Good morning—
Yesterday I went to watch the Packers game at the house of my friend Jack MacDonough, who you know. He lives on a lake. Halfway through the game we left for a boat ride, which was a smart move—knowing how the game turned out made the ending bearable to watch, although (amusingly) it was still plenty tense. That had to be the most exciting ending of any football game on Sunday, right?
The better I get to know Jack the more respect I have for him as a photographer. He really thinks differently than most photographers I know. Even when he's just shooting for fun he's thinking in terms of projects, purposefulness, marketing, and making money (in the case of his shooting on the lake, for a local charity)—and completion; he seems to finish most projects he starts. This makes him unusual among photographers, not to mention pretty much the opposite of me.
I think I need to do a full-scale interview with Jack someday, so he can tell you in his own words some of the secrets to his success. (Now if Jack had made that statement, it might actually come true. With me, well....)
Hope you have a great Monday today.
Mike
"Morning Coffee" is a blip about nothing in particular auto-published weekdays at 3:30 a.m. Central Time to be in time for morning coffee breaks in the UK and Europe. For everyone West of that, it'll be there when you get up.
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
No featured comments yet—please check back soon!
I'd really like to read that interview!
Posted by: Svein-Frode | Monday, 13 October 2014 at 04:29 AM
I'm a self-taught photographer, an introvert, and a misanthrope, so I had zero interaction with other photographers until I'd been taking pictures for more than a decade. When I first got to know some other photographers, I was shocked by their thinking. It went no further than "that's a cool picture" or "that could be a cool picture." When they put groups of photos together, the whole was always less than the sum of its parts. There was never any editing and never any consideration for coherence or pace, merely "geting all the good ones in".
I'm very project-driven. Have been practically from day one. Every picture I take has to fit somewhere in one of the webs of photos I've constructed, and if it doesn't, I think about what kinds of pictures I need to take to make it fit. It seems obvious to me that if you're a photographer, you take pictures--pictures plural--and they all go together somehow. A photo on its own is like a word or sentence in isolation. It might be good. It might even be great. But it's probably not as good as it could be with context and structure around it.
Posted by: James Sinks | Monday, 13 October 2014 at 11:25 PM