It’s not you; it’s us. We’re growing in different directions.

Thomas and Doug are dissolving Montana Photography Workshops.

This will be our last post on this site.

The Workshops require far more time and commitment then we are able to give right now. Thomas and I are working on separate projects that consume most of our time. We’ve had a lot of fun with the MPW workshops and met some amazing photographers and watched as photographers grasped concepts they have been struggling with for a long time, and began to express themselves as artists.

While we’ve decided to dissolve Montana Photography Workshops, Thomas and I are still the best of friends and talk daily by phone.

But we won’t be offering any more classes or free photo walks in the near future together.

We are both available for private consultations and tutoring sessions. This winter we will be developing our individual mentoring and tutoring offering through our own web sites.

You can reach me through my website, lonemanphotography.com, and Thomas through his website, ThomasLeePhoto.com.

–doug and Thomas–

The first edit of a shoot occurs when the photographer chooses to press the shutter. As photographers, it pays to be a liberal editor at this point. If this might possibly be any type of a good picture, then we prudently press the button. It’s the next steps when our editing process tends to break down.

A very common mistake is to confuse effort with results. Early in my career, I stepped off of a bus, pointed my camera where I was told, focused and held my finger down on my motor drive while a huge mass of earth was dynamited away to reveal a coal seam in Wyoming. People raved about the picture, but I pooh-poohed them away because all I did was focus and expose correctly. It couldn’t be great, I reasoned, because I didn’t work hard enough.

I’ve also gone to ridiculous lengths to get a picture — complicated lighting, strange point of view, lots of travel time, you can fill in the rest. And when I got back and looked at the picture I reasoned it had to be great because it was so damn hard to make.

Both times, I was dead wrong. It’s the picture.

Say that with me, “It’s the picture.”

It’s not the camera, it’s not the lens, it’s not the computer, it’s not the effort.

It’s the picture.

Spending 20+ years as a journalist has forced me to become a better editor. I’ve shot hundreds of thousands, millions maybe, of images and I’ve edited them and had them edited by others. And it was when my chief photographer at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle — whose work I had a great deal of admiration for and do still to this day — edited my pictures that I learned the most. He would look at the few pictures I had edited from my take and toned up and he would ask, “Where are the good ones?” Then we would both look at all of the pictures and he would find one I had passed by. He would crop it and tone it and suddenly I too saw that was the one. It was enlightening for me and to this day, I hear his voice in my head when I edit.

What does all of this mean to those of  you out on a photo island all by yourself with no one to edit your pictures? Find someone. Get together with colleagues from time to time and show work, but be honest with one another and tell each other what’s not working in addition to what is. Show your work to someone who isn’t a photographer and don’t tell them it’s your work. Be prepared, that could be painful. But no pain….

Or call us. We’ll not only tell you what is and isn’t working, we’ll help you get better faster because chances are, we’ve made the same mistakes.

— Thomas.

Those of you who love graphic compositions with great textures and spacial relationships, check out Paul Caponigro’s pictures by clicking on the above picture.

Not only do I love looking at great art for it’s own sake, I love asking myself what specifically it is about the art that I find so captivating. Then I can apply that principal to my own work. It allows me to develop my own style without trying to be someone else, without copying what someone has already done. Perhaps that’s what Picasso meant when he said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

— Thomas

So often, we’re tempted to include everything in the scene. We want to tell the whole story of a particular event, show who was there, where it was, all that was going on. And while it’s good to have a picture or two establishing the scene, I often have to tell myself to get closer and concentrate on a few important details.

Sometimes the mystery of a particular detail draws people into a picture and gives their perception of an event a whole new dimension.

— Thomas

Do you have to see a person’s face to know something about them?

Does a good portrait have to show someone’s face?

Does a good portrait have to be flattering?

Does a good portrait have to be happy?

— Thomas.

Since every one of us is unique and special, our art will likewise be unique and special. Take risks. Show us how you see, what you notice, what you think is important. And use your camera, don’t let it use you.

Here’s a link to someone I think is an artist. Feel free to share links of those who inspire you.

— Thomas.

Whatever your thoughts on lighting; stick with what makes your images yours.

“Leaving aside the mysteries and the inequities of human talent, brains, taste, and reputations, the matter of art in photography may come down to this: it is the capture and projection of the delights of seeing; it is the defining of observation full and felt.”
– Walker Evans

I remember when I was first enchanted by photography, I went to the Denver Public Library and looked at all of the photography books I could find. And Walker Evans’ work struck me because of it’s passion for the everyday, the common people and common things that truly tell the story of who we really are. Evans shows details many of us would ignorantly pass by, but details that are an essential part of the fabric of our society. Evans told the truth, and that’s what moved me so deeply.

— Thomas.

There are great photographers around the world who are simply amazing. This guy is one of them.