Create (Daily)

Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working. Pablo Picasso The past few months, I did not feel “inspired”. Part of the problem was that I have not been photographing/working. I think one of the best remedies for overcoming a lack of “inspiration” is to simply do the work. Yesterday, I decided to just go out and photograph somewhere … Read More

The cities are so empty these days (December 3 2020). We are still in partial lockdown, restaurants are closed, and the streets more than ghostly. I have been out photographing in downtown Minneapolis again. Street photography with plenty of empty streets and almost no people. The few people I did see I tried to capture including myself in a reflection! … Read More

There was another snow fall in my city, this time in November and not October. We walked around our urban neighborhood after sunset and the streets were, as so often in our neighborhood and since the pandemic, very empty. The snowfall further prevented people from walking. I brought a long lens like I did during the last snow fall (see … Read More

As photographers, we often worry about gear. I certainly have … trying to find the perfect camera, lens, or other tool. Film, Digital? I have been focusing on film photography and thought I would not go back to digital. Well, this wasn’t so. I have been shooting much more digital lately, for a few reasons. First, I wanted to do … Read More

I love photographers who focus on story, but at the moment, this is not my core focus. I discussed this in an earlier post. 

I love minimalism, and reduction of images to its essence. Depending on your intent, the reduction / minimalism can cause viewers to lose context and do not understand the image. The question is whether this is so important. 

Why Create (daily)?

I should have probably posted this in the beginning of this new “micro-blog” series. Since I am focusing a lot of my personal photography related efforts on my podcast (aside from my personal work of course), my regular blog posts might be getting a little less attention.

I love minimalism, and reduction of images to its essence. Depending on your intent, the reduction / minimalism can cause viewers to lose context and do not understand the image. The question is whether this is so important. 

By reduction I mean to reduce the image to its essence. Now sometimes this can be at the risk of losing the “story” or context. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I am strongly influenced by minimalistic art, and love the minimalist style of architecture, photography, painting and even living. Although I do not practice minimalism I think there is much to be said about reducing things to the essence.

I love visual arts, and in particular paintings and sculptures (aside from photography). Impressionists like Monet, Sisley, Manet  are, in my opinion, amazing.

At the moment, I am doing these daily dispatches as a way to put down some thoughts on “paper”.

About photography. 

About the creative process. 

Looking at my images, and reviewing some of Jay Maisel’s work in particular (there will be a future podcast on that!), I realize that a lot of my images are about beauty, including beautiful patterns. Should they be about story? So is it about beauty versus story or pattern versus content? 

I personally do not work on double exposures. But I had an accident with my last roll of film.

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.

Playing around with the digital camera. Flames on the fence? Or what you can do playing with reflections and perspective. Snow, rain, fire The fireplace in my office was reflecting onto the window. I changed perspective to create the perception that the fire is on top of the snow covered fence. No photoshop, all in camera.   abstract … office … Read More

In the book I am reading “SHOW YOUR WORK”, author Austin Kleon talks about sharing behind the scenes stuff. I typically don’t do that, not sure why not? Maybe because I feel it’s not that interesting. But I decided I will share more things via my Create (Daily) posts. And so this seems to be a good platform to share stuff like this. Today, I finished the another roll of Kodak Portra 400, and have now 3 undeveloped rolls. Most of these photographs were shot in downtown Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Some of them were at night.

Here a short-form daily blog post with random topics on creativity and the creative process. Things I read: at the moment, I am reading “SHOW YOUR WORK” by Austin Kleon. The book is small and inspirational, and talks about 10 ways to share your creativity. Under #1: you don’t have to be a genius, Austin talks about how we may … Read More