A Quick Q&A On The Importance Of Photo Editing With Sarah Leen

Tuesday, December 14, 6:00-7:00 pm (Mountain Time)

Creativity Continues at Santa Fe Workshops with The Art of Visual Storytelling, a conversation between photo editor Sarah Leen and photographic artist John Paul Caponigro.

Register for this free event now.

Sarah Leen offers many insights into the importance of photo editing.

What are some of the benefits of developing projects?

It is to the photographer’s advantage to work on something they feel passionate about. It can lead to the creation of a body of work that might draw in clients, exhibits or assignments that could support the project. Be the captain of your own fate! 

Are you more satisfied with a single image or a project?

A project can give me a better idea of how the photographer’s mind works, and it shows that they can sustain and accomplish a project from inception to completion. Out of the project comes the single images I like for my walls!

When you’re faced with many possibilities how do you recommend, we choose between possible projects?

What is the work you want to be known for? What is the work that you will do whether you are being paid or not? Follow your bliss and your passion for a project and you won’t go wrong. 

How do you know you’re done?

Great question! Some projects are never done. They continue to evolve into another chapter or form. So, if it is helpful you might need to give yourself some deadlines. Ask yourself is it ready to become a book? An exhibition? A magazine story. This will help you focus your work and give you something to reach for and look forward to. 

How often do you find that projects incorporate more than one form of presentation – website, audio-visual presentation, exhibit, publication, etc.

Often. A project can be, and perhaps should be, many things. There are so many ways to reach your audience and find new audiences for your work that utilizing more of them will help broaden the reach and audience for you work. 

What are your thoughts on how much or how little text to include with photographs?

I like to know what I am looking at. That is the photojournalist in me. But, depending on the platform where the work will live, the information does not always need to be contiguous with the images. So, the information could be at the back of the book or in small text with the image or in the image catalog for the exhibition. Or in a separate document that comes with a print. Obviously, for an editorial use like a magazine or a website more information will be needed, and it would reside with the image.

What kinds of texts work better than others?

For an editorial project, the 5 Ws are key. Who, What, Where, Why and When? For a more artistic production like an exhibit, an art book, or prints, that is probably not necessary. I like to know where an image was taken and when. But that might just be me. 

Do you advise artists to write their own texts or find a writer to write for them?

Really depends on where the work will live. For an editorial publication, they will most likely have their own writer they want to use but there are always exceptions. But for a photobook, I love to hear the photographer’s voice. While an intro or preface or an essay to accompany a book is a great place to bring other voices. 

How often do projects finish exactly the way they were conceived?

Being flexible to chance and serendipity is a good attitude to have. Be open to all possibilities and welcome surprises. That may be where the really good stuff lives. 

How often do you find that one project leads another?

I think the photographers who have been able to sustain a long career are always finding ways to evolve their ideas into the next one. A body of work can have any chapters and iterations. 

What are the most important things that a picture editor brings to a project?

Another set of trusted eyes who can give you honest feedback and encouragement. A shoulder you can cry on or celebrate with. Someone to brainstorm with and who brings an often-needed skill set to the table just when you need it. 

Is picture editing a talent you’re born with or skill that can be learned?

Good question. I don’t know. Starting out as a photographer taught me how to edit first my own work and then others. As a photographer, you are editing every time you make an image. You have made many choices as to where to photograph, what to photograph, what is inside or outside the frame. So, it can be a natural progression to continue that process when looking at the images after they are made. What to keep and elevate and what to let go. 

How have your picture editing skills helped advance your own photography?

As per above being a photographer first advanced my photo editing skills for sure.

What personal benefits do you receive from teaching?

Oh, so much personal satisfaction when a photographer succeeds, when they have learned a new skill and the light bulbs are coming on over their heads. And when they are inspired with new ideas and new motivation for their work. It is totally like being a mother with a child in a talent show. I am totally invested in their success. Their success is my success. 

Find out more about Sarah Leen here.

Register for our free webinar now.

 

Photographers On Photography – Q&A

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In Q&A
photographers share their answers to
.
20 questions;
10 Core Questions
10 Optional Questions
.
Answers are kept short and sweet.
.

 

Core Questions

What’s the best thing about photography?
What’s the worst thing about photography?

What’s the thing that interests you most about photography?
What’s the thing that interests you most about your own photographs?
What’s the thing that interests you most about other people’s photographs?

Who were your early photographic influences?
Who are your photographic influences now?
Who were your early non-photographic influences?
Who are your non-photographic influences now?
What’s the most inspiring work of art you saw recently?

What’s the best thing about gear?
What’s the worst thing about gear?

How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
How do you know when an image is good?
How do you know when an image is great?

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?

Do you practice another art form? (If so, which?)
What benefits do you get from (this/these) other art form/s?

What was the most significant visual moment in your life?
Which was the most important image to you that got away?
What failure did you learn the most from?

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
What’s the thing you most hope to accomplish?

If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?
If you had another life to live a completely different life, what would you choose to do?

What are the most important questions to you?

Optional Questions

What’s photography really all about?

How did photography change the world?
How did photography change your world?

Who were the most important photographers?
Who are the most important photographers working today?

What’s the best thing about influence?
What’s the worst thing about influence?

What’s the best thing about our times?
What’s the worst thing about our times is?

What keeps you up at night?
What gets you going in the morning?

What’s your favorite movie?
What’s your favorite book?
What’s your favorite piece of music?

What’s your idea of perfect happiness?
What is your greatest fear?
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Who is your favorite hero in fiction?
Who are your heroes in real life?
Which living person do you most admire?
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
What is your greatest extravagance?
What is your favorite journey?
On what occasion do you lie?
What do you dislike most about yourself?
What is your most marked characteristic?
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What is your greatest regret?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
What’s your most treasured possession?
What is your favorite occupation / past time?
What do you most value in your friends?
What’s your motto?
What other talent would you most like to have?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What is it that you most dislike?
How would you like to die?

 

Subscribe to Insights to find out when new content becomes available.

Photographers On Photography – Q&A

.

Photographers answer 20 questions.
10 Core Questions
10 Optional Questions
Answers are kept short and sweet.

.

 

Core Questions

What’s the best thing about photography?
What’s the worst thing about photography?

What’s the thing that interests you most about photography?
What’s the thing that interests you most about your own photographs?
What’s the thing that interests you most about other people’s photographs?

Who were your early photographic influences?
Who are your photographic influences now?
Who were your early non-photographic influences?
Who are your non-photographic influences now?
What’s the most inspiring work of art you saw recently?

What’s the best thing about gear?
What’s the worst thing about gear?

How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
How do you know when an image is good?
How do you know when an image is great?

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?

Do you practice another art form? (If so, which?)
What benefits do you get from (this/these) other art form/s?

What was the most significant visual moment in your life?
Which was the most important image to you that got away?
What failure did you learn the most from?

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
What’s the thing you most hope to accomplish?

If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?
If you had another life to live a completely different life, what would you choose to do?

What are the most important questions to you?

Optional Questions

What’s photography really all about?

How did photography change the world?
How did photography change your world?

Who were the most important photographers?
Who are the most important photographers working today?

What’s the best thing about influence?
What’s the worst thing about influence?

What’s the best thing about our times?
What’s the worst thing about our times is?

What keeps you up at night?
What gets you going in the morning?

What’s your favorite movie?
What’s your favorite book?
What’s your favorite piece of music?

What’s your idea of perfect happiness?
What is your greatest fear?
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Who is your favorite hero in fiction?
Who are your heroes in real life?
Which living person do you most admire?
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
What is your greatest extravagance?
What is your favorite journey?
On what occasion do you lie?
What do you dislike most about yourself?
What is your most marked characteristic?
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What is your greatest regret?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
What’s your most treasured possession?
What is your favorite occupation / past time?
What do you most value in your friends?
What’s your motto?
What other talent would you most like to have?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What is it that you most dislike?
How would you like to die?

 

Sign up for Insights to find out about new content.

.

Q&A With Photographer Chris Orwig

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Chris Orwig provides quick candid answers to 20 questions.
What’s the best thing about photography?
Life is short and time moves too fast. Yet, photography has provided me with the way to try to stop, slow and savor moments that otherwise would have been lost. Even more, good photographs seem to be a concentration of life, a distillation like evaporated sea water where only the salt remains. And photography has become a means and a passport to get out into the world and to live life with more focus, intensity and passion. In a sense, what’s best about photography is that it has saved me. It’s saved me from myself and helped me to focus on others and on the grand mystery of life. And in doing so, photography has given me a new way to see and live.
What’s the thing that interests you most about photography?
The idea that the camera can help you dig more deeply, see more clearly and live life more fully.
What’s the thing that interests you most about your own photographs?
In my own photographs I am always struck by the autobiographical nature of them. In a sense, I can look at a photograph and remember who I was when I took it and how I changed because of it. And collectively, these photographs help me appreciate, remember and make sense of my own life story.
Read more of this Q&A with Chris here.
Find out more about Chris Orwig here.
Find Chris’ new book The Creative Fight here.
Read more Q&A’s with photographers here.

20 Questions With Photographer Vincent Versace

VersaceQA
Vincent Versace provides quick candid answers to 20 questions.
What’s the thing that interests you most about your own photographs?
They are all images of moments that took me, I did not take them.
What’s the thing that interests you most about other people’s photographs?
The way the world took them.
What’s the most useful photographic mantra?
Don’t take photographs. Be taken by your photographs.
Read the rest of Vincent’s Q&A here.
Read Vincent’s favorite quotes here.  
Read more 20 Questions With Photographers here.
Read more Photographer’s Favorite Quotes here.

20 Questions With Photographer Jay Maisel

Maisel_20Questions

Jay Maisel provides quick candid answers to 20 questions.

How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
It doesn’t move you in any way.

How do you know when an image is good?
It moves you emotionally.

How do you know when an image is great?
You don’t’ have to think about it, it just does.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?
Be open.

What is your greatest fear?
Blindness.

Read the rest of Jay’s Q&A here.

Read more 20 Questions With Photographers here.

Read Jay’s favorite quotes here.

Read a collection of quotes by Jay here.

Find out more about Jay Maisel here.

20 Questions With David duChemin

DavidDuchemin_Quotes425
David duChemin provides quick candid answers to a 20 questions.
What’s the best thing about photography?

The best thing about photography is the gift of seeing – really seeing – the moments in life that otherwise pass so quickly. It’s the elevation of what we normally see as mundane, or perhaps not the elevation of it so much as the recognition that it was beautiful to begin with.
What’s the worst thing about photography?

Like any storytelling medium or art, it’s easy to fall more in love with how we tell the stories than the stories themselves. I think photographers have an unusual relationship with their gear, one that can be beautifully collaborative or strangely incestuous.
What’s the thing that interests you most about other people’s photographs?

I like to see through the eyes of others, to see what I have not. I’m a very curious person and this gives me a glimpse into a world in ways I’ve not considered it.
Who were your early photographic influences? 
My earliest were portraitists, like …
Read the rest of David duChemin’s Q&A here.
Read other Q&A’s by other top photographers here.
Read a selection of David duChemin’s favorite quotes here.
Read other top photographers favorite quotes here.
Preview his new online course The Compelling Frame now.

20 Questions With Photographer Joyce Tenneson

Tenneson_Q&A

Joyce Tenneson provides quick candid answers to 20 questions
What’s the best thing about photography? 
Meeting new and interesting people.

What’s the worst thing about photography?
People always ask about equipment first!
What’s the thing that interests you most about your own photographs? 
It’s like looking at a diary…I can see who I was 10, 20 and 30 years ago!
What’s the thing that interests you most about other people’s photographs?
Seeing how other photographers problem solve, particularly with the content of their portraits.
Read the rest here.
Read other photographer’s answers to the same questions here.
Find out more about Joyce Tenneson here.

20 Questions With Photographer John Sexton

sexton2
John Sexton provides quick candid answers to 20 questions
How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
I know an image is not successful for me when, after a period of time, it does seem to produce any sort of what I call a “magic quotient.”
How do you know when an image is good?
I know an image is good for me when I find myself wanting to look at it again and again.
How do you know when an image is great?
I know an image is great for me when I can’t get it out of my mind.
What’s the most useful photographic mantra?
Photographs are illusions.
Read the rest here.
Read other photographer’s answers to the same questions here.
Find out more about John Sexton here.

20 Questions With Photographer Huntington Witherill



Huntington Witherill offers quick candid answers to 20 questions.
Here are some highlights.
How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
It will fail to communicate anything beyond the fact that it is a photographic record.
How do you know when an image doesn’t work?
It will fail to communicate anything beyond the fact that it is a photographic record.
How do you know when an image is good?
I know an image is good when it exhibits the following three (3) attributes:
#1- An interesting and effective use of light has been captured.
#2-  A visually stimulating and well-balanced composition has been employed.
#3- The technique and craftsmanship used to render the photograph itself demonstrates sufficient proficiency  so as not to disrupt or distract from either #1 or #2.
How do you know when an image is great?
I know an image is great if I am brought to tears.
How did photography change your world?
It caused me to view myself, and the world around me, in a much more personally effective and fulfilling way.
What are your answers to these questions?
Read the rest of his short Q&A here.
Read our extended conversation here.
Read more of Huntington’s favorite quotes here.
Find out more about Huntington Witherill here.