BPP 233: Marc Silber - How to Create Meaningful Work
Marc Silber is a 3X best selling author, photographer, filmmaker, and producer of the very popular Youtube series Advancing Your Photography, where he has interviewed scores of some of the biggest names in photography. This is his 4th time joining me on the Beginner Photography Podcast.
He started out learning darkroom skills and the basics of photography at the legendary Peninsula School in Menlo Park, CA, in the '60s, and moved on to hone his skills to professional standards at the famed San Francisco Art Institute. Marc moved into teaching photography in workshops all over the country, he became renowned as an engaging and helpful speaker and coach, as his greatest joy comes from helping others.
He loves adventure and you'll find him out backpacking surfing or snowboarding, or maybe just chilling, taking a walk through Carmel with his wife and Golden Retriever.
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In This Episode You'll Learn:
[02:15] Our guest for this week "Marc Silber", shares some insight on his recent efforts to reach out to budding photographers.
[02:44] Marc points out that most photographers lack a technique for getting inspired, and shares his creative process.
[12:58] From Marc's book "Advancing Your Photography": The 5 Stages of Photography
[16:26] Where do you think most people get the visualization aspect wrong?
[27:55] The biggest struggle with Composition is a lack of "Center of interest".
[34:00] Marc explains the commonest goal among photographers.
[49:47] How can we dive deeper into the artistic realm of photography?
[54:07] Discussing the concept of mentorship
Resources:
Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!
Full Episode Transcription:
Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:00:00 Mark you recently actually just embarked on a bit of a journey to connect with budding photographers. I want to know what were you hoping to learn from these conversations that you had?
Marc Silber: 00:00:11 Yeah, you know, I really wanted to make sure I was connected to my audience because you can assume things, but maybe they're not really what people are after. So I did a number of things. I started S you know, S some surveys, but then I went a much deeper, took a much deeper look, and I actually called up my audience. I called up members of my audience. I put out a notice, Hey, I'd like to talk to you on the phone. If you have 15 minutes, would you be willing to, you know, get on the phone with me? Most of them were really surprised. Many of them are my book readers. Now, I don't know how many authors do that, you know, where they call up their, their, their readers of their books,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:00:56 But not too many. Yeah, not very
Marc Silber: 00:00:58 Many people were very surprised. And I took careful notes and I basically sifted through all this information, because again, I want to know I'm, you know, as an author running a YouTube channel, I don't want it to be a one-way flow of just me putting out data. I need to know what's happening at the other end. And if things are resonating or not resonating and what is resonating. So I kind of sifted it down to five things. I mean, there's many other things, but these were these floated way to the top. These were the big points that, that people were struggling with or their desires and what they really had as an ultimate goal. And I found this really fascinating because it helped me not only understand my audience, but be able to shape my, what I'm talking about, you know, to really align with these things. It, well, it was one of the, it's actually really fun. You know, we all like getting feedback, whether it's people looking at your photographs or video you made or whatever, it's always interesting to get feedback. I think so. There's that too.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:02:13 So when you made these phone calls, when you put up these surveys, what did you already have? Like a list of questions that you wanted to ask, and I guess what was the purpose of these questions? Or what were some of the questions?
Marc Silber: 00:02:26 Some of the questions. Yeah. So I did ask them, so, you know, obviously I want to know what level they were as a photographer, what they were struggling with was one of my questions. You know, what areas challenge you the most, which I'll talk about. I know the answer to that, but also what they're really what their goals were. And I found it fascinating where the challenge is varied a lot, but the goals were very similar person to person. And I, I, that really interesting. And it, it resonated for me because they're my goals too. So we get, when we get to that, we'll definitely I'll reveal what that is. I mean
Raymond Hatfield: 00:03:10 Yeah. Got to stay tuned. Yeah. So when we talk about these different challenges that were different from person to person, but these goals were the same, what sorts of challenges, where are these photographers facing? And I guess even a step further back is you said that you asked, you wanted to know where they're at and what level they're at. So what level were these photographers who you're talking to at
Marc Silber: 00:03:31 Either beginner or intermediate? I taught, I did talk to a few who were at the pro level. Of course, that's a very different audience. Of course. However, I will say the goals are the same. This is this was really fascinating. The pros, what they were struggling with was almost nothing in terms of technique camera function, that sort of thing. They, there actually were a couple of common answers to the beginners even, and I'll go over that, but their goals were absolutely uniform, whether it was beginner, intermediate, or, or advanced, they all had very similar goals at the end of the day. And what are some challenges? Biggest challenges. Okay. So the biggest challenges were number one, being creative.
Marc Silber: 00:04:24 I'll talk about that and getting inspired. So that's kind of like creativity slash inspiration and learning composition, and those things actually fit together. So if you think about it, like we can all have great gear. We can even know, you know, lighting and, and we know some compositional techniques and that sort of thing. But if you're not inspired, your camera's going to sit on the shelf. Yeah, of course, of course. Right. Or, or, and I I'm guilty of this. We ended up taking the same photograph over and over again, maybe because it gets a lot of likes, you know, you put it on Instagram and, you know, Hey sunsets, you know, okay. We know warm light sunsets, you get a lot of likes. I mean, it's just because it pops out of the camera. Okay. When you're looking or the, or the iPhone. And so that's fine. But if you just keep doing the same photograph over and over again, are you really progressing anywhere? Are you getting anywhere? Probably not.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:05:37 That's an interesting question. That's an interesting question, because I think like in almost all other professions, the more that you do the same thing, I guess, the better that you get at it, but with photography, there is that weird creative element to it, to where if you do the same thing over and over again, it its magic, I guess that kind of draws you in to kind of go forward. So where are you finding that? That was the issue when it came to inspiration for many, is that they were doing the same thing over and over again, or they were too overwhelmed.
Marc Silber: 00:06:11 Yeah. Well, I think as they lacked a technique for getting inspired and there is a technique for that,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:06:19 Right. And it's all in your book create right here, which is my favorite books of all time. It's a, it's definitely the book that I give away most is to other listeners of the podcast and whatnot is as you've broken it down. So clearly. So I guess before we move forward, you want to talk about kind of the, the creative process.
Marc Silber: 00:06:39 Yeah. So, and I, you know, it actually started with my book earlier in that advancing your photography. And so what, when I wrote create, I took a lot of the principles that applied only to photography and I, and I scanned spanned it out. So you could apply it to any creative field, but they fit together because whereas advancing your photography talks about the whole process of photography, including inspiration create is really, you know, just on that one subject, but here's a good example, Raymond. So we all have to look somewhere to get inspired. If it's not from, from our own experiences, we look out, you know, we look out to get inspired and it's, it is part of the creative process of looking for inspiration. So I interviewed a photographer many years ago. His name is Joseph Holmes, fantastic landscape photographer, a very sort of conservative looking fellow.
Marc Silber: 00:07:45 His landscapes were impeccable and they're beautiful. And I asked him what his inspiration was and he said the Beatles, it's really what, what do you mean the Beatles? How does, how does a rock and roll group inspire of a landscape photographer? You might think more like Debussy or Mozart or, you know, obviously a classical musician, but not the Beatles. And he said, no, actually the Beatles inspired. And because he saw, he went to one of their concerts and he saw so much energy coming out of them that somehow it just fueled his own photography. Wow. And using the Beatles as an example. And I hope this doesn't label me as incredibly old school, but one of the things about the Beatles and we were talking about repeating yourself over and over again, they literally never repeated themselves. They, every album was a re-invention of their music, which I think is one of the things that made them such a phenomenal group.
Marc Silber: 00:08:48 They, whereas, and I'm not going to name names, but I have heard some musicians where I could pick up album one and album eight. And I, there's not much difference. Sure. Yeah. There's different songs, but the music itself sounds pretty much the same and it's not a bad thing. They're just kind of carrying on through a process. But I think it's also really important to get inspired and go out and try new things. And we can find that inspiration from watching a movie from, I, I, my favorite thing is looking at art itself, looking at art books better to go to a museum and look at it on the wall. But if you can't do that right now, go grab some books and look at how those photographs were made or that piece of art, a painting or whatever. And that's, that's kind of what fuels that inspiration
Raymond Hatfield: 00:09:43 When it comes to, you know, that example of music where, you know, with the Beatles, each album was entirely different and other artists it's not, so there's not so much variation there. For photographers, like that's kind of a scary thing to be able to look at those first photos and then say, years later, look at your photos and realize that you really haven't come that far. Right. What do you think that comes down to, is that just technical ability or is that something else?
Marc Silber: 00:10:10 It's a combination. And you know, in the book create actually in advancing your photography. In my first book, I talk about the five stages of photography and those all have to, they fit together, right? So it's not just a random process of learning photography. There are five stages you go through first is visualizing, which means you get an idea, you know, rather than just Ansell Adams made the distinction when you've just pressed the shutter, you're, you're taking snapshots. But when you visualize it first, when you get an idea in your mind, before you press the shutter, then it has a chance of being a work of art. And it's not to say, you can't do that really fast. Like Henri Cartier-Bresson is capturing the moment, but he visualized those photographs. He knew that if he stood in this location, he would come away with that, you know, some kind of image that he wanted.
Marc Silber: 00:11:09 So first you visualize, then you do have to know your equipment because if you don't know your equipment, we were talking about this before we started the show. If you're, if you're constantly changing your gear around or relearning or whatever, you're throwing variables into the mix and that just slows you down. And it means you're not gonna, you're gonna miss photographs. You know, photographs could only be there for a second. Right. And if you're like, I don't remember where the ISO is on this camera and it's too high or too low or whatever, by the time you get through fumbling with it, the photograph has gone. That's why I think we all love our I-phones because there there's nothing to fumble with here. Right? You it's it's, unless it's just, you're slow and opening it, but you can just get out there and, you know, boom, there it is instantaneous, but you've got to know your gear.
Marc Silber: 00:12:02 You got to know how to process your image. I mean, even from the iPhone, I never just published something without I'm going to tinker with it. I'm going to do something. Yeah. And then then you know, then you get into I'm sorry, I'm actually missed a step. There is capturing once, you know, your equipment, you have to capture it and capturing is basically lighting and composition. What you do with your camera lighting. I mean, there's really, there's, there's three things that you're going to deal with. Timing, lighting and composition, no matter what kind of photograph you're, you're creating, it's the timing of the shot, the composition of it in the lighting, you know, that's it. And then the, then you edit it and then the final stage is getting your work out to the world. And that's all the creative process. That's you have to have all five of those things in place to really fulfill your creative desires and your goals super important and where any one of those is missing, or it's not quite dialed in for you. Then the whole process kind of, you know, will bog down at that point, slow down just to answer. Why do people not progress is because one of those five things is not in place. It's that simple.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:13:23 So let's go back to the whole visualization thing there real quick. I kind of want to talk a little bit more about that because, you know, as you said, this is, this is one of the most important aspects of it, because this is where you get an idea of what that picture is. And then it pushes you to be able to go after it and get it something that maybe you've never done before. What do you think most people will get the visualization aspect wrong or, or stop growing? Right.
Marc Silber: 00:13:50 Well, let me give you an example from just the other day. So how so blood sent me a camera at nine Oh seven that I'm testing out and it came with two lenses. One was a 40, 40 millimeter, which has basically a really pretty wide lens for that camera. The other is a 90 millimeter, which is just slightly, you know longer than a normal lens. And I decided I was going to go out, speaking of sunset, take some photographs at sunset. I live in a very beautiful place and I went over by the ocean. And so I had to move around to, you know, I kept finding, and these were not very inspired photographs. I mean, there was the sun, sun is going down into the ocean. Okay. I've taken a million of those shots. So then I I was up kind of on the edge of w w wasn't a cliff, but you could walk down and, and get to a much vantage point.
Marc Silber: 00:14:52 And I found the lower advantage point. I got, it became more interesting. And then I noticed that what I was getting was I was seeing the waves smashing, sorry. I no worries. No, put it on. I saw the the waves crashing against the rock and coming over the sun. In fact, I, I included this photograph in my batch of photos for you. So, you know, it'll be in the show notes. Yeah. All of a sudden that became a really interesting photograph. Now I look back after I, I spent about 15 minutes just, you know, cause I didn't know the timing if I had it right. And I finally got one where the wave was just boom, and the sun was going down. It was like, wow, that's the money shot. That's what I thought in my mind. Then I looked back where I had been there's a whole row of people up there, 25 feet higher than me with our I-phones.
Marc Silber: 00:15:53 Yeah. And none of them were able to get that image. So to answer your question, the visualization came in. Once I saw, what would it be like if I went down there, then I'm going to have a totally different picture than standing up on the road with everybody else. And I didn't even realize there are all those people up there until I had, because I had been so engrossed in what I was doing, that I was paying attention to what was going on in this direction that was going on back there. So visualization is often looking at something from a different point of view, literally. Right. And that could be changing your angle. Like if we're used to walking around and shooting everything from eye level, it can be pretty boring. It can get really boring, but what happens if you kneel down or you get on a ladder, you know, you got really high or you even tilt your camera a little bit, you know, and you put an angle on it. All of a sudden these things start to change how your photograph is going to look and it's like cooking. And you know, if you don't ever put any spices in your, in your cook and your, what you're cooking, it's going to be already pretty bland.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:17:12 That's a perfect case for for oatmeal, oatmeal by itself is disgusting. It's very boring. You put in some honey, a little bit of Brown sugar, some synonym it's delicious. Yeah.
Marc Silber: 00:17:22 Maybe chili powder, you know, you, you know, you right. You know, just a tiny bit. Right. And that's how these, these amazing chefs come out with something remarkable. Cause all of a sudden they try something that nobody else has ever done before.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:17:36 Right. Right. You know, th there's this interesting concept. I don't remember where I heard it. I don't remember if I read it. I don't remember if I saw it in a video, but whatever it was, it stuck with me pretty well, the idea of this, and it was talking about becoming a better photographer and how sometimes you just have to take the boring photos to be able to get something very unique. And I remember back to when I was just starting to learn how to shoot on film. Right. And I had my actually it's over there at my dad's old Pentax K 1000. And I went out and I was really excited to get something new and fresh. And this whole world of film was very exciting and right away, I didn't know what to do. I was kind of fumbling with these ideas.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:18:25 And I remember that once again, sometimes you have to take the boring photos and it was this beautiful field of I don't know, daisies, wild flowers, you know, whatever it was. And I just stopped and I took the boring photo. Right. And I think that slowed me down enough to think to myself, all right. I got that. Now, what could I do? And then I think I just like rotated the camera and do a portrait orientation. And then I took it, played with the composition a little bit. But then by the end of that role, like, like photo number 36 is one of my favorite photos because it's just, it's a single flower. The entire background is just green and it was after the sun had gone down, it's just this beautiful photo. And I love it very much. And I don't think that I would have got it if I hadn't taken that boring photo first.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:19:12 So whenever I think about visualization, I struggle with this because I don't think that I could have visualized that photo before I had went out there and kind of discovered it. And then you telling that story right there kind of is, is, is very similar. You went out there thinking that you were going to get the sunset shot, but then it developed over time. So yeah. How much of this is, is I guess, is this luck that you get out and you find this and then you explore it or is this just being open-minded? Does that question make sense?
Marc Silber: 00:19:44 No, that's a really good question. And here's the thing about visualization? It can be very broad. I mean, it could start with just, you went to that field, you had some idea that there would be a good photograph there. You didn't necessarily know. Okay. It was going to be this exact shot, but you had visualized it just to that extent, right? Yeah. Why were you there instead of someplace else, you know, you, you put yourself there, like, why was I, you know, I live on this coastline with all these different places I could have gone. Why did I go to this one spot? Well, I kind of gravitated to it kind of a process of elimination. I knew, I didn't know that I wanted to come away with a photograph of the wave that I had no idea of that until I got there. And I went, Whoa, then the visualization kicked in of that particular image.
Marc Silber: 00:20:35 But before that, it was kind of like, I want an interesting photograph of the sunset. I don't want to just be another okay, beautiful sunset. I wanted something unique about it. And was, that was the general idea. That's the general visualization then as I explored, like you said, you know, and I just started going down this path, literally going down the path and at each place I took a photograph, then it wasn't until I got down to the bottom that I really noticed these waves. So it goes, you know, it's like the general visualization and sometimes you narrow it down and narrow it down and narrow it down. And all of a sudden it's like, there it is. There's the money shot. You know, that's the, that's the image that I was looking for. And it is a process. It's not just a, it's not just a one-time deal.
Marc Silber: 00:21:31 Here's a, here's a classic example. Ansul Adams, one of his most iconic photographs is the moon over half dome. Oh yes. You've probably all seen that because it's one of his most famous photographs. So he was on his way. I've heard this story from both his son. I've heard Ansul telling it. And I've also heard his grandson tell him, tell him in the story. But he was on his way to rehearsal every year they had this show, he was in Yosemite. He was on his way driving his Cadillac. He had a cool old cabin. It was convertible. Right. Was it he had, no, I don't think he had a convertible. He had a Cadillac station wagon. Oh. Which is really unusual. Yeah. With a big roof rack on it that he put his camera's on. And then he had a Cadillac sedan. He was driving the sedan and he had his hostel blot in the car with him and he looks over and he's driving along and he sees the moon over halftone boom pulls over.
Marc Silber: 00:22:35 But even there, he writes about how he visualized it. Where did he need to stand? And what lens did he need to put on that camera to make it into the photograph that he ultimately ended up with? Yeah. So he very quickly visualize that. And then he went into action with that lens, with that camera, with the tripod where he wanted it. And that's, that's how he captured it, but it's all, it cannot, it can be very, very fast, you know, or it can be over a long period of time. Like I I've gone back to the same location many times just trying to come away with that one image that I really, really want. But Raymond here's, I believe this is the way it works. We need inspiration to, to fuel that visualization. And, and again, that comes from many forms of watching movies, listening to music, looking at art, you know, watching my YouTube channel.
Marc Silber: 00:23:39 And they must also be in the show notes. Yeah, exactly. Then you take that and you, and you put it into action. Oh. And by the way, in addition to these phone calls and surveys that I was telling you about, I've been running a weekly critique show on my YouTube channel and I am plugging it. But the point being, it gives me hands-on live experience because it's a YouTube live where people are commenting to look at images that work and ones that don't work. And I listen, I'll call it out either way. I don't believe in sugar-coating because if you just want to get a like, or whatever that tells you nothing, if you get intelligent feedback, that's constructive. I don't tear people down, but I just say what it is. And I'll tell you in a minute, what I found was the most common mistake that people were making with their comps composition. If you think that might be interesting. Oh, a hundred percent. There's one mistake that I saw over and over again, but that gave me a whole other kind of layer of getting in touch with my audience. Because I could see at once this photograph really works, bam, this one doesn't and I'll tell you why it doesn't work. So since composition was so I, I mentioned the biggest points of struggle where inspiration and composition, it might be, it might be interesting to find what I, what I've seen as the biggest compositional
Raymond Hatfield: 00:25:17 Can I guess to my guests real quick. Yeah, please. Is it, is it everything's in the center of the frame?
Marc Silber: 00:25:23 That's pretty close. Yeah. Everything is, there's no center of interest. So if I was talking to you and I, because photography is a communication means, and it's really important to remember it is a communication means just like verbal communication is. So if I said, Raymond, look over there, Hey, have a look over there. That's really cool. And you look over and you go, and I'm not gesturing to any one thing. I'm just saying, look, look over there and you go, yeah. What? And I go, yeah, isn't that cool? What are you talking about? Then you go, what, what is what cool. Yeah. So cool. So that's kind of like, what happens if you take a photograph and there's no center of interest. Yeah. I've got a picture of a tree, a dog and a a duck. And they're all kind of equally in the frame.
Marc Silber: 00:26:19 Do I think the duck is the coolest thing, the dog or the tree, you have no way of knowing because they're all just, they're framed equally the same. But now if I take the the tree, I use it as a, a frame against the dog. And I think the doc is the most interesting part of this photograph. I'll move in closer to the, the doc will be in focus, maybe the dog and the tree or out of focus. Now immediately you go, I know what he's talking about. He's talking about the doc. So that's the difference between being saying, wow, look over there, Raymond, isn't that cool? As opposed to saying, it. That duck, how cool is that doc against the tree and the dog, but I made it very clear to you that I want you to look at the doc first.
Marc Silber: 00:27:08 Yeah. And that's the, that's the secret sauce right there. If there's no center of interest, that's kind of number one, no center of interest. I don't know what I'm supposed to look at. It's kind of confusing. Just like a sentence that says, look over there, but not look at that dock. Now, step two of that is, do you got to do something about that center of interest that's unique and that makes it a compelling image to look at. So maybe the duck just sitting there like this with its wings in. Isn't very interesting, but now the dog barks at the deck and all of a sudden it's flapping its wings and we can see the dog in the background barking at it. That's a little story now. Yeah. Yeah. Now the difference between those is that the first photograph you're just pressing the shutter and not thinking about, is there something that's going to be happening here? That could be interesting because a lot of photography boils down to being patient. You go to a location and you think there's something here just like you out in that field. You don't know when you're pressing the shutter number, photograph number one, you don't know that 36 photographs later, you're going to get the photograph
Raymond Hatfield: 00:28:39 That you want. Of course the money shot.
Marc Silber: 00:28:42 So I'm sitting there I go. Well, there's some cool elements here. There's a dog, a dock and a tree that none of them are doing anything really interesting yet. But if I just sit here and you know, I keep photographing and wait, maybe I'll get lucky and something will startle the dock and its wings will come out or the dog will bark out or whatever. And bam, there, it is
Raymond Hatfield: 00:29:08 Like, sorry.
Marc Silber: 00:29:11 Well it's luck. It's luck. But also it's, you know, the famous quote Louis Pasteur's said luck favors the prepared mind, Ansell Adams, change it. Luck favors
Raymond Hatfield: 00:29:26 The prepared photographer. Yeah.
Marc Silber: 00:29:28 So if you're prepared, you've got the camera, you got the location and you just wait, you could say it's lucky. But really,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:29:35 Of course, of course that's it. That's a huge thing because you know, you can't, you can't just go out there with no knowledge, your camera and expect to get great photos. So you have to be prepared and your technical abilities to be able to do that. But then when it comes to inspiration and composition, these are things that also take time. I mean, you might get lucky without any sort of knowledge and, and get a photo with a good composition on accident, but you can really increase those odds by being more prepared and just shooting more and doing more of those things. Right. Exactly. Okay. So
Marc Silber: 00:30:10 It's coming again, going back to a location many, many times, you know, it's a great location, but nothing has really happened yet. Yeah. Keep going back there.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:30:20 So then now let's assume, right. We, we were out there, we saw this beautiful tree. We saw this duck, we saw this dog, we waited for it. We took the photo, we get back home and we think to ourselves like, yeah, that's a good photo, but you know, kind of what does it mean? Like what's the big picture? Like what is, what are we as photographers? What did you learn from these photographers who you interviewed about the photos that they wanted to take? What did they want to do with these photos? These photos mean to them,
Marc Silber: 00:30:53 That's the punchline, but let's jump right into it. That was the key thing that I found had in common with everybody I interviewed. So here it is, Raymond. They all wanted to get their work out to the world to leave something meaningful behind. And I think that our current the pandemic has had a lot to do with that. Cause I think we've all become aware of life. Isn't just the normal, you know, I'm going to go on just the way it always is. Yeah. And I think a lot of people have started looking at that in terms of what, you know, yeah. If I am a photographer, what do I want out of all these photographs? So every one of them expressed to me in some way or another that they wanted to somehow get their work out to the world and ideally leave something behind. So that could be a book that could be as a Xen or, you know, a small book could be an exhibit. Those are hard to do these days again. So books were kind of high on the list. And that means you have to have sort of a body of, of work that fits together, which is another important thing.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:32:15 Let me, let me ask you, cause I want to go back to that example of this dog, duck in the tree, because I can see that photo in my head and I like the photo, right? Like it's seen in my head and I like it. But when it comes to creating work that we want to leave behind in some sort of meaningful sense, is this photo a waste of our time for lack of a better term, I suppose,
Marc Silber: 00:32:38 Well, it to fit into some context. So this could be a series like this is one thing that's really important is if you're thinking in terms of leaving something behind a book, let's say, let's just say a book and I'm, by the way I'm, I'm actually going to be mentoring people on how to do this because a lot of people and I hear this over and over, Oh, I, you know, I'm going to write a book, I'm going to write a book someday, or I'm going to publish a bunch of my photographs in a book someday and someday, someday, someday, someday. I mean, listen, I had it on my list for decades to publish my work before I actually wrote my first book. And now I've written one it's very easy to keep writing more and publishing more, but that it takes some doing figure out and to know how to do your first book.
Marc Silber: 00:33:33 So I'm actually creating a class on how to do that. But if you're thinking in terms of leaving something behind, you probably have to think now probably you have to think in terms of a cohesive whole, how does this all fit together? What's the story, what's the overall story here. So maybe the dog country photograph could fit together because I'm going back to where my grandparents lived and photographing them in their environment. They have a little farm let's say, and I'm taking a series of photographs about, about my grandparents. And this happens to be, even though they're not in the photograph, this happens to be on their farm and there's a dog deck and in a tree. And this is one of those photographs that, that fits in with all these other photographs right now, I put this book together. And by the way, when I talk about publishing books, I'm not just saying you got it.
Marc Silber: 00:34:35 You know, you've got to get out there and get a, you know, a New York times best seller or, you know, a big hit on Amazon. I'm talking about even making a book for your own family, like of your grandparents or your kids or whatever. That's really important and really powerful. But if you're, if you're planning that as the end result, you just go backwards from that. So, so what, what am I going to put in this book about my grandparents really conveyed to other people who will never meet them or people that do know them, they're kind of their character and what they really are about. So it, isn't just a bunch of snapshots drawing together. It's like a story about them and that dog, duck, and tree, you know, just, it fits in, in, it always fits in, by the way. There's a really, when you're telling stories and you're putting a series of photographs, there are those photographs that really stand out on their own that are just like, wow. Then there's other photographs that we call transitional or linking photographs by themselves, or maybe not the big. Wow. But they tell part of the story and they'd link, they'd link the other images together. And in sport, it's important to know that you need both. So sometimes you were saying a minute ago, talking about the boring photographs. Sometimes those are boring on their own. They would be like, okay, great.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:36:14 Yeah, cool. A doc, I did it. Cool.
Marc Silber: 00:36:15 I get a doc dog, whatever, but then they don't, they're not the showstopper, but they do serve a purpose because they'd link the story together. Maybe earlier we have a picture of grandma with the dog on the porch, you know? So now we, we see this dog is really a part of their life. And that was a really cool photograph because she's talking to the dog or something, you know, and that's like, Whoa, that's a really cool photograph of grandma. And then later we see the dog by itself with the dock and the fence and the tree and it C it links it together. And it has more purpose than, than just being a photograph all by itself
Raymond Hatfield: 00:36:55 As if that dog was part of a family. Suddenly I can already see this book in my head. It makes more sense. I know, I think I should go out and photograph it. Well, that actually brings me into my next question, which is you know, I like the idea of a book and we're talking about photo books here. I like the idea of a book. I like the idea of coming up with you know, having a, having a story specifically for a book. These aren't just snapshots. But I think one thing that I struggled with perhaps, and maybe just cause I'm second guessing myself, maybe it's coming up with a topic to shoot, or would you recommend just taking your body of work and creating a story out of the images that you already have?
Marc Silber: 00:37:34 You can do it both ways. I have done it both ways. I have a huge library. So it helps me to be able to dive in and pull stuff out. But I think there's two ways you go about it. One is yeah. Accumulated just an enormous library and then pull photographs out of it. But I think a better way really is to decide on a project and then photograph it. And this is also a really good discipline to learn photography, because if we're just taking random photographs and they don't fit together, there's no real discipline to it. But if all of a sudden we say, okay, what story do I really want to tell with my camera? What is that story? And I think this is a really good exercise again in today's world because let's face it. We're not, we're not going to be doing the traveling that we once were for awhile.
Marc Silber: 00:38:30 Yeah. And if we are, it's more difficult, but the stories are right in our own area, maybe even on our own house, but certainly in our own neighborhood, there's a story there. And I think like any story, you just have to think of it in terms of a beginning, middle and end. And if you start working towards that project, you can accumulate, you'll accumulate a body of work, take the grandparents. So I wish I had done this with my grandparents and I didn't, you know, it's like, what is their lifelike? And maybe you see them every two weeks or three weeks or whatever. You just start photographing them every time you see them. You know, after a few months you're going to have a lot of photographs. You could turn into a book.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:39:26 What about something that like, maybe it doesn't have a specific start and an end, like something that I've always seen in my head. I just, I just love clouds. I think they're just so beautiful. And like they're, they're, they're calming. And I enjoy looking at them and editing pictures of clouds, but like these aren't photos that necessarily I share, but regardless there's no really start and end to clouds. So is there a way that I could develop that idea into a book?
Marc Silber: 00:39:53 Absolutely. So I talk about portraiture and portraiture could be a portrait of not just a person. Obviously we know we can take portraits of animals. Yes. I mean, I've had many animals pose for me. I'm not kidding a horse. They know they're posing. I've had a deer pose for me, several deers pose, ramped had dogs pose for me. Anything else? What's that? Any penguins I have penguins. Yes. I, I have, I got to say that I will send that over to you that this penguin wasn't actually posing. They were walking. So they, I can't say they're closing, but, but we can also take portraiture portraiture in the bigger sense of taking a portrait of a tree. Camille seaman, as somebody I interviewed, we were talking about her earlier, she's a native American. And she said in my culture, we believe everything is alive.
Marc Silber: 00:40:56 She takes portraits of icebergs. Oh wow. And then we tend to think inanimate objects are not alive and that's not a portrait, but she considers it a portrait, a cloud. You could consider that I'm going to take a series of cloud portraits because they all have their own unique look and portrait, you know, and a personality. So in that case, the thing that, that, that ties it together, even though it doesn't have a beginning, middle and end, is that these are portraits of clouds. That would be, you know, the other way you could, you could tell a story, so gotta add emotion in
Raymond Hatfield: 00:41:34 There. It's gonna be, it's going to be full of emotion. So that means lots of drama. I'm thinking of beautiful colors in the sky. Yeah, you're right. I mean, there there's, there's lots of things. And I like that idea and now I'm going to pursue it. So thank you so much for helping me out with that.
Marc Silber: 00:41:52 Hey, listen, I'll be happy to write your here forward.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:41:55 Oh, perfect. I was there when Raymond had this idea,
Marc Silber: 00:41:59 I'll say I was on the show and gave you the idea of cloud portraits. But I think about that, you know, there's many different portraits that we can take. And you know, there's photographers who made their whole career out of portraiture, Annie Liebowitz, Richard Avedon, Richard Avedon took his camera to the West, the Southwest and just set it up and took pictures of people. He found along the way with a white backdrop. And it's this incredible series of photographs. There's no beginning, middle and end to it. It's just, these are portraits of people from the West, you know, and that makes a great book that makes a compelling book. So there's the story aspect. And then there's the subject matter, you know, the uniform subject matter. And in the case of clouds or trees or dogs and ducks and trees, you know, maybe that's your, that's your series.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:43:01 It's funny. Well, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about these ideas and obviously the clouds we got there, we got Avedon with his with the white backdrops and I, and I can see the photos in my head. Like you, you still see landscape, but it's these people who are in front of these white backdrops in these photos that I'm thinking of are definitely more on the artistic side. And we're not talking about anything about gear or anything to that sense. When you were interviewing photographers, when you're really trying to learn what their biggest struggles are you had mentioned earlier, you know, about the art of photography in not just talking about the gear. Can we explore that a little bit more? What do we mean by that? What's the struggle there.
Marc Silber: 00:43:41 Well, okay. So gear fits into, there's the five stages of photography. You remember? So there's visualization, but you do have to know your equipment because you can have a great idea, but if you don't know your camera, you're not going to get it. And the one of the photographers I've interviewed a lot, Bob Holmes, excuse me, national geographic photographer, fantastic photographer. He said, you have to know your camera to know what it sees. How does your camera see? Because your camera sees differently than your eye. And if you don't know how your camera sees, you're going to be really disappointed case in point. How many sunset, how many times have you seen a sunset? You pull out your iPhone and you go, wow, that's going to be incredible. Press the shatter. And it looks like nothing. Yeah. Every time, every time I phones are terrible at capturing sunsets, they just, the reason is you have to be able to stop your lens way down.
Marc Silber: 00:44:48 You know, like F 16, F 22, something like that to get a good sunset shot. Otherwise it's going to be all pixelated. And it just doesn't look like anything that's knowing your gear. So I'm never going to take a really satisfying photograph of a sunset with this, with this camera, but you have to know what your equipment is capable of doing and how it's going to look. And that just comes from experience and testing it out. But you also have to be familiar with it so that when you are in that moment, where there is just a split second to capture that photograph, you're not fumbling with the camera, you know, you're not going, ah, let's see why is this? Autofocus throwing me off. I had this happen just the other day. The autofocus wouldn't auto focus. You ever had that happen?
Raymond Hatfield: 00:45:41 In fact, just over the weekend. Yeah. So that's funny that you say that. Yeah, it's frustrating, isn't it? Yeah.
Marc Silber: 00:45:46 It's really it's keeps going like this [inaudible] and you can't press, the shutter will not allow you to take the picture and is literally blocking you, stopping you from getting the photograph. So you have to know, kick it into manual, forget about the auto focus and focus. It manually. You had that experience. I had that experience over the weekend when I was photographing these waves. Cause it, it was just, you know, it didn't know whether he wanted me to focus on the clouds or even though I had a very specific spot for it, it just wouldn't accept my focus. So that's something you have to know your gear. Otherwise, you're going to just say I can't take this picture. The camera won't let me take the picture. So you have to know, okay, go into manual, focus. It manually bypass this stupid system right now. Doesn't understand what it's going on. Right.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:46:39 So then we talked to their, obviously about the, the gear side. Yeah. We kind of understand that if, if we understand the gear because, okay, let me start over as a beginner. That's pretty much the thing that we have to go on to grow, right? Because we need to learn and understand the gear. And then at some point we become competent enough that we have this visualization and we see these photos in our head that we want to take, but how can we dive deeper into the artistic realm of photography?
Marc Silber: 00:47:10 Yeah. There's a couple of key things. One is, and this is an exercise I do in my workshops and I recommend it. It's in my book, advancing your photography, look for photographs with, and forget about the gear. Look for photographs. You can do it like this. You know,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:47:30 Like the old, director's a directors eye right there with the fingers.
Marc Silber: 00:47:33 That's your thing. You can do it. This is my preferred frame, but create a frame. Right. And so you have to learn to think in terms of the frame of your camera, and this is another stumbling block for a lot of beginners. They're kind of looking at everything as you know, and like right there, it's again, it's a little bit like, Hey, look over there. Yeah. You know, instead of look right there, you know, point, so train your eye to see in terms of the frame of your camera. And you can do that anytime, anywhere. And it's an exercise, just like, you know, learning to sing as an exercise. You don't necessarily know how to use these vocal chords until you practice with them. And this is training your eye where you want to learn to see photographs. And this has nothing to do with your gear.
Marc Silber: 00:48:30 This is just purely artistic. And then another way of doing that is when you look at other people's work, look at photographs or paintings for that matter, look at how that artists use their frame. And you can see what they, you know, sometimes you have the, I'll tell you a great book to check out, but sometimes if you're lucky, you can see other frames and know why that one really worked. There's a really cool book. It's and it's the title of it is escaping me right now, but it's Magnum photographs. I don't know if you've seen it, but it shows the contact sheets of these photographs.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:49:12 Oh yeah, no, I think it's just called contact sheets,
Marc Silber: 00:49:15 Contact sheets. Thank you. And for those who don't know what a contact sheet, this is when you have a negative and you lay it on a strip of, of photographic paper and you lay all your negatives out and you just get a print of that, not enlarged at all. And in the days gone by, and we do that, like in light room, you know, when you open it up in your grid, you see all those smaller images, that's like a contact sheet. But what's interesting when you look at that, as you can see the sequence, you know, the F up the photographs that didn't work, didn't work, didn't work, didn't work, didn't work all of a sudden, wow, there's the money shot. Yeah. Yeah. But you can see what they, the process they were going through until they got to that money shot. So it's knowing what to include in the frame, what not to include in the frame. And as a rule, less is more,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:50:10 See, this is where this is where it gets difficult to because oftentimes, and maybe you struggle with this as well as, as a, as an educator of sorts. Not, not that I have any sort of training or anything to be any sort of educator, but I know through experience how I got here and how I create the photos that I make and how I can do something more artistic and whatnot. And then, you know, if somebody new comes along and they really want help to be able to create, you know, that beautiful shot as, as a professional, you can see how many steps they have to go through to be able to get that. Well, there needs to be visualization. I can see the depth of field there. So you're going to need like a specialty lens. You know, there's even flash involved there.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:50:56 And the answer to them has to be, well, you need more experience, you know, and that's where it gets real frustrating because I want to help them out more. And I want to give them answers like, this is how we do this. This is how I can educate you, but I can only tell you the answer. You, you, you can't understand it until you actually go out and do it yourself. And that's one reason why, you know, we're kind of moving into the number five here, which is, it is the idea of a mentor to have somebody to help you get to where it is that you want to go. So you want to talk to that a little.
Marc Silber: 00:51:37 Absolutely. So that was the other thing I did find is that almost one for one, again, even with pros, because a lot of pros have a project in mind that they, that they know it's a challenge and they haven't actually made it yet. So they know they need to be pushed out of their comfort zone too. Right. And they need a mentor to help them. So I, I spent the last 10 years figuring this out, and that is basically how do we create, what's an ideal educational mode or platform for photography. We were talking about this a little bit. I went to art school for exactly one year. Didn't get very much out of it. In fact, I was a better photographer when I came into the school than when I left out. Now I was, and there were many reasons why it failed.
Marc Silber: 00:52:34 I'm not going to go into great depth. But the main thing is you have to create a program that has an educational foundation to it. So it, isn't just a bunch of opinions that I'm throwing at students. Like I don't like your photograph because it's my opinion. There has to be some basis for that. Like what I said earlier, no, lacking a center of interest. That's not really an opinion. That's you can observe that you can look through photographs and you can go, this one captures my attention. This one. Doesn't why, because this one has the center of attention. This one doesn't, that's like an observable thing. Just like saying, Hey, look over there. So there has to be curriculum or, or material that, that actually teaches people, staff that works. But then there has to be a ma what a mentor does is really as a shortcut, because if I've already taken all these steps and it took me 10 years, I don't want other people to have to take 10 years and do all the research themselves so I can give them shortcuts.
Marc Silber: 00:53:43 And there are a couple of ways to shortcut this thing. One is to give them exercises to do that actually are guaranteed to raise their awareness as a photographer. And I gave you one of them already, you know, doing this yes. With the the director's eye. Yeah. So really consciously do that, you know, and train your eye, train your eye, train your eye, train your eye. Another one is to pick a project and we kind of touched upon this as well, pick a project and week after week. Cause a mentorship I believe, needs to be at least once a week. You're not going to learn anything if it's too spread out. And the problem with just as much as I love you tube, and it's a great platform. There's no, there's no discipline to it. I mean, I could be on this video, that video bouncing all over the place and it's not following a logical course. Right. Right. And that could actually get confusing. Right. You know, one day you're looking at a video about shooting landscapes and another one is like certain lenses that you should use. And then you're, you're just, you're bouncing from it.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:54:58 Texting video. Yeah. And unboxing, what does that teach you? Nothing. Right? Nothing, nothing
Marc Silber: 00:55:04 Unboxing videos work. Cause you're going to talk and tell them about the camera. You have to have used it. Right in theory. Yeah. I cheat. I have done one where I cheated where I just used it and then I put it back in the box and then I opened the box, but there's not a lot of education going on there. But anyway, a project is really important because you are following a course of action. And if you're coming back every week and I'm looking at your photographs week to week, we're not just commenting on one photograph here, one photograph there, but we're seeing your progress that you're making are not just like, if you're going to learn piano and you have a weekly piano lesson, even if it's a group lesson you're coming back every week, you should have been playing the piano in between.
Marc Silber: 00:55:55 Right? Yeah. And this is true in sports. I mean, I trained as a swimmer and I had a weekly coaching session. Well, if I just didn't swim in between, I would have made no progress. But obviously I was practicing everything in between. And coming back on the coach could see what's the next thing I needed to address with him. So that's how a mentorship works. What I do also, it's it's have everybody picked our own project. I'm not going to assign a project for them. And everybody's going to pick a different project. It really should come from your heart. Like, what is it I am passionate about. That's going to cause me to want to take photographs week after week after week after week, day after day, get up in the morning when it's cold and dark, stay up late at night. You know, something has to drive you to do that. And if it's not money, if you're not getting paid to go out and do it, which isn't a very good motivator anyway then there should be some passion behind it. And the passion only comes from you. I can't, I can't tell you what you should be passionate about. Everybody knows. I think they have a pretty good idea. Like I really do want to tell this story, like you pick clouds. I mean, that's something you're passionate about.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:57:18 Well, okay. Let, let me, let me ask you another question here. Because growing up, I always had this idea, you know, the, the, the thing that I wanted to do most, and I've said this on the podcast before was, you know photograph the band on like their, their start to, you know, getting a Grammy, right. When we started recording the album, they finally made, they got the Grammy or the, the winning sports team, right. Spring training, all the way to winning the world series, which a past Pascal, John Sue, who photograph the Dodgers, you know, so a fantastic year for him, very excited. But like, those are the things that I get excited about are these really long-term projects. So while I see things like clouds, I love this. Like, I just want to photograph more of those, I think, deeper down, there's still that urge to do that big long-term project. Can these two things be done at the same time? Or what sorts of tips do you have for doing capturing two things that you are all equally passionate about?
Marc Silber: 00:58:20 Yes. I think you break it down into, into sub projects, you know? So in other words, rather than, and I, I wouldn't urge a newer photographer to take on that. Multi-Year, you know, project like project. Yeah, yeah. From Grammy, from entry to Grammy who knows how long that's going to take. Right, right, right, right. So that, that could throw you off because, you know, it's just such a long period of time unknown. I would break it into like chapters in a book. So maybe you, you do think in terms of like this long-term thing, but maybe your first chapter is the beginnings of this band, you know, the first three months of them getting together and even meeting each other and getting to know each other. And you're, that could be really interesting. And then they finally find their vibe, you know, let's say together, and all of a sudden, there's this like magical moment where you can see it in their faces.
Marc Silber: 00:59:21 You know, they're looking at each other, they're not just playing by themselves. Cause that's something that happens in music, right. Is you're interacting with the other band members. You're not just sort of off in your own little world here. Yes there's. And you can see that all of a sudden, like the first, maybe they're all just kind of in their own little shell and then they find their kind of musical vibe. And I'm just going on about this thing. No, this is great. I love this. This is a sub project. And that could be a really interesting project in itself. And you could do that over a few months. I like to think of projects in terms of three months, somehow it's kind of a bite sized piece of time. You know, that a year is a long time,
Raymond Hatfield: 01:00:07 You know, you know,
Marc Silber: 01:00:10 We've, we know how long this year has been. It's 10 years. It's the longest year of ever I've ever gone through writing a book is a, basically a one-year project because not only do you have to write it, in my case, I illustrate it with my photographs and that's a whole process. Then there's the endless editing and proof checking and that, and beta testing and all this other stuff that I do with my books, you know? And then once the book is published, guess what? They don't just fly off the shelves by themselves. Right. You have to get out there and promote them. And that's a whole other thing. So it's a, it's a one it's at least a one-year project and that's a big commitment. So why don't we just say three months? I mean, a week isn't obviously a month isn't really long enough, two months, somehow three months is about right. So you say, I'm going to photograph this particular, whatever, over this three month period. And at the end of that, I'm going to sift it down into my 10 best photographs. Let's say that's the chapter of this book. Wow.
Raymond Hatfield: 01:01:19 Wow. So then the next three months would be possibly the next chapter, the next chapter, and then let it grow on its own. Let it grow on its own, but like a good book. Every chapter should be able to stand on its own as well. So yeah, that's why I liked that exercise. I liked that exercise because it does, it breaks it down into much more bite sized chunks. And it seems like I can do anything for three months. You know what I mean? And if I get a few good photos then awesome. And if it doesn't go any further than that, well, then I got a few good photos and you should be happy about that.
Marc Silber: 01:01:48 Exactly. In my mentorship program, I'm taking that three month period with the group, and then we're going to publish a book of a selection of everybody's photographs over that three month period. Oh wow. So they will be published at the end of this as part of the group, but they will be published. So let's say there's five from each person in the group. Those five best photographs will be included in the book. It's an end result. There's somethings satisfying about a book. As you pick it up, you hold it in your hand, it's physical. You give it to somebody. They, you know, they pick it up. It's very different than what we do with computer images where they're just pixels. You know,
Raymond Hatfield: 01:02:36 Even as I was saying earlier, I actually I don't think I said this earlier. I was thinking it earlier in my head, I make a family yearbook every year. And basically these are just snapshots that I took on my cell phone. And even though none of those photos are really good, you know, in a technical sense or anything, just holding it in your hand, as you said, is an entirely different experience. And you know, I could say that and people could listen and say, yeah, okay, I get it, but you really don't get it until, until you actually hold it in your hand. Yeah.
Marc Silber: 01:03:04 Well, I laugh is my wife on that note, my wife has made books for each of our kids and she makes two copies. We keep one and we give one to them and it's really amazing. It's really cool. And like you said, these are snapshots of them growing up, but it's, it's, it has a special place, you know, it has this, it's a whole story just about them,
Raymond Hatfield: 01:03:27 Of course. And who wouldn't want to see that? Now this is another side thing. My kids are getting older. And I say, I say that as, as my daughters for my daughter's four and my son will be eight on, on Saturday, but I have a little Google home right here next to my computer. And it just goes through photos that I've taken. And I, I look at some of them and think, how have we already gone this far? You know, like, I cannot believe that this has already been, you know, six years, even two years or even just a year. Like, I can't believe we've gone so far just in this amount of time. But yeah, having that book I would imagine would, would be worth all of the money in the world when you get into it.
Marc Silber: 01:04:05 That's fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic.
Raymond Hatfield: 01:04:08 Well, Mark you have been so gracious with your time. We've been on here for almost an hour and a half, which is absolutely crazy, but I've really enjoyed myself. I want to say thank you obviously for coming on, but before I let you go, can you share with the listeners where they can find out more about you and follow you online and even your mentorship?
Marc Silber: 01:04:24 Absolutely. Well, so here, here's the first thing I would encourage you to do get ahold of my book, advancing your photography. And I actually have a special on it right now for the ebook. You can get it at half price, four 95, I'm practically giving it away. Yeah. And I have a S a specific place you go for that. It's called it's basically the URL is advancing your photography.com, advancing your photography.com. It'll take you right to that book. Boom. You can get it right there and you'll have an instant download. My YouTube channel where I do my critiques every week. I do a critique show every Thursday and my, the way to find that is just go by my name, Mark silver. It's also called advancing your photography. So either way you can there on YouTube those will lead you to my mentorship program because I'm talking about it a lot on both of them. So either one of those places, all roads kind of lead to the mentorship, because to me, this is the most important thing that I'm creating right now is an educational platform that leads to that mentorship. So if you go to either my YouTube or advancing your photography.com, you'll find me. I also have a website that you can go to, which is silver studios.com. So
Raymond Hatfield: 01:05:55 I will go ahead and link to obviously all of those things in the show notes, if somebody is driving and they don't have a post-it note or anything nearby that they can go ahead and find that. But again, Mark thank you so much for coming on. Truly appreciate your time and your experience.
Marc Silber: 01:06:10 Thank you, Raymond. My pleasure. Always being back with you and we'll do it again. I'm sure.
Raymond Hatfield: 01:06:15 Oh, I hope so. I hope so.