Several months ago I was in San Francisco, had done a couple speeches and panels, been tweeting and more. The weekend finally arrived and I was beat, so I thought I would catch up with friends who I had not seen in several years, and offline I went.
They decided to treat me to a trip to Yosemite to shoot photographs. Returning to Austin and sitting in an airport, I resumed the tweeting and online connections and conversations routine, only to find out from Robert Scoble that if I had been online I could have joined him, Ansel Adam’s son and Marc Silber to “photowalk” Yosemite. DAMN! I am still kicking myself.
But as a sweet little “make up” for that miss, and through the power of the online network and Facebook, I recently had the privilege to meet and connect with Marc Silber.
Marc is a true artist and I have come to love his work … as I say he does “fine art photography” and in my mind he is a “fine art photographer.”
Marc Silber
He began taking black & white photographs in the 60s, beginning his photographic career at the legendary Peninsula School, avidly learning composition and darkroom skills. He studied the works of masters such as Ansel Adams, the Westons and Henri Cartier-Bresson. He honed his skills at the celebrated San Francisco Art Institute-one of the oldest and most prestigious schools of higher education in art and photography in the U.S., and went to school with Annie Leibovitz.
However, star power in the photography world aside, Marc has forged his unique style and quality through his own frequent trips with camera to the mountains and coast, where he clearly fell in love with the beauty and the spirit of the Sierras and the California coast. Through his images he captures the expression of the spirit, each telling a story, whether of the spirit of nature or the spirit of the individual.
Go check his site, but more importantly look at his work ranging from environmental, portraits to natural landscapes and abstracts, and follow my interview with him below. I think you will see he is outstanding –as an artist, photographer and online community contributor.
I am thrilled to have had this chance to catch up with Marc, interview him and post it here on Your Blog.
Bixby Bridge, Big Sur by Marc Silber
Chain and Shadow by Marc Silber
RichardatDELL: Marc, thanks for joining us here at Your Blog. We are just thrilled to have you … and I’m excited about the interview. Just because I sort of stumbled upon you first here, one of Scoble’s older video and photowalks. Can you recap for us the keys to a good photograph?
Marc Silber: Thanks, Richard. When I went out with Robert I ran through the basic points that I cover with all of my new students. Here you go:
1. Get to know your camera. If you’re working in a kitchen you need to know what each pot is for and why there are so many different knives and spoons! We’ll, hey, it’s the same with a camera! So to make it do what you want it to do, first you need to learn how to talk to it. That is best done by reading the manual while you touch and move each part described. I wish I could offer a short cut, but that’s the best advice I can give.
2. “Framing” is the key concept in composition. To frame means to put your shot into a rectangular form that your camera captures it, and to form a frame around your image. This could be the edge of a door, a wall, a tree, the horizon, etc. It gives your image its proper perspective and balance.
3. When you take pictures of people, put them at ease so you don’t get a stiff, posed look. Or if you get really hot like Henri Cartier-Bresson, you get the shot before they even know you’re there! But otherwise you’ll need to help them feel relaxed. I do this by talking with my subjects, and by myself feeling comfortable-that comes from practice.
4. Make time to go out and shoot, by yourself. Take a lot of shots, get busy building your portfolio. The only way to do that is to take tons of shots, but not randomly-learn to “visualize” the shot. I learned this from Ansel Adams, to hear directly from him what this means go to www.fastcompany.tv/photocycle.
I could go on, but start with these points and you’ll be way ahead!
RichardatDELL: So while we are talking about some important techniques, tell me more about this “Nice to know you can drag your shutter when you don’t have a tripod.”
Marc Silber: “Drag the shutter” means to take a long exposure, in order to capture motion as you can see in the shot above where you see the wheels turning. But you don’t want camera motion, so how do you do this without a tripod to steady it? I use whatever I can find to place the camera on, in this case a railing and held my breath and didn’t wobble!
RichardatDELL: Marc, how about some other professional insights and quick how-tos. Like file type: JPEG or raw or something else? Color space: rgb or Abobe? Printing tips? Make decisions about a photo from the camera preview or computer screen? In-camera touch ups? From your professional and artistic perspective any insights on these or other things?
Marc Silber: Wow! That’s like giving a whole photo course in one breath! I shoot in raw because that gives me the ability to work in the digital darkroom (like Photoshop). I shoot with the camera and make all the other decisions in the “darkroom” just like “trad” (traditional) photography! You’ll get this from my interview mentioned earlier. This keeps your workflow as it should-and the process works!
RichardatDELL: Just to make it easy, our readers can download Marc’s ebook here: http://www.silberstudios.com/learn. I’m intrigued though. In this day of Photoshop, glitzy high-tech cameras and all the computing power we have to snap away and upload to Flickr and Facebook instantaneously, talk to us a bit more about the camera “as an extension of you.”
Marc Silber: A camera is just a tool to capture what YOU see and feel. By itself it’s just a piece of electronic and optical stuff (even if it’s lots of fun). Once you know how to work the camera, the rest is your eye, your timing, and being out there in the right place at the right time. Give me an old box camera or a point and shoot and I’ll still come back with great shots. To make it an extension of you, you have to “make friends with it” and take a lot of shots. Look at other photographer’s work and go shoot some more!
RichardatDELL: So where does that leave us with all these digital photo and tech tools. How do they mesh? Or are you suggesting we go back to the old days of film?
Marc Silber: My message is simple: Put a balance between the geeky equipment and your eye and composition. You need both, just don’t get too hung up in the equipment and forget about composing the shot. I love digital, but as I mentioned earlier, I maintain my roots with trad photography and workflow.
RichardatDELL: I didn’t think you were but thought the points were worth pulling together. I noticed you recently posted about loving black and white work, but you do lots of color work as well. Is black and white work being undervalued or under-appreciated with all the tools and brilliance of color online, sort of like black and white TV versus color TV? You think we are losing an appreciation for “classics?”
Marc Silber: I love black and white photography; it goes back to my roots as a photographer. I learned black and white photography and darkroom skills when I was a young lad. My heroes were all the greats of the black and white world-Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Douglas Duncan, etc. I definitely do shoot in color but I favor B/W. Yes, it could be that it’s becoming a lost art form, but it never will be for me.
RichardatDELL: Lots of people fear “sharing” because of intellectual property or artist’s need to copyright photos. How did you choose or why did you choose to become so active online?
Marc Silber: I am protective of my work and of course it’s all covered under copyright law. I believe that the ability to share photos is a huge leap forward for photography, but artist’s rights must be respected.
RichardatDELL: One of the aspects of your Web site simply says “master of photography.” I get the sense it’s a work in process with a whole lot more to come. What’s it all about and why do you think it’s important?
Marc Silber: We have an amazing heritage of photographers to learn from. I’m hoping to preserve some of the knowledge from the greats and make it accessible to both new photographers and old timers like me. It is so important to understand principles of photography that have been developed over the last century and beyond.
RichardatDELL: Your online presence is sort of exploding…from the blog, to the Master section, your own portfolio, more photowalks with Scoble and now you are hosting “PhotoCycle,” a program over at Fast Company TV. What’s the goal of PhotoCycle? Why are you passionate about it?
Marc Silber: My goal with PhotoCycle is to bring viewers in touch with some of the masters of photography, but to also make this very accessible to them, so they can get as close as possible to their wisdom…that’s why we followed Annie Leibovitz around as she walked us through her exhibit, why we met with Michael Adams in Yosemite and again at Ansel’s home and darkroom. Stay tuned, we have a lot more in store!
Annie Leibovitz and Marc Silber
RichardatDELL: You want to share any really exciting moments from the current program or programs that we can expect in the future?
Marc Silber: Well, the most amazing was getting a personal tour of Ansel’s home-his own gallery, and especially his darkroom! I really felt like I was in a sacred spot! Again, my hope is to join the traditional world of photography with the digital-all for the aim of our viewers becoming better in their own eyes.
All Photographs ©Marc Silber 2008. All Rights Reserved.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
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