Portrait by Chris Orwig

Joyce Tenneson provides candid answers to a variety of 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.

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John Sexton provides candid answers to a variety of 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.

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 In a recent quick Q&A session, photographer Huntington Witherill offered succinct answers to a number of 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.

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Chris Orwig is a celebrated photographer, author, speaker, interactive designer and on the faculty of Brooks Institute Of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA. Chris brings passion to all that he does with an insatiable knack for creativity and discovery – and he shares it with us in this Q&A session.

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.

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

When an image is too obvious, too straightforward or too cliché I know that it isn’t going to work. Often, it’s these images that first catch my eye, yet the eye can easily be deceived. As one of my mentors once said, “Learning how to look and then look again, is as important as learning how to capture a frame.”

How do you know when an image is good?

I’m interested in capturing photographs that are authentic, alive and real. I like pictures that don’t feel staged but get beneath the surface of things. I like pictures that are simple, strong and can’t quite be placed in a particular time. What makes one of these photographs good is when I still feel it has these qualities a number of weeks after the fact. An image is good when it stands the test of time.

How do you know when an image is great?

An image is great when it can’t quite be explained. Rather than being “clear” these images have a poetic element of mystery that draws you in and deepens who you are and how you see the world. These images are timeless, they captivate and compel.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?

As Marc Riboud said, “Photography is savoring life at 1/100th of second.”

Read more of this Q&A with Chris here.

Find a collection of Chris’ favorite quotes here.

Browse Chris books Visual Poetry and People Pictures here.

Watch Chris’ TEDx video here.

Find out more about Chris Orwig here.

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Q&A – Sean Duggan

November 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Sean Duggan provides candid answers to a variety of questions

What’s the best thing about photography?
It provides a window through which we can view our own world, as well as the world beyond our experience, other realities and other visions.

What’s the worst thing about photography?
That there so much of it. Our culture is so inundated with photographs that they can become the visual equivalent of background noise

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

The way they see and interpret their world. Their unique visions show me things I could not imagine, and present new conceptual pathways to follow.

What benefits do you get from (this/these) other art form/s?
Poetry helps me to be visually sensitive to the possibility of metaphor in an image; it helps me appreciate photographs as visual poems.

Writing helps me to more fully explore and understand ideas and concepts.

Making sculptural assemblages is a tactile and three-dimensional way to explore ideas through the combination of different materials and found objects. This work often directly influences my “Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin” series of photographs.

What failure did you learn the most from?
No particular failure, but the general idea that in any failure there is an opportunity to learn something, to take that knowledge, start again, and do it better.

Read the rest of Sean’s answers here.

Read other photographers answers to the same questions here.

Find out more about Sean Duggan here.

Find more Photographers On Photography resources here.

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Q&A – Sean Kernan

November 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment


Sean Kernan provides candid answers to a variety of questions.

What’s the best thing about gear?

It’s poetic sense of capability and precision.

What’s the worst thing about gear?

It can seduce you into thinking you can take good photographs if you have it.

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

When it merely describes a surfaec but is not in itself alive.

How do you know when an image is good?

When it takes me into some new space or understanding, beyond photography.

How do you know when an image is great?

When it smacks me and enlarges me at once, and then does it again when I see it 20 years later.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?

Shoot first, ask questions later.

Do you practice another art form? (If so, which?)

Chinese calligraphy, video.

What benefits do you get from (this/these) other art form/s?

From calligraphy, a very acute sense of the role of space, of emptiness. From video, a sense of time that is quite like music.

Read the more of Sean’s answers here.

Read answers to the same questions by other photographers here.

Learn more about Sean Kernan here.

Read my Photographers On Photography conversation with Sean here.

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Q&A – Phil Borges

November 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Phil Borges provides candid answers to a variety of questions.

What’s the best thing about photography?

Photography has been the key that has let me enter cultural worlds very different from my own.

How do you know when an image is great?

You can feel it. It moves you emotionally.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?

‘Get closer’.

What failure did you learn the most from?

Losing my cool with difficult people. It always fails.

What’s the best thing about influence?

You can bring about change.

What’s the worst thing about influence?

Change isn’t always good.

What’s the best thing about our times?

Technology.

What’s the worst thing about our times is?

Technology.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Persistence.

What do you most value in your friends?

Humor, authenticity.

Read the rest of Phil’s answers here.

 

Learn more about Phil Borges here.

Find Phil’s books here.

Find out about Phil’s latest project / book Tibet : Culture On the Edge here.

Watch Phil’s TED presentation here.

Read answers to the same questions by other photographers here.

Read my series Photographers On Photography here.

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Seth Resnick provides candid answers to a variety of questions.

Find out more about Seth Resnick here.

Find out about our Digital Photo Destinations workshops here.

Read answers to the same questions by other photographers here.

Read my series Photographers On Photography here.

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Arthur Meyerson provides candid answers to a variety of questions.

What’s the best thing about photography?

Taught me how to “see”.

What’s the worst thing about photography?

We are inundated with photographs… not enough vision.

What’s the best thing about gear?

Allows me to capture what I see

What’s the worst thing about gear?

Weight, cost and continually thinking I need to upgrade plus the never-ending conversation about gear

What was the most significant visual moment in your life?

I once had a dream in slide show form and each still image “came alive” becoming a dream within a dream.

Which was the most important image to you that got away?

Spending a day with Cartier-Bresson and NOT photographing him.

Read more of Arthur’s answers here.

Find out more about Arthur Meyerson here.

Read answers to the same questions by other photographers here.

Read my extended conversation with Arthur Meyerson here.

Read my series Photographers On Photography here.

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Eric Meola reveals what’s so special about photography – twice!

Here’s an excerpt of our extended conversation.

EM
I was almost literally hit by a bolt of lightning when I saw a print come up in the developer. My dad was a doctor, and one of his patients was an engineer whose hobby was photography. I was 12 years old at the time, and my father asked him to teach me about photography. My own hobby was “magic”- magic tricks. As soon as I saw the grays and blacks materialize under red light, I made an immediate, intense association and realized instantly that I wanted to be a photographer.

JPC
So is photography still a magic trick for you today?

EM
Well, it’s still magic…of course it is…and even more so. The ability to make our own archival prints and have completely control over the color is magic…and seeing new talent emerge is magic…and having more time now to shoot my own images is magic. We make the magic, or we don’t. And right now I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had, working on my own projects and books.

First, read my conversation with Eric Meola here.

Second, read Eric’s answers to 20 questions (more or less) here.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?
Never stop looking.

What’s the thing you most hope to accomplish?
Making someone else excited about photography.

If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?
I’d shoot a lot more – a LOT more.

Read the rest of his answers here.

Find out more about Eric Meola here.

Visit Eric Meola’s blog Seeing In Color here.

Find out about our workshops in Antarctica and Greenland here.

 

Read more Photographers On Photography here.

Read more Photographer’s Q&A’s here.

 

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