Photography Clips

Saul Leiter's photographs make me question how much I need to show. A personal reflection on painting, photography, creative freedom, and leaving room for uncertainty. Podcast Notes Photography Clips Podcast Music From the Doctor's Office

Sometimes I notice something after I put the camera down that I missed while looking through the viewfinder. A sound, a movement, or something just outside the frame. It makes me wonder what I might discover if I stayed a little longer after making a photograph. Podcast Notes Photography Clips Podcast Music From the Doctor's Office

I've had nights when I've sat in front of a screen full of photographs I should have been happy with and felt almost nothing. Nothing was obviously wrong with them. The exposures were good. The compositions worked. The light was there. I could move from one image to the next and find something technically successful in almost every frame. And sometimes I just shut down the computer and go to bed....

Every once in a while, it's interesting to give yourself a question with an unreasonable rule attached to it. This one asks me to choose one photographic subject. Here's one: If I could photograph only one kind of subject for the rest of my life, what would I choose? At first, that sounds easy enough. I've photographed long enough to know what I enjoy and what usually catches my attention. But the...

Every once in a while, Lightroom accuses me of taking a photograph I'm sure I've never seen before. A forgotten photograph can look as though it belongs to someone else. There it is in the catalog. My camera made it, the date proves I was there, and the files surrounding it belong to me, too. There really isn't much room for an argument. Still, I look at the photograph and think, When did I take t...

Not long ago, someone told me that the music I was creating was basically a waste of time. It made me think about photography and music, and what makes either one worth creating. I've been working on a little project I call Music From the Doctor's Office . It started simply enough. I spend more time than I would like sitting in doctors' offices, waiting rooms, and medical appointments, and sometim...

I was getting ready to leave and head back home when I decided I wanted a picture with my dad. Neither of us was feeling particularly well at the time. We were both having health issues, we hadn't fixed our hair, and neither one of us was exactly ready for a photograph. None of that seemed important enough to stop me. I just said something like, "Hey, let's smile and take a selfie." So we did... P...

Every so often, I come across a photograph that I know I wouldn't have cared much about years ago. Nothing dramatic is happening. The light may not be spectacular. There may not even be an obvious subject, as I once expected a photograph to have one. And yet I keep looking at it. That has been happening to me more often lately... Podcast Notes:   https://www.moneymakerphotography.com/when-my-taste...

Twenty minutes doesn't sound like enough time to do much with a camera. At least, that's usually how I've thought about it. When I imagine going out to photograph, I tend to think in larger blocks of time. A morning somewhere. An afternoon drive. A few hours when I can wander around, wait for the light, change direction, and see what turns up. But recently I started wondering how many twenty-minut...

Every so often, someone mentions one of my photographs and catches me completely off guard. Not because I don't remember the photograph, but because I didn't know they had seen it. That happened recently. Someone told me they had enjoyed a photograph I used with an article. I thanked them, and then it hit me that I had no idea they followed my work at all. There had been no comment, no email, no m...

Suppose someone found one photograph of mine and knew nothing else about me. What would that single image tell them? Podcast Notes:   https://www.moneymakerphotography.com/one-photograph-cant-tell-the-whole-story/ Photography Clips Podcast:   https://moneymakerphotography.com/podcast/ Music From the Doctor's Office:   https://musicfromthedoctorsoffice.com

This was my perspective earlier this week. I found myself on the crow's nest floor with my feet up, trying to figure out what to do next. To explain how I ended up there, I have to go back several months... Podcast Notes: https://www.moneymakerphotography.com/crohns-disease-prednisone-loophole/ Photography Clips Podcast:   https://moneymakerphotography.com/podcast/ Music From the Doctor's Office:...

I recently attended a wedding as a guest, and afterward I had a chance to look through some of the photographs taken by the wedding photographer. One detail kept pulling my attention away from everything else. The bride's dress didn't look white. It had a tan cast, almost as if a light sepia tone had been applied to the image. Maybe that was part of the photographer's style. Some photographers lik...

After all these years of photography, I know what will make me stop. A beautiful sunset can do it. So can wildlife, a waterfall, an old building, an interesting street, or a moment that suddenly comes together in front of me. Sometimes it's the light more than the subject. I can be driving somewhere and notice the way late afternoon light is hitting a field or the side of a building, and immediate...

For the last few weeks, I've caught myself doing something I don't normally do. I'll open a map and start looking around. Not because I have somewhere I need to go. Just because part of me wants to. I find myself looking at mountain roads in West Virginia, waterfalls in North Carolina, little historic towns, state parks, and places I've never visited before. Before long, I'm imagining what it woul...

There is a strange point in learning photography when instruction begins to work against you. At first, advice is useful. You learn how aperture changes depth of field, how shutter speed affects motion, and how light shapes a subject. You begin to understand the camera instead of merely hoping it gives you something usable. Then the advice keeps coming. Every image should have a clear subject. The...

Every now and then, I look back through old photographs and wonder why I kept certain ones. Not the obvious ones. Not the family photographs, birthdays, holidays, faces, or moments that clearly belong in the archive. Those explain themselves. I understand why they are there. I am thinking more about the quiet images. A road. A tree. A field. A lake. A building I passed once. A patch of light on an...

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but attention is not automatic. That is something I think about more and more when it comes to photography. We can make the photograph. We can print it, post it, frame it, share it, and send it out into the world. But none of that means anyone is required to stop and look. The viewer still has a choice... Podcast Notes: https://www.moneymakerphotography.co...

I do not think a photograph has to be famous to change you. It does not even have to be understood by anyone else. Sometimes an image works on you privately. You see it once, and for some reason, it stays around in your mind. You may not know why at first. You may not be able to explain what it did. But later, when you are holding a camera and standing in front of something ordinary, you realize t...

The camera only records what is in front of it, but the photograph begins before that. It begins when something makes me stop. Sometimes it is a certain kind of light. Sometimes it is a face in a crowd. Sometimes it is a shadow falling across a wall, making an ordinary place look different for a moment. Other times, it is something quiet that most people would walk past without giving it much thou...

I have always loved old photographs. There is something about them that pulls me in. A faded print. A family face. A place that no longer looks the same. A street corner that has changed. A house that is gone. A person who was young then and old now, or maybe no longer here at all. Photography has a way of keeping those things close. That is one of the reasons I love it. A photograph can take some...

Wedding photography is one of those subjects that can feel confusing before people even understand what they are paying for. One photographer may charge $500, while another may charge $5,000 or more. To many couples, that difference can feel overwhelming, especially when they are looking at online portfolios that all seem beautiful at first glance. I understand why professional photographers charg...

I've always asked questions. That's how I've learned most of what I know. I've asked other photographers. I've read. I've tried things. I've made mistakes. I've gone back and looked again. I've taken a photograph, wondered why it worked, then taken another one and wondered why it didn't. That's always been part of photography for me. I don't see "I don't know" as giving up. I see it as the start o...

By the time we reached this part of the semester in my Media Law class, the room felt different. Copyright had been structured. Privacy had been layered. But now we were talking about public confrontation. Cameras on sidewalks. Musicians are being recorded without permission. Journalists challenged by police. Business owners are angry about being filmed. The professor, who was a Pittsburgh-based m...

When I was studying videography and photography in college, I expected to spend most of my time thinking about lenses, lighting ratios, audio capture, and editing timelines. Then I walked into a Media Law class that changed the way I looked at everything I was creating. The professor was not just an academic. He was a practicing media lawyer. He represented music groups, photographers, and creativ...