Ah. The thrill of getting to market the book you worked on...

Ever patient Jana sits for a portrait under the saucy glow of an LED fixture.  

The image at the top came from some permutation of this main lighting set up.

That's me in the small studio, directing Jana, thinking about the writing and thinking far 

ahead about marketing the book.

I bet just writing books about photography is fun.  Writing the books sounds like an easy thing to do.  But now, in the 21st century, the authors of books on various aspects of photography have to do much more than "just" write.  The Syl Arenas and Kirk Tucks and Neil Van Niekirks, and a legion of other photography book impressarios, have to wear many hats.  We research and write, just as authors have done since the dawn of non-fictional literary time, but now we are on the receiving end of a whole new roster of responsibilities.  For me, illustrating the books with hundreds of photographs is the most time and resource consuming part of the project.

In total opposition to the way my brain is wired (I like chance more than planning) I must now think about what I've written and translate the verbal "score"  into a "before" and an "after" images.  I must jettison the fluidity I've acquired through decades of nearly autonomic practice and now think in terms of discreet and obvious steps so I can lead the non verbally disposed book owners through each painful step of concept.  It's like doing a picture book for the resistant to reading and a real book for the totally verbally oriented at the same time.  And it takes the two sides of the brain that are the furthest from each other to do reasonably well.

I must recruit models who are patient enough to work with me in this whole step by step miasma and quel their expectations.  We'll be turning out examples, not art.  I must make sure that the models fit a modern idiom of culturally acceptable physical beauty and yet remain accessible.  I try to keep it fun for the small crew involved.  Our advance money only covers payments to the models and to my assistant.  There's nothing left over for travel or gear or even a make-up person.  

Once the images are in the bag I need to go in and do minor retouching of things like fly-away hairs and stray threads to pre-empt the vacuous critiques of people who are obsessed with finding flaws.  If a model's face shows too much texture I am accused of not knowing how to light said model correctly.  If the model has flawless skin I am accused of massive retouching to cover some perceived lack of technical capability or, better yet, to call into  question the efficacy of the basic premise I am trying to prove in the book.

Once the words are written, the images taken and corrected and every image spread-sheeted to match some arbitrary position in the text I can begin the unfortunate process of sketching out "lighting diagrams" so that people who can't understand the copy and can't extrapolate the lighting design from the supplied "behind the scenes" shots supplied can make enlarged copies of the "lighting diagrams" and paste them on the floor to follow without regard for the vagaries of their alternate spaces and gear.  As though the exact placement somehow trumps the basic idea of the lighting.  

The final run through the Aegean stables is the writing of captions.  Captions seem to be for the people who either despise reading the body copy and are hoping for a micro "Cliff Notes" approach to book reading or for the people who are confused by the images and need yet another layer of guidance.  But then captions are also like candy and most of us crave them in spite of ourselves.

If you are a slow writer or a slow photographer or both, this process can grind on for the better part of half a year.  If you had nothing else to do and didn't need to support yourself or your family you could probably finish your book project in the better part of a month.  Then it leaves your hands and goes off to your publisher and you relinquish a certain part of control that gives you the illusion of perfectionism that's never really there.  My most recent book went through several steps of proofreading and yet there are still words that didn't get bonkled or trogmolated into the right spelling.  Spell check is to proof reading as Facebook is to real relationships....

And then there's the process of color correction.  When images make the leap from monitor to CMYK offset process printing there are things that can change.  Colors can slide from intention to obfuscation. From proof to prank.  From veracity to vexing.

I never saw color proofs for the LED book and while the large majority of images are right on the money there are a handful that are too dark and an even smaller handful (several fingers full....) that have unfortunate color casts.  I say unfortunate because I was trying, in this particular book (the one on LEDs) to prove that the lights in question had come of age.  That, with good practice, a photographer could make color rich and color accurate images with the current offerings of midrange and better LED fixtures.

Most readers will look at the majority of images contained in the book and get the message.  But I've already had one reviewer jump to the conclusion, based on a small minority of mis-printed images, that the LEDs are at fault, ergo my premise is faulty and, QED, the book is without merit.  Oh the slings and arrows of outrageous (mis)fortune...    My very integrity sacrificed by a printer's interpretation of color and density.

So, at this point the writer/photographer/production drone is done with his part of the project and the book is launched and the big dollars start pouring in.  Right?  Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha......

Here's where the modern photographer/writer hits the wall of 20th century mythos and, submerged in bathos, comes to the queasy conclusion that his book will die on the vine without Promethean efforts of marketing.  Every week dozens of printed and e-published books on photography are unleashed onto the market.  And there is both a limited demographic market, and within that demographic, a limited budget for books.  For a book to do well it must be marketed.  If I could afford to take out a full page in the New York Times Sunday Magazine to show off the book, and couple that with a few appearances on Oprah, and some live interviews on the splash page of DPReview.com  I could sell a prodigious number of books in a flash.  But reality is based on projected returns and a host of other unknowns on a  mysterious matrix.  And the reality that niches get smaller as topics get progressively more arcane.  

Publishers run press releases in all the usual places and take the book (along with dozens and dozens of others) to the trade shows.  But the real market place is Amazon.  And to move the numbers in your favor on Amazon the writer/photographer is encouraged by the publishers and, if he wants the books to return any cash at all, is self-motivated to cast off the hat of creator and don on the plaid sportcoat and winning smile of the marketer/salesman.  A role for which most creative people are profoundly unsuited.

We are encouraged, externally and "internally" to blog about our new book, to do as many book signings as we can, and to reach out to every point on our friendship/acquaintance compass and flog the book.  I'm putting together a book signing at Precision Camera for next Monday.  I hope I am perceived as smart and warm and effusive and deeply interested in the continuing education of my peers and the hosts of hobbyists that make up my implied constituency. I hope no one wants to argue (using technical info from 1990) that LEDs are incapable of even lighting up a computer screen.  Much less a portrait shoot. (Everyone does realize that LEDs are used in your new flat screen TVs and in the latest computer screens and they seem pretty accurate....right?)

And I'll do the same stand-up routine for any club, group of class that will have me.  But why?  Why do photographers feel compelled to write books in the first place?  I'll have to be honest.  Several publishers have told me the same thing and, even though it pains me a great deal to admit it, it's the same basic logic that has been espoused by Seth Godin for as long as he's been espousing.  To wit: You won't make any real money writing a physical book.  The book is a souvenir for an event (according to Seth).  People come to see you talk about something and the book is the take away.  Like buying something fun in the gift shop of a museum after you see the King Tut exhibit.  The publishers sell it like this:  "You'll gain credibility with your market so that you can better sell your workshops and seminars."  

Well, that's all well and good but what if you don't really want to do workshops and seminars? I should have thought that through sooner.  The math is simple.  You write a book for a publisher and you get a percentage of the cover price in return for that six months of your life you spent hunched over a keyboard or cajoling models.  If you were a best selling fiction writer with a large fan base you might see hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of royalties in a short amount of time.  If you are like most fiction writers your book will sell fewer volumes than it takes to pay off your advance.  Your book will be remaindered in a season or two and you'll have the opportunity to buy the surplus stock from your publisher at some sort of price that covers his cost of printing. Salvage value.  You will have worked for years on your novel for a few thousand dollars.

A photo book writer who does a great job marketing his book might sell 5,000 copies in a good year.  A book that really hits, by a star writer in our field (sounds like "Shelby"....) will make many multiples more.  But most of the books will depend on the "long tail" of photo books to return profitability to the publisher and, to a lesser extent, to the creator.  A book with a great "long tail" is LIght, Science and Magic because it's well written and the knowledge it teaches doesn't change or go in and out of style.

If I work on marketing the LED book as though it was my full time job for the rest of the year we might be lucky enough to sell 5,000 copies.  Maybe.  Figure that the royalties will equal about one full week (maybe two weeks in the current economy) of work in my "real" job as an advertising and corporate photographer.  In order to have the book make economic sense I'll have to leverage its "first to market" implied expertise to launch an aggressively marketed series of cutting edge workshops about LED lighting, complete with hot models and stops in too many second tier markets to mention.  Coupled with some sold out houses in some big metro markets.  Hello Carnegie Hall !!!!

But the fly in the ointment is this:  I'm no great orator like David Hobby.  I can't hold an audience in my hands, with them waiting for the next utterance about luminance, like he does.  I'm no Scott Kelby with his joie de vivre and his witty patter, standing in front of legions of people  who are desperate to understand the vagaries of Photoshop or the menus of their cameras.  I'm just a guy who likes to write and take pictures and who never thought he'd be held captive to the back end of the publishing process.  A self imposed voluntary, involuntary servitude of creating an informercial-esque circus around a straightforward book.

I'd rather keep writing and photographing.  It's sunny and warm here now.  I'm abandoning all marketing efforts for today and heading out with my camera and a smile on my face.  The book market can wait.

And, by the way, we are having a book signing and "meet and greet" on February 27th, from 5 to 7 pm at Precision Camera here in Austin.  I'm sure you'll want fly in for it.... 

A nostalgic look back at one of the great, early, digital cameras. The Olympus e-10.

I was at Precision Camera several times this week doing the kind of things that drive more level headed photographers and IT professionals slightly crazy.  I was buying more micro four thirds stuff, getting rid of the little Nikon V1 System and trimming down some of the Canon inventory.  What shall we tackle first?  How about the m4/3rds?  It's no secret that I really like EVFs and I really like small and light cameras.  I'm waiting impatiently for the OM-D but in the interim I stumbled into the Panasonic G3, liked what I saw and read (I blame Michael Reichman's review from last Summer the most) and decided to pick one up.  A fun camera for less than $600 bucks and maybe the current champion for lower noise ISO among the m4:3rds camp.  I've enjoyed the way the Panasonic GH2 works and I've used it now on six paying jobs this year, to my delight and to the satisfaction of my clients.

The G3 plays well with the Panasonic/Leica 25 Summilux and the 45mm 1.8 Olympus lens but, albeit, without IS.  The files are crisp and detailed and the noise, up to 1600 ISO is very normal.  And very workable.

The Nikon is a glorious little system and I'm sure I'll regret consigning it the minute it sells.  Which will probably be the day before Nikon comes out with a gold-banded, 18mm f1.4 (50mm equiv.) prime lens. But I got tired of waiting for faster glass and more and more captivated by the fast lenses that Olympus and Panasonic already had on tap.  Waiting for me.  Taunting me.

Something had to go.  And the Nikon got the nod.  It failed the "eternal" test.  That's the test that gauges how much you carry around your system, over time.  More and more I left it at home and took faster glass.  I'm a creature of some habits even if I'm not brand loyal.  In the grand number scheme of the "eternal" test the current winner is the EP-3 which I've carried most days since purchase.  More than the Canons and more than the V1.  Even more than the GH2 (which is currently in second place for fun shooting and in first place for commercial shooting, just slightly ahead of the Canon 1DS mk2.

Before people melt down let me quickly say that I really like the Nikon system and it has its unique attributes but I finally just ran out of bandwidth.  

I had too many Canon 1D bodies so one of them got donated to an up and coming young artist who will remain anonymous.  We've winnowed it down now, in the Canon camp, from six cameras at the start of the year to three.  And we may get even tighter on the "dinosaur" camera inventory as the m4:3 becomes more compelling.  But I need to at least keep the two remaining, full frame bodies around for those moments when only the slightest sliver of Zeiss focus will sate my imperious "bokeh lust."

But, I started this whole article off intending to talk about an Olympus camera that I consider to be their Sputnik of digital cameras.  Their moon launch.  The incredibly nice piece of alloy and glass that put them on the digital map in 1999.  Yes.  I'm talking about the supernaturally incredible e-10.  

It solved so many problems.  Let me set the stage:  Digital was in it's infancy.  The only affordable, professional digital camera on the market was the Nikon D1 and just between you and me it was an unqualified piece of shit.  The files were all over the map and it made a joke out of the idea of controlled flash.  Not to mention that it had a buy-in price of over $5,000 and a noisy file that came flying off a strange 2.7 megapixel sensor.  Banding, noise and wild flash exposure inaccuracies were included at no charge.

Later in the year Olympus announced, and shortly thereafter delivered, the e10.  A four megapixel camera that featured a permanently attached 28-140 zoom lens filled with ED and Aspherical glass.  The files were beautiful and, at ISO 80, 100 and 200, stomped all over the big Nikon.  You could get a battery grip with a mondo battery that would last for hundreds and hundreds of frames.  True all day shooting.  The Nikon?  Better have been prepared with one battery for every 100 frames.

At any rate I have the fondest memories of the e10 and carted it to Europe and Miami and Hawaii on corporate shoots, most times in tandem with a Hasselblad film system.  That was the nature of the non-linear digital adaptation.  I had forgotten about the camera until I came upon an old CD with these images of Christa.  We shot them for a tony furniture store back in 2000.  Shoot with monolight flashes and careful metering.  The images were used in magazine and newspaper ads and on the web.  

While I"m happy with the color and sharpness the 4 megapixel files do show their limitations when I splash em big across the monitor and ramp it all up to 100 %.  It's not that the quality is bad by any stretch of the imagination, the files just run out of information.  But the Olympus people figured out color and good optics way back then.  

Now my little Panasonic cameras will do 16 megapixels and the new Olympus should match them.  We can shoot at higher ISOs but I would hardly need to in a shoot like this.  Remember, we're creating the light not just ramping up  random photons.  The e10 had its problems.  Biggest of which was a tiny buffer.  But this job and scores like it made this camera the most profitable digital camera I've probably owned.  In fact, we did all the executive headshots for one of the world's largest computer makers for two years solid with this camera and it never let us down.  I sold it to buy a Fuji S2.  But that's a whole other story...

So, where am I going with all these m4:3 cameras and lenses?  I'm on a journey.  I'm heading back to the fun zone of photography.  It's in a different part of the geography of photography from the earnest pixel measuring maniacs.  Far, far from the perfection seeking "professional," DXO approved tools of the serious and ponderous.  I'm hedging a bit with the Canons but the momentum.......is somewhere else.

Of Course It's Better. It's Bigger. Altogether now, "Supersize Me."

Ben.  Photographed with a Leaf 40 megapixel camera

and a wickedly cool Schneider lens.

Can you feel it as it crashes against the shore?  A wave of camera rationalization that's just amazing.  Driven by the desire to differentiate the work of photographers who want to make money from those who just want to be photographers.  A new approach that provides a new set of reasons for clients to hire photographers who'd like to make a real living doing this stuff, the lure of medium format digital cameras.  And the new crop of maxi-pixel Nikons and Canons (believe me, they're coming).

Will it work?  For some.  Will it fail?  For some.  I've played with the "big boy" cameras.  They didn't make my work better or worse.  Had I kept them they would have made more cost of doing business rise appreciably.  Here's the deal:  If you are already working for the big time clients you'd like to be working for you probably didn't need the big medium format camera you just bought, anyway.  The clients came to you because they already liked the way you do stuff.  The camera gives you a new anchor to try to hold them to you but deep down you know you're held captive by the capriciousness of styles in the advertising coliseums.   And if the clients you wish you worked for aren't already returning your calls then just showing up with new hand metal isn't going to convince them that you just became an artist.

When I look at the portrait above the first thing I notice is not the pixel count because we've downsized it for the web.  The first thing I see is the expression.  The direct connection with his eyes.  His self-assurance.  If the first thing you noticed was some expression of dynamic range (remember, we're looking at 6 or 8 bit monitors and we're looking at 8 bit compressed jpegs here....) then I haven't done the job of bringing direction or feeling to the image.  

When I hear people talk about the NEED for more pixels and more dynamic range and more bits I think of this image below:

Brio.  For Time Warner.

If you listen to the howling masses today you'd think nothing could be accomplished, photographically, with fewer than 16 or 18 megapixels.  But we did the image above with a Nikon D100.  A whopping six megapixels.  A four frame raw buffer.  Molasses slow CF cards.  But the light is good and the expression is good and the ads worked and the check cleared.  And I'm not really sure if the image would have looked better in newsprint at a higher pixel count.....

I think we tend to lose track of what we really need in the emotional flurry of the new camera announcements.  I felt excited when I first talked to the Olympus reps about the new OM-D.  I really had a desire to snap one right up.  But I shot with my little Pen EP-3 today when I looked at the files I saw a camera that was outperforming my Nikon D2sx from four years ago.  I saw detailed files with perfect color.  And I chuckled to myself when I was reminded by the client that our destination ( along with 60% of marketing work these days ) for the portrait I was shooting would be on the company's website.  Last time I checked the portraits were running about 320 by 320 pixels.  Would we be able to pull it off???  Or would we NEED the power and the glory of a Phase One?

I've used a lot of cameras.  My readers will attest to that.  And I like almost every one I've held in my hands.  But they're interchangeable.  From six megapixels to forty megapixels, none of the specs really matter if I can't make someone genuinely smile and if I can't have them engage the camera in a collaborative and self assured way.  And if I do that part of my job right then just about any camera I can clutch in my hands will probably deliver a serviceable file.

It's more fun to shoot with the latest stuff.  But it's hardly necessary.  

The portrait I shot today was fun not just because the subject was fun and knowledgeable and personable.  And it wasn't fun just because it went well and the images looked good.  It was fun because I did it on a camera that many people think isn't suited for professional work, with lights (LEDs) that people still don't get.  At the most we were using less than $2,000 worth of gear.  And it was fun because the success or failure of our undertaking didn't depend on the gear.  It depended on me doing things correctly and the sitter joining in with the spirit of the engagement.  And that's why this business is fun. Not because we can bring "the big guns to bear."

Happy Valentine's Day. Go photograph someone beautiful. Now!

Brock's Books in San Antonio.  Long gone.  Some battered, old camera with a 28mm 3.5 lens 

and a roll of ISO 100 color slide film.

Falling in love.  Being in love.  Loving what you do.  Love. I think that's why we really photograph.  Until we get sidetracked by the gear and the process.  I love beautiful faces.  I got into taking photographs because I was dating someone who I thought was so beautiful that her face should be immortalized.  Made into art.  Frozen in time so I could admire it for a lifetime.  My lifetime.  That romance didn't last but new ones came along.  And all along I recorded the things that I thought were most beautiful about my partners with my little camera.  

In the early times I didn't really care about technique or cameras at all.  I just wanted the images to be sharp where I wanted them to be sharp and well exposed in a way that worked for me and matched what I was trying to say.  I learned just enough to make a competent photograph.

"Mastering Technique" is where the downfall begins.  I'm sure it's a satanic plot to undermine the art that makes us happy.  We read a magazine or talk to other photographers and we hear stuff about how our pictures can be even sharper or less grainy or more bokeh-y and we start down a path that leads us away from our objects of beauty and into a nested doll of endless intertwined details.  And we never ask why our art has to conform to someone else's idea of better.

And the more we embrace the mechanical techniques the further we travel away from our original muse. The thing of beauty which we loved and wanted to share.  But we convince ourselves that, in the end, we'll create much "better" work because it will be sharper and less grainy and better exposed.

But in the end it's as though we took our object of inspiration and put it under layer after layer of gauze.  Each layer of technique we apply pushes the object further way from any sort of direct and emotive response on our part until it becomes merely a foil for our new infatuation with the craft.

When the devils succeed in corrupting our inner artist completely we look for subjects not because they strike a chord in our hearts but because our science brain tells us they'll make a good package on which to show off our skills at wrapping.  At covering up the real gift with a new layer.   "I don't care what might be in the box...."  We're saying, "But look at what a good job I did with the gift-wrapping!!!"

And before we know it we're far afield from our original captivation.  We're separated from what we loved by the knowledge that we can do more.  Even if we never needed to do more in the first place. Our original passion is side-tracked by the promise of "just a little more control."

At some point the sheer weight of our tools and the exhausting burden of continuing to learn new ways to show off dulls us to the joy and effervescence of our original undertaking: To celebrate the object of joy we've encountered.  To translate our love of beauty into something we can share.

And that kills photography for all of us.  I am envious of the people I know who resisted learning more about the "how to."  I am envious of the people who've found the one object of beauty in their lives that makes photography such a wonderful art.  I am envious of Harry Callahan's long photographic study of his wife, Eleanor.  I am envious of Henri Cartier Bresson's single minded love of capturing the world around him, unencumbered by "what's new in the bag."  "What's state-of-the-art." and what might make a good foil with which to show off this new technique.  

I am slow and witless and as easily led as the next photographer.  And yet, today, I can look through stacks and stacks of images I've done of buildings and food and executives and models and I don't feel the slightest spark.  But when I crack open a box of old black and white prints and look into the faces of the people whose beauty struck me to the point that I wanted to capture it,  and the faces of the people who I love and cherish I feel flush with excitement.  A thrill resonates through my heart.  And I realize that this is what I should have been doing all along.

Forget stitching shit together in Photoshop.  Forget crunching meaningless frames of shiny colored reflections of puddles into another HDR placemat.  Forget so sharply rendered that it cuts into my iris.

Remember what it was like to love and honor the subject in front of your camera because that's all that really matters.  That's where the real art lives.  It's about discovering the beauty you cherish, not imitating a weak, cultural construction of beauty manufactured from clever tricks.  And it's certainly not about the camera, the lights or the postprocessing.

The image you have in your mind, when you look at what it is you consider most beautiful,  is... everything.  Your longing to photograph was originally an attempt to preserve that precious moment of beauty and insight for yourself.  Or to be able to share it for a lifetime.

Everything that came after that, the camera bags, the lenses, the super straps and the endless stream of lights and cameras, is a wedge that pushes us further away from the original truth.

Go out today and find the thing you love.   The person.  The son or daughter who makes you smile and brings tears of happiness to your eyes.  The wife or husband who brings a feeling of warmth and belonging into your life.   The friend who stood by you when you were in the hospital or deep in debt.  Find your beauty and then share it with yourself.  That's the miracle of photography.

That should be our assignment right now.  That should be our picture of the day.  Everything else is just a job.  

In its purest form our photography is a celebration of love.  And everyone's love is different.

Happy Valentine's Day.


Edit:  Someone requested the "cookie" shot from Valentine's 2010.  Here's the link:
http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2010/02/valentines-day-fashion-special.html

A favorite from a little over a year ago. Seemed appropriate today after all the gear talk....

One of my friends mentioned this over a glass of wine recently.  Today seemed like a good day to repost it.  I wrote it in 2010.  Near the end of the year...

11.26.2010

"THE PASSION IS IN THE RISK"

Yesterday was Thanksgiving.  We had a houseful of people.  My parents were here and Belinda's parents, too.  Nieces and nephews and new additions to the family.  Belinda and I teamed up in the kitchen and put out some nice food.  My mom brought some fun wine, even three bottles of my favorite white wine, Conundrum, from Caymus Vineyards.  Everyone was happy and the day went smoothly.  I was so proud of my kid, Ben (you've seen his photo many times....).  We have a three step drop from the kitchen to the dining room and we were serving buffet style.  My dad is in his 80's and walks with a cane.  Ben waited until my dad filled his plate and then walked over and quietly offered to carry his plate to the table. 

Most of our family lives in San Antonio and everyone headed back home in the late afternoon and early evening.  Ben got invited to go surfing, down in Port Aransas, with family friends and he was gone by 6:30 pm.  Once Belinda and I finished washing pots and pans and dishes we decided to watch a movie from Netflix and we settled on a mindless romantic comedy called, "When in Rome." 

Near the end of the movie the female protagonist is trying to decide if she should take the risk and marry her new boyfriend.  Her father threw out a line and I grabbed for a Post-It (tm) pad and a pen.  It's a line that resonated with me like a bell.  He said,  "The Passion is in the risk."

THE PASSION IS IN THE RISK.

That's pretty much the culmination or distillation of what I've been trying to say here for the past two years.  The magic dust that makes art work is the passion you bring to it.  And the passion is proportional to the risk required.  I've included two photographs to illustrate my point.  In the top photo I'm photographing life in the Termini train station in Rome.  I'm determined to get a shot of the baggage handlers.  I go in head first because I know they may (and did) object and I'd only get one chance.  Before I started I thought that there might be a heightened chance of confrontation.  There's a certain risk in a direct, "looking into the eyes" presentation.  I had to be quick with my technique.  I could be embarrassed if they got pissed off and made a scene.  All that stuff that goes thru your mind when you're out of your own neighborhood, out of your demographic and out of your own culture.  But you move forward because you embrace that level of risk and deem it acceptable for the potential reward.  That being said, this isn't my favorite photo.  But each time you risk you get more comfortable with the risk and you understand that something moves you to do this thing that's beyond a staid calculus of accrual.

In the arts the passion is never truly about money.  It may be about fame and with fame may come money but in reality the arts are about the passion.  When I step out the door I'm looking for a photograph that makes me feel something out of the ordinary.  Art is never a reaffirmation of the value of the ordinary.

The second photograph is passionless.  We make these all the time.  It's a quick, furtive shot that shows nothing but the back of one person and the profile of another.  There's no engagement.  There's little passion.  And when you look at this image you tend to pass it by because it's something you've seen a hundred or a thousand times before from every photographer who shoots in the street.  There's little reward because there's little risk.  And without the risk there's no passion.  And the passion is what gets transmitted to the viewer.

But the idea that The Passion is in the risk goes way beyond street shooting or even just the practice of the arts.  In fact, I think the slow building of passion comes with taking multiple levels of risk that correspond with access to the passion.   An example.  If you want to create great work in any art it takes constant practice.  I've used the analogy of competitive swimming as an example.  If you want to be a great surgeon you have to use those brain and hand skills all the time or you get rusty.  I have many friends who are doctors and when they need to have a surgical procedure done they never settle for the guy who's done a couple hundred successful procedures they search out the guy who's done thousands of successful procedures because they know that with practice comes expertise.  The guy who's done 2,000 procedures has dealt with every permutation.  In art parlance, he's become a "master".  By the same token I don't think photographers can be at the top of their art unless they live it with the same "hands on" intensity.  If they pick up the camera every once in a while they just aren't fluid enough to make great art.  And it's not just knowing where the buttons are and when to push them....for a people photographer it's also about knowing how to work with people in a fluid way. 

So, that means that it's almost impossible to do photography at a passionate level and still have the time and energy for a real job.  And there's the risk.  Freelance photography gives you the time but it also delivers risk.  And if you can accept that risk and move forward even with the knowledge that you may end up hungry and poor, but you still feel compelled to move that way then you may be driven by your passion and that passion may reward you with art you can love.

Beyond that, risk also means removing yourself from a comfortable situation to an uncomfortable situation that elicits responses in a photo which in turn make it interesting to you and your wider audience. 

The ultimate risk is working when you are the only audience.  When you stop caring what other people think about your work and you make work that is uninflected by the subtle pressure of others.  In this arena the risk of total isolation is so strong that only the most courageous passion will drive sane people forward.  It's a level I've not achieved and I'm not sure I can.  I have too many responsibilities.  I have too much to lose to risk everything.  And yet it's something I am jealous of in other photographers.

The person who finds a $100 bill on the street is just a bit richer.  The person who pulls a diamond from the jaws of a pissed off, deadly dragon has a story to tell for the rest of his life.  And he creates a legend.

That's what the few real artists in our lives do.  They battle metaphorical dragons that come complete with real risks.  They've already signed a blanket waiver with life and they're ready to strap in and take the ride.  They're the test pilots and we're waiting for someone to come along and pressurize the cabin.

So.  Why have I decided to work with LED lights in the last few months?  Do I think the results will be technically better than what I can get with state of the art flash equipment?  No.  But I know the results will be different.  I know that some stuff will be riskier (like subject motion and color correction) but I know that intangible and tangible differences in the way portrait subjects respond and react makes the photographs different and it's a risk with a return.

If I know how to do a technique forward and backward why do I constantly abandoned the safe techniques and try new stuff?  Because the risk of maybe failing makes the process more exciting.  If the risk pays off I have something that's new and maybe closer to my vision of what an image should be.  If I fail I learn and I come back and try again.

If I never try then I master one technique and use it, safely, over and over again until it's so stale and old that no one ever wants to see it again and I've squandered years and years when I could have been investigating and playing and failing and succeeding and doing new stuff.

The turn over of gear is open to many interpretations but unlike most amateur practitioners I seem to go from the highest iteration of equipment to the lowest instead of the other way around.  I'll start with a Canon 5Dmk2 and slide down the product scale where the risk is greater because it's more fun to work without a safety net.   Buying better and better gear is a way of trying to manage risk.  And managing risks is the perfect way to suck the absolute passion out of your art.  Perfect risk management means sitting in a bunker with the air filters on high.  But nothing moves forward that way.

Here's an odd thought.  One posited by a character in Stephen Pressfield's magnificent book, The Gates of Fire,  "What is the opposite of fear?"  The eventual answer?   "Love."

We work through the fear that everyone feels.  Fear is a very uncomfortable emotion.  Most people feel fear and move away from the thing that made them feel fearful.  Or they work to contain the process or action that caused the fear.  Some work through the fear to feel the love.  The work is the love.  The process is the fear,  The fear is the risk.  And the risk is the thing that artists embrace.  And that's what makes the best work work.  Knowing that you might fail.

Someone asked me the other day if being 55 and in a field that seems to be falling apart and crashing and burning scared me.  Yes.  I'm as scared as I can be.  But not because I won't make money.  I'm scared that I won't have the time and the courage to keep going out every day and doing something that rational people don't do.  Every time I go out and shoot it scares me.  And every time I go out and ignore the fear I get into zone and the photos get better and better.  When I stop getting scared the work falls apart.

The scariest moments for me are the days when I wake up and I've lost the determination to go out and try it all over again.....as if for the first time.  When I'm working from a "playbook" of greatest hits I know that it's over.  The passion is gone.  It's time to stop.  But the scariest thing of all is that all the inspiration and vision and passion comes from a well within.  There's no way to inspiration other than to wake up and want.  And  to be willing to accept the risk that creates the passion.  And that's why it's worth it not to copy anyone else but to create your own art and take your own risks.  Because:

THE PASSION IS IN THE RISK.

The passion and the risk are different for everyone.  And so are the rewards.  And that's why people talk about gear instead.  Because it's so hard to say why you do what you do.  And it will be different for you.

added at 5:22 pm.

I never did get around to explaining why I took the image of the guys in the train station.  Let me go thru that process and see if I can put it into words.  We really don't have a train station here in Austin.  The closest we have is an airport and it was built in the last ten years and doesn't look much different than a nice strip mall with a bunch more chairs.  I have a romantic nostalgia for train travel.  But even more to the point, I  have a bittersweet memory of a time when travel was civilized and special and much, much less stressful.  The guys in the top photo are remnants of that earlier time.  It was a time in which you and and your family could travel for weeks  with multiple suit cases.  You would have suits and ties and nice shoes to wear to fancy restaurants.  Hiking boots and heavy jackets for romps through the Alpine plains outside of Chamonix and you would have also packed some casual clothes for evenings wandering through the old neighborhoods of Rome.  You'd find a nice cafe and have hot chocolate while your parents enjoyed a few glasses of wine and some savory treats.

And it was all made possible by men like these in the train stations and airports who would take care of the logistics of moving your heavy cases from the train to the to taxi's and back again.  And you were pretty sure they worked for tips and they worked hard every time a train came in.  They were freelancers like you are now.  Somedays no one would want to pay for their help.  Other days the work would be non-stop.  There were no guarantees.  No safety net.  But it was what they knew how to do.

And slowly all these men have have faded into oblivion as wheeled totes and "carry on" only became the vogue.  And now we  travel with only what we can carry and we're more like overnight visitors than real travelers.  But at the same time these guys were brusk and sometimes unlikeable, with a street smart cynicism that put you on your guard.  And there are now no more young porters.  It's a dying art.  Like dye transfer or black and white darkroom printing.  And it's sad when an era passes.

And they know it's only a matter of time before their knees give out and their lungs protest the decades of smoking and they won't be able to lift the heavy boxes that often replace the luxe leather suitcases and trunks.  And they're pissed.  And resigned.  And how can I get all those emotions and all those thoughts into something as insubstantial as a photograph?

I look over and see the scene come together.  They are resting on the cart, looking for customers.  They are smoking.  I walk closer.  I've already set my Mamiya 6 camera to the exposure I think the scene offers.  I bring the camera to my eye to fine tune the focus with my rangefinder.  The man raises his hand and as he starts to wag his finger I click.  Then I drop the camera down and gesture that I get it.  I understand.  I won't shoot another frame.  I'll hope I have what I want and spare them the indignity of overt and obvious study.  Young life swirls around them.  One man smiles in a resigned way.  Two others continue their conversation, oblivious of my transgression.  And the man with the wagging finger follows me with his eyes, just to make sure I got the message.  Yes.  I did.  I got the whole message.

When I develop the negative I wish I'd gotten closer.  Much closer.  But cropping is not the same.  I wish I'd gotten closer and wider.  The 55 instead of the 75.  But I got what I got and I learned that my reticence to walk in closer with the wider lens is like a slap to the face and I know next time I'll take the risk or not take the photograph at all.

the holidays are upon us.  I humbly submit that a good book about photography will be most welcome by the photographers on your list.  Here are a few suggestions: