Answer Your Own Call – Barry Boulton


During my Arches digital photography workshop, Barry Boulton expected to make pristine landscapes untouched by man. But during our initial reviews of his work, he was struck by the realization that a majority of his images either had people in them or showed signs of their being there. So he pursued the idea to see how far he could go with it. It worked for him – consistently.
Very often we don’t recognize that we’ve already started to do the work we’re called to do. All we have to do is recognize the call and then answer it. You can learn a lot about your voice if you only look closely and find the patterns that exist between the images you’ve already created.
What themes and patterns can you identify in your work? Which ones are you most excited to pursue further?
Find out more about my Arches digital photography workshop.
Learn more in my digital photography workshops.

Include Others, Include Yourself


Images by Scott Helgeson, Barry Boulton, and Michael Quinn.
During my Arches digital photography workshop participants struggled with displaying the scale of an immense landscape. Often, they chose to include people in their images to indicate human scale for comparison. Sometimes, they included each other. On occasion, they included themselves.
Including people in their images had many consequences. New issues and concerns arose. Sometimes the people in their images were posed and sometimes they were not. Qualities shifted. Including people made their images seem less timeless and more contemporary.
How can including people or man-made artifacts in your photographs enhance them?
What other dimensions would this bring to your images?
Find out more about my Arches digital photography workshop.
Learn more in my digital photography workshops.

Use The Stages In A Journey To Structure A Body of Work – Michael J Quinn


Michael Quinn used the stages in a journey to structure a body of work during my Arches digital photography workshop. The structure of a journey gave him a creative challenge that generated new ideas and helped focus his efforts. At the end of the workshop, he found that he had created more keeper images in a short time than he had previously. The structure also helped him identify ideas for new images still to be made – ways to expand his creative journey. What’s more, because the images related to one another, he can put the images to many more uses – a slideshow, an exhibit, a book, etc.

What creative challenge could you set for yourself to generate new ideas and increase your productivity?

See more of Michael J Quinn’s work here.