Jeff Curto's Camera Position

Camera Position is back! After a too-long hiatus, I’m back with a great series of ideas about the creative side of photography. In this episode, metaphor and symbol and the way they can enhance our photographs.

In this episode, Camera Position  takes a field trip! A great visit to A Gallery for Fine Photography in New Orleans, Louisiana and a great conversation with gallery owner Joshua Mann Pailet links up the idea of collecting photographs with a consummate collector.     Links for this episode: Tulane University Marching Band A Gallery … Continue reading Camera Position 92 : A Gallery for Fine Photography in New Orleans →

Living with art… if we were wanting to be writers, we’d read books and we’d collect work by our favorite authors. As photographers, living with work by artists we admire is an important part of living the artful life. This podcast talks about how important it is for us to collect photographs we love and … Continue reading Camera Position 91 : Living With Art →

Sometimes inertia gets the best of us and inertia was responsible for Camera Position’s absence these last few months. And photography can be like that, as well. This is the story of how one picture helped get me moving on a beautiful day in Rome and that same picture helped get me moving on talking … Continue reading Camera Position 90 : Inertia & Inspiration →

Camera position and camera distance… are they the same thing? As we position the camera, are we also thinking about how we position ourselves relative to the subject? By looking at work by August Sander, the Bechers, Andreas Gursky, Tina Barney and Jessica Todd Harper, we examine ideas about how we distance ourselves from a … Continue reading Camera Position 89 : Camera Position & Camera Distance →

In this, the second of a two-part “desert island photograph” project, we cover more Camera Position listeners describing that one image that they’d take with them for visual sustenance if they were stranded on a desert island. Links for this episode: Don Hong-Oai – A History of Photography “Summer School” podcast Cartier-Bresson at Magnum Edward … Continue reading Camera Position 88 : Desert Island Photographs – Part 2 →

Back in Camera Position #83, I asked Camera Position listeners to pick their one “desert island photograph;” that one image that they’d take with them for visual sustenance if they were stranded on a desert island. This episode shares the first few of those responses; others will follow in the next episode. Thanks to those … Continue reading Camera Position 87 : Desert Island Photographs – Part 1 →

In a world populated by billions and billions of images, with more being made every second, how do we find a path for ourselves as image makers? We look at the dilemma of quantity and quality in this episode. Links for this Podcast Alec Soth interview on the Big Red & Shiny Blog Alec Soth’s … Continue reading Camera Position 85 : A Bazillion Photographs →

Nurturing a set of “interesting visual friends” is one of the ways we can help create an environment of creativity around us. We can do that by networking both in the virtual space of today’s social networking tools and in the real world space of spending time with other photographers. This podcast episode talks about … Continue reading Camera Position 84 : Interesting Visual Friends →

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one photograph would you bring along to sustain you visually? I’m soliciting Camera Position listeners’ “Desert Island Photographs” and asking them to send me the one photograph they think would keep them visually “fed.” Listen to the podcast to find out how to play along. Eugene … Continue reading Camera Position 83 : What’s On Your Desert Island? →

“Many times beauty begs to be recorded and it is only later that its position in the overall order of things becomes apparent.” So said podcast listener Bryant Johnson, a sentence that made me think about how we photograph and the ways that we can produce work just by looking and responding. After our time … Continue reading Camera Position 82 : Beauty Begs to be Recorded →

In our final “Project Planning Roadmap” podcast, we talk about DAM – Digital Asset Management – trying to get a handle on what these software packages can do for you. Rating, sorting, grouping, keywording and adjusting your images is what applications like Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom are all about. If you’re using them, you … Continue reading Camera Position 81 : Project Planning Roadmap – DAM! →

A place for your all your stuff! The next part of planning and producing a project has to do with managing your content. Where do you store it? How do you get at it? Can you find it when you need it? We take a look at these issues in this episode. Links for this … Continue reading Camera Position 80 : Project Planning Roadmap – A Place For Your Stuff! →

Taking a quick break from our project planning roadmap series, this episode of Camera Position spends some time looking at a few of the wonderful photographs produced by participants in my first-ever photography workshop in Tuscany, Italy. This podcast episode looks at two images from each of the participants. The rest of their great projects … Continue reading Camera Position 79 : A Workshop Overview →

Who is your audience and how will they best see the work? Audience and Distribution considers not only who is interested in the work you’re producing, but also to consider how they can access the work you’re creating. Links for this podcast: Books from Blurb.com Portfolio reviews at Photo Lucida

Now that we have an idea for a project and a mission for what that project will do and for whom, we have to start making some images and actually creating the body of work. This episode deals with our needs, our habits and our goals, all aspects of project time managment.

Taking passion and combining it with purpose gives you a direction in your work. This episode talks about taking the list of 20 things that are important and using that passion to build a mission for your photography. Passion & Mission PDF

What do you care about? What things are really important to you as a person in the world? The next step in the project planning roadmap is to make a list of at least 20 things that are really important to you. We’ll use this list in the next episode of Camera Position,

The second part of the Photographer’s Project Planning Roadmap series looks at idea germination; how do you find new ideas and nurture them? Download the Hard & Soft exercise PDF

Defining and planning a project is one of the most useful ways to build a body of work, learn about yourself and learn about your personal response to photography. With this podcast, we start a series of Camera Position episodes that will create and follow a project planning roadmap for photographers.