Fieldnotes

To be a successful creator, you don’t need to wait for inspiration to strike. You don’t need to wait for the muse or to wait for an original idea. You don’t need “hacks” or to follow the teachings of the latest productivity guru. To be the kind of writer, photographer, musician, artist, or creator who builds a body of work, you only need one thing: a creative project. A creative project is an idea, a proposal to engage in some hypothetical and unrealized creative undertaking....

I am starting to “work with the garage door open.” Robin Sloan coined the phrase in an article discussing/dreaming up new ways of working, networking, publishing, creating, and connecting online. These “new ways of relating” are less reliant on the social networks we’ve become accustomed to over the last decade or two. About working with the garage door open, Sloan wrote: This isn’t a time for “products”, or product launches. It’s not a time to toil in secret for a year and then reveal what you’d made with a shiny landing page....

Have you ever thought about what goes into sequencing a photobook or a zine? As some of you know, I’m in the process of making my own photobook The Hill of the Skull. I’m no expert on photo book sequencing, but I have been thinking about it for the last several months and I would like to share with you some points that I’ve learned along the way. I hope it will help make the process for you easier than it was for me....

Fujifilm make some of the best mirrorless cameras for travel. The Fujifilm X-Series cameras have a cult-like following and have earned their reputation among traveling photographers for being compact, lightweight, and fun-to-use alternatives to the other brands. That said, Fujifilm’s X-Series lineup can be a bit confusing for the new photographer. That is why I wanted to write this guide, to help travelers who are new to photography (or looking to buy a new camera) decide which Fujifilm X-Series camera is right for them....

2022 was one of the most rewarding, creative, and productive periods of my life in recent years. I’ve written end-of-year reviews of my creative work for the past few years. In keeping with tradition, below are my reflections on 2022 and my plans for 2023. Reflections & plans Sabbatical work After two years of delays, I finally had a semester-long sabbatical from teaching. My sabbatical took me to Bolivia and Peru for 30 days, where I did research for my ongoing mountains project and took photos for a photobook project I’m working on....