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Intuitively he (the photographer) sought and found the significant detail. His work, incapable of narrative turned towards the symbol.    John Szarkowski 1966 I became a photographer in the days when the single image was king. I find myself still looking for that one image that will successfully tell my story, expressing what I am trying to say when I open and close the shutter. The “detail image” is a photograph that describes the subject but ...

I have been rereading John Szarkowski's book, The Photographer's Eye. My musing, this month is about the Thing Itself. My thing is an old ship that was sunk in front of a pier to create a breakwater. I have photographed it over the years but never felt satisfied with the results. The sunken ship sits on the mud acting as a breakwater This photograph is the best I had made until recently.  I shot it with my 8x10 view ...

Our faith in the truth of a photograph rests on our belief that the lens is impartial, and will draw the subject as it is, neither nobler nor meaner. This faith may be naïve and illusory (for though the lens draws the subject, the photographer defines it), but it persists. The photographer's vision convinces us to the degree that the photographer hides his hand."     John Szarkowski “The Photographer’s Eye”   Many years ago, a small ...

There is probably no harder architectural mandate than to keep a building in a state of "arrested decay." Historic sites often face this mandate to preserve a location or structure for visitors to experience. This is a conflicting mandate, keep a building as it "was" yet prevent it from falling down or decaying further. Improvements must be made in the tenor of the times yet keep the feeling of the times in the structure. An ...

In 1966 John Szarkowski and the Museum of Modern Art in New York published a book called the Photographer’s Eye. In his introduction, Szarkowski wrote, "It is the thesis of this book that the study of the photographic form must consider the medium's "fine art" tradition and it's "functional" tradition as intimately interdependent aspects of a single history." I believe this is one of the best books on photographic vision or seeing as a photographer ever ...

One of the best ways a photographer can make his or her work unique is to understand the importance of Vantage Point. In a very basic sense, if you photograph looking up to a subject you make it heroic, bigger than life. Viewing the subject at eye level infers equality with your subject. Photographing down on a subject gives an impression of superiority to it.  In April I helped lead a Visionary Wildworkshop with Charlie Cramer in ...

St. Columba's Chapel, Iona, Argyll “Bring a stone from home and leave it on Iona and you will someday return.” This was told to me while I sat in the bar at the St Columba Hotel on Iona. I had spent the afternoon in a small chapel next to Iona Abbey. It was a cold, rainy Scottish day, and I had become fascinated by the small stones on the window ledge in the chapel. I ...

TOUCHSTONES is an ode to my exploration of Scotland. Over 4 years and nearly 30 weeks of travel, these images became the metaphor of my journey. I was seeking and exploring a new land and a new way of seeing had just embraced the 5x12 format view camera. I traveled some of the time with my friend, Donald Stewart but much of my wandering was solo, stopping and photographing where I was drawn. Scotland spoke to ...

Four Images and one that should have been included Tillman Crane/STRUCTURE was published 18 eighteen years ago this month.  Books like John Sexton's Quiet Lightand Bruce Barnbaum’s Visual Symphonyinspired me to think about creating my own book project. After producing a mock-up and finding a publisher we worked with the designer to sequence the project. My original title was Spirit of Structure, but the publisher felt a better title for a first book should focus more on my name. I ...

The good news is there are only 22 hardcover copies of Tillman Crane/STRUCTURE left! I would love for all of them to find homes with you. Published eighteen years ago (April 2001), it has been essential to my career, but it is time to move them out of my inventory and me to new projects. From my earliest days in photography, I collected an assortment of books of various photographers and topics. I belonged to one ...