cole thompson photography newsletter | | Issue 129 - June 12, 2024 | | I recently read this from a newsletter subscriber:
"Holy cow. What’s up with this Cole Thompson guy? He said the emails were gong to slow down but they just keep coming."
I don't want to publicly embarrass anyone (Michael Mock!) but he's headed into the "John Barclay doghouse!" Now, he was kidding but it does bring up a good question: Why so many emails and newsletters lately?
Well, I'm home for a few months and I just felt like communicating more. Soon I'll begin my travels and you won't hear from me for months (Michael Mock says "hurray!")
But if it is too much for you, please note there is an "unsubscribe" button at the bottom of this newsletter.
Cole
P.S. If you read only two things in this newsletter, please look at my note about the Faroe Islands and check to see if you won the print drawing. | | In this issue:
- Would You Like to See the Faroe's?
- The Images I Loved As A Kid
- A Very Small PDF Portfolio
- Black and White Profusion
- The Story Behind the Image
| | Do you consider yourself a great guitarist?
“Well, I’m specialized. What I do on the guitar has very little to do with what other people do on a guitar. Most of the other guitar solos you hear performed on stage have been practiced over and over and over again. They go out there and they play the same one every night and it’s really just spotless.
My theory is this: I have a basic mechanical knowledge of the operation of the instrument, and I’ve got an imagination, and when the time comes up in the song to play a solo, it’s me against the laws of nature.
I don’t know what I’m going to play, I don’t know what I’m going to do, I know roughly how long I have to do it. It’s a game where you have a piece of time, and you get to decorate it. And depending on how intuitive the rhythm section is, you can do things that are literally impossible to imagine sitting here.”
Frank Zappa | | "You have to trust your instincts, and follow your own inner direction in pursuit of personal ideas about what you want to paint. You can't ignore technical skills, but they have to grow along the lines of your vision."
Arlene Anderson Skutch | | "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
Alexander Graham Bell
| | "They say that Vincent van Gogh sold two paintings during his lifetime… to relatives. I often tell friends of mine, who are dismayed at not finding a market for their art, that you’ve got to do it anyway. You just have to.
Vincent van Gogh was a commercial failure, and is now spiritual food to an entire planet.
I wonder, what if van Gogh had been a commercial success, if people had thrown money at him for making art that was accessible and popular and safe and palatable… would he have gone to the lengths and opened up as much as he did?
Would success have nipped his creativity in the bud?"
James Taylor | | "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
C.S. Lewis | | And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.” And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.” Kurt Vonnegut | | "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better"
Samuel Beckett | | "I really didn't have much to teach. I didn't even believe in it. I felt so strongly that everybody had to find their own way. And nobody can teach you your own way.... in terms of art, the only real answer that I know of is to do it. If you don't' do it you don't know what might happen"
Harry Callahan | | "Can photography be taught? If this means the history and techniques of the medium, I think it can..... If, however, teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual photographic visions, I think it is impossible.”
Robert Adams | | "2% of the people think, 3% of the people think they think, and 95% of the people would rather die than think."
George Bernard Shaw | | "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
Albert Einstein | | Would You Like to See the Faroe's? | | Me Photographing the Faroes by Don Coyner | | John Barclay and I are conducting a photo tour of the Faroe Islands from 7/21/2024 through 8/4/2024 and this includes attending the National Holiday celebration. Unfortunately one of our friends had to drop out and we now have one seat available.
If you'd like to see what's there to photograph:
If you're interested, contact John Barclay right away.
| | Faroe Islands No. 161 (that's last year's group!) | | The Images I Loved As A Kid | | Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Ansel Adams | | I discovered photography at the age of 14 and for several years spent an enormous amount of time looking at the images from the great masters of photography. I was always drawn to certain types of images, and I wanted to share some of them with you and then make an observation. | | Pepper No. 30, Edward Weston | | Running White Deer, Paul Caponigro | | Igor Stravinsky, by Alfred Newman | | Child in Forest, Wynn Bullock | | Dali Flying Cats, Philippe Halsman | | Dovima with Elephants, Richard Avedon | | The Photojournalist (Dennis Stock), Andreas Feininger | | For most of my photographic life, I thought that the hours I spent looking at these images, created my Vision. I thought that because I was looking at a certain types of images, is why I created those types of images.
However I recently had an epiphany: looking at those images did not "create" my Vision, but rather reflected it. I was drawn to those images because that is how I saw the world. Subconsciously I was saying: I love these images because this is how I see!
What I realize now is that those images offered a clue about my Vision. If I would have understood this some 50 plus years ago, it may have helped me find my Vision sooner. | | Later, when searching for my Vision, I found another clue from an exercise that I did. I went through all of my images, printed out my favorites and then divided them into two stacks: images that I REALLY, REALLY loved, and all the rest. Then I went through that small stack of images and asked myself: what do I love about each of these images? I did not look for what they had in common, that was not important, only what was it that I loved about each image.
It made me consciously recognize that I loved dark images with large expanses of black. I love a bright subject. I love extreme contrast. I love unusual images and images that break rules and norms. I love simple images. And I love centered and symmetrical images.
This was what I love and this is how I see. This is a part of my Vision.
Looking back, this exercise was helpful to understanding what Vision was and recognizing what mine looked like.
If you are searching for your Vision, perhaps look for clues in the images that you are drawn to, and in the images that you have created and love. What might they tell you about your Vision? | | I have released a new PDF portfolio: The Dahlia. It is my smallest portfolio with only six images, all created around this one Dahlia that I found discarded on a greenhouse floor.
Please download, enjoy and share these portfolios with others.
| | Black and White Profusion | | Recently I received an email from a YouTube channel that is dedicated to black and white photography, and was asked if they could feature my work.
I took a look at their videos and I was impressed (actually VERY impressed) by the work they featured and how it was presented. I agreed and they have published two of my portfolios and we're now working on a third.
What's most interesting about this story is that the man "behind the curtain" of Black and White Profusion is not a photographer, he is simply a lover of black and white. And after you look at his YouTube videos, you'll see that he's a PASSIONATE lover of black and white.
He is featuring wonderful photographers and beautiful photography.
Please check this out, we should support sites like this!
| | The Story Behind the Image | | Iceland No. 30 is not a particularly unique image, but it serves as a reminder of what happened one day in Iceland.
I had been in Iceland for several weeks, driving the ring road clockwise. It had been a great trip, especially in the north where I had been photographing in mixed weather. But when I headed south the wind started picking up, and it got so bad that to get out of the car, I had to point it into the wind so the doors wouldn't get ripped off.
By the time I arrived at the Jokulsarlon Glacier lagoon, the wind was so fierce that I could barely open the car door. I had really been looking forward to photographing the lagoon in long exposure, but that was completely out of the question. I could only capture this one image by putting my camera on the tripod at its lowest height, putting all of my weight on the tripod and using a fast shutter speed.
Having gotten my one shot (above) I continued my journey west in the direction of Reykjavik. It was late afternoon and I stopped to get a room at Hotel Skaftafell, but was turned away because all the rooms had been booked by a movie production crew.
Now I had a decision to make: continue forward towards Reykjavik or go backwards to a hotel that I had passed. Turning back would get me to bed sooner, but I hated to backtrack. Going forward might take a bit longer to reach a hotel, but it would shorten my journey the next day. However going forward also meant travelling into a very dark cloud of blowing dust coming off of an alluvial fan.
I didn't want to backtrack and so chose to head into the dark cloud.
The road immediately turned into a several mile long two-lane bridge that spanned the alluvial fan, and I immediately knew that I had made a bad decision. Passing me in the opposite direction was a car coming off the bridge with all its windows blown out. Unable to turn around on the bridge, I proceeded with great trepidation.
I have never been in such winds, crossing over the alluvial fan they reached 137 mph. The car was rocking so badly that I thought that it would overturn. Suddenly all of the windows on the windward side of the car exploded and I'm now covered in glass, and my face is being pelted with pea sized gravel. Worse, the air pressure inside the car was so high that it was painful, and the only way to relieve the pain was to roll down the leeward side windows. That relieved the air pressure but increased the number of small rocks flying through the car and pelting me. Fortunately, I was wearing a hoodie and was able to use it to protect my face.
My only option was to continue onward. Without incredibly limited visibility, I crawled along at 5 mph and followed the center stripe in the road. But then suddenly, the stripe disappeared and I was driving blindly, literally. | | It wasn't until days after the storm that I learned why the stripe in the road had disappeared: the topcoat of the asphalt had blown away. Entire stretches of topcoat had disappeared, it was an unbelievable scene.
I soon encountered other cars in the same situation as mine and we caravanned together, making us all feel a bit safer. As we were leaving the worst of it, we met another car coming from the opposite direction that was about to enter the danger zone. I stopped them and explained the situation, but soon realized that they did not speak English. Then the man started to pull away, proceeding into the storm...and then I saw her: a baby in the back seat on the windward side.
I then became very loud and forceful, and with waving arms signaled that he could not proceed. Fortunately he got the message and joined our little group.
We finally got to another hotel and I hoped the adventure would end here, but it didn't. Getting from my car to the hotel entrance some 250 feet away was nearly impossible. As hard as I tried, I'd be blown off course. Finally I made it to the door where a half-dozen people opened the door, holding onto it so it didn't blow off its hinges, and pulled me into safety. | | The next day I taped up my windows with trash bags and headed to Reykjavik to swap out rental cars. When I returned the car, the entire office came out to see the spectacle; windows missing, the interior filled with rocks and glass, and the paint completely sandblasted.
As they were doing the paperwork for a replacement, they asked: how are you going to pay for the damage? I said: "I have State Farm Insurance" and they replied "not in Iceland you don't!" I had no idea that my insurance was not covering me and I had declined the rental companies coverage.
Fortunately one of the workers whispered to me that my Chase credit card would probably cover the damage, and they did. It was a very simple, no-hassle resolution with Chase Bank.
So that's the story behind image "Iceland No. 30," not a great image, but a wonderful reminder of my Iceland adventure. | | For this month's print drawing, I'll be giving away "Monkeypod Tree" (above).
Thanks for entering! | | The winner of my last print drawing is Hal Tearse who will be receiving a print of "Stone Jetty No. 6, Maalaea Harbor." Congratulations Hal, please contact me and arrange for your print to be delivered! | | | | | | |
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