Here’s a collection of my favorite quotes on making connections. “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after...
“Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.” – Bertrand Russell Continuity lies at the heart of the art of storytelling. The types of images selected and the transitions made between images presented in groups can be powerful tools...
The first time I went to Namibia I used this storyboard to find more ideas and structure my thinking. Find out how it worked out at the end of this article. Movies are rarely shot without storyboarding them. Consider storyboarding your still photography projects...
Zoomorphism animates and connects these images. Photographs can often be well-crafted transcriptions of their subjects and nothing more. It’s usually that elusive ‘something more’ that makes great photographs, elevating them beyond craft to art. How can you bring more to your images? One way...
Decades ago, my friend Jeff Schewe asked me, “We both know how to do a lot of things to our images but how do you decide what to do to your images?” My response surprised him, “Talk with them.” Let me expand on that for...
Recently I had a wide-ranging conversation with Richard Bernabe for his Beyond The Lens podcast. I shared stories about being raised in a family of artists and how making art has helped me deepen my connections with the natural world and sustain me during these...
Complexity Intuited Order Eliot Porter saw a more complex geometry in nature. All types of artists look closely at their influences; particularly as they’re finding their own voice, or at key stages in their creative development, for many, it’s a lifelong process. The comparisons and...
“Who are your influences?” It’s a question often asked by professors to help artists grow, critics to place artists’ work and ideas in context, and audiences to understand artists’ creations. It’s also a question we can ask to do all of these things for ourselves....
You can learn a lot just by listening to yourself. Listen not only to the words you actually say, usually to others but also to the words you use in your inner dialog. When you speak about yourself, your creative life, and the works you...
Many people think vision and style are the same. They’re not. What’s the difference? Vision is what you have to say; style is how you say it. Confusing one for the other or focusing on one and not the other can be disastrous. Just because...
