Arlene Gottlieb

Letting go of the need to narrate your own work

Last weekend at the flea market I watched a woman pick up a small framed photograph, hold it for a long time, then tell the seller it reminded her of a street she lived on as a child. The photograph w…

RAW files and the texture they hold

Tony & Chelsea Northrup explain something here that took me far too long to learn on my own: why a RAW file looks flat and muted straight out of camera, and how that's actually a gift. If you've ever…

A practical gear walkthrough from Simon d'Entremont

Simon d'Entremont lays out his full kit here with the kind of honesty I appreciate, no brand worship, just what actually works in the field and why. Worth a look if you've ever wondered how a working…

When a gallerist stops at your booth, what actually works?

Last month at a small fair near Zürich, a gallerist paused in front of one of my urban prints for maybe thirty seconds. Long enough that I knew she was looking, not browsing. I froze. Said something f…

How do you know when your work is ready for someone else's wall?

I have been making photographs for years, mostly urban textures, old walls, corridors with that lived-in weight. I create work that means something to me. That has always been enough. But lately I hav…

Labeling your work 'visual storytelling' is just photography with a press kit

Every time I hear someone rebrand their personal project as "visual storytelling" instead of photography, I wonder what actually changed besides the vocabulary. The image is either doing the work or i…

How many limited edition collections to start with on a website?

I have been putting together my website and trying to figure out how to present limited edition work. My instinct is to keep things spare, maybe one or two focused collections rather than flooding the…

How many income streams does it actually take?

I sold a few prints at a flea market last month. Not one of the big art fairs, just a regular weekend market where I usually go to browse old things and photograph textures. I set up a small table, pr…

Getting reels to display vertical instead of horizontal

I shot a few short clips of alley textures and old walls this weekend, the kind of footage that needs height to feel right. When I uploaded them as reels they came out horizontal and cropped, losing a…

When validation and creative fulfillment pull in opposite directions

Last weekend I was at the flea market, turning over old photographs someone had clearly made on commission. Portraits, product shots, nothing personal. Yet a few had this quiet stubbornness in the fra…