New Hampshire Sunday News, Arts and Entertainment Section

Photoshop is a Noun, not a Verb

Buckle up boys and girls, this is going to be one of my infamous deranged ramblings.

I was just reading another blog, when I came upon a decent photograph, and underneath it there was a caption that read: I used Photoshop to tweak the shadows, but other than that, I didn't manipulate it at all. (I'm not quoting, because I don't want it to be Googled and found. I'm paraphrasing to use it as an example. I have no desire to point a finger directly at someone.)

One problem, the image was black and white. So, unless you stepped through some magic door into "The Purple Rose of Cairo", the image was most certainly manipulated more than just tweaking the shadows.

The whole "Photoshop" debate has been going on since well before the popular inception of digital capture. Prior to digital capture, printed images were scanned into computers and edited with Photoshop, whose first version was released in 1990.




Photoshop is a noun. It is a thing. It is a software program. "IT" doesn't "DO" anything. It is a tool. A person with this tool can "edit" images on his/her computer. The person edits (verb), using Photoshop (the tool, a noun). A person can also edit their images with a plethora of other computer programs that are also all nouns. Gimp, Picassa, etc.....all nouns.

"I don't use Photoshop" I have heard exclaimed proudly to anyone that was interested in viewing their very mediocre images. "That's why my photographs don't look as good as those over there. He/She uses Photoshop."

Oh really? Raise your hand if you have heard this before. More than likely, your image is sub-par, because your skills are sub-par. Maybe you didn't use Photoshop specifically, but if you are displaying digital images anywhere, you certainly used some sort of editing program somewhere along the line. In the hands of a craftsman, a $10 hammer will work just as well as a $100 hammer. Instead of complaining about the other guy having a $100 hammer, just learn how to use your $10 hammer. The $100 hammer will not make you a better carpenter.

"I don't like photographers that manipulate their pictures." I've heard this before too.

Explain to me "manipulate".

Let's check the 2006 American Heritage Dictionary:

ma·nip·u·late (mə-nĭp'yə-lāt') Pronunciation Key
tr.v. ma·nip·u·lat·ed, ma·nip·u·lat·ing, ma·nip·u·lates

1. To move, arrange, operate, or control by the hands or by mechanical means, especially in a skillful manner: She manipulated the lights to get just the effect she wanted.
2. To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously: He manipulated public opinion in his favor.
3. To tamper with or falsify for personal gain: tried to manipulate stock prices.
4. Medicine To handle and move in an examination or for therapeutic purposes: manipulate a joint; manipulate the position of a fetus during delivery.


You see, there are a few different definitions for "manipulate" and some of them aren't so nice, but the primary one is the key: To move, arrange, operate, or control by the hands or by mechanical means, especially in a skillful manner.

Sounds OK to me.

Everyone has a different "comfort level" with what they consider acceptable manipulation. Most photographers consider black and white film photography to be "pure", but black and white images are a far cry from reality, don't you think?

I had a "long" discussion in one of my classes when a student started to question me about Ansel Adams and his "manipulation" of his images. Well, sure, Mr. Adams manipulated his images by dodging and burning and using some filtration to alter contrast. The student felt "mislead" because he thought he was looking at reality. He neglected to mention that all of the images discussed were black and white. Also not reality, but somehow, this didn't bother him/her.

No amount of editing, with Photoshop or any other software program, is going to take a junk photograph and make it into a masterpiece. You can roll elephant dung in powdered sugar, but that doesn't make it a chocolate donut. (Thanks for the visual, Will)

My own personal line with photo editing (yes, I own and use Photoshop, as does 99% of all other professional photographer out there) is that I won't do anything that I couldn't do in the 30 years that I have been working in a darkroom. This means that I use my editing software to crop, dodge, burn, adjust contrast (by using curves) and levels, adjust color (just like I would by using different films), clean up dust spots (just like I would with Spotone), overlap negatives, and otherwise prepare an image for digital or print display.

What I won't do is take a photograph of a seagull and move it into a landscape of a beach on Hawaii and call it one of my vacation photos. First of all, I've never been to Hawaii, secondly there are no seagulls in Hawaii, and thirdly you are misrepresenting your image to the viewer. Do what you want with your editing software, just call it what it is. We have a responsibility to all who try to emulate our work by giving them the information necessary to do so. By displaying impossible to recreate images, and referring to them as actual, we do our students a disservice.

Where is your line? How do you feel about this?

Here's the Deal....

I see a lot of photographers pages with a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section, and most of them are complete fabrications. Not the answers, just the questions. People ask themselves the questions that they want to answer so they can get whatever information across that they would like to get out, and it's easier if they pretend that someone else is asking them. Now don't inundate me with "My FAQ section is absolutely true." If it is, that's terrific. The people that make them up know who they are. Even the ones that are made up aren't a big deal. No one's getting hurt and information is being passed along, which is more than I can say for a lot of photographers that act like they are dealing with state secrets or the formula for nuclear fission and no one else is worthy of knowing what they know.

"What's your point here Scott?" you may be thinking.

My point is, that there is only one question that I get asked frequently, at least once a day, and that is "What kind of camera do you use?", and that is probably the least important piece of information about a photographer that there is.

Not that it matters, but I bought my first 35mm camera in 1978, it was a Ricoh, and I bought it at Lechemere Sales at the Mall of New Hampshire. A few years later I bought a Minolta X-700 and a few years later I bought a second X-700. A few years after that, I injured my arm badly in an accident and need to change the way I worked so I bought a Nikon N90. I shot with that camera for over 10 years until I decided to go digital and bought a Nikon D50 a bout six years ago to dip my toes in the digital pool, and three years ago upgraded to a Nikon D200. There, now you know what kind of camera I have always used......and it doesn't make a bit of difference. No camera EVER took a great photograph any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel. A camera is just a tool, like a hammer or a drill. It's the person using it that matters.

Now this information might be quite depressing for those of you that thought you could go out and spend a couple thousand dollars on camera equipment and be a great photographer. It just doesn't work that way. Photography is an art, and art is a creative process, and you can't buy creativity. You can learn it, but you can't buy it. I've been to photography exhibits where all of the images were taken with SX-70's, 110 instamatics, and other varieties of toy cameras that cost about $20.

My friend Will Michael and I were discussing an image the other day (as we are often prone to do) when he said "Seeing takes discipline, it's more than just looking." I'm always talking about needing "vision" and Will's statement just cuts right to the heart of it. You have to actually see what is in the frame. All of it, not just the center. You have to look in the corners and n the background. You have to check your horizons and your plumbs to make sure that they are horizontal and plumb.

Ansel Adams is one of the all time photographic greats and a personal icon of mine. He also has one of the most misinterpreted quotes around.

"There are no rules for good photograph's, only good photographs."

People like to interpret this as meaning that Ansel Adams is telling them that they don't need to know anything about the photographic rules, that they can just go out and shoot 300 frames per minute haphazardly and get good photographs. Sure, you might get a good frame here and there, but a blind squirrel will find a nut every once in a while as well. What he meant was that just because you follow the rules does not guarantee a great image. There are lots of rules, and Ansel wrote plenty of them. Of course it's ok to break the rules, but you have to know that you are breaking them and be breaking them for a purpose. A horizon line that is 2 or 3 degrees off just looks crooked. A horizon line that is 20 or 30 degrees off can impart a feeling or an emotion and look like it is done intentionally and not just that you are holding your camera crooked.

If you want to take great images, you don't need a fancy camera. You need heart, passion, and vision. Everything else is just practice.

Thank You for Your Support

Text courtesy of Red River Theatres:

CONCORD, NH - Congratulations to Scott Bulger, local professor of photography at NHTI (Concord's Community College) and Kimball-Jenkins School of Art, for the publication of a beautiful collection of his black and white photographs in a volume entitled KHRONIKOS. In conjunction with a book signing sponsored by Gibson's Bookstore, Scott presented slides of his work and talked to a gathering of interested patrons in the Screening Room at Red River, before signing copies of KHRONIKOS in the lobby.

Copies of the book are still available at Gibson's Bookstore. www.gibsonsbookstore.com

For more on the photographer, visit www.scottbulger.com

And to support more local programming, special events and independent cinema, become a member of not-for-profit Red River Theatres or make a donation in person at the box office or online at our website, www.redrivertheatres.org.

Michael Hermann (Owner of Gibson's Bookstore) and Scott Bulger prior to the event

Scott speaks to a full house

Several audience members listen to Scott Bulger speak

Scott Bulger signs books following his lecture

I'd like to thank everyone that came out to make the event a great success. See you all again soon!

Art in Focus

Art New England, Contemporary Art and Culture

I'm honored to have been the lone New Hampshire artist reviewed in the June/July/August Issue of Art New England. It doesn't seem to have hit the web site yet, but the print version showed up in my mail box today. Thank you to Christopher Volpe who wrote the review, and to Art New England for including me.

Review of Michael Garlington Exhibit at Kimball-Jenkins Estate

This collection of images from the book “Portraits from the Belly of the Whale” is what happens when Joel-Peter Witkin meets Diane Arbus. These photographs are more subtle and lack the deliberately graphic shock value of Witkin, and incorporate some of the humanity of the Arbus freak show portraits. As the photographer, Michael Garlington describes them; they are “disturbing portraits that sardonically reveal the darker edges of the human personality.”

You form a strange emotional connection to the subjects in each image as you study them, being horrified and caring for them at the same time.

The first image you encounter upon entering the exhibit is “Mr. Milton Frisbie”. He is standing sentry for the show, only subtly hinting at what you about to see. “Mr. Milton Frisbie” is a clown. Not a funny clown, but a tobacco stained, sad, pathetic, and more than just a little frightening clown. This is the clown that people have nightmares about. This is the clown that sneaks out of your closet while you are sleeping and snatches you up, the smell of urine and cigarette smoke embedded in his costume. This is the clown that encourages some people to be afraid of clowns.

This is just the beginning of the emotional avalanche you are about to attempt to outrun. Twenty images hung in four rooms and a hallway of the Jill Coldren-Wilson Gallery of the Kimball-Jenkins Estate in Concord, New Hampshire. All of the images having room to breathe their own fetid breath and engage you with their own empty eyes.

“The Final Sleep of Grandma Ev” is sad and touching in the most soulful places. Humanity and love are personified in the delicate and careful caress of her forehead, with true love peering out from behind the coke bottle glasses of the husband. Nothing specifically tells you that this couple is a husband and wife, but the feeling of overwhelming sadness that you get from this image is that of two people who have shared 40 years together. This appears to be the most personal of the images in this exhibit, appearing to be the only image that may not be meticulously staged.

“The Bleed” is a woman’s nude torso, bleeding from the face, and is disturbing to the core. How does a bloody nose look so severe? Is it her pointy animalistic teeth? Is it the oil black blood running into her mouth and dripping off her chin onto her chest where it is carefully cradled by her hand, not wanting to spill a drop onto the grimy floor that you imagine beneath her?

In “Blind Girl” irony drips from the photograph as the aforementioned blind girl sports a “Blue Ridge Parkway” tee shirt promoting a scenic vista that she will never witness. Shadowed by a mysterious out of focus figure, monitoring her from off her shoulder, is this a protector ensuring that no harm comes to the girl, or is it a malevolent spirit hovering in the background waiting for an opportunity to possess the sightless child?

In “Jabberwocky”, a howl of emotional agony overtakes the subjects face as he is jammed into the left hand side of the frame, contorted and cramped, with his too big Puritan hat amputated by the top of the frame, mirroring his actually amputated foot in the bottom of the frame, and the creases in his hand on his crutch reflecting the creases in his partially buttoned filthy jeans. He mocks the empty path of the right side of the frame that the one legged man will never run through.

Nothing is happenstance in these informationally loaded photographs. All of the images are meticulously staged; everything in the frame is there for a reason. The abuse, scratches, and stains are purposefully placed, creating the illusion of peering through a filth covered window into a nightmare filled world. The subjects stare back at you, aware of your voyeurism and daring you to engage them. At first glance, you recoil, but after the initial shock wears off, you start to look more closely, like you would stare at a traffic accident. After being held hostage by the gaze of these graphic images, you begin to feel a strange attachment to them, kind of like a photographic “Stockholm Syndrome”. These relentless portraits leave a stain on your soul that will be hard to remove. Some stains are good, like the grape Kool-Aid that dripped down your chin on the hot August afternoon when you were nine, and some stains are bad, like the blood embedded in the rough concrete floor after an industrial accident. If this exhibit leaves a good stain or a bad stain, is up to you to decide.

This exhibit runs from June 1st through July 31st in the Jill Coldren-Wilson gallery at the Kimball-Jenkins Estate at 266 North Main Street in Concord, New Hampshire. The gallery is open from Monday through Friday, 9:00 – 4:30. For more information, call (603) 225-3932 or visit www.kimballjenkins.com.

Photographers Motto: "Be Prepared"

"Oh man, if I only had my camera!" (slaps own forehead).

How many times have you said this? How many times have you heard someone else say this? Are you serious about your photography? Then you need to be prepared. You need to be ready to take the shot. You need to have a camera with you always.

I always carry my camera with me. I play poker. I have a regular Friday night game that I have been going to for years. Most of the time, on the thirty minute drive home, it's pitch black and I can't see anything that isn't illuminated by the headlights of my truck. Occasionally, the horizon will be just beginning to glow as I wind my way through the tree lined roads on my way home. For five years, that's 250 drives home after this card game, I've had my camera in the bag on the seat next to me in my truck. I never once stopped to use it, until two weeks ago.

Was it luck that enabled me to get this shot? No. It was being prepared.

Louis Pasteur wasn't known for his photography, instead, in 1862 he developed a process for treating liquids to reduce the numbers of harmful bacteria in them, making them safe to drink, Pasteurization as it is known. How is this relevant to photography? It's not, but a little extra knowledge never hurt anybody. What makes Louis Pasteur relevant to this conversation is his semi-famous quote "Chance favors the prepared mind." This is right up there with the unattributable sports quote, "Good teams make their own luck."

I don't believe in luck. I don't believe in fate. Both of these concepts require you to surrender control of your own destiny to some diaphanous idea. You are in control of what happens to you. Know your trade. Know as much as you can about what you are doing. Read, practice, read more, practice more. Learn not only how, but learn why. If you want to work in a particular specialty, learn how that business works. Find out who the important people and companies in the trade are. Learn about the hierarchy and how things are done.

Don't sit around waiting for your big break. Go find it. Put your knowledge to use. Practice. Get feedback, apply new knowledge, and be prepared to take any opportunity that comes your way. Don't assume that another chance is coming, because maybe there isn't.

Make the odds work for you instead of against you. Do you want to get a photograph published in a magazine? You are probably going to have to submit more than once. All other things being equal, the photographers that get the most images published, are the ones that submit the most images. The photographers that win the most awards are the ones that enter the most contests. The photographers whose work is seen by the most people are the photographers that send out the most work to be seen!

Image Critique #8

Welcome to 2009. and farewell to 2008. The end of the year is always a hectic time for me, and my blog posting has reflected that. "Sporadic" would be a kind characterization. "Absent" would be much more accurate though.

To get back into the swing of things, I am going to try to catch up on the back log of images that I have sitting here waiting for critique.

Today's image is kindly submitted by Alison Dubois. Her comments are as follows:

"I took the photo while hiking on the east side of the main road through Sedona, Arizona in a secluded area that was void of other people. The scene seemed to coalesce somehow for me into a simple beauty and I find the photo to be serene despite its chaos of shapes and colors.

Details: Taken approximate 2:30pm, Canon Digital Rebel XT, Manual, 1/2 second, F16, 44mm, ISO-800"

This is a nice shot, and I certainly see what Alison saw when she took this shot. A few observations though:

- The image is overexposed. Based on the "Sunny 16" rule of exposure, if it was sunny out, at ISO 800, the shutter speed should have been 1/1000 of a second. 1/2 of a second is about 10 steps too much light here, but I'm going to guess and say that it was fairly heavily overcast, which would buy you about 4-5 stops, still leaving this image well overexposed. The other explanation is that some of this exposure information is incorrect, but the image is overexposed regardless. The rock cliff face in the upper right hand corner is particularly overexposed.

A Quick Adjustment to the Levels and Some Dodging and Burning

-I'm not a big fan of shooting with a 35mm and then cropping after the fact to an 8x10 format. Unless you are composing your image in the field so that the 2 inches you cut off of the top or bottom of this image are superfluous, then you are removing compositional information that you thought was valuable at the time you shot it. I prefer to use the entire frame and present the work as it was shot. If someone is going to pay $80-$100 for a photographic print, they should be quite capable of dropping another $10 to have a matte cut to a 8" x 12" or a 6" x 9" window. Typically, people that spend $80 - $100 on a photograph aren't running into Wal-Mart for a $3.99 matte and frame.

- To me, the reflection line is too centered. If you look at he peak where the water meets the land on the right hand side, it is almost exactly dead center. As opposed to a feeling of serenity here, I get a feeling of conflict and confusion as the top and bottom halves of the image fight for attention. Off setting that line either higher or lower would create one half of the image that was dominant and the other half of the image would work as a compliment for. I would like to see the rest of the images from this session.

- There is no detectable image blur at this size, so it would appear that there was a tripod used for exposure. This is good, because at 1/2 second exposure time, hand holding the camera is out of the question.

- If the f16 was used for Depth of Field, shooting with a 44mm at this distance, you would have gotten plenty of Depth of Field opening up the aperture a couple more steps.


Thank you for submitting Alison.

Submissions are always accepted by emailing an image that is a minimum of 500 pixels wide. Please include any information that you feel is pertinent to the shot. <>Contact Scott

You need to think about more than just tripping the shutter.

How many times do you come across an eye popping scene? I mean something that you really stop to look at and just stand there awestruck? You get out your camera, bring it up to your eye, and depress the shutter...Hey! that image is really lacking the impact of the scene here that I am staring at....

Your eyes see differently than a camera. They have a different field of view, and they react to the light differently, so you need to be more than just a shutter snapper. You need to be a PHOTOGRAPHER. One of the skills you need to exercise is being a translator. You need to translate the scene for the photograph. There are many other senses involved in what you see than just your eyes.

What you hear, what you feel, what you taste, and what you smell all go into the overall presentation of what you are seeing. "How is that possible?" you might be thinking. Bear with me here. I'm going to exaggerate for effect.

You are at the seaside, and witness a beautiful scene of some flowers on a dune. It's incredibly beautiful to you at the moment and worth capturing to your CCD or film. Wait. Think for a second. What else is making the scene so darn "scenic" to you? You smell the salt air.You feel the ocean breeze on your face. You feel the sand compressing under your feet. You hear some gulls squawking as they ride the breezes overhead.You taste the salt in the air. All of these things are contributing to how you feel about what you are seeing.

Now what you need to do is translate this feeling to your image. Have you ever wondered why some images that appear to have such great potential look so "sterile"? No feeling. No passion. No vision. No heart. They just don't stir anything inside of you. Lousy translation.

Your next question is "OK Mr. Smarty Pants, how do I do this "translation" thingy you are talking about?"

I'm not telling you. I'm not telling you because I can't tell you. I don't know what you are feeling and seeing and hearing at these moments of epiphany. Only you know that. It's your job to tell me.

You're the artist, so art.

You need to be more than just a mechanic.

Invitation to Exhibit and Reception

Hello and welcome. I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to view an exhibit of my photography at the New Hampshire Technical Institute Library. I have 17 pieces hanging in a one person show that runs the entire month of September. Library hours are HERE.

On Wednesday, September 24th, from 3:00 - 6:00, NHTI will be hosting a "Meet the Artist" reception in the library. If you are in the area, please come by and say "Hello". I'll be answering questions, talking about photography, and signing copies of my book, "A Portrait of the Yucatan".

Also, just a quick reminder that there is very limited space left for my fall semester classes at Kimball-Jenkins School of Art.

"Introduction to Black and White Photography, The Darkroom Experience" begins of September 25th and runs through November 13th, meeting every Thursday night from 6:30 - 8:30.

"Introduction to Digital Photography" is a one day seminar that is being held on Saturday, October 11th, from 9:00 - 3:00.

Space is very limited, so don't wait.

Also, On October 2nd between 5:30pm and 7:30pm the Kimball Jenkins School of Art will be holding its second annual “Art of Beer and Wine Tasting” fundraiser to support the School of Art.
Sample Wine and Beer (seven beer vendors and five wine vendors) from around the world and enjoy tasty hors d' oeuvres from one of Concord's finest restaurants as you tour our school's studios and galleries, meet the faculty and explore the historic Kimball Jenkins Estate.

Tickets are $35 each and are available by calling (603) 225-3932 ext. 221

The Lost Rolls

I just finished preparing for a show that opens Labor Day weekend, so my studio is even more of a mess than it usually is, with piles of matte board, foam core, and glass strewn about the area. As I fumbled through the mess, attempting to get things back to some semblance of order, I uncover a small brown cardboard box. Not remembering there being a cardboard box in this particular area of my desk, I open it with some trepidation, not having any idea what I would find.

Well what to my wondering eyes should appear? Thirty undeveloped rolls of film, from times not so near.

I sorted through the canisters and rolls to find quite a variety of materials.

• 2 rolls of 120 T-Max
• 1 roll of 120 Agfapan 400
• 18 rolls of 35mm Agfapan 400
• 7 rolls of 35mm Agfapan 100
• 2 rolls of 35mm Agfapan 25!

I ran my fingers through the film like I had struck gold. I picked them up and dropped them back into the box one at a time, just letting them roll off the edge of my fingers....plunk....clank....bonk.... I thought about what could be on the rolls, but I really had no idea. I couldn't even begin to imagine, so when I grabbed a couple rolls to head to the darkroom to process them, it was kind of like finding a bunch of lottery tickets. The anticipation of what I was going to find in the silver emulsion was coursing adrenalin through my body.

I plunged my hands into the darkness of the changing back and peeled open the canisters with my fingers. I wound the acetate onto the spools and closed up the canister. I pre-wet the film while I mixed up my Marathon, all the while with images of past photos flashing through my head. I knew this had to be personal film, as I never would have let film from a job go missing.

The six minutes of developing seemed to last an eternity. Out with the Marathon and in with the stop bath. Another minute goes by. Out with the stop bath and in with the fixer. Five more minutes. Out with the fixer and wash. I'm dying to look inside now and see what I have, but somehow I manage not to open the canister. Out with the water and in with the fixer remover......wash it again and in with the photo-flo. When I pour out the last of that, I can't help but peel off six inches of film to see what I have. I see a couple shots of El Castillo at Chichen Itza in Mexico.

"Cool" I say as I give the spools a quick rinse before throwing them in the dryer. "Must be more Mexico stuff." I don't even bother to look at the other roll. I know it's been processed properly, so whatever is there will still be there after it's dry.

The "ping" of the dryer timer let me know that the negatives were ready. I removed the stainless steel reels from the dryer tube and took them over to the counter. I pulled the film from the grooves and started cutting them into strips of six so I could scan them into the computer. I did a double take as i saw what was actually on the roll. After the first couple frames of El Castillo, the rest of the film was from the day my last son was born (four and a half years ago). Not only was it from the first day of his life, it was actually from the first hour. Most of the roll his eyes aren't even open yet, but they do ease open a little bit towards the end of the roll.

I had struck gold after all.












I guess I'm going to have to develop those other twenty eight rolls soon.

Fortune Tellers, Palm Readers, and Weathermen

What do they all have in common? About a 50% accuracy rate, that’s what. Oh how I wish I could only do half of my job right and still be a celebrity in town and get paid for it too. Not that their accuracy was any better 20 years ago, but now, with everyone on the news being some sort of character in a bizarre 30 minute sitcom, I’d at least like them to recognize that they are correct in their prognostications far less than they should be. Someone who gets paid to analyze the weather and predict to the public what is going to happen SHOULD be able to do a better job than I can by looking at the satellite loops on the internet.

Saturday was Opening Day for the local Little League baseball. While watching the “news” Friday night, against my better judgment, I stuck around for the weather report. It looked to me like it was going to rain, but let’s see what the professionals have to say. Now understand that at this point, Saturday morning is less than 8 hours away. I’m not looking for a 10 day forecast (now there is a joke), I just want to know what the weather is going to be eight hours from now.

Saturday – Mostly Sunny with temperatures in the low to mid 50’s

Sunday – Mostly Sunny with a chance of an afternoon shower creeping in

Saturday morning arrives and it is pouring rain and in the 40’s. Well, maybe it will clear up by noon time….

Noon comes and it is still pouring out and in the 40’s. 150 kids marching in the Opening Day Parade, all soaking wet and shivering. 150 kids standing on the field being introduced to the fans, who are also all soaking wet and shivering. Everyone standing in the rain eating soggy hot dogs and potato chips, while soaking wet and shivering.

Almost forgot, it rained all day Sunday as well.

Nice job Mr. Meteorologist. Thanks for the help.

(The photographs included in this blog are obviously not from this weekend. They are samples from last seasons photographs)

"Good Enough" is not "Good Enough"

The photographers arch-nemesis....Good Enough. No, good enough is not good enough. If you ever hear yourself say "This is good enough" delete it. Your work should mean more to you than that. You should do everything in your power to insure that every image you produce is as good as you can possibly make it.

Photography is an exacting skill. I can look at every image that I have ever shot and find something that I would like to improve. Every one. Every single one. But at the time that I shot them, I had done all that I could do to make them as close to the image I had in my mind when I shot them.

Now sometimes, this takes only seconds. You are out in the field with your camera and happen upon a scene you want to photograph. Before your camera comes up to your eye you should have a very good idea of what you want your final image to look like. You might have to take a few shots, and you might have to do some post-processing. You might even have to wait for the right conditions or for the plan to come together in your mind.

This particular image was six weeks in the making. I first spotted this wooden vase six weeks ago and I knew I had to incorporate it into an image. How was I going to do it? I started to formulate ideas in my mind.... worked on compositions in my head. Thought about color palettes and lighting. When I got it to where I wanted it in my head, then I had to find the pieces to the puzzle. The vase I had already found. So I needed the pedestal and the flower. Then I needed the right colored wall with the right texture with the right wainscoting in the right relationship to windows for natural light. Piece of cake. So six weeks later, I was ready to shoot. The stage was set and my camera set up. I placed the camera on the mandatory tripod and framed it up. I adjusted the individual pieces of the composition and framed it up again. I readjusted the items and reframed it. Then I moved my tripod and framed it again. OK, ready to shoot....wait, the light isn't right. Five hours later, the light was right. I snapped one frame and looked at the preview on my LCD. Not quite right due to the little bit of extra space that doesn't show through the viewfinder. I reframed it and snapped one more frame. This one was right. Just as I had seen it in my mind. I got it loaded on to my computer and opened it up full screen. No cropping, a little bit of dodging and burning, a little unsharp mask and it was done. Six weeks to plan and execute and less than an hour on the computer. I can say that this is as good as I can get it. There is nothing that I would change. At least, not right now.

Are Mixed Feelings a Bad Thing?

I'm not writing this to get a lot of responses, or even generate a dialog. If that happens, so be it, but this is one of those blogs where I just want to express some mixed feelings about a topic.

As you have read in a previous blog, my work has recently been accepted into TrunkT HERE

Recently, the administration of the site separated photography from underneath the umbrella of "Art" and made it it's own category. I understand why they did it. The respect for the work being exhibited is great and they felt like it needed better exposure, and by making "Photography" it's own category on the header it certainly does this. I appreciate the additions viewers. But what does it say about photography as a craft when it is pulled out from within the "Art" category and put on it's own right next to it. Here is ART and over there is Photography.

TrunkT also just put out a notification that they will be publishing and distributing some coffee table type books of the artisans on their site. Initially, there were to be three books; Jewelry, Art, and Photography. They have since ended up combining the "Art" and "Photography" books into one publication. I will be interested to see how they title it.

I'm perfectly secure with my own feelings about my own work, but I am looking at the big picture here. Are there bigger sociological implications at play here?

I've been arguing for years that photography IS art. I'm not the first, loudest, or most important to do so, but I've gotten into many a heated debates about the topic. While the move is certainly well intentioned, does it have some other more subtle psychological ramifications about the perception of photography as art?

Or am I really just a delusional paranoid artist sharpening my knife to remove my ear and mail it to the administration of the site? Ears are highly overrated anyway. I've never liked the shape of my lobes.