Latest Black and white Podcast Episodes
HT1854 - The Terrible, Awful, Horrible Non-Problem of Diffraction
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - April 01, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1854 - The Terrible, Awful, Horrible Non-Problem of Diffraction With some regularity, we are advised by the wise leaders in photography to avoid using the smallest apertures because of the introduction of that focus softening known as diffraction. My advice is to ignore their advice. Not tha...
HT1853 - The Disappearing Megapixels
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 31, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1853 - The Disappearing Megapixels Congratulations on your new 42 megapixel (or 60 megapixel) camera. You can now make giant prints. Good for you. But what happens to those megapixels if you don't make giant prints? What happens if you make a 13x19", or even a 17x22" print? All those capture...
HT1852 - PPI For Printing
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 30, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1852 - PPI For Printing Experts who seem to know a lot more than I do recommend one of three resolutions for high detail printing. Most commonly I've seen 360 PPI recommended, but also 300 PPI, and 240 PPI. Not knowing which to use, I decided to evaluate using the good old-fashioned method o...
HT1851 - Long Shutter Work Around
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 29, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1851 - Long Shutter Work Around These days, I'm using a tripod less and less. One area that has plagued me is long exposure photography, for example, lacy waterfalls. I've accidentally discovered an interesting workaround that produced surprisingly good results.
HT1857 - Toned vs False Color
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 28, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1857 - Toned vs False Color When a black and white image is toned, the mood shifts but the believability does not. There is a reason that a color image that deviates from reality is referred to as false color. But we never hear a toned black and white image referred to as a false black and w...
HT1850 - The Myth of Universal Vision
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 28, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1850 - The Myth of Universal Vision The premise with which we make our photographs is that there is a view that is best. We sweat bullets over the perfect tones, color balance, contrast ratios, etc. We do so under the assumption that when we get it right everybody will see what we see. But t...
HT1849 - Massive Projects
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 27, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1849 - Massive Projects It seems that every photographer I know has at least one massive project, maybe more, that resists completion. Maybe it's the fact that it is so massive, so overwhelming, so unmanageable that makes it so difficult. Is there a strategy that helps manage these massive p...
HT1848 - Camera to Eye, or Eye to Camera
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 26, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1848 - Camera to Eye, or Eye to Camera There is a reason why an overwhelming majority of pictures are made from 5 to 6 ft off the ground. Strangely enough, it doesn't have anything to do with that being the best way to view the world. It has to do with camera design which encourages us to li...
LW1394 - Your Intent Is Paramount
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 25, 2024 04:00 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsLW1394 - Your Intent Is Paramount The other day, I heard once again, for the billionth time, a photographer say that however a viewer wanted to interpret their work was okay with them. Why are photographers so reluctant to make a declarative statement that is unambiguous? If you leave it up to...
HT1847 - Translation
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 25, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1847 - Translation In human communication, the role of the translator is a fascinating one. Do they merely convert words from one language to another? Or, do they accept the higher responsibility of conveying the meaning and subtleties in their translation. This is exactly the same question ...
HT1846 - Details and the Inverse Square Law
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 24, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1846 - Details and the Inverse Square Law Probably most of you are aware of the Inverse Square Law relative to lighting and maybe relative to audio recording. I like to apply it to the optical quality of my images, too. Move twice as far away and the objects shrink to 1/4th the size. Convers...
HT1845 - Old Training vs The World Today
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 23, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1845 - Old Training vs The World Today A lot of what I learned in my view camera days is still relevant and useful. Some of those early lessons I find are now habits and ways of thinking that are now obstacles based on training that is downright illogical. ISO is a good example.
HT1844 - Spinal Tap Meets Photography
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 22, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1844 - Spinal Tap Meets Photography If you hang around photography long enough, you'll begin to discern the patterns that sweep over the photographic world like waves in a tsunami. I automatically resist such fads and eventually come to detest them. Please, photographic world, stop oversatur...
HT1843 - Our Creative Life as a Series of Completions
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 21, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1843 - Our Creative Life as a Series of Completions With each new album they released, The Beatles defined their evolving career. Painters are said to have "periods" that define their evolving vision. I'm not sure if this is a model we photographers should follow, or if it's just something t...
HT1842 - Another Way to Increase Sharpness
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 20, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1842 - Another Way to Increase Sharpness Is there a lesson about sharpness we can learn from comic strip artists? Perhaps. They hand draw their comic strips much larger than we see in the newspaper. The image is then reduced to fit the size we see in print. That size reduction increases visu...
HT1841 - Identify the Barriers
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 19, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1841 - Identify the Barriers There are things we want to do, and there are things that prevent us from doing it. A good first step is to identify the barriers. Write them down. Make them concrete. Then explore the possibilities of your work if that barrier were completely eliminated. Not res...
LW1393 - On Destinations
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 18, 2024 04:00 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsLW1393 - On Destinations In an overly simplistic way, I tend to divide the arena of fine art photography into two camps. For some photographers, the destination/location is the thing they pursue to make the best photographs. For others (myself included), the pursuit of ideas/response/connectio...
HT1840 - Textured Paper
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 18, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1840 - Textured Paper One of the reasons I like folios, chapbooks, and other handheld photographic media is because of the tactile sense of texture that can come through with certain papers. But tactile texture is not the only texture: we can also have visual texture, which is often the only...
HT1839 - Your Cloud Inventory
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 17, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1839 - Your Cloud Inventory Photoshop's relatively new Sky Replacement tool is a fantastic addition for fine art photographers. It also motivates us to collect an inventory of cloud images that we can use with other pictures. Another great example of gathering assets! All previous episodes...
HT1838 - More on Natural Vision
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - March 16, 2024 04:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1838 - More on Natural Vision Does your natural vision lens create your best photographs? Or do the best photographs come about when you use a lens that is not your natural vision, but one that you need to work a little harder with because it doesn't come easily?
HT1814 - ISO 12,800 Revisited
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 21, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1814 - ISO 12,800 Revisited In my film days, I shot mostly using ASA 25 film for the finest grain possible. To this day, my natural reflex is to shoot at the lowest ISO on my digital camera. Recently, I shot an entire project using ISO 6400 and ISO 12,800, processed using Lightroom's new DeN...
HT1813 - Electronic Shutters
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 20, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1813 - Electronic Shutters Growing up in the era before digital photography, it never occurred to me that there was any other way to construct a shutter than a mechanical one. Even when I adopted digital means, I still used the mechanical shutter exclusively. I've now changed that philosophy...
LW1389 - Gear, Part 2 - Game Changers
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 19, 2024 05:00 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsLW1389 - Gear, Part 2 - Game Changers Eight game-changing developments in photography that have revolutionized my creative life. The impact of these becomes apparent when I try to imagine doing photography without any of these revolutions. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are avail...
HT1812 - Suffering Is Not a Measure of Excellence
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 19, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1812 - Suffering Is Not a Measure of Excellence How much you have to endure is not in the least related to the excellence of your photographs. The minute a photographer starts to tell me their capture story, I get suspicious. Besides, if an image is easy and falls into your lap, does that me...
HT1811 - Connect the Dots, um, Images
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 18, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1811 - Connect the Dots, um, Images In the early stages of developing a project, the search is for images that connect to one another without repeating. I like to think of this as similar to the child's game of connect the dots. Only when the dots are connected in the correct sequence will t...
HT1810 - A Camera for the Car
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 17, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1810 - A Camera for the Car How many times have I been out and about when I unexpectedly see a terrific image with gorgeous sunlight, but I'm frustrated because my camera is at home on the shelf? The most expensive and capable camera is useless if it's home on the shelf. I finally learned th...
HT1809 - Reasons for Techniques
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 16, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1809 - Reasons for Techniques Last weekend, I was involved in a big workshop with dozens of photographers discussing their images in an educational setting. It's always fun to see how someone accomplishes a photograph, but I can't remember a single instance where the photographer explained w...
HT1808 - The Perfect Lens
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - February 15, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1808 - The Perfect Lens We all want flawless, optically perfect lenses. What if I were to ask you for a quantitative measure of the sharpness you need? How sharp is sharp enough? Is sharpness a constant across all genres of images? Or is acceptable for one subject overkill for another? To co...
HT1792 - WWMWT - What Would Minor White Think?
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - January 30, 2024 05:00 - 2 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsHT1792 - WWMWT - What Would Minor White Think? Minor White famously said, "Don't just photograph what it is, photograph what else it is." I don't think he meant just turning up the volume. I wonder how he would react to today's common approach of photographing not just what it is, but photogra...
LW1386 - Photography Is Not About Photography
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process - January 29, 2024 05:00 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 359 ratingsLW1386 - Photography Is Not About Photography A novel is not about the process of novel writing. A poem is not about language and rhyme. Music is not about the manipulation of an instrument. All arts, including photography, are about something else, about life, about emotions and feelings, abo...
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