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I came home from my last trip with almost 20,000 photographs, which is, by any standard, a whole lot of photographs. I edited them down to about 30.

That's 19,970 images that didn't make the cut.

If I looked at every one of those photographs for only three seconds, it would take me 1,000 minutes, or almost 16 hours, to do the edit. I like my photographs, but I don't know anyone who likes their photographs enough to spend 16 hours doing that without going a little cross-eyed.

Making a photograph requires work done with the camera, editing out the best of that work, and (usually) some kind of work in post-production, not to mention printing and book-making and other means of sharing that work. By editing I don't mean post-production, but the often-painful process of deciding which images make the cut and which do not.

"Is it this one, or this one? This one? No, wait, maybe this one? Aw, hell, maybe they're all crap." Sound familiar?

Put your hand in the air if editing is your favourite part.

No one? That's what I thought.

Many photographers find the edit the hardest part. I have a friend who dislikes the edit so much she''s sitting on years of unedited images. I know countless other photographers who have told me that's the edit is the most overwhelming to them. That's almost always the word: overwhelming.

So how do we make this less overwhelming? We could make fewer photographs, I suppose, but that's never worked for me.

I make loads of sketch images and rely on those efforts to stimulate my creative process and encourage risk and play. Making fewer images would hamper my creativity. Instead I rely on some other ideas to make the edit more bearable-certainly faster and easier. Here are some of those practices, in hopes they can make editing less overwhelming for you.

Do More Than One Edit

If you thought you had only one shot at editing your work, it would be easy to see this as overwhelming. I mean, what if you miss one? I plan to do three edits on any work I do. The first happens as soon as I can; the second happens when I've had some time and space to think a little more clearly, instead of just looking for that one image I'm really excited about (but maybe also a little blinded by). And then I do an edit much further out. So for me, this is often the first edit on the day I shoot (or within a day or two), then another in a couple weeks or months, and a third in a year or so. The pressure is less, and I almost always find images on subsequent edits that I'd have missed on the first even if I paid much more attention. Time gives us a bit of perspective and changes the expectations we have as we look at the photographs.

Don't Settle

Your edit will differ depending on your needs. Client work can introduce pressures and certain criteria that might not be there in your personal work, but I do this to make work I love, not work that's only just OK. If it's not a "Hell, yes" or something I can put five stars on, I skip it. It's either a Hit or a Miss. And that's how I look at my images: I scan until something catches my eye. Maybe it's colour. Maybe an interesting composition, but it's got to grab me. This immediately makes things easier. I'm not looking for every single image that is average or just a little better, but the ones that make me feel something. Will I miss images this way? Of course. That's why I do two more edits.

Edit With Vision

I find it helpful to know what I'm choosing the images for. I like to shoot in bodies of work, around a theme. I like that constraint. It not only helps me make more focused work, but it also makes the edit easier. If I know I'm looking for images that work well in monochrome, it helps me pick the strongest images. If editing is a question of choosing the "best" image in a series, then it helps to be able to answer this question: best at what? Are you looking for a vertical cover image? It helps to know that. Are you looking for a single image or a sequence? It helps to know that, too. Was there a particular theme you were trying to explore or some specific vision you were following? You can't make strong editing choices without knowing that.

Pick A Number

Some of you will roll your eyes at this one, but it works for me. I pick a number. It is infinitely easier for me to edit 20,000 images down if I know I need 12. You could choose 9 or 37. I like increments of 12 and have no idea why. But I keep the number small. Twelve images from a one-week trip is good as a start. If it was a portrait session, perhaps six. Or three. The number keeps the pressure off. It's rare that I can't find 12 images I love-at least initially-after a week. But it also forces me to be ruthless with my edit. It forces me to choose only the best. Not that I delete the ones that don't make the 12, but the search for only those 12 helps me see my images more honestly, rather than convincing myself that 300 of them are fantastic.

Is It Print-Worthy?

When I come back from a trip or a portrait session in my studio, I do my edits so that as soon as possible, I can fire up the printer and print at least an 8x10 (actually, 8.5x11) or larger. Many a time, my finger hovered over that print button, wondering if the image was really worth the paper. When that happens, it's a good sign that it's not the strongest image-so I move it to the back of the print queue and reconsider it. I don't necessarily toss it from the edit; I just make sure I'm clear on why I included it in the first place.

I think one of the reasons editing is so hard is that we get paralyzed by choice.

But remember, you're not deleting your un-chosen images. You're just looking for the 12 that jump out at you today. The ones that make you smile or accomplish the thing for which you made them. The others are still there and will be waiting when you come back to look at them again in a week or a month, or maybe a year.

We all have to figure out what we're looking for, and that is also one of the challenges. I found it much easier when I started to edit with that in mind and stopped approaching the process as though I had an obligation to choose every single image that might not suck.

As with any creative endeavour, constraints help. Look for three images that grab you, or eight. That's not so overwhelming, right? It's better than just never doing it. Or worse, hating the process. Find a way to do it that allows you to feel the kind of excitement you associate with other parts of making your photographs.

You don't have to do it all at once; you're allowed to change your mind later. And if it's down to a choice between two images that are really close and you can't decide, just pick one. You'll either be relieved to have made the choice or you'll immediately regret it and then you'll know which one you prefer after all.

Your way doesn't have to be like anyone else's, certainly not like mine, but I'm hoping these ideas give you a little more freedom and joy.

Whatever you do, find a way to associate the editing process with creativity and possibility, not obligation and dread. Be playful about it.

I''d love to hear what works for you. You can leave a comment on this article here on my blog.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David.

PS - Want more? This email goes out to a whole lot of people and I don''t know you all, but in case we''re new to each other and you like the way I approach this craft, there''s more where this came from.

You can find my collection of eBooks at CraftandVision.com, or my best-selling books about the craft and creative process of photography on Amazon. The Heart of the Photograph is my most recent, it pairs beautifully with The Soul of the Camera, and the 10th anniversary edition of Within The Frame, one of the best-selling photography books of the last 11 years, is still as relevant as it was when it first came out. And for those of you that have been reading my books faithfully for years, I hope you know how deep my gratitude runs. Thank you.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

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I made ImageWork to be the best teaching course I could possibly make for you. Part of that effort was the recruitment of a beta team to look at every aspect of the course and be your advocate. To point out things I got wrong and needed to change. To make suggestions about additions or clarifications. And most of all to confirm whether this thing that I had spent months making for you was worth your hard-earned dollars and time.

My goal in making a course (or any other resource) for you is not to find a new way to package the same old thing. It's to find new ways to approach a timeless subject and make it easier to learn, introduce different ways of thinking, and to give you clear next steps forward. My all-volunteer beta team puts in so much work on your behalf, and I ask them to give reviews and reactions so that when I launch the course, I can do so enthusiastically and confidently that it''s worth more than I'm asking. That it will help create actual change for you.

So what did the first photographers have to say about ImageWork and ImageStory when I asked them for their honest feedback at the end?

"ImageWork is incredible! It was just what I was looking for to increase my confidence as a photographer and storyteller, and to make my photographs more compelling. As I went through the course, I could sense a tangible change in how I approached each picture, how I thought about composition and timing, and how I used the tools at my disposal to enhance the final image. This is easily one of the most impactful courses I''ve ever taken, because in just a few short weeks I could see the transformation in my instincts as a photographer. ImageWork is truly an eye-opener and has already made a difference in how I think about making photographs. Thank you, David! I wish I had taken this course 10 years ago!" - Sid De.

"

"I really enjoyed this series; my range of responses went from "Ah, ok!" all the way to "OMG, yes!" This is definitely a video series that a photographer would want to go back to time and time again. I can see myself wanting to revisit this series as I start to incorporate each element into my process and slowly start to improve. Thank you!" - Aimee Ford, about ImageStory

"

"This was a terrific course-one of the best on-line photography courses that I've ever taken-and one that I will take a few times as I critique some of my favorite images to learn how I might make them even stronger. Chock-full of content, important lessons, and concepts, it is money well spent and it definitely helps me take a deeper dive as I pursue my artistic journey." - Geoff Grant

"

"Best photography course I''ve taken in a long time! An outstanding combination of photographic examples, experienced guidance about refining our choices, and a tangible passion to teach, that will help every kind of photographer express themselves with work that will have more impact." - Tricia Lombardi, about ImageStory

"

"Thank you for this fantastic course! I thoroughly enjoyed ImageWork and was truly genuinely absorbed more than I have been in other courses. I have watched every episode several times, and every time I watch them, I continue to learn new things, and have more a-ha! moments." - Shauna Giesbrecht

"

"An amazing course. I am always amazed at how clearly David is able to convey complicated processes. David duChemin is a master storyteller, so when he describes his process of visual storytelling, we are wise to stop and listen. In ImageStory, duChemin brilliantly translates the vital storytelling lessons he has learned over the years into 7 great videos. I can''t wait to put this into use on my next photography journey!" - Michael Bonocore, about ImageStory

"

Of course, the only opinion that really matters is yours. Only you know what you need to learn and how you do that best. Only you can say whether something has the kind of value I work so hard to give you. That's why I encourage you, if you're not sure this is right for you, to test it. Enroll now, take advantage of the savings, and if it's really not for you, you've got 30 days to let me know and I'll happily refund your tuition.

ImageWork and ImageStory are the most carefully planned and created teaching resources I've made. I've been listening to your feedback since I made my first course three years ago, and I've learned that too much homework and assignments overwhelms, so I've cut it back and made it a little more optional. I've learned that a monthly subscription model isn't what serves most of you best. And I've learned you want it all downloadable so you don't have to worry about losing access.

Enroll now in ImageWork and ImageStory before the end of this Friday, September 18, and save $120, or enroll in ImageWork alone and save $50.

ImageWork is a powerful course that hits on important principles to help change the way you think about, and make, your photographs. But it's not overwhelming. The content is all downloadable. There's a great workbook for those who want more hands-on study and interaction, but it's totally optional for those who just want to watch the videos. And there is a complete set of my DNG files for those who want to work alongside me for the Lightroom portions. And yes, those darkroom segments are based on Lightroom, but the principles I teach can be used by anyone using any software. When I asked my audience earlier this year how they processed their images, an overwhelming 95% said Lightroom or ACR, but one of my beta team wasn't a Lightroom user at all and he said:

"

"As a professional photographer, as well as being a Capture One user, I was concerned about ImageWork being so Lightroom-heavy, as I wasn''t convinced that I''d grasp anything new or useful. As usual, David surprised me yet again. Not only did the Lightroom (darkroom) principles easily translate and apply directly to Capture One, but I''m also reminded of just how important it is to guide the viewer''s eye through an image, and that the image tell a story. Well done, David!" - Jeff Petry

"

I'm really proud of ImageWork, but even prouder of the value of ImageWork and ImageStory together. This is the stuff others don't seem to be talking about. In fact, when I was putting this all together for you earlier this summer, I asked my friend Ami Vitale, a National Geographic photographer and arguably one of the best visual storytellers of our generation, if she would evaluate ImageStory, this is what she said:

"

"David, this is an extraordinary course! I can't believe how much you crammed into this! It took me years to learn these concepts and you've unpacked them into such a great series. Your students will be so lucky to get their hands on this!"

"

Enroll now in ImageWork and ImageStory before the end of Friday, September 18, and save $120, or enroll in ImageWork alone and save $50.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
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Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision

PO Box 74001

Hillcrest Park

Vancouver, British Columbia V5V 5C8

Canada

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The Contact Sheet / December 13, 2020

Making the Poetic Image, Part Two

You wouldn''t be wrong if you called the last article I sent you a bit of a "think piece" and wondered when the more practical advice was going to show up. Consider that last one a nudge towards considering why an intentional use of composition is important if you want to make images that don''t just show us what something looks like, but feels like. This email is more like the how-to, though it''s only a taste, really.

Composition-where and how we place elements in the frame relative to each other and the frame, and the choices we make to change how those elements might look (like the close use of a wider lens to enlarge foregrounds relative to backgrounds)-is so much more than some a few simple rules. It is principles that are known to work to make us feel a certain way. Part One of this article was intended to get you thinking about how compositions make us feel-about the human experience of the photograph. Today, I''d like to discuss three examples of this in hopes that it clarifies what I mean.

Use Contrast

This is a suggestion that can go in many directions. Using contrasting colours can make us feel different ways; so can using contrasts of line or shape. What about contrast of size? We call that scale, and exaggerating that contrast (like Elliott Erwitt does in the image below) makes us feel the size of the dogs, both the small one and the larger one, much more than we likely would if Erwitt had stepped back and shown the whole scene.

Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos

Without the immensity of the legs on the left filling the frame (a great compositional choice that exaggerates the sense of scale), the image would feel differently to us. Erwitt is a master of contrasts. Another of his favourite devices is the use of juxtaposition, which is another kind of contrast: the contrast of ideas. Here''s one of his more popular images that immediately comes to mind.

Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos

How Erwitt composed these images allowed these contrasts to be clear-exaggerated, even. Had he done it differently, less intentionally, the illusions would be lost and we wouldn''t feel the humour.

Use Point of View

If I could get photographers to move around and play with point of view much more, I''d be a happy man. Take a moment to watch this short video, "It''ll Be Better Next Year," by Ed Kashi and Ashley Gilbertson." Take special note of the compositions of the still images and how Ed''s very intentional use of point of view sets these images apart. In the same way (and sticking with the cowboy theme), take a look at the image below by Sam Abell.

Sam Abell / National Geographic

Abell''s intentional point of view (specifically, low and close and with a wider lens) allows us to feel included in this scene. By showing only part of the cow in the foreground and allowing the person with the red bucket to leave the scene, Sam pulls us in, and we feel the energy of the scene. That point of view also sub-frames the action in the background, pulling us into the very depth of the image. I think a whole masterclass could be done on this one image alone.

One of the things I love about making photographs is how so much goes into one image. Abell''s image above is a great example of a masterful combination of things, including the choice of moment: when the cowboy in the back was framed by the two cowboys in the mid-ground at the same time that red bucket (which balances the image so beautifully) swung into view.

Use Energy

This is a harder one. It often comes down to the choice of moment. Some moments just have more energy than others: the look on a face; the tension in a gesture. Abell''s image has great energy, and that comes from the way the background cowboy is pulling on the reins and the way the two midground cowboys and the gesture of the calf create such tension. A moment later and the scene might have felt much more serene, and this image wouldn''t feel the same way to us.

But there are others. Among them:

How does hiding certain elements create a feeling of mystery, for example?
How does your choice of light and what you do with it affect the mood of an image?
How does your use of sub-framing or the frame-within-a-frame device draw someone into the image and allow them to feel like they''re much more immersed in the scene? (Not to go on and on about it, but Abell''s image above makes great use of sub-framing.)

Here''s the big question I''m hoping to get you to explore: what do we respond to emotionally in photographs and how can we be more intentional about creating that?

We respond to depth, mood, and energy.

We respond to rhythms created with repeating elements.

To contrasts and juxtapositions.

To the kind of mystery that''s created when our compositions hide certain things rather than show it all.

We respond to certain colours.

We respond to the stories created in our minds when our compositions imply certain relationships between elements.

We respond to the serenity of a landscape that feels more spacious because we gave it more room in the frame.

We respond to the tension we feel when different elements in the frame pull our eyes in two different directions.

We feel cramped when the frame is overly packed with the subject matter or, in a portrait, the person is facing out of the frame, her nose almost touching the edges of the frame, rather than facing in with lots of room to breathe. Neither is right. Neither is wrong. They simply feel different.

Are you open to exploring this further?

The best way is with photographs you love-the ones that make you feel something. Study them. Pull together a collection of images, preferably those made by other photographers. Do a search for the great images of the 20th century or use the images in the two monographs you can download at the end of this email. Find the ones that spark an emotion.

Once you''ve made your selection, ask what it is within the frame that makes you feel something. What choices did the photographer make? Is it the choice of moment? The way the elements are arranged? The way the light was used? Something else? If you can figure out what you respond to emotionally within a photograph, you can figure out how to put those same things into your own work.

I know I''ve said this before, but it''s all there. Nothing is hidden. Pick those images-those visual poems-apart. If you want to write stronger poems, you need to know what makes poems work. If you want to make more poetic images that create feeling, you''ve got to know how photographs work; most especially, what makes them work for you.

Want to discuss this? Ask a question? Leave a comment on this article here on my blog. I''d love to hear from you. (LINK)

I''ll be taking the next few weeks off, returning in early January. I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday. It''ll be a strange one this year, and likely a difficult one for many. I wish you all the kind of light and love this holiday has always represented, and a new year that brings us all a little closer to the kind of normal in which we thrive. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your creative life this year. On behalf of Cynthia and me, I wish you joy and peace. Merry Christmas.

For the Love of The Photograph,

David

A Couple More Things

I should be packing to head to Kenya right now; this''ll be the first year in a dozen that I don''t spend January on the Maasai Mara in the light among the beasts. In case you haven''t seen the work I did last year, or missed it the last time I offered it, here''s the download link to my Kenyan Light monograph.

It''s been a while since I''ve been in the water with the mantas and dolphins of Mexico''s Revillagigedo Archipelago, but the series of photographs in Socorro: Distant Blue will transport you there. I hope these are all good examples of poetic photographs that show you what it felt like. You can download your copy here.

Twelve years in the making, this is the work I am most proud of. Pilgrims & Nomads is a gorgeous limited edition coffee table book containing two beautifully printed monographs from Northern Kenya and Northern Ethiopia. There are only a few copies left, and while I know it''s not a cheap book, global shipping is included. Get one of the remaining copies of Pilgrims & Nomads here.

Share the love. Do you know other photographers who would benefit from these articles? I''d be so grateful if you shared them. I''ve put email and social links below to make it easier. If someone shared this with you and you''d like me to start sending you The Contact Sheet (and a PDF of my book, 20 Ways to Make Better Photographs), I''ll deliver it with love every couple of weeks. Just click here and let me know where to send it.

PS: Want to share this in your camera club newsletter? Quote parts of it on social media? Republish it in a magazine? I''d be honoured. No need to ask permission so long as you: credit me, get the spelling of my name mostly correct, and let your readers know they can get their own copy of The Contact Sheet directly from me by going to MyContactSheet.com and telling me where to send it. Do those three things for me and you can share it wherever and with whomever you like, with my gratitude.

Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me, you can find me on my blog, or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

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This is a personal letter and really doesn't have much to do with photography, but as so many of you remind me so often that what I write is at least as much about life as photography, I thought I'd check in with you and answer an email I got the other day that asked how I was dealing with the pandemic. I'm hoping you can find something hopeful in it.

John F. Kennedy has been credited as saying, "When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity." I think it's a helpful way of looking at the crisis we're all sharing right now.

I don't think this quote suggests that we choose one over the other on which to focus-the danger or the opportunity-but that we see them fully for what they each are and hold them in tension. We've seen the danger; it's very clear. We hear about it over and over again, and we need to take it seriously. But I'm choosing to react as much as possible to the opportunity. Because that's what's left to me after I stay home, wash my hands, and stop touching my face. Who knew I touched my face exactly 65,763 times a day? Crap, I just did it again!

Unlike the dangers in life that come to our door and barge right in, opportunities knock and wait for us to answer. They need us to take hold of them. To act. It's not just positive thinking, and hoping it all turns out OK. It's taking responsibility for our mental health, for our time, and doing what is positive and healthy. It's looking forward, and being hopeful. I think that in tension with the many challenges that we're all going through right now, we can also choose from among many opportunities.

We might be in this for a while and I don't want to look back once we emerge from it and wonder why I wasted weeks or months of time and focus I've never had before. After a couple of weeks in isolation here on Vancouver Island, here are some of the opportunities I''m trying to make the most of.

This is an opportunity to workout every day at home. When I'm busy, that''s one of the first things to go and, man, I have nothing but time right now. This is my chance to do more of that. And to go for daily walks with Cynthia in the woods near our home.

This is an opportunity to change the way I approach social media: to cull out the voices that aren't helping and to use it to make different kinds of connections. I've already seen a softening of the conversations online, and much more care and concern for each other. No global pandemic in history has come with the technology to stay so connected and to find (and create) community and courage in others. We may be self-isolating, but we don't need to be cut off or disconnected.

It's an opportunity to read books I've wanted to read and watch films I've been meaning to see. Right now, I'm re-reading Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow, a seemingly fitting story about a man exiled to a hotel in Moscow, never to leave. It's deliciously written, and it's been a while since I could read for so long and so guilt-free. The stack of books I intend to go through makes me almost giddy.

It's a chance to write another book I've been stalled on but want to finish this year, and to make a really great video series for the wonderful people who choose to let me teach them photography. And I can take my time with it, and enjoy the process. I love teaching and I love making new things, and now I have uninterrupted time to do both. When I''m creating, I''m not worrying.

This is a chance to pay more attention to my health in general and to eat better, and maybe a little less. Rush and hurry always seem to make a victim of nutrition.

It's a needed opportunity (though it seems ironic) to not be so overwhelmed, because things just seem a little quieter right now, as long as you're willing to turn off the news and not check social so much. Fewer emails, no social gatherings, no travel. I'm beginning to feel a slowness and a calm I haven't felt in a while. My calendar has never been this free of social obligations, and as an introvert, that's almost intoxicating.

It's a chance to recalibrate my spending and to be more intentional about supporting local and small businesses who need it. I don't know what that looks like just yet, but there are ways to tighten the belt without hurting the little guys. In fact, it's also a chance to send my donation dollars locally, which I've not done in ages, usually preferring larger international projects. For now, I'm donating to my local food bank.

This is a chance to focus on others and on more intentional things. I've deleted all but one of the news apps from my phone, allowing myself to read the headlines once a day. I'm not looking at my investments. Instead, I''m using that time to reach out to a handful of different people every day just to check in and ask how they're doing. My world feels more full of care-both going out and coming in-than ever before.

I suspect this is also a chance for some to spend more time with spouses, partners, and kids than we have for a while. Sometimes quantity time is quality time. I wonder if we'll all emerge from this with stronger, deeper relationships. It would be a shame to waste that opportunity.

Photographically, it's a chance to organize my archives and look for undiscovered or forgotten gems. It's a chance to print work I've neglected to print. And I've got ideas for a couple of books of my photographs, so I'll spend some happy hours reliving my memories on the streets of India or exploring the Great Bear Rainforest as I put together sequences and dream about next steps. Even if the books don't materialize, the time spent editing them will be time spent remembering the joy, adventure, and wildness of other times. Future times, too. Because we will get through this.

My heart goes out to those of you more impacted by this than I have yet been, and to those whose situations are more desperate. It goes out to my friends in Italy and other parts of the world, and to those traveling and still trying to get home. Some of you are in positions of need that are far more urgent than can be addressed by anything I've said in this email. My hope is that to each of these possibilities, we will all add the opportunity to help those around us, to be generous with what we've got, to share what we can.

More than any of the things above, this is an opportunity to give more and to be more: more attentive, more creative, more generous, more wide awake. It's an opportunity to rise to the daily challenge of the new normal, and to fight to make that normal better and kinder for all.

I'm thinking about you all and wishing you hope, health, and courage. And if you've got a spare 10 minutes for a little encouragement, I recorded a special episode of A Beautiful Anarchy for you and it's live now on iTunes, Spotify, or aBeautifulAnarchy.com

Much love,

David

PS - I believe that gratitude is the best painkiller. It's better than Tylenol and it's better than a bottle of any kind. I've found that as long as the levels of my gratitude exceed the levels of my fear, I cope a little more gracefully and am more useful to myself and others. Happier, too. One of the things for which I am most grateful is my connection to you. Recently, in what is arguably the worst possible time to launch a new book (hey, there's a global pandemic, you should read a book about photography!), I released The Heart of the Photograph, and I've been overwhelmed by the positive words and the ways people have gone out of their way to support that effort, to share the book, to leave reviews and contact me personally. Thank you. I still make my living from the pictures I make and the words I write and that support means the world to me. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

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In eight hours, my team will close enrollment for ImageWork and ImageStory, and I wanted to say thank you so much for your patience and give you one last reminder in case you've been on the fence, because every time I offer a course, there are a handful of people who wait until the very last minute.

I'm not sure why y'all put yourself through it. My wife, Cynthia, does the same thing: she''s waited until the last minute for every online course she's signed up for. I think it's crazy. What happens if you can't get online or something? It's not eBay, so you don't have to outwit the other bidders, you know? ??

But I know y'all are out there, so this is just a reminder. Things close down 9 pm Pacific Time (that's midnight in New York).

This is the best value I''ve ever offered, and I think it''s the strongest course I''ve ever offered. I truly hope you''ll join me for it.

Click here to save $50 and enroll in ImageWork for $299.

Click here to save $120 and enroll in ImageWork and ImageStory together for $378.

And if smaller payments help:

You can enroll in ImageWork for $50/month for six months here.

And you can enroll in ImageWork and ImageStory together for $63/month for six months here.

Don't miss this chance to really move the needle on your craft and see tangible growth in both your skills and your creativity + your growing ability to make photographs that look the way you imagine them and engage the hearts and imaginations of those who see them.

Thank you again for trusting me to be part of your photographic and creative journey.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David

Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are an active subscriber / customer of Craft & Vision.

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PO Box 74001

Hillcrest Park

Vancouver, British Columbia V5V 5C8

Canada

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The short version of this email: my 2 most recent books were released today and can be purchased as PDF, Paperbacks, or Kindle at StartUglyBook.com. The longer version is more compelling but, um, not as short. Keep reading.

In bold, trendy font, the advert for some piece of computer equipment aimed at photographers and illustrators made an equally bold and trendy claim: "Free your creativity!"

I've seen these ads before. They must think we're a bunch of easy marks. Sell me a piece of new gear and free my creativity at the same time? I'm in! But free it from what, exactly?

The same tired promise of creative emancipation has been used to flog cameras and keyboards, computer applications, and bizarre novelty items, and for all I know, there are people out there selling easels and paintbrushes, guitar tuners, and the latest in pottery wheels the same way. There''s more creativity in their marketing claims than will ever come as a result of these tools and toys.

We love the word freedom; tell me your new thing will give me freedom, and I will be all over it. You're going to free my creativity? I don't care if it costs $39 or $399, I'm in. Especially if it frees me from my fears. It does that, right?

Or the worry that I'm faking it more than others. And the fear that the world is going to find out. Or the way I constantly compare myself to others-have you got something for that?

How about the crippling anxiety that I've done my last good thing or the suspicion that even that wasn't all that good?

What about the procrastination? The distractions keeping me from my best work? The need to have it all figured out before I get started and therefore never gain momentum? What I wouldn't pay to be free from that!

Oh, and how about the obligations and expectations of others?

And time. Man, if I had more time, how much more creative could I be then?

How about the fear that I'm repeating myself? Or the voices that tell me I'm not good enough, even when that voice is my own? Does your thing free me from those?

What about the need for the approval of others before my work is validated?

Can your new tool help me bring greater insight or humanity to my work, or help me be more vulnerable with it? Can it help me think more in terms of possibilities and play than in terms of being correct or doing it right? Can it free me from those times I lie awake at night wondering what my next move is? No?

Because my creativity doesn't need to be freed; I do. And it won't be with toys or tools. Nor with gimmicks and platitudes. It will be freed by things that have never had a price tag, though they don't exactly come without cost.

What will truly free us is the courage to keep following our own voice, even when it's hard to hear.

We will be liberated by the faith that entertains honest doubts and, because of that, makes more honest work.

By the discipline that reaches hard for excellence but isn't seduced with unattainable ideas like perfection.

By love for the challenge and the process and the way it allows me to make my art, while in turn, my art makes me.

And by the kind of curiosity that has me peering around unfamiliar corners for the delight of discovery.

We are freed creatively not by thinking outside the boxes, because that's not where the problems are, but within them.

Creators will be freed not by our tools but by the way we think about wielding them. And, maybe most of all: why.

We will be free when we stop waiting for the muses, and neither credit nor blame them, but take responsibility for our own work while still marveling at the mystery of the unexpected and serendipitous.

We'll be free when we finally stop wasting our time, stop busying ourselves with the so-called "urgent," and get back to what's important.

And when we stop expecting everything to go well on the first try and begin instead to embrace a more evolutionary process, one that has room for the ugly first tries, the crappy first iterations, the wrong ideas, and the detours. That would be freedom!

And most of all, perhaps, we will be free when we stop kowtowing to the need to create "content" instead of meaning, to say the right thing with our art (whatever that is) rather than the safe thing. When we stop worrying about the algorithm and start concerning ourselves with impact.

Creative people do not only need to be freed from something but to something. Freedom from is always also freedom to. It must be.

Freedom to make something bigger than ourselves. Freedom to open closed eyes. To ask uncomfortable questions that demand answers.

To affect change. To solve problems. To call for greater things (justice and compassion come to mind) in ways that otherwise might not be heard.

Freedom to build new and beautiful things and to re-build those that are not.

Freedom to push this too-timid race toward courage, and to make not only those things we usually think of as creative and artistic, but freedom-with all our creativity-to make a difference. To make a change. To make light where there is none. To make a life and not just a living.

Just once, I'd like to see the ad for that.

But we all know it's not coming. Nothing we can buy can promise this. But that doesn't mean it can't be had. Found. Created. Uncovered. This is one of the reasons that, while I continue to write about photography, I also mostly write about creativity and the bigger themes of life. It's why I'm putting most of my efforts now into my podcast, A Beautiful Anarchy.

And it's why I wrote the two books I'm launching today.

The first is called Start Ugly, The Unexpected Path to Everyday Creativity. It's a manual to getting started and making the most of our creative efforts, and no, it doesn't promise to free your creativity, but it might help you do so. It might help you bring to your creative life the freedom you've been looking for by getting started more often and being less worried about getting things right on the first try. It might help you take more risks. And if you can do that, your photographs have a better chance of becoming stronger, and-more importantly-more creative and more uniquely you.

The second book is called The Problem with Muses, Notes on Everyday Creativity, and it's a written version of the best of my podcast, for those of you that prefer the written word, aren't podcast people (like me, ironically), and for those that love the podcast but have been asking for a way to access the ideas and wisdom therein without having to be connected to a device.

These two new books were meant to go together, though they stand just fine on their own, and both are available today as paperback, Kindle, or PDF editions at StartUglyBook.com. I would be so honoured and so grateful if you would consider adding them to your collection of resources that enrich your creative life.

Start Ugly and The Problem with Muses can be bought from Craft & Vision, Amazon, and other bookstores, beginning today. The fastest way there is through StartUglyBook.com

Thanks for letting me be part of your creative journey,
David,

PS - Have a question I can help with? Want to leave me a note? I post most of these emails to my blog and I''d love to hear from you there in the comments. Just click here and leave me a note. I''ll do my best to reply.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
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Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision

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Ask a photographer about balance and tension in a photograph and they'll look at you like you just asked them about the mathematics of hyperfocal distance. Actually, that's unfair; I know a number of photographers who could speak at length about the latter. I know fewer who can speak about the former. But ask a painter or sculptor the same question, and they'll have real thoughts on the matter.

Balance and tension have a great deal to do with the feel of an image. But for all their importance, I have yet to read a good definition of balance or tension, which I think is okay here, as I'm less interested in defining the terms than I am in talking about them and posing questions and ideas that will help you use them more effectively. I think you can work with balance and tension as tools-and understand their effect on how we read an image-without being able to perfectly define the concepts themselves.

It all begins with terms we borrow from the physical world: pull and weight. I've mentioned the idea of visual mass a few times already in these discussions, and understanding this concept is really important for wrapping your head around both balance and tension. Here's how I see it: every element in a photograph pulls the eye-some more, some less. Much of it has to do with contrast. So the large, bright, sharply-focused yellow ball is likely to draw your attention much more than the muted, out of focus background because there's massive contrast between the two, and we're interested in that. In this context, that ball has visual mass. So far, so good?

But in this hypothetical image, imagine the large yellow ball is not the only element in the frame. Perhaps there's a smaller red ball. Now you have two elements in the same photograph that are pulling at the eye. Do they pull the eye the same amount? Probably not. The large yellow ball probably has more visual mass than the red one. Why "probably"? Because the frame itself also matters. If the rest of the image is filled with blue (the sky, for example), then that yellow ball has a lot of contrast, and therefore, visual mass. And because it's larger, it probably has more mass than the red ball. But what if the background of the image is yellow? That would create much lower contrast for the yellow ball, and the red ball would jump out, and your whole experience of the image would change.

Why does this matter? Because if all the elements in the frame pull the eye with unequal force, then how we arrange those elements determines whether the image is balanced, and how, and it helps us understand tension. And both balance and tension determine where we look and how we feel about an image. This is not a math problem for which there is a formula to apply; it's experiential. We feel it. Here are some questions to help you explore this:

More visual mass on one side of the frame than the other will throw the photograph out of balance. Can I put something else in the other half of the frame to provide a counterbalance?
Can I remove something from the heavier side of the frame to lighten it up? What about giving the image a little more negative space?
How can I use the so-called rule of thirds here? It suggests we place the most important element one- or two-thirds of the way into the image, either horizontally or vertically. The rule is silly, but it encourages an important principle: dynamic balance. All other things being equal, if the element with the most amount of mass is on one-third, then the lesser important elements that fill the other two-thirds of the frame offer counterbalance to the heavier third of the frame. The photograph stays balanced but not in a static way. Understand this as a principle, but be suspicious of it as a rule.
As balance and tension are better experienced than explained, it might be helpful to ask these questions as you study photographs, either your own or those of others. Ask yourself if the image feels balanced to you, and how that balance is achieved. Is it heavier on one side of the frame than the other? Ask yourself if the photograph creates tension and, if so, how that was accomplished and whether you think it serves the subject or not. The longer you consider and experiment with visual mass, balance, and tension, the more you'll be able to control them as you make your photographs.
Placing all the visual mass in the middle of the frame will be balanced-but potentially boring if the subject is intended to be energetic or dynamic. Is my subject best expressed with words like "serene," "symmetrical," or "calm"? If so, this static balance might be just what you need.

Some elements in the frame not only pull the eye to them but pull in a particular direction. Imagine a man in the image looking toward the left of the frame. The viewer's eye will not only go to the man, but also along the direction of his gaze. Now imagine two people in the frame, each looking in opposite directions. The viewer's eye is then pulled in different directions, toward both the left and right edges of the frame, creating tension. So ask yourself: Am I aware of the tension in this image? Does it work for me? Would waiting for a moment when these two people both look in the same direction reduce that tension? If I want more tension, would waiting for a change in their gaze create that?

You don't need to understand or be able to articulate all of this, at least not at first, but you do need to understand that the eye gets pulled, and how it gets pulled creates a feeling of balance or tension. The big questions are these:

Is that balance or tension helping to express my subject?
How does it feel to me?
Does that feeling complement or contradict what I want to say about the subject?

As balance and tension are better experienced than explained, it might be helpful to ask these questions as you study photographs, either your own or those of others. Ask yourself if the image feels balanced to you, and how that balance is achieved. Is it heavier on one side of the frame than the other? Ask yourself if the photograph creates tension and, if so, how that was accomplished and whether you think it serves the subject or not. The longer you consider and experiment with visual mass, balance, and tension, the more you'll be able to control them as you make your photographs.

**

The article above is Chapter 13 of my latest book, The Heart of the Photograph. It''s one of the harder aspects of composition to master, but I think the more you wrestle with it, the easier it becomes. The Heart of the Photograph launched a month ago, and it''s been just about the weirdest month I can remember ever living through-though I spent a month on morphine while I was in hospital almost nine years ago, and that comes pretty close. :-) You can download more sample chapters and get your copy of The Heart of the Photograph here. Already have a copy? I''d be so grateful if you took a moment to let potential readers (and me, too) know what you think with an Amazon review.

My sincerest hope is that you and yours are safe and healthy in these challenging times.

For the love of the Photograph,
David.

PS - Do you find these emails helpful? I write The Contact Sheet to help you make the best photographs of your life. To encourage you to be more alive. To be a voice of sanity in a world that just wants you to buy more gear. Do you know other photographers who would benefit from these articles? I''d be grateful if you shared them. I''ve put email and social links below to make sharing this easier. If someone shared this with you and you''d like me to send you The Contact Sheet (and a PDF of my book, 20 Ways to Make Better Photographs), I''ll deliver it with love every couple weeks. Just click here and let me know where to send it.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are an active subscriber / customer of Craft & Vision.

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Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision

PO Box 74001

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Vancouver, British Columbia V5V 5C8

Canada

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My friend, I've got nothing this week. I've stared at this screen for what seems like hours, and my mind keeps getting distracted by the way my heart hurts.

It's been a tough year so far. The pandemic. So many lives and livelihoods lost. So much fear and anxiety. And now the murder of George Floyd, the subsequent riots in the U.S., and all the painful feelings that have accompanied this. It's just too much and the idea of coming up with something clever right now about photography is overwhelming and just feels like the wrong direction to me.

I said I've got nothing, but that's not true. I've got so much. We're healthy. We're safe. We're undeniably privileged to be where and who we are. And I've got gratitude. So much gratitude. I'm thankful I can still do what I do. I can still serve people like you and though this weekend I'm calling in heart-sick, I'll be back at it soon.

I''ve been asked for my thoughts on the riots and #blacklivesmatter, but I think now is a time for listening, and I hope it has long been abundantly clear that I will always fall on the side of compassion, justice, the oppressed and the broken. I just don''t have words right now. But I don't want to be silent, and like so many of you, when words don't come, I use pictures.

It''s probably nothing more than a token, but I want to give you a digital copy of my last coffee table book: Pilgrims + Nomads, which you can download here.

Why a copy of Pilgrims + Nomads?

Because there's not a white face represented in those pages and they are filled with people of beauty, creativity, wit, great love and kindness, wisdom, and everything the best of humanity has to offer no matter what colour the packaging.

They are filled with people I know and love, and also many with whom I've only shared the briefest of moments. And they are the ones I think of and stand with as best I can, my heart filled with sadness that the whole world doesn't yet see them as they are.

I'm expressing this incompletely, I knew I'd struggle for words. I'm hoping the photographs show them the way I saw them. I'm hoping there's a reminder in there that we are all pilgrims, and all of us nomads.

And because I believe the best response to gratitude is generosity, I'd like to give you a chance to win one of 3 copies of the signed limited edition printed book as well. I wish I could do more, but if you'd like a chance to win one of the few remaining copies, just leave a comment on my blog (be sure to leave your email where it asks for one so I can get in touch with you if you win) here and I'll do the draw next weekend on Sunday, June 14.

I'm sorry I don't have more for you this week, but if you know me at all, you know I won't waste your time faking it. Our connection means the world to me. Thank you for your support and for your patience. I hope you and yours are safe and well. Courage and love to you.

If you'd like your free digital copy of Pilgrims + Nomads, click HERE.

If you'd like to put your name in to win one of 3 signed, limited edition printed copies of Pilgrims + Nomads, click here and leave a comment.

For the Love of the Photograph (and those who make them),

David

PS - If you are new to my work, would like to support that work in a more tangible way, or just have no idea what I'm talking about, you can get your hands on more information-or one of the few remaining copies of Pilgrims + Nomads, limited to a signed edition of only 500-here.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are an active subscriber / customer of Craft & Vision.

Our mailing address is:

Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision

PO Box 74001

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Vancouver, British Columbia V5V 5C8

Canada

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In my first book, Within The Frame, I wrote that "there was no Un-Suck filter in our photography," and since I didn't get a flood of emails asking me what on God's green earth I was talking about, I assumed people knew what I meant. That it's easy to take photographs that suck (and to make so many of them), and that there was no filter you could put on the camera or apply in Photoshop that would absent the suck from the image once it was there.

I still believe there is no Un-Suck filter, and that there's little to be gained by polishing our turds in post-production when we've mucked things up in-camera.

But in the years since, I've found a set of my own (please forgive this horrible play on words) Un-Stuck filters. They are the techniques I return to when I'm stuck-when I'm standing there looking at the scene in front of me and can't for the life of me figure out where to start, how to make my first sketch images a little less, well, sucky, or how to get myself un-stuck.

My un-Stuck filters are not gimmicks. They aren't shortcuts.

They're things I try just to get my wheels going again, reliable starting points that I've found by looking at my past photographs, and seeing the best of them, often use one or more of these techniques. They happen to work for me; they're part of my own visual voice. But they also work because I think they have more to do with the experience of the person viewing the image than they do with being technically advanced, whatever that means.

Sitting at lunch yesterday, trying to figure out what to send you this morning and wanting very badly to keep the conversation light and away from our current global situation as best as possible, it occurred to me to share with you my four favourite Un-Stuck filters. I hope you use them well, and that they lead you to discover your own ways of getting out of those momentary panics about where to begin.

Filter One: Wider and Closer

You've probably heard me talk about this before. A wide-angle lens pushed in close is my default starting point. It doesn't always do what I hope, but it has a couple of advantages. It forces me into the action-to be part of it and not only a viewer. The experience is stronger for me, and that shows in the images. Wide and close is a better starting point if you want to recreate the illusion of depth and peripheral vision and make the viewer feel like they are really there. When things are working, I ask myself if I'm wide enough and close enough.

Filter Two: Slower Shutter

I know, we love tack sharp images, and there's nothing wrong with sharp. But I'll give up a little sharpness any day of the week for more emotion, mood, or the feeling of motion. If something's moving, I want to see it, and I think I probably photograph more around 1/30 these days than I have over the last 35 years. I want the people who look at my images to feel them, not to get just the information, but also the impact.

If there's motion, don't just show me it's there; give me a chance to experience it a little, if only in my imagination. It''s not a panacea and it doesn't always work, but when I'm stuck, it's often asking if there's motion and if I can show it a little better that helps get me moving toward stronger images.

Filter Three: Backlight

You'd never guess this looking at my work, would you? I love backlight. But it's amazing how often I'll shoot a scene for a while and think, "Man, this just isn't working; it's not popping for me," before I think to change it up and get the sun in front of me, to harness the rim light, or even (you knew this was coming, right?) the starburst effect with a partially hidden sun and a tight aperture.

You don't want every image to be backlit, and from experience, I can tell you it's easy to overuse the starburst and lens flare, but they're a quick way to get back into the groove, find something that gets you excited, and make your images more alive.

Filter Four: Underexposed

We don't hear people talking so much about HDR (high-dynamic range) techniques these days. I guess the trends have moved elsewhere, but photographers everywhere were obliterating their shadows and doing everything to make sure the light was as even (boring?) as possible. I love the drama and mystery of dark shadows. I love slivers of light, too. Your camera wants to make these scenes as average as possible. But learn to underexpose, or to expose specifically for the highlights, and let your shadows go dark, and you'll have found a wonderful way to isolate bright subjects, to hide unwanted details in shadows, and to restore drama to your images.

Again, it's not always the right choice, nor do you want every image to camp out on this technique, but it's a good one and the photographer who knows how to do this quickly, and to recognize when conditions are right to do so, will have a powerful Un-Stuck filter in their back pocket.

These are all good on their own, but used together, they can introduce layers of impact and create a more powerful visual impact for those looking at your images. If you've got some downtime or a little more time to practice right now, consider getting really good at these four techniques and being familiar with when and how to use them well. They're some of my favourites, I hope they serve you well.

For the Love of the Photograph,

David

PS - Would you like a signed copy of one of my books?

I couldn't have done this before because I didn't know if or when I'd be getting a shipment, but I've got a limited number of copies of the new edition of Within The Frame, The Soul of the Camera, and my latest book, The Heart of the Photograph. I'd love to sign one for you and drop it into the mail. You can get them at CraftandVision.com or by clicking the red book titles in the last sentence. Each are USD$55 which is a little more than Amazon but I'll ship them anywhere. They won't come by FedEx or overnight, but they'll be signed and sent with love, and you'll be helping support a guy who loves you and wants the very best for you and your craft. Thank you for all you do to support me and for allowing me to be part of your photographic and creative life!

Would you like to comment on this article, or ask a question? Feel free to do so here on my blog.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are an active subscriber / customer of Craft & Vision.

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Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision

PO Box 74001

Hillcrest Park

Vancouver, British Columbia V5V 5C8

Canada

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When I was a kid and I got in trouble, I knew things were bad when my mother did two things. She'd call me by my full name. Typically it was just "David," but when things got serious, it was "David Ernest Hare duChemin!"

Yes, you read that right. Let's not dwell on it.

But she would also count. As in, "I'm going to count to three!" I don't know what it was about counting that signaled the severity of the situation, nor, for that matter, did I really know what would happen when she got to three. I might have been a brat at times, but I don't recall letting her ever get to three. "Three" was probably apocalypse. Looking back, I bet my mother was really hoping she didn't get to three, either.

It was suggested to me this morning that I put a countdown timer in this email to remind you that time was ticking. And I had this flashback to my mother standing there counting to three. That's what that countdown timer felt like. So we scrapped it (mostly because I don't want you to feel the way I did when Mom got mad, which was seldom enough that when it happened, I got really worried). I don't want to trade on the fear of missing out. Creative people have enough fear.

I do want to remind you that today is the last day to enroll and remind you of the amazing opportunity that this particular launch of ImageWork and ImageStory represent, so if you still want in, you've got lots of time to sign up before we close enrollment at 9 pm Pacific Time tonight.

ImageWork is a chance to learn to make photographs in a way that focuses on the creative and aesthetic. It's a chance to learn to consider things like your point of view and use of focal length to dramatically affect the look of the image.

A chance to explore how all our settings can be so much more than just correct, but profoundly creative, especially when used in combination with each other.

It's a chance to sit down with me and discuss not only the how but the why, and to explore how I use both my camera and the digital darkroom to give the best expression to my RAW files.

You'll learn an approach to development that is simpler but deeper than many others, and discover the power of dodging and burning that doesn't just adjust the light and dark values of an image but also saturation, contrast, and sharpness.

I'll show you how I approach my black and white conversions and creative colour choices as well.

And you''ll save even more if you enroll in ImageStory at the same time, and I'll teach you to use the most powerful communication tool humans have ever created to touch the imagination and emotions of others. In doing so, you''ll improve the engagement of your photographs by exploring the use of character, relationships, contrast, juxtaposition, mystery, and so much more, including the use of multiple images and photo essays.

Both courses are yours the moment you enroll, and the resources are yours forever, including the 148-page workbook, Before & After DNG files, and 55-minute Lightroom Essentials video. This isn't a subscription and it doesn't expire. And because it's always yours, there's no rush. Take all the time you need and repeat the courses as often as you want.

Neither of these courses will be offered again at these prices. The next time ImageWork is offered will be next year, and the price will be $50 more. When ImageStory is offered separately, it will be $70 more. This is the best value you'll ever get on the two resources I consider my best and most practical work as a teacher.

Enroll now in ImageWork or save even more and enroll in both ImageWork and ImageStory together.

Prefer six monthly payments?

On Wednesday, I extended a six-monthly payment plan with no interest, if that helps make this easier for you. That offer is still open, though I've got no fancy graphic links.

Enroll now in ImageWork and ImageStory for $63/month for six months.

Enroll now in ImageWork alone for $50/month for six months.

Whatever you decide, remember this course will be offered again, just not for a while and not at this price. And if you enroll now and decide this course really isn't what you hoped, you've got 30 days to let me know and I'll happily refund your tuition.

Enrollment on both these courses-and the only opportunity for you to enroll in ImageWork together with ImageStory-closes in 14 hours at 9 pm Pacific Time this evening, Friday, September 18th.

Thanks so much for letting me present you with these opportunities to learn and grow in this craft we love so much. I'm humbled by your trust.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

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The Contact Sheet / November 22, 2020

Are Your Photographs Poetic? Part One.

Painter Robert Henri said, "Paint the flying spirit of the bird, rather than its feathers." Similarly, Poet Anton Chekhov said, "Don''t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." One is a plea to painters, another to writers, but both beg the same thing: make me feel something. Don''t just tell me; don''t just show me. Make me feel it.

But how? The short (and only partial) answer is composition, the way we place elements in the frame relative to each other and to the frame itself, as well as the choice to include (or exclude) those elements.

How we choose to compose can determine how well we tell the story we want to tell or how the image feels. It can give the image tremendous energy or rob the image of the same. It can bring balance or tension to an image, or it can make the same image feel imbalanced. Used well, it can help you make the photograph express what you want it to express. Used poorly (or not considered at all), the photograph can simply fall apart. Composition is tremendously important.

And yet (there''s always a "yet," with me, isn''t there?), it would be a mistake to lean on composition alone, or more specifically, our knowledge of the principles of composition, to do the heavy lifting.

You can put the main subject on the leftmost third of the image and still have an image without heart. You can watch the edges of your frame and make sure your portrait subject is looking into (and not out of) the frame as you''ve been told to do. You can keep your horizons straight and get high marks at the camera club and still not have an image that feels the way you hoped it would. Why is that?

Because composition and all the principles that we need to understand to make our photographs do the million things we might ask them to do, these are only tools. It''s how we use them that matters.

In the past, I have likened these tools to the elements of language. If you want to speak a language, it would be foolish not to understand all the possibilities of how that language works. Photographically, composition is about how images work. When we ask ourselves where we might place the subject in our frame, the question is about composition, but what we''re really asking is, "What will work best here, given what I''m trying to accomplish?" It''s like deciding to use one word in a particular sequence in a sentence: put it in one place, or use a different word or sequence entirely, and the meaning of it and how others experienced it will change.

But there''s something else-and it was only this morning while typing out a reply to a frustrated student who says she''s been making photographs for a long time and wonders if she should just give up because her photographs don''t feel the way she wants them to-that I found a different way to think about this. I''m hoping that if I express it well, it''ll help you, too.

First, consider these two quotes:

"Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk."
-Edward Weston

"Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous."
- Vincent van Gogh

In their respective ways, each quote points to the importance of composition. They aren''t downplaying our understanding and use of the principles that make images stronger; they are asking for us to use them in service of something more. Both quotes point to the need for creativity, imagination, vision. I imagine (because I''ve read other quotes from both Weston and van Gogh and have a sense of what they were trying to achieve in their own work-that they are begging us for a little more heart, more risk, more play. To return to the metaphor of language, perhaps they would ask us to consider our compositions in service of a little more poetry.

This is what I told my frustrated friend:

When we learn a language, we learn a lot of things: new words and new ways of stringing them together so they make sense and are understood and accurate. We learn what works and what doesn''t. And in very real ways, we learn a different way of thinking. This takes a long time in any language, including the visual language of the photograph.

But learning to speak or write English or any other language is not the same thing as learning to write poetry in that same language. They are very different, and not to be confused. She who spends 15 years learning English should not be discouraged when her first efforts at a poem fall frustratingly short; she simply hasn''t learned to write poetry. It''s a whole different thing.

You don''t "consult the rules of composition" before writing a poem. But you do understand them. You know what works. And then you play with them: you dance with them. And learning the dance of poetry is another learning curve entirely. But it''s not a learning curve you can take on without first having a sense of what works-of what the possibilities can be. The poet needs more words, not fewer. She needs a greater understanding of which words sound well together, and which have different meanings. The poet needs to understand how we experience rhythm or symbolism. You could take English language courses for a lifetime and never have a conversation about that.

You could also take photography courses for 15 years and never have a conversation about the human experience of the photograph or, to channel Robert Henri, how to express the spirit of the bird in flight rather than showing its feathers.

What we do with our understanding of composition (and compositional devices like scale, contrast, balance, tension, depth, colour, repeated elements) gives us a greater possibility to make photographs that elevate the human experience of the photograph. Photographs with mood and mystery, photographs with rhythm and symbolism. It is how we use these devices (like a slow shutter to depict motion, among others) that makes us feel. It is in these, and the dance of putting them together in new ways, that the photograph becomes a visual poem and judged by very different (and much more human) criteria than what the camera club so often asks of us: images made by photographers, as van Gogh might have said, that have "good taste" and enormous "knowledge of composition" but "hardly any imagination or fantasy." The former can be learned quickly; the latter can take a lifetime.

The work of poetry is not merely in letters and words, though the poet can''t do without them. It''s in using those tools to create an emotional response in us-tools I''ve already mentioned like rhythm and symbol. Choosing words with certain sounds. Taking risks with spelling and pushing grammar and punctuation in new directions. It''s being willing to create mystery rather than perfect clarity, resonance rather than precision. The same is true of the photographer who wants to say more with his photograph: "look, the moon is shining" but wants to make me feel the glint of the moonlight on shards of glass.

It''s not about knowing composition, but it is about using it. Every poet in the English-speaking world has access to the same 26 characters, the same verbs and nouns, the same adjectives and adverbs. And every poet finds very different ways of using them, bending and twisting their use of them, some to the point of breaking all previous conventions. But they will all be different. The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (one of my favourites) will be different from the poems of Emily Dickinson. Or John Donne. Or e.e. cummings. They will make us feel different ways, paint different pictures in our imaginations, not because they know or consider the principles of composition (which they most certainly do), but because they wield them with such mastery and imagination, and they hope we will do more than just read the words on the page-that we feel them.

Never stop learning what makes the photograph work. Never stop studying the masters in search of what worked for them. Find photographs that make you feel something and figure out why you feel that way. It''s all there in the image to be learned. Never stop exploring new ways to use scale, tension, juxtaposition, or negative space, and all the other tools there to be played with. Add all the new vocabulary you can add to your language skills. But don''t get discouraged if these alone do not make you a better poet. For that, you need to think more about the experience of these things and ask yourself what they conjure in the human heart and mind. You need imagination. You need creativity. This is the dance of craft and vision.

This is the first article in this series; it''s just too big to cover in one email. In two weeks or so, I''ll send you part two, and we''ll take a look at a couple of ways these compositional tools can be used to create images that create don''t just show us how things look but how they feel. Want to ask a question or leave a comment before then? Leave a comment on this article here on my blog.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David

PS - Don''t miss this week''s download of my Watermark monograph below. If you haven''t seen this body of work I''d love to introduce you to it. And if the kind of conversations above intrigue you, I can think of no better way to continue that discussion, specifically how we make our images more poetic, more "us", than than by studying work you consider poetic. Pilgrims & Nomads (linked below) is the work I am most proud of, and there are not many of this beautiful signed, limited edition (only 500 ever made) left. It would make a great holiday gift for the photographer in your life, especially if that person is you.

Find me Elsewhere

A year ago, I was coming home from a very water-logged trip to Venice. At the time, I published some of that work for my Contact Sheet readers. If you missed it the first time around, here it is again to download and enjoy. Download your copy of Watermark here.

Looking for a great holiday gift for the photographer in your life? I still have a few copies of the signed and limited edition of Pilgrims & Nomads. This is a beautiful book, printed to the highest standards, and worldwide shipping is included. This is the work of which I am the proudest and it makes a fine study in poetic imagery. Get one of the last of only 500 copies here.

Want to Inspire your camera club? As camera clubs take a break from in-person meetings around the world, they are turning to virtual meetings and presentations. I''d love a chance to speak to your group and bring the same kind of heart and creativity to them as I hope I do for you. If you would share InspireYourCameraClub.com with the people who plan these kinds of things, I''d be grateful.

Want to share this in your camera club newsletter? Quote parts of it on social media? Republish it in a magazine? I''d be honoured. No need to ask permission so long as you: credit me, get the spelling of my name mostly correct, and let your readers know they can get their own copy of The Contact Sheet directly from me by going to MyContactSheet.com and telling me where to send it. Do those three things for me and you can share it wherever and with whomever you''d like, with my thanks.

Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

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For almost six months since mid-February, I haven''t picked up my camera. Not once. Yes, I needed a break. No, I don't think to be a "real photographer" you need to pick up the camera every day. I don't think we owe the camera any obligation at all; it''s there for us, not the other way around.

But a couple of weeks ago, I felt the spark again. I recognized that I was starting to feel like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, the way he was at the beginning with his joints all rusted up, asking for oil.

But what to photograph? I started a portrait project last year called The Treasury, a casual series of monochrome images of the people who make my life richer. But in the wake of the pandemic and closing our home to anyone who''s not my mother (and even she had to wait a while), that project went on hold. I deliberated about this, and here's what I discovered: I was in a rut. And I missed my camera.

When I considered my next project, I kept coming back to things I was good at. Things I've done before. Safe things. And what I have learned is that those things don't often teach me something new. They don't challenge me.

Challenge is everything to me. But not just me: you, too. We need challenge if we're to escape or avoid boredom. We need challenge if we hope to get into creative flow. And we need it to learn and keep the edges of our craft sharp, which in turn helps us understand new possibilities, and that also helps our vision move forward.

So I decided to try my hand at self-portraits, and here's what I learned: I had no idea how to do self-portraits. I didn't know how to tether my camera to my laptop. But 10 minutes with Google and a few moments of self-inflicted rage directed at the technology (Oh, you mean the camera has to be ON? Well why the heck didn't you say so!) and I figured it out. I didn't know that my Nikon had multiple options for the self-timer, either. Did you know you can set many DSLRs (and likely mirrorless cameras) to take a certain number of frames with a certain amount of time between those frames? I had no idea. Why? Nothing I've done before-none of my usual work-demanded I learn this.

The moment I'm done writing this to you, I'm heading back into my studio to turn the lights on, fire up the Nikon and do a few more portraits (see below), or try to. I'm still in the learning stage-the experimental stage where most of what I make is junk. But once in a while, I do something fun that results in an unexpected image, and I get the spark back. The spark that I only get when I learn a new thing and take some creative risks. Do I have any idea where it's going? None. But perhaps in a year or so I'll look back and see that my playful approach to learning and imposing some new challenges resulted in a body of work I'm proud of. Or maybe I'll just be really glad I know how to tether my camera or use the self-timer with more control. Maybe what I'll learn is that I'm lousy at self-portraits. I don't know.

But I do know that challenge is what pulls us forward. I also know that there is almost nothing we can't learn, or learn from.

These are some of the images I made after writing this letter to you. It''s a start, right? Who knows what I''ll learn and discover in the coming months as I pursue this. I made these with one strobe, a cheap 18" softbox, and a black paper backdrop. I really like the self-timer because I don''t exactly know when it''s going to fire so I''m more natural. Then it does nine frames, giving me plenty of time to relax.

I've had a number of emails and discussions on social media lately, all of them saying similar things: I don't know what to do, or, I don't know what to photograph, now that I can't do the projects I used to find so much joy in.

Pick a challenge. Find something you don't know and learn it.

I didn't know how to do self-portraits, but I knew I could figure it out. So can you. I spent a few minutes on some YouTube videos I found after a simple search and then just started playing.

Perhaps for you, it's macro photography that gives you a chance to learn to use indoor lighting and get creative with discovering the hidden worlds of the flowers in your garden. Or maybe it's still life photographs. Maybe it's time you learned to use that flash to freeze the wings of those hummingbirds at the back window.

I don't know what your challenge will be, but don't make the point of it to be really good right off the bat. It's not. Neither is the point to make great photographs. The point is to learn. To play. To laugh a little when you just can't get it right and to be creative in solving that problem. Perfectionism has no place here. In fact, the uglier it all is, the better. Because that means you've got more to learn, and the challenge will be greater. Where the challenge is greater, so too is the possibility of real creativity and real growth.

Not sure where to begin?

Here's a list of some possible challenges that might get you playing with new directions, and if these aren't your cup of tea, then perhaps they'll give you ideas for challenges that are.

Self-portraits. Already know how to do this? Add a constraint. Make them all with one strobe. Use a slow shutter and rear-curtain sync and move around during the exposure. Want more? Stop thinking of this as a self-portrait but as a portrait of an emotion. What would you need to do to make a photograph about frustration? Boredom? Joy? Try a new emotion every day. What changes do you need to make with the light, colour, framing, choice of moment?
Still-life from the kitchen. Find three things in your fridge to photograph. Need inspiration? Start by creating an homage to Edward Weston's Pepper No. 30. Now go to the market and find something else. An artichoke? Ugliest carrot? And then, when you're done with the outside, photograph the inside. (But seriously, do a Google image search for "ugly vegetables"--there are some strange things to photograph!
Macro in the garden. Get so close you can't tell what you're photographing and make these a study in colour and shape. No macro lens? Get a set of extension tubes. They're cheap and powerful.
Home interiors. I'm embarrassed to say I used to steal copies of Architectural Digest from my high school library. That's the kind of rebel I was. I still find interiors really beautiful, and hard to photograph well. Imagine you're tasked with a 12-image series of your home for Architectural Digest. Learn to compose and light for interiors. Watch some videos on YouTube.
Strobes. Figure out (finally!) how to use that flash you've got sitting around. Better still, figure out how to use two of them. I'm betting there are months of play in there. No willing subject? Combine this with self-portraiture. Or, I don't know, an eggplant. Document the long, slow rot of that noble vegetable.
Night photography. The pandemic hasn't closed the night sky. Teach yourself how to photograph at night. There are hundreds of great articles online that'll teach you the basics for free.
Panoramas. Do you know how to shoot and process a 6-image panorama? No? Take some time to teach yourself. Don't know where to begin? Start with a Google search of "how to make a panorama photograph" or "make a panorama in Lightroom." One search for the latter just got me a handful of great videos and articles.

I am never happier than when I'm working on a challenge and, specifically, something new to me that requires my full attention. This is when time flies by for me-when I get into the flow and emerge from whatever I'm doing with a sense of having done something I didn't think I could do. It's not always easy, but if it's too easy, it's not a challenge, is it? But it's what has kept my own craft (and yes, my vision as well) growing for the 34 years I've been pursuing it.

What have you been doing to challenge yourself? I'd love to hear about it. And it just might help others get some ideas for their own next steps into the unknown. You can do that by leaving a comment on this article on my blog here. While you''re there, I''m happy to answer any questions (or try to, at least) about what I''ve learned about self-portraiture. But please leave those on the blog so we can all benefit.

For the Love of The Photograph,

David

Find me Elsewhere

On July 19th, I published my two most recent books about overcoming the struggles of the everyday creative life. Start Ugly and The Problem with Muses are honest and impassioned (if not sometimes irreverent) explorations of the creative life and how to live it with greater intention, productivity, and joy. You can find them here at Craft & Vision.

If you want to make stronger photographs-images that are not just "good" but truly yours-then you''ve got to think like a photographer. The Heart of the Photograph is like a field guide to the kinds of questions that will get you to more creative, expressive, and engaging photographs. You can find it here at Craft & Vision.

Join me for A Beautiful Anarchy, my mostly-weekly podcast about the creative life and all the joys and struggles that go with it. This is a podcast for people like me who don''t listen to podcasts. Each episode aims to be shorter than 15 minutes, and promises to be full of humanity, insight, and dodgy metaphors. Join me on iTunes or other links here at ABeautifulAnarchy.com.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

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Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
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The Contact Sheet / October 04, 2020

Slowing Down is the New Speeding Up

I want you to imagine you're sitting down with me, looking at a photograph, and I'm explaining what I was thinking when I made it. If it helps, imagine it's the photograph I showed you a couple of weeks ago in the video of the man making coffee in Istanbul. And now that enrollment for the course I recently launched is closed, imagine you're no longer worried I'm going to try to sell you something. We're relaxed and talking, and I tell you what I was trying to accomplish and why I chose a certain focal length, point of view, aperture, shutter speed, and so on. I might mention the importance of composition. If your eyes haven't glazed over yet, I might talk about the moment I chose to support the story I was trying to tell.

Nice, right? Just the two of us. There's probably a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. And if you're interested, I'll show you another one, perhaps from a recent safari in Kenya. Just give me a chance and I'll talk your ear off. The light. The settings. The big lenses. The fight for a great point of view and a powerful moment. I'll be doing this while feeling like the luckiest man in the world. And you? There's a good chance you'll be thinking there's just no way.

There's no way you can be thinking about all of these things, fussing over composition, making choices about storytelling, light, and all the other things. Not in 1/60 of a second. You might even call my bluff. "No way," you say.

And that will be my cue to pour you another glass of wine and reply: yes way.

At the beginning of learning this craft (which for me took a very long 15 years, at least), it seems like there's just too much going on, too many considerations. And you're meant to get the exposure right-never mind being creative with it-and composition and focus and, dammit, did I just shoot that at 1/2 second?

I get it. I do. A couple of weeks ago, I received a few emails from readers saying basically the same thing: "I shoot street photography, so there is no way I can think about all this stuff. I'll lose the moment." The same emails come from inexperienced wildlife photographers. And wedding photographers.

Some days it feels like everyone, except the landscape photographer who''s chained to his tripod, has the same excuse for not being mindful about their choices and for their photographs lacking the magic they might otherwise have.

So to them, I say: you're right. At the beginning, and often years into this, you can't think about it all in that moment. And yet that moment is so crucial, and capturing it well is what makes the photograph so powerful. Yes, it feels impossible. But don't give up. It can still be done. And you don't have to be born with a rare (mythical) ability to "shoot intuitively."

But when you say, "no way," you're also wrong. There is a way. There are probably several ways, all of them some version of this: you don't need to speed up; you need to slow down.

Master Your Tools, Master Your Context

No one loves to hear this, but when you begin, it takes you a while to master the basics. It just does. But the more you master them without getting distracted by other things, the easier it is to make faster decisions because you've done it a million times and the camera feels like an extension of your hands. It helps greatly if you're not changing your gear every year. The reason seasoned photographers can think about the finer points of composition while photographing a quickly-moving scene on the street, at a wedding, or on the sports field is because they've done some version of this many times before and they've mucked it up almost as many times; their time spent in mastering not only their tools but their contexts are only now paying dividends.

If you're having a tough time thinking about composition or the choice of moment, story, depth, energy, or any of the other things that make a great photograph at a wedding or out on the savannah, it might be because you've not yet shot enough weddings or spent enough time on the savannah.

That doesn't make composition less important, and it doesn't make it impossible. It just means you've not paid your dues-yet. But you will.

It'll come, but don't you dare settle for mediocre just because it's hard for now.

Keep going. Pay attention. Which moments keep happening over and over? What are the signs that these moments are about to happen? What possibilities do you see? This is a strong argument for focusing your work a little. The photographer who mostly documents families for five years is going to anticipate, see, and capture moments others won't-not because she has a faster eye or shutter finger, but because she's more familiar with her context.

Stay Longer, Make More Photographs

It's easy to look at a great photograph, one that really moves you, and to think it's a lucky shot. Especially when the moment is so important. How fast did that photographer have to be to get that shot? Holy moly. But that's not usually how it works.

Many, if not most, of the best street photographers (as only one example) find an interesting place and wait, making frame after frame as interesting moments happen. Wildlife photographers do this, too. They shoot and shoot and shoot. And then they agonize over choices of moments in the edit. And you think it's magic because you see that one polished, carefully chosen shot that represents only 1/250 of a second from a scene that was explored for 10, 20, or 30 minutes or more. And while the photographer was waiting, they were anticipating different moments, tweaking their compositions, changing their minds about what they were going to do with the light, and sometimes, finally seeing the scene in a whole new way before finally getting that "magic" moment. It might be a decisive moment, but it only happened after many indecisive ones.

Don't let the final image fool you; it probably wasn't made by an intuitive photographer with lightning-fast reflexes, but by a patient photographer willing to put in the time.

Spend More Time Editing

I mentioned it in passing, but let's talk about editing for a moment. Editing (link to Make the Edit easier) is not the tweaking we do in Lightroom, CaptureOne, or whichever software you prefer. Editing is choosing one image from many, and it's as important creatively as the choices you make in-camera and the choices you make in so-called post-production. If, for every strong image I choose from a shoot, there are 100 images that don't make the cut, it becomes easier to accept that I've actually got plenty of time for all these impossible decisions.

It is a mistake to believe that when a more experienced photographer talks about thinking 30 different things to get a photograph, and you know you can't yet do this, that it means you won't one day be able to.

The easy thing to do is say it's not realistic, that moments happen too fast, that composition can't possibly apply to street photography, or some other context in which things happen fast, which, last time I looked, is really most of life (except, again, for that landscape photographer sitting with his tripod in the rain-then time becomes impossibly slow).

It's easy to say you''re just not an "instinctive shooter," but instinct is trained.

You'll get there, though not if you deny the need for the very things for which you need to develop your skills.

It's easy to say the moments happen too fast, but that's not usually the case if you slow down and spend more time. Sure, if you walk through the woods and a bear runs past you, there's not much chance you'll catch it with the camera. But if you were already there and waiting when the bear went past, you'd have heard it coming. You'd have been ready. You'd have considered your framing long before it got there, even if it was running. Perhaps it's time to be less reactive and to slow down and spend the time.

Sometimes the hardest work in photography is waiting for the bear, metaphorically speaking. (Want to see some of my bear photographs, the results of long hours waiting? Download your free PDF copy of my Great Bear Wild Monograph here)

It's easy to say it's a lucky shot (aren't they all?), but when you slow down, spend more time, and shoot more frames and then allow the edit to become an important part of the creative process, you start to see how much room there is to choose one moment over another with time to spare and not to rush it, all because you were generous with your willingness to fill the memory card or risk making a bunch of sketch images at the time.

There is no excuse for not composing intentionally, for disregarding the visual language, not being mindful, and taking your time.

"It's hard" isn't an excuse. It's a reason to work even harder to get comfortable with your craft, your contexts, your editing. And it's the reason we get such a thrill when it all comes together. Because we know it's so much more than pressing a button, so much more than merely capturing.

One of the wonderful things about this craft is that there is infinite room for growth, no matter how long you've been doing it-unless you let the excuses get in the way.

Slow down, my friend. Be patient with yourself and your growth as a photographer. Speed is not everything. But composition and choice of moment and the story you''re trying to tell? They are.

I''d love to hear from you if you''ve got thoughts or questions about this. As I step away from social media my blog is increasingly the place to interact with me. You can leave a comment on this post here.

For the Love of The Photograph,

David

Want More?

In the last couple years I''ve sent out short PDF monographs of my work. There''s a chance you missed one or more of them, especially if you''re new. Over the coming months I''ll be re-releasing them to you in this part of the Contact Sheet. Just click, download, and enjoy. I wish so much I could be sharing new work with you, but perhaps it''ll be new to some of you. This week it''s my work from British Columbia''s Great Bear Rainforest. Enjoy.

On July 19, I published my two most recent books about overcoming the struggles of the everyday creative life. Start Ugly and The Problem with Muses are honest and impassioned, if not sometimes irreverent, explorations of the creative life and how to live it with greater intention, productivity, and joy. You can find them here at Craft & Vision.

If you want to make stronger photographs-images that are not just "good" but truly yours-then you''ve got to think like a photographer. The Heart of the Photograph is like a field guide to the kinds of questions that will get you to more creative, expressive, and engaging photographs. You can find it here at Craft & Vision

Join me for A Beautiful Anarchy, my mostly-weekly podcast about the creative life and all the joys and struggles that go with it. This is a podcast for people (like me) who don''t listen to podcasts. Each episode aims to be shorter than 15 minutes and promises to be full of humanity, insight, and dodgy metaphors. Join me on iTunes or other links here at ABeautifulAnarchy.com

Share the love. Do you know other photographers who would benefit from these articles? I''d be so grateful if you shared them. I''ve put email and social links below to make sharing this easier. If someone shared this with you and you''d like me to start sending you The Contact Sheet (and a PDF of my book, 20 Ways to Make Better Photographs), I''ll deliver it with love every couple weeks. Just click here and let me know where to send it.

PS - Want to share this in your camera club newsletter? Quote parts of it on social media? Republish it in a magazine? I''d be honoured. No need to ask permission so long as you: credit me, get the spelling of my name mostly correct, and let your readers know they can get their own copy of The Contact Sheet directly from me by going to MyContactSheet.com and telling me where to send it. Do those three things for me and you can share it wherever you like, with my thanks.

Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

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In the eternal quest for better photographs (and you can define that however you''d like), we all tend to spend a great deal of money. You probably already know how I feel about this. When I look back at the money I spent on gear that made promises that were never kept (and yes, I know, I heard what I wanted to hear), I'd sure like a chance to get some of that cash back. I kept thinking if I wanted different photographs, I needed different (read: better) gear.

I knew that wasn't all there was to it. But it seemed like the easiest step to take. I was pretty sure the other pieces would fall into place after that-and you know how that went.

If you want more creative photographs, you need to learn to think more creatively: not different gear, but different thoughts. Here are three ideas for how you might do that.

First, you've got to learn your craft and know your gear. Didn't expect that one from me, did you? I'm not saying become a gear nerd. But I am saying this: in whatever way makes sense for you, the more you understand how your gear works-and the more comfortable you become with it-the more creative possibilities will present themselves as you photograph. After all, you can't pre-visualize something you don't know is possible. But if you know how to use a flash in combination with rear-curtain sync and a slow shutter speed, you'll have more possibilities to consider than if you don't.

Whoa! Slow down, duChemin! Strobes? Curtains? Rear what?

Ok, it doesn't have to be that, though it sounds harder than it is. Have you mastered the use of slower shutter speeds? Multiple exposures? Are you no longer afraid of that 24mm lens? Are you comfortable with different aperture and depth of field? Are you good with exposing for highlights and letting your shadows go dark? These are all techniques you'll only be able to think about employing, especially in combination with others, if you learn them first. Don't mistake mastery of craft for snobbery or elitism; the more you know your gear, the more creatively you'll be able to think about what that gear can do.

Was that last paragraph overwhelming? Don't let it be. Pick one thing. Learn it well. Then pick another. One at a time. This is not a sprint to the finish, my friend.

Second, it'll help if you think in combinations; rarely does one technique or element make or break a photograph. Think in terms of layers of impact. Sure, you've got a great subject, but can you add to that with powerful composition, and on top of that, show me some motion, tell me a story, and give me depth and an intentionally-chosen colour palette?

Back off, duChemin; I'm still working on the exposure triangle!

I know. And this stuff takes time, but even there, I'd encourage you to think not only about getting your settings correct but making them creative. Forget about "getting the right exposure" and think about how you get there. Can you combine a slower shutter speed to gain some feeling of motion with a wider aperture to isolate the foreground and then let the ISO go wherever it has to? That'd be more creative than just jamming it on Program mode, wouldn't it? But if that''s all you can manage, then rock that Program mode and think more creatively about other things, like the use of different focal lengths combined with different points of view. You're good at using that longer lens from far away; could you play with a wider lens much closer to your subject? Or experiment with adding new compositional elements?

However it makes sense to you to apply this, try thinking in layers. Once you've got the basics down and you've "got the shot," could you try adding one more thing? Maybe backlight instead? A different point of view? Keep adding layers.

Third, consider identifying your rut. I know, it was a groove once, but if you've been shooting front-lit subjects using your 70-200mm lens and it would never occur to you to find a different perspective, then you might be in a rut. I was in an 85mm f/1.2 rut once that lasted for a couple of years. My pictures didn't have a chance to look different than the photographs of others. Hell, they didn't even look different from my own photographs.

Take some time to look at your work and don't think in terms of good or bad, but look at the commonalities. Do you favour one particular lens? Is a faster shutter safer for you? Do you camp out at wider apertures because it's easier to control the composition when most of the frame is just pretty bokeh? Do you only have pictures of smiling people because you're not comfortable with other emotions?

Only you know the answers to these and many more possible questions. I just encourage you to stretch, to move beyond what's comfortable. You've learned those skills and you're good with those particular tools-great! Now learn others. Then add layers. And when those become comfortable, add more. Lean into what's missing. If you need to learn to tell stronger stories, learn that. If it's some element of darkroom work, like dodging and burning, learn that. Keep going, follow that curiosity. Keep asking, "what if?"

Creative thinking isn't commonly taught. Even when I talk about creativity with photographers, I see the fear in their eyes, so worried I might ask them to spin their camera in the air or go all-in on intentional camera movement and multiple exposures. I just mean learn to think from other angles, beyond the blind spots we all have. You don't think creatively because you're a born artist or "a creative"; you become an artist or creative person by thinking creatively, and that's something you can learn and hone.

Forget the new or different gear-I'll take different ways of thinking any day.

Got a question? Something to add? I''d love to hear from you if you leave a comment on my blog here. I''ll do my best to reply.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David

PS - Thank you! My last edition of The Contact Sheet got such a heartfelt response from so many of you. And while I directed you to my blog to enter the giveaway for three copies of Pilgrims & Nomads, so many of you said such kind and encouraging things that I found it hard not to wipe at my eyes a little. Those darn allergies. I''m the luckiest man in the world to write what I do for people like you. Thank you.

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Thanks again for letting me be part of your creative journey. I value that trust and will never give or sell your information, overload your inbox, or lick your sensor when you aren''t looking. If you ever need to get in touch with me personally, you can find me on my blog, Facebook, or Instagram. Or listen to A Beautiful Anarchy, my new audio podcast about the creative life.

David duChemin
Craft & Vision, Chief Executive Nomad

Stay Connected with David duChemin and Craft & Vision

Copyright ? 2020 Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are an active subscriber / customer of Craft & Vision.

Our mailing address is:

Pixelated Image Communications Inc. / Craft & Vision

PO Box 74001

Hillcrest Park

Vancouver, British Columbia V5V 5C8

Canada

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You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Two weeks ago, I talked to you about my four Un-Stuck Filters, four techniques I use when I''m shooting to put a little more life into my images and give me a good place from which to begin.

But what if you''re just not seeing anything?

We''ve all had those days. That''s when I give myself an assignment. Something fun and simple. And because I so often focus on great moments and stories, my choice is often colour and reflections.

Forget the epic stuff. Forget the pressure to perform. Just focus on something that delights you.

I hope your email program has downloaded all eight of the images I''ve included in this email (below). I tried to keep the files small but still large enough to be enjoyed. You can always see them on my blog. These are the kinds of things I go looking for. Strong graphic qualities. Shape. Colour. Harmony. I shot all of these a couple years ago in Italy while I was feeling uninspired and not making my "real photographs." Funny what sometimes happens when you stop trying so damn hard.

The beautiful thing is you can photograph colour anywhere.

Got a macro lens? Get outside and look for colour in the smallest flowering plants. Stuck in the house? Do the same with whatever you''ve got but defocus the lens and shoot so nothing is recognizable. You can use multiple exposures, you can use motion blur, or keep it more literal, but just shoot colour. Look for different combinations and don''t worry about what the thing you''re photographing is.

Your subject is colour itself. Don''t overthink it. Feel your way through.

We can often be very literal, and so we see some mundane thing and think to ourselves, "It''s just a laundry basket," even though the light and shadows and colours might be fascinating and worth photographing.

Seeing as a photographer is not easy because you don''t just need to see the way the eye sees, but the way the camera sees.

You have to be able to see a scene at 28mm but also at 300mm. You have to be able to see elements pushed together (long lens) or pulled apart (wide lens), never mind the possibilities with motion and blur and other kinds of abstractions.

But when you say to yourself, "I''m just going to look for colour," you''re more likely to see it. Look for shapes, lines, shadows, reflections, textures.

There are a lot of heavy emails landing in my inbox these days; I suspect it could be the same for you. I just wanted to send a little delight your way-a reminder to have fun with this. No, you can''t travel right now, but you can discover whole new worlds with a macro lens and some flowers. I once spent a week photographing whisky on ice in a glass, and it was amazing what I saw and photographed. In fact, just writing that makes me want to give that another try. I take my craft seriously, but that''s no reason to take myself too seriously.

I wonder if chasing some colour isn''t exactly what some of us need right now-just for the joy of it.

Want to comment on this? Have an idea of your own for this kind of assignment? I''d love to hear from you. You can leave a comment here on my blog post.

I hope you and yours are safe and well and you aren''t climbing the walls yet.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David duChemin

PS - Still reading? Can I ask you a favour? Almost 2 months ago I launched my new book, The Heart of the Photograph. If you''ve read that book and got something out of it, would you mind leaving me a review on Amazon or wherever you purchased it? These help so much and if you''re like me you don''t review things unless someone begs you or the book was just really terrible and you need to vent. I''m hoping a personal request and telling you how much it would mean to me, and help future would-be readers, will nudge you towards leaving a short, honest, and enthusiastic review. I''d be so grateful.

I know even getting a copy of this book has been a challenge for many of you. It really has come out at the worst time. I''ve still got a small handful of copies here at my home if you''d like one signed and sent to you. Just click here.

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