Every so often, someone mentions one of my photographs and catches me completely off guard. Not because I don’t remember the photograph, but because I didn’t know they had seen it. That happened recently. Someone told me they had enjoyed a photograph I used with an article. I thanked them, and then it hit me […]

The post The People Who Never Say Anything appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

Suppose someone found one photograph of mine and knew nothing else about me. What would that single image tell them? Depending on which photograph they happened to see, they might think I was a landscape photographer. Pick another, and they might think wildlife is my main interest. Another could point them toward waterfalls, old buildings, […]

The post One Photograph Can’t Tell the Whole Story appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

This was my perspective earlier this week. I found myself on the crow’s nest floor with my feet up, trying to figure out what to do next. To explain how I ended up on that floor, I have to go back several months. That’s when I came down with that terrible cough most of you […]

The post For Five Days, I Thought I Found a Loophole appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

I recently attended a wedding as a guest, and afterward I had a chance to look through some of the photographs taken by the wedding photographer. One detail kept pulling my attention away from everything else. The bride’s dress didn’t look white. It had a tan cast, almost as if a light sepia tone had […]

The post Was Her Dress White? appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

After all these years of photography, I know what will make me stop. A beautiful sunset can do it. So can wildlife, a waterfall, an old building, an interesting street, or a moment that suddenly comes together in front of me. Sometimes it’s the light more than the subject. I can be driving somewhere and […]

The post The Things I Keep Walking Past appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

For the last few weeks, I've caught myself doing something I don't normally do. I'll open a map and start looking around. Not because I have somewhere I need to go. Just because part of me wants to. I find myself looking at mountain roads in West Virginia, waterfalls in North Carolina, little historic towns, […]

The post Do I Give Myself Permission to Get Away? appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

There is a strange point in learning photography when instruction begins to work against you. At first, advice is useful. You learn how aperture changes depth of field, how shutter speed affects motion, and how light shapes a subject. You begin to understand the camera instead of merely hoping it gives you something usable. Then […]

The post When Advice Becomes a Substitute for Seeing appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

Every now and then, I look back through old photographs and wonder why I kept certain ones. Not the obvious ones. Not the family photographs, birthdays, holidays, faces, or moments that clearly belong in the archive. Those explain themselves. I understand why they are there. I am thinking more about the quiet images. A road. […]

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Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but attention is not automatic. That is something I think about more and more when it comes to photography. We can make the photograph. We can print it, post it, frame it, share it, and send it out into the world. But none of that means […]

The post Earning the Viewer’s Eye appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

I do not think a photograph has to be famous to change you. It does not even have to be understood by anyone else. Sometimes an image works on you privately. You see it once, and for some reason, it stays around in your mind. You may not know why at first. You may not […]

The post Images That Changed How I See appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

The camera only records what is in front of it, but the photograph begins before that. It begins when something makes me stop. Sometimes it is a certain kind of light. Sometimes it is a face in a crowd. Sometimes it is a shadow falling across a wall, making an ordinary place look different for […]

The post The Thought Process Behind Every Photograph appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

I have always loved old photographs. There is something about them that pulls me in. A faded print. A family face. A place that no longer looks the same. A street corner that has changed. A house that is gone. A person who was young then and old now, or maybe no longer here at […]

The post The Danger of Nostalgia in Photography appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

When I photograph weddings or events for friends, I generally do not charge a fixed amount. I usually tell them they are welcome to give a donation or gift afterward if they want to. I do not approach it as a major business transaction. That does not mean I take it lightly. I give them […]

The post Why Wedding Photography Costs So Much appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

I’ve always asked questions. That’s how I’ve learned most of what I know. I’ve asked other photographers. I’ve read. I’ve tried things. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve gone back and looked again. I’ve taken a photograph, wondered why it worked, then taken another one and wondered why it didn’t. That’s always been part of photography for […]

The post The Power of “I Do Not Know” appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.

By the time we reached this part of the semester in my Media Law class, the room felt different. Copyright had been structured. Privacy had been layered. But now we were talking about public confrontation. Cameras on sidewalks. Musicians are being recorded without permission. Journalists challenged by police. Business owners are angry about being filmed. […]

The post Photography Law Through the Lens of Media Law, Part 3: Public Recording, Monetization, Police Encounters, and the Limits of Lawful Conduct appeared first on Will Moneymaker Photography.