Archives for September 2011

Keeping track of your day
I was once told to look at the time in a day like a jar to fill. You fill them with the rocks, the pebbles, and the grains of sand. The rocks are the big stuff. Things like strategic initiatives. The medium ones are important things, but not core objectives. And the grains are like the little things, like sending an email or an invoice. It’s easy to fill your day with grains of sand, but if you do, it will leave no room for the real goals. But if you fill it with the rocks first, there will still be room in between for the pebbles and sand. Don’t pack your days with tiny … Read more...

Want to get better? Spend some time with a 50mm or 35mm prime. Better yet, spend all of your time with them. Dump the zoom for awhile. Give yourself no escape. Force yourself to stick with it until it works. You can always go back to the zooms anytime. But the experience gained from being locked into primes is invaluable for those who haven’t done so.

I choose these two lenses for the singular reason that they are just plain boring. I remember when I got my first 50mm for my Nikon FM2 way, way back in the day, I was utterly underwhelmed. This was the lens of heritage and tradition! The lens of Cartier-Bresson! Dull, dull, dull. Aperture aside, … Read more...

There’s a special moment after every wedding I shoot. It’s before I do the edit, before I do the blog, before I tone and process, when all my pictures are raw memories of RAW files, waiting to become something more, but fully formed in concept and execution. Nothing can be changed now. It is before I can see my favorite one hundred pictures, before I lay them out to see them as a collection, and when they are just random, singular images. I am fundamentally unhappy with them.

This happens every wedding I shoot. Because, as I shoot, two things have become clear to me over the years. The first is that it will always be alright. That they are … Read more...

Society strives for perfection too much. We retreat at the first sight of imperfection. Perfect apples. Perfect bodies. Perfect images. Perfect businesses. Perfect ideas. Can anything really be perfect stripped of its essence? Should anything be that perfect?

To be human is to be flawed. But to be flawed is not to be wrong, at least not insofar as we care about process. Flaws are rich and full. They are powerful and delicate. They are not only beautiful because they define us as much as or more than our perfections. They are powerful, because they propel us. We’re built that way. Our bodies kick in gear when things aren’t working. It disturbs, perturbs, bothers, and gnaws. It makes us improve. … Read more...