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Track Your Influences

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Suffusion I, Palm Beach, Florida 2001

Sometimes ideas just seem to come out of nowhere. But do they?
We have so many experiences everyday, whether commonplace and routine or extraordinary and novel, it’s hard to say what registers as significant or even important. We’re influenced by so many things – our history, environment, community, actions, etc – that it’s hard to know when one thing leads to another. Often we refashion these materials, sometimes combining them, into something new, so when the resurface it’s not easy to recognize where they came from. What do we connect with? When do we connect with it? Do we know when it happens? Only if we’re mindful.
Awareness of what influences us is something that we can develop. To do this we need to develop a greater sensitivity to our environment and history in it (both personal and cultural) as well as to our actions and attitudes in relation to the activities and tone of our communities. Inquisitiveness is all you need. Ask a lot of questions. Don’t assume you know the answers. Don’t judge yourself or the answers you find along the way. Just collect information. By becoming aware of your influences you’ll be less controlled by them, see more options, and so have more and make clearer choices. Journalling can be an excellent way to develop this discipline and to reflect further on your influences while you’re making new or reviewing old entries. Once you experience the many benefits awareness of your influences brings, you’ll want to cultivate this habit. It can be a source of clarity, of personal insight, and even of purpose. Time and time again, this has been true for me.
Sometimes the insights awareness brings are surprising. One day, after Suffusion I had been hanging on my studio wall for months, I moved a snapshot of my grandmother’s ashes in the ocean (I had been unable to attend her funeral so I kept the photograph my father brought me close for a time.) across my studio. As soon as I saw the two images simultaneously in my field of vision the similarities and connections between them became clear. Since I made it, I had been trying to understand Suffusion I better. I knew some of the undercurrents at work in it; growing concerns about climate change and global warming; the ever-changing nature of existence and perception; watching smoke as a form of meditation; using smoke as a form of prayer. But I hadn’t guessed that it had anything to do with death and cremation. It would be a mistake to say this image – and the other images like it in this series – was about death. It/they are about much, much more. That’s part of what makes them so good. They’re complex.
You might be tempted to say that the influences were simple. The environmental and temporal factors were obvious. A good friend (Timothy Morrissey) had shown me how he photographed smoke and mist in his studio and I made exposures with him. The next day we went fishing and I made more exposures. Much later, I combined images from the two days. But that wouldn’t have explained why I chose to do this; I could have chosen one of thousands of other exposures from other years. Nor would that explain that I liked the results enough to print, frame, and exhibit the results. There was more going on in this image than first met the eye. I knew this, which is why I was still curious about it – and it probably has something to do with why others are curious about it too. I’m still curious. Our best work gets ahead of us and it takes time to catch up to it. Sometimes it continues to reward us for years to come – or even a lifetime.
Questions
How many things influence you?
How many things can you do to increase your awareness of what influences you?
What are the best ways to track your influences?
What benefits do you find from looking back on how your influences develop, flow, and grow?
Can you use the insights about your past reactions to inspire new actions?
How many ways can you proactively influence your influences?
Find out more about this image here.
View more related images here.
Read more The Stories Behind The Images here.
Read more about Influences here.

Contact Sheet – California, Point Lobos

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2013_PointLobos_FirstCut_2013_425

Click here to enlarge.

I had an intense session at Point Lobos, California recently. I was in an emotional state, reviewing the past, connecting ideas, letting some things go. That quality got into these images. Sure, I was working at understanding composition better, but I think it’s the emotional quality that makes these images strong. It was a great reminder of how important it is to be present (really truly present) when you’re making art.

Half these images won’t make the final cut. And I’ll want to return to this subject (if not location) to develop this set further. And yet, there are a few real keepers here, not just single images but also a whole new set of images.

Find out about my Point Lobos / Big Sur workshop here.

View more Contact Sheets here.

View finished images here.

New eBook – Process

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How artists get there is just as important as where they arrive. My new ebook Process examines many aspects of my creative process – writing, drawing, painting, photography, Photoshop, iphoneography and more. Thirty-three chapters are organized into five sections – Color, Composition, Draw, iPhone, Write – showing how each discipline contributes to the completion of finished works of art.
This ebook reveals that an artist’s creations are produced by not one but many activities in many media and that the creative process is a never-ending journey of discovery that offers surprising insights along the way.
192 pages fully illustrated
$12.99
$9.99 for Insights enews members. 
(Email info@johnpaulcaponigro.com for discount code.)
Buy the PDF here
Download a free preview here.




3 Google TED Talks – Search, Glass, Driverless Car

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Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin offer a peek inside the Google machine, sharing tidbits about international search patterns, the philanthropic Google Foundation, and the company’s dedication to innovation and employee happiness.

It’s not a demo, more of a philosophical argument: Why did Sergey Brin and his team at Google want to build an eye-mounted camera/computer, codenamed Glass? Onstage at TED2013, Brin calls for a new way of seeing our relationship with our mobile computers — not hunched over a screen but meeting the world heads-up.
See the live demo of Glass at the Google I/O here.

Sebastian Thrun helped build Google’s amazing driverless car, powered by a very personal quest to save lives and reduce traffic accidents. Jawdropping video shows the DARPA Challenge-winning car motoring through busy city traffic with no one behind the wheel, and dramatic test drive footage from TED2011 demonstrates how fast the thing can really go.
View more of my favorite TED talks here.

Alumnus Harry Sandler Joins OnStage Magazine

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OnStage Magazine is proud to announce that veteran tour manager/photographer Harry Sandler has come on board as our Director of Photography. Harry brings a wealth of musical history to the table, and we are certain that this partnership will help us develop the magazine in new and exciting ways. Harry plans to contribute both published and unpublished photos from his time in New York during the late 60’s early 70’s right up to the present day. Together with our writers, he will also recount his experiences working with some of the top talent in the music industry.
Read more at onstagemagazine.com

Alumnus Sam Krisch's Roaming Plan: iPhone Wanderings

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The Ann White Academy Gallery
June 7-28, 2013
Saturday Artist Talk:  
June 8th – 11:00 a.m. 
”IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR: Vintage Photography With The iPhone”
First Friday Opening 
Friday, June 7 from 5-8pm
Sam Krisch is a Roanoke, Virginia fine art photographer. His landscape and portrait work has been exhibited recently in exhibitions throughout the U. S. and his prints are part of corporate, museum, and individual collections.
Find out more about Sam’s exhibit here.
Find out more about Sam here.
 

PHOTOGRAPH Issue 3

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Digital magazine PHOTOGRAPH Issue 3 is now available.
Articles are written by Martin Bailey, John Paul Caponigro, Kevin Clark, David DuChemin, Jay Goodrich, Chris Orwig, Al Smith, Piet Van Den Eynde, Nicole S Young.
In my column Creative Composition I cover the interactions of The Essential Building Blocks Of Composition (point, line, shape, plane, volume).
Portfolios and Q&As include Kevin Clark, Dave Delnea, and Hengki Koentjoro.
Koentjoro is one of my favorite photographers to follow on Google+.
Buy the PDF here for $8.
4 issue subscribers receive a 25% discount.
Learn more with my photography eBooks.

4 Ways To Divide The Frame

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The four most important lines of any image are the ones that are often least recognized consciously – the frame. Second only to these are the lines that divide the frame, creating frames within the frame. Becoming more aware of how the frame can be used and how it can be divided will help you make more successful compositions.
There are many ways the frame can be divided. You can divide the frame horizontally, vertically, or diagonally; in each case the layers included define the virtual space presented. Different areas in an image can be divided differently. You can divide the frame (or a frame within the frame) multiple times; the more times the frame is divided the more packed and dynamic it becomes, progressively growing more design oriented and finally being reduced to pure texture. Each operation has significant consequences.
One of the most significant results of dividing the frame is the creation of specific proportions. (The combination of the individual aspect ratios of each element creates a new unified aspect ratio.) Much has been made of the ‘rule of thirds’. Dividing the frame into three parts (left/center/right or up/middle/down) is a simple and often useful strategy for making images more directed, by prioritizing one element over another, and dynamic, through imbalance. Too little has been made of other ratios. What of fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths, or eighths? No musician would be content to only divide an octave into halves and thirds. Every proportion produces particular effects, which are further modified by placement (high/low or left/right) and content. Rather than a rule to be adhered to, proportion is a force to be explored expressively.
When it comes to controlling the division of the frame in your images, you have more options available to you than you might think. You can crop, retouch, distort, or composite. These four operations can be used in combination with one another. For instance, you may decide to first crop an image and then distort it to a standardized aspect ratio. Or, while maintaining a frame of the same aspect ratio, you might increase the scale of a selected area only and in the process crop a portion of it. Many other permutations are possible.
If you find these many new possibilities dizzying, you get it. The only way to understand this intuitively is to explore your options. The development of new possibilities encourages us to ask new questions and develop new habits. For what effect are you dividing the frame? To that end, how many different ways can you think of dividing the frame? My advice? Develop the habit of exploring your options before settling on final solutions, ones that help you create your strongest statements.
Read more at Digital Photo Pro.
See my related post Exploring The Expressive Possibilities Of Aspect Ratio.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Approach Things In Many Ways

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Triple Goddess, Aneth, Utah, 1996

This image was born out of synergy. It took multiple media to resolve this image and each one contributed something unique to the final result.
During a brainstorming session I used word associations to search for new possibilities. Only a few word pairs and phrases stood out of the hundreds that were generated, only some of which seemed related, including ‘floating stone’. What was it that made that pair stand out from all the others? Perhaps it was the reversal of expectations it contained, stones don’t float they sink. Perhaps it was something else, something less easily explained and more personal.
I slept on it. Shortly after midnight, I woke up in the middle of a dream of a floating stone. Dreams are rich sources of insight, which is why I make sure to always have something close at hand to record them. I quickly sketched the image. Why a sketch? I had already written the words down. In this case, an image would be more specific. And I went back to sleep. In the morning, when I woke up again, I saw the sketch at my bedside. It helped me remember the image in my dreams. I sketched many variations of the image, generating many possible compositions of the same subject and even found a few new ideas along the way.
That day, I went to my photographic archive and searched for the best material to bring this image to light. Along the way, the photographs I sifted through stimulated many new related ideas, which I also sketched. In the end I decided to use a stone that was much smoother, a sky that was more complicated, and hills that were smoother than the ones in my dreams. Even as I was compositing the three images into one, something new ideas emerged when I decided to make the mounds symmetrical. Influenced by everything that I had experienced between discovering the seed of the idea and its final resolution, the image had grown richer and evolved. Discovery can happen at each and every point in the creative process.
When engaging in creative challenges, if you approach things in multiple ways you’re sure to find a shift in perspective. Whether we’re looking for new ideas, solving problems, or seeking feedback about what we have produced, we often enlist many people with a variety of backgrounds and experiences who each have something different to contribute to our understanding. You can do this for yourself, by trying different things that will bring you a variety of experiences and new perspectives. Doing this is part of being well-rounded, well-informed, and thorough. You never know what you’ll discover, until you try it.
Questions
How many ways can you approach researching a challenge?
How many ways can you approach solving a challenge?
What unique contribution does each approach make to your understanding?
What unique contribution does each approach make to the final result?
Which is the best mode to start with?
Which is the best mode to end with?
What mode is best for a given stage of development in a creative challenge?
Is there an optimal order for mode shifts?
How long is it best to stay in one mode before moving to another?
When is it better to stay in one mode?
When is it better to move to another mode?
Find out more about this image here.
View more related images here.
Read more The Stories Behind The Images here.