Have you ever looked at JPG Magazine's Photo Challenges?  If you have artist's block, they might be a perfect afternoon adventure.  Uncertainty in my professional life (my second AmeriCorps year ends in August, and this time I'm going to get a real, civilian job) has led to stress and lack of motivation in my personal projects, which I think is par for the course for many people in situations like this.  My biggest ideas have gone to the back burner, and I can only assume my usual energy and lust for new challenges will resume once I secure a full-time job.

In the meantime, I know I can't just come home and play video games every night, so I've decided to do as many JPG Photo Challenges as I can.  Not only do they only encompass a short portion of an afternoon, they encourage me to try out new and silly techniques like camera tossing.

This afternoon I experimented with the Create-A-Filter challenge, with mixed results.  However, if you've never tried putting a thick nylon stocking over the lens of your DSLR, I highly recommend you do.

Whenever I get into a rut, I love to find new techniques or tools to try out.  A friend recently gave me some Agfa color film while cleaning out her house, and at first I wondered what exactly to do with it (I shoot black and white).  Then I found a little Flickr pool by the name of Color Films Developed in B/W Chemicals.  I was really taken by the almost eerie images I found there.  I just may be in love with cross processing, and as soon as my current roll of film is done I think I'll try it!

Yesterday I needed a short distraction at the office, so I pulled out my little notebook and paged through all the thoughts I jotted down a couple months ago.  Though I recommend this sort of review for everyone, I happen to have a terrible memory.  Reading my ideas from January can be like having them for the first time all over again, just from a different angle.

In early February, I wrote down a question in response to who-knows-what and stumbled across it in yesterday's reading: "do you more commonly read photos as social commentary or 'captured moments,' design elements?"

Portraits have invaded my mind of late, so I  applied this snippet there.  Portrait photography presents a personal challenge for me in that the subjects often look to the photographer for guidance.  I don't want to have that upper hand, as I am more interested in the "captured moments" and would rather allow natural poses to reveal themselves gradually.

Then again, one of my favorite portrait photographers is Richard Avedon, and his photos are far from candid or photojournalistic.  At the same time, Avedon evoked some essential truth from his subjects that seems inherently them despite his direction.

While I've always thought an effective commentary relied on candid, photojournalistic portraits, the photographer's role is more broad than that.  For example, Avedon took on a far more aggressive role than an invisible observer: he actively identified and pulled defining qualities from his subjects, often through touchy conversations.  Maybe this could be done in the passive style I've taken to in the past, but maybe it couldn't.  I'm beginning to realize I have to take the reigns at some point if I want to make a switch from inanimate objects to people as subjects of my work.

My point is, "commentary" and "captured [authentic] moments" aren't mutually exclusive.  Many portriat photographers build a very deliberate image from the human subject, and I'd like to explore this further.  As I said in my last post, though, I'm an introvert.  I have trouble building normal friend-relationships with people, let alone forming a precise photographer-subject relationship with people I may or may not have an existing connection with.  It's worth a try, though, and maybe -- in the same way that introverted people sometimes make the best actors -- it will be more comfortable than I expect.  Either way, I'm eager to find out how to achieve natural, engaging portraits with a consistent aesthetic style -- and I'd love to hear your thoughts on different approaches you've seen or tried.

Image copyright Richard Avedon.  View more at http://www.richardavedon.com/

I have been asked twice in the past few weeks to give my opinion on traditional vs. digital photo processes.  I find it interesting that this remains an argument in the photographic universe, and even more interesting that many people seem to take an either/or approach.

Digital photography is here to stay.  There are those of us who fought the dominance of cassettes over CDs, email over snail mail, and even questioned the necessity of high-speed internet when dial-up started to become obsolete.  Once an advance in technology comes down the line, it is impossible to roll it back, for better or worse.  Throughout history there are plenty of occasions when our ingenuity has led us down a not-so-nice road, but there is no “un-discovery,” only a need to consider carefully what we have made.

In a given body of work, the choice between film and digital can have a profound effect on the content and meaning of the photographs, a fact that often seems overlooked in the ideological debate of old versus new.  We need to make the choice consciously and intelligently, the same way we choose a film speed to attain a specific look and feel to our images.

This intelligent choice forms the crux of my view on the matter and brings out a critical issue presented by cheap digital technology.  The digital camera revolution, with more than a little help from the internet, has brought photography to the masses like never before. 

The difference between consumer film cameras and professional photographic ones has usually been clear.  The Pentax 35mm point and shoot that carried me through middle and high school took snapshots.  My finished film and prints came from the one-hour photo and I placed them into fuzzy, leopard-print albums for safekeeping.  The big SLR had many more moving parts and I developed those prints myself.  At that point I was taking photographs.

Cheap consumer digital cameras have opened the floodgates for free, unlimited high-resolution pictures.  Even digital SLRs are now within everyone’s reach.  When I was in Europe, the vast majority of American tourists I saw had dSLRs.  However, I doubt many of them were utilizing the full potential of their equipment simply because they were using them as glorified point and shoots, setting the camera on full auto and snapping away.

The key here is conscious choice.  If I photograph the ruins of Bethlehem steel with really fast, really grainy black and white film, I alter the content of that work when I go back and shoot the scene at ISO 100.  Likewise, digital photographs provide a different process and a different feel.  The fact that black and white prints are made by hand and digital prints are computer- and machine-generated is significant.

Digital photography as a professional tool presents us with some responsibility.  Knowing and experiencing both processes is essential to developing a full mastery of the medium.  Choosing one over the other should be something every photographer can explain.  When using a digital SLR, I find it necessary to use all manual controls to achieve the image I want.  This is important. 

Creating truly great photographs should still require us to stop and consider the scene, adjust the aperture, shutter speed, and focus, and carefully frame the shot.  We should still look at the light meter.  Photography hasn’t changed that much.  It is still about a lot of exploration and intelligent choices with some happy accidents mixed in, all of which should be made by our own hand.  Digital has a lot of tempting shortcuts, but we must learn all the techniques of the medium if we want to mature as image-makers.  Otherwise we are just taking very pretty snapshots.