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Why do I do it? I know, it is a cryptic question and title. No, I’m not attempting to do a clickbait title. It is a real question and it pertains to a couple of different actions.

First, why do I do it, as “it” pertains to photography? For me, there are probably many reasons but I will say the most important is that photography gives me a venue to express myself artistically. I enjoy getting a final product. Something that both myself and others think is interesting, compelling, an object of beauty, emotional, or thought-provoking. I spend countless hours reading, studying, experimenting with, and practicing my photography skills. It is one of my life obsessions. Photography is something I can become very compassionate about.

The other “it” to which I refer is this blog. There are days I get disillusioned with the few views I get, but then I remember I started this because the blog and writing are an extension of my photography. I also have a few readers that are very regular and occasionally I hit a chord with them. As an example, last night I received a message from a reader that consisted of a link to an article. The link was to an article, Postmodernism in photography. You can find the article here. The reader and friend said the article reminded them of some of my posts on straight photography. This is wonderful to me because it shows me that the size of the audience doesn’t always matter as long as I can make some connection. I am fortunate that I have a few readers of this blog who have made a connection and that is what keeps me going.

This is why I do “it”. I’m sure you all have your reasons and may, from time to time, ask yourself why do you keep going because it doesn’t seem like anyone is paying attention or is interested. It doesn’t matter how big your audience is, keep plugging away. Sometimes, you may not know who or how you’re making connections. You may be surprised. Keep creating your art, your writing, and sharing your creative ideas and concepts with the world. You may be the motivation others need or want.

Who decides your work is art? Is it you, the artist? Is it your audience? Is it an art curator? Is your work not art unless it is or has been displayed in a gallery? Who decides?

There are those who argue that art is what the artist decides. If an artist creates something with intent, it is the intentions of the artist that make something art. There are those who argue that it is the audience, the viewers of the work whose decision makes something is art. If they don’t determine the work to be art, then it doesn’t matter the intentions of the artist. There are those who say it is the powers that be, critics, journalists, curators, gallery owners because they are the trained and educated eyes.

For me, it is a combination of at least two of those groups. Certainly, the artist has a play in it, but what about people like Vivian Maier? She probably never intended her work to be considered art and yet today her work is displayed big name galleries. In Vivian Maier’s case, it is the “powers that be” and the audience who decided.

Since not all of us will ever have our work displayed in the big name art galleries, it comes down to our intentions as an artist and our audience. The size of our audience is often irrelevant as long as it extends beyond ourselves.

Certainly we should listen to the powers that be, the critics, the curators, and the gallery owners as they may help us to grow and mature our art, just as our audience. Without the outside influence and views of others we do not grow and mature as artists. Listen to your audience and the critics to grow your art into the masterpieces you dream about.

Photography is the only art form where some people require the artwork to represent reality. People don’t worry about reality in a painting. The artist can paint a scene as they imagine it or perceive it. The same goes for drawing or sculpture.

There are some forms of photography that must be as close to reality as is possible. Forensic and photojournalism, even though journalism as a whole has taken a hit due to both perceived and real bias or alteration of facts, but anything else, especially, fine art photography it should be left to the freedom of the artist.

Let’s take a look at the image above and put it to the reality test. First, the vast majority of the world’s human population does not see in black and white. So immediately the image above fails the reality test. Okay, you say we can give that a pass. Below is what the scene looked like in actual reality.

This photograph was taken on the east side of a building at 1:40 PM in mid October. This was an alleyway in downtown Kansas City, on a bright sunny day. Off to the camera left is an assistant holding a large reflector. to light the subject. This is what the scene looked like in reality. Not nearly as interesting as the final image. With a little bit of creative light metering and the use of post-processing I was able to get the image below.

So, if this was my intent for a fine art photograph is this okay? Most people would agree it is fine, we’re “allowed” to do this level of manipulation.

How about the next image?

When we look at a scene like this we don’t see the smooth flowing water, but again we call that permissible.

The image above has the sky replaced, a “ghost” added, lots of dodging and burning. Now some would say we’re going too far that “we’ve altered reality”.

The image above versus the original below.

Now we have really gone too far for some. The final image is totally altered reality.

As a photographic artist to hell with reality and what the purists say. My goal is to create art as I wish. If you like it fine, if you don’t not my problem. Don’t let others stop you from creating your art. Don’t worry about altering reality. Make your art, that is where the real freedom comes as an artist.

In September 2021 I went on a photography trip with a friend. The goal was to get a photograph of the Milky Way in the Flint Hills of Kansas. The featured photograph is from that trip. The entire trip was set up to take a photograph of the Milky Way, but we drove past a lot of scenes that were very photographic.

We were driving to a location, a secondary site, when we saw an old one room school house. We stopped and I got these two shots.

The photograph above was near a location we decided to visit. I was walking down the street looking for something worthy, in my mind, and saw this old fence at the back of a building.

How many of you have, like me, been heading to your destination of a photographic trip and drove past something and thought “someday I’ll stop here” or saw a scene that caught your eye but kept on going.

As Wayne Gretzy said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. Don’t wait to stop and get the shot, because as I have found sometimes that shot disappears forever.

Why did you get interested in photography? I wasn’t ever really interested in art in my youth. I really didn’t have any hobbies. I took art class in school because it was a requirment to graduate.

For me, I was given a camera as a gift by mother in my mid twenties. I can’t even remember why she decided to give me a camera, a Canon AE-1. (I still have that camera by the way). After getting the camera which I knew nothing about I began to learn a bit. I even got to the point of developing my own black and white film. I somewhere along the line I lost interest in photography until 2005 when I bought a Nikon D50. By this time I was 47 years old. I had a somewhat stressful job and needed something to get away and relax.

Once I got my shiny new digital SLR camera my whole view of photography changed. I studied everything I could find. I eventually even went to school and got a photography education.

For me, photography is a bit about expressing my view of the world around me. It is about self-expression, even though I’m often reluctant to express my true self to others. I guess that is a bit of a concern that others may not like my work or think I’m weird. As I write this, I’m truly considering exploring that possibilty. Maybe art is more about expression of ourselves rather than what we think others want to see.

I don’t live where I think “if I had only done things different”. The past is gone and it can’t be changed. I live saying, “I’m moving forward and see where this takes me”. I’m going to share my journey with the world, as best as I can, and express myself and my views in an honest way. For me that is why photography. Photography allows me the creative venue I have learned to use through cameras, lenses, lighting, and Photoshop manipulation. My challenge to you, is let’s do this together. Maybe we can start to change the world for the better, one image at a time.

I forget this often, make art for yourself. This is my new mantra. Back in the beginning of my photographic journey that was what I did, made art for myself. Then, I started to follow the words of others and would make art to please the review of others. I found that it wasn’t as much fun as making photographs and processing them to my satisfaction but rather what others thought to be good.

I get it, if you’re in business to sell the art you have to produce art that sells, but isn’t it likely that if you make what you like you can find others who like it. We may have to market to a different audience but there is an audience for it. For me, if something sells fine, if it doesn’t sell that is also fine.

As artists we need to express ourselves as we are and give the world a glimpse inside our minds eye. Let the world see the subjects of your art through your eye. Make art for yourself. Enjoy your art.

We often see articles on upgrading photogrpahically. We see loads of reviews on gear, We engage in conversations about new gear and upgrading gear. Each of these things is nice. We all love new stuff, but the absolute greatest upgrade you can make to your photography isn’t gear. The greatest upgrade to better photography is better knowledge and skill development!

A bit of a story to help explain. I recently read a post on social media where a photographer experienced some issues while taking photographs. The post started something like this, “I’ve been a photographer for 45 years and I went to take photographs as an indoor basketball game. All the photographs have a color cast”. It went on to talk about a few things he had attempted, mostly by adjusting the white balance setting on the camera. The resulting comments were even more telling, so far as one suggestion was to just convert the images to black and white. My whole point is this, in all of the 45 years, this photographer hadn’t ever ran into a color cast before? Or any of those who were commenting? Yes, color casts can be difficult, but the photographer that made the post included photographs from the very venue that gave him the problems and none had a color cast.

Some photogrpahers spend so much more time concerned about the technology and new gear than they do about learning and enhancing their skills. It has never been easier to learn. We can literally carry internet connected devices in our pockets that can access countless resources for learning. We have access in our pockets to both text based and audible books. There are countless tutorial, both video and text, on virtually any method/program to post-process our photographs. There is a multitude of schools teaching photographic techniques both remotely and in-person.

Don’t just sit back and believe you can’t learn something new, refresh your knowledge, or enhance your skills. Take advantage of the availability of resources to learn and enhance your skills. Spend a bit of your photographic budget on learning. You’ll be surprised at the value of that upgrade.