Category Archives: Art

Enjoying Museums

I visited the Leopold Museum by myself yesterday, because no one wanted to join me.  The museum was very nice, and absolutely worth a visit if you’re in Vienna.  It houses the largest collection of Egon Schiele’s work in the … Continue reading

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Overwhelm

In Vienna this week, I’ve had the opportunity to check out quite a few churches.  In the middle of the old city there are maybe a dozen spectacular churches, sporting everything from Gothic to super modern architecture.  The biggest and … Continue reading

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Fuck You. Pay Me.

Though there’s some stuff in here I don’t necessarily agree with, a worthy watch for any creative: 2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from San Francisco Creative Mornings on Vimeo.

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It’s OK to be Wrong

The late 1960’s and early 70’s was an era of contrasts: free love and government hatred; sexual revolution and the threat of nuclear annihilation; the birth of an age of technology and exploration and the threat of social and environmental … Continue reading

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Start at the Bottom

I’ve always said that talent is overrated.  Most people can become really good at most things given enough deliberate practice.  These photos by Stanley Kubrick, just a lowly photojournalist for Look magazine in 1949, began to show the sort of … Continue reading

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Don’t Break The Chain

There’s no better way to become great at something than to do it every single day.  Whether you want to learn to play the guitar, or become a great tennis player, or be a great standup comedian, doing something every … Continue reading

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Know When To Paint, And When To Cut Off Your Ear

Your parents probably fawned over your finger paintings, or craft projects, or clay pots, or whatever crappy thing you created when you were four.  There’s an audience for everything.  Sometimes that audience is enormous, and sometimes, like with crappy children’s … Continue reading

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Missing the Shot

If you’re into photography on any level, you’ve missed the shot before.  That one, fleeting moment that slipped by before you could trip the shutter.  That perfect facial expression on your subject, or the ray of light that sneaks through … Continue reading

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smArtHistory

One of the best things you can do to improve your photography is to deconstruct what makes a good photograph.  It’s a bit of a catch-22 when you’re starting out though.  Even if you’re able to spot a really great … Continue reading

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Understanding Exposure

Proper exposure is the single most important feature of any photograph. It’s also the foundation of photography. You can be at the right place at the right time, but if you can’t properly expose the shot, you’ve got nothing. Today’s cameras do a pretty decent job of automatically selecting the proper exposure in most situations, but if you’ve spent any time shooting in the ‘auto’ mode, you know the camera rarely behaves exactly as you want it to. This article will teach you everything you need to know about exposure so that you can bend your camera to your will, making it do exactly what you want, when you want.

The first step in learning how to properly expose a shot is to learn what an exposure is, and how an exposure is made. Unfortunately, many looking to get into photography, and a surprising number of those who are producing very solid work, can be intimidated and confused when first learning about exposure due to the jargon photographers use to describe it. Luckily, exposure is an exceeding simple concept. Continue reading

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Clarity

I just read this article this New York Times opinion piece that really struck a chord with me.  It’s not particularly interesting or insightful.  In fact, it’s really not that good.  But the author sure does use some fancy words, … Continue reading

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Why I Hate HDR

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  Dynamic Range, for our purposes, is the amount of information a sensor can record between the points where the sensor renders input as white and where the sensor renders input as black in any … Continue reading

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Choreography (Plan or Fail)

We generally use a flash or some other light source to throw light on something that needs to be brighter.  But, what happens if your flash or light source is too small to properly illuminate what you want?  One option … Continue reading

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How Equipment Affects Creativity

The Luminous Landscape just published a very thoughtful essay by Mark Dubovoy about whether equipment affects creativity.  In short, his answer was it absolutely does. I agree with him, but I have some additional points below, which are applicable beyond … Continue reading

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Changing Your Spots

This is a pretty insightful little piece by landscape photographer Alain Briot that addresses a situation that nearly exactly mirrors my own. I too was drawn to the panoramic format, though my love for it actually started before I ever … Continue reading

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