The Stop Down Photography Podcast

If you have listened to my podcast for a while, you know I am a fan of The Beatles. I’ve been enjoying the three-part documentary The Beatles: Get Back and as I’ve watched I see many lessons in there for photographers. I have 5 observations from Get Back that relate to photographers: A change of scenery is good Outside influences are good Versatility feeds creativity The start and the finish are v...

I have a confession - I really enjoy assassin movies. You know those movies where the protagonist is a highly-skilled, ultra-focused, near infallible villain. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure - or an excuse to eat popcorn. On my return flights from the Oregon Coast, I rewatched some of the John Wick films. I also saw one of my favorites, The Hitman, again recently. That got me wondering… why do I like...

A few weeks ago, I talked about how I was preparing for my trip to the Oregon Coast. My planning included brainstorming a few themes to explore with my camera while in Oregon. I also promised to talk about how the pre-visualization played out once in the field. It was a mixed bag. As it turns out, plans may be worthless, but planning itself is important. Join me for a chat about the photo themes I...

When we are at home and the weather conditions are poor, we tend to talk ourselves out of stepping outside with the camera. When you are on a photo workshop, you are more inclined to go out with the camera despite the weather. My first Oregon workshop of November 2021 had a mix of weather… and some days nature served up gray, featureless skies coupled with rain. In this podcast, I share two stores...

When I talk about photography, I tend to express ideas in terms of painting. Photography shares some characteristics with painting. Both art forms can be depictive of a tangible subject or abstract, disconnected from a physical form. Both can be personally expressive or represent the world as it is. Over the course of art history, the styles of painters evolved through the eras of romanticism, rea...

As a person that pursues photography as an expressive art form, how do you measure your success as a photographer? Early in our photo journey, when our skills are improving by leaps and bounds, our images get better and better. Improvement is quite obvious, even within the span of a few days or weeks. We make stronger images and more of them. And we tend to measure success by the number of good im...

Preparing for a photo trip has its own level of enjoyment. Picking out the gear, thinking about locations, and the growing anticipation of photographing a new place, or even a familiar favorite, I like the build-up to the actual trip. It’s fun. In a few short weeks, I will be on the Oregon Coast for some photography. In addition to the gear choices and virtual location scouting, I am doing somethi...

In early October 2021, I hosted a group of photographers from a San Diego camera club for a sunset shoot at the beach. It was the first group outing I’ve hosted since 2019! And I gotta tell you … it was energizing! In this episode I share thoughts, observations, and feeling about this event and why the simple act of just getting out there with your camera is important. I also talk about how this w...

We all start our photo journey capturing things and places. Flowers, mountains, animals, your hometown, a city you are visiting. We photograph nouns. And that’s normal and part of the process of finding out what we enjoy photographing, the subjects and scenes that make us want to pick up our camera again and again. Yet, when I look at the work of other photographers, the images that I find most in...

After a year plus of pandemic conditions, growing accustomed the new normal of limited interaction with the world and produced a problem for photographers – inertia. After weeks or maybe months of not regularly making photographs, finding the motivation to pick up the camera and capture images. I’ve certainly been fighting inertia during the pandemic. This past week, I had the good fortune to meet...

As a content creator with a photo business, paying attention to industry news comes with the job description. A portion of my time is spent reading industry news and product announcements with a “business hat” on. This past week, as I was absorbing product announcements, I took off my business hat and put on my “artist hat.” My non-business creative brain got thinking… for the photo artist in us,...

As photographers, we often seek out specific photos. We travel to the gorgeous, breathtaking location, or the iconic city or other famous subjects to create an image we know has a good chance of being strong. Although, there are plenty of photo opportunities all around us … all the time. We just need to be open to seeing them. In this podcast, I share a story of how life put me in Fallbrook, Calif...

Every photographer and every creative knows that inspiration strikes … it is not something that an artist just turns on. There isn’t a bucket of inspiration we dip our cup into when we want to make photographs. Creativity has peaks and valleys, inspiration ebbs and flows. And that is a normal cycle in a creative life. In this episode, I talk about my current creative valley and why I’m taking a “l...

Captain Barbosa in the film Pirates Of The Carribbean said this about the pirate code of parlay: The code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules. That’s exactly what the “rules” of photography are. They are guidelines, helpful advice for creating and composing our photos, technical recommendations for using our cameras, and suggestions for post-processing. Learning the rules is an...

I took a hike in the mountains local to San Diego last weekend. I wanted to take in the sunrise in the mountains, and that meant a very early rise, an hour-plus drive to the trailhead, and then the hike itself. And it was a really great outing. Good weather, great sky, the photo accompanying this podcast is just a short distance from the summit of Garnet Peak. A hike like this one requires enduran...

I can’t believe 2021 is already half behind us! “The days go slow and the years go fast” … as the saying goes. For us photographers, the mid-year mark is a natural point to assess our progress for the year thus far and checkpoint our photo goals. Are you on track? Have some goals been achieved? Or is a course correction needed? In today’s podcast, I share thoughts about the importance of measuring...

In today’s digital age, post-processing is an important part of creating our images. I’ve used many different apps over the years to create my images, and I still use several software packages today. I have not found one tool “to rule them all.” I am frequently asked which tool “is the best” or which “is my favorite” and these questions are valid, but usually lacking context. What is a “favorite”...

I tend to see the world in large sweeps. I see foreground, midground, and background as parts of a whole. That’s my natural way of seeing the world, and that influences how I see the subjects of my photos. I see subjects in context and capture how they relate to their surroundings. That’s an interesting topic … how do different photographers tend to see the world outside of photography, and how do...

Photographers are constantly managing tradeoffs. One creative choice for an image invariably comes at the cost of something else. Every frame we capture contains a compromise. Photographers learn this early on our path to mastering photography. The exposure triangle - aperture, shutter speed, ISO - teaches us this lesson. Adjust one, the others are affected. There are plenty of other compromises w...

For the past decade, I have exerted a lot of energy into improving my seascape photography. I’ve certainly improved, my workflow is more refined, and I am more consistently producing solid photographs of the ocean. After finishing a batch of photos from my latest visit to the San Diego coastline, I honestly felt a little unfulfilled. The photos I produced are good quality, yet it felt a little “ea...

It’s a fair statement that we photographers take more bad photos than good ones. Over time, our keeper rate will improve as we practice our craft and grow our photographic eye. But … a keeper rate over 50%? That’s crazy talk … I’d be happy with 5%. So what can we do with all those “bad” shots? Learn from them. Put yourself in the role of the casual observer, disconnected from the photographer that...

While working through some photos taken a few years ago at Long Pond on Mount Desert Island in Maine, I realized how little I explored that area. The photos I have are nice, they are of good quality. Yet my repeated visits to this pond did not push me artistically. I stopped to reflect on why that was. I think it is because I didn’t give myself permission to spend time at the location, explore the...

In art forms like music, live performance, or motion pictures, the artist can take the audience on a bit of a journey. It could be a few seconds to a few minutes or longer. And at the pivotal moment, there is the crescendo. These art forms can build an audience to a climax. The process of building up the tension or anticipation or surprise is knowable to the audience. A musical example is the song...

In today’s podcast, I share a story of how our subconscious mind affects our photography. And can do so in curious and interesting ways. After a recent visit to the San Diego beach, I noticed a theme in the photos from that outing… a theme I wasn’t aware of when I was capturing the images. Workshops are back! Join me on the Oregon Coast from November 9th through 12th on a workshop, co-hosted with...

I have been stepping out more with the camera of late. And, as you might have guessed, I made several visits to the San Diego coastline. Gotta get my fill of sand, surf, and sky! As summer approaches in the Northern hemisphere and the prospect of travel seems more possible than it did a couple of months ago, you might be thinking of a coastal visit in your near future. In today’s podcast, I have 5...