10 Questions with...Jeff Clow

Thanks for stopping by today folks, and I have a real treat for you!  Today’s post is the 2nd installment in my ongoing interview series, called “10 Questions with...”.  As the name implies, I ask a photographer that I admire 10 questions, and sometimes the answers are not what you think!  It’s great fun for me (and I assume for you, too) and I think we all learn something in the process. 

Today is a treat because I am honored to feature Jeff Clow - landscape photographer, tour guide leader, and all-around nice guy - to share his thoughts on some topics of interest to all of us!

If for some reason you have been under a rock and are not familiar with Jeff or his work (or if you just want to follow him more closely), then here are the places to do just that: 

Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105284909171916066479/posts 

500px: http://500px.com/jeffclow 

Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffclow/

Dirt Cheap Photo Tours: http://www.dirtcheapphototours.com/ 

Jeff’s work is very popular, and when I first came across his images years ago I loved them.  I am apparently not the only one who loves them, because he has almost 5,000,000 views on Flickr, and an affection rating on 500px exceeding 26,000!!  That’s insane!

Ok, enough with the introduction Jim, let’s get into it!  Read on and enjoy....and thanks Jeff for doing this!

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1. How did you get started in photography? 

Up until seven years ago, I was simply a point and shoot Dad taking photos of my family.  Then I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a new site called Flickr that was a good place to back up your family photos.  I joined in November, 2004 and started uploading my family photos .... a few days later some kind soul commented on one of my shots and I was shocked.  I didn’t even know at that time that there was a comment function built in to the site.  But, being somewhat achievement oriented, I decided that if strangers were going to be looking at my photos, I better get better and I started reading voraciously everything I could about photography.  I took lots of bad photos but the more I read and the more I shot, the images started getting better and pretty soon I had a lot of people following my work on Flickr.

2. You call yourself “the accidental pro”.  Can you share how that happened? 

A few months later another stranger asked me if I ever thought about putting my photos in a photo stock agency.  Funny thing is, I had to look up what stock photography was because I didn’t have a clue.  But I decided to give it a try and uploaded what I thought were ten good shots to one of the online sites.  Every one of them was rejected.  That fueled my inner fire a bit and I decided I would really concentrate on getting better at the craft of photography.  Six months later I submitted ten different images and every one was approved.  And then Flickr exploded with lots and lots of new members and I was fortunate to be on Flickr’s front page several times with the Explore feature and soon I was getting a steady stream of people asking to license my photos for advertising campaigns.  I was floored, but after figuring out how to price my photos by reading lots of online articles, I was off and running.  A few years later a Getty editor invited several dozen of my images into the Getty collection and now I have several hundred images with them and the monthly commission checks have bought me a lot of new lenses and equipment – as well as funded lots of trips to fun places.  I didn’t set out to be a pro or a photo tour host or an author of a book about photography – all of these things happened more or less accidently.  Opportunity knocked and I answered the door – plain and simple.

3. What is your favorite photograph that you have taken thus far?  Why? 

Seems like that changes with the years.  The first photo that got me noticed on Flickr was this one – a frog hiding inside a canna plant:

...and that one is still a personal favorite.  But lately I’d say that this shot is my most recent favorite:

4. You have started a photo-tour company, Dirt Cheap Photo Tours.  Can you tell us about that?

I was fortunate to have my stepdaughter and her husband live near Jackson Hole, Wyoming for several years and so my wife and I made many trips up to the land of the Tetons.   I took a lot of photos of the area and many ended up being featured on Flickr’s Explore front page.  That led to a lot of people asking me about the area when they themselves were headed to Grand Teton National Park.  After being asked many, many times about where and when to shoot, I decided to organize a photo tour and see if there was any interest.  I didn’t want it to be a workshop where you sit in a hotel room for much of the time and critique photos or work on software processing, so I purposely called it a photo tour.  I also wanted it to be different than the multitude of other workshops out there so I came up with the name Dirt Cheap Photo Tours because I wanted it to be much more reasonably priced than anything out there at the time.  The concept of shooting photos all day at a fair price was a success and I’ve been doing multiple tours every year with lots of return participants.  It has also enable me to meet a lot of nice people who I am now friends with in real life instead of simply online.  I have a website that features many kind testimonials:

http://www.dirtcheapphototours.com/Page_4.html 

And the photo tours led me to write an eBook about photography in the Tetons that was picked up by a book publisher and now is also available as a paperback guide:

http://www.amazon.com/Cheap-Photo-Guide-National-ebook/dp/B005EN738U/ref=zg_bs_154715011_84 

5. I assume your favorite place to shoot then is in Jackson Hole, WY.  If so, what attracts you there as opposed to other mountain spots?

I’ve been to a lot of mountain locations but the Tetons are unique because of the fact that the mountain range juts out in such strong relief from the floor of the Jackson Hole valley.  In Colorado, you’ve got lots of 14,000 foot mountains but they don’t jut out from a valley at 6,500 feet like they do in Grand Teton National Park.  And it is a compact park about 50 miles in length ... so it is very easy to get around without spending hours and hours driving.  Plus the wildlife and the many great landscape locations make it a photographer’s paradise.  I’ve been to Glacier and Banff and they are spectacular, but there’s nothing like the Tetons in North America. 

6. What is the best advice you can give someone about how to improve their photography?

I have been asked that question many, many times.  My answer never changes.  My advice is simple:  Stand in front of better things.  As a photographer, you need to know about things like depth of field and focal length and composition – and you can learn those through self study and looking at lots of other photos and seeing what “works” from your vantage point.  But you’ve got to force yourself to get up and find great things to stand in front of with your lens.  And it doesn’t have to be a mountain range.  Some of my most popular photos were taken in my backyard garden or in the forest not too far from my home.  Don’t bemoan the fact that you don’t have great scenery nearby – make do with what you can photograph.  That’s what so great about macro photography.  There are bugs and insect and flowers everywhere.  If a person takes lots of photos and learns from their successes and failures, then their photography will improve.  I have seen it happen many, many times on my photo tours.

7. What is your most-viewed photo? 

I honestly didn’t know which one had been viewed until you posed the question, but it is this one on Flickr:

I sure don’t think its in my own personal top ten, but it has been viewed by 145,000 people via Flickr.  In terms of all time views, this shot has been used in a worldwide ad campaign and as a book and album cover, so I believe it probably is the most viewed photo I’ve taken overall:

 

8. You are probably best known for your landscapes photos.  What other subjects do you like to shoot, and why?

I really like nature in all its forms – macro, wildlife, birding and trees and plants.  I enjoy attempting to capture a scene that speaks to me and to share it with others.  After all, that’s why I shoot – to ultimately share what I photograph with others.  I’m a validation junkie – and when a stranger tells me that they like a shot or that they want to use a shot of mine for some purpose, then I feel that I’ve done a decent job of capturing something that others find appealing. 

 

9. Can you describe your typical workflow for a landscape shot? 

I normally shoot from a tripod in RAW/jpeg format and I usually bracket three or five shots with auto bracketing.  Sometimes I blend the images, but often I’ll just use one of the frames to create the finished image.  I don’t spend more than ten or fifteen minutes on post processing but I do know my way around Photoshop CS5 and I have several plug ins that I use regularly like Topaz Adjust and Viveza.  I find that if is taking more than ten minutes or so, its too much post processing and I move on to another image – I’m much happier shooting that I am spending tons of time in the digital darkroom. 

10. What spots are on your bucket list, and what plans do you have to cross them off?

I’ve been fortunate to have been able to catch a lot of places in North America during my travels, but places I’ve not been that I would enjoy visiting include the many national parks in Utah and the shoreline in upstate California, Oregon and Washington. Like so many other photographers, I’d enjoy visiting and photographing wildlife in Africa and the magic of Machu Picchu in Peru.  They are on my life list and I plan to hit them all if circumstances allow it. 

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Thanks so much Jeff for participating, and hope everyone enjoyed this interview and the photos as much as I did!!

10 Questions with...Thomas Hawk

ANNOUNCING A NEW SERIES ON THE BLOG:  10 QUESTIONS WITH...

This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and it is now coming to fruition.  This will be an ongoing series of posts done with various photographers that will be sort of a combination of an interview and a guest blog post.  The format is - as the title implies - just 10 questions that I ask, and my hope is that it gives us all a little insight into the person and their craft.  

I am reaching out to folks that I consider inspirational and/or influential (either to me, or to the masses) and asking them for a little of their time.  I get so much inspiration from so many places, and I want to do my little part in sharing that with anyone that takes the time to visit Nomadic Pursuits.  Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy!!

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10 QUESTIONS WITH...THOMAS HAWK

I first came across the work of Thomas Hawk on Flickr, several years ago.  His photos always attracted a lot of attention (deservingly so!) and I was curious about this gent who has a plan to publish 1,000,000 photos in his lifetime.  I find that fascinating.  Fast forward to last year, and thanks to Google+ it turned out that Thomas Hawk was coming to Austin and hosting a photowalk.  I got the chance to meet him and chat for a while, and had the good fortune of also meeting with him a couple of months ago when I was in San Francisco on business.  In addition to being a great photographer, he’s a huge proponent of photographer’s rights, an almost encyclopedic historian of photography, and an all-around nice guy.  He is well-known and his work is seen a lot (over 25 million views on Flickr alone, for instance).  I hope you too get the chance to meet and shoot with him some day.  It's an inspiration, for sure.

You can connect with Thomas Hawk on various sites - here are a few:

Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104987932455782713675/posts

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/

His blog, Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: http://thomashawk.com/

I have sprinkled in a few of his photos throughout this post, in no particular order.  He has so many that I like that it is hard to choose favorites!  

So, on with it!

1) How did you pick Thomas Hawk as a pseudonym?

I just made it up at 16 and that it is the primary name I'm known as and use as a working photographer. 

2) Tell us about your photographic journey - one in which you are both documenting the 100 largest U.S. cities, and working your way towards having 1 million published photographs.  How did this all start?

I started taking photographs prolifically when I was 8.  My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic and I spent all of my extra money buying film for it and getting the images developed at KMart.  So I've been fascinated with photography since a young age.

When I was 15 I rode my bicycle across America, from Lincoln City, Oregon to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  My parents bought me my first SLR for this trip.  It was a Sigma with a zoom lens.  I took my only photography course the following summer at Glendale Community College in Los Angeles.  

I edited my high school yearbook and my college yearbook and newspaper.  So for many years I had access to a dark room.  Back then I mostly shot in black and white and bulk rolled lots of film and printed all my own work.  The bulk film and self printing allowed me to shoot a lot of film as cheaply as possible.

I've always shot a lot, but it wasn't until digital came along that I really took it to a new level.  Once the cost of film went away I could really shoot as much and as often as I wanted. 

I decided to publish 1,000,000 photographs mostly as discipline.  I wanted a lofty goal that would require me to work on my photography almost every single day for the rest of my life.  I want a goal which would ensure that photography would become a dominant part of my life.  By having this structured goal I can break it down into sub goals and I'm constantly reminded that I need to be working more and harder on my art.

I decided to photograph the 100 largest American cities I think shortly after seeing Robert Frank's The Americans at SF MOMA a few years back.  Frank is a big influence of mine and although I don't have the ability to photograph America non-stop like he did, I do have the ability to take more time and touch every major city in America.  My hope is in the end to have one of the best collections of photographs of America from my era.  I love America and consider myself an American Photographer.  

William Eggleston is another big influence of mine and when I consider his work I can't help but see America in his photographs.  It's something that I'm drawn too. 

I'll shoot other parts of America as well beyond the 100 largest cities.  I do think that probably 90% or more of my work during my lifetime will be done in America.

3)  Which is your favorite photograph that you have published so far?  

Joni Mitchell says "songs are like children."  How can one play favorites with children?  I see my photographs similarly.  I could never choose a favorite.  In fact, I really don't like editing my work or building collections beyond keyword oriented collections or collections by subject matter.  I don't even really like talking a lot about any one individual photograph at any given time beyond very basic factual or technical information about it.  For me I view my work more as a collection of photographs than any single photo or group of photos.  I like to de-emphasize individual photographs.

4) According to my most recent peek at your Flickr photostream, you have published just north of 65,000 photos.  That leaves 935,000 to go to reach your goal.  Assuming you do this for 50 more years, that is 18,700 photos per year, or 51 per day left to publish.  Do you plan to sleep any?  ;)   

I do plan to sleep.  Sometimes.  Actually I'm way behind in my goal.  You are correct that I'd need to publish 51 per day if I lived another 50 years.  I'm 43 though and not so sure I'll live to 93.  Right now I'm publishing about 50 a day to flickr.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  But right now I have both a day job that takes time and attention and four young children.  At some point my kids will be off in college and hopefully I'll be able to quit the day job eventually and I'll be able to make up for lost time in terms of escalating the production of photographs.

I do push myself hard.  Working hard is important to me.  

5) You and Trey Ratcliff are friends, and both of you are tireless flag-wavers for Google+, as well as huge advocates for photography in general.  Seems Trey has 846k followers there, and you have 835k followers.  If you pass Trey, do you think he will freak out?

Haha, Trey is the king of Google+, I would never dare attempt such a ridiculous feat.  Actually I think Trey's work is a lot more popular than mine.  Trey is also a good friend and someone who I admire quite a bit.  I don't think either of us really care about any sort of numbers race.  Britney Spears already broke the 1,000,000 follower mark on G+ first, does anyone else really matter anymore (JOKING!)

6) Tell us briefly why you think Google+ is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  

The web in general has been an amazing thing for photography.  Mostly because it allows us to publish our work and broadcast our work inexpensively.  Using the web we can go directly to the public and bypass the traditional gatekeepers.  In the past I think probably less than 100 gatekeepers in the world decided which photographers would be seen and which would not.  A handful of important museum curators, editors, gallery owners, etc. quite literally decided who would get distribution and who would not.

The web changes all of that.  It allows us to get around this former limitation.

Google+ just happens to be the best site out there right now for presenting and promoting photography on the web.  Flickr was the best place, but Flickr had stagnated for years and Google+ came along presenting us a better platform.

I want to see the best platform possible for photographers to present their work.  Google+ is that platform today.  Even more significantly though it turns up the heat in the form of competition.  I love it when websites compete.  I think one of the reasons that flickr never innovated or improved was because they didn't have to.  Now they do if they hope to stay relevant.  In the end the photographers win as better and better platforms are built to share our work.

EDITOR’s NOTE:  You can read more on Thomas’s blog: 

http://thomashawk.com/2011/11/10-reasons-why-google-is-better-for-social-photography-than-flickr.html

7) When did your popularity begin to rise, and how do you think it happened?  

I've been involved with the web since pretty early on.  I think I've been blogging since 2004 and I think I got involved early with photography on the web.  I got involved with Flickr back before Yahoo bought them shortly after they started. 

I've been very active over the years in the photo community.  I've probably hosted at least 100 photowalks over the past decade.  I've been very social.  I've gotten to know lots and lots of people.  I've embraced almost every social outlet available to photographers out there, and I've embraced them early.  I was on Google+ the very first day it was open to the public as a beta.  I think being early helps.

I watch a lot of people bash new things that come out.  It takes them months to finally get around to embracing something new that comes out.  Then these same people complain about not being popular on the big new thing.  I try to keep a pretty open mind about new technology and like to jump onboard something that looks promising as early as possible.

8) What do you do when you are away from photography?

I work on photography pretty much every single day.  If I'm not shooting, I'm processing.  I'm two years behind on my processing right now.  When I'm not shooting or processing I'm often working on the web publishing or interacting about photography.  I do take some time for my kids and job.

I like music a lot, but that goes with photography too.  Other than photography and the web (and my job and family) though, that's pretty much all I do.  I stopped reading books (except photography photo books) years ago.  I don't watch many movies anymore.  Sometimes I fall asleep to TV shows at the end of the day if I'm not on the web.  I don't do sports though or watch sports or really have any other hobby or interests in my life beyond photography.

9) What is your most viewed photo?  

hmmmm…. I have no idea what my most viewed photo is.  According to Flickr, this photograph has been viewed over 267,000 times. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/161990986/) It's a photo of a guy who I had an altercation with about my photography on a public sidewalk.  He claimed to be a cop and literally pushed me into the street off the sidewalk but wouldn't provide identification as a cop.  I did a write up on the incident after the altercation.  I think he probably worked for Bechtel who was in the building I was shooting.  Bechtel later sent me a letter of apology over the incident.  

10) What is the best advice you ever got about photography?

Probably to take lots of photos.  I think it was Cartier-Bresson who said your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.  Digital's probably pushed that to a new level.  Maybe now your first 100,000 photographs are your worst.  I think you make a lot of mistakes and learn a lot simply by shooting.  The sooner you get the early photos out of the way the sooner you can get on with later ones.

 

Thanks Thomas Hawk for participating, and I hope everyone enjoyed this as much as I did!!

Farewell 2011

Thanks for a great 2011 - it’s been a wonderful year at Nomadic Pursuits! I sincerely appreciate all the support, feedback, visits, comments, Likes, +1s, and all that other goodness!

Here’s a few of my favorite shots from this year, all rolled up into one image.  I thought I should go ahead and put that up front, since I wrote quite a bit down below.  Grab a cup of coffee and read on if you dare!  :) 

Ah, the end of 2011 is upon us.  It’s that time when we look back in thanks, and look forward with hope.  It’s been a great year for me photographically speaking.  This blog grew significantly, and I really appreciate all the visits and comments!  I would do this whether anyone visited or not, but it sure is more fun when you show up and participate!  :) 

Here are a few statistics I thought were interesting (comparing 2011 to 2010):

• 5x increase in visitors; 3x increase in page views
• 75% of traffic was from New Visitors
• 10% of pageviews came from folks who spent >30 minutes on the site (that’s long!)
• Here are the top referring sites (in order):
  • Google.com (organic searches)
  • Direct (someone directly typed in my website URL)
  • Google referral (I believe this is Google+)
  • StumbleUpon
  • LightStalking (thank you Toad!)
  • Facebook
  • HDRSpotting
• United States visitors account for 67% of traffic, followed by Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, and France

I’m not a total data geek, but I do find this stuff interesting.

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So, what am I going to do in 2012?  Good question...

• I plan to get out, explore and photograph this wonderful world we live in!
• New destinations - two trips planned already for Jan/Feb and surely more after that!
• More longer form blog posts, which I put under “Photographic Ramblings” on the left sidebar - these are fun for me.  They don’t really fit into my “daily photo” thing so that’s why they are off to the side.  And what else would I call them??
  • I recently added “Ten Tips for Better Travel Photography”.  It’s something near and dear to me, and I enjoy sharing my thoughts.  Let me know yours!
  • Another popular feature in that sidebar are my various “Top Photo Spots in...” posts from cities like Austin, San Francisco, and London.  I plan to add more of these in 2012.  It’s fun and I think folks find it helpful.  Have you read them?  I am always open to new locations I may have missed in those cities!
• I have a new blog series idea that I plan to start soon...hopefully January.  More on that soon, but I think you will find it interesting.  Hint: though it’s about photography, it’s not about my photography.  Stay tuned!
• iPhoneography - I am really digging shooting with my iPhone 4S and will continue pushing my creativity there (see more under my iPhoneography header on the left sidebar of this page) and blogging about it!  So much cool stuff to share on this subject!
• And I have a few more things I am thinking about/working on... 

Have a wonderful New Year celebration, and I hope that 2012 is a great year for you!  Oh, and thanks so much for your visits in 2011!  I couldn’t do it without you!  I hope to make 2012 even more exciting for my readers!

And here is a little Pummelvision video, which pulls all my shots which are on Flickr and sets them to music.  Enjoy!

My photos in Pummelvision from Jim Nix on Vimeo.

News! Free Twitter backgrounds available!

I was contacted recently by a company in the UK that creates free Twitter backgrounds, and they asked if they could do so with some of my photos.  I said yes, of course.  Why not, right?  Anyways, they are now live and they even wrote up a nice little piece on their blog about me.  

Here are the links:

http://viuu.co.uk/blog/photography-twitter-backgrounds-jim-nix/ 

http://viuu.co.uk/photographers/jim-nix