. I mean, it’s really kind of a no-brainer: deadlines are useful, no matter where they come from.

Now, to start brainstorming project ideas and parameters...Maybe I should set a deadline.

Some Thoughts on Projects

A few days ago, I published a post on the work of Krista Wortendyke. In it, I explained I first saw her work in an email newsletter, and that it really "struck a chord." I didn't really elaborate on that in the post, because I wanted to focus on Krista's work. Today I'd like to talk about the way it affected and has already influenced me and my own photography.

I've mentioned in previous blog posts how the creative impulse has really taken hold of me again and I've begun sweeping the cobwebs out of the recesses of my mind that drove my creative thinking. It’s not that I quit exercising my creativity altogether—I just found different outlets, like tying flies and fly fishing, and I didn’t exercise photographically often at all. Or, I at least didn’t engage in it seriously, or with any real direction. It gradually fell pretty low on the list of priorities. It is true that I would occasionally think about a project that would help me get serious, but that’s as much work I put into it. Add to that the fact that after leaving grad school (the reasons for which I still haven’t ever fully addressed here), I haven’t really been part of a community to offer any valuable feedback or critiques beyond a “thumbs-up” or a “like” on Facebook or Instagram of any work I ever did do in the past several years. And that has been the hardest struggle.

So, as I’ve been going out around Cache Valley to photograph, and reading material to help get my brain in gear, I’ve been wondering and pondering on what to do for a project, and several ideas have popped up. I’ve always thought ever since moving here, about doing something with the Bear River. It’s a heavily exploited resource, so there’s lots I could say with it. But then I remember Craig Denton’s book “Bear River: Last Chance to Change Course” and shy away from a project of my own on the Bear River. That happens to me all the time: I think of a project or subject or process, then learn of or remember that someone else has done that exact thing or something very similar and I give up on whatever plans for a project I may have started to formulate. But I recently heard a quote from Mary Virginia Swanson who said (to paraphrase) that you should photograph the ideas or subjects that come from within. To photograph what you’re passionate about. She went on to say that after a while you will come into your own style. And then I later heard another paraphrased quote from Robert Adams: Art can’t awaken us if it merely copies what we already have. So, the first quote gave me some validation and encouragement to carry out a project that someone perhaps has already done. The second quote gave me the warning I need to not just copy. Which I’ve always had in mind when making photographs (though sometimes I’ve made photographs knowing full well it looks exactly like another photograph from someone who came before). In the Adams quote, he said something about taking what someone has already done (and this is where the real challenge lies) and to make it better. And he’s right. Every turn I take, it seems like I’ve seen something like it to varying degrees before. There’s little in the Arts that hasn’t been done before. Which can be debilitating, because I don’t want to copy. I just need to figure out how to improve upon work that has influenced me. That’s when a voice creeps in my head and says “How are you going to improve upon Mark Klett? or James Balog? or Peter Goin? and the list goes on.

Now let me discuss some thoughts on the project I have swimming around my mind, as well as what is an underlying element to all of my photography. I’ve always been fascinated at the way a photograph can freeze moments of time. Whether the length of that moment of time is only 1/500 of a second, or if three hours passed to make the exposure. My lumens, for example, are exposed anywhere between three hours and a week or more (I’ve done them as long as a month, but I feel like a day-long, or two-day-long exposure is sufficient for what I am trying to achieve). Within that time, the plants I use in the process die, along with any insects or other crawly things that are in the plants’ roots or leaves, and things begin to rot and decay fairly quickly, especially if it’s a hot summer day. The paper really changes from the intense UV light that is exposing it. The viewer may not know just how much time elapsed in the making each print, but the passage of time is a preeminent element in the creation of them. With my “camera photographs” (I use the term here to separate them from the camera-less photographs that lumen prints are), I almost always try to use as slow a shutter speed as possible. Within reason. I’m not usually interested in freezing motion in my photography. I aim to show motion—flowing water, tree branches swaying in the breeze, the streaks of headlights as cars drive by.

Which brings me back around to the photography of Krista Wortendyke, and the chord that was struck. In the blog post I did on her work, I explained (actually, I quoted her artist statement) that her photographs are composed of multi-frame images taken from video games, and photographs found on the internet to make a composite image that blurs the line between what is real, and what is fiction. Upon seeing that photograph in the email newsletter, I knew I had a direction I could take in a project on the Bear River. By making each photograph up of a composite of many photographs, I can show the passage of time in each individual photograph that makes up the whole, as well as the passage of time measured in days, weeks, months or even years, showing the effects of time and changes of seasons of a scene in a single photograph. Any changes in water levels of rivers and streams, the sprouting and death of leaves on trees, and any changes that Man might make on the landscape could all be observed in one image. That email arrived in my inbox at about nine a.m., and I wasn’t able to sit still or concentrate for the rest of the day. My mind was exploding with new ideas and locations to photograph and methods of display. In that post, I explained it wasn’t the first time I’d seen work done the way Krista created her photographs, and that I was familiar with James Balog. Even before I knew of Balog, Tyler Hopkins, a friend from college was doing mosaic-, multi-frame photographs. And since I came across Krista’s work, I’ve discovered a few more photographers working in this similar vein, such as Jake Weigel.

Over the past two or three weeks, I've been out a handful of times to start gathering photographs for finished pieces. I've returned to a few locations on different days, so that the larger photograph has photographs made on two different days.

Here is the first one I started working on, with photos made on two different days, and is by no means finished:

These pieces, as I mentioned above, may not be complete for up to, and maybe even more than, a year, since my goal currently is to include frames from all four seasons, from different times of day, under various weather conditions.

It had been a very long time since a project hit me and got me so excited as this one has made me. Stay tuned for more updates!

#challengeonnaturephotography

Last week, my friend and former photography professor, Darren Clark, nominated me to participate in a Facebook hashtag "campaign," #challengeonnaturephotography, where, for seven days, you post a nature or landscape photograph with that hashtag, and then nominate someone else to participate. As I've done so, I've had the opportunity to think back on my college education, and what I've been doing with myself photographically since then. Here are some lessons learned and thoughts I've had, in no particular order, over the past seven days (all the images I shared on Facebook are included at the end of this post):

• I've lost the ability to really speak about photography as art. Not completely, but I've lost a lot of that ability. I want it back.
• I need to come up with a new photographic project. Or two. Or five. No matter the quantity, I just need something to to keep me motivated. I guess setting some deadlines might help too.
• When I decided not to pursue an M.F.A. after all, I lost focus (no pun intended) and motivation to just create art. I still photographed when I went on trips and went backpacking (sometimes), but I devolved into making photographs that were little more than just "pretty pictures of pretty places." They were, to me, a little empty. Not completely, because I never really photographed anything at any point in my photographic education or life afterwards that I didn't feel some emotional connection to, and felt a desire to express that connection through the photograph. But that's where any profundity in my photographs made in the last four or five years stops. Without an overarching purpose (see the previous point) behind my photographs, I feel there isn't lasting impact.
• Since I did lose focus and motivation to create, I've felt like I'd turned my back on my education, and the friends that I made along the way. I felt like I betrayed them in some way. Within the last three or four weeks, I've felt the need to fix all of that. Participating in this hashtag thing has helped to light the fire of motivation.
• I went out with Gina Saturday evening west of Logan specifically to photograph. In the long run, I'm not sure how successful the photographs all are, but getting out helped get the creative juices flowing again. And the outing revealed how out of practice I am with working a camera: I forgot to focus the lens on the first photograph I made!
• Along with the loss of the ability to talk about my work, my eyes have lost some refinement in composing, and attention to areas of the photograph that need work (dodging, or burning, or overall color balance, or contrast). I also want that back. Probably more than the ability to talk.
• I need to work on consistency—consistency in color balance, contrast in both black and white and color photographs—which I think has always been a problem for me.
• I've always echoed the sentiment of Elliott Erwitt who said "The whole point of taking pictures is so you don't have to explain things in words." Early in my photographic education I felt in agreement with the statement that the more one felt they had to say about their art, the least successful it was. Now, I don't agree. I believe there is always some room to talk about the art one creates. Maybe a better way of thinking is that the image should be strong enough to stand on its own, and not require an explanation. Maybe that has been Erwitt's point all along, and I've just missed it...

Anyway, on with the images.

Day 1:

Swift Slough, Cache Valley, Utah, 2009

Day 2:

Dam, Blacksmith Fork River, Utah, 2010

Day 3:

Boat Launch, Bear River, Benson, Utah, 2016

Day 4:

Goblin Valley, Utah, 2009

Day 5:

Rye Crisp, Elephant Rock, City of Rocks, Idaho, 2010

Day 6:

Scott and Jon Photographing Thousand Springs, Idaho, 2004

Day 7:

Pond, Footpath, Memorial Park, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2007