It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I guess I say this every time, but I only post when I have something to say, and today is no different.

My dad sent me a couple of YouTube videos today. The first was called “Why is Modern Art So Bad?” and the second was called “Biggest Difference Between Bad Art and Great Art by UCLA Professor Richard Walter.” Feel free to look them up, I don’t think it’s important to watch them to follow along here. The first one was posted by a media organization that espouses views I strongly disagree with so I will not give them the exposure.

In May, Peter McKinnon posted a video called “Finally Switching Cameras - Leica Q2.” It’s a cool video, you should definitely give it a watch. In case you have somehow evaded any video or Instagram post by Peter McKinnon, he’s a photographer and videographer in Canada with over ten million YouTube subscribers.

I generally like Peter McKinnon, and I have nothing against Leica, either.

But this video… It kind of irked me, and I wanted to write about it, because writing is how I think.

So what’s wrong with Peter’s new Leica?

My last post, which was now over a year ago, explored how I took my own advice and doubled down on my “chosen style.” The concrete outcome of that decision was a reformat of my gallery home page.

So, it’s been a year, and the gallery is still the same… Has anything else changed? Absolutely! I’m a photographic hipster now.

I’ve been through stages in my practice of photography, which I’ve been doing on and off for at least 20 years now. I want to talk about my journey toward finding “a style,” why you might want to do it too, and how your art aligns or overlaps with commercial and social interests.

I’ll try to keep this focused and brief, though there are some topics in here I’ve been thinking about for years, so there may be jumping-off points for separate posts. If such an area interests you, please comment and let me know!

You absolutely can.

If you have any device that can capture an image of what’s in front of you, and with which you have at least some control over the composition, focus, and exposure, you sure as hell can learn photography with it. In fact, if your device is a smartphone, it even has some unique advantages over other kinds of cameras, which I will dive into today.

It is no secret at this point that today’s smartphones are capable of taking amazing photographs, but the question I want to really dig into is can learning photography with a smartphone be an on-ramp for more “serious” photography? To be clear, I believe that answer is also “Yes.”