The secret to a productive day of creative work on the computer, for me, is Command Q. Tweet Deck, closed. Mac Mail, closed. Fetch, closed. Safari, Firefox and Chrome, closed. Dreamweaver, closed. Capture NX2, closed, Photoshop closed, Text Edit, closed. iTunes, open, and Photo Mechanic, open. 35 minutes of initial photo sorting/editing and keywording and I get an awful lot done.
Then, Command O and Capture NX2 opens up. Select the images from Photo Mechanic, and hit Command E. Those images open in Capture NX2. Command Q again, and Photo Mechanic shuts down. I do my basic RAW editing, conversions, etc, and open the images in Adobe Photoshop. Command Q and Capture NX2 shuts down as well.
A large male adult brown bear, or grizzly bear (Ursus arctos), stands and stares at the camera. Male brown bears may reach weights of over 1200lbs and easily stand 9′ tall. Brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
One of my main goals last year, photographically, was to shoot more ‘bears in the landscape’ style shots; images such as this one were what I was really after. Of course, that doesn’t mean I would pass up an opportunity to fill the frame with a bear like this, either.
This kind of image is all about the bear; power, size and vitality. The bears in the landscape speak a little more about place. Fascinating subject, place.
I just got back from a trip to Denali National Park and Preserve, where I spent some time in a cabin in the woods, by a fire, trying to stay warm. The day we skied in to the park, the temperatures plummeted, from the 0 to – 5 degreeF range to minus 40 and minus 45. The experience of the Alaska backcountry at that kind of temperature is something else.
It was a cool experience, hanging out with my friend, Erik DeLuca, music composer from Virginia, while he concentrated on doing some soundscape recordings and trying his best to experience a ‘sense of place’ in a landscape like this. We chatted a lot about what that means, what it does for us, and why it might be important. I commandeered Erik’s book, “Place: A Short Introduction“, (author: Tim Cresswell) and read over it during the long dark nights. It’s interesting stuff.
Web stats, graphs and keywords and search terms – click the image to view a larger version of this “photo”.
Hey Folks,
By now, everyone with a website knows something about keywords; in some ways, keywords are your website. Many multi-national corporations have an entire section of their company marketing team devoted to the study of keywords. What are people searching for, and how do people find your website?
Keywords aren’t all about search engines though; via social media you have a powerful tool to drive traffic to your website. And keywords help enormously with that.
Coyote pup sitting beside yellow daisies, Jasper National Park, Canada.
BBC = bBS
Hey Folks,
Here’s an interesting article from the UK Telegraph; the first paragraph pretty much sums things up: “The BBC is accused of routinely faking footage in wildlife documentaries, by using studio sets, sound effects and tame animals to portray creatures in the wild.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking: yes, indeed, the UK Telegraph commenting on any media source of ‘faking’ anything is pretty sad. Let’s disregard tabloid integrity for a moment and consider what this is really about (and what’s WAY more fun); wildlife photography.
Wildlife photography does not include zoo and game farm animals; shooting captive subjects, given that some folks are perpetually going to choose to do this, should always be labelled as such, even if only via context (see Darwin Wiggett’s bear photo for an example; and notice that he captioned it regardless).
I have yet to hear anyone explain how photographing a bear in a cage is wildlife anything. The root of the word ‘wild’ is free-willed, not Free Willy. I understand, for certain, there are degrees of what that might mean. Is a zebra migrating hundreds of miles across the plains in Africa before being hemmed in by a fence really free willed? *
The fact that there are indeed myriad shades of gray, woven through every possible facet of our world, does not make charcoal black any less black. We might differ on where 18% gray is, but we know what black is.
The article is by Michael Michalko, “one of the most highly acclaimed creativity experts in the world and author of the best sellers Thinkertoys (A Handbook of Business Creativity), ThinkPak (A Brainstorming Card Deck), and Cracking Creativity (The Secrets Of Creative Genius)” – hhhmmm …. I’m seeing a pattern here.
I think perhaps the biggest ‘myth’ we hold about creative thinking is something that comes from this article and others like it.
What It Really Means to Be a Professional Photographer
Brown bear, Ursus arctos, standing raised upright and rubbing her back against a birch tree in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
I can’t imagine my father ever calling himself a “professional University lecturer” or my brother referring himself to as a “professional math teacher”.
The word professional means many things; but when it’s followed with a vocation, such as “photographer”, it doesn’t mean that you enjoy photography a lot, or that you speak politely about it, or that someone bought a print from you. It doesn’t even mean that you have a website. It doesn’t mean you teach workshops and lead tours, either.
Sacrifice as a requirement of the trade
Show me a professional photographer, and I’ll wager a dollar I’ll show you someone who’s struggled to pay their rent. Show me a professional wildlife photographer and I’ll show you someone who’s sold gear to make their car payment (or sold their car to make their gear payment), someone who’s eaten peanut butter sandwiches because that’s what was available to eat.
Boreal forest and reflections in a small kettle pond, Copper River Basin, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska..
Hey Folks,
It’s often said that art can teach us how to live. This is true, yet it’s also commonly misinterpreted. The product of art, what we call the photograph, or the lyric, or the dance, doesn’t teach us how to live. The product of art, these artifacts, can show us how someone ELSE lived.
On the other hand, the making of art (which is REALLY where art is), can teach us how to live.
This process, the making of art, illustrates how we might live; how we might be fully present, engaged, conscious. More fully alive.
