The Art of Photography: A Discussion with the Creator

As I sit down to write this article, I am reminded of the importance of community and collaboration in the pursuit of artistic excellence. The concept of "Art of Photography" is one that has been on my mind for quite some time now, and I feel compelled to share my thoughts and ideas with others who may be interested in exploring this subject further.

I must admit that I am still a learning curve when it comes to creating content around photography. Sometimes, all the information available online can be overwhelming, making it difficult to decide where to start or what direction to take. However, as someone who is passionate about GTD (Getting Things Done) and creativity, I have found that breaking down complex topics into smaller, manageable chunks can help make them more accessible.

One of the ways I approach this subject is by looking at other photographers whose work inspires me. For instance, Steve McCurry's use of color in his photography is something that has always fascinated me. His most famous image, the Afghan Girl, is a testament to his skill and attention to detail. The way he captured her striking features and conveyed emotion through his lens is truly remarkable.

In my own work, I try to emulate some of these qualities, but I also recognize that it's impossible to replicate someone else's style exactly. Instead, I focus on developing my own unique voice and perspective as a photographer. This involves experimenting with different techniques, taking risks, and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.

As I continue to develop my skills and grow as an artist, I am constantly seeking out new information and inspiration. Social media platforms like Flickr have become a valuable resource for me, providing a space to connect with other photographers and learn from their experiences. The Flickr group "Art of Photography" has been particularly helpful in this regard, offering a platform to share knowledge, ask questions, and engage in meaningful discussions about the subject.

One thing I've come to realize is that photography is not just about capturing images; it's also about creating a narrative or conveying a message. Whether it's through the use of color, composition, or subject matter, photographers have the power to evoke emotions and spark conversations. As someone who is passionate about storytelling through photography, I believe it's essential to take the time to reflect on what makes certain images truly remarkable.

For me, this involves identifying key elements that contribute to a photographer's success. These might include things like attention to detail, creativity, or the ability to capture unique perspectives or experiences. By analyzing these factors and applying them to my own work, I hope to develop my skills further and produce images that inspire and engage others.

Ultimately, my goal is to create content that resonates with others and helps people develop their own artistic vision. Whether it's through writing articles like this one, creating videos or tutorials, or simply sharing my experiences and insights on social media, I believe that collaboration and community are essential components of the creative process.

As I look to the future, I am excited about the prospect of hosting a masterclass live online. This would allow me to share my knowledge and expertise with a wider audience, while also providing an opportunity for others to learn from their experiences and ask questions in real-time. Of course, this project is still in its early stages, but I am confident that it has the potential to inspire and educate people from all over the world.

In conclusion, the art of photography is a complex and multifaceted subject that requires dedication, creativity, and a willingness to learn. By breaking down this topic into smaller, manageable chunks, we can make it more accessible and engaging for others. Whether you're just starting out or are an established photographer, I encourage you to explore your own unique voice and perspective, and don't be afraid to seek out feedback and guidance from others along the way.

As I close this article, I want to leave you with a challenge: take some time to reflect on what makes certain images truly remarkable. What elements do you see in these photographs that inspire you? How can you apply these principles to your own work, whether it's through photography or another creative pursuit? By engaging with these questions and sharing your thoughts with others, I believe we can create a community of artists who support and uplift each other in our ongoing quest for excellence.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography my name is Ted Forbes today we are talking about GTD for photographers now what is GTD GTD stands simply for getting things done and getting things done is a book that came out a few years ago that really changed my life uh by a guy named David Allen and I don't actually have a copy of the book here I gave it to my brother-in-law but I've got an iPad version and an audio version and I really recommend this if you go to the art of photography. TV if you're not already watching there I'll put this link in the show notes to the book um highly recommend it uh David Allen GTD is his system for basically productivity and uh organization and there have been a number of these over the years uh and for me it was a life changer because I'm very disorganized in general by nature and I'm all over the map I tend to be very productive but I have to work hard at both of those things at being organized and being productive and GTD is a system that really helped me get a lot of that organized uh back in the '90s I did the the uh Franklin cvy system and a lot of these are fine they're good systems but the problem that I had is that they were usually kind of complicated and if I fell off the wagon so to speak and I became disorganized and I wasn't using the system was really hard to get back on and that's one thing I really like about David Allen's method is that that it's very easy system to get back into uh I will say now it's Way Beyond the scope of this podcast to tell you everything about GTD he's written an entire book on it even though it's a very simple system he has a lot of things to say about it uh and and this is as far as I'm concerned essential reading I know it's not a Photography book but uh I think in terms of personal productivity and this is where I wanted to tied in with photography it's always been interesting for me at least in the last couple years that I've been aware of GTD and tried to practice it myself is how people who are creative-minded get into this and this is probably more than just a podcast of me lecturing to you because I don't claim to be an expert or a teacher on GTD it's just something I'm a big student and a fan of and I'm constantly working on and I would be interested to hear what other people who watch the podcast perhaps there's some of you out there who are gtds uh would have to say about this uh and let me set this up by saying uh a lot of times as you know with creative work uh it's hard to just come up with a system where there's a to-do list for a lot of what we do uh as a photographer you need to allow time to experiment with things you need to allow time to become inspired by things to set goals uh and you need to be given the freedom to fail at things GTD allows for all this but all these systems essentially boil down to a checklist uh or a to-do list and sometimes being creative isn't necessarily as easy as a to-do item uh like come up with new idea well that's going to be a hard thing to do that is more of a project that you've got to to to kind of realize but one thing that I I can cover in this podcast that I wanted to talk about if you're not familiar with GTD is uh David Allen has this way of looking at things he has this metaphor where he uses an airplane taking off of a Runway and bear with me it makes sense uh if you're on the ground level you're about to take off in your airplane you can see you're probably moving fast you see all the details that are on the landscape you see the airport you see the runway you see what ever is involved uh you see this cat behind me that's I'm not going to retake this cuz this is take four but uh anyway um everybody say hello to zeter he's my buddy um anyway uh so you're on the runway level I was trying to stay focused here GTD and I'm already distracted uh you're on the runway level you see things moving quickly you see all the details but you don't see the bigger picture when you get up to the 15,000 ft level you know the plane's taking off you start to see less details and you start to see more of your surroundings maybe you see landmarks you start to see where you are and the the large scheme of things and then finally when you're at the 30,000 foot level as David Allen explains you're at a level where you can see really the big picture and this really boils down to Way Beyond your career what your hobbies are the these are things that like you know this large level of what you want to do with your life what makes you happy uh how important are things like family where you live you know those kinds of things and I think that's really big so you can see that all these levels and that's where I think this this analogy to this airplane metaphor comes in is I think it's really easy for photographers especially but really for any artist you know you're on that Runway level all the time you're in the heat of the battle you're you're seeing the details and that's what you're paying attention to particularly people if you're doing post-production you're you know concentrating on a photo and trying to get the levels to look right and the colors to look right and and and really do all your post and and that's not a bigger picture level and sometimes we want as photographers to Aspire to greater things and that kind of thing comes a lot more slowly to us uh and the reason I wanted to talk about this today is is right around Christmas I did a podcast called remarkable if you haven't seen it check it out uh and I was trying to be inspiring on there I will admit that I was you know trying to feel inspired myself in doing that and a lot of times I talk about things like getting better as a photographer or being remarkable and these are all wonderful things but they're very vague terms like what does it mean to be remarkable and the thing is is I can't tell you what that means because it means one thing to me it probably means something different to you uh being a good photographer means something to me that isn't necessarily the same as what it means to you so these aren't things that I can like just give you an easy answer to but what I can do and I do this with my college students is is try to get you to think about it and try to get you to open up and you know kind of accept some of those things and really make them part of your routine and that's where I think GTD is very interesting um not only will it personally make you more productive if you forget little things all the time you know it's a system forgetting all that into one place uh but also remembering David Allen's analogy of this airplane thing being able to see your life on different levels and when you're at the ground level and you're moving quickly you really are not able to look at what remarkable means necessarily I think you can get remarkable details in there but the bigger picture of remarkable is going to be a lot different and I think that's what's difficult um you know as a photographer to try to deal with um things like that and doing a podcast with a cat that shows up are both very difficult which has nothing to do with GTD but anyway uh so anyway I wanted to get you guys thinking in terms of that um I'm really interested to see what other people think because I think getting creative work or people that do creative work particularly if you do it for a living there is you know kind of this side of it that's really hard to predict and I think that's the biggest challenge for people who do creative work these are people you know not just photographers designers um you know illustrators artists anybody who does something that that requires creative thinking you have to treat things differently than somebody who has their work a little more laid out for them in nextstep actions all the time and so it's really important to remember those things there is a whole um community of people on the internet that are really into GTV that's kind of how I came across it and I'll post some links to some of those things too uh follow me on Twitter I post a lot of that stuff um if something's helpful to me I like to share it with with others so uh and I post a lot on GTD and creativity and and all that stuff so anyway I would love to get people's feedback on this and I think um it's too premature now but one day I would like to do a master class live on this because I think this is a huge subject uh but I'd like to get people's feedback and get some information from others and do a little more research before I do something like that but anyway all that to say um you know I think it opens a discussion so you know uh feel free to join the Flickr group uh it's flickr.com slrps artof photography no the just Art of Photography and uh you know you can sign up and and we'll put a posting in there and and maybe we can start discussing some of these things and find out what works for people uh I think it's very important all these things to consider because you know you're trying to make something that's very vague and nebulous very defined and that is a big Challenge and I think we all have it once you can start to define those things then you can turn that into what David Allen calls nextstep actions which are little things that can keep the project moving things that you can do in under a couple minutes um you know like uh you know call my friend and invite him over cuz I'm going to shoot his portrait you know if you're bigger pictures trying to do portraits for instance and so you know these bigger items of of what means to be a better photographer what it means to be remarkable you know think about some of the things that on a large scale you want to move towards and I think it's important to devote time to thinking about those I'll give you an example um it's changed a little bit but but you know early on when I was starting out one of the photographers who really inspired me was Steve McCurry who is a very famous National Geographic photographer and Steve is amazing he his most famous picture is the Afghan girl the he shot in Afghanistan obviously but uh and there was a whole thing with that but but she has these very striking eyes and it was this famous Kodak Chrome because the way the colors saturated was very uh you know Kodak used as a big poster image for a long time um but I was very influenced by Steve mccurry's work and it's one thing uh you know I live in Texas and I don't live in an exotic location but you know here's a guy who inspires me what I think it's important to start anal izing what is it about that person's work whoever that is for you that inspires you is I mean he has a brilliant use of color well I shoot a lot of black and white so you know I mean I'm not going to mimic that but you know there's there's the use of color there's the Exotic locations of it there's the Expressions on people's faces that he gets in very natural portraits that are unconventional in the sense that they usually are portraying an emotion that's not necessarily somebody smiling in front of a camera like the Afghan girl for instance and there's a million others that he shot and you know I'm not saying go copy somebody but but I'm saying go Define what it is about their work that does influence you and what makes it great to you why do I think he's one of the greats um that is a little bit more of a broad example because he's very famous but maybe there's somebody that you there's an aspect of their work you really like and it's important to really start thinking about that in a bigger picture term and start thinking about how can I if I want to move towards some of that you know let's say it's the exotic location stuff well you know for instance for me I live in Texas and you know for me I need to start getting out of Texas and trying find at least some vacation time and some money is set aside to to go somewhere and really get into to to shooting on a location so I mean that's just an example you know so that could be a project um so anyway so I think that's the thing is go determine who those people are for you and use GTD and kind of some of this you know various altitude levels of thinking to kind of really try to get your head around that and and become inspired and Define what remarkable is so anyway once again this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watchinghey everybody welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography my name is Ted Forbes today we are talking about GTD for photographers now what is GTD GTD stands simply for getting things done and getting things done is a book that came out a few years ago that really changed my life uh by a guy named David Allen and I don't actually have a copy of the book here I gave it to my brother-in-law but I've got an iPad version and an audio version and I really recommend this if you go to the art of photography. TV if you're not already watching there I'll put this link in the show notes to the book um highly recommend it uh David Allen GTD is his system for basically productivity and uh organization and there have been a number of these over the years uh and for me it was a life changer because I'm very disorganized in general by nature and I'm all over the map I tend to be very productive but I have to work hard at both of those things at being organized and being productive and GTD is a system that really helped me get a lot of that organized uh back in the '90s I did the the uh Franklin cvy system and a lot of these are fine they're good systems but the problem that I had is that they were usually kind of complicated and if I fell off the wagon so to speak and I became disorganized and I wasn't using the system was really hard to get back on and that's one thing I really like about David Allen's method is that that it's very easy system to get back into uh I will say now it's Way Beyond the scope of this podcast to tell you everything about GTD he's written an entire book on it even though it's a very simple system he has a lot of things to say about it uh and and this is as far as I'm concerned essential reading I know it's not a Photography book but uh I think in terms of personal productivity and this is where I wanted to tied in with photography it's always been interesting for me at least in the last couple years that I've been aware of GTD and tried to practice it myself is how people who are creative-minded get into this and this is probably more than just a podcast of me lecturing to you because I don't claim to be an expert or a teacher on GTD it's just something I'm a big student and a fan of and I'm constantly working on and I would be interested to hear what other people who watch the podcast perhaps there's some of you out there who are gtds uh would have to say about this uh and let me set this up by saying uh a lot of times as you know with creative work uh it's hard to just come up with a system where there's a to-do list for a lot of what we do uh as a photographer you need to allow time to experiment with things you need to allow time to become inspired by things to set goals uh and you need to be given the freedom to fail at things GTD allows for all this but all these systems essentially boil down to a checklist uh or a to-do list and sometimes being creative isn't necessarily as easy as a to-do item uh like come up with new idea well that's going to be a hard thing to do that is more of a project that you've got to to to kind of realize but one thing that I I can cover in this podcast that I wanted to talk about if you're not familiar with GTD is uh David Allen has this way of looking at things he has this metaphor where he uses an airplane taking off of a Runway and bear with me it makes sense uh if you're on the ground level you're about to take off in your airplane you can see you're probably moving fast you see all the details that are on the landscape you see the airport you see the runway you see what ever is involved uh you see this cat behind me that's I'm not going to retake this cuz this is take four but uh anyway um everybody say hello to zeter he's my buddy um anyway uh so you're on the runway level I was trying to stay focused here GTD and I'm already distracted uh you're on the runway level you see things moving quickly you see all the details but you don't see the bigger picture when you get up to the 15,000 ft level you know the plane's taking off you start to see less details and you start to see more of your surroundings maybe you see landmarks you start to see where you are and the the large scheme of things and then finally when you're at the 30,000 foot level as David Allen explains you're at a level where you can see really the big picture and this really boils down to Way Beyond your career what your hobbies are the these are things that like you know this large level of what you want to do with your life what makes you happy uh how important are things like family where you live you know those kinds of things and I think that's really big so you can see that all these levels and that's where I think this this analogy to this airplane metaphor comes in is I think it's really easy for photographers especially but really for any artist you know you're on that Runway level all the time you're in the heat of the battle you're you're seeing the details and that's what you're paying attention to particularly people if you're doing post-production you're you know concentrating on a photo and trying to get the levels to look right and the colors to look right and and and really do all your post and and that's not a bigger picture level and sometimes we want as photographers to Aspire to greater things and that kind of thing comes a lot more slowly to us uh and the reason I wanted to talk about this today is is right around Christmas I did a podcast called remarkable if you haven't seen it check it out uh and I was trying to be inspiring on there I will admit that I was you know trying to feel inspired myself in doing that and a lot of times I talk about things like getting better as a photographer or being remarkable and these are all wonderful things but they're very vague terms like what does it mean to be remarkable and the thing is is I can't tell you what that means because it means one thing to me it probably means something different to you uh being a good photographer means something to me that isn't necessarily the same as what it means to you so these aren't things that I can like just give you an easy answer to but what I can do and I do this with my college students is is try to get you to think about it and try to get you to open up and you know kind of accept some of those things and really make them part of your routine and that's where I think GTD is very interesting um not only will it personally make you more productive if you forget little things all the time you know it's a system forgetting all that into one place uh but also remembering David Allen's analogy of this airplane thing being able to see your life on different levels and when you're at the ground level and you're moving quickly you really are not able to look at what remarkable means necessarily I think you can get remarkable details in there but the bigger picture of remarkable is going to be a lot different and I think that's what's difficult um you know as a photographer to try to deal with um things like that and doing a podcast with a cat that shows up are both very difficult which has nothing to do with GTD but anyway uh so anyway I wanted to get you guys thinking in terms of that um I'm really interested to see what other people think because I think getting creative work or people that do creative work particularly if you do it for a living there is you know kind of this side of it that's really hard to predict and I think that's the biggest challenge for people who do creative work these are people you know not just photographers designers um you know illustrators artists anybody who does something that that requires creative thinking you have to treat things differently than somebody who has their work a little more laid out for them in nextstep actions all the time and so it's really important to remember those things there is a whole um community of people on the internet that are really into GTV that's kind of how I came across it and I'll post some links to some of those things too uh follow me on Twitter I post a lot of that stuff um if something's helpful to me I like to share it with with others so uh and I post a lot on GTD and creativity and and all that stuff so anyway I would love to get people's feedback on this and I think um it's too premature now but one day I would like to do a master class live on this because I think this is a huge subject uh but I'd like to get people's feedback and get some information from others and do a little more research before I do something like that but anyway all that to say um you know I think it opens a discussion so you know uh feel free to join the Flickr group uh it's flickr.com slrps artof photography no the just Art of Photography and uh you know you can sign up and and we'll put a posting in there and and maybe we can start discussing some of these things and find out what works for people uh I think it's very important all these things to consider because you know you're trying to make something that's very vague and nebulous very defined and that is a big Challenge and I think we all have it once you can start to define those things then you can turn that into what David Allen calls nextstep actions which are little things that can keep the project moving things that you can do in under a couple minutes um you know like uh you know call my friend and invite him over cuz I'm going to shoot his portrait you know if you're bigger pictures trying to do portraits for instance and so you know these bigger items of of what means to be a better photographer what it means to be remarkable you know think about some of the things that on a large scale you want to move towards and I think it's important to devote time to thinking about those I'll give you an example um it's changed a little bit but but you know early on when I was starting out one of the photographers who really inspired me was Steve McCurry who is a very famous National Geographic photographer and Steve is amazing he his most famous picture is the Afghan girl the he shot in Afghanistan obviously but uh and there was a whole thing with that but but she has these very striking eyes and it was this famous Kodak Chrome because the way the colors saturated was very uh you know Kodak used as a big poster image for a long time um but I was very influenced by Steve mccurry's work and it's one thing uh you know I live in Texas and I don't live in an exotic location but you know here's a guy who inspires me what I think it's important to start anal izing what is it about that person's work whoever that is for you that inspires you is I mean he has a brilliant use of color well I shoot a lot of black and white so you know I mean I'm not going to mimic that but you know there's there's the use of color there's the Exotic locations of it there's the Expressions on people's faces that he gets in very natural portraits that are unconventional in the sense that they usually are portraying an emotion that's not necessarily somebody smiling in front of a camera like the Afghan girl for instance and there's a million others that he shot and you know I'm not saying go copy somebody but but I'm saying go Define what it is about their work that does influence you and what makes it great to you why do I think he's one of the greats um that is a little bit more of a broad example because he's very famous but maybe there's somebody that you there's an aspect of their work you really like and it's important to really start thinking about that in a bigger picture term and start thinking about how can I if I want to move towards some of that you know let's say it's the exotic location stuff well you know for instance for me I live in Texas and you know for me I need to start getting out of Texas and trying find at least some vacation time and some money is set aside to to go somewhere and really get into to to shooting on a location so I mean that's just an example you know so that could be a project um so anyway so I think that's the thing is go determine who those people are for you and use GTD and kind of some of this you know various altitude levels of thinking to kind of really try to get your head around that and and become inspired and Define what remarkable is so anyway once again this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watching\n"