In episode 574 of The Perceptive Photographer, I dig into the idea of the emotional “entry points” that invite viewers into a photograph.
This isn’t about leading lines or the rule of thirds. It’s about whether someone who knows nothing about you or your story can still…

Hey there!  I hope you are having a great week. In this week’s podcast, I wanted to talk about some of the things that came up for me when I revisited John Berger’s essay, “Understanding a Photograph.” As I was preparing for a class, this essay got me excited for…

In the start of our 11th year, episode 572 of The Perceptive Photographer, I dive back into a often discussed topic that every photographer eventually faces: conflicting critique.

It is bound to happen to all of us. That moment when two thoughtful people look at the s…

In this episode, I dive into what really makes a great photograph, drawing on quotes from Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. We dig into how composition isn’t just about following rules, it’s about personal growth and expressing how we see the world. I encourage you to …

In Episode 570 of The Perceptive Photographer, I found myself circling a couple of questions: Is an audience required for meaning, or just for momentum? And if no one ever sees a photograph, does it still matter? (and the difference between sees and seen)

As photogr…

When was the last time a photograph or moment behind the camera lens truly made you stop and catch your breath? Not just a quick “oh, that’s nice,” but a real, lingering moment of connection? Well, that is the topic for the show today, which is episode 569, btw. p…

In this week’s episode, Episode 568 of The Perceptive Photographer, I explore the tension between photographing for validation and photographing for myself. I reflect on how my work changed when I stopped trying to impress, rediscovered curiosity, and allowed more hon…

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I explore why two photographers never see the same scene. Photography isn’t objective; it’s shaped by perception, experience, emotion, and intent. Every choice such as where we stand, what we include, and when we press…

In this episode, I explore how photographs are encountered rather than what they depict, focusing on two modes of looking: transitional and relational viewing. Transitional viewing moves the viewer forward, prioritizing speed, clarity, and momentum, often seen in social…

Episode 565 opens 2026 with a reflection on a feeling many of us struggle to name. When our best work starts to feel boring, it is often mistaken for a lack of creativity or momentum. In this episode, I explore why that feeling usually appears when the work is becoming …

In Episode 564, I explore the difference between consistency and coherence in photography. While consistency rewards repetition and recognition, coherence reflects a deeper continuity of attention. Through examples like Steven Shore, the episode argues that real voice s…

In this episode, I explore the shift from searching for photographs to truly seeing. Searching narrows attention and demands explanation. Seeing allows uncertainty, patience, and quiet relationships to emerge. I talk about photographs that resist clarity, images that st…

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I explore why making a good photograph does not automatically mean it needs to be shared. We look at the pressure to publish everything, the value of private work, and how choosing what not to show can strengthen both your…

n this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I talk about book ideas for the holiday season, especially for photographers and creative folks. Thanks to a listener, David, I once again share some of my favorite reads or books for giving ranging from creative practice a…

This episode explores the idea of working with what the photograph wants rather than forcing our intentions onto it. Once an image exists, it carries its own visual logic, weight, and rhythm. By slowing down, noticing what the photograph is already doing well, and letti…

In this episode of the podcast I explore the idea of editing as translation. Rather than treating editing as technical cleanup, I look at how it becomes a way to interpret the lived moment of making a photograph. The camera captures facts but not the emotional truth, so…

In this episode of the podcast, we explore the quiet tension between the solitude of making photographs and the importance of sharing the work we create. Photography often begins in private moments of deep attention, yet that same solitude can drift into loneliness and …

Episode 557 of The Perceptive Photographer, we explore how true creativity in photography comes from emotional connection rather than technical mastery. Inspired by Galen Rowell’s The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography, the episode reflects on passion as the fuel for c…

In this week’s podcast, we talk about burnout verse resting. Creative burnout and creative rest may look similar on the surface, but they come from very different places. Burnout is the slow unraveling of connection to your work . It shows up when the camera feels heavy…

n episode 555 of The Perceptive Photographer, I celebrate what I like to call “magic number day” by exploring the creative power of photographing the familiar. I share some personal stories about finding inspiration close to home and talk about how so many great pho…

As the days get shorter, I find myself paying more attention to how light changes this time of year. The low angle of the sun, the long shadows, and the quiet warmth that hangs in the air all ask for a slower kind of seeing. In this week’s episode of The Perceptive P…

In this episode, I reflect on five simple ideas to help keep your creative life moving forward. From finishing imperfect work to embracing boredom, learning from feedback, and finding value in small, steady steps, it is a reminder that progress, not perfection, is what …

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, I explore what it means to trust your own eye. Like learning to read and write, photography requires more than technical skill. Making a photograph is not the same as understanding one. By paying attention to what …

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer Podcast, I chat with Ken Carlson about moving from single images to building cohesive photographic projects. We explore motivation, intent, sequencing, and the role of mentorship and community. If you’ve ever dreamed of a…

n Episode 551 of The Perceptive Photographer, I explore how what I don’t know often means more than what I do in my photography. Instead of trying to control every detail or follow every rule, I’ve learned to embrace uncertainty. Leaving out elements, breaking the �…

In this podcast episode, the importance of silence in photography is explored. Embracing quiet helps us be present, notice details, and connect with subjects. By slowing down and inviting stillness, we can make more intentional choices and deepen our photographic practi…

When it comes to growth in photography, it’s easy to get caught up in the wrong metrics. In this week’s episode, I dig into the idea of measuring progress in ways that might make for better growth in our photographic practice. 

We often talk about “telling a story” in photography. But when you look closer, a single image may only hold part of the story: the introduction, the climax, or maybe the resolution.
In this week’s podcast, I explore how frameworks like Freytag’s Pyramid, the He…

In this episode, I talk with you about finding the right balance in your photography, or what I call your creative “spice level.” Based on a trip out for Thai food, I share how important it is to challenge yourself enough to stay engaged, but not so much that you fe…

Photography isn’t just about making a single strong image. It’s about what happens when we put images together. In this episode, we explore the creative shift from chasing individual “keepers” to building a body of work that tells a story.
We’ll talk about wha…

In this episode of the podcast, I explore the idea of “arrows in your quiver”. You know, the skills you don’t think you’ll ever need but that can transform your photography when the moment comes. From studying artificial lighting to better understand natural lig…

In this episode, I talk about that all-too-familiar moment when you look at your photos and realize they don’t quite match what you saw or felt in the moment. I explore why this disconnect happens and how being more intentional with composition, framing, and timing ca…

In this episode, I talk about how to look deeper into photographs and find their meaning, not just describe what’s in them. Drawing from Sylvan Barnet’s ideas on formal analysis, I explain the difference between simply listing what you see and analyzing how a photo …

In this episode, I talk about why titling photographs matters. I share how titles help us organize our work, give context, and deepen both our own and the viewer’s understanding of an image. I suggest trying out different titles for the same photo to discover new mean…

n episode 541, I explore ideas that surface across conversations, readings, and experiences—all pointing toward the spirit of wabi sabi. It’s about embracing imperfection, time, and authenticity in photography, and how those themes invite us to see—and photograph�…

In this episode, I talk about how truth, wonder, and trust support my creative process in photography. Inspired by a chat and some recent reading, I reflect on balancing technical skills with staying open to new ideas. For me, creativity isn’t just about getting thing…

In this week’s episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I dive into a question that comes up more often than we admit: Who are we really making our work for—ourselves or our audience? It all started with a thoughtful question from longtime listener Dennis, and it led…

In this episode, I talk about the idea of a “point of entry” in photography—what draws us into a photograph and how we connect with our subjects. I share some personal thoughts on creativity, reflect on what catches my eye when I’m shooting, and encourage you to…

In this week’s episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I take some time to reflect on the people who shape us, the dual nature of photography, and the internal compass that guides our creative work. Episode 537 feels especially personal as I honor my mentor, Seth…

We’ve all chased the “bucket list” shot—the iconic scenes everyone wants. But is that really where creativity lives? In this episode, I talk about letting go of trophy hunting and leaning into personal expression, being present, and making images that reflect ho…

In this episode, I talk about the importance of really seeing when I’m out photographing. I also discuss a self-exploration exercise I’ve been practicing—asking myself, “What do I see?”—to help me notice more in my images.

In this week’s episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I explored something that doesn’t always get the love it deserves—mundane photography. You know, the kind of work that isn’t flashy or dramatic. It’s not towering landscapes or intense street moments. It’s …

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I dive into the relationship between form and content in photography, especially when editing and sequencing a body of work. While a photo might carry personal meaning for me, I know it doesn’t inherently hold that story…

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I explore the balance between the rational (exceptions) and irrational (creativity) sides of photography. Great work emerges when we combine our technical skills with personal instincts, vulnerability, and a willingness to…

In this episode, we dive into The Americans, Robert Frank’s groundbreaking photo book that reshaped the way we think about documentary and street photography. Over the course of 10,000 miles, 28,000 images he selected a core 83 images that cut through the facade of 1…

In the latest episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I found myself thinking about Steve Jobs. You know that classic moment in his presentations when he’d pause, turn back, and say, “Oh, just one more thing…”? It was his signature move—something small that end…

Moving beyond “good” or “bad” judgments, I explore how asking better questions can deepen our understanding and connection to photography.

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, I dive into the fascinating topic of print sizes in photography and how they impact the way we perceive images. Even if you mostly share your work digitally, I believe it’s important to consider how print size in…

In this latest episode of the Perceptive Photographer Podcast, I dig into a common challenge many photographers face: the transition from enjoying photography as a creative outlet to overthinking the process in pursuit of “better” photographs. This shift can often lead …

In this episode of the podcast we dig a little into the impacts of thinking about photographs as of things or of relationships.

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer Podcast, we discuss the impact of the “New Topographic—A Man-altered Landscape” exhibition on modern landscape photography.

Welcome back to another episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, as we continue our exploration of the distinctions between simplicity and minimalism in photography. If you missed the first part, I highly recommend catching up at some point with part one where…

In the podcast this week, we have part one of two on simple verses minimalism in photography. Happy B-day Bro!

In the podcast this week, we focus on the impact framing a photography can have on our creative process

In the podcast this week, we take a look at the impact of observation and changes that happen when we are observed or are observing.

In this episode of “The Perceptive Photographer,” I celebrate the podcast’s ten-year anniversary, marking its 520th episode. I reflect on the significance of milestones in my photographic journey and the evolution over the years. I emphasize the importance of…

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, I take a step back to reflect on the evolution of a photographer’s journey—your journey, my journey, and the ever-changing creative path we all walk.

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I explore the nature of knowledge—what we know, what we don’t know, and the even more elusive realm of what we don’t know we don’t know.

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I explore the idea of focus—not just in terms of sharpness or camera settings, but the deeper reasons behind why we take the photos we do.

In the latest episode of “The Perceptive Photographer,” I dip my toe back into the pool of critiquing photographs. Critique is more than just forming an opinion; it’s a structured approach to understanding and evaluating photographic work. In this episode

Welcome to another episode of “The Perceptive Photographer”. We’re diving into episode 508, which coincides with the hustle and bustle of Cyber Monday.

In this episode of “The Perceptive Photographer,” I dive into the theme of balance in both life and photography.

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, I spend some time reflecting on the passing of the influential photographer Paul Caponigro.

In this episode of my podcast, the Perceptive Photographer, I dive into the concept of “layers” in photography, drawing inspiration from the movie “Shrek.”

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer Podcast, I dive into the importance of working the balance between simplicity and complexity in our photography.

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, I dig into how we go about dealing with mistakes and unexpected outcomes in our creative process.

In this episode of podcast, I ponder and dig into how perception shapes our understanding of photographs

In episode 501 of “The Perceptive Photographer,” I really open up about the concept of “mailing it in” when it comes to photography and creativity.

In this special 500th episode of the Perceptive Photographer Podcast, I reflect back on my journey in podcasting and photography.

Hey there! I’m excited to share the latest episode of the Perceptive Photographer Podcast. This episode is particularly special to me as it marks the 499th episode, leading up to the big 500th milestone. In this episode, we dig into the importance of understanding the…

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer Podcast, I delve into the continuing dialog and conversations around the evolving role of generative AI in photography.

In this podcast, we look at what can happen when we ask a question that we already know the anwer to.

Tune in to this weeks episode of the Perceptive Photographer whre we dig into how theater, photography, sitcom A, B, and C narratives in epsisode can be lessons to apply to our photographs.

In this episode of the podcast, I talk about some of the challegenes we can face when we look at our photographs under the lens of thinking we knew what they were about when we really didn’t know.

In this episode of the podcast, we dig into the impacts of tension on photography. Not the tension in the frame…

In today’s podcast I’m diving deep into a debate that really got me thinking: Can anything truly be taught?

In this episode, I dive into Stephen Shore’s thought-provoking photography concept of mental models and thinking about your images based on his book, “The Nature of Photographs”.

In take 357 of episode 491 of the podcast, I dive into the impacts of forks in the road of our creative process. From the early excitement and motivation of creative processes to balancing the struggle of staying true to oneself while connecting with others. We dig in…

In this episode, I delve into the impacts of fragmentation in our photography

In this episode, I explore how the language we use—especially definite and indefinite articles—shapes our understanding and critique of photographs

In episode 487, I dig into breaking the cycle of repetitive photography habits that have you spinning your wheels.

In today’s episode, I dive deep into the impacts of acceptance in our creative practices.

This week’s podcast asks you to forget the technical jargon or future worries that you might have in your photographic practice. Instead, in episode 485, we are talking about how Edward Hoppers desire to appreciating light on a building, Cezannes seeing the…

Hey everyone, in this episode, I’m diving into two of the simple pleasures in my studio—a great cup of coffee and capturing the meaningful photograph.

Welcome to podcast 483, In this podcast, I’m diving into the world of f stops and depth of field in photography. Imagine your favorite f stop as a personality quiz—revealing the unique characteristics that define how you see and capture the world. You can of course…

Welcome to podcast 482 ! Today, we look at why we might come back and have a second look at an image, and how that can impact our determination of an image’s effectiveness or not. We know that it’s not just about technical aspects but the deeper resonance and…

In episode 481 of the Perceptive Photographer, we dig into the different sides of distractions and how they can be both a benefit sometimes and a negative other times.

In episode 480 of the Perceptive Photographer, we dig into the notion of what good customer services looks like. When thinking about your photographs and if you are in the business of making photos, what does good customer service look like in your images. As your own…

In this week’s podcast I dive into the way our photos that only we seem to love can really impact our work

In this episode, we’re diving into the topic of resistance and how it can seriously mess with our creative flow.

In this week’s podcast, we explore the elusive quest to identify the “best photograph” in a series, delving into considerations like emotional impact, composition, and our own personal bias.

It’s “Challenge Week,” in this episode of the Perceptive Photographer, so I am outlining five tasks designed to refresh and inspire your approach to your work.

In the latest episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, host Daniel Gregory revisits the evergreen question of what constitutes a good photograph.

n episode 472 of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, host Daniel Gregory emphasizes the significance of recognizing the influential photographers that shape our personal style.

In this week’s episode of the Perceptive Photographer, we try to unpack photography’s connection to symbolic meaning in images.

In this week’s podcasts, we look at the importance of making work personal and speaking about why personal matters in our work.

In this week’s podcasts, I jump into the essence the struggle between practice, inspiration and making images.

Episode 468 of the Perceptive Photographer podcast delves into the world of presets in photography not just in Lightroom but in conceptual work as well.

In episode 467 of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, we draw inspiration from the book “Art and Fear” by Ted Orland and Richard Bayless. Often in my artistic endeavors, I’m driven by a desire to produce remarkable pieces that resonate with both myself and my…

Photographers often find themselves at a crossroads, seeking to create work that resonates and has significance. The initial steps towards crafting meaningful photography can seem daunting, yet it is a journey worth embarking on.

In this episode, we explore the pivotal moment between capture and concept and how making sure we focus on the right creative process at the right time and really push our work forwards in meaningful ways.

In this episode, the perceptive photographer, we reflect on the importance of revisiting one’s own work for growth.

Dive into episode 436 of The Perceptive Photographer to explore the intertwining of camaraderie, standards, and idealism in photography. In this episode, I reflect on an owl photo adventure, revealing insights into how photographers can enhance their craft through…

In the podcast this week, we look at five bad habits that might be blocking you and your photographic process and exploration behind the camera.

Dive into the ideas of what makes a good photograph in this episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast. In episode 461 we try to unlock what defines quality in a image and how our assessment of the subjective nature of good changes and evolves over time From…

As we start 2024 on the perceptive photographer, we dive into the nuances of photography in the digital age, challenging myths and embracing goals for 2024.

The latest episode of The Perspective Photographer, number 459, dives into some thought-provoking perspectives on photography from some great quotes by other photographers

Dive into our exploration of failure as a stepping stone in photography and creativity on this episode of The Perceptive Photographer.

This episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast is all about listener questions dealign with procrastination, habits, critique mistakes and more.

In this week’s podcast episode, we explore the use of 11 dynamic questions that are specifically designed to spark meaningful conversations about photography. Using these questions, you can easily discuss your work with your audience and, in turn, help them develop a…

This episode peels back the layers on how a non-linear approach to time can reshape our photographic journey and push the boundaries of our artistic process

In this perceptive photographer podcast this week, we focus on how coming up with three key goals can make a difference in your work.

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer, we dive into the impacts of influences on our work. From life’s twists to jazz beats and social justice, explore the diverse elements that shape our sense of seeing. “Our influences come from a broader spectrum than just…

This week’s podcast explores the distinction between knowledge and wisdom in photography, emphasizing the importance of experience and trusting yourself.

In this episode 451 of the Perceptive Photographer this week, I discuss the significance of commitment and personal growth in photography. By focusing on our unique perspectives and experiences to create meaningful images, I believe we end up capturing the essence of…

As a photographer, I believe it’s essential to step out of our comfort zones to improve the quality of our images. In this episode, I discuss the significance of exploring new techniques, embracing uncertainty, and actively engaging with the creative process. I also…

In the podcast this week, we take a look at ten thought-provoking questions that delve into the motivations, emotions, and personal approaches of photographers

In the podcast this week, I talk about how sometimes our creative and photographic process is like getting stuck in a job that doesn’t work for us anymore and how to get out of it.

In the podcast this week, we take a look at how using metaphors and developing multiple metaphors in your photography can help you find a more exciting and consistent voice in your work.

I like to eat junk food. There are so many good cakes, pies, cookies, ice cream, funnel cakes and more. I also know that too much junk food isn’t good for me and causes all sorts of issues. I know what to do to eat healthy, but I only sometimes do it. I also have…

in this week’s podcast, we take a look at how the gear you use impacts the type and style of work you do.

This week is episode number 444 of the podcast. In honor of the episode number, we are looking at three lists of four great ways to improve, have fun and make more photographs.

This week’s podcast dives into the questions of What makes a good photograph and how you choose between two similar images when picking one to have

In this week’s podcast, I talk about the importance of kindness and how that can make a difference in someone’s life even when you might not be aware.

In this week’s podcast, we talk about the importance of framing and the impacts framing has on compositions in photographs. I also make a personal plea for you to stop clicking on gear-related clickbait.

In this week’s podcast, we explore the idea of keeping things simple. The simpler, the better.

in this week’s podcast, we dive not the world of songs that won’t go away and random trivia to try and find a place where our photography can lead us in a new direction.

This week on the Perceptive Photographer, we talk about the importance of being bold about your work and how you talk about your work.

This week on the Perceptive Photographer, we are taking at look at some key considerations or questions to ask yourself about your photographic compositions.

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at how rushing and invoking our fight or flight responses to framing and composing our photographs can have an unintended detrimental impact on our work.

This week’s podcast is a dive into a few listener questions that have come in over the past few weeks.

In the podcast this week, I dive into the importance of understanding a couple of key elements about content and concept in analyzing your work. Most important are understanding the default bias you bring to your analysis and how to temper your analysis against your unw…

In the podcast this week, I talk about the value of thinking of your work as projects, big and small, and how focusing on a group of images or collection of images can help you better understand your technique, vision and voice within your work.

The podcast this week is a quick review of lessons observed in my last workshop out in the Palouse.

In the podcast this week, I offer up five challenges each with 10 outcomes to try that will help push you forward as a photographer

In this week’s podcast, we dive into the topic of what to do with all those images that you think are bad and you wonder if you should do a clean and purge?

In this week’s podcast, I discuss how what you photograph and how you see the world will impact your approach using some of these new generative tools.

In this week’s podcast, we dive into the importance of details and how the small things in our photographic practice can make all the difference

In this podcast, I talk about how much faster you can achieve your goals when you start by failing and how failing is a great indicator of action.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how our approach to balance not just our images but our relationship to our work can make a difference in both how we appreciate our work but also our process of getting there.

In this week’s podcast, I tell you a little about my best bud, and the final lesson he gave to me as he journeyed to be with the rest of the pets waiting at the rainbow bridge.

This week’s podcast is all about listening to your voice and finding your way with it.

In the podcast this week, we talk about what is one piece of advice you would give yourself, knowing what you know now, when you first got started in photography.

In the podcast this week, I dive into the importance of an image having multiple meanings,

This week’s podcast is quick discussion about the impacts of nature verse nurture in our photography.

In this week’s podcast, I offer up my opinion on a couple of the most important ways we consider and think about the path to more personal and meaningful work.

In the podcast this week, we are diving into some listener questions that have come in over the past few months.

In this week’s podcast, I dive into a quick look at the book The Nature of Photographs and how the impact of focus at the descriptive level can make a huge difference in your approach to your photographs.

In the podcast this week, we take a look at five cliches that can make a difference in your photography.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how sometimes the simplest of acts can make a huge difference in the quality and meaning of our photography.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about the importance of why we photograph what we photograph and how I answer the question of why I am a landscape photographer.

In this week’s podcast, I continue to talk about the impacts on AI on photography and how it shifts our communication about photography

In this week’s podcast, we spend some time talking about how various aspects of our work and approach to photography as impacted by 10%

In this week’s podcast, I dive a little into a method for evaluating photographs.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how final images tell us about how well we prepared and what to practice when things are not what we expect.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how projects ideas develop and what is the best method for working with and dealing with projects in your photography.

In this week’s podcast, quantity is the name of the game. One of the best things you can do to improve your photography is to increase the amount of work you are creating.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how setting goals can help you keep focused and move your photography forward.

this week’s podcast talks about how to think about the variety of ways to use point of view to tell your story and engage with your own process to make your photographs.

This week’s podcast is focused on titling your photographs and why and how that can impact our perception of the image, intention and experience of the work.

Two topics for this week’s podcast. The first is the difference between explaining your work and justifying your work. For many photographers, they end up making justifications for there images when they think they are explaining what the work is about. I also talk…

As 2022 starts to draw to a close, it is a time to look back and reflect on the prior year. As photographers that means we should look back at the impact of our photography. In this week’s podcast, I toss out three areas to think about cleaning up before the start of th…

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how practicing your speaking, owning what you say and listening to others can have a major impact on your photographic process and experience.

In this week’s podcast, I share some thoughts on how to use and work with your audience so that you can share your work and find more people who are engaged with your message.

This week’s podcast looks at the role of recognition in our photography.

Today’s release is the 400th episode of the Perceptive Photographer. I started this little podcast 400 weeks ago and never thought I would be here today celebrating this milestone.

In this week’s podcast, we tackle the idea of being boxed into the notions that photographs are to be simple and concise to be good in an attempt to dispel the myth that images are best when they check the boxes when we aren’t even sure the boxes are correct.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how important it is to face the resistance and see if we can sort out the root cause of why we are so against some aspect of our work.

In this week’s podcast, I tackle two of the hardest topics for any photographer. If you follow these very simple steps, I promise that your photography will grown by leaps and bounds. So take a listen and learn how a comfortable pair of shoes and a return to the…

This week’s podcast explorers the idea of grouping photographs, not by subject or subject matter, but rather by emotional support or insight they provide.

In the podcast this week, I dive into the importance of pushing through that self-doubt and continuing to make your photographs even when at times they seem like they might be copies of other images or you’re not sure what makes your image special.

How do we get better at looking at photographs? Looking at not just a photograph but a series of photographs.

In this week’s podcast, I dive into the notion of normal in photography and making photographs in an attempt to sort of what is normal and does it matter.

In this week’s podcast, we explore a little more into the nature of time and how it impacts our photography

In this week’s podcast, I spend some time discussing the nature of what it means to make art and some considerations for when we think about approaching the meaning and context of art in photography.

This week’s podcast focuses (pun intended) on the idea that straight out of the camera is somehow better than images that are processed after being taken. While I think getting it right in camera is critical to success as a photographer, the conversation to push images …

In this week’s podcast, I share ten tips for making your photographic process more creative.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how your relationship with simple can drastically change your approach to your work behind the camera, staying organized, or enjoying your time more.

In this week’s podcast, we talk about how editing and selecting images for diptychs or triptychs can make for more interesting work and boost your creativity in approaching your work.

In this week’s podcast, I share some thoughts on pricing your work and selling your work as art for the wall. Rather than focusing on what to price, I’ll share with you some of the key things to consider when pricing your work and taking those first step

Normally when I get asked about film and digital, I talk about the darkroom days being less and less easy to find, changes in media, or how the industry has shifted. I might tell a story about how I used to work versus how I work today. This tim…

For many photographers who are starting their printing journey, much of the joy comes from the printer making prints that sort of looking like the screen. But as your skills evolve, there comes the point where making a good print turns into a significant print. There ar…

One of the purposes of language is used to express ideas and share observations. The visual language of photography is no different. It is about expressing the ideas and feelings behind the camera. For many photographers, this can prove to be a significant challenge.

…

In this week’s podcast, the lessons of improv and focusing on using the yes AND can make a huge difference in your mental approach to taking new and more exciting images.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how always ordering your comfort food when taking a picture can result in you taking uninspired and boring images over and over again.

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at how forgetting can shape our approach to making more meaningful work.

Carrie Fisher has a great quote, “Instant gratification takes too long.” In this week’s podcast, we dive into the impacts of instant gratification on the making of meaningful photographs.

In the podcast this week, we focus on the importance of research in making more meaningful images.

In the podcast this week we focus on two questions from listeners.

In this podcast, I discuss the importance of making sure your conflicts, passions, and things you stand for appear in your work.

This week’s podcast is focused on the importance of conversations in our photography, and how those conversations can change the way we see and experience behind the lens.

This week’s podcast takes a look at these two quotes and how they impact our approach to our photography and our creative living.

I was rocking out to the car radio the other day. A few songs came on back-to-back. They were huge songs when I was in college. They were one-hit wonders. Does a one-hit wonder in photography mean something and if so what? That is the dive into the pool we take this wee…

This week’s podcast dives into the topic of what photography is about. By looking at some of the key elements that make up a photography or concepts in a photograph, I argue that photography is actually about the life lived by the photographer and not a moment of light,…

Episode 371 This week’s podcast talks about the conditions that arise when we are left with too many choices and the impacts on our work If you want to participate in the Photoshop Virtual Summit 4, you can register for your free pass using the link below. Get your…

This week’s podcast talks about how sometimes an instant success to someone can seem like a long slow journey to the person making it. It is better to be a instant hit or travel the longer journey?

This week’s podcast talks about some photographic lessons learned from listening to bird watchers

In the podcast this week, the focus is, well, focus. I talk about how we approach our work and what it can do to our process when we get a handle on both camera focus and other forms of focus.

In the podcast this week, I talk about the importance of seeing and framing elements in your images to make them more interesting both at first glance and at the same time offer a more profound discovery the more you look at them.

In this week’s podcast, we dive into how blurry and sharp are both important elements to have in making successful images.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how one single change in your language can make a huge difference in the conversations you have about your work.

In this week’s podcast, in addition to talking about a little podcast history and the importance of photography in our lives, I also detail out some of the workshops I am teaching this year that you can register for up on my site at www.danieljgregory.com.

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the difference it can make in your images when you do them because you are in awe of the subject.

This week on the podcast is about two big challenges for your photography work. They are both super easy to take on, but each offers up a chance to learn about your work and build a connection to your community. So take a listen to this short episode and see if you are …

In the podcast this week, the focus is all on how focusing on facts of your photography might be limiting your approach to your photography.

In the podcast this week, I dive into the areas where you might spend your time as it relates to your photography and photographic process in an effort to help figure out if we are spending our time the best way possible.

ne of the biggest challenges many of us face in our photography is sorting out where and who to show our work. Finding our peeps or audience can be a challenge. That challenge can be clouded by ego, confusion, and misidentification. However, once we understand who our a…

In the podcast this week, I talk about how approaching our photography by thinking about how I am and how I want to be can make a difference in the type and quality of work we create.

In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, we dive into a new way of approaching the deletion of our images. Maybe there is a better approach to deleting. Maybe we should take a moment and honor the things we get rid of or delete for what they taught up no …

With the turn of a day, it is now 2022. I hope you are having a good start to the new year. This week’s podcast is a quick chat about something that I hope we can all do in 2022 for our own work and the work of others. I don’t think it will always be easy, but I do thin…

As we close out 2021 and look forward to 2022, we close out the podcast talking about a few listener questions that have been sent in over the past few months. As you will hear, in many cases, I think oftentimes we are asking the wrong question to begin with.

In our adventure as photographers, there are so many little twists and turns. Some of them are good and some are nothing more than a distraction. In this week’s podcast, we talk about five little things to consider as we approach the end of the year that might make a di…

nd ours is our feelings and how they relate to the things we photograph. Doesn’t matter if we love it, hate it, or are unsure about it. Whatever it is, you better make sure you know how you feel if you want to make a meaningful photograph.

In this episode, I talk about how to approach your photographs as a group of interconnected elements focusing on not just what the object is or looks like but how it relates to everything else in the frame.

In this week’s episode, I dive into the importance of understanding your purpose when making a photograph. There are a host of reasons to take a photo, but understanding the reason you are making one will help you critique your images, organize your images and be succes…

Episode 350 There are so many ways to think about grouping photographs and programs like Lightroom or Capture One can make it easier. Although those programs sort of force a method for looking at times, there are other options for grouping and associating our work. In…

In this week’s podcast, I spend a little time talking about the importance of appreciating that what we are doing when we photograph is extending the conversations, responding to discussions and generating new ideas by combining influences and ideas.

s week’s podcast, I talk a little be more about how to think about sequencing your images into an essay or story. What sort of considerations to make before, during, and after the process. I also step onto the soapbox a bit about how we view and understand this broader …

In this week’s podcast, I talk a little about how recognizing your defining moments in photography might be more important than your decisive moments behind the camera.

We all collect stuff. In this week’s podcast, I discuss the impacts of what we collect in our photography and photographic processes. For many of us, I am sure we collect good things, but I am also sure that we collect a lot of things we wish we could or would get rid …

In this week’s podcast, we jump into the notion of memory and how it can impact our understanding of how we view an image. I also talk about how to find a better awareness of the impact of memory in our process behind the camera so that, if we are lucky, we come home wi…

Episode 344 If you haven’t taken the time to make a contact sheet, you should. They are worth their weight in gold. Many people think the contact sheet is used to select your best photograph to edit or enlarge, but I also think contacts teach you something about your…

Episode 343 Have you ever had a good glass of wine where you could taste the subtle notes of flavor? Maybe it was in a cup of coffee or something you cooked. That little sensation of blueberries, mint, rosemary, or plum. It is out there waiting to be discovered and…

Episode 342 This week’s podcast takes a look at how clarity can impact our photography from before the shutter clicks to after the print is made. As always, I hope you and yours are safe, and please remember to keep safe and wear your mask. Get your Photoshop Virtual…

Have you turned it off and on again? In this week’s podcast, I talk about how rebooting parts of your photography can help you let go of the past and issues that no longer work and focus on a better tomorrow.

Much of photography is about telling a story in our images. If we start telling a story before we know what we want to say, we might make uninteresting work. However, by listening to others tell stories and the stories we tell, we might be able to better apply the story…

Having a plan and idea of what matters, awareness behind the camera, and organizing around multiple concepts can all lead to better success in our images. In this week’s podcast, we dive into some ideas around how to increase the success rate behind the camera so that y…

have heard, more times than I can count, that inspiration is a magic gift from the beyond that moves and shakes up to create amazing things. I am on the other end of the spectrum where I think inspiration comes from the work. What we might think of as a eureka idea actu…

In this week’s podcast, I take a leap off the high bar and discuss the impacts of how our language of correct or incorrect can have on our seeing, photographing and sharing of photographs. By the end of the podcast, I hope that you will give some thought to how a small …

There was a game we used to play back in at a company I worked at. Several of us worked in a common open area. Work was slow at times, so we would have entire conversations that had to be movie quotes. The only rules were had to be a quote and someone had to guess the q…

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the notion of the metaphor to understand our work and find more meaning in the images we create, share and see from others.

is week’s podcast, I talk about how asking questions to questions, not in an arrogant annoying sort of way can help move the conversation in a more interesting direction and help everyone have a better conversation about their photography and the work of others.

are trying out a new segment for the podcast called footnotes and endnotes. This segment is a collection of small random thoughts I have in my notebooks and conversations that rather than stretch into a longer podcast where I might get a little redundant I rapidly cove…

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the ideas around success and how doing nothing might make you the most successful photographer you can be.

I have heard over the past several weeks other photographers talking about other people’s photographs. What caught my ear was how critical these photographers were of people’s subject selection, the commonness of the subject, or general bashing of the image as been ther…

I often hear people talk about or suggest the proper settings for your camera to make good photographs. You might also find people who are suggesting the proper methods to edit your photographs for maximum impact. In this week’s podcast, we take a look at that approach …

Episode 329 Often timed I find myself in a rush to do something. When that happens not much good comes from it. In this week’s podcast, I talk about how rushing can often lead to less than ideal results. As always, I hope you and yours are safe, and please remember to…

We all have places we work on editing our photographs. It might be a dedicated studio or room in the house, and for others, it might be a shared desk in the kitchen. In this week’s podcast, I talk about how setting up your space to work is similar to how you might appr…

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how the work we make is all about the small details and impacts. Like ripples in a pond you never know how big of impact something you do might be but obsessing about how big the impact is or should be can lead to a dark creative pla…

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the question of does our style change when we change what we photograph or is our style consistent. I was asked recently if our style changes all the time based on what we photograph. They gave the example of black and white lan…

There are times that everyone faces in their photography when you feel like things are going nowhere. Maybe you are spending more money The longer we spend on photography, the less time and energy we have to do photography. This week we take a look at how the work can …

In this week’s podcast, I take a quick look at the notion of accuracy in a photograph. Each photograph has a given set of attributes that we respond to when we look at the image. In critiquing work, there is often a sense of correctness to those decisions behind the cam…

In this week’s podcast, we talk about the duality of many of the concepts and ideas that we might face when making photographs. We look at how ideas can be both easy and hard or how expectations can be both meet and disappointing. As we face this dual nature of many asp…

This week’s podcast takes a look at how we learn things and the language we use to describe ourselves when we don’t know something and the impact of making more positive statements.

In this week’s podcast, we talk about the way to tell a better story in your photographs and how to approach storytelling in your images.

There are many ways to learn things—some things in life we pick up pretty quickly, others not so much.

In today’s podcast, I talk about how most of the time, the time we put into something offers more rewards than just the desired goal. The journey is, in fact, more…

I got to thinking these past few weeks about what would happen if I lost my eyesight. What would that mean for my photography? What would it mean to make photographs and appreciating photographs? In this week’s podcast, I talk a little bit about not being able to see c…

I have heard from several friends how every day in the pandemic seems to run together. Sort of a Groundhog Day effect. In this week’s podcast, I dive into that notion of everything and every day being the same and how that can impact our approach to talking about our ph…

This week’s podcast takes a look at the impacts of how we react to events and information. When you hear someone talk about your photography, do you focus on the negative, which in turn makes everything negative, or do you focus on the positive? In the podcast, I talk a…

If you ever take one of my classes or workshops, you will listen to me talk about reading the photograph. The idea of reading a photograph is just like reading a book. You have to slow down, take it in, process the work, and think about it.

This week’s podcast breaks out the dustpan and broom. It is spring cleaning week. It is important to keep yourself organized and with sufficient space to be creative. With that in mind, this week we take a look at three easy places to do some spring cleaning in your pho…

This week’s podcast is all about answering questions from podcast listeners. We tackle five questions that really got me thinking or were asked more than once. I hope you get something out of the answers and if you have any questions feel free to reach out and let me he…

Sometimes when we are working, it is easy to stick with what we are good at. We tend to think that we are meant to be doing it if we are good at something. However, being good at something doesn’t mean that we enjoy something or should keep doing something. In this week…

This week’s podcast takes a look at why we create. I believe that art, and by proxy photography, is best when it is personal. It is born out of our curiosity and desire to discover, learn, grown, process, and sort out how we fit in the world. When we make work from a pl…

Episode 311 Each one of us has a different level of patience when it comes to time. I think each of us has to answer how long I am willing to wait to get a great photograph? Often, I find that I might give up a little early or stay way too late in my work. The balance…

Episode 310 For many photographers I work with, one of the consistent pieces of feedback I hear is that there is never enough of something to do the work they want. There might not be time or money or gear. A lot of effort and energy goes into thinking about what is…

When we think about approaching our photography, we often put things in buckets or bins. These classifications can help us identify areas of the images to work with and projects to pursue or find meaning in our work. Over time, I have grown to think about these ideas as…

I work with a lot of different people on different aspects of photography. One of the big areas that I help people with is developing a deeper connection to their work and others’ work. In that process, one of the issues that comes up repeatedly is the idea of what make…

Throughout our lifetime, we have a lot of friends and acquaintances. Some people are around for a short time, and others might last that lifetime. I have been thinking a lot lately about friendships and how they shape and shift us. They provide support, honesty, humor, …

I have been working on some images in the studio recently and some start of the new year cleanup work. As I bounced back and forth between those two projects, it occurred to me that I was missing one thing oftentimes. That thing could be a screw for a tripod leg or a le…

This week’s podcast is a chat about how we feel about photography and photographs. In my teaching experience, I have found that many people think a lot about their photographs, but in some ways how we feel about our photographs can matter more.

This week’s podcast is a quick chat about setting goals for the new year and the importance of looking back at the past year and celebrating what was good. In a year harder than most for people, 2020 gives us a chance to celebrate the flexibility and durability we all h…

This week’s podcast topic came about because of some maintenance on the car. That maintenance got me thinking about how scheduled maintenance to keep a car running smoothly could be applied to photography.

This week’s podcast is about the importance of having traditions in your photography. No matter how big or small traditions are something we can look forward to each year and reflect back on the past.

This week’s podcast is all about homework. One of the areas that I think all photographers could improve is understanding what makes a good photograph or a good photograph to them. We dive deep into that topic this week with an exercise to help you better understand how…

This week marks the 300th episode of the podcast. So first off, thank you to everyone who tunes in and listens to the podcast. It really means the world to me that you all tune in and check out what is going on with the podcast. As I mention about a third of the way int…

I have been asked a lot recently about what I think about some of the new tools digital photographers have at their disposal. Many programs now offer “AI or machine learning” to help edit photographs. Now with the click of a few buttons, you can replace skies, change ex…

In the end, I think we all want to make interesting photographs, and the composition and framing are so much of that experience. The more you can be aware of composing, the more interesting and accurate stories you can tell. Being aware also gives you something else tha…

In this week’s podcast, we look at the impacts of muscle memory on our photography. Muscle memory, or the body’s ability to do something without thinking about it, is an important aspect of working as a photographer. This memory allows us to be able to quickly and effic…

In this week’s podcast, we look at a possible photographic approach and discuss how you approach knowing when enough is enough when creating the image. For many of us, our approach to getting an image completed is incremental. We take small steps in our approach to fram…

After reading a brief snippet about how Forbes creates its top 200 most brand valuable companies, I got to thinking about what formulas do we use in our photography when we assign a photograph a star value of 1-5. This week’s podcast looks at how we approach and think …

Everything is connected. When you photograph a leaf, it is part of a tree. A leading line doesn’t just start and stop in your frame. It extends beyond the frame. In this week’s podcast, we look at how our approach to seeing the whole and its parts can impact how we view…

I had a conversation with a friend a while back about photography and at one point, relating to photo editing, I asked him, Why do you care what someone else does so much? There was a long, almost uncomfortably long pause. The answer that he gave didn’t really matter mu…

When I was younger, I worked for a high-tech startup that had to lay most of the company off in order to survive. They didn’t do anything but prolong their demise, but the language used during the layoffs has stuck with me. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time but r…

Sometimes when we look at a photograph, we just don’t get it. We move on and don’t give it another thought. However, assuming the photographer was attempting to make something meaningful with there work, the photograph does have something to say. I have grown to think t…

In a follow-up to last week’s podcast on the value of interviewing others and yourself about photography, this week we talk about some possible subjects or ideas to consider when planning your interview. I always recommend that you start with the work. Look closely at t…

One of my favorite exercises I use to teach photography and learn about my own work is called the interview project. This process involves you doing enough research about a photographer you are inspired by or want to learn from and then create a set of 10 to 20 intervie…

Sometimes it is the little things that can make all the difference. In a photograph, it might be a shift in POV or depth of frame. In our printing, it might be the right paper selection. No matter what you are working on a small change can be a big deal. However, as the…

I often think of photography as an active verb. It is something that we do, see, and respond.

There is, however, a whole set of photography that is created without the photographer. Video and photos are created by surveillance systems and unattended cameras. These phot…

Sometimes I hear someone say something and it gets me thinking about my approach to my photography. I recently overheard someone say don’t shoot the messenger. This got me to thinking about how many times we blame the viewer for not getting our understanding of our phot…

This week’s podcast dives into how to think about your photography and ideas to approach your editing using some of the concepts and sections you find in most software release notes. This release note template gives us an opportunity to create a plan, outline, and goals…

This week’s podcast dives into how we define a photograph and photography. For me there are three key aspects of a photograph. They are time-bound, indexical, and is represented by an object of some type (print, slide, etc). For you, I imagine you might have different …

This week’s podcast introduces my two new long-format workshops and also an exercise, called 10×10, which will help you better understand your approach to editing and creating your photography.

There are a number of aspects of photography that fall into two camps. There are artistic decisions and technical decisions. For some people, you might think of this as left-brain (technical) and righ- brain (creative) decisions. However, to be successful, you need both…

One of our listeners sent in a great question about distractions. Her question was a two-part approach to dealing with distractions.

The first was dealing with the distractions of editing the wrong images. The second area was dealing with distractions outside of editi…

Make yourself the best photographer in the world. To do so, all you have to do is wear a mask. If you think it kills your freedom, put one and walk around and see if you can still do things. If you can, the mask hasn’t destroyed your freedom but has kept the rest of us …

I get asked a lot of questions about photography. Some are good, and some are not so good. When we look at our own work and spend time behind the camera it is all about asking and answering questions. Is this the right composition? Do I have the right settings? Is my na…

As COVID-19 continues to build in the USA, I thought I would use the podcast this week to share five things you can do with your stay at home time. These to-do items will work even if you aren’t stuck at home under quarantine. Still, these to-dos can help pass the time …

I often get asked what the things you can do to be a better photographer are. The two that are always at the top of my list are printing and consuming other people’s work. I like to use the analogy of ice cream when discussing other people’s work. Our work is one flavor…

We used to be able to go to the movies, one of my favorite traditions was getting something from the concessions stands. Now I know they are a rip-off, but I just love having a treat during the movie. I am always somewhat annoyed; however, by the time it takes some pe…

Ah, the great American past-time of complaining. Nothing beats hanging out with friends over a beer and complaining about all sorts of things in life. We love to complain about lots of things such as politics, weather, work, and even our photography. Photographers love …

A couple of the things I hear photographs talk about all the time is hitting a wall, not getting good feedback, and fear in the face of change. In this week’s podcast, I tossed all of those issues into the Vitamix blender and hit high speed on the dial. No matter what p…

In her classic essay On Photography, Susan Sontag makes the statement:
Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention.
So in this week’s podcast, I thought we would take a look at that quote and discuss how photographing and the viewing of photographs can be a …

In this week’s podcast, we focus on two aspects of the nature of critique. The how and the why of taking a photograph. The how is the technical side of things in creating the image. The why is who you are as a photographer in the photograph. The story of the image so to…

In this week’s podcast, I talk about some of the impacts that might appear in your photo editing and viewing as a result of binge-watching. While it is fun to sit down and consume a show from beginning to end as fast a possible, there is a cost to this approach. Much li…

This week’s podcast focuses on the impacts in our photography when the days, projects, images, and seeing seem to drag into each other over and over again. The groundhog effect, so to speak. I don’t think there is a person out there who hasn’t had a negative sense of de…

I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. This week’s podcast is based on a request from one of our listeners regarding a question of ethics in photography. Ethics, our sense of doing what is right and wrong, is at the core of each of us. As…

I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. This week’s podcast is a direct response to conversations I have been having with my friends and associates as they struggle to deal with their creative process during the pandemic. As the days drag …

I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. I have been having some conversations with people lately about how they create their work. In the course of those discussions, I have found that a lot of people seem to focus on the next thing. Howev…

I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. As we all have been forced to make changes to our daily routines, it got me thinking about time. Time is one of those things at the foundation of photography, and I believe, defines a unique aspect o…

I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. We recently added a new family member, Cora the dog, to the house. She is a loving, energetic ball of Aussie Shepard fur. Lori and I are working at training her to be a happy, well-adjusted, non-cat …

I hope that you and your family are safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. For a lot of us, we are following stay-at-home orders and not going out much. For those of you stuck in essential jobs, thank you for continuing to do your job. I have had several conversations with …

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the importance of recognizing when you hit a turning point in your work. This might be technical, where you finally learn your workflow tools and feel confident editing. It might be in learning how to use some camera features th…

I am often amazed at how often we get caught up in the most simple of problems. It doesn’t matter if it is as simple as picking a new camera or picking out what image to edit and print. We can spin around and around trying to get a problem resolved that we have made mor…

As photographers, we should be making prints. There are a whole host of reasons why we should make prints: the materiality of it, shareability, improved seeing, longevity, or some other reason you might have. We also spend a considerable amount of our time looking at ph…

Photographers are an odd bunch. We often find our conversations drifting from one absolute to nothing be absolute. One area that I have always found interesting, and seems to fit this back and forth, is how approach and talk about composition. When you learn about pho…

It is really easy to feel overburdened when working on your photography. There is so much to learn, photograph, and share that you can quickly start to feel like you are under a tremendous amount of pressure to deliver. It might be pressure for time, expectations being …

I was having a conversation about the advances in camera technology and how at some point in the not to distant future the camera will make a perfect captured frame with exact colors, focus, infinity depth-of-field possibilities, etc. My friend was all excited about tha…

A sacred place or thing historically as been often associated with the worship of a deity or god. However, something can be sacred, even outside the context of religion. There could be places, people, ideas, or things that inspire, stimulate, are worthy of honor, or ho…

A friend recently recanted a story to me about how, when he was in school, they were only allowed to shoot one roll (36 frames) a week for homework. No more than that one roll for any week. He talked about how each frame became more critical because of the discipline an…

A recent trip to the store had me overhear a couple talking about how opposites attract. I couldn’t get that idea out of my head and how it might apply to photography. I eventually made a list of opposites that I could think of related to photography. As I completed the…

Ok, maybe there isn’t really wrong research. I do think there is the research we do before a trip that can have us create work that isn’t our best. In this week’s podcast, I talk about how your approach to researching where and what to photograph at any given location c…

This week’s podcast takes a deeper dive into the question we discussed last week about facing difficult times in your creative process.
I think everyone gets stuck sometimes and ends up in a dark place when creating.

There are times when you have to take photographs be…

As we kick off 2020, I thought I would make this week’s podcast all about the five most common questions I got asked in 2019 that weren’t related to camera gear or printing. I thought each question was exciting and provided an interesting insight into the creative proce…

As we close down the year and decade, many of us start to look back and reflect on the past year or ten. I am not a huge fan of looking back at what was cool in 2015 as a part of the decade. I would much rather think about the coming year. As photographers, we are alway…

I’m excited to be producing my 250th episode of the podcast for this week. It is a milestone that I never imagined when I started years ago, and it has been fun thinking about all the episodes I have had the honor to create thus far. As I began to reminiscing, I realize…

I was recently helping a friend who was insistent that his camera lens needed to be adjusted because it wasn’t able to properly autofocus. I tried to tell him that it was likely a technique issue, but he was insistent. So he and I got together to test the lens, and sure…

Most photographers, when they are learning about camera gear, learn that the lens controls the perspective. This isn’t exactly accurate; the subject to lens distance determines perspective along with the point of view. However, from a podcast a few weeks ago about fear,…

I don’t know a photographer who sets out to make or take bad photographs. Yet, we all come home with lots and lots of bad pictures. In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the value of the bad photograph. I feel too many photographers don’t take photographs for fear o…

I have often wondered what people think is the hardest thing to photograph. When I have conversations about this, those conversations more often than not start with some technical aspects of photography. Learning how to use studio lighting, getting in a good location, o…

If you listen to this podcast for very long, you know that it isn’t really about camera gear, but this week I did want to focus on the five most essential pieces of gear you should always have in your camera bag.

Luckily, you can get all of these pieces of gear for li…

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at two important questions that can have a significant impact on your approach to your photography.

The first question deals with our approach to failure. What would you do in your photography if there was no such thing as failure…

I was recently having a gear conversation with a friend who was asking me to validate a decision they make on a new camera purchase. They wanted me to tell them that with that new camera they were going to be able to take the photographs they always wanted. I just cou…

I am always bothered when I hear people say that you are too optimistic, or you’re wearing rose-colored glasses. My response to them is always the same. Your damn right, I am. The outlook you have on life, and your creativity is the most significant decision you can mak…

I have several friends who like to gamble. Poker and blackjack for the most part. When they are playing, they always talk about being on a hot streak or a cold streak. When it is good, things are hot, and the universe seems to give them the cards they need. When it is b…

I have a quote from Gary Winogrand that says all photographs make a new fact. As I looked back on that quote, it got me thinking about how much narratives and storytelling come into photography. Anyone who has been introduced into photography in the last few years have …

I love being able to drive on a roundabout. If they are well designed, they make the traffic flow so much better, but if you haven’t ever driven on one, knowing what lane to be in can be problematic and stressful. As I was recently driving through a local roundabout, it…

Episode 238

I find that it is sometimes difficult to work with a strong feeling of uncertainty. It doesn’t matter if it is technical, artistic, or just a feeling I have. I like to think that I have some clarity in my work and process. However, the reality is that I fre…

I was recently asked if I sign my photographs. I found this to be such an interesting ask because it seems so simple on the surface and yet within it holds more profound questions. Our signatures carry power. A signature can bind you to an agreement, signify acceptance,…

I came into the studio early today and found a flying friend cruising around. I guess they came in the night before when I had the bigger door open. After some encouragement and strategic door opening, we were able to work together to get them on their way.
As I worked …

If you have ever tried to put together a piece of furniture from IKEA or have been pulling your hair out because your friend can’t give you good directions to their house, this week’s podcast is for you.

That is a challenge that I am asking you to take on this week. I …

I was recently at an art opening that had several photographs of interesting abstractions. Images of plants, buildings, and objects all taken and presented as abstract objects. In listening to people talk about the work, I heard people discussing what they saw in the im…

There are many traps out there to keep us from making the types of photography that we want to create. Some of them are simple to see, while others are more complex in nature. As I was sitting in the studio watching my dog flip the pillows off the sofa she gets to sit o…

Episode 232 I think everyone has been to a party where politics and religious topics were not allowed, or you wish they were banned from the family holidays or summer parties. Both of these topics seem to bring out the worst in people’s conversational behaviors,…

Episode 231 At some point, we all want to quit. For a host of reasons, we might want to call it a day. Maybe we are tired, bored, fearful, or lost. No matter the cause at some point in your photography, you will want to move on. For some, it might be moving on from…

When you look at an inkblot test, you might see something strange or unusual. You also are likely to see something that someone else might not see. Each of us sees something unique and different, which is why I think many of us are photographers. We find that photograph…

There are many ways that people measure success. One of the more common ones that I hear people talk about is achieving goals. Goals are milestones that we set to help us keep focused on attaining something in the future. Some goals can be very short-term, while others …

This week’s podcast focuses on something that has impacted my photography and creative practice more than once–over-planning. When I am getting ready for a big trip or photographic adventure, I do a lot of research about where, when, and what to photograph. All that re…

I recently watched a group of kids make up playing a game in the park and it sparked an idea for how to better approach my own photographic practice. This week’s podcast takes a look at that process and how the end result made for a new approach to my creative practice.…

I get asked all the time what it takes to be a better photographer. Is there a class to take or a book to read? I always come back to the basics that photography is about seeing, telling a story, and finding your sense of self in your work. This week’s podcast talks abo…

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the impacts of talking about the effects of the should and would in our creative photography. So much of what we do as photographers is damaged when we focus on what we should be doing and what we would be doing rather than what…

I have several friends who are obsessed with the news. They watch it for 18 hours a day. They worry that something will happen that they might miss. Something will trend that they don’t know about. In this week’s podcast, we talk about how that fear of missing out can s…

I was cleaning a bookshelf in the study and came back across Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals. In the book, Mason details the daily rituals that artist and creatives spend their day. As I flipped back thru the book, I got to thinking about the small things that we do and …

I recently saw a roadside coffee stand to offer 64oz lattes. That is about 1.8 liters for those of you on the metric system. It is a huge latte. It reminded me of being a kid when 7-11 introduced the Big Gulp, which is now tiny by today’s drink offerings. All of those n…

I recently watched a movie that felt a little too long. The overall concept was good. The action was good. The directing was good. The acting was good. The movie just felt like it was about 15 minutes too long. A little trim of some scenes here or there would have tight…

We all spend a tremendous amount of time and energy, learning our style, voice, and vision as an artist. Unfortunately, it can become easy to fall into bad habits, quick filters, and popular trends that result in us editing our photographs to meet some other objective t…

Much like Hansel and Gretel, we often need to leave ourselves a way to get back home or to our creative place. If we use bread like Hansel and Gretel, we can easily get lost finding our way home. In this week’s podcast, I talk about how important it is to find your pass…

I have been working as a photographic educator for a long time. I have noticed in working with others something that has mirrored my own education as an artist which is the approach to viewing photographs.In this podcast, we break down the basic approach someone might t…

Routines can be both good and bad. Routines help us keep organized, focused and hone our skills both technical and artistic. At the same time, some routines keep us from growing and changing. While some people advocate for a particular routine, I feel that each person s…

This week’s podcast is a look at the importance of justify your opinion. Is it more important that you prove that you are right or that you make amazing work.

As photographers, we are always trying to make our photos better. We might work with new camera gear, make editing enhancements in the darkroom or try out some technique in Photoshop. We are always trying to make the best photograph possible. In this week’s episode foc…

Every March in the US brings a bit of crazy to the workplace. The NCAA march madness tournament begins. This one and done competition has become a big focus of both all types of sports fans. Even people who don’t usually care about sports will fill out a bracket in thei…

Ever get a song stuck in your head? One that loops or part of it loops, over and over again. It just won’t seem to go away like a never-ending punishment for some karma thing you did. It turns out that part of the reason this happens is that we can’t finish the song or …

Listening to a couple at a restaurant recently, I overheard one of them say stick a fork in me I am done. After what I presume to be a big meal, they were not going to finish their meal. Over the coming days, I got to wondering about can we stick a fork in our photograp…

Watching the bees get to work in the garden reminded me of the importance of inspiration AND the work to get inspired. Inspiration is a topic that comes up a lot among my artist friends. We talk about how we get it, find it, avoid it and respond to it. As I sit and list…

In this week’s podcast we talk about how our attitude towards our photography, subject, learning and viewing photographs can make a huge difference in our ability to view and see through the camera. Waking up on the wrong side of the bed or starting the day off great ca…

This week’s podcast is a free form rant of sorts about how we talk about seeing in photography. While there are skills necessary to understand how and why a photograph might be seen as a good photograph, that doesn’t mean it was well seen. Knowing that using the rule of…

If you have ever taken or seen a pole coming out of someone’s head in a photograph, you know the problem with making a 3D world appear on a 2D medium. 

When we compress three-dimensional space into two, things that should have distance between them are reduced or disa…

This week’s podcast is thanks and tribute to the Opportunity rover, JPL and NASA. Opportunity was designed to run for 90 days and cover 1000 meters on Mars. Rather than just meeting mission objectives, Opportunity ran for 15 years and covered more than 28 miles on the r…

As you think about your approach to photography, there are only a couple of factors that come into play. At its most basic level, photography is light and time. 

In this week’s podcast, I talk about how our approach to time can have huge impacts on how we create and v…

I have been in several conversations over the past few weeks about the impacts of fear in our lives. It doesn’t matter if you are talking politics, art or families, fear can show up in many ways. 

As I got to thinking about how fear shows up in my work and what is at …

I was asked recently to help a friend understand how to use depth of field on a new camera. They had always been using an iPhone and just wanted to know how to use that feature of their camera. 

The idea of depth stuck in my head as a critical aspect of the photograph…

I have been struggling lately trying to understand why so many more bad photographs are out there. Part of it is a volume game. Part of it is an education game. However, I am not focusing on the bad photographs from someone who doesn’t aspire to make great photographs. …

One of the most overlooked skills to develop as a photographer is good note taking habits. Before the wealth of data provided by digital cameras, note taking was essential to understanding your exposure, subject matter and development needs.

Outside the understanding t…

This is the 200th episode of the podcast. Eva, my australian shepherd, is in the studio today like always. She wanted to remind me that it is the 1400 dogcast. Anyway, dog humor aside, this week’s podcast is about being thankful for connecting with photography. There ha…

This week’s podcast starts with a quick rant against people who review photography gear, products, and methods which they haven’t ever used the product. I am amazed at how many people use a product for a few minutes, hours or never use the product and still feel qualifi…

As the end of the year draws closer, I keep hearing more and more people talk about how tired they are. The holiday season and current state of the world has so many people I know feel like they are burning a very short candle at both ends. This week’s podcast is focuse…

In rereading The Zen of Creativity again, I discovered a paragraph where he talks about how being different doesn’t make you original or unique in your creative practice. This week’s podcast dives into how we approach our photography and photographic work as it relates …

I get asked by family and friends this time of year what makes a good gift for a photographer. In past years, I have talked about books or gear that I think might make for a nice gift. This year I wanted to return to this idea but provide some other gift options that I …

We all have a house in crazy town. As much as we like to think that our crazy thoughts, insecurities, and ideas are unique, if you spend time talking to any creative person, you will quickly find that they have crazy thoughts too. In this week’s podcast, I spend some ti…

When you read content on the Internet, you will eventually run across material that falls along the lines of five easy steps to a good photograph or three easy ways to make killer portraits. There are literally thousands of these lists. I imagine I have written…

I sometimes feel bad that I don’t make better or more exciting photographs. I look at images online or in books and think I really need some help. Yet, other people can look at my images and tell me how much they love them and think they are amazing. So why do I spin…

Someone asked me recently about what is the correct distance to shoot a photograph. I was a first taken back by the question because it seemed a little strange to me. After digging a little, it was apparent that the photographer was interested in making sharp photograph…

I have always been amazed by people who are willing to share their imaginations with others. The more fantastic the story, the better. For me personally, I think we all have those stories in us, but for some reason, many of us don’t share them. In this week’s podcast, w…

In this week’s podcast, we focus on how at the core essence of photography is two things: light and time. Without either of those, there is no photograph. Yet, most photographers know that there is more to a photograph than those two elements. One of the most significan…

If you read about photography and critical thinking in photography, much of that writing is about the importance of ideas and thematic concepts in art. It doesn’t matter if it essay’s from Brook Jensen’s Lenswork magazine over other year, Critical Thinking in…

To thine own self be true.

-Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

In Hamlet, Polonius provides some last words of wisdom to his son as he gets on the next boat for Paris. While this quote has been stated over and over again, I think it’s something that is still true fo…

In this week’s podcast, we examine the importance of finding the shades of grey in our black and white world. It is, in many ways, more comfortable to approach our understanding of the world when we can quickly categorize and define people, places, and events. However, …

When I was growing up, I always heard the phrase: Close only counts in horseshoes, and atomic bombs. Later in my career, I had a boss who always said: “good isn’t good enough, and perfection is the enemy of done.” These two phrases have been bubbling up a lot for me in…

There is a remake or reboot trend that many of my friends talk about with Hollywood movies and television shows. Sure there are some reasons to reboot or remake a movie or show. Maybe it was awful the first time, but the source material was excellent. Or, perhaps there …

When you are in school and getting ready to graduate, or you are starting to look for a job, you often hear advice from people about what to do with your life. Much of that advice was summarized in the book What color is your parachute. In that book, at the core is f…

I love to travel and take pictures, and fall is my favorite season. In this week’s podcast, we talk about some of the lists that you need to make to be successful when you travel. While most people know to make a list of equipment, clothing and travel documents, I encou…

If you are a photographer, the only person who cares about your camera brand is you and other photographers. People who look at photographs judge photographs not if they were taken with the “right camera.” However, in our modern day of Internet fame and quick judgment, …

Ever feel like you are running on a treadmill and going nowhere. In my creative practice, I call these loops, and just like getting lost in the woods, I start and end at the point even though I feel like I start in a different direction. This week’s podcast talks about …

Ok so after a quick rant on the war and revolution that is coming in photography click bait, this week’s podcast focuses in on balance. As we have discussed many times on this podcast, balance is something that is important when thinking about images while behind the ca…

Michael Gregory, no relation, wrote an excellent article for Aperture in 1961 about the nature of photographic style and idea for how to define and use style in photography. I was recently rereading the article and used it as the foundation for this week’s podcast. One …

In this week’s podcast, we are talking about how to go about applying some of the basic concepts from minimalism and getting organized to make it easier to work and edit our photographs. At times it is very easy to get overwhelmed with the work required to make a good p…

I was flipping through Netflix looking at movies and got to thinking about how many movies follow the same basic formula. For example, in most romantic comedies, the couple gets together, and something happens that drives them apart. After some conflict, they are someho…

This is one of my favorite podcast topics. In this week’s podcast, we are talking about questions you all have sent in over the past few months. I really do appreciate you sending in comments and feedback about the show, and getting a chance to record an episode…

Welcome to the 175th episode of the Perceptive Photographer. This week’s episode looks at how to determine what a photograph is worth. Is a picture worth more because it has sold more copies and made a lot of money? Is a photograph worth more because it has a lot of lik…

In the 174th episode of the Perceptive Photographer, we take a look at how various methods of expanding and narrowing down the photographic process can help us make better images behind the camera. The creative process has a huge influx of ideas from both external and i…

Welcome to episode 173 of the podcast!. Thanks so much for being a listener, I really do appreciate you taking time out of your day to listen to the podcast. This week’s topic is all about how important the concept of getting it right in camera is to make a successful i…

This week’s podcast focuses on the importance of finding and using the simple pleasures in life to influence our photography. When our creative process is going well, rarely do we describe it as a complicated process. When things in life are not going well, we then…

Over the past eight months, I have been dealing with the loss of my little brother. And while I have amazing family and friends to offer their support, it has been a long creative rut I have been in. Rather than process my feelings with my creativity I tossed myself…

I believe that storytelling is central to humanity. From our earliest days, we have told stories. If you sit in a coffee shop and listen, all people are telling our stories–stories about family, friends, events, and work. At the core of a photograph is also a story. It…

Have you ever taken a look at the names of some of your program and apps that you use to create photographs? Many of those names are all about speed-, insta-, snap- and a host of other quick action words. In Photoshop and Lightroom, we use fast presets and actions to sp…

Do you ever think about what it might take to make the perfect print? This week’s podcast is about what are some of the non-technical considerations for creating the perfect print or deciding if that is even possible. 

When we are working on a photograph one of the …

This week’s podcast comes from looking Ricahrd Zakia’s Perception and Imaging. A few podcasts ago, I talked about the Gestalt approach to learning. From that podcast, I was reminded that Richard’s book also had a full chapter on gestalt and meaning. As I returned to th…

This week’s podcast is a mash-up of topics that I was pondering as I worked on the flower beds around the studio. To extend the creative space to the outside the studio, I have been working with Lori to plant some cool plants to support the creative energy I want on the…

Photography can be hard, and it is easy to get discouraged. It always seems like there is so much to learn and so many people out there doing amazing things with a camera. I sometimes find myself getting discouraged and struggling to make sense of my practice. I have le…

How do we know that something is true or not? It is often defined by the context. When we are judging and looking at photographs the context by which we frame our feedback can make a huge difference in how we appreciate and understand the work. I think many of us at tim…

In part two of our series on Gestalt psychology and its impact on photography, we examine how the law of past experience and similarity can help us to better define not only what happens behind the camera but also what happens when we are in the editing and critique pro…

I have been helping a number of photographers recently with editing and sequencing. Some of them have a similar set of photographs that reminded me of my work in one particular way. They were very chaotic images. One of the things that I like to explore in my photograph…

This week’s podcast is all about storytelling concepts. It doesn’t matter how much you work your technical skills as a photographer. Eventually, your work is about how well you connect with your audience beyond f/stops and shutter speeds. One of the most common approach…

This week’s podcast focuses on understanding who your audience is as a photographer. In general, there are two main groups of consumers of photography. There is the mass audience and then the art-elite audience. Both of these audiences are critical to supporting photogr…

In this week’s podcast, the focus is all about the process of seeing to capture. From the moment we think we see something to the point it becomes a photograph is a journey. Along the way, there are a number of steps that we take to make that happen. In my experience wh…

In this week’s episode of the Perceptive Photographer we discuss two topics that can have an impact on how we create photographs and how we share photographs. The first half of the podcast, we talk about how to learn a new task that can be applied in our photography, an…

One of the consistent things that you see when you study working artist is that they are always working. While they may spend some time researching, reading and talking about aspects of their work, they all have their nose to the grindstone. I have learned that this is …

During a recent photogravure workshop, I was standing around waiting for a plate to finish and I started to again think about why we photograph. What is is about photography that compels us to make images? I think for a lot of artists, regardless of their discipline, sh…

In this week’s podcast, we answer the top five questions I have been answering about printing or the past few months. If you listen to the podcast, you know I am a huge fan of printing, and so I am excited to be able to answer some of the common questions that I have be…

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the impacts of getting stuck in an easy rut. As we work on our photography, it is easy to find things that we are good at and stick with those techniques, subjects and concepts. However, it is important to continue to push our p…

I am learning to play the guitar. It is a slow but fun process. I am still early enough in my practice that all I get to do is play some cords and learn muscle memory for the cords. I know that one day I will get to play a song. What I want to play is more blues and jaz…

It is easy to develop bad habits. They can show up in our desires for equipment or software to make our “job easier.” They might show up in the way we approach our work. Some of our bad habits are there, and we don’t even know why we are doing what we do, but we continu…

In this week’s podcast, we talk about the importance of trusting your instincts. I was recently a conversation with Lori, and she was relaying how important it is to learn to listen to your internal voice to trust your instincts. We talked about how this is true for y…

I recently was watching TV at a friends house and during the news and then talking with Lori about what I heard. There were some people in our government and in interviews talking about returning to a simpler time. I am not one, for just returning to the way it was…

In this week’s podcast, we talk about the importance of figuring out what you really need to know to be a successful photographer. When we look at a photograph, we make a lot of decisions about what we like about the image and what we don’t like about the image. As we…

One of the most important task we have when working is to find a way to stay focused on what we want to accomplish. While some days, we need to have the freedom to just figure out what the day brings. The freedom to really wonder gives us our sense of energy a chance to…

As 2017 moves into the rearview window, this week’s podcast is all about setting up some new goals and ideas for 2018. One of the first steps to having a great new year is to take the time to look back into the accomplishments of 2017. If you spend some time thinking ab…

I have really taken noticed recently that a lot of our information is provided in quick, easy soundbites. And, it seems some people prefer to get their information that way. You can hear it in conversations and see it in how we relate online. So many small statements su…

I have really taken noticed recently that a lot of our information is provided in quick, easy soundbites. And, it seems some people prefer to get their information that way. You can hear it in conversations and see it in how we relate online. So many small statements su…

In the podcast this week we are taking a look at when you think you might need to get some new gear. One of the things that I have noticed in my practice is that I don’t ever, for the most part, think that need new equipment or skills when I am actually creating photogr…

In the first part of this week’s podcast, we take a look at how working on a project is like running on a racetrack. Like lanes on a track, at any given time, you might be faster and ahead in one area of your project and behind in another. The key is to keep your eyes o…

As I was having a drink with a friend recently, our conversation turned to my photography. My friend asked me what would be the one skill that every photographer should have to be successful. As we talked about all the various skills that one may need, I remembered a co…

I was recently in line at a grocery store and overhead one of the people in line say something about doing your best. That got me thinking about all the times in my life where I was asked if I was doing my best. As if my best was something that mattered. As a child, I t…

In an episode a few weeks ago we talked about how the smaller stories of life are just as important as the bigger stories people think about telling. For many of us, there is a paralysis of the larger story whereas with the smaller stories we can more easily pick up the…

This past week my little brother, Jim, unexpectedly passed away. I have never felt the pain and sorrow that I have been living with for the past several days. My heart is truly broken. It has been a sucker punch to the gut and a 2×4 to the face times ten.

My little …

I was recently having a conversation with a friend when he said that he was worried about his art because he didn’t have anything to say or any big ideas. In my own work, I at times it had similar thoughts. The reality is, we all have something important to say. In…

I have a lecture that I’m giving later this week at the Photographic Center Northwest on visual literacy. As I’ve been preparing for that lecture, I also noticed a number of different people asking me for critiques in interesting and unusual ways. So in this week’…

At the risk of repeating myself more than once in this podcast, I raise a question about the value of repetition in the photographic process. When we are working creativity is there something in the process that repetition can help with and at the same time can it hinde…

I am working on a new lecture on visual literacy for later in October. As I was reviewing a number of different aspects of language in photography, I occurred to me that we often phrase questions in our creative practice that can impact our approach to our photographs a…

I am a huge science junkie, but I have never been able to handle the math necessary to make it something more than an interest. I love to read all the books that explain the science but remove the math. Books like Godel, Escher and Bach, The Elegant Universe and other h…

I was recently having a conversation with a good friend, who also listens to the podcast. He said that he has heard me say over and over again that printing makes a shift in your work as a photographer. But, he wanted to know what other things might I recommend to someo…

In this week’s podcast, the changing of the seasons from summer to fall has me thinking about how the change of seasons causes a shift in my photographic practice. As I looked back at my photographic process, I have learned that the limited light and gray of the Pacific…

In this week’s podcast, I got interested in looking at how fraud can rear its ugly head in our creative practice. I was researching something else, and I wanted to see the exact definition of the word fraud. When I looked the word up, I found the following:

” a perso…

It’s about time for my yearly physical with my doctor, and it got me thinking about some of the test results you get back during your appointment. One of the things that I find interesting is that they have a standard set of bloodwork they do year-over-year. By doing th…

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at the impact of not allowing ourselves to have any alone time with our thoughts or moments of silence by filling that time with our smartphones. I believe part of the creative practice is allowing yourself to have moments with you…

A recent trip to a big-box retailer taught me something interesting about my creative process. We were standing in line, and due to a product display blocking peoples view from two different directions, the line was having to merge similar to an on-ramp at a freeway. At…

As we work our creative process we often time find ourselves stuck hitting the wall creatively. This week I was inspired by a Susan Sontag quote on the impact of making photographs of meaning and being so caught up in the act that we miss what is happening around us. Ma…

I have a couple of announcements to start this week’s podcast. The week of August 21 through the 24th this film week at creative live. I am really excited to be one of the instructors. I will be teaching a black-and-white film class on August 22, and I will be teach…

When I was growing up, and you heard something that sounded strange our weird, you had to either blindly accept it, research it at the library or test it yourself. As those stories passed from person-to-person, we eventually learned that the urban legend was something t…

A visit from some family inspired this week’s podcast. My sister-in-law’s family came to visit, and they have a little 2-year old. My brother-in-law and I were talking about being a dad, and he mentioned in passing how much advice they hear from people when it comes to …

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at how some of the concepts that are used in cinematic storytelling can be applied to still photography.

Photography and cinema have always been joined at the hip. While one is an expanded scope for time, sound, and movement, th…

This week’s podcast is all about answer some listener’s questions that have been sent in over the past few months. I grabbed some of the more interesting and most asked questions and spend some time answering them.

The topics include finding new photographers, favori…

Bernie De Koven is an amazing person that my partner, Lori Kane, has known for a number of years. Bernie is  all in on play and the importance and value of playing in everyday life. He has written more pages on play the pretty much anyone. He has a huge gift for sharin…

In this week’s podcast, we examine a couple of varied themes and how they all relate to a different way to examine the role of criticism in our creative process.

There is such value in doing the work. The reality of creating is that if you don’t do the work, it’s not…

In last week’s podcast, we talked about some of the things to consider when submitting to a juried show. In this week’s podcast, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the things to consider when selecting those images for that juried show.

Before we dived in to…

One of the questions that I get asked about a lot is entering photo competitions. With so many contests, chances to win and options out there, it is easy to spend a lot of time, energy and effort on entering these competitions.

I think that you need to be selective w…

This week’s podcast was gonna be about selections for juried show and how you go about picking those. However, over the past several weeks, myself and some of the other instructors, I work with have noticed that there’s something strange in the creative space in the cla…

I was reading about the Hayden expedition to Yellowstone in 1871. This expedition is notable in photography because it included the photographer William Henry Jackson. On that same expedition, there was a collection of ornithologist meteorologist biologist botanist an…

This past weekend we were helping setup a booth at a local farmers market. As I was talking to a few of the local farmers who were at the market I realized how there approach to farming was something that could be applied to photography. They work hard to make sure th…

I was recently listening to a couple of photographs look at each other’s work. One of the photographers was showing some abstract work. The other photographer wanted to know what the image was a photograph of. The first photographer wouldn’t say because they felt that i…

After reviewing some old notes, I came across a list of things I wish I knew earlier in my photography. That old list got me thinking about what I could tell my past self-based on what I know today. Most of the list is pretty simple, but I think I would have liked to k…

I am speaking at Photoshop Week on CreativeLive in May. You can join me on Monday, May 16 and Tuesday, May 17 from 10:45-12:15. I am speaking on building a personalized workflow and creating the fine-art print. You can watch for free during the week, so if you can poin…

After visiting some galleries recently, I got to thinking about audience and who looks at art. For photography, in particular, because we are inundated with images that on some level we are exposed to more photograph than any other form of art, and to get meaningful fee…

This week’s podcast is all about the crossing lines in our photography. There are always lines in photography that photographers have to think about. Most photographers think about lines in composition when they are thinking about the line. From leading lines to rule of…

After reading Mason Currey’s book Daily Rituals, I spent some time exploring my own schedule as an artist and how it impacts my own creative energy.

In this week’s podcast, we talk about how the practice of yoga and the art of photography might share a common bond in their respective approaches.

One of the biggest teaching aspects of digital photography is the importance of the non-destructive workflow.

In this week’s podcast, we take a look at some of the differences between facts and truths in art and how having an awareness of both can shift your understanding of photography.

I am excited to announce in this week’s podcast, my 2017 workshop calendar. You can learn more about the workshops here, but I am offering both in-person workshops and online workshops…

I was having coffee with a fellow photographer recently and we got to talking about how truth in a photograph exist when you photograph what you actually see

In this week’s podcast, we answer some of the more popular and interesting questions I have been asked by the listeners of the podcast over the past several months.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More People and your creativity As 2017 started, I began to look at my creative process and the things that impacted that process. As it turns out, I have some…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Why you became a photographer I was recently asked about how I become a photographer, and as I got to thinking about this question the more I realized that the…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More What drives your creative life As I looked around the studio this week, still getting it cleaned and built, I got to thinking about all the work to create and live…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Being Productive Thinking forward to everything that I want to accomplish in 2017 has me considering what sort of changes I need to make to my productive plan. In…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Five things photographers should do in 2017 As 2016 draws to a close, we take a look at five key things that creative photographers can do to set up a successful…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Context of Photographs In this podcast, we discuss the importance of thinking about the context of how a photograph was created to help understand the meaning and…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Complexity verse Simplicity Often times, it seems that in my creative process I do things the hard way. I value the complexity of the process more than the outcome….

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Award Shows As the end of the year draws near, I got to thinking about some of the things that Hollywood does to celebrate their best of for the year and how that…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Five Mistakes I was recently having a conversation with a good friend, and he asked me what the five mistakes are I think most photographers make. It was a tough…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Holiday Season As the holiday season approaches, we were out shopping for the new house and was amazed at just how busy everyone seemed. People seem to be running…

Find solace in your own and the creative efforts of others. many an amazing artist as spent more than there fair share of tiem in jail prison and protest

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Zone System Basics In last week’s podcast, we took a look at the introduction to the zone system. In this week’s podcast, we take a look at how we can…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Zone System Basics In this week’s episode of The Perceptive Photographer, we talk about some of the basic principles of using the zone system in your…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Halloween costumes and simple photography As fall takes hold and the seasonal changes are in full swing, we find ourself at the end of October and one of our great…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Condition of who we are meant to be A lifetime ago I was an instructor at a university teaching public speaking and business communication. The students in those…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Final things to consider when finishing a photograph for exhibition After you have spent all that time getting your photograph taken, edited and printed, there are…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Five good habits for photographers It is amazing how easy it is to develop some simple habits that make things easier and better in life. Some habits are engrained…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More How sentimentality impacts our photography In the process of packing to move to the new studio, I realized how many things I have kept over the years for no real…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More Thoughts on naming photos   In the process of moving to a new studio, I have started to think about the name I want to give the studio. The name should reflect…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode In part three of this three-part series about how to take an idea to concept to photo series to completion, we take a look at some of the key steps…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode In this second of a three-part series of podcasts about how to take an idea to concept to execution, we take a look at how to move from a concept…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode In this first of a three-part series of podcasts about how to take an idea to concept to execution, we take a look at where ideas originate, how to…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode We have often talked about the role for criticism in photography. In this podcast, we focus more on understanding the types of feedback that you…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode After last week’s topic, I got to thinking about a book from Atul  Gawande called the Checklist Manifesto (affiliate link). If you…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer we take a look at the influence of Galen Rowell. Galen was a gifted climber, mountaineer, and…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode “Each time Andre Kertész’s shutter clicks, I feel his heart beating.” Henri Cartier-Bresson In this week episode, we take a quick…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode Well I am in Las Vegas this week for Photoshop World so come find me if you are hanging around Mandalay Bay for PSW2016. As I was packing for the…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode Looking at my own work, I realize that often times I see the same thing and photograph the same thing over and over again. While the subject and…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode One of the questions I get asked a lot is about how I work with my images. Once I get the images taken in the field, what is my actual workflow to…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode In this week’s podcast, I got to thinking about how creativity works in our lives. It is important to consider how creativity manifests itself…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode This week we return to a topic we have touched on in prior podcast, the critique. There is so much you gain from sharing your work with others and…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode I found myself this week completely in love with a new Leica camera. The Leica M-D Type 262 body was announced. This camera is pretty much a…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode I have been updating the images in my digital collection. Going back in time and updating the file names, file organization and metadata. As I have…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode   In part 2 of our podcast on Susan Sontag On Photography we take a look at some of the other key themes in the text. While each essay focuses…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode As March Madness takes hold, I got to thinking about our faction with David and Goliath. We seem to love when an underdog rises above expectations…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode As we come to an end of winter and start to move into spring, I have been thinking a lot about my creative process and what makes the creative…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode One of the questions I get asked the most is about starting a photography business. Running your own business isn’t for everyone, but if you…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In this Episode This week focuses on a couple of key questions to consider when deciding if your work is ready to be shown. With the constant pressure of social…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More In going through some older negatives this week, I found several images that were rather abstract and it was hard for me to initially remember the subject matter….

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More One of the classic books on critical theory in photography is Roland Barthes Camera Lucida. One of the last pieces written by Barthes, he writes as series…

In episode 38 of the podcast, I talked about seeing in color verse black and white. Since then I have had a number of conversations about what makes a good color photograph. This is a very complex question as a lot of elements come into play when talking about what…

I often times get asked about how to price a photograph for sale. When looking at basic models for pricing, you only need to know a few things. The cost of your expenses plus your required profit equals the price. If you want to break it down even further. You should…

In part 2 of this series on photographic books, I recommend a number of books that you should consider for the photography section of your bookshelf. With hundreds and thousands of books available, it is often time overwhelming knowing where to start. Even as I…

  There are so many great books out about photography, and I love to read and collect books. If given the choice between new camera gear or new photography books, I always choose books. In this podcast, I have gone into the bookcase and pulled out some books that…

I had a career change that has resulted in me doing my photography full-time now. In talking about that process, I have always said that I am going to do full-time photography, but several of my friends have said something to the effective of “Oh, so you are…

I was recently watching the Incredibles from Pixar again. In the movie Syndrome talk about how how when everyone is special no one is special. This reminded me of a quote by Robert Frank about how if every moment is captured then nothing special is captured and that…

10 Keywords In looking back at old emails I found one where I was asked to photograph a wedding. As I recalled explaining to the person that I don’t photograph weddings and not all photography is the same, I was reminded that while we as photographers do a good…

Perceptive Photographer Episode 5: Lessons in Acceptance In this episode of the Perceptive Photographer I talk about how acceptance can have an impact on your work. From acceptance of your own work, feedback from others and the subjects we photograph, acceptance is a…

the Perceptive Photographer Episode 3 In this latest version of the Perceptive Photographer I talk about why liking a photograph is not necessarily the best way to judge an image. From the misguided feedback on social media with the Like button, +1s and tweets, it is…

the Perceptive Photographer now on iTunes I finally got all my ducks in a row and you can now subscribe to my new podcast the Perceptive Photographer on iTunes. You can find the podcast by searching for it in iTunes or clicking here. If you aren’t a iTunes…