Photo Tips

An interviewer asked me to photograph my Documerica aftermath. He asked that I think out loud while doing this. Talking and photographing was certainly unusual for me, as someone who tends to work silently and reflexively.

After a friend heard the broadcast, she expressed her fascination in what goes through my mind as I create images. I had always taken this process as a given, merely the way I work. Despite that, her remark started me thinking that, “maybe I know something.”

 I realized—in a later panel discussion at the National Archives and always in gallery talks—that people do tend to gather around. They ask many questions to which I actually have answers. As a late bloomer, making photography my career after many of my peers were already established, I had worked hard to catch up.

Now I was becoming known for photographic art…

…and realized that I love to share.

PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Humble Up

Some photographers are legends in their own minds. And I have encountered wannabes who, because cameras can produce images with little input, strut with arrogance. The tip?  Humble up. Unleash curiosity. No need to dominate or impress, but to learn from everyone and anyone…about them, their interests, their insights…about life.  It all goes into a brain that can translate understanding into meaningful images. And it makes you a better and interesting and tolerant person.

PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Inspired By Cartier-Bresson

Polishing my reflexive skills evolved into an technique that I developed in an exploration of another interpretation of the body in motion in my fine art.

I was accepted by a top gallerist in LA  He had been mentoring me for years. In introducing me to the work of earlier artists he favored, whose esthetics overlapped my own, I had found yet another kindred soul.  The gallerist accepted prints from my multiple exposures exploration that he had liked, where my subjects released their feelings into movement.

PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Polishing my reflexive skills

I was surprised when, soon after, he called and requested that I take them back.  He probably felt that they might not find acceptance from his client base. What did he show instead?  As one example, another contemporary photographer had made a name for himself by documenting deserted gas stations. Easy on the emotions. No scary feelings there, from dealing with people. Structural abandonment.

My multiple exposures continued into the world of dance. This image is from “In a Labyrinth.” After exhibiting at a gallery in Dumbo Brooklyn, the project had a lengthy sojourn at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs NY.

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