To say that I express myself with my hands as well as with my imagery, is an understatement. My friend, pbase’s Tim May ( http://www.pbase.com/mityam ), who was traveling with me in Utah, catches me here as I debate a photographic fine point with pbase photographer Sheena Xin Liu, who caught up with us for a quick lunch at Salt Lake City’s California Pizza Kitchen. Poor Xin – I must have overwhelmed her with those flying hands – she has retreated out of Tim’s frame so that only a trace of her shoulder is visible. Tim uses a slow shutter speed – ¼ of a second – to not only blur my face, but even more importantly, blur my hands as well. He says in his caption at http://www.pbase.com/image/69505115 that this shot “captures my enthusiasm for my art,” but I would say that it also captures the essence of who I am – intense, passionate, oblivious to everything except the point at hand. (Pun intended.)

One of my pbase students, Dandan Liu, ( http://www.pbase.com/celestine ) traveled from Montreal to Oregon to take Dave Wyman’s Vision Quest photo tour with me. I was making an image from a long forgotten railroad car while Dandan was quietly making pictures of me. Even when I noticed her, she kept shooting, and certainly caught my enthusiasm in this image. This train may not be going anywhere, but it almost seems as if I am about to magically make it ride the rails again. When I finished shooting here, I left Dandan to find her own images. She did – catching me as I trudged away down the track in search of an idea. You can see it at http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/65001079

Words can be as important to me as the image itself. The captions and titles for my photographs must be accurate and complete. Just after shooting my portrait of Roxalee Barbee ( See it by clicking on the thumbnail at the bottom ) I gathered the information I needed for its caption and title. I am so intent on getting everything correct that I never saw Anne Eastwood make this image. By abstracting my face, Anne stresses the tension in my hands as I write. Meanwhile, Ms. Barbee was very patient with me, and Anne brings that out in this image as well.

When I teach tutorials in the field, I try to step back and watch my students make decisions that will produce learning. It is difficult to keep silent and let whatever happens, happen. But that is how field tutorials must work. Photographic exploration is, by nature, a solitary adventure. I lead my students to the water, so to speak, and let them drink what they may. Later, we discuss what we may have learned from the experience. Here, I watch Christine Newman, a greatly talented high-school photographer from Toronto, shoot through the window of an abandoned building in an old mining town near Sedona. She responds to what she sees in this symbolic darkness with great care and much thought. She will produce her own interpretation of what lies within, and I hope that she will learn much from the decisions she makes on this day in Jerome.

I simultaneously photographed the same interior that Christine studies here. I would eventually share the result with Christine and all of my pbase students -- click on the thumbnail at the bottom of this caption to see it. Christine interpreted this subject quite differently, and very successfully. She expressed her own point of view about this subject with a superwide angle lens and a vertical frame, gaining useful insights into the substantive effects of lens choice, format and framing. Meanwhile, Christine’s mother Pauline, who accompanied her to Arizona, interprets this moment in learning for both of us. She comments here on how I choose to teach, and how her daughter chooses to learn. (You can see Christine’s own pbase gallery at: http://www.pbase.com/christinepnewman

Digital photography makes it possible to sometimes share the results of a picture with my subjects instantly. It brings them great pleasure. Although I was able to at least say “thank you” in Chinese, simply being able to show this family the photo I had just made of them ( click on thumbnail below to see it ) allowed me to offer them an extra measure of thanks. The gifted pbase photographer Jen Zhou not only made this image, but also made my image of them possible by talking with them as I photographed their interaction as a family. I had no idea that Jen had made this image – which is even richer in interaction than my own image of them. Jen had not shown it to me before now because she had felt this picture was technically flawed. She told me that she wished that “the people were not blurred," and felt that she "should have gotten more of me into the picture.” I told her that the blur added emotional content to the photograph, and that her tight framing did not hurt the expression of the message. Sometimes photographers can place greater value on form than on content. In this case, Jen’s content proves much more important than her form. It is a worthy addition to this gallery. ( You can see her own galleries at http://www.pbase.com/angeleyes_zyl/root )

Carol Sandgren’s abstract portrait of me composing a photograph through the window of an abandoned Airstream trailer in the Mohave Desert, embodies much of what I teach in this cyberbook. Her image is simple, abstract, geometrically designed, and incongruous. It is a portrait without a face, yet it expresses great intensity. Her composition echoes mine -- frame within frame within frame. She expresses my methods in this portrait, rather than my appearance. You can see Carol’s galleries at http://www.pbase.com/sveetzel