PODCAST · arts
Jeff Curto's Camera Position
by Jeff Curto
Photography podcasts that deal with the why of photography over the how and discuss the essential qualities of the medium from the point of view of the creative photographer.
Episodes
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Camera Position 213 : What's Your Hashtag?
How do you consider yourself as a photographer in terms of the work you do? Is it important to tell your viewers how you define your work as being a particular kind or made with a particular camera, or does the work you make define you instead? If I make more images, like the one in this post, am…
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Camera Position 212 : Sources & Resources
This episode covers some practical details. I go over the places where you can listen to Camera Position and list a number of online resources for you to explore photography that go beyond the "usual suspects" of Instagram - Flickr - Facebook. – Sources – Where to Listen to Camera Position Apple...
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Camera Position 210 : The Calming Camera
I can't think of a time in my life that has been more disconcerting than this last year. The pandemic and the disruption to our daily routine. We don't work the same, we don't socialize in the same way, we don't go out or see friends or family. We are certainly in strange and uncertain times, a...
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Camera Position 209 : November 22, 2020
During this pandemic time, we have been forced to trade in the allure of travel for the allure of the backyard. As I return to the podcast after a long absence, I explore the idea that you don't need to go somewhere special to make special photographs. Instead, you need to go deeper wherever you...
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Camera position 208 : Bringing Ourselves to the Photograph
By slowing down as we look at photographs - ours or someone else's - we can more easily bring ourselves to the photograph, and by doing that, learn more about the medium and ourselves. Links for this Episode: My Instagram Feed - Follow me and I'll follow back Sign up for the Workshops Mailing…
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Camera Position 207 : On Warming Up
Musicians warm up before they make music, but what about visual artists? Do photographers need to warm up before they create photographs? I think yes, and with the help of a podcast listener, we posit some ideas for getting warmed up visually. Links for this Episode: University of Georgia's…
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Camera Position 206 : The Artful Life
Some thoughts on living an artful life, led off by poet Mary Oliver's "Instructions on Living a Life" Pay attention Be Astonished Tell about it. Links for this Episode: Mary Oliver- The American poet at the Poetry Foundation Twyla Tharp - a brief video of some of Tharp's choreography Samuel…
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Camera Position 205 : Your Life Is Your Art
Rather than trying to make art your life, work instead on trying to make every day of your life into art. "You just have to live and life will give you pictures." -Henri Cartier Bresson Birch & Sun, Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, 2018 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
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Camera Position 204 : Always A Reward
The act of making photographs connects me to the world, to my medium and to myself. When I make photographs, there is always a reward. Links for this Episode: Places you can find and listen to Camera Position: iTunes Podcasts Player FM Stitcher iHeart Radio Short Orange Sun, Pines and Water…
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Camera Position 203 : Your Eyes and The Lens
Many people think of a wide lens as a way to get farther away from a subject, but I think of a wide lens as a way for us to get closer... a wide lens is really a close-up lens, allowing us to create a dominant subject in the frame by emphasizing the difference in distance from near to far. Links...
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Camera Position 202 : Exploring The World And Ourselves
Podcast listener Tracy wrote: "Photography comes from the depths of who we are. It is not only an exploration of our world, it is also an exploration of ourselves." This episode is a "part 2" of self-exploration and its relationship to our photography, utilizing a worksheet that you can download...
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Camera Position 201 : Digging Deeper
What is your story? What are you curious about? What do you care about? How can your photographs express those interests? Making stronger photographs often depends on digging deep to determine your passion and then translating those passions into images. Links for this Episode: Morton Arboretum...
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Camera Position 200 : Make Interesting Mistakes
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes and art is knowing which mistakes to keep. Instead of living in fear of "getting it wrong," a better, more useful strategy is to keep moving - plowing through the things that don't work and slowly refining the process to get to the things that...
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Camera Position 199 : Playing Like Yourself
"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself." -Miles Davis One of the most consistent questions I get from students is this one: "how do I develop my own style?" Miles Davis helps with an answer. Links for this Episode: Miles Davis Interview on YouTube Got a minute?...
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Camera Position 198 : Losing and Finding Ourselves
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." - Thomas Merton How can we use the art we make with the camera to grow, learn and provide ourselves with a way of saying new things... to, as Merton says, "find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time"? I'm asking...
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Camera Position 197 : Let the Subject Take Precedence
When the subject takes precedence - when you point your camera at things that are the most interesting thing to you, you are on your way to developing a personal style - the sense that these subjects are the most important things and can only be pointed out in this way by you. "To be a good…
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Camera Position 196 : A Sense of Place
How do we go beyond a record of a place and begin to make photographs that convey a real sense of place? The objective is not just to show what your destination looks like, but rather to convey, in photographs, what it felt like to be there. Links for this Episode: Exhibition: WANDERLUST: Travel…
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Camera Position 195 : The River of a Story
This episode is a little meditation on the importance of aligning ourselves with the messages around us, using Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird as inspiration. "The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes with it." -Anne...
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Camera Position 194 : Our Wish To Persist
"But the art in an artwork might not be located precisely where you thought it was. Perhaps it was just as much in the damage and decay as it was in the intact original. Perhaps it was in the gaps - in contemplating and rending those insults and injuries - that we find ourselves, by compassion…
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Camera Position 193 : Is It Art?
As photographers, we know that there is a fairly wide range of options available to us that change what *was* to what we show the world in our images. Every photograph is a composite of the choices we make as the person who eventually presents the image. Every photograph is an interpretation of…
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Camera Position 192 : John Berger, Looking and Seeing
An early influence on my ways of thinking about photography on a deeper level was the great writer John Berger. A poet, novelist, artist screenwriter and more, Berger, born in 1926, and died just a few weeks ago, in January of 2017 at the age of 90. A read of Berger's work gives great insight…
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Camera Position 191 : Walt Whitman, Poetry and Photography
Walt Whitman's poems in his opus Leaves of Grass mirror the actions of the photographer by beginning with facts and transforming those facts into ideas. I explore how both photography and Whitman's poetry use simple language to convey complex ideas, giving any object or experience new importance…
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Camera Position 190 : Watching Photographers Photograph
"You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra I like to see photographers out in the world and watch them photograph. Observing how photographers photograph can be a great aid in helping us make better, more informed, more personal photographs. There are still a few spaces left in 2 of…
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Camera Position 189 : Cultivate The Itch, Not The Scratch
What drives and motivates photographers to do the work they do? I think that our unifying motivation is curiosity - an unrelenting, never-ending curiosity - an "itch" to know more about something and to learn about that thing through photographing it. I was prompted to think about how we should...
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Camera Position 188 : You Are Worth The Time
Do you take time to be creative each day? The creative act is worth taking the time for. It's worth making the time for. It's what holds us up and keeps us going. Thousands upon thousands of creative people are forced to make the time to create. It's worth it because of what we give ourselves and...
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Camera Position 187 : Always Make the Photograph
If you see a picture that you think you may have photographed before, take it. Both the subject and the photographer may have changed since the last time you photographed it. Regardless of the reason, you should always make the photograph. Links for this Episode: University of Georgia Studies...
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Camera Position 186 : Objective and Subjective
Among the many things that make photography such an interesting pursuit are its qualities of objectivity combined with subjectivity. In the end, photography is an objective medium with a subjective soul. Sign up for the Workshops Mailing List - Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy Photography...
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Camera Position 185 : God Is In The Details
In addition to the phrase "Less is More," the great architect Mies Van der Rohe also had another saying that relates to making creative work, and that is "God Is In The Details," suggesting that attention to each and every detail of your process, from conception to execution, is integral to…
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Camera Position 184 : Look At The Path, Not The Mountain
Whether it's a stack of dishes in the sink, moving forward with yur photography or climbing up a steep mountain, looking at the path that you're traveling is usually the easiest way to the top. Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this Episode: Sign up for the Workshops Mailing List - Planning is...
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Camera Position 183 : Conscious Photography
The difference between a conscious and an unconscious photographer is that the conscious photographer produces more by thinking more and photographing less. Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this Episode: Sign up for the Workshops Mailing List - Planning is underway for the 2017 Italy...
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Camera Position 182 : The Art of the 'Zine
In a few past episodes, we've looked at alternate ways to get your work in front of an audience, and here's another one: 'Zines. This "low-fi" type of publication is a great (and cheap) way of getting your work into others' hands. I use my former student Michael Jarecki's 'Zine "Just Make…
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Camera Position 181 : Less Is More
The great architect Mies van der Rohe is famous for the phrase "Less is More" to describe his approach to simplifying his designs. That philosophy can be applied to photography as well, as it is often better to make fewer, but more thoughtful, images. Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this...
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Camera Position 180 : Mining the Data Set
From aperture and focal length to shutter speeds and focus points, our modern photographic tools give us a wealth of information about our photographs. We can use that information to learn about the way we approach photography and what strategies lead to our greatest successes. Links for this...
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Camera Position 179 : Embracing the Almost
All of us make photographs that, for some reason, don't quite work, even though we had high hopes for them. If we embrace those photographs that almost worked, but didn't, we can find some tools to help us improve and grow. Links for this Episode: Camera Position on Facebook - Share your images...
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Camera Position 178 : Everyday Creativity
When you face something you think you can't possibly do and then go ahead and do it anyway creativity is the tool you use. Links for this Episode: Using Virtual Copies in Lightroom - a great way to experiment Camera Position on Facebook - Share your images Camera Position on Flickr - Share your...
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Camera Position 177 : It's Not a Pursuit, It's a Medium
A lot of people who are "into" photography seem to think of the "doing" of photography as the end unto itself. While the mechanical act of making photographs can be pleasurable, I think of photography as a medium for self-examination, not a pursuit unto itself. Links for this Episode: Camera...
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Camera Position 176 : 10 Rules Rules for Getting Started
The American abstract expressionist painter Richard Diebenkorn (1922 –1993) is noted not only for his great work, but also for his thoughts about the creative process. Diebenkorn's "Notes to myself on beginning a painting" is a list of 10 things to think about as we begin any creative work - we…
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Camera Position 175 : From One, Many
There’s an old adage in photography: “inside every 8x10” print, there is a really excellent 5x7” image waiting to be found." That old saw is the foundation for an exercise that I’ve used for myself and in my classes over the years; take an image that you’ve made and search for alternate cropping...
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Camera Position 174 : The Lone Tree & The Logo
A listener asked where the logo for Camera Position came from, which gave me an impetus to talk about that photograph and the concept of the Lone Tree image - a compulsory photograph for nearly every photographer. Play Podcast: [powerpress] Links for this Episode: Camera Position on Facebook -...
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Camera Position 173 : Position The Camera - Position The Viewer
When we position the camera, we are ultimately positioning the viewer of our photographs. We explore this idea using a 1757 painting by the Venetian Painter Canaletto, who often used a camera obscura to create his paintings. Thanks to Dirk Rösler and the folks at the Large Format Photography…
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Camera Position 172 : Get Your Ideas Out The Door
Everyone has ideas, but many people keep those ideas hidden inside. The creative person finds a way to get those ideas out the door in a way that allows them to breathe. Play Podcast: Links for this Episode: Camera Position on Facebook - Share your images Camera Position on Flickr - Share your...
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Camera Position 171 : Tone, Value and Mr. Bennett's Button
"Anyone can print black - just put a piece of photo paper under the enlarger, turn the enlarger light on and leave it on. But light values... ahhh... light values... they are the soul of the black and white photograph. Not everyone can print white and have it sing." So said one of my great photo...
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Camera Position 170 : Camera Position Turns 10
Camera Position is ten years old! The first episode of Camera Position was published February 5, 2006 and it's been a wonderful decade of learning about photography, my listeners and myself. A huge thank you to all of you listeners out there! I really appreciate your support and your…
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Camera Position 169 : Black and White Revisited
"How do I get started in learning black and white photography?" That was the question I got by the boatload after the podcast about B&W photography, so this episode is dedicated to articulating some resources for that pursuit, starting with some advice from one of the greats, Ansel Adams. Play...
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Camera Position 168 : Edges
Edges - The edge of the frame, the edge of the subject, the edge of the world, the edge of a moment. Regardless of how we interpret it, the assignment of "Edges" can be a good one to expand our understanding of photography. Links for this Episode: Camera Position on Facebook - Share your images...
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Camera Position 167 : Learn Photography With Black and White
Can photography be better learned in black and white? That's the question that I look at in this episode, as we look at line, shape, tone and texture in the world of Black and White. Can photography be better learned in black and white? That's the question that I look at in this episode, as we…
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Camera Position 166 : Sharing Your Story
Photography is about storytelling. Sharing your images and the story that they create is one of the ultimate goals for most photographers. Fortunately, our contemporary world has some amazing tools and interesting ideas that can help us tell our stories with words and pictures. Play Podcast:...
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Camera Position 165 : Forget The Gear
Today's world of photography is so very confusing. Photographers are confronted with a barrage of advice about how to make good photographs and what gear you must have to make them. Of course, that advice has some value, but I think best way to learn is to actually go and make photographs…
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Camera Position 164 : The Frame Is A Discipline
The great photographer Ernst Haas said, ""The frame of the camera is the photographer's discipline. It can contain as much as it withholds, cut into or hold together images that detract or contribute to a given theme." In this episode, I explore the idea that the frame of the camera is a...
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Camera Position 163 : Photographer's Bookshelf - Diana and Nikon
Using a quote from Janet Malcolm's collections of essays about photography as a springboard, I talk about the relative truth of photographs and look back to our discussion about peripheral vision. Play Podcast [display_podcast] Camera Position on Facebook - Share your images Camera Position on...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Jeff Curto's Camera Position have?
Jeff Curto's Camera Position currently has 240 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Jeff Curto's Camera Position about?
Photography podcasts that deal with the why of photography over the how and discuss the essential qualities of the medium from the point of view of the creative photographer.
How often does Jeff Curto's Camera Position release new episodes?
Jeff Curto's Camera Position publishes regularly with 240 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Jeff Curto's Camera Position?
You can listen to Jeff Curto's Camera Position on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Jeff Curto's Camera Position?
Jeff Curto's Camera Position is created and hosted by Jeff Curto.
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