Iterations

There are some photographs that just stick with you — images that once you see them, you simply can’t unsee. It happens across virtually all genres of photography. A single image, a particular project or an entire body of work seeps into our being and becomes a point of reference along an internal visual continuum. When I first saw the work of Nick Brandt, it was unlike anything I had ever seen. His photographs taken in East Africa transcended any wildlife photography that I had seen before. Nick is somehow able to photograph the souls of the animals, not just their image or likeness. In his newest body of work, called Inherit the Dust, Nick returns to East Africa to show how habitat loss as a result of population explosion and urbanization are dramatically changing the landscape and threatening biodiversity and the continued existence of species that roamed the plains of Africa for thousands of years prior to the proliferation of man. It’s a fascinating conversation and an incredibly powerful body of work. L

When I was a junior in high school I took my first photography class and one of the things we had to do before we got to shoot with the “real” cameras — in our case, they were Pentax K1000s loaded with Tri-X — was to build a pinhole camera from one of the round Quaker Oats boxes. And I remember thinking how incredible it was to see the simplicity of what photography is: light and time. Not even a lens — just a strip of gaffer tape covering a tiny hole in some tinfoil. But there we all were, toting our oatmeal boxes around making pictures. Then we would go into the darkroom and print little positive contact prints from the paper negatives and I’ve gotta tell you, it was alchemy. For us, the pinhole camera was just a stepping stone to get to use an SLR. In this episode, I’m talking to Jon Wilkening a photographer in Philadelphia who uses pinhole as his preferred platform for communicating his creativity. For Jon, pinhole is his tool of choice for expressing his point of view. Jon calls his work “the blurry midd

In the last episode, I had a conversation with Glenn D’Cruze from North Atlantic Explorers, who I was introduced to by a listener of On Taking Pictures. In this episode, my guest was recommended to me by one of my favorite photographers, John Keatley. A month or so ago I reached out to John and asked if he knew anyone who he thought would be interesting for me to talk to. He responded with two names, one of whom is my guest on this episode. Whether you know Tom Deslongchamp as an illustrator, an animator or even a ninja, he’s every bit an artist, both in the work that he makes and in how and why he makes it. In this episode, Tom and I talk about the importance of play, wrestling with labels and self-identification and his need to be in love with what he makes. LINKSJukabox – You Cried MeDavid ShrigleyNo Talking PlzCrayola MarkersThe Gift: Creativity and the Artist… CONNECT WITH TOMWebsite: tomdeslongchamp.comTwitter: @tomthinksInstagram: @tomthinks MUSICPlease Listen Carefully (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

In this episode, I’m doing something a little different. One of the goals I’ve had for Process Driven from the beginning has been to expand the scope of the conversations I have beyond visual arts as an exploration into how and where creativity overlaps, regardless of the discipline. In this episode I’m sitting down with Glenn D’Cruze, a Canadian musician who records under the name North Atlantic Explorers. I was introduced to Glenn’s music by a listener of my other podcast, On Taking Pictures who emailed and asked if he could send me one of Glenn’s CDs. I’m so grateful that he did. My Father was a Sailor is a gorgeous atmospheric homage to Glenn’s late father, who was an engineer on merchant ships in the North Atlantic during the 1950s. After his father died, Glenn embarked on a journey of his own that ultimately took him from his home in Vancouver to the seas sailed by his father nearly six decades earlier — and it all began with a pair of drum sticks and a stack of cardboard boxes. LINKSBBC Shipping Foreca

A few months ago, I attended a talk that Dan Winters gave at the Smithsonian and one of the things that struck me straight away was the language he used to describe his relationship to his work. I’ve been a fan for years and own a few of his books, but I never had the opportunity to hear him speak before. There’s such emotion and romance in how he relates to his work, especially in the making or the doing as he calls it. Words like “reverence” and “gratitude” are used often and as you’ll hear in this conversation, these aren’t simply buzzwords. They apply equally whether he’s shooting a campaign for a client or walking by himself through the streets of New York with a 50mm lens and a few rolls of Tri-X. There’s an incredible authenticity to Dan that seems to pervade his entire life, from the work that he does to the people and things he surrounds himself with. I began by asking Dan where his love of making began and how he stays connected to it 30 years in. LINKSKazimer MalevichChris CallisHarry CallahanW. Eu

In 1976, William Eggleston opened his first color show at MoMA, the reviews were fairly polarized. To some of the art establishment, color photography was for snapshots and not to be taken seriously and black and white was the only true photographic art form. But while one critic called the show “perfectly banal”, another called it a milestone and said that after it black and white would seem slightly quaint and precious. In the 40 years since, it’s almost impossible, at least for me, to imagine a photographic world without color. Don’t get me wrong, I love black and white and spent years shooting only black and white but there’s something to be said for the work of photographers like Fred Herzog, Steve McCurry and Saul Leiter. We see in color and when it’s done right, photography can help us see our world differently through color, which is one of the things I love about the work of Ben Thomas. In Ben’s series Chroma, color becomes almost a character, a necessary element to help communicate the narrative beh

I can’t tell you what the first photograph that I ever saw by Gregory Crewdson was, but I do remember very clearly how it made me feel — how I connected to this world. Unlike any other photographer I can think of off the top of my head, this was instantly familiar to me. This world was familiar; the plights and the struggles that these characters seemed to be going through were very much my own. Feelings of disconnect, feelings of isolation — and feelings of hope and possibility that those feelings would pass — that they were stepping stones or bridges to something better. This work resonated with me, and still does, on a very deep level. In this conversation, Gregory and I discuss his brilliant new body of work, Cathedral of the Pines, as well as the very personal journey he had to undertake to bring it to life. LINKSCathedral of the PinesSanctuaryBeneath the Roses UPDATEIn Process Driven 36, I had another conversation with Gregory around An Eclipse of Moths. CONNECT WITH GREGORYWebsite: http://www.gagosian.

“I became more and more interested in…the idea of photography. Not the technique of photography, but the idea of what photography is about and the role photography plays in our visual understanding of situations or issue or an event.”Sam Faulkner is a photographer from the UK who for the last five years has been making portraits of reenactors for a project called Unseen Waterloo. I saw a couple images from the project at Paris Photo LA and was just blown away, so I reached out to Sam and asked if we could have a conversation about how the project came about and what inspired him to make the transition from conflict photojournalist to fine art photographer. NOTE: There are a couple spots in the conversation where you may notice some mic noise on Sam’s end—it sounds like the shuffling of papers. There’s such great conversation around it that I’ve attempted to minimize it as much as possible in lieu of simply removing it. I hope it’s not too much of a distraction. LINKSUnseen WaterlooSomerset HouseHainsworthPhil

In 2009 when photographer David duChemin released his first book Within The Frame, the former comedian had no idea what adding author to his resume would do to his career trajectory, saying “I think sometimes other people can peg that about us before we’re willing to say so about ourselves.” He followed up Within the Frame with TEN, an ebook that not only inspired photographers to improve their craft without buying gear, it also helped him launch his publishing company Craft & Vision. Now, more than twenty ebooks later, David has released his eighth print book, called A Beautiful Anarchy, which eschews the genre-specific pursuit of photographic vision and instead looks to unpack the deeper levels of the creativity that drives it. In this conversation, David and I discuss how leading a creative life is about more than just making art. We also talk about motivation, intent and how we can learn to repurpose some of the fears and failures that hold us back into fuel to help us move forward. It’s a fascinating

After his business imploded, Dalton Campbell decided he needed a change. He sold everything he owned, packed a single backpack of clothes and essentials, grabbed his camera and left for Europe without any sort of agenda, other than to take photographs until the money ran out. His three-month trip took him to Portugal, Spain, Belgium and the French Riviera and when he returned, the resulting photo series, called Travelers, helped to launch a new career as a portrait photographer. In this conversation we talk about letting go of fear, not getting dragged down by failure and the importance of being present in the moment. LINKSDalton Campbell – TravelersArt+WorkEric MoralesGeorge KrauseAlejandro JodorowskyThumbtack CONNECT WITH DALTONWebsite: http://www.daltoncampbell.comFacebook: @daltoncampbellphotographyInstagram: @daltoncampbellphotography MUSICPlease Listen Carefully (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

A unique photographic style is one of the benchmarks of a great photographer. In 2007, Tom Hoops, was working as a web designer in Thailand, unfamiliar with names like Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, or Paolo Roversi. But, after borrowing a friend’s camera one afternoon, a new creative passion emerged and, for the past six years, Tom has been refining a style and building a body of work that is both instantly recognizable and uniquely his own. His dramatic black & white portraiture and brilliant editorial work have earned him an ardent following and are increasingly in demand, particularly in the world of fashion. I got the chance to sit down with Tom to talk about how his work has evolved, the importance of shooting what you love and why he wants his photography to be like a black polo neck. On developing a unique style: “You should shoot what you want to put on your wall… I want dramatic, dark, powerful photos. That’s what I’d like on my wall, so that’s what I want to shoot. That’s what I should be shoot