Through the Lens (Newsletter)

You stood in front of something that looked extraordinary. The light seemed right. The place had atmosphere. You made the photograph, checked the screen, and it looked reasonably correct. Then you opened the file properly and felt the disappointment. Not bad exactly. Flat. The subject didn’t separate from the background. The light seemed weaker than you remembered. Things that looked distinct in front of you had collapsed into each other on screen. Most people blame the camera at this point.

Another classic during workshops seems to be… We haven’t even started photographing, and someone is already apologising. “I’m afraid my camera isn’t very good.” Sometimes it’s a phone. Sometimes it’s an older DSLR. Photo by Pedram Farjam on Unsplash Occasionally it’s a compact camera that’s travelled the world but now looks rather dated beside the latest mirrorless models. Then, almost inevitably, somebody else arrives carrying a camera bag that looks heavy enough to need its own airline ticket.

This edition is particularly rich in photographs and commentary, so your email provider may shorten or cut off part of it. If that happens, simply choose “View entire message” or open the article in the app or on the website to enjoy the complete gallery. The Red Pen is not about declaring a photograph right or wrong. Think of it as sitting together over a collection of prints, tracing the lines that guide our eyes, noticing the light, gestures and small decisions that give an image its voice.

If you’re wondering if an AI wrote this or any of my Articles and Notes, the answer is no. Every word comes from my own thoughts, notes, or memories. These days, though, AI detectors often confuse human quirks for machine writing, so I want to explain how I really write. I do not have any problem in disclosing it. Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash.

Every private workshop I teach starts in much the same way. We haven’t even picked up a camera yet. We’re sitting outside with a coffee, getting to know each other, and sooner or later somebody asks a question about equipment. “Should I use Aperture Priority?” “Do you always shoot in Manual?” “Would this be better with my phone or my camera?” They’re perfectly reasonable questions.

You know the feeling. You come home with two hundred frames. Technically everything is right. The exposure is good, the focus is where it should be, nothing important is clipped, the horizon isn’t falling over. Yet as you scroll through the photographs later that evening, something strange happens. By the time you reach frame forty or fifty, you’re barely looking anymore. Your thumb moves faster, not because the light got worse, but because nothing in those photographs is asking you to slow down.

If you’re not chasing clients or licensing income from photography, the question is fair: why not just keep posting on Instagram, where everyone already is? A few honest answers. Instagram is a rented room. The algorithm decides who sees your work, that decision changes without notice, and none of your followers are actually yours, they belong to the platform. On Substack, if a hundred people subscribe to you, a hundred people get your work in their inbox.

For many years, I photographed for wire services, and mainly for Getty Images, standing shoulder to shoulder with a hundred other photographers at the same press conference, the same red carpet, the same barricade. Everyone chasing the same frame. It taught me plenty, but it also taught me what I didn’t want anymore. What I want now is smaller. A handful of people, a city I know in my bones, and enough time to actually watch someone learn something.

There is a particular quiet that settles over a portrait session once you have chosen your lens. Not before, when the bag is still open and every option feels possible. After. Once the choice is made, the frame is already half decided, and the sitter has no idea how much of the photograph was determined before you ever raised the camera. For twenty years I have worked almost exclusively with three focal lengths for portraiture: 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm.

There is a particular kind of waiting that beginners mistake for patience. Waiting for the right camera. Waiting for the right light. Waiting until the portfolio looks finished, until the technique feels solid, until some invisible authority signs a form that says you are now allowed to call yourself a photographer. Waiting is its own discipline. The fish don't know there's a schedule. It feels like discipline. It is usually something else.