A Losers Guide to Photography

The Good Photo Recently I've been toying with idea of what makes a good photo. Besides following basic compositional rules and, arguably, even photos that break compositional rules are still following some obscure photo and/or graphic rule. Basically we are bound by rules.  I don't want to argue about a photos composition. I want to argue about the uniqueness and impact of a photo. I pose the following question, is a photo good if everyone has seen [with their own eyes] the subject? This is an interesting question - if someone has been inundated with a certain amount of material or style of material does the photo lose its impact? William Mortensen said that a good photo needs to have a high level of impact to retain the viewers attention.  Photography is subjective. Since photography is subjective, is there room for any absolutes? One could say it is true that a photo is objectively better by being unique, where there is little to no experience with the subject. By being uniq...

Defining Negative Space Wikipedia's definition of negative space is, " Negative space , in art , is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image.  Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally is used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image." Negative space is in nearly every piece of art. The major difference between art pieces [photos] is the amount of negative space and the intent of negative space. My personal definition of negative space is - a separate element of space within a photo that compliments the main subject or detracts from the main subject.  I believe negative space can be broken down into two components: additive and subtractive . I think instinctively we, the photographer and observer, know the feeling of good negative space. It's a calming feeling where the space around the subject c...

Background   I've been thinking about a photo essay I want to continually work on to create a relatively large body of work of candid documentary photographs. Each beach in SoCal seems to have it's own identity. The sand is different at each beach. The people are different. The life is different. I want to capture the identity of the beach. Goal The goal is to take candid photos of the local beaches on SoCal. I want to create a geographical timeline journaling beach life in SoCal. I want to start in the northern beaches of SoCal and work my way south towards Long Beach.  At the end, I want to create a book that chapters out the story of each beach. Overall Look Shoot film and/or film simulation with Kentmere 400 BnW and Ilford HP5 400 on 35mm/APS-C/MF. No specific aspect ratio is required. These should be consistent and provide a consistent flow of informational content.  Get creative with perspective and angles.  Tell the story of the beach and what makes it unique,...

My main camera I use is the Fuji XPro-3 from Fujifilm. I love it. There are a lot of great things about the camera and there are a lot of things I wish were different or expanded upon further.  I believe the ultimate film camera will be a mash up of the Fuji XPro-3 and the Leica M-d Type 262 with a film advance lever.  Let's picture this. The body of a vintage Nikon F-1 or a sleek Leica body. Let's make this camera a rangefinder with the option to switch to an EVF (XPro-3). Let's add a nice feeling film advance lever. The software can have a conditional statement that says, "if film advance lever does not equal 1, do nothing. Else, advance to the next slide, set film advance lever to 0". Something like that. Digital double exposure has been around for a while now. I suppose I don't see a technological issue of saying the photographer doesn't want to automatically advance the film and let them manually do it with a film advance lever. A film reverse button ...

Definitions Before I get into "The Dilemma of the Omniscient King" I want to first define the vernacular used.  What is a Dilemma? Merriam-Webster defines a 'dilemma' as "a problem involving a difficult choice". This will be represented as the illusion in our Dilemma.  What is Omniscient? Merriam-Webster defines 'omniscient' as " possessed of universal or complete knowledge". The omniscient being in our parable is the all-knowing king.  The Dilemma... This is the story of The Dilemma of the Omniscient King. There was once an all-knowing king. This king believed he had complete knowledge of the workings of his universe. Of course, having complete knowledge of everything requires the king to be well rested. Knowing everything all at once is exhausting and rather draining. The king requires sleep. After a long period of time, the king awakens from his slumber like he has done many times throughout the infinite time of his universe. This time...

The Disney+ documentary More Than Robots came out recently. I had the opportunity to shoot a few of the teams here in Los Angeles for work. It was an awesome opportunity and great to see young minds developing complex thoughts. In my past life I was an engineer and now I am a photographer. I was asked to help teach the students about photography.  I would like to teach them somethint applicable. They aren't photographers! They are young engineers! I need something that correlates to what they are working with the engage their mind.  Photography has many applications from medical to AI. I believe integrating AI with their robots, by providing their robots vision, is the way I should approach teaching them. I will teach them the basics of photography, the core principles.  As an example, one of the competitions is to pick up a ball and shoot it to score points. Well, with AI you can teach the robot what a ball is, what a basket is, how to shoot a ball, pathing to a ball, et...