Namibia – Take the Postcard and Then Try A Different Approach

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Sossusvlei, Namibia has some of the most famous dunes in the world – 750 foot high coral dunes that close in towards one another as you move up the valley. When you think Namibia, you think Sossusvlei. Everyone who goes there has a similar version of my first shot. I took it too. Then I tried a different approach. I found the dunes made wonderful abstract panoramas.
Visit here tomorrow for more of my images from Namibia.
Find out about my 2010 Namibia workshop here.

Namibia – Shoot the Same Things Together

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One interesting exercise I recommend to my students is to shadow a partner. Walk in each other’s footsteps and make pictures like the other person. Shoot the same things. Shoot them the way you’d shoot them. Then shoot them the way you think your partner would shoot them. It’s best if you partner with someone who can expand your comfort zone. Compare the results as you go. What you’ll find is you won’t end up making the same images. You’ll end up making your own images in new ways.
These two images from Serra Cafema, Namibia came out of this exercise. The horizontal one is Paul Tornaquindici’s. The vertical one’s mine. We smiled while we were doing it and we’re still smiling. We realized that while the conditions were identical, we were so different and that resulted in different images. There are many more realizations about our personal styles we’re still making.
See more of Paul Tornaquindici’s images here.
Visit here tomorrow for more of my images from Namibia.
Find out about my 2010 Namibia workshop here.

Oriens I


“Oriens represents a new line of inquiry for me. Take the most compelling passages of changing light throughout an extended duration of time and weave them into a single composition … Neither method, resynchronization or recontextualization, yields a classically objective document. But the results of either application may yield artifacts that are truer to our experience of events. In one respect these represent the events more faithfully — they encompass the passage of time.”
Read the rest of this Statement here.

Disclosure – Images That Didn't Make the Book Due to Size

Three voyages to Antarctica yielded over 250,000 exposures. Would you like to see them all? I’m kidding! I wouldn’t do that to you! Selecting only the best images has been a real challenge. Does it have graphic impact? Does it tell an important aspect of the story? Is it repeatable with variation? Is it repetitive? All good questions. For my book Antarctica I settled on 100 images. More seemed to tire viewers. Even though I’ve released more images, in the book I published fewer to make it a more effective experience. More is less. Less is more.

Here are a few images that didn’t make it into the book.

Preview or purchase the book here.

Email info@johnpaulcaponigro.com to reserve your space in my 2011 Antarctica workshop.