It’s a thing on MidJourney right now that hands are a very difficult thing to render. They come around at times, but, like a cat, only when you’re not trying too hard. …

A Month in Romania and Italy, With the Leica M11, 21m, 35m & 50m — When I’m on vacation, I have a slightly different mindset these days. It wasn’t long ago that my day job was as an agency creative director, so when I’d go on vacation, I’d take the opportunity to practice my skills with a camera. I brought a lot of gear, not…

This is a companion piece for my recent masterclass discussion on post-shoot workflow. It is primarily focused on still photography, but as a filmmaker/editor as well, I’ve generally optimized it for video, too. In the discussion, a number of photographers talked about workflow and it got semi-deep into process and…

Photographing in Romania — Traveling through the Carpathian Mountains of Romania — I’ve done it twice — removes time and replaces it with something far less mechanical or ordered. 12th century, 18th century, fact, fiction, war and peace — the mountains have absorbed it all here and as you wheel through in an old…

A More Dynamic Range — The main thing I like in a photograph is dynamic range. For this reason, I put myself on the wait list for the new Leica M11 and was at the store the day they called me to tell me it was in. It’s pricey, and I had to trade in…

Del Mar in the 70’s, Part 1 — Date: Summer, 1978 Tides: Low 6:26, High 1:20 Temp: Air 70, Water 68 Conditions: 5–6 Perfect As he straddled his bright pink surfboard, legs dangling into the water on either side, eyes fixed on the horizon, Jon had a split-second decision to make. A swell was forming, a big one…

It’s All About Growth Potential — One of the first questions I will ask any photographer looking for career advice is “what kind of photography do you want to get into?” And more often than not, the answer is some version of “I don’t want to limit myself.” I usually consider this a bit of a…

Creating a cinema style portrait means changing a whole lot about what you’ve learned about portraits. It’s not about beauty, golden hour, or even portrait mode or shallow depth of field. Cinema style portraits borrow heavily from the dramatic world of cinema, where it’s more about having a strong opinion…