Wondering what to wonder about is a wonderful part of my process for making a photograph. There is the impulsive grab shot or photographic guess and there is the well thought about photograph done very quickly and mostly in the mind. I have often wondered about what the famous photographers wondered about when making an image. I would love to know what Cartier-Bresson was wondering about when he made his famous image of the man jumping over the puddle behind the train station in Paris in 1932. The work will show what he wondered about. The puddle, an obstacle for man. Man confronting the obsta ..read more

Many years ago my son Scott and I conducted a class at Pasadena City College entitled photographing the moment. The class became very popular and continued for 16 years. During the years we would meet many interesting people. One person stands out for me and Scott. He was a man who suffered from chronic depression at the age of seventy five. Our class seemed to make him happy. He would reach out to others in the class and was very excited about the field trips we took the class to on the Santa Monica Pier for a day of working together on Saturdays. A few weeks after the class ended, I re ..read more

Cartier-Bresson said that what he likes most about a photograph is what is not visible. The great photographer Robert Frank said that we must be detectives. Snooping and probing, always looking for insight into the process of making meaningful photographs. Reading through my notes from about two years ago, I came across the phrase “to photograph what is below the threshold of visual perception” scribbled in my moronic squiggle, which I felt would have enormous significance for millions of photographers who, like me, are searching for a bigger awareness of what can make a photograph that has th ..read more

My wife Wendy and I recently went to Cuba on a music tour which was organized by Wendy’s sister Nancy Covey, who operates Festival Tours International. It was a People-to-People delegation organized by Project Por Amor.  At first, I thought that there would not be many chances to make photographs while riding across Cuba in a bus. Usually I pick the spots where I feel I will find the best subject matter, and not participate in an organized tour, so I had resolved to make the tour, more for the music than for the photos. The trip on the bus across Cuba with many friends was a fin ..read more

My “5 Fs” (finding, figuring, framing, focusing and firing) was conceived to help photographers remember the things to consider when photographing a subject in real life situations. If you practice this system it will become your working technique as a street photographer. The fifth and final F is FIRING. Everybody wants to hear the click. That expensive and precise sounding click. The sad part is that most of the time the camera is not ready to make the photograph when the mind commands it to. The photographer is still thinking or adjusting the camera and misses the shot. The hands cann ..read more

My “5 Fs” (finding, figuring, framing, focusing and firing) was conceived to help photographers remember the things to consider when photographing a subject in real life situations. If you practice this system it will become your working technique as a street photographer. The fourth “F” is FOCUSING. Hocus pocus they took away the focus? I believe that the focus should be on what the viewer should see first. For many years, the average photographer has not had to think about focus. That control was taken away from us with the introduction of autofocus. If you study the work of renown ..read more

My “5 Fs” (finding, figuring, framing, focusing and firing) was conceived to help photographers remember the things to consider when photographing a subject in real life situations. If you practice this system it will become your working technique as a street photographer. The third “F” is FRAMING. Framing is the action of putting all the elements, factors and details together in a way that gives the center of interest its most strength. Framing is dictated by the second “F”, which is figuring. Framing really is the act of putting it all together for the finished photograph. Someone once ..read more

My “5 Fs” (finding, figuring, framing, focusing and firing) was conceived to help photographers remember the things to consider when photographing a subject in real life situations. If you practice this system it will become your working technique as a street photographer. The second “F” is FIGURING. Hooray! You see a situation or subject that you think will make an exciting photograph. Now what? Throughout a subject area, there are many elements, factors and details that when effectively combined in the photograph, help give the center of interest more strength. The only difference betwe ..read more

My “5 Fs” (finding, figuring, framing, focusing and firing) system was conceived to help photographers remember the things to consider when photographing a subject in real life situations. If you practice this system it will become your working technique as a street photographer. The first “F” is FINDING. Finding a subject can be a frustrating process for many photographers. Subjects are everywhere. The eyes are not too important when searching for subject. The eyes are just part of the tools we work with. It is the vivid imagination that finds subject by noticing and evaluating various d ..read more

In the many years of teaching classes and workshops in street photography I have learned that most photographers face the same obstacles in their search for more effective photographs. Here are five rules, or tips, which I have discovered over the years that have helped my students become better street photographers. 1. No posing or anything contrived. Follow the straight and narrow road of the great photographers. In my 43 years of study of “Street photography” I have learned that the most basic rule is that there should be no posing or anything artificially contrived. It is this main ru ..read more