Photography is a tech-heavy job. Camera companies do a great job of hyping up new gear and creating a fear of missing out. However, very few professionals that I know actually go and splurge on the latest and greatest equipment.
In all my years in photography, I don’t think any camera has had as much buzz leading up to its release as the Nikon Z9. There were many reasons for that, both good and bad, but now that the camera’s here, does it live up to the hype? After one week of using it, I think so.
After decades of studying the classic works of photography, I’ve determined there is a historic and philosophical bifurcation in the works created. For convenience, I classify all works as falling into one of two camps, and the group I’m personally drawn to — and one that I find most applicable in discussing current photographic creativity — is what I call “neo-modernism.”
In many art practices, a new method or process does not usually automatically override the old one. You can still use berries and charcoal to paint a cave wall, paint on a canvas, or put pencil to paper. These do not become irrelevant just because a Wacom tablet can be used to make a digital illustration or a VR for a 3D painting.
Producing photographs, writing, and ideas to share with others is such a wonderful way to direct creative energy, and for many, this approach involves setting themselves up as a photography business practice in some way, whether that’s offering the work as a product or as a service.
There's an expression in relation to investment banking I've heard which I think translates quite well into advice for documentary photographers: "it's not timing the market, its time in the market."
When competing in an attention economy, giving your audience a reason to stay rather than scroll onwards is one of the most essential paths to retaining that attention.
All of my recent motivation in photography has come from the desire to see actualized publications of my projects, in the wake of the wonderfully positive response to my recent Bulgaria zine and USA Digest.
One of the most constantly joyful aspects of photography is the ability of the medium to allow the creator to make something from nothing.
There have been thousands of articles written about cheap and expensive lights, cameras, and lenses. To me, the light is not as important as the modifier.
When starting out, you will inevitably stumble upon someone telling you to use a three-light setup for portraits and a beauty dish for fashion photography. I think that’s a whole bunch of nonsense. Lighting setups don’t teach you light -- they only confuse you and derail you from progressing.
I previously wrote an article on some of the gear that photographers can buy used and how I saved $15,000 doing so. It feels wrong for me to buy any new gear -- like I'm burning money when doing so. That said, here are a few photography things that even bargain-hunters like me buy new.
My name is Jordan McChesney, and I'm a photographer based in Japan. Let me start by saying that I am not a professional photographer, and I’m well aware that my movement towards success is an ongoing process that is (hopefully) in the early stages of even bigger things to come. That being said, I think it’s a good idea to reflect on my last year or so of growth.
Ten years ago, I began making a series of images using a nylon bodystocking. The stretchy fabric created a dreamy space around the bodies of the models when they pushed out against it from inside.
Ethics in photography is a topic that just keeps popping up. Whether it’s the latest dish on Magnum, or an argument about photographing the homeless, some days it seems you can’t turn around without stumbling across another disagreement.
I bought a used Fujifilm X70 online last year during the UK lockdown. For quite a while I’d been wanting a camera that I could pocket. No case, no fluff, just pocket.
While on assignment in Washington, D.C. in late January earlier this year, I had to think very carefully about the situation I was documenting. The events around the Inauguration of Joe Biden had swung the global spotlight around, and I knew that there would be scrutiny of any historical artifact that was produced in this space at this time.
When I die I will no longer have active control over my archive. My will will outline that my negatives are left to any archive that may want them -- depending on whether my career looks anything like I’d want it to, this may be one or two, or none. The main responsibility falls to me to do what I can while alive if I’m to enjoy being represented in the photography community by work that legitimizes me.
This is the end of my essay series on how we see and think about photographs. While I could certainly ramble on more or less forever, this is a good place to stop.
In the previous essay I set aside a category of ethical issues around photographs. Specifically, the issues that arise from the very existence of the photo, rather than from the meaning of it. Issues around consent, and around extraction (who gets paid.)
Sony's non-surprising Alpha 1 announcement this week seems to have set a few Nikon shooters into panic again. More disinformation and clickbait headlines are also proliferating. The common theme seems to be "Nikon can't/won't keep up and will fail."
In the ongoing spirit of applying my new(?) model of thinking about photographs to old questions, let’s take a pass through “ethics” to see if anything interesting shows up.
It’s undeniable that life is often seen as a kind of race or competition, but I absolutely despise this idea.
I’ve been writing for a while now on this single idea: that photographs transport you, in a sense, to the scene of the photograph; that you therefore react to photographs as if you were there, viscerally; that you react specifically by imagining the world around the photo; and finally that this imaginative reaction, this meaning you make, is of central importance in understanding a photograph.
If you’ve been following along for any length of time, you might be starting to wonder if the author here even owns a camera, and if so, whether he can work it at all. I can! I really do, and I can! I mean, kinda, anyways.
The previous essays in this series have tried to develop some ideas about what happens when people look at photos. The realism, that mass of realistic detail, causes (I claim) a visceral reaction: we feel, we react, we think, a little as if we were transported by the photograph into the scene itself.
In the eyes of many, 35mm film photography was snuffed out in the early 2000s. But a small, dedicated fan base has continued to smolder. For all intents and purposes, Leica launched the 35mm camera. And it seems that nearly a century later, they are still committed to fanning the flames that they themselves ignited.
Photographs are omnipresent in our daily lives. From social media and advertising to family photos hanging on your wall. Images are used for identification and as evidence, as well as informing us at a cultural level about who we are.
In the previous essay, I introduced a couple of imaginary photographs. The first, an old woman celebrating her birthday with family and friends; the second a photograph of a man seated in a chair, attentive to something out of frame.
This is the third essay in this series, and it begins a smaller sequence of notes running over the ways we as viewers make sense of pictures. We spend, I think, too much time thinking about what happens before and during the making of a picture, but not enough on what happens when someone actually looks at it. For most of us, for most pictures, surely this is the most interesting time?