Here’s an old clip in which Steve Jobs talks about how he sees the world:
When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.
That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.
All the most famous and powerful images captured throughout history were shot by ordinary human beings as well…
Here’s another cool example of what’s possible when you combine creativity with an insane amount of dedication: animator Jonathan Chong spent hundreds of hours creating this stop motion video for the song “Against The Grain” by the Australian band Hudson. He animated everything by hand, and captured 5125 individual photographs of 920 pencils for the three-minute long finished product. Read the rest of this entry »
If you think you can’t compete as a photographer because you’re past a certain age, think again. Here’s a fantastic quote by National Geographic Editor-in-Chief Chris Johns from an interview he gave back in 2005:
There are a lot of exciting photographers out there. Our new director of photography, David Griffin, and assistant director Susan Smith are making a much stronger push than we have in the past to identify young, emerging talent. They’re not necessarily age-specific either. Often photographers start to find their traction in their 50s.
Johns also says that photography’s transition to digital has also helped photographers develop more quality; getting feedback is easier than ever, and many of the prohibitive costs are no more.
Australian photographer Liam McHenry tells the inspiring story of an encounter he had with a confrontational teenager when doing street photography. What started out as a situation spiraling out of control instantly changed when his subject suddenly “understood” his photography. McHenry says that the big revelation he had through the experience was: “it’s never just a photo.”
Here’s an inspiring and educational video in which Marc Silber sits down to chat with photographer Michael Zagaris — a man who has had a career as the official shooter for both rock bands (e.g. Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin) and sports teams (e.g. San Francisco 49ers, Oakland A’s).
Here’s an inspiring video in which photographer and speaker Dewitt Jones talks about how he looks for “right answers” when he was doing assignments for National Geographic. Rather than specific tips or techniques, he mostly talks about high level ideas while showing off some of his stunning photographs.
Photographer Nathan Seabrook made this creative stop-motion music video for the band Yuba Diamond. Despite what your eyes might tell you to believe, no computer trickery was used. Instead, Seabrook used roughly 1700 separate prints and some old fashioned techniques (e.g. fishing line and projecting scenes onto the background) for all the animations and effects seen in the video.
Here’s an uber-inspiring video in which National Geographic photographer Sam Abell discusses the difference between “taking” and “making” photographs through his experience of shooting one particular photograph for a story on painter Charles M. Russell. He explains that taking an image is shooting a photo as a reaction, without any preparation, while making a photograph is a process.
Abell spent one-and-a-half years hunting for and making the perfect photograph of bison skulls, and shot 25,000 frames for the 8 photographs that appeared in the story. Now that’s commitment.
When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, photographer Robert Landsberg was documenting the changes in the volcano from just a few miles away. Realizing that he couldn’t possibly outrun the approaching ash cloud, he kept shooting for as long as he could before using his body to preserve his film:
He managed to rewind the film back into its case, replace his camera in its bag, put the bag in his backpack, and then lay himself on top of the backpack in an attempt to protect its contents. Seventeen days later, Landsberg’s body was found buried in the ash with his backpack underneath. The film could be developed and has provided geologists with valuable documentation of the historic eruption. [#]
We love sharing about photography-related movies that you might want to add to your “films to watch” list, and today we have a great one: Marwencol. It’s a documentary about Mark Hogancamp, a man who was beaten nearly to death back in 2000 outside a bar (leaving him little memory of his previous life), and how he turned to photographing action figures in a miniature world as a form of “art therapy”. The photographs — which you can browse here — are incredible in their realism and creativity, and attracted the attention of magazines and art galleries.
