Everyday Photography, Every Day

Part Two of our chatting before the next guest arrives. I road-tripped to LA and had a number of photographic moments... I think this is my favorite episode. Is that nuts?

Suzanne and I look at themes running through our last four episodes in the conversations with four very different photographers: Russell Brown, Doug Menuez, Kris Sanford and Nigel Barker.

After 17 seasons co-hosting America's Next Top Model, Nigel Barker is one of the most famous and recognizable photographers today. He has a wealth of great stories, inspiration, and experience to share!

Kris describes her work as exploring "intimate relationships, specifically queer desire, through the use of appropriated images, video, and text." But she's also a teacher of young photographers and her insights there are fascinating!

Doug Menuez is perhaps best known as the key documentarian of the '80s Silicon Valley, and particularly his work with Steve Jobs. His work is empathic and beautiful; he's balanced a career in both commercial and fine art.

Our first guest is the ever-wacky Russell Brown, a super senior creative person at Adobe, and perhaps more interestingly, one of the founding team of Photoshop along with the Knoll Brothers. His observations about photography, Instagram, photo manipulation are fantastic. A joy!

In which we take a walk through the now-archaic process of silver printing, traditional darkroom work, and what can be gleaned from this background.

There are a lot of important reasons to print your pictures, it being Ansel Adams' birthday isn't one of them...

You'd think that an exhibit of Monet's paintings wouldn't have too much to say to a photographer, but you'd be wrong...

You're not a journalist covering your vacation, so you might want to relax a little when you're taking pictures on your trip. Pick a few moments to "cover". We also discuss the pros and cons of anonymous subjects in your pictures.

You do not need to learn any stupid rules of composition. You need to look at these 50 images, really look, and you will learn composition -- your photos will be better immediately.

Starting from the "document" side of photography, and moving into the poetic.

It's all about your composition. It's the only thing you have to practice. And it's free and easy.

More explorations of ways to play with your pictures and explore the power in juxtaposition -- whether in collage, book layouts, or wall displays.

Professionals can deliver the goods. So when are those moments when it's worth getting a pro versus just handling a picture yourself? And how do you even hire a pro?

Seems like it would be easy: everyone has lots of pictures and all you have to do is select one and get it enlarged and framed. So what's the problem? Clearly there's more to it than this. We dig in.

It's hard not to want to make your photos "perfect" whatever that might mean -- skin with no blemishes, compositions elegant, no reflections... but embracing the imperfect is part of improving your pictures. Learn about the philosophy of wabi-sabi...

We're back and looking at moody lighting opportunities and how the think about them. Also, we dig into some reasons to limit how much you shoot, and how to organize the things you keep. But mostly it's about the light.

One of the most fun and challenging subjects for photographers is nude figures; but how do you start? what do you say? In this episode Rubin reflects on his process in ways that are applicable to all sorts of every day photography.

Pros have great gear. But what do you need when you aren't a pro?