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WHERE PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO SHOOT IN BLACK AND WHITE COME TO LEARN, SHARE AND GROW
The Secret to Depth in a Black and White Photograph
A photograph is flat. It has no actual depth. Everything that makes a black and white image feel three dimensional is an illusion. Here is how to construct that illusion deliberately rather than accidentally.
What Sebastião Salgado Teaches Us About Making Work That Matters
Sebastião Salgado spent four decades photographing people the world preferred not to look at. This week those photographs are selling for six figures at auction in New York. Here is what that means and what it teaches us.
How to Think Like an Editor Of A Novel
A novelist without an editor is a photographer without a filter. The work might be brilliant. But without someone asking the hard questions it will never be as good as it could be. Here is how to be your own editor.
How to Build a Portfolio That Actually Gets Looked At
Foto's portfolio feature is one of the best tools available to photographers right now for sharing a body of work. Most people are not using it well. Here is how to change that.
A Novel Way To Measure Progress
Last night at Open Studios someone asked me to tell them about a photograph on the wall. What came out of my mouth told me more about my progress as a photographer than any comparison of old work to new ever has.
The More You Practice the Luckier You Get
The more I practice the luckier I get. It sounds like false modesty. It is actually one of the most precise descriptions of how creative skill develops that anyone has ever put into words.
The Day My Hard Drive Died and What It Taught Me
I have been working on a new backup strategy. Last week the external SSD holding my black and white photo library corrupted without warning. The recovery process is still ongoing. Here is what that experience taught me about the photographs we take for granted.
The Problem With Portfolio Reviews
The photography portfolio review industry is built on a promise it rarely keeps. Not because the reviewers are bad but because the model is wrong. Here is what actually works.
You Have Not Lost Your Inspiration. You Have Lost the Signal.
Every photographer has felt it. The creative flatness. The sense that something has gone. But inspiration does not actually go anywhere. Here is what is really happening and how to find your way back.
The Idolatry of Sharpness
Someone used the phrase idolatry of sharpness recently and it stopped me in my tracks. Because it is exactly right. We have turned sharpness into a false god and photography is worse for it.
The Most Interesting Photographs Are Made by The Most Interested Photographers
The most interesting photographs are almost never made by the most technically skilled photographers. They are made by the most curious ones. There is a difference worth understanding.
Are Long Exposures Only for Landscape Photography?
Most photographers think long exposure belongs to the landscape. Alexey Titarenko spent the 1990s proving otherwise, and the results are some of the most haunting photographs ever made.