The Perceptive Photographer

In this episode of The Perceptive Photographer, I sit down with Leica Ambassador Greg Hatton for an amazing conversation on what it means to be a photographer in the age of AI and Generative AI imagery. I met Greg about a year ago when he was in Seattle hosting this Process workshop at the Leica store in Bellevue in conjunction with PCNW. Greg and I spent an afternoon talking all things photography, from gear to mentors to making work that means something. To give you a little more background, Greg is an award-winning documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work is all about people, connection and the stories that surround us. At his core, he is a storyteller. I have really appreciated learning all about his wonderful and thoughtful approach to image-making. He encourages us to look beyond the camera and really consider how we see the world, how we connect with our subjects and what we want our photographs to communicate. As you will hear, his work is deeply connected to curiosity, observation, connection and a genuine interest in people. I think he talked to at least three photographers when we were recording. He believes photography is about much more than taking a picture; it’s about learning to see, being present and understanding the story in the image. As I said, I met Greg when he was up for his PROCESS workshop. Those workshops are all about opening up the creative journey behind photography, sharing experiences, insights and an approach to developing a more intentional and personal photographic practice. If you ever get the chance to attend, it is worth your while. I’ve really got a lot of things to think about and process from our conversation a few weeks ago. I hope you enjoy it. You can find Greg on his site , Impaci and on Instagram . You can also see video work on YouTube and Vimeo .

Show Note Summary and Thoughts Thanks for joining me this week for the Perceptive Photographer podcast. Today is November 2, 2026, which is always a rough day for me. It’s the anniversary of the day I learned about my brother’s passing. It is hard to believe that it has been nine years. The challenge of processing So this week’s podcast is a little random because I was struggling to figure out the motivation to record anything last week. It finally hit me that I was thinking a lot about those first days. One of the things I have been learning is that while I feel like I have done lots of work to process the emotional and psychological impacts of his passing, there is always a physical toll on me this time of year. Most years, I either get really sick or have some health issues that result in ER visits. These always seem to come up in November and December. Part of what I’m learning is that there is more that needs to be taken care of where the body remembers and hasn’t processed the grief as much as my mind has. Depth and complexity In learning this sum of the parts, I got to thinking about the depth of the images that resonate with me from that time in my life or anytime, for that matter. I think that’s one of the things about our photographic process that can be applied from what I’m learning every year that I go through this. That there is a depth and complexity to who we are as people and the more we are willing to understand, share and process the entirety of that complexity, the more interesting we are as individuals and therefore the more interesting we are as community members and ultimately the more interesting our art and photographs become. Lesson we take from others. This was all pretty interesting because part of what I wanted to talk about before starting to struggle with figuring out why I was having a hard time recording a podcast last week was that I was going to be talking about a quote from the book Photographers on Photography by Henry Carroll, from an interview he did with Ron Jude. He asked Ron what his favorite Photographic quote was and why, and the quote that he came up with was by Lewis Baltz. “Anyone can take pictures; what’s difficult is thinking about them, organizing them and trying to use them in some way so that some meaning can be constructed out of them. That’s really where the work begins for an artist” Ron then goes on to say, “What I offer as an artist doesn’t lie solely in craft or visual acrobatics. It’s in the context I create for individual images” It is never just one thing. What really struck me with this overlap was that so much of the meaning we create, so much of the work we create, is in the understanding of the complexity in context by which we want our work to be viewed and in the context by which it was created. So I’m thinking about the multi-layered way. Grief has impacted my life. I’m also realizing how important it is for me to recognize that when my photographs have that multi-layered complexity, the more interesting they are, the more honest they are, and the more engaging. They are so, hopefully, as we talk about that podcast this week, that it’ll be something for you to get out of it that you can enjoy and apply to your own process.

Quick notes A couple of quick things before we jump into the podcast. if you’re gonna be in the Seattle area on November 5, don’t forget to join me at the Photographic Center Northwest for my lecture on the landscape and language and meaning. In the next week to 10 days, don’t forget to check out the latest In Conversation episode of the podcast. This one is with Greg Hatton, an amazing photographer from Los Angeles, who was kind enough to join me even though he was working hard for Leica down at the Formula One races in Austin, Texas. In this week’s episode, we’re digging into both the need to say Happy Halloween and the blind spot that impacts how we critique photographs. When we critique and look at photographs, we often have a pattern or process that we like to follow. This process can often produce pretty good results. It also allows us to see and understand photographs quickly, and then move on to the next image. However, there might be times when we run into an image where the analysis is in our blind spot. And by the blind spot, I mean something that we don’t know that we need to know because we don’t know we need to know it to examine the photograph. We need each other Long and short of it is that I think this is a community issue. This is something that I don’t necessarily think we solve on our own because it’s hard for us to know what we don’t know. So we need to talk to other people. We need to see how they look at photographs, talk to them about how they examine photographs, look at text for people who have written about it, and see if there are things we can incorporate into our own sense of scene to evaluate the work. It’s our job to develop the language if we want the language to be about us. I think it’s also important for us to recognize that sometimes the things that we don’t think are important in our analysis of our work might be significant. If we start with them, we might find unique and interesting ways to critique photographs. I believe this is really important because, as we look at the number of images of her being created, both photographically, with generative AI, or hybrid. The need for us photographers to have a better language, both visually and verbally, to talk about our work is important. It’s in these conversations that we learn how to be better photographers, how to appreciate photography and how to honor the work that other photographers have done. Wrapping it up So I hope in this episode, you find some interesting insights and some ideas that you could use to both help see where your blind spots are and help others maybe find new and exciting ways to avoid their blind spots. I know for me it’s always about finding somebody in the community who can help me see what I couldn’t see by myself, so don’t be afraid to ask those people in the camera club, or some photographers you might know, or maybe it’s time to find some photographer friends 🙂

Context and meaning from the outside After getting the heat cranked up in the studio, I got to start recording some podcast episodes. Damn, it was cool in here today. Now that it warmed up, we are digging into episode 606 of the Perceptive Photographer, where we are looking at the choices we make about what not to include in the frame. While we focus a lot on what we put in the frame, I am starting to wonder if what we leave out is more interesting. Beyond the Frame When I started in photography, I was focused on the frame. The composition, the point of view, the angle of view and such, but composition isn’t random; we pick and choose what to include. What if what we don’t include tells us more about the photographer than what is in the frame? What We Leave Out Changes the Story In this context, what we exclude can alter the interpretation of an image. We actually rely on this and want viewers to fill in the blanks. This ambiguity provides curiosity and intrigue, or does it offer up a deception? For me, the more interesting question is: are we as the photographer even in on the deception? Photographic Blind Spots I know for a fact that I often do the same things over and over again. I have learned that these concepts work in my images. But these habits might actually become blind spots. I don’t see what I am doing, and what I am leaving out of the frame might be the very things I need to make a more meaningful image. Expand the frame exercise. Photograph a place you have photographed before, changing your position, perspective, composition (habitual actions), or framing. Go home, process them and then really spend some time comparing the image’s meaning. You might find that a simple change results in a completely different narrative. Wrap it up already Don’t just think about your photography as what you see and include in the frame, but also what you see that you don’t. It’s not only about what we photograph but also about what remains unseen. Maybe there is some mystery and storytelling that you can use when you open the story up a little. Quotes from the end I used to think I was the strangest person in the world, but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this, you know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you. — Frida Kahlo8 You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life. — Joan Miro If I already have a vision, my work is almost done. The rest is just a technical problem. — Hiroshi Sugimoto

What do you want me to look at and notice? It is amazing how much this concept of audience, meaning and what an audience has to know about your work comes up. This podcast is a revisit of an oft-discussed topic in our episodes, but nonetheless, the conversation about what we should tell an audience about our work and what we shouldn’t keeps coming up for me again and again. So in this episode of the podcast, we return to look at what we should share and why we should share information about our work with our audience. I mean, I do get the point that some artist make that they don’t want to “taint” the audience into not having their own experience of the work. That idea comes with some big assumptions, like your audience has enough language to experience the work. So many times I hear photographers say that they like a photograph and can say no more than /i like it. It’s good. The reason for that feedback is that it is all they have in their language set to speak about an image. I feel that the more we can understand how to help the viewer see the work, the better. This can lead to a different set of questions and considerations that we should make as the photographer to help the viewer. Questions like: What is this? can offer a simple entry point to an image, but by asking more complex questions when we make the work, we might open the door to more meaning. Questions like: What do you want me to feel? What do you want me to consider? What are you asking me to do? These types of more open-ended questions that go beyond what is just in the frame open up a deeper conversation between the viewer and the image. As I said, this isn’t a new topic on the podcast, but one that is always worth revisiting if you are interested in deeper connections with your work behind the camera, processing, printing and sharing the work. Also, don’t forget: if you are in Seattle, save the date for my lecture at the Photographic Center Northwest on November 5th—more details to come.

Intro Welcome to episode 604 of the Perceptive Photographer podcast. Before we jump into today’s topic, how long should your project take to finish? Just a couple of quick reminders. First, if you are in the Seattle area on November 5, make sure you save that date to come down and check out my lecture on landscape, meaning and identity at the Photographic Center Northwest. Also, if you are in the central Oregon area on October 17, I’ll be doing a one-day workshop with the Cascade Camera Club on workflow and editing in Lightroom. In the afternoon, I’ll help with image triage on the photos you bring in, focusing on editing and processing. Should be a lot of fun. Today we’re talking about how long it should take to complete a project, which is a really interesting question. The short answer is it takes as long as it takes; however, a few things can impact our thoughts and approaches to working with projects. Single Image or Projects I think one of the first things that’s important is for you to decide if you’re working on single images or you’re actually working on a project. I think when we do single image photography, it’s fun. We enjoy it. It’s super interesting. But at some point, we realize we have a lot of the same sort of thing happening over and over again, and we think about how those images might relate. Thus, we start a project; even if we aren’t doing a project, we start one. Clarity of Purpose And I think as we start those projects, it’s important for us to consider the clarity of purpose around that project. Are we doing this for technical, artistic, narrative purposes? What do we need to do when the project’s done? What does it mean when we have work that we return to over and over again? Because the essence of a project is determined not by how much time it takes, but whether or not the project communicates what we want. And as I mentioned in the podcast, sometimes what we end up with is a series of small projects that roll up into a larger project a project that might take a very short amount of time or a project that might take our entire life. There is no right length of time for a project. What there is is the right amount of time for us to get what we need out of a project. That might be something as simple as how the camera works or as complex as our identity as it evolves. Conclusion As I mentioned, in the beginning, it takes as long as it takes, but what matters is recognizing when a project is actually done, versus when we’re walking away because it’s hard, or that it probably never should’ve been a project at all. Get the podcast in your inbox. And just a quick reminder: if you wanna get this delivered to your inbox, sign up for the new podcast notification email list, and I’ll make sure you get an email every Monday afternoon when the new podcast comes out.

We are up to episode 603 of the Perceptive Photographer podcast, and this week we are going all meta meta on how to make projects. Just a quick note before we jump into the actual meat and potatoes of the podcast show notes. Save November 5 if you’re in the Pacific Northwest area to pop by the Photographic Center Northwest for my lecture on the Landscape as Language and Identity. It should be an exciting evening and will be covering a lot of different photographic concepts. For the podcast this week, as I said, we’re going a little meta. We’re talking about project ideas that help you come up with photo projects. It’s really just brainstorming ideas, but in my brainstorming I came up with meta meta as a title :). The goal of this week’s podcast is to help you feel more comfortable with your work when you’re feeling creatively stuck. At times, when we are working on our various projects, we can get tired, and that leads to running out of steam. At that point, it can be hard, even when looking at a bunch of photographs that we feel are somehow connected, to actually turn them into a project. So hopefully these five ideas can help jumpstart your process. Personal experiences. I think if we look back over our life over the past year, there’s a lot of great stories to tell. We could tell a funny, happy, sad, or difficult story, but those experiences in life offer us a rich source of interesting ways to approach our photography. Combine unrelated things . When you find things that, in your mind, don’t seem related, put those words together and then see what comes up. This happened really well for me when I put the words photography and music together. For you, it might be something else; groups of things like family and architecture, food and memory, movement in nature and other pairs could be great for something unique to show up. Contradictions . We’re looking for contradictions: two words that don’t seem to fit together, and then we photograph and explore what those might be. Structures that exist with other narratives and storytelling formats . Looking at how stories are told, or projects are created in books, movies, poems, and plays, is a rich source of materials. Spend some time with one of these other forms and then figure out how to adopt some of that storytelling methodology into our own photography. It is also worth recognizing that every genre has a set of concepts and tropes that it uses for its storytelling and that we can apply those as well. Hypotheticals Working with a list of what might be. Even if we don’t know how they might be possible, this should be just a fun brainstorming list of all the crazy things you can come up with. If you’re not getting very many crazy things, it’s cause you’re spending too much time trying to figure out how you might do something rather than just a list of what you might possibly do one day. Hopefully this list of five things helps you jumpstart your crazy process when you’re feeling a little stuck on your Photographic projects, or they’re feeling a little stagnant and stale. Thanks so much for joining me this week, and we’ll see you next week on episode 604.

In this week’s episode, we’re gonna be talking a little bit about questions and asking the correct questions. Before we jump into the nuts and bolts of the week, just a couple of quick reminders: first, I’ve got a book club that’s running, so you can join that by clicking on the book club link from the workshops and classes section of my website. Also, save the date: November 5 for a lecture I’ll be presenting at the Photographic Center Northwest on ” Does a Landscape Speak, and How Do We Listen? It’ll be free to anyone who registers; it will be a great time. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been circling back on this question idea and asking the right questions with several of my workshops and conversations with friends. Each time, this notion of questions versus answers keeps rearing its head. And I’ve started to think really long and hard about the impact of asking the right question at the right time and how that makes us better photographers. I think too many times we ask the wrong question, get an answer and are just happy that we have an answer, and we move on. But so many times, if we ask the right question, we get access to that part of a project that we may not even be aware of the thing that sort of sits in our blind spot. So today on the podcast, we’re going to dive a little bit into that notion of asking the right question and what that might mean for our creative process.

Hello, everyone! Thanks for joining me for episode 601 of The Perceptive Photographer. Before we jump into this week’s show notes, I want to take a moment to say thanks to every one who reached out with kind messages and emails during our milestone of 600 episode and to all of those of you who are listening all these years. Your support is awesome and really makes me appreciate the wonderful community around this podcast. This week’s topic is again a smash up of a few random thoughts. The first is that recently I came across an insightful essay (they all are) by Guy Tall, where he discussed the time we dedicate to viewing others’ work verse the amount of time we wished people spent looking at our work. It really stuck with me and gave me pause about how our much of our attention we want on our work and how much we actually give to other photographers’ images. I reached out to several photographers I know, asking them to compare the time they want others to spend looking at their work with how much time they actually invest in appreciating others’ art. As usual, Guy was spot on. As I thought about it more and more, I don’t think many of us take the time to immerse ourselves in the depth of others’ work. If we did, we might learn more, connect more and might even foster a little more rapid growth and inspiration in our own work. I guess what I have been thinking is that if you’re looking to make better work, spend more time looking at other’s work. Writers read, movie people watch movies, photographers should look at photographs. Once that thought ran through it picked up on a piece of wisdom my grandmother, mom and dad and other famous people often shared: “You can tell a lot about someone by the company they keep.” It got me thinking about who we spend time with photographically, and if we are I surrounding ourselves with photographers whose, conversations and critique inspires us or does it do the opposite? When I felt I wasn’t around the right influences and it showed in my work. Not always easy to fix and give up those “friends”, but it might be something we have to do for our own growth. Finally that led me back to a good old topic of am I doing what I should be doing or what I am meant to do. The time spent on looking at work, the company we keep and what we should do can be good or it can be bad. If we find ourselves in a community that doesn’t help us with our goals, we can wonder off true path. Staying focused on what we are meant to do and not what we should do isn’t always easy but the right support goes a long way in helping. Quick note if you are in the Seattle area and you’re looking for an fun experience the weekend of November 6th – 8th (2027) I invite you to join my workshop called “Landscape as Language” at the Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle! We’ll dive into how our landscape photographs are intertwined with our identities and the ways we connect to the environment around us. This master class promises to be a fantastic inquiry of how we communicate through our art, and I would love for you to be a part of it! Thank you once again for tuning in and for being such a vital part of this journey. I can’t wait to jump into the mix with you all again in episode 602 next week.

Well, this marks a special episode of the podcast. Today we release our 600th episode of The Perceptive Photographer. I wanted to take a moment to say that it has been a blast to do that many, and at the same time it’s hard to grasp the significance of that number. That is roughly 11½ years of commitment to showing up every week. There are very few things in my life that last that long, so it is pretty cool to have a relationship with this podcast that is as consistent and reliable as it is. In looking back at the past 599 episodes, I feel the more fascinating part isn’t the number of episodes but rather what I’ve learned from the journey of consistently engaging with photography and creativity over such an extended period. So as I look back over these past 600 weeks thinking solely about the impact of the podcast, I came up with some things that I have learned over the years that I wanted to share. First, I’ve realized that you don’t have to be inspired to create something worthwhile (or at least what I think is worthwhile 😀). There have been more than a few weeks where creativity felt like it was gone, and doubts crept in, but I really wanted to have that podcast every week no matter what. The inspiration was in the showing up. So, I’ve learned that true consistency lies in the willingness to pay attention, dig in and celebrate everything that is in your life that might inspire you, no matter how small, and to show up regardless of inspiration. Second, I’ve come to understand that questions are far more meaningful than answers. Sustaining this podcast has been driven by curiosity for what it means to try and be present for my photography even when I don’t pick up a camera at all. I find that by having to show up every week for my creative practice, I find myself constantly asking myself what I see and what is interesting that might make my photos better or the podcast topic list. Lastly, I’ve discovered that paying attention transforms more than just the photographs; it enriches every aspect of my life. As we approach the end of this episode, it’s cool to think that 600 isn’t a finish line. There’s always more to explore, and next week, I’ll be digging into episode 601, and no, I have no idea what the topic is yet. Ha ha ha. Finally, I want to say thanks for joining me on this podcast journey. I hope that for you it continues to inspire you to look, wonder, pay attention and make more meaningful photographs.

In this week's podcast, we look at the question of what makes a great photographer. Is it technical skill, creative skill or something else. While I am sure everything actually matters, I have stated to wonder if the great photographers are the ones who just happen to finish their work.

In this week's podcast, episode 598, we'll discuss the right way to think about sales and a sales pitch. Because every time we make a photograph, we are actually making a sales pitch. We are assessing whether what we are seeing, editing, processing, sharing, and printing is worth the cost. In this case, I think cost is equal to attention. I know that some of you think the word sales is bad, and sales is one of those words that makes a lot of photographers uncomfortable. We often say we aren't good at selling our work, talking about our photographs, or sharing what we create, but that isn't the case.

In this week's podcast, we dig into the importance of attention in photography and everyday life. I believe that what I choose to photograph reflects what captures our attention, while also recognizing that it means we often overlook meaningful details. With distractions like phones and social media, reclaiming our focus through mindfulness is essential. Photography is more than just using a camera; it fosters deeper observation of the world. Ultimately, I see attention as a skill that enriches our craft and our life experiences.

A good photograph isn't just beautiful; it must evoke emotion, spark curiosity, or shift perspectives. Its value lies in impact and creativity, not just aesthetics. Each photo can be a stepping stone in a photographer's journey, guiding future work and questioning the nature of art rather than simply labeling it good or bad.

In episode 595 of the Perceptive Photographer, we discuss the importance of asking the right questions before taking a shot. Prioritizing technical aspects over emotion or storytelling can lead to disconnects in the final image. Balancing composition, technique, and narrative is key to creating meaningful photographs.

In episode 594 of The Perceptive Photographer, I take a deeper look at one of the most common pieces of creative advice: know your audience, and why I don't believe your audience is where your photography begins. Instead, I explore how your audience is made up of the people who recognize something of themselves in work that grows from your own curiosity, honesty, and craftsmanship not from chasing approval or trends.

This week we are talking critique and seeing. I think one of the most powerful ways to grow as a photographer, or any creative professional, is to invite critique from outside your own niche. A great photo editor can look at any set of photographs and know what makes good photography, reminding us that fresh eyes often see what we can’t. I also discuss how seeing isn't just behind the camera but an act that happens over and over again in our process.

This month, I'm starting a mini-podcast episode on silence in photography. What does silence look like? While we see silence as the absence of sound, it's more about how we capture it in images. Mindful observation helps us overcome both auditory and visual noise, allowing us to create calmer compositions. Silence lives in negative space and soft light, teaching us patience and restraint. The most meaningful photographs may not be the loudest, but those that encourage us to slow down and truly see.

This week we are talking plateaus. A creative plateau is that strange phase where progress feels stagnant. You’re not getting worse, but it feels like you’re also not getting any better. It’s like hiking. There are flat stretches where you can’t see the summit, yet you’re still on your way there, just on a less steep path. so in this episode we dig into those long flat stretches that are in many ways my favorite parts of a hike.

In Episode 590 of The Perceptive Photographer, we explore those moments when something in your work feels right or wrong and you can't explain why. Instinct isn't mystical. it's compressed experience, but we often drown it out with external validation and over-analysis. This episode examines how to tell healthy critique from noise, offers three practices for building trust with your own seeing, and encourages listeners to honor the quiet voice that responds before logic catches up. Mystery is part of the work, not a bug to fix.