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...

Ever get stuck trying to figure out whether your pictures are really any good? The reason is simple. You’re not getting inside other people’s heads. See your pictures are your audience will see it. As photographers, we see the world as components. Light. Composition. Aperture. Shutter speed. So much so, that the first thing you usually hear in most critiques is about the technical problems. But if you’ve ever watched your clients look at their pictures, you’ll soon discover this simple fact. They like the strangest things. That’s because they don’t care about the technical components. They just look at the picture and react.

A good picture is never a laundry list of elements. Technical perfection matters little if you … Read more...

Photo by Alison Conklin
www.alisonconklin.com

It’s often thought that good photos are complex photos. And while there are any number of complex photos that are great, the two don’t go hand in hand. Good photos are good photos. Complex photos are complex photos. But, in the end, no photo should be about technique alone. This is a simple moment from a basic angle. But it is clean, well-timed, and nicely-framed. Without reference to the speaker, we understand the sentiment, we can image the moment unfolding as the groom kisses the bride, and, truly the thing that makes it all come together, we understand her body language. Her head in her arm, her bridesmaids looking at her from behind, that nice … Read more...