Protokoll

Another one of those too-busy-to-post-anything-longer-than-a-recommendation-posts: Check out Christian Lutz' series Protokoll - a master of capturing facial expressions.

What the Duck

Too busy to feed this blog at the moment. Today I'll just leave you a link: What the Duck. Check out the archive and enjoy.

You cannot plan for this...

Encouraging words by Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey (found via apadnews). Sounds a lot like self improvement talk - I still like it:

... give yourself the "assignment" or the "grant" that you would dream someone would give you....find a personal project and do it without regard for later "sales"...the best kind of "commercial success" or "artistic success" will come to you only if you work in this way.....it will come in ways that you cannot imagine....you cannot plan for this....you must go with your gut....only in this way will anyone, editor or publisher or gallerist, ever see who you really are...what you really DO...
this will be absolutely 100 percent not easy....this will be absolutely 100 percent worth it...

Ok, so I'll just keep going and everything will fall into place... eventually... soon... tomorrow... (does impatience fit into the scheme?)

Food for the mind's eye

On his no-photo blog Unphotographable Michael David Murphy posts verbal depictions of decisive moments which he missed because he forgot to bring his camera or was not brave or attentive enough to click the shutter. Short prose which stimulates your ability to visualize (which might already have been be wearied from looking at too many actual photographs...).

I for my part leave a lot of decisive moments or sights unphotographed cause I rarely carry a camera when not in shooting mode (or mood). Yesterday I had one around my neck when I saw that guy pregnant with his two dogs. Not taking that picture would not have made any difference for me though.

Feedback Loop

In those long days before myfirstbook (see below and soon above) hits the shelves I stocked up on even more booksbyothers than I usually do in such a time span. Among them was Stephen Shore's "The Nature of Photographs" (Phaidon). An all-purpose book: for those with more than a slight and those with more than enough interest in photography; for those who tend to own only a handful of books on photography and for those who have to have them all.

Shore as a teacher. I'll borrow his last paragraph (which sounds familiar):

When I make a photograph, my perceptions feed into my mental model. My model adjusts to accommodate my perceptions (leading me to change my photographic decisions). This modelling adjustment alters, in turn, my perceptions. And so on. It is a dynamic, self-modifying process. It is what an engineer would call a feedback loop.
It is a complex, ongoing, spontaneous interaction of observation, understanding, imagination, and intention.

If you feel the same you can buy the rest here