.

I Use – Canon G9 Underwater Housing


Looking for a new perspective! Take your camera underwater! Stills. Video. It’s so much fun! Worried? Don’t be. I do it all the time. So do many professional underwater photographers. Just get a good housing.
This is the underwater housing I use for my Canon G9.
On my wish list … a housing for my 1DSMKIII.
Check out this product and many others I use in my AStore here.
Check out my PDF Reviews here.
Check out my field workshops here.
Get a 20% discount on my Iceland (8/18-22) workshop here – expires 8/10.
Get a 15% discount on my Fall Foliage (10/17-20) workshop here – until 8/17.
The first 5 Insights Members get $1000 off South America (2/2-14/09), thereafter $250.
Space just became available in my workshop in Namibia.

I Use – Canon G9 Camera


I feel photographers should have at least two cameras. One for high resolution images in print and one to play with.
Jay Maisel’s advice is “Never go anywhere without a camera.” It’s great advice! You never know when something magical will happen and if you don’t have a camera with you, you won’t be able to photograph it. Small point and shoot cameras make it easier to follow this advice.
I use my Canon G9 to document all kinds of events in my life. It gets me making images in ways I wouldn’t ordinarily. This helps me become more versatile and has beneficial effects on my professional work as well as my personal life. Most of the images you see on this blog are made with either my G9 or my iPhone. Most of my family pictures are now made with my G9, sometimes by my six year old son.
Do I ever make exhibition quality prints from images made with my G9? Yes! Its 12.1mp resolution exceeds the resolution of 35mm film.
Is it full featured? Yes! It has most of the features of a DSLR except interchangeable lenses. But, the G9’s lens has an impressive 6x optical zoom with image stabilization.
I’m not saying it replaces my Canon 1DSMKIII DSLR. Maybe one day small cameras like this will replace larger ones. Right now, they create a new niche. That means more photographs are being taken – sometimes more interesting pictures as a result.
Oh, and in a pinch, don’t forget your cell phone. Pulitzer Prize winning pictures have been made with cell phones.
Find out more about the Canon G9 here.
Check out this product and many others I use in my AStore here.
Check out my PDF Reviews here.
Check out my field workshops here.
Get a 20% discount on my Iceland (8/18-22) workshop here – expires 8/10.
Get a 15% discount on my Fall Foliage (10/17-20) workshop here – until 8/17.
The first 5 Insights Members get $1000 off South America (2/2-14/09), thereafter $250.
Space just became available in my workshop in Namibia.

New Statements


Writing is an integral part of my creative process. First, writing helps me clarify my thoughts and feelings about my work. Then, it helps me communicate about it to others.
Find out how writing can help you in my free Creativity PDFs.
I’ve written three new Artist’s Statements this summer …
The World is Speaking
Resacralizing Nature
Pilgrimage
You can read them here.
You can hear me speak about my new work in person at 2 pm during my Annual Exhibit 8/2-3.
Order your copy of my new Antarctica book here.
Stay tuned for more content from this weekend with multiple posts each day.
New images will be posted tonight!

New Book – Antarctica


It’s a r/evolution in publishing.
And it’s fueled by on demand book printing services like Blurb.
And content producers like you.
And me.
I’m finally in!
My first Blurb book Antarctica contains 45 images and 2 essays.
The size is 8×10 inches.
It sells for 34.95 for softcover and 49.95 for hardcover.
Get a signed copy of my book at my Annual Exhibit 8/2-3. Find out more here.
Order your copy of my Antarctica book here.
Note, there are two Antarctica books. One for the Blurb contest submission and one newly improved. Order the latest one that includes minor edits and better production values.
Get portable PDF galleries of my Antarctica images here.
Get this month’s desktop calendar image from Antarctica here.
Read about Antarctica here.
Sign up for Insights for alerts and special discounts on new resources.

Influences – Sculpture

Is there a pattern to the artists above? Yes. They’re all influential to me.

Who are your influences? If you’re an artist you hear this question all the time. Many of us resist the temptation to answer as our answers may lead others to a poor choice of words – derivative. The reality is we’re all being influenced all of the time. It’s interesting to separate your enduring influences (the ones that stand the test of time) and your current influences (the most recent). For instance, I just saw the Louise Bourgeois exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. It’s influencing me. Will I do something with that influence immediately? Will that influence stay with me long enough to become significant? Time will tell. I also visited my favorite gallery in the Metropolitan Museum in NYC – the Rockefeller wing containing artifacts from primal cultures typically used for sacred or ceremonial functions. I go there every time I visit the museum. Every time I’m thrilled. The influence of this kind of art has been and will be with me my whole life.

Read more about my influences here.

Video – Participation Pieces


This video is a record of one of my new Participation Pieces. They use images projected in the dark – with no screen. You can’t see the image until you create one. That’s what I invite other people to do. Initially, I provide scattered flour. Other materials will surely be incorporated soon. The way the screen is created changes the image. The image is never the same twice. Sometimes you see it only partially. Sometimes the screen moves. Letting the flour fall produces a rain-like effect. Blowing the flour into the air creates a cloudy effect. The participant changes the image. Without a participant, there’s no image to see. And the viewer’s point of view changes what’s seen. If you’re a participant your activity limits your ability to see all angles. If you’re a viewer you have to move to see all angles and you can’t see all moments from all angles. It takes many people to create and view the entire event.
Projection changes the image. Two-dimensional images become three-dimensional. A point becomes a line. A line becomes a plane. A circle becomes a cylinder.
What kinds of images am I projecting? Images of celestial phenomena I normally exhibit in print form. Images of the light patterns I render in my series Refraction. Animations of those line patterns created in Photoshop. I’m sure I’ll find more locations, screens, and images in the days to come.
Many of these images are of eclipses. Coincidentally, August 1 and 16 there are eclipses (solar and lunar). Find out more about today’s solar eclipses here.
After thinking about environmental sculpture and projection for a long time, I finally started creating projections during a Creativity workshop with Sean Kernan. You can find my June posts on it right here on this blog. Just type in Kernan in the Search field and click Go.
You can see my Annual Exhibit in person 8/2-3. Find out more here.
Stay tuned for online releases all weekend long.

Video – Interview by Jay Tomioka

Jay Tomioka visited with me last winter for a video interview. He’s doing a very interesting project on photography that includes extensive video interviews. Other photographers he’s interviewed include Jerry Uelsmann, Maggie Taylor, Steve McCurry and many more. One of his themes is the relationship between eastern and western sensibilities and uses of photography. It’s an important theme for me. We spent hours talking. It’s an interesting series about to be released. You can preview video excerpts here. (Each video is just under 10 minutes long.)
Read the interview here.
See more Jay Tomioka videos here.
You can hear me speak about my new work during my Annual Open Studio Exhibit 8/2-3. Learn more here.

Read more of what I have to say in interviews here.
Read my conversations with other artists here.
Sign up for Insights to receive alerts on new content here.


Blurb – Books On Demand


It’s a r/evolution. You produce the content, Blurb produces the product. Design your own book with easy to use software. Update it whenever you want – even after it’s gone to press. Order as many copies as you want whenever you want. Let other people purchase as many copies as they want whenever they want. Print only copies that are sold. Warehouse nothing. Let someone else handle and ship the product for you. No publisher or distributor necessary. Artist to client with only one entity in between – Blurb.
Having watched my mother shepherd the creation of some of the finest photographic art books of the 20th century, I know what goes into creating a great book. Blurb’s production values aren’t the finest on the planet – but they’re surprisingly good! Blurb won’t make you a great photographer, a great picture editor, a great writer, a great graphic designer, a great book printer, or a great book binder. But you can do it all yourself. And there can be something unique about having a singular vision controlling all aspects of a book’s content. Blurb’s about getting the job done. It makes things possible that were never possible before. For instance, you can quickly revise or expand a book. You can make unique one of a kind books customized for an individual. You can even make a book by collaborating remotely and independently with other people.
If you’d like some help producing your book, Blurb offers BlurbNation, a community of expert bookmakers available for you to hire to help make your books.
You can also make a GroupBook. Invite people to contribute photos to your book. Your contributors can simply upload photos to Blurb’s Web site (via a personal email invitation that we help you send). Then you can access the photos directly in BookSmart. Then, when you’re making a book, instead of “hooray for me!” you can cheer “go team!”
The most important thing about this r/evolution is it empowers you. You don’t have to wait for a publisher to sign on to your project. You don’t have make a big investment in producing a large inventory to self-publish. You don’t have to warehouse and distribute the books. You, the artist can create your own book – from start to finish. And that means more books are being produced. It also means different kinds of books are being produced. These kinds of books can span a wide spectrum from family album to artistic journal to community project to artists collaborations to monographs to thematic essays.
It’s a r/evolution. We’ve seen it coming for over a decade. It’s finally here.
Check back here soon for an upcoming announcement on the release of my first Blurb book.
Check out Blurb here.
Get a signed copy of my book at my Annual Exhibit 8/2-3. Find out more here.
Sign up for Insights for alerts and special discounts on new resources.