Part of living a photographic life is also knowing when to take advantage of photographic opportunities when they present themselves.

Althought I've been (and still am) an advocate of project-based approaches to photography (if only to keep you engaged and making photography regularly), in this podcast I discuss some of the pitfalls to watch out for when using projects as a way to live a photographic life.

In this podcast I discuss my process for retiring a portfolio that no longer reflects where I am as a photographer.

What do wedding photography and Henri Cartier Bresson's decisive moment have in common? It turns out lots as I discovered after photographing my sister's wedding this past weekend.

Jeff Curto wears many hats in his photographic life. He is a professor of photography at College of DuPage and he is the host of two well known podcasts, Camera Position, and History of Photography (which is an exhanced podcast of Jeff's lectures for a course he teaches each term). MOst importantly, Jeff is also an excellent and highly regarded photographer in his own right. In addition to visiting his web site, you can see (and buy) a folio of Jeff's photography which was recently published by Lenswork.

In this podcast I outline some of the costs of getting exposure for your work through juried photographic exhibitions, portfolio reviews, and promotional materials.

I've noticed a recent trend in that calls for entries for juried photographic competitions are continually getting extended past the original due date. Is this a result of the economy and does it mean your chances are better?

This past year has been a very busy and hectic one for both my personal life as well as my photographic life. In this podcast, I discuss the progress on my resolutions from last year for Thoughts on Photography and the new directions I plan to take the podcast going into 2010.

Here is a list of my favorite photo or photo-related books of 2009 (in order by author):

War is Only Half the Story Volume II - Aftermath Project (Kathryn Cook, Natela Grigalashvili, Tinka Dietz, Pep Bonet and Christine Fenzl)

Photowisdom: Master Photographers on their Art - Lewis Blackwell

To Walk in Beauty - Stacia Spragg-Braude

The Spirit & the Flesh - Debbie Fleming Caffery

Firefly: Photographs of Children - Keith Carter

Summer Heart - Thekla Ehling

Kutuuka - Gloria Baker Feinstein

Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans (Expanded Edition) - Robert Frank and Sarah Greenough

Emmet Gowin: Photographs - Emmet Gowin

Three - Ed Kashi

Fun and Games - Lisa Kereszi

Memories of Myself - Danny Lyons

Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals - Christopher Payne

Surfland - Joni Sternbach

Violet Isle: A Duet of Photography from Cuba - Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb

In this podcast I talk about some of the ways in which we photographers can sometimes veer from the photographic life for one reason or another and I offer up some suggestions that have worked for me to get back on track with my photography.