240: William McIntosh - Authenticity, Artistry and Creativity in Landscape Photography

Welcome to episode 240 of F-Stop Collaborate and Listen!

This week on the podcast I was joined by William McIntosh - a landscape photographer and choral music professor at Mt. San Antonio College in Southern California. William and I have been exchanging long and thoughtful e-mails for several years and I finally decided that it would be much more fun to debate our ideas publicly on the podcast instead of via e-mail, so I invited him to join me. I'm so glad he agreed!

On this week's episode we discuss:

• How photography became an outlet for William after losing his wife to cancer,
• The differences between absolute art and programmatic art,
• Is landscape photography art, and when is it art?
• Chasing the light vs. slowing down,
• Why William has no qualms chasing the icons and epic light,
• Our motivations for creating images and how that helps shape the types of images we create,
• And a lot more!

Here's who William recommended for the podcast this week:

• Bruno Pisani.
• Noel Casaje.
• Eric Gail.
• Greg Boratyn.
• Todd Miller.

Other items mentioned on the show:

1. Support Michael Tokildsen's Kickstarter Project.

2. Nature Photographer's Network Special Offer.

3. Support the show on Patreon.

4. Simonton Scale of Creativity.

5. Bartle Test of Gamer (and maybe Photographer) Psychology.

By the way, if anyone is curious, here's how I scored (Matt Payne):

You are 67% Explorer

What Bartle says:

Explorers delight in having the game expose its internal machinations to them. They try progressively esoteric actions in wild, out-of-the-way places, looking for interesting features (i.e. bugs) and figuring out how things work. Scoring points may be necessary to enter some next phase of exploration, but it's tedious, and anyone with half a brain can do it. Killing is quicker, and might be a constructive exercise in its own right, but it causes too much hassle in the long run if the deceased return to seek retribution. Socializing can be informative as a source of new ideas to try out, but most of what people say is irrelevant or old hat. The real fun comes only from discovery, and making the most complete set of maps in existence.

You are also:

60% Achiever

40% Killer

33% Socializer

I've thought about how this relates to my style of photography and it makes a lot of sense! I'd love to hear about your scores and how it relates to your style of photography.

I love hearing from the podcast listeners! Reach out to me via Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter if you'd like to be on the podcast or if you have an idea of a topic we can talk about. We also have an Instagram page, a Facebook Page, and a Facebook Group - so don't be shy!

We also have a searchable transcript of every episode!

Thanks for stopping in, collaborating with us, and listening. See you next week.