Category Archives: Photography

Vision aka Creativity, Technique, and Gear

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Brian

I recently spoke to a camera club about what creativity is, why we freeze when we need to be creative, and how we can improve our creativity. Based on my reading of a variety of scientific papers, popular psychology articles, “self-help” books and articles, writings by photographers and other artists, and my own experience, I came to the following conclusions:

  • Creativity is a combination of inspiration and perspiration, i.e., thinking it AND doing it. You can have the best idea ever for photographing the Grand Tetons but, if you don’t take the picture, you can hardly claim to have been creative because you created nothing!
  • We generally don’t fail at creativity. We simply don’t recognize when we are creative, e.g., changing a recipe to make it more to our liking or putting together a deal at the office. When we do fail, it is most often because we fear failure or criticism. A corollary to this is: Everyone is creative.
  • To improve our ability to be creative, it takes practice, practice, and more practice both within our chosen genre and outside it. If you are a nature photographer, take portraits to improve your creativity; if you are a portraitist, photograph some flowers or landscapes. Familiarity breeds complacency.

So, what does creativity have to do with gear and technique? Everything! While some might say that vision or creativity is everything. I simply can’t agree. If you have the vision for a photograph but don’t have the technique or the equipment to make the image, you can’t really be creative because you can’t turn that vision into reality.

My approach to the question of vision, technique, and gear is more nuanced than most. I think that any one of them can be more important than another depending on the image and what you want to accomplish with the image. While creativity is important in all images, gear can be too. Some wildlife images, particularly of birds, simply require long glass and, without it, some images are just impossible or nearly so.

Don’t get me wrong here! I believe that creativity is the heart and soul of any photograph, particularly a great one, e.g., Moon over Half Dome. However, let’s not forget technique, e.g., lighting, and gear, e.g., wide-angle lenses for landscapes, are sometimes necessary to the creative process.

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What I Learned from My Image a Day Resolution in 2011

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Brian

I know, I know…I said that I would tell you what I learned from  my image a day exercise right after the new year and today, while after January 1, 2012, isn’t shortly after January 1. I simply got behind schedule preparing for my classes on Lightroom, the Nik plugin suite, and flash (the kind used to illuminate subjects not the kind banned from Apple products) and this post had to wait until I was done with those classes.

So, without further delay, here is what I learned or had an insight about:

  • It isn’t easy to take a picture every day when you have a full time job and have a life to live. Things get in the way.
  • It is impossible to get a “good” image every day, at least one that satisfies my definition of a “good” image. After a long day, you are sometime not very creative!
  • There is no such thing as a irredeemable image. However, I will readily concede that some photographs aren’t very good (Image for June 5, 2011), some are real stinkers (Image for August 11, 2011), and some exceed all expectations (Image for May 19, 2011).
  • You can learn something from every photograph that you take, whether good or bad, processed or not, deleted or saved. In the end, you can learn as much from the good ones as the not so good ones and I had some real stinkers to learn from.
  • When you look back at a year’s catalog of photographs, you can learn a lot about yourself. At the end of 2011, I could easily see the genres of photography that I favored, e.g., nature, and others that I completely ignored, e.g., portraits.
  • If you want to improve your photography, nothing works like practice and having a resolution or dedicating yourself to a project is a good way to make sure that you take pictures. In 2011, I took almost 100,000 images. (The grip on my Nikon D700 became well worn in 2011.)
  • An open-ended project, such as an image a day, allows you to experiment and take images that you otherwise wouldn’t take. Of those 100,000 images, I deleted about 67,000. In the first couple of months as it became clear how hard it was to take an image every day, I stopped self-censoring myself and allowed myself to experiment. Most of the experiments were dismal failures but some were not and you will see more of those this year.
  • As a result of experimentation, you start to see and take images that you never would have taken before. I did (Image for December 24, 2011).

I consider the last year one of my best. In large part because of this exercise, I certainly “see” more and better than before I took on this resolution. I have also picked up on a new goal for 2012: To improve my portrait skills.

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My resolutions for 2012…

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Brian

With 2011 almost safely behind me, I am ready to make my 2012 resolutions. If last year taught me anything, it was that being specific and setting deadlines was critical to completing my resolutions. So, I decided that my 2012 resolutions would be specific with deadlines and they are as follows:

  1. Posting to www.BrianJZwit.com: Keep and expand this website by posting at least one written post and one image with an explanation of the image every week.
  2. Posting to www.BlueRidgeWorkshops.com: Post at least two written posts to the Blue Ridge Workshop website every month with one of those being a DIY post as well as two images per month to the Blue Ridge Workshop Facebook pages.
  3. Lightroom 4: Once Lightroom 4 is released (should be in the first few months of 2012), write and release an e-book on Lightroom 4. The book will improve and elaborate on the materials that I use to teach From Capture to Output: Digital Workflow Using Lightroom 3 for Blue Ridge Workshops.

I am limiting myself here to three resolutions to allow myself some flexibility. While my intent is to fully complete each one of these goals, I know, as a pragmatist, that things don’t always go the way that we want them to. I also know that I will add tasks and goals to 2012 other than those in this post when circumstances or the needs of my business change. I will let you know when I add or change any of these resolutions.

Much more so than this year, I will also be documenting my progress on these resolutions and discussing nature, photography, and nature photography on this blog. I hope you will follow along.

Best wishes for 2012…

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A look back on my 2011 resolutions…

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Brian

With only a few days left in 2011, it is time to evaluate how well I did in meeting my resolutions this year as well as make new ones for 2012. First, I didn’t lose twenty pounds. No surprise there because I never made that resolution. Second, while only really completing two of my five resolutions, one of my resolutions has provided me with a new attitude about the subjects of my photographs and is leading me down paths, photographically speaking, that I never thought that I would go down.

My five resolutions for 2011 and the status of each are as follows:

  1. Post one new image on this website every day: Assuming that I post an image a day between now and December 31, I will fully complete this resolution. I took and posted at least one image every day. (A few images got posted a day or two after they were taken due to logistics, i.e., I didn’t have access to the Internet or I spent the whole day taking photographs.)
  2. Teach myself how to use Adobe InDesign CS5: At least to the extent that I need to know how to use InDesign, I completed this resolution as well.
  3. Write and release an e-book on Lightroom 3: I updated my teaching materials for Lightroom but didn’t do much to complete this resolution. Now, it really is too late. Lightroom 4 will be out shortly and I am going to hold off on this resolution until it comes out.
  4. Create a series of images and a book on “trees:” This resolution was always in the back of my mind when I was out shooting but I really didn’t make that much progress on actually creating a book.
  5. Create a series of images and a book on the “familiar:” It is safe to say that nothing happened on this one.

So, what did I learn from what I did do and what I didn’t do? A lot.

First, having to take and post one new image every day improved my discipline. This was a lot of work and, frankly, I thought that I wouldn’t fully complete this one. However, because this resolution required immediate and sustained action from day one, it was the easiest to incorporate into my schedule and make a habit. This tidbit of information about myself, in and of itself, is a good one for me to remember when I need to impose some discipline on myself.

Second, capturing even a mediocre image every day requires a very good eye. I wasn’t able to count on a beautiful sunset every day to make that “once-a-day” image. Instead, I had to find an image wherever I was that day and I noticed by the end of this exercise I was finding images in some very unusual places, e.g., Chipotle Mexican Grill, the parking lot at the office, and inside my car.

Third, capturing an image every day also required me to loosen the restraints that I had placed on my own image making. I am much more willing today to take images that I would have bypassed earlier. For instance, I have become very interested in taking portraits over the course of this year. I know that this isn’t in keeping with my self-imposed designation as a nature photographer but I simply don’t feel as constrained by that designation as I did at the beginning of the year.

Fourth, I learned that page layout is not easy for two basic reasons: (1) designing a good looking page takes a lot of skill and a massive amount of time and energy; and (2) InDesign, Adobe’s program for laying out pages, isn’t all that easy to use. While some of the basic design skills you need to lay out a page do overlap with photography, it is largely a different skill set and I had to teach myself those skills in addition to the software. (Not sure that I was completely successful here and, just like photography, I am likely to lose whatever skills I did learn if I don’t practice.) While InDesign provides you with incredible control over your page, it is as difficult if not more difficult to use than Photoshop because you need to know all about fonts—the subject of as many books if not more than Photoshop.

Finally, my last three resolutions—the ones that I didn’t accomplish this year—taught me about being realistic and that I am indeed human. They really were never going to happen. There simply wasn’t enough time in the year. I got a new job in January; I had family commitments throughout the year; and life in general takes time.

Overall, I feel really great about what I accomplished this past year especially when I view the above within the broader context of my entire life. I simply can’t devote my life to photography 24/7. Regardless, it was a heck of year and I am looking forward to 2012.

I will be posting my resolutions for 2012 in a couple of days. Look back then to see what is in store for 2012.

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Some Thoughts About My Resolution to Post a New Image Every Day in 2011

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Brian

Capturing and posting a new image every day is more difficult for me than it sounded at the first of the year.

First, I am lazy. After spending eight or more hours at work and then another two communting, I am hungry and tired and the last thing that I want to do is take a photograph. Second, it is hard to come up with a new subject everyday. Third and perhaps most importantly, I want to post great images and can’t always do so.

I expected the first two issues but not the third one.

I know that I am lazy and maintaining this resolution for a whole year would be hard. Through simple persistence, however, I have posted 42 images, each taken and posted on a different day of the year. (Truth in Advertising: One image, while taken on the designated day, was posted the next day. This is reality. Sometimes I just don’t have a lot of spare time.) Moreover, what has happen over the past 43 days is that a certain momentum has developed and, while there are nights that I really don’t want to shoot, it is a lot easier to get myself motivated on day 43 than it was on day 5.

The second issue was the whole purpose of this exercise. I knew that coming up with a different subject every day was going to be difficult but it would force me to look somewhere other than my normal locations for subjects. Three hundred and sixty five days of beautiful landscapes and flying birds were simply going to be impossible to produce. So, I have been forced to look elsewhere for subjects. See for example the images from January 16 (my dinner at BGR The Burger Joint), January 28 (the chair rail at Chipotle Mexican Grill), and February 10 (my daily serving of fruit). A side benefit has been that I have also been forced to try different techniques and cameras, such as the images from January 2 (an infrared image of traffic on I-66), January 16 (taken with my iPhone 3G), and February 3 (a pleasing blur of a red and yellow flower).

Finally, while I always like to display my best work and am very critical of my own work, I never thought that I would feel such angst at posting a less than perfect image. A purpose of this project was never about posting perfect images. (I blame it on mom and dad. Aren’t all your problems their fault?) All I really wanted to do is take a picture every day and try different subjects and techniques. I am going to need to work on this during the next few months.

Overall, it has been a good project so far. I have captured and posted some really good images but a few stinkers as well. I only have 323 images left to go this year and I expect to post more good images and some more bad ones. However, my point will be to always post an interesting image regardless of its quality. Quality will always follow vision!

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Current Exhibits at the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Brian

Living in Washington, DC, provides me with access to some of the finest museums in the country if not the world. However, two-in my opinion-are real gems and rank among my favorites: the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum.

The National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum collect and display, as their names imply, the portraits of famous and infamous Americans and American art respectively. While portraits and American art might not sound very exciting, both museums always seem to put together engaging and fascinating if not controversial exhibitions.

Currently, between the two museums, there are three exhibitions well worth the effort to get downtown: Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture and Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer at the Portrait Gallery and Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow at the American Art Museum.

Hide/Seek explores how the sexual identity of artists and their subjects and changing attitudes about sex and sexual orientation has influenced modern American portraiture. (Although Hide/Seek seems pretty benign to me, it has recently raise the ire of some politicians because “tax money was spent on it.” However, no tax money was used to fund the exhibit. Exhibits at the Smithsonian museums are privately funded and tax money is only used to fund salaries and maintain the buildings.) The other exhibition at the Portrait Gallery, Elvis at 21, is a series of black and white images of Elvis Presley taken by Alfred Wertheimer during 1956, which is considered by historians to be the year that Elvis went from relative obscurity to a star. Finally, A Fable for Tomorrow is a large exhibition of Alexis Rockman’s paintings. Rockman is well known for his exploration of environmental issues, such as genetic engineering and pollution, in some quite large and unusual paintings.

All three exhibition are highly recommended and, because both the Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum are in the same building, they can easily be visited in one day.

The National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum are located in the old Patent Office Building at Eighth and F Street, NW, in downtown Washington, DC, and are open from 11:30 am to 7:00 pm every day. Theris are no admission fees but Elvis at 21 ends January 23, Hide/Seek ends February 13, and A Fable for Tomorrow ends May 8, 2011.

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My New Year Resolutions

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Brian

I have made a lot of resolutions in my life but kept few. Generally, my resolutions have been about losing weight, finding a new job, or some other unpleasant task or goal. I think this is the reason why I usually fail to keep my resolutions. I make them about things that I don’t want to do!

I am determined this year to change my low percentage of success by setting five goals for my photography—something that I am passionate maybe even a little obsessive about. By changing the focus to photography and making my resolutions public on this website, I hope to raise the odds of actually completing them. First, I want to do these things and, second, I don’t want to be embarassed at the end of the year by not completing them.

So, after some comtemplation, here are my goals for 2011:

  1. Post one new image on this website every day. This is probably going to be the most difficult resolution to keep. It means that I must take at least one new image every day regardless of what else is going on and, more importantly, I will need to go outside my comfort range and explore unfamiliar genres of photography to produce an image every day.
  2. Teach myself how to use Adobe InDesign CS5. While a pretty easy resolution to keep and one that doesn’t seem to rise to to the level of a resolution, it is here because I will need to use InDesign to complete my remaining resolutions.
  3. Write and release an e-book on Lightroom 3. The book will improve and elaborate on the materials that I use to teach From Capture to Output: Digital Workflow Using Lightroom 3 for Blue Ridge Workshops.
  4. Create a series of images and a book on “trees.” This is one of two personal projects for the year. The subject is purposefully left vague to allow me to interpret and extend it as circumstances dictate. The final products will be a series of 50 to 75 images and a book of the images.
  5. Create a series of images and a book on the “familiar.” This is the second of two personal projects for the year. As before, the subject is purposefully left vague to allow me to interpret and extend it. However, the subject for this project is more thematic and will allow for more diverse subjects. The final products will be a series of 50 to 75 images and a book of the images.

While my intent is to fully complete each one of these goals, I know, as a pragmatist, that things don’t always go the way that we want them to. This is particularly true in a year, as I suspect 2011 will be, that is busy and messy. So, if circumstances change, so will my goals and I will let you know when they do. I will also be documenting my efforts on this site and discussing nature, photography, and nature photography in this blog. I hope you will follow along.

Best wishes for 2011…

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