We photographers know about 365 projects. Maybe you are engaged in a series now where you take and post a picture a day. There is a better way to think about it, however. Take 1 a day, share 1 a month. Of course, take at least one photo every day.  Explore the “backyard”. Find the small things and the intimate landscapes. Then, think about editing. After downloading, and enhancing your images, put them aside for a month. I often find that after a few weeks, images I thought were interesting at the time become quite bland. I feel fortunate to get 1 or two completely unique images a year. Just because I shot it, doesn’t mean I have to share it.

Why? The superfluity and pyroclastic flow of images on the web has made us a little weary. We no longer take time to interact with images other than clicking the cursor to give a “Like” or a +1. This suggests that sharing only your best images is good practice. And, as I assume viewers have seen my subject matter many times, I challenge myself to depict the subject in a fresh way. I’m not always successful, but it is motivating.

(Image: a Mahi – Mahi, an open ocean fish, this one caught while trolling in the Bahamas. on January 1, 2012).

In mid-January, a group of Spotted and Bottlenose dolphin raced on our bow. I was sailing in deep water in the Bahamas. Breathless, I delighted in filming them as they raced along side and zipped from bow to bow through the pristine water. With a fast exposure, water patterns rippled around a dolphin when it surfaced to take a breath (7D, 1/5000th second, F 4, Jan 15 off Cat Island).

Yesterday I took some pictures of spiderlings on the island of Eleuthera.

Surrounded by webbing, they were clustered in a yellow ball that exploded as I touched the leaf they were on. They re-grouped, and hung just 6 inches off the ground. In the Bahamas, “Eleuthera” means freedom, and having just shed their skins in moulting, I imagined the yellow spiderlings were celebrating their own freedom. Stuck to their web strands were their many discarded skins.
Like other living creatures, we photographers have skins. Metaphorically, some of our skins are habits which are tough to discard. They protect us and, at times, limit our freedom to grow. The longer I’ve had some of my skins, the more rigid they are. Here are some skins I’ve tried to cast off as a photographer, and the ideas that emerged afterwards that allowed for more freedom after I shed the old belief.

1. Old Skin / Belief : Set aside a time for photography.
New Skin: Making pictures can happen anytime that inspiration comes.

2. Old Skin: I have to see the image right away.
New Belief: Working with the process of film, and waiting, can help me make better photos.

3. Old Skin : I take good or bad pictures.
New Idea: I make pictures I find either more interesting or less so, and leave good and bad to critics.

4. Old Skin: “The negative is the score, the print is the performance.” (Adams) and SOOC, straight our of the camera is more pure.
New Belief: Images can grow and change continually. They can be changed at any time, in any way, and will be. There is no right way to create them.

5. Old Skin : I must have great gear and an “eye” for it to be a photographer.
New Belief: The Evolution of vision needs every kind of camera, a diversity of vision, and every kind of photographer.

FOCAL LENGTH  For portraits, I like to start at about 70mm. I had a 55mm lens on a crop sensor here, which makes about 82 mm .

MOOD  For travel portraiture, where you are in an unfamiliar place, it helps to find a setting where people are relaxed, and are themselves taking pictures,  such as a festival or party. I made this photo at a party on the beach, in the Bahamas.

POINT OF VIEW  Position your self ahead of time. I was already sitting next to her.  Look at the lighting before you shoot, and think about the background. Then,  take the photograph as quickly as possible.

CRITIQUE  While I choose a high ISO for this picture, and left the grain in the image deliberately, I’m not sure this was the best choice. I feel the spatial composition is too tight, and that I cropped it too much when I shot it, so in the future I’d include more of her head.

A friend said to me yesterday that she often does not share pictures because of the voices. I also have a critical voice inside my mind, I told her.

I call it “Merciless Critic.” My Merciless Critic sounds like the voice of The Joker from Batman. His voice has a biting tone, and it criticizes me with its favorite sound bites, like: “that’s a boring subject,” “you just can’t take good pictures today,” “that person will be angry if you take their picture,” “it’s too ( wet, snowy, cold) to go out shooting now,” and “you can’t do that until you have that lens you’ve been lusting for.” My Merciless Critic is a deadly accurate shooter with a vest full of painful ammo.

When I am sharing photos or doing photography, I often have to call upon a different persona. He is the motivator, the one that gets me to start making photographs. I call him the “Master Craftsman.” As I try to turn up the volume on his low, quiet, confident voice that says “You can do this”, I think maybe the reason he exists is to counter the Merciless Critic and nudge me to go grab the camera and head out the door…

Some days it takes a lot to get the Master Craftsman on his feet. Obviously, drinking Mr. Brown, espresso coffee, and long walks can help. To get his visual mind moving, the Master Craftsman often has to get his feet moving first. A walk outside, even in the worst weather, can usually awaken the Master Craftsman to some photo opportunities and start me shooting. It all comes down to taking taking that first cold, empty, lonely step while gripping the camera with whatever ennui, fatigue, or depression I feel. And as I do so, the voice of the Merciless Critic begins to fade.
At other times, the Merciless Critic is more persistent, and has a more cacophonous, shriller voice: “You call that a photograph, HA, you make me laugh, what were you thinking!” He sounds somewhat like David Sedaris. His best trick is to nit pick: “your colors are off”, “the developer was exhausted, you’ve got no contrast in that print,” “that horizon is tilted” “they’ll tear this apart in critique.” He is the Devil of the Details. His effect is to stop me from sharing or shooting.

In response, I try to engage my Master Craftsman. He has to open the door to the mental tool shed, and reach for some useful tools. Holding onto them, the Master Craftsman knows they are the most valuable gear he can offer me. Now I am no master craftsman, but these tools are helpful ideas about making pictures that I’ve found true from experience:

Five Tools and Sayings of the Master Craftsman:

1. Slow Down. The best tool you can take with you into the field is an extra day. Taking my time is always a good answer to the Merciless Critic, who pushes to hurry up and rush the process. He is an expert at glancing, without taking the time to see. But the Master Craftsman knows that good photographs mean slowly letting go of self to turn to the world outside.
2. Photographers Are Like Musicians: We Must Practice Every Day. The Merciless Critic often tries to convince me that other photographers perform feats of magic.
Says the critic: ” You’ll never be as good as Olga Ivanova, Joe McNally, or Annie Liebovitz.” Then there is a pause, and the Master Craftsman answers that doing photography is a lot like dancing tango or playing music: what looks like feats of magic in photography are the result of a lot of practice.
3. GO Around GAS. It’s better to shoot today with the camera you own than wait for the one you lust for.
4. Be Here Now. The Merciless Critic loves to freeze open the shutter with fixed ideas from the past, fog my lens with images of the future, and use any trick to keep the Master Craftsman from being fully here, now.
5. Feel It: Emotion is more Important than Detail. Doing photography on your own, or taking photo walks with friends, is a process of awareness. This process is a lot more important than the product. The Merciless Critic nit picks at the product, but the Master Craftsman is mindful of the emotions of the process. And your images where you felt intense emotion or connection during the photographing are the ones that will survive over time.

Photograph: Cuban Tree Frog in Bahamas, Bellows, Spiratone 75 mm Flat Field macro lens, Canon 7D.

Click play to see a short series (<1 min) of Jim's Bahamas images on your iPhone or screen.

leaving the door to
camera, and mind’s eye
unlocked

This month I am sailing to the Bahamas. There, keeping all the doors unlocked for 3 months is like unlocking the doors to photography. The idea is to be open to outside ideas and still stay balanced and afloat.

Sailing on a boat full time, there is nothing to get in the way of photography. There are images in every harbor.  The only barriers to making images are the locked doors of the mind’s eye. Yes, there will be old rusty mental locks left from childhood that protect photographic habits . . .but, over time, it’s possible to find keys to fresh ways of seeing.

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Those old Kodak signs and instructions taught us you had to have the sun at your back.

Well, that’s not always true. Sometimes we want light from the side. Other times we want to back light the subject, and put the light behind the bird.

Try back-lighting. Move to a place where the light is coming from behind your subject. It helps to have a lens shade. For this great white egret portrait, I used a lens shade on a tripod-mounted telephoto lens. The digital camera was set to fast shutter speeds and high capture rate, and over an hour I exposured about 30 images. This one became “Light Snack.”

Great Egrets almost went extinct at the end of the 19th century, killed so their plumes could be used for hat decorations. The bird’s numbers have since recovered as a result of conservation measures, with much of the work done by the Audubon Society, and today the bird is the symbol of the National Audubon Society.