Posts By Brad Moore

Portrait of Eddie Tapp / Image © Phillip Charis

Half the Image

There are primarily three ingredients that make a photograph become a part of you. Looking at images from the likes of Joe McNally, you would make a quick assumption that the subject matter is high on the list, and naturally the subject matter itself is what we see. But that is aesthetical rather than technical, and aesthetics I’ll leave for later. Technically, there are three ingredients that bring us into a photograph. I’ll get to that later too.

Without thinking about it, look through a magazine that you’re not so familiar with (and maybe ones that you are). As you flip through the pages, something will stop you and you will give this page your undivided attention. When this happens, chances are something visual grabbed your attention first. (more…)

(Photo by Jeff Schewe)

Before I begin my post I would very much like to thank Scott Kelby for allowing me both the honor and privilege to write this blog entry on the one-year anniversary of “Guest Blog Wednesday.” All I can say is it was a lot easier writing the first guest blog entry a year ago. With all of the amazing words and thoughts that have been written here by some of the greatest creative voices of our time, to do this again is a wee bit intimidating. (more…)

The Coming Revolution

I believe we’re at a turning point in the way we, as an industry, approach our craft. Thanks to the internet, information moves faster and faster, filling our brains to bustin’ with everything any of us could ever hope to know about off-camera flash, HDR techniques, hyperfocal distances, and the effect of aperture shape on bokeh. We have learned more and more, and if we have not it’s not for lack of information. And at the end of day we’re still hungry; full up on HOW and still wondering WHY.

My first book came out on Monday. After writing it and spinning much of it around the idea that WHY always drives HOW, I am more convinced than ever that we are about to reach critical mass with the the HOW, and that we’re slowly turning, collectively, to see the vaccum that has formed while we weren’t paying attention. That vaccum is passion, vision, and the reason we picked up cameras to begin with – the need to express ourselves. To use a metaphor; it’s as though we’re reaching the pinnacle of typewriter technology and have awoken to find that what we’re really passionate about is the stories, the poems, and the words themselves rather than the keys and ribbons. (more…)

New Adventures in Photography

Photo by Corey Rich

In 2000 I was a software developer living in Tucson, Arizona. I had been rock climbing for seven years, and taking pictures of my adventures. I was totally psyched on Galen Rowell’s Art of Adventure Photography. I too wanted to share my passion for the great outdoors – not just how it looked, but how I felt about it and how I thought about it. Simple ideas like this make a young person reckless. I quit my job to “go pro.” This was a hilarious idea by the way – I didn’t actually stop doing software work on the side for another six years.

On the Sharp End. Self portrait from the Whetstone Mountains in Arizona.

My first publication was a 2-page spread in Outside Magazine. Climbing in the remote Whetstone Mountains of Southern Arizona, I made a photograph of my hand reaching out into a cave from 40 feet up, clipping my lead rope to the next protection point, depicting the first-person view of what it’s like “on the sharp end” of the lead-rope.

I was hanging from a rope to get this shot of course, not actually climbing. After climbing the line once before, I thought about the idea for a photograph. I went back up with the camera (a Nikon F100) and spent some time getting myself in position for the shot. I contorted myself Superman-style to hold the rope with one hand, shoot with the other, and keep my feet and gear out of the frame. That’s the way a lot of my “adventures” actually went. Out playing somewhere, I would get an idea, marinate on it for a while, and then come back later to create a photograph. (more…)