12 Great Photographs By Cig Harvey
Enjoy this collection of photographs by Cig Harvey.
Join us Dec 4 @ 6 EST for our online conversation.
Why Singular Images Are So Important And Why They’re Not Everything
Call them 5-star images. They’re the images that make an instant impression, capable of grabbing a viewer’s attention amid a flood of other choices. Singular images are the ones that get the most likes on social networks, the top (and sometimes only) image on a webpage, the first and last images in a slideshow, the one used for a card to an exhibition or a poster promoting it, the cover plus the opening and closing pages of a book. Singular images are the heat.
Singular images are classically composed with strong graphic structures that are simplified and dynamic. The dramas they tell are easily grasped and digested. Color contrast (of luminosity, hue, and/or saturation) is high. Rarely will a singular image have technical flaws; they can afford no distractions. It’s rare that a singular image doesn’t exhibit these characteristics. For an image to be considered singular without them, it has to be exceptionally strong in other areas.
Some high-impact images don’t have legs. They sizzle and fizzle. They may be graphically compelling, but they may not offer anything exceptional beyond their execution. You may need to give images a waiting period to discover this. When determining whether an image’s payout is short or long, ask yourself some questions. Does the image sustain attention? Does it tell an interesting story? Does it make the viewer think? Does it work on multiple levels? Does it elude easy definition? Does it haunt the viewer long after it is seen? The very best singular images do it all. These are the truly great images.
It takes time to amass a number of singular images. Singular images often involve strokes of luck. No matter how talented, skilled, and prepared you are, it’s almost impossible to guarantee inspiration. But you can learn to recognize when it’s present and what it takes to cultivate and sustain it ...
Photographer Cig Harvey – Her Top Five Influences
Cig Harvey shares 5 photographs that influenced her creative journey on Jeff Larason’s The Crit House.
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Join Me For A Conversation With David Brommer – Tuesday, May 21 @ 6 pm EST
Join me Tuesday, May 21 @ 6pm EST on Zoom – Register here.
Photographer David Brommer (Suspect Photography) will guide what is sure to be an animated, wide-ranging, and thoughtful conversation about photography and creativity. David has a knack for asking the questions that most need to be asked.
I’ll share new work. We’ll talk about the importance of printing your images. After that, anything could happen.
It’s been ten years since our last extended conversation. Enjoy it here as a prelude of more to come.
John Macintosh’s New Book – Tell Us, What Have You Seen?
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And What Is Art?
And what is Art whereto we press
Through paint and prose and rhyme
When Nature in her nakedness
Defeats us every time?
Rudyard Kipling
And what is Art whereto we press
Through paint and prose and rhyme
When Nature in her nakedness
Defeats us every time?
Rudyard Kipling
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The most gratifying thing about being a teacher is seeing your students grow. One of the pinnacles of my years of teaching has been witnessing John Macintosh’s effervescent explorations of photography. His creations have become as colorful and rich as he is. John is about to release his first photography book, Tell Us, What Have You Seen? Below, John shares some of the highlights of his artistic journey, things he has learned that are important to him, and how making a book has deepened his experience.
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Inquire about the book by emailing macgybe@gmail.com.
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“Eight years ago, as a birthday present to me, Petra signed us up for one of their photo workshops on a boat in Greenland. Since then, we have been privileged to witness much of Nature’s majesty in their delightful company. Many of the images in this book were taken during their workshops. They taught me everything I know about digital photography. But a voyage with the two of them is not just about understanding the tools of photography, nor is it just a voyage into the wonders of Nature. For me, those were journeys into the uncharted waters of my own creativity. Why am I so passionate about the unworldly intensity of blue ice, the sensuous flow of sinuous curves, or the warm patination of rust? I found it difficult to converse with my own tight-lipped creativity, but eventually, those conversations acted as a guide to my whimsical wanderings.
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When I had my show about five years ago, I was amazed at the attendance, including several people who had flown to Chicago from the East Coast. A lady who I knew from the floor of the CBOT had bullied her partner, who owns a local restaurant, to come along to the show. When I had met him previously, he had displayed little interest in my photography. But when he entered my show, he walked up to one of my metal prints and said, ” I can’t live without this.” Shortly afterward, he redecorated the entire restaurant to accommodate seventeen of my prints, which still hang there today. It gives me great pleasure to know that over a thousand diners get to see my work every month.
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What did I learn while making the book? Since I knew bugger all, I learned a lot. I decided that I would need a high class printer for the book, just as Blazing Editions are the printers for my prints. As someone without a name, I realized that the odds of finding a publisher were very remote. A couple of years ago, a well-known publisher in England told me, ” Beautiful images do not sell a book. A story sells a book.” I thought that I didn’t have enough good images of one theme to tell a story, and so was born the idea of grouping different subject matters together through poetry.
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For me, Seth and JP were instrumental in creating a link between photography and poetry, as they constantly urged the use of haiku to stimulate the visual mind. I was very dubious when they suggested writing haikus about images and even more so when they encouraged us to do so before setting out with the camera. I was one of the most reluctant pupils to accept the connection between photography and poetry, between the world of word and image. But, bit by bit, over several trips, they wore down my resistance.
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.Cloths Of Heaven
.Had I the Heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams,
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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William Butler Yeats
I read a huge amount of poetry over the last year and a half, which was extremely rewarding. Finding a poem that conjured up one of my images was always thrilling, but at one stage, I realized that I would not find enough poems (over 100 years old for copyright purposes) for a book with nearly 100 photographs, so I took the plunge of attempting to write my own poetry. That was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done.
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I have tried especially hard to avoid the sensory overload that comes when words, lying side by side with the image, simply repeat what has already been communicated by the eye. It was a formidable challenge to balance the verbal and visual stimuli, without simply superimposing one on top of the other, but it was immensely rewarding when the two seemed to complement each other.
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Mixing my own poems with those of famous poets felt somewhat presumptuous, but I tried to let the image speak to me in its own voice. And just as my images cover a wide range, from portraits to landscapes to the abstract, the poems vary from short to long, from the lyrical, as in Sea Fever, to the whimsical. Above all, I wanted to avoid repetition and monotony. So as not to pigeonhole an image or a poem, I have left them without titles. I am hoping that the reader will return to the book, drawn either by the image or the poem or by a combination of both, like a hummingbird to a flowering bush.”
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John Macintosh
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I too have bubbled up,
Floated the measureless float,
And have been washed upon your shore.
I too am but a trail of drift and debris.
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Walt Whitman
Inquire about the book by emailing macgybe@gmail.com.
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Photography & Words – On Better Photography With Peter Eastway
“Have you noticed how all photographers have favourite stories that tell of being in a certain place at a certain time and making a photograph that really excited them? People love to hear these stories.”
Recently I had a wide-ranging conversation with Peter Eastway, a great Australian photographer and the publisher of Better Photography magazine. We talked about visualization, the creative process, and how words can be useful for photographers.
Here’s an excerpt …
Words Can Help
John suggests that writing is far better at describing intangibles than photography. Sure, we can make photographs that represent love or freedom, but the language we’re using can be ambiguous. Not every viewer will pick up on what we’re doing. Many will have their own interpretations, so perhaps our own use of words in association with our photographs can make things clearer. “I think it depends on the kind of journey you want to create for your viewers. I was just looking at Eliot Porter’s Antarctica book, and I was surprised by how heavy the captions were and how dense the text that separated different sections in the book was. It’s not right or wrong; it’s just one kind of experience. However, a problem with words is that they can limit the viewers’ experience by not leaving enough room for the viewer. But words that are open, generative, and don’t close things down can be very engaging. “I think a lot of artists are uncomfortable with words because it’s not a skill they’ve developed. But good words have helped me understand art much better. They didn’t destroy the mystery; they enhanced it.”
Think of an artist giving a talk at an exhibition or presenting a slide show of images. Would you expect the artist to just sit there and say nothing? Or would you want to hear what’s going on inside the artist’s mind, inside their heart? John has a slide show about Antarctica on his website, and his voice-over provides an added dimension to the presentation. With the words, I felt I knew a lot more about John, his personality, and his approach to photography. There was a synergy.
But if you have never written about anything in your life, how do you start to write about something that can be as personal as photography? It can already be challenging enough to show our photographs to others; now we’re supposed to write about them as well? John has some practical suggestions, beginning with telling a story. “Have you noticed how all photographers have favourite stories that tell of being in a certain place at a certain time and making a photograph that really excited them? People love to hear these stories. What it was like to be there? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What did you learn? You don’t have to say or write big fancy words or even have it all perfectly composed. You can keep your language really simple, just like you talk. One of the things you can try is to imagine you’re having a conversation with a mate and tell them the story. Transcribe what you say and maybe clean up the ‘umms’ and the ‘ahhs,’ but it doesn’t have to be fancy language. In fact, simple direct language will communicate with other people better. Most people get turned off by ‘art speak’, and most people do not want to read a 3000-word essay. But we love short stories. In fact, the human brain is hooked on them. So, telling one of your stories is a great starting point, and having hung out with some of the ‘greats’ of photography, you don’t need a lot of them. They were constantly telling the same stories. Dad had half a dozen stories he’d tell time and time again. How many celebrities did Arnold Newman photograph, yet he generally used the same small number of stories.” A short story can be used as a caption or an introduction. It allows you to position the viewer closer to you so they better understand what your photograph is about, but, as John emphasises, without making things so tight, there isn’t room for your viewers to use their own imagination.
Read the full article. Visit Better Photography Issue 111.
33 Resources To Help You Enjoy The World’s Best Photographs Of 2022
Enjoy viewing 2022’s top photography collections!
New York Times Year In Pictures
BBC – 14 Most Striking Photos Of Year
My Modern Met Top 50 Photographs From Around the World
Life – Most Iconic Photographs Of All Time
National Geographic – Pictures Of the Year
National Geographic – The Story Behind 9 Photos
National Geographic – Best Travel Photos
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Ocean Photographer Of The Year
Guardian Ocean Photographer Of The Year
Guardian Landscape Photographer Of The Year
Guardian Environmental Photographer Of The Year
Natural Landscape Photography Awards
Guardian Wildlife Photographers Of The Year
Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer Of The Year
CNN Wildlife Photographer Of The Year
CNN Wildlife Photographer People’s Choice Award
RSPCA Young Photographer Award Winners
2022 Photomicrography Competition
Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Competition
Astronomy Photographer Of The Year
12 Great Quotes By Photographer William Neill
Enjoy this selection of quotes by photographer William Neill.
“I learned that being in nature could not only be fun but also restorative and healing.”
“Living here has been an inspirational education, a mentorship taught by the landscape itself … What I’ve learned is that Yosemite, beyond its role as a nature preserve and place of recreation, is a sanctuary for the spirit.”
“I refer to nature’s beauty as my ballast in the storms of life. Seeing the beauty that surrounds me, and surrounds everyone, every day reminds me there is so much that is good in our world and gives me hope that the arc of history moves towards peace and kindness and beauty.”
“Seeing nature and looking for photographs is a daily practice for me.”
“I can see how “hunting” for images is a term that makes sense for how most of us find photographs. I prefer the idea of being a receptor for inspiration, for seeing what moves me.”
“You can best honor the landscape by becoming the best artist you can be, showing your own point of view and not regurgitating other’s point of view.”
“As for a responsibility of a landscape photographer to the audience, just be authentic to your vision. Share your knowledge of place and technique.”
“Be an activist for your favorite landscapes. If you are inclined towards environmental issues, use your images to educate others about what might be damaged or lost. As an artist, use your vision to share what you love so that they might love it, so that they might help them portray and preserve endangered landscapes themselves.”
“Historically, using beautiful landscape photographs have helped convince the powers that be to regulate and protect their use. We needed to strike a fine balance between protecting places and loving a place to death.”
“I’ve written that it can be helpful for some to “write their story” but it is not required. It is more important for you the artist to understand what you want to say and know how to say it. One way to do this is to write it out to help clarify your reasons to photograph for yourself and for the viewer.”
“By creating photographs where the content or orientation is not obvious, an intimate and enigmatic feeling can come through. I would rather make an image that asks a question than one that answers one, one that intrigues and arouses curiosity in the viewer.”
“My favorite photograph quote was written by Minor White, “When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don’t leave until you have captured its essence.”
Learn more about William Neill here.
Free Webinar Nov 22 – The Wonderful Things Printing Can Do For You & Your Images
Join me for a free webinar
Tuesday Nov 22 at 1 EST
The Wonderful Things Printing Can Do For You & Your Images
What can prints do for you and your images? Let me count the ways!
Learn what to look for in good prints and how to make yours great.
Find out about the many ways you can use prints to improve your art and its success.
Get my free The Digital Printing Quick Start Guide now.
Hosted by Calibrite in the B&H Event Space.
Click the link below to join the webinar.
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82967781997?pwd=N3BhVWpoWkIwY2ljUndKWWRwWHlqZz09
Passcode: 887027
The Landscape – National Juried Small Works Exhibition
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The Landscape
National Juried Small Works Exhibition
Juror: John Paul Caponigro, Photographic Visual Artist
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Exhibition Dates: November 26, 2022 – January 16, 2023
Reception: Saturday, November 26, 5-7 pm EST
Meet the Juror and Artists on Zoom: December 14, 7 pm EST – Register Here.
This is our tenth annual Small Works exhibition, and each work is affordably sized 13 inches or smaller for your Holiday gift list.
Our juror selected fifty-seven artworks by forty-six national artists working in photography, painting, and mixed media depicting the theme. These personal vistas of our land world include the expanse of outdoor scenery, varied environments and geography, and natural or man-made related landscape subjects.
About the Gallery Exhibition, The Landscape:
Landscape (noun): a picture representing a view of natural land scenery; the landforms of a region in the aggregate; a portion of territory that can be viewed at one time from one place.
Our national juried exhibition welcomes entries of traditional and alternative photography in color or black & white, photo-based works, paintings, mixed media, and small sculptural works depicting the theme, The Landscape. Our Juror will be looking for thought-provoking, creative works expressing the theme with representational or abstract interpretations showcasing the natural land world, the expanse of outdoor scenery, environments, geography, and natural or man-made related landscape subjects.
Aspects to consider:
compelling abstraction, dramatic compositions, varied vantage points, detailed lines, shades, textures, rich tones, environmental concerns, and expressive scenes.
Aspects to avoid:
people, animals, sunrises, and sunsets unless the physical Landscape is the main focal point of the image or composition.
