Photographing. It’s my favorite form of exercise. You walk, climb, squat, bend, reach, stretch and more – much more. You lose track of time and how far you’ve gone. You just keep going. You always want to go farther. It’s exhilarating! At the end of it all, you feel great and you return with something to show for it. I recommend it to everyone.
This image shows a participant at Zabriskie Point during my recent Death Valley workshop.
Gregory Crewdson discusses his work.
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Jeff Wall discusses his creative process.
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“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscape but in having new eyes.”
Marcel Proust
Increasingly, we all find ourselves photographing at locations where many have photographed before us. When I encounter this I ask myself many questions. Here are a few.
What’s been done before?
What made it work?
How could it be improved?
What hasn’t been done before?
How have things changed since that work was done?
What could be done to reflect that change?
What’s unique about this moment?
What’s special about my perspective?
How many ways could these things be made clear and/or strongly felt?
The right set of questions can help generate many ideas as well as guide and focus work.
I usually have so many thoughts and feelings that I need to make notes to catch them all. Trying to find the best words to express them with makes my understanding of them clearer.
Next time you find yourself in familiar territory, I recommend you start asking many useful questions.
Find more ways to boost your creativity using words.
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These are two book covers for projects I’m currently developing.
I create visual reminders for projects I’m currently working on. Then I place them in my working environment. They constantly prompt me to consider the work I’m developing at many times and in many moods. I sleep on it. I collect sketches and notes. I plan trips to make new exposures and list what I kind of material I’m looking for. I assemble relevant finished images in the series. I look for connections between images currently being made and images made in the past. I list many ways to develop the work.
What projects are you developing?
What kinds of visual reminders would be helpful to you?
What other things can you do to develop the work you want to do right now?
Read more about project development here.
Find more resources about developing your personal vision here.
Learn more in my digital photography workshops.
As a fine artist, I advance my career with personal projects. Personal projects also create a clearer direction for and develop greater meaning in my life. My life would be unfulfilled without them
You don’t need to have a fine art career to benefit from personal projects. Many commercial photographers find personal projects reenergize them, add purpose to their lives and quite often lead to new assignments or whole new streams of income. Many amateurs, making images purely for the love of doing it, find greater satisfaction and personal growth through personal projects.
As an artist who mentors other artists in workshops and seminars, I’ve often been called to speak about the importance of personal projects; how to find them, start them, develop them, complete them, present them, and promote them.
Here’s an overview of what I share.
Personal Projects
Defining a project is one of the single best ways to develop your body of work. When you define a project you focus, set goals, set quotas, set timelines, create a useful structure for your images, collect accompanying materials, and polish the presentation of your efforts so that they will be well received.
Focusing your efforts into a project will help you produce a useful product. A project gives your work a definite, presentable structure. A finished project makes work more useful and accessible. Once your project is done, your work will have a significantly greater likelihood of seeing the light of day. Who knows, public acclaim may follow. Come what may, your satisfaction is guaranteed …
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Learn more in these related digital photography ebooks.
Develop your personal project in my digital photography workshops.
Julianne Kost offers excellent tips for navigating Lightroom efficiently.
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Garry Winogrand shares insights from his life in photography.
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Nan Goldin shares insights from her life in photography.
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Get 15% off Photomatix with this code – johnpaulcaponigro.
Beyond Photoshop, there are a number of HDR software options, both plug-ins and stand-alones. Some of the better-known programs include Artizen HDR, easyHDR, FDRTools, pfstools, HDR Efex Pro, and Photomatix. HDRsoft’s Photomatix is the longest standing and perhaps most robust and sophisticated solution.
Photomatix can be used either as a Photoshop plug-in or as a stand-alone product. It offers a variety of ways of combining exposures, including some non-HDR options. Photomatix offers impressive controls over essential image elements affected by HDR merges. Chief among these are control over halos, micro-contrast accentuation, micro-smoothing and control of saturation in highlights and shadows (areas that tend to need aggressive tone mapping).
With a little care and attention, the effect you produce with these tools can be one of your choosing. If used aggressively, you can produce a contemporary HDR effect that can give your images a new look. If used conservatively, you can produce a classic effect that’s virtually unnoticeable.
Every photographer can benefit from learning HDR techniques …
Read my review of Photomatix here. Stay tuned for the update.
Read more about HDR techniques here.
View more about HDR in my DVD Extending Dynamic Range – HDR Imaging.
Learn more in my digital photography workshops.