Posts Tagged ‘Thoughts’
Hypnotic
She had asked for weeks. Since the first pseudo-spring day that was quickly chased away by a more cool sogginess of early spring in Northeast Ohio. But today, finally, the warm weather held, the wind was steady, and the calendar was clear.
The breeze caught the plastic underside of the kite with a satisfying crinkle. We fed the string out together until its end. I stepped back when asked and she took control. Together we watched the kite flutter high above us. Its long pink streamers traced random circuits across the blue sky lulling us into a trance.
I broke my attention from the kite to reach for my camera and noticed her smile was just as hypnotic.
Thoughts on vacation photos (along with a few)
Within the past month I have traveled to New York, Florida, Washington DC, and North Carolina. That’s a very unusual amount of travel for me. Throughout it all I carried around my Fuji X-Pro1. After years of slinging a Nikon D700 the weight and form factor of the X-Pro1 made it a joy to carry around, but that could be a whole different blog post.
I’ll recap things and start at the beginning. The kids spent some quality time with their grandparents while my wife and I made the trip to New York City and Amagansett, NY. The city was a whirlwind of food, drinks, and walking. In other words great fun. I was able to meet up with Ed Brydon a friend that I had corresponded with but had yet to met in person. As I anticipated, it was a pleasure to meet him and his wife. We had a wonderfully rambling dinner conversation that covered many topics. After a couple of days in the city we traveled by bus to visit my brother in Amagansett where he is managing and cooking at The Meeting House. If you are ever in the area be sure to stop in for some food. It’s damn good. I may have a congenially biased opinion of my brother, but my taste buds are neutral and objective about his cooking. I recommend it.
New York was quickly followed up with a family trip to Destin, FL that was mostly spent poolside. Looking at my photo library, I have the most pictures from here which is fitting as my kids have always provided me with endless and quality photographic fodder. After Florida, we dropped the kids off at another loving grandparent’s and I went on a quick two-day trip with my wife to Washington DC. It was business for my wife leaving me free to ramble the city solo most of the trip. For such a visual and historic city I took very few photos. Perhaps because so many images are made of Washington DC’s monuments and malls that I feel like it’s been shot out and I had little to add. Even though DC is prime people-watching and street photography turf, I’m not very adept nor do I enjoy street-style shooting. Usually photographing strangers unaware feels too surreptitious to me and typically the street shots I take fail to intrigue me. All of the above led to sparse images from DC.
I capped off the travel period last week when I traveled solo to see a friend in Asheville, NC. The chilly, cloudy weather feigned late winter instead of early spring, but we made the best of it. The highlight being a day hike up Cold Mountain (of book fame…or movie fame depending on your medium of choice). I find little fault in a city populated by friendly people, surrounded by forested mountains, sliced by rivers, and filled with good breweries and delicious restaurants. I love visiting Asheville.
Through it all I usually had my camera with me and still I found myself using it less than I had intended. I’ve struggled to produce photographic work lately (as shown by the virtual cobwebs on this blog) and had the best intentions of trying to produce a photo essay about a “family vacation” or some such. For a few reasons that didn’t evolve. A big reason being that I find it hard to balance vacation and serious photographing. I want to enjoy vacation and share it with my family and friends not necessarily be behind the camera trying to work new angles and contemplating what image I need next in an essay. Although I want to be sometimes, I’m not the guy that documents every little moment in his life, camera always at his eye. That’s not to say that I’m not photographing family moments quite frequently. When I say I’m struggling to produce work I mean work that I think is worth putting out there. Many family photos are snapshots and I don’t mean that negatively. Those are memories and times that I want documented, but many of the images I take in reality only mean something to me. I don’t think they have a universal appeal or relatability that viewers will connect with, but I’m ok with that. Too often I put pressure on myself to produce something that will be “appreciated” and I’m working at focusing more on following my instinct and photographing what I’m drawn to. With my family that is the moments that I will enjoy looking back on years from today.
Regardless of the above sentiments I’ve attached some photos from my travels.
Clicking on any image thumbnail will kick you into a slideshow with larger images.
The Girl and Her Pup Book
Several months ago I finished my A Girl and Her Pup series that focused on my youngest daughter and our newly adopted puppy. GaHP was a personal project that, surprisingly to me, engaged many viewers. I produced the series over the course of a year and it’s an interesting look at the relationship between my daughter and our pup; revealing moments and experiences they shared as they matured together. Early into the project I had determined I wanted to put the images into book form and now that book is complete. My aim was to avoid producing just a remix and republication of the GaHP series in book form so, to that end, I’ve added a few anecdotes about developing the series and about its subjects, my daughter and our dog.
I received a lot of support and complements on this series, thank you. Some people expressed an interest in purchasing the book when it was ready so I decided the easiest approach would be to make the book available through Blurb. A Girl and Her Pup is available in 52-page hardcover (HERE) and a softcover (HERE) versions. I’ve only offered the book in 10 x 8 formats because I think it presents the images best and, really, we all see enough images in small formats every day. I would have gone bigger, but I didn’t want to price the books out of reach for anyone interested in buying them – as is the price is not inexpensive, but it was the best I could do while keeping a format that met my goals.
If you do purchase a book, please leave a comment on this blog post, the Blurb bookstore, or contact me. I’m interest to hear what you think of it.
Wedding Newbie
It was over a month ago now that I photographed my first ever wedding. I’ve never considered myself a wedding photographer primarily because I’m not interested in being one. Still, family is family, so when my sister asked if I would photograph her wedding I agreed with the stipulation that she shouldn’t expect the full coverage and pretty wrapping she would get from a professional wedding photographer. I was willing to document the day for her and edit the pictures. She was ok with that.
In all honesty, it was the perfect wedding for a newbie: a few dozen close family and friends, no church, a simple and short ceremony which was outdoors and not under any funky lighting. I finally took the plunge and bought some flash triggers to make off-camera flash shots easier. The triggers worked perfectly. Not being tethered to my flash by a cable made the indoor photos so much easier.
There’s no fancy, trendy editing to the photos and, in hindsight, I see and remember so many moments I missed, but my sister is happy with the images as am I. It was hard to play double roles of both brother and photographer. I don’t think I held a conversation over two minutes with anyone because I was constantly moving trying to get more photos. I wouldn’t call it a relaxed evening but it was a learning experience and it was a challenge being taken out of my typical portrait photography genre – interestingly this wedding felt like an amalgam of portrait and documentary photography, maybe that is wedding photography.
I won’t be rushing to shoot another wedding, but the night went off without a hitch and I’m proud to have given something so personal and special to my sister.
The End of Autumn
Autumn has let go of it’s colorful grasp in our area. Though the calendar shows winter is still weeks away the trees and temperatures foreshadow something else. There’s a rain-snow mix falling outside this morning as I write this.
Alison Cassidy sums it up well.
It’s the Tattered End of Autumn
It’s the tattered end of autumn,
when the beech tree’s yellow dress
has rusted
and a thick carpet
of mustard
lies rotting underfoot.
It’s the tattered end of autumn,
when the white bones of the birch
are exposed
and its last leaves
cling
like baby koalas.
It’s the tattered end of autumn
when single leaves
dance solos
and next door’s blower
disturbs
the stillness of mid afternoon.
Alison Cassidy 1945
Jack-o-lanterns
It’s that time of year: jack o’lanterns.
Time to decapitate gourds and scrape out the gooey internals laced with seeds that hold the potential of another crop. To slice through the orange hides of pumpkins tracing elaborate sketches of decorative ghoulishness. Every year I plan to document our pumpkin carving with a bunch of photos full of interesting angles and innovative concepts, but then I find myself carving pumpkins. It is so very hard to document moments that you are and want to be intimately involved in.
Jack o’lanterns have been turbo-charged since I was young. Gone are the days of triangle eyes and toothy grins. Today’s jack o’lanterns are fine-detailed carvings that leave pieces of flesh unfathomably dangling from the thinnest of fleshy anchors. They have intricate designs of black nothingness until, when lit from within, the glory of creativity is revealed through gaps and the luminescent glow of white pith where pumpkin’s orange flesh was scraped away. With such pressure my kids invariably choose designs that excite them but are beyond their current carving skills. That means my wife and I carve the gourds while simultaneously trying to make the kids feel involved.
While that all sounds a bit cynical, I really enjoy it (my wife has a different view on it).
Just before bed last night we went out and had the formal first-lighting. I love to watch how such simple things enthrall my kids.
Guts
Surgical Instruments
Awestruck
Autumnous Weekend
We just capped off an amazing Autumn weekend. A perfect reminder of why I love this season. The nights grow cooler, everywhere colors glow from under morning dew and, later, against the blue sky sliced with white clouds.
There was no school on Friday so we had three full days to soak in the season. Almost immediately the kids put some energy into raking leaves together into a pile for jumping into. We went for a few scenic hikes one even on a new trail that I’d never done before. Friday night we bundled up and went to Lake County Farmpark for a Haunted Hayride (my youngest (4 year old) sat stoically on her bench, lips pressed together in concentration as we passed goals, goblins, and ghosts. When asked how the ride was: “Pretty good. A little scary.”)
If you get to experience an Autumn where you live I hope you are reveling in it. If you live where there is no flush of fall, well, my thoughts are with you.
Here’s a hodgepodge of images from the weekend.
Some fright from Friday’s hayride:
One Night Away
There’s something so refreshing and recharging for me about the outdoors and even more so the exertion and work of hauling a pack along a trail. It’s been years since I strapped on a daypack for any serious day-hiking milage. So when I was able to find a couple days to fit in a trip a few weekends ago, I packed the truck, loaded up the dog, and drove the 2.5 hours east to into Pennsylvania and the Allegheny National Forest to hike the 7-mile Minister Creek loop trail, it felt really good.
I hadn’t done this hike in 5 or so years so much of its beauty was fresh for me, Minister Creek threads its way through the lush fern wrapped banks of the valley floor. The massive, glacier-deposited boulders sheathed in moss scattered throughout the valley slopes that dwarfed us like Goliath. The rhododendron sheltered ridges with vistas of the valley spread out below them.
I purposely arrived a day early to get a night of camping in too. Minster Creek and its campground are a popular destination and weekends throughout summer and fall are busy with hikers, campers, and hunters (I was once went there for some wilderness solitude only to find a group of 70 boyscouts suiting up to hike). By Sunday afternoon though the crowds had thinned and by dusk Monty and I had the campground to ourselves and proceeded to do, well, very little. We did a short hike and explored the campground. I popped open some beers, lit the fire, made some pesto pasta, read some on the career of Bill Albert, played solitaire, and then we crawled into the back of the truck for bed. It was perfect and at times a little boring (I don’t think I know how to relax anymore and to be alone, an unpleasant discovery), but still refreshing.
The next morning Monty and I hit the trail at 8am. We saw no one else for the whole hike. Monty usually forged ahead and broke trail if not the spiderwebs that criss-crossed the path and then my face. The trail begins in the valley floor and it was a shaded and brisk hike until we ascended the valley slopes into the sun. Upon hitting an area of full sun we took a break to soak in the heat. Near the trail’s end is a beautiful rock outcrop with a view eastward over the valley and it’s beech-maple landscape. I underestimated my hiking speed and was off the trail by shortly after 10am. It was too nice and early on a free day to rush back home, so I spent some more time truck-side reading, eating lunch, and relaxing in more sun. Monty chose the shade below the truck for a post-hike nap.
It was only one night. A short trip, but worth more far more than its length indicates.
I brought along my Canon S95 (even with newer models released by technology’s juggernaut progress is still a fantastic pocket camera) and took photographs. Incidentally, if you don’t have a Pedco Ultrapod you should look into one. It’s a great little tripod for a camera the size of the S95. It works not only as a stable tabletop tripod, but can also be strapped to things such as posts, sticks, and hiking poles which made the self-portraits below possible.
A Girl and Her Pup Book Update
I wanted to give a short update on the progress of the A Girl and Her Pup book. I haven’t broken any speed records on producing it, but the GaHP book is nearing completion. I’ve tried to make something different than just the same images from the website in a different medium. I hope it will be successful. Rough layout work is nearly done and I am now in the process of determining my best option of printing and distributing to those of you interested in owning the book.
When the book is finished and ready for order I’ll put out an announcement. Until then, here a few newer images of the girl young lady and her pup dog.
Back to School
Summer seemed to pass in a mix of heat and hecticness until now, somewhat surprisingly, we are seeing the beginning signs of autumn and the kids are back to school. It’s early yet and all of us are still getting used to the school routine again: shaking begrudging kids out of bed early morning, deciding on the contents of packed lunches, homework, and “school” bedtimes (quite controversial still so near summer’s end).
And the wheel keeps on turning…and my wife and I find ourselves with a preschooler, 2nd grader, and a 3rd grader.
A Girl and Her Pup Transformed
Well, my A Girl and Her Pup series is winding down and has only 2 images left before it ends. Which, for me, means its time to start considering the book I’d like put together from the images. Essentially, it will be a photo book, yet I’d still like to make it “different”. To put my own mark on it.
I’ve begun the process of laying the book out. It’s an odd compilation of monochrome and color images. I’ve been mixing and matching, marking and remarking images trying to get a good flow. I considered ordering them strictly chronologically, but that was an absolute hodgepodge of color and monochrome. Instead I’ve decided to keep a loose chronological order and give myself some layout freedom.
The content laid out
Honestly I’ve been surprised by the response to this series that I began on a whim but which organically took on a life of its own. Maybe I’m too close. The images feel so personal so the response I’ve received was unexpected. If any of you would be interested in having the opportunity to own a book of the GaHP project please let me know and I’ll consider my options for an easy method for that to work.
I’m only in the beginning stages, but really looking forward to seeing the series larger and in print. More, I’m looking forward to pulling this book off the shelf in 5…10…15 years and sharing the images with my daughter as she grows.
Oh, yes. I can already foresee how useful this book will be for my mental state in her teenage years.
The Lucky One
Father’s Day
As a stay at home dad with a wife who travels too much many days seem endless, moments of laughter with my children seem to be outnumbered by those of yelling, individual time with any child is a near impossibility. To be honest it’s depressing at times. I worry about what their memories of childhood and of me will be as they grow.
In truth though, I’m the lucky one. The parent that gets to see all the little moments that I forget to tell my wife about later on the phone because they were so fleeting and small, but together they paint a picture my child. Of their learning, their growth, hints of who they will become. I’m the parent that gets to sooth the tears, cover the scrapes, laugh at the silliness, hug the fears away. My wife would kill to be me.
As for the memories my children have of their childhood, I see it as part of my responsibility to document moments of it. I’ve invested a lot of time and money to learn and practice what is still essentially my hobby of photography. I hope to give my children a metaphorical box of prints like the one my Mom gave my brothers and sisters and I. The large box of 3x5s and 4x6s photographs that my brothers and sisters and I would sit with at the table laughing and goading each other. For my children it’s more likely to be photo books and videos, but to the same effect I hope.
I try to have a camera of some sort at all times if for no other reason than to try and document those little, fleeting moments I mentioned above. Last week we went on a family vacation and my children were able to spend time playing and goofing with their cousins. Unfortunately, my wife was traveling for work and was forced to miss the trip.
As I sit here typing this my daughter just gave me this poem:
“Walk a little slower, Daddy”
Said a little child so small.
“I’m following in your footsteps, and I don’t want to fall.
Sometimes your steps are very fast,
Sometimes they’re hard to see;
So walk a little slower, Daddy
For you are leading me.
Someday when I’m all grown up,
You’re what I want to be;
Then I will have a little child
Who’ll want to follow me.
Damn. I’m the lucky one.
No thanks!
Goofing
It’s Back!
Occassionly we stumble into something that at first seems daunting, but develops into something wonderful. When I was invited to join the Rear Curtain staff I accepted gratefully because I believed in the concept it stood for. I believed that there were stories by unknown photographers that deserved to be shared with a wider audience, that given an outlet photographers would be inspired to document the stories around them, and that a collection of quality photographic stories could be a source of education about how to produce visual stories.
A little over 6 months ago we published Rear Curtain Magazine Issue 1 to compliment our website and were overwhelmed with the positive support and comments. I’m proud to say that we’ve now released Issue 2 of Rear Curtain Magazine. We are very excited to share the work of the photographers included in this issue.
Guillem Lopez’s The Luthier sets the stage with some beautifully lit and detailed images of a true craftsman at work. Guillem was also kind enough to answer some questions on his thoughts and methods for producing a photographic story. Eric Kruszewski brings us inside the world of rodeos with a story composed of black and white images and stunning compositions. Deborah Howard shares with us her search for the perfect pot in the Chinese village of Chen Lu. Magdalena Solé responds to some questions on her book New Delta Rising as well as on the importance of her connection with the people she photographs. Radek Kozak invites us into the simple moments with his family that help him to recharge and reconnect with himself. Rad Deverala uses stark imagery to bring us with him into the world of cockfighting. And Mark Krajnak has another installment from his noir world.
Geez. What can I say? We packed this issue with some solid photography and narratives. Please take some time and follow some of the links I provided for each photographer above. They have some amazing work that they share on their websites and blogs. Futhermore, they would love to hear from you on what you think of their stories we published in Rear Curtain Issue 2.
Please consider purchasing Rear Curtain Magazine. We essentially just cover costs on this endeavor and the profit from the magazine is rolled back into website costs, magazine production, and into some other surprises we are stewing and will announce in the near future1. It’s hard work and done in our free time (in a quite literal monetary sense here). We continue it for the joy we get in sharing such stories and in the responses we hear from our readers both critical and congratulatory. My thanks to the amazing team I work with at Rear Curtain, but I’ll leave the curtain call to Sabrina.
Rear Curtain Issue 2 can be purchased via MagCloud as both a PDF download or as print magazine (with a free PDF download). Trust me, get the print version. The images look beautiful and, really, don’t we all hold images in print too little these days? Better yet, submit some stories to us HERE. Don’t over think it. You are surrounded by stories to share.
Rear Curtain: Rear Curtain Issue 2
The second issue of Rear Curtain magazine continues our mission to find and promote photographic stories and essays from around the world. From a Spanish luthier to the rodeos of the American West; from the Mississippi Delta to cockfighting in the Philippines, this issue showcases the human story…
-
yes this is foreshadowing. ↩
My Assistant
Sometimes we get to slow down and enjoy the little moments we share.
My little baker kneading our soft pretzel dough.
Self-Sabotaged
I thought it was time to quiet the crickets and turn the lights back on here. Life has a way of sucking you into a vacuum and, unfortunately, this site was a casualty. As a general rule bloggers are told not to blog if they have nothing to say. Well, I’ve been mute.
Spring sports have begun for the kids –to a somewhat hesitant beginning– and our days are full and hectic as we cycle from school, to homework, to dinner, to multiple sports, to showers, to bed. I also fell into a period of gear lust (a periodic trap for me) and daydreaming. Months ago I ordered a FujiFilm X-Pro1. From the moment I hit “Pay” on Adorama’s website I began to dream of the images I would make with a new camera that was so 
light-weight and “revolutionary”. Those daydreams effected my use of my D700 that I actually *did* own, or, I should say, my *disuse* of my D700. Suddenly I found myself not taking photographs as I waited for the X-Pro to arrive.
If gear lust wasn’t enough of a distraction, I also began to plan a road trip out West to see friends in Montana and tie-in a stop at [ART](http://rlketcham.com/?p=1376). My wife and I had spent 2 years living in Montana and I’ve always missed the mountains. This was my chance to relive old times. You know the kind of trip I mean: an epic American road adventure. A Kerouac/Steinbeck saga, just me, my dog, my camera, and my truck loaded with camping gear. A story at every stop, a load of memory cards to fill with images of Americana.
A delusion.
It didn’t take me long (well is a over a month long?) to realize that at current gas prices, in a truck that averages 14 mpg, the trip West would empty 
our bank account of around $2000 and that wasn’t taking into account the ART costs of the trip. That was a selfishly large amount of money to spend on trip only for myself at the expense of my family and a possible trip with the kids somewhere. As my road-trip dream crumbled I realized that I had found another way to ignore my photography and the pictures I *could* take as I plotted and imagined the pictures I *would* take.
Why do I sabotage myself like this? I really don’t know. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time lately trying to decipher what the role of photography is in my life. The answers and questions from which I’ll save for a future post. My trip West is still happening, but it has shrunk to include simply a trip to ART, on a plane, minus a dog. Still exciting and something I’m looking forward to, but the dregs and vapors of my fantasy are still drifting off leaving a sense of despondency and monotony in life.
I did receive the X-Pro around a month ago. The internet is flooded with reviews on the X-Pro, so I won’t take that route. I will say that I am really enjoying the camera: it’s 35mm lens is amazingly sharp for the price, the form factor is refreshing and exciting for a fella with a D700 and no experience with a rangefinder sized camera, the autofocus has not hindered me as much as I feared from other user reviews.
Here are some images from a hike the other day taken with the X-Pro.
The panorama feature –not something that would normally interest me– is fun and accurate.
Simplicity
Another foggy morning today. I love photographing in fog. There is something about the atmosphere fog lends to an image. A simplicity and starkness. The appearance of things being wiped clean; erased for a new beginning.
Unfortunately, I was viewing the fog from inside most of the morning, but was eventually able to get out and catch the last pockets before they burnt away for the day.
In the time we have
This morning was a beautiful wintry one. A light snow had fallen overnight and was clinging to the trees, a fog had moved in, and there was a wonderful incandescent blue to everything. Muted whiteness. Some of my favorite picture making conditions. I was lamenting that I was housebound getting the kids ready for school.
Driving a few hours later with my daughter I passed the scene below. Put simply it struck me as a beautiful scene that I shouldn’t pass by without taking a picture. I turned around, stopped on the street, got out, stood by the hood, took a 3 photos (two of which I put together into the panorama below), got back in the truck, and drove on to Storytime class.
The picture doesn’t really contain the beauty of the moment, but I gave it a try. It’d be nice if we always had time to scout locations, compose a shot and move around to recompose, wait for the light or right moment, set up the tripod, etc., but we don’t always have time for those choices. I too discovered what Mark Krajnak recently shared: we practice our photography in the moments we experience and in the time we have.
Click for a brighter look
Surplus monochromes
I was cleaning out my iPhone’s photo gallery and came across these images that I had taken and never put to any use. It’s honestly hard to imagine not having an iPhone now that I’ve grown accustomed to it – Apple’s witchery I suppose. For me there is no better notebook and sketchpad I could carry around.
Incidentally, I converted all the images to monochrome using Nik Software’s [Snapseed](http://www.snapseed.com) which has been my iPhone photo app of choice for a while. It took me some time to get accustomed to the app, and it’s not the fastest for editing, but it’s a powerful and versatile photo processor.
So ends 2011: a review of this past year’s goals
The year is drawing to a close, which means – unless I accomplish an awful lot in the next few weeks – that I have not fully met all of my goals of 2011. In truth, many things have remained the same since my mid-point update. The silver lining is that, as usually happens in life, many things I hadn’t planned on or expected occurred to me this year that I am both grateful for and excited about.
First, lets review my success rate of meeting my intended goals laid out at year’s start. Actually, let’s look from the mid-point review.
Get Out More with the Camera
I still do not feel that I have met this goal very well. Here’s the thing, I have several reasons, excuses, and explanations as to why, but none will be original or unheard before. Naturally, a lack of time is the largest limiting factor, but also the most inexcusable reason: It comes down to making the time. More at the heart of it is that I lack a purpose for getting out. I have reached a point (reasonable or unreasonable) that if I don’t have a project or purpose behind shooting, I lack motivation. If I don’t have an outlet for my work besides web-posting or a topic for a blog post, I don’t see a reason for the photos.
Well, that may be a little too rigid. I still enjoy playing with the camera, toying around with flash modifiers, attempting to produce imagined results, but I also find myself wondering, for example, why I should go produce landscape images when so many others produce far better ones; why take the time trying to catch a macro of that flying bee when so many better insect macros are produced? What will I do with those images if I did go out and produce them? I’m not arguing that my reasoning is sound, but that is how my thought processs is running of late.
Meet-ups and Collaborations
Since mid-summer (6-month point of my yearly goals) I haven’t had the opportunity to meet-up anymore with fellow photographers. That’s a disappointment as I really enjoy the fellowship and exchanges that I have when with other photographers.
No collaborative projects in which I produced any work really came to fruition for me in 2011. There was some talk of joint projects with other photographers, but nothing developed. I do however count my involvement in Rear Curtain as a collaborative project. My interactions with other photographers and their work via Rear Curtain has been a fantastic and inspirational learning experience. It has exposed me to people and work – most importantly the development of that work – that I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.
Publish More
Exciting news here! I am now a print-published photographer. My story Disconnect was published in Rear Curtain Issue 1. There really is nothing like seeing your work in print, holding it in your hands, flicking through the pages with your thumb. Full disclosure: I am Associate Editor for Rear Curtain. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there was a part of me that suspected my position with RC may have helped push my story into print. The suspicion was based more on my insecurity than fact: in actuality, favoritism is not something practiced with the RC staff.
My insecurities have been alleviated, however. I have been both humbled and encouraged by the response to Disconnect. I have received compliments and notes from photographers I greatly respect and from photographers I never imagined would notice my work which have given me confidence that Disconnect is a strong photo-essay and that it belongs with the other work we publish on RC. Thanks to all of you.
While Disconnect’s publication was very exciting for me, I’ve also been publishing more work on the web. The problem I began to run into was that I was spreading myself across far too many sites and outlets, an easily accomplished thing in today’s over-saturated social media and photo-sharing environment. For various reasons I have not been interested in photo-sharing sites such as Flickr or 500px for some time now. I do find myself sharing pictures via Twitter for amusement. I also have this blog on which I share images and thoughts. What’s new though? In the past 6 months I have begun 2 Tumblr sites. One, that I post random musings and images, is HERE. Nothing earth-shattering there, but fun.
I have also begun a series about my youngest daughter and our dog, inventively titled A Girl and Her Pup HERE. This has functioned well as a creative outlet for me and has been helpful in keeping my creativity and imagination active. Several people have let me know how much they are enjoying the series. Thank you.
Play with Lighting More
I am still using and learning light at about the same level as 6 months ago, which is to say using it occasionally; mostly playing and practicing. I have not felt completely comfortable enough with lighting to use it in portrait work yet, although I have set up a shoot through umbrella to just blast a room and lighten the scene up. I do play with some modifiers and settings much more when shooting family. The key here is to find a sense of competence and confidence to use light as a modifier for paid work without thinking I’m looking incompetent, while still keeping a feeling of fun and experimentation that clients will respect.
All in all, I still see the power that light can play in setting a mood in an image and also in helping me reach my concepts for images more, I just need to use it and integrate it more until some of the knowledge becomes instinctual.
Attend a Workshop
Not much new in the last 6 months that I can add here. Since ART 2011 I have not attended any other workshops. The cost of many workshops is certainly prohibitive for me at this point, but more so it is the topics and what is offered at many workshops that doesn’t appeal to me for the price. As I said in my mid-point review, I still believe a course in processing or web-development would serve me best. That said, I would like to make it to ART 2012 because of it’s reasonable price, the people I met at the ART 2011, and the content that builds upon ART 2011’s workshop topics.
Portraiture Work
Ok, this is really where I’d hoped to excel and build a good foundation over the past year. I don’t feel that I’ve done that. I did have several jobs this past year, but since early fall work has stopped. I could blame this on the economy, people spending on holiday’s instead, or other factors, and those are partly at fault I’m sure. But I’m aware that I am to blame too. I should have prepared a set of holiday packages (christmas card sessions), or discounted my price over this season. I realize that I need to promote my business more, to incentivize my past clients to return to me and also to refer my business to others. Overall, I need a lot of work here; a whole rework of how I’ve been doing things.
Wrap-up
So there it is. Twelve months later and I’ve laid out my accomplishments, and, I suppose, my failures. I wish I could say I feel satisfied with my progress, but, overall, I feel like I have been stuck in a rut. I have a bunch of excuses, crutches, and reasoning that I could plead, but none would be original or really acceptable. Many of them derive from fear, uncertainty, and timidness. Lots to review and rework as I ring in 2012.
Happy Holidays to you all. Thanks for all the support, interest, and inspiration you’ve given me in 2011.
More on working a location
This short post relates to my [previous](http://www.mconnorsphotos.com/blog/working-a-location/) on working a location until you have an image you are happy with. Conversely, I suppose you could think of it as working an image concept until you’re satisfied (if ever) with a finished image. That is how I see this image below.
I was rummaging through some archives and came upon this image from last winter. I actually have mention of this same image in my notebook because I wasn’t happy with the results. I was aiming for a feeling of warmth. A feeling of being a child, having played outside in the cold all day and making your way home knowing that inside are you parents, hot chocolate, and a warm blanket.
I think I have brushed upon my intentions, but I want to redo a similar photo to try bring the kids and sled out more. When I took this nearly a year ago, I had just begun to play with off-camera flash. I was fumbling with settings and begging the kids to hold the pose; pleading with them to shiver just a little while longer while I tweaked this or that. I am by no means expert with flash a year later, but I have become more familiar with lighting that I should give this a go again. Provided I can talk the kids into it.
Are there any image concepts that you plan or want to give a to-over? Or are some of you more the take it, learn from it, and move on type?
Take back Christmas
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I’ve been reading and hearing a lot of negativity about Christmas on Twitter, blogs, the news, and radio. It appears that Christmas is taking a verbal smackdown. I realize that the backlash is directed at the commercial sector’s abuse of Christmas rather than the season itself. Indeed, Christmas has been tainted by the commercialization. In all likelihood I would be one of the voices deriding the season if not for one thing: my kids.
My kids’ innocence, excitement, and seasonal cheer is infectious. Their chicken-scratch lists of wanted gifts, the magazines filled with circled items, their excitement at seeing Santa, the laugh-filled tree decorating, their addiction to candy canes, their joy at seeing family more frequently than usual, the X’ed off calendar days counting down to the 24th, all bring a freshness and anticipation to Christmas in
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our house.
It’s important not to let the commercial infection of Christmas deflect the excitement we should feel at this time of year whatever our beliefs and religious base. Granted, as parents we walk a fine line between balancing the omnipresent commercial aspects while working to instill the true meaning of Christmas as we see it (raised Catholic but no longer actively practicing). We don’t want to take away the excitement of gift-wrapped boxes and new toys, but my wife and I reiterate the messages of giving, family, and love during this season.
Certainly things have changed from when I was young. I was ecstatic to get GI Joe figures or a Star Wars ship. Now my kids are asking for laptops and iPods. My 3 year old keeps asking Santa for a Nintendo DS and she can’t even spell it. We are inundated and targeted earlier and earlier in the season with the advertisements and commercial pressures that accompany Christmas, but that doesn’t have to be the focus for us or children.
We’ll enjoy this season through the eyes of our children. Much of parenting is like walking a tightrope the trick is not to get so hung-up on the dangers that you miss the beautiful view.
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Road Trip (part 1)
I made a solo trip down to see some friends in Asheville, North Carolina last week. I planned the trip with two stages: 1. Relax in Asheville, hit the microbreweries and restaurants, and catch up with my friends. 2. Some solo time in the mountains along the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) at the peak of the Autumn color. And so it went.
The first night was filled with microbrews and food. The next day we worked those off with a 6-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail out of Craven’s Gap, Tennessee. My last day[1], I spent 6½ hours leisurely driving north along the BRP, stopping at vistas and doing short hikes before setting up camp for an evening of reading and writing in the tent as strong rains rolled in.
I didn’t take as many pictures as I had imagined or planned on. Partly because I was simply soaking a lot of the visuals in and didn’t want to put pressure on myself to produce images; I just wanted to relax and get away. There was another reason though that almost anyone that has photographed sweeping vistas and areas of vast beauty will understand: such landscapes simply can’t be translated into a picture. When I looked through my images back home, they gave the appearance I had traveled to two different regions entirely.
The hike along the AT traversed a series of mountain balds and then dropped down into the treeline. The winds were very strong out on the balds and fog was sweeping across the trail giving the landscape an ethereal and isolated feel. It was beautiful.
The following day was mostly sunny despite weather reports predicting rain. I left Ashville and started North on the BRP. I pulled off at the usual touristy overlooks, but made purposeful stops at areas with short 2–4 mile hikes to get away from the crowds and with hopes of taking pictures that weren’t already on every other camera card in the area. The day was beautiful and the colors were blaring from the hillsides.
Below are some images from the hike along the AT. I gave them a contrasty desaturated look because that is exactly how things appeared to me at the time. As I edited, I mulled over the practice of post processing. There is certainly a school of photography peopled by those that think any alterations to an image in post is fraudulent. I’m not one of them. For me, post processing is another tool (like a camera and lighting) to be used to help convey a photographer’s intent or purpose in an image. Overall, in my images I attempt to communicate what I felt when they were taken. Often times that includes adding some mood or atmosphere to the image in post. When the line is crossed in post processing where truth in photography becomes fabrication is highly subjective and variable based on subject and topic[2], but I do try to keep my post edits focused on the intent I had at the time the image was taken.
The trip was a boon to my psyche and great recharge. Hell, I might pick up an I ♡ Asheville bumper sticker to keep the feeling alive.
Photos of the Autumn color along the BRP I’ll share in another post.
- I had originally intended to stay camping on the Blue Ridge Parkway for 2 days, but was rained out after 1 day. ↩
- Photography is an art. There shouldn’t be boundaries placed on anyone’s art, but I do believe that as photographers we should be honest and forthcoming with any significant changes we make to images. ↩
I’m a Photographer
Not long ago I was asked why I photograph[1]. Why do I spend the time and effort? It was a question that I found difficult to answer which intimidated me with its implications. Shouldn’t I have figured that out by now? My initial reaction and answer seemed overly simplistic: I simply enjoyed photography. It seemed to me that there should be a deeper, more holistic reason. I’ve reflected on that gut response to the question over the past few months, and I’ve realized that simply finding enjoyment, an artistic release, is enough of a reason – even more, it’s a good reason.
Honestly, I’m not a photographer that is driven to photograph; that constantly sees the world through the lens; that is mentally agonized when not photographing. I know some photographers like that and have certainly read about the greats that were. Joao Silva recently spoke of the moments immediately following the mine blast that severely injured him. One of his immediate reactions as he was bleeding out and being worked on by medics was to pick up his camera and photograph. Suffice it to say, I find it hard to imagine that would be my first instinct in a similar situation.
There was a period in my photography that I felt guilty about that lack of commitment, as if I were only posing as a photographer. In this past year I’ve matured a lot as a photographer though. Nowadays, I care less about what I should be photographing, about who my audience is, about finding my voice [2], and so forth, and more about enjoying myself and learning from my photography. I get some income from portrait photography so I can’t completely ignore my audience or run my business unplanned, but I can stay true to the type and style of portrait photography that I enjoy.
This past weekend I took some photos for my niece’s 6-month pictures.
Seeing the images, viewing them with my sister and listening to her reactions, clarified and in a way defined, why I love photography. Yes, I photograph because I enjoy it, but I also enjoy the power of photographs. I gave my sister memories. A shared moment. A memento of her daughter that in 20 years will bring up both tears and laughter. For me my photography is about sharing. I want to tell and share stories, moments, and feelings in my photographs. Conversely, I don’t want to miss being a participant in some moments or stories because I was hiding behind the camera. That is a balance I am learning: sometimes I plan on bringing the camera and photographing, but other times I’ve learned to leave the camera behind and fully experience the moment.
I may never be a Silva or Leibovitz, someone that naturally and instinctively views life through their camera. I’m ok with that, but I’m still passionate. I love to create. I like to see and hear the joy people get when I’ve captured the personality of their child in a photograph. I like to hear the understanding when I’ve captured the essence of something that other’s have experienced in their lives. I like to know that I’ve passed on knowledge of a people or place through my photographs. I want to share.
I photograph because I’m a photographer.
Why do you do photograph?
A Plug
I’ve been remiss lately in plugging a project close to my heart: Rear Curtain, the online[1] magazine dedicated to sharing photographic storytelling. Ray developed Rear Curtain’s mission and launched the website earlier this year. He invited Sabrina and I along for the ride, and what a ride. We are very happy with the progress and attention the site has been garnering. More importantly, we are extremely excited by the quality of stories we have received.
Visual storytelling has become the new black[2]. More and more often I am seeing photographer’s describe themselves as “storytellers†on their About pages and in their website descriptions. I think that’s a fantastic development. With more people owning cameras in the digital age and the availability and ease of sharing photos on the internet, there has been a period in which a lot of pictures being produced were more snapshots than substance. That people are seeking more from photography and in their photographs is a great thing. I’m proud to be involved with Rear Curtain and our attempt to promote that concept.
Please have a look at the stories on Rear Curtain. Leave a comment on a story that resonates with you or one that you simply enjoy. The photographer’s put a lot of hard work into their stories and I know they’d like to hear your thoughts.
Interested in honing your visual-storytelling skills? Rear Curtain has articles on recognizing, developing, and conveying stories in your photography. Daniel Milnor (aka. Smogranch) recently had some solid advice on improving storytelling skills on his blog HERE.
Have a story to share? Submit it to Rear Curtain for consideration, we’d love to see it. And, finally, keep an eye on Rear Curtain, we have a lot on deck in the next few months.
- eventually a quarterly print magazine also. ↩
- funny, because it’s always been one of the primary purposes of photography: to capture a moment or event and share that story. What many consider visual storytelling today it seems, is the photo-essay as a series of images in it’s various multimedia forms. ↩
Me and A.R.T
Over a month has passed since my trip to Port Townsend, WA for the Artist Round Table (ART) and I find myself on a plane again as I write this. The flight is making the experience at ART feel fresh in a way. Honestly, I’ve been stalling on writing a post about ART. Partly to process what was covered there, but also because it was a very personal experience that is hard to describe in writing. Like one of those “you had to be there†conversations.
ART was my first photographic workshop, though it wasn’t technically a “workshop†in the sense that the term has come to mean for photographers. There were 5 of us attending ART and then Ray and Sabrina who organized the event. We represented a mix of interests, skills, and desires. ART was designed to be an extended conversation on creativity and on finding one’s voice in their photography. On the first point it was extremely successful; there were long, varied, and diverse conversations throughout the weekend, both in and out of “sessions†and between the group and amongst individuals. On the second point, of finding our individual voices, ART held exciting revelations for some (HERE) and revealed some important incites (HERE) (HERE) for other’s.
But this is my blog. What did I take away from ART? To pin one word to the weekend: community. I absolutely loved the feeling of being around creatives! I thrived on it and could feel my own creativity sparked. ART had two guest speakers Wes Cecil and David Noble neither of whom are focused on photography. Wes in an author and teacher and David, well, David is many things: author, Bhutto dancer, painter, photographer. Wes told a story of sitting in a coffee shop while working on translating a story from German into English. He had no rights to publish the translation and wasn’t being paid. Another customer learned this and asked Wes a simple question on the face of it, but one that is far more detailed when given thought. The question Wes was asked about his unfinanced and unauthorized work was, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?â€
Wes challenged us at ART with this same question: didn’t we have anything better to do with our time than taking photographs? Essentially, why do we do it? The question gave all of us pause. I think every photographer should answer that question, what is it about photographing and photography that you love. Why do you make the time to do it?
That was only one of the moments at ART that focused on examining our craft at deeper levels. David Noble performed a Bhutto dance and challenged us to determine how the dance made us feel and to capture that feeling in one frame, one image. It was a lesson in attempting to distill our feelings and emotions down and to portray them in our work.
I should disclose that I had to leave ART early and missed much. Too much. There were image reviews in which Ray and the rest of the group broke down a few images by each attendee and discussed it’s attributes and weaknesses. I was disappointed to miss the review because I find honest critique and evaluation of my work a great learning tool and a means of discovering how successfully the intended messages in my work are being conveyed to an audience. While they weren’t the focus or purpose of ART, we did have some photowalks and some beautiful pictures were produced and friendships were nurtured. Follow this link to see some of the images that were produced at ART.
If you are looking for a workshop focused on camera how-to’s, photowalks, and passively listening to a speaker, then ART isn’t what you want. If you are ready to examine your craft and work at more detailed levels and attempt to reveal and discover your voice (what in your images is unique to you as an individual) than watch for the second installment of ART in 2012. My experience was a fantastic one of revelations, enlightenment, and, fantastically, community and friendship.
Stuck
My creativity and desire have been in the crapper lately, to put it bluntly. It’s strange because Spring is typically a time when the warmth,
color, and general feeling of newness and life inspire me photographically; not so of late. I realize this isn’t a problem unique to me alone. I have been told that it’s a normal part of the creative process. Yet, none of these reassurances makes the void easier or less discouraging. In fact, the nothingness has universally seeped into and flooded my photographic interests in general.
I have photography books piled on shelves with spines uncreased; I have a notebook of lame ideas and half-hearted attempts at ingenuity; I have film rolls expiring; I scroll through Twitter and the web rarely clicking on hyperlinks; my recent conversations with other photographers depressingly seem to be focusing more on gear and hypothetical money-spending and less on creative content; I have kids that are growing too quickly and believe I should be documenting every moment.
But I feel tired.
I’m tired of the web and social media with it’s circuitous debates and repetitive advice on photography. I’m tired of the struggle to differentiate myself from the horde. I’m tired of feeling guilty that my camera sits unused, that my desire has weakened. But above all, I’m tired of being tired. Woe is me, huh? I’m not the only photographer struggling with these things, nor am I sharing this for sympathy, if nothing else, I selfishly hope that perhaps writing this down will break through my block.
When given a purpose to photograph, things go well. Last week, I photographed my newborn niece for her birth announcements. It was a fun and photographically successful shoot (HERE), but it hasn’t broken the block. Portrait-session work is good. I love working with kids and hope to make it a steady income source, but portrait work doesn’t seem to satisfy my need to create; to develop and construct a story. I don’t seem to invest my creativity as much in portraiture as I do in photoessays I’ve worked on and, perhaps, that’s an incorrect attitude and something that should give me pause. There is something so immensely satisfying for me in creating a story in my mind, or learning about another’s story and trying to share and convey those stories through images. That’s the root of my struggle now: simply that, currently, I have no stories; no inspiration. I want to find them, create them, but it feels like everything is redundant or stolen, weak or disconnected. I can feel the desire to create, to photograph, inside me, but can’t find a means or a subject to release it. The well feels dry as the saying goes.
The silver lining? I have been in creative slumps before, so I do know that inspiration and excitement will return. I am eager for the start of some projects on the near horizon that will get me involved in new aspects of photography while also challenging my own photography. The pictures accompanying this post were developed as a mini-story of sorts meant to express my despair, or, more generally and presumptuously, the despair of any photographer during a creative block. In the end I’m sharing this post not to offer advice or provide miraculous answers for creative slumps, but more as an effort to empathize with others and as a self-indulgent, superstitious remedy that sharing it might help me work through it.
By the way, I do see the irony in the fact that devising the pictures for a post on creative lulls actually forced me to pick up the camera and dust off my own creativity and making them was FUN and my be the push I needed. Since I began writing this post a couple days ago and then made the pictures, I can feel the drive returning. Until then I will continue to bounce ideas of my mentor and other photographers, fill my notebook, and seek stories.
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After the Picture
I have a newborn niece getting a lot of camera-time right now. It occurred to me recently that hundreds of people are often taking pictures of the same subjects and objects that I am. What sets mine apart? I’ve preached on the insignificance of gear over skill and intent, but admit there is increased quality between different lens and camera bodies that can carry over into pictures. So, let’s say that better gear can be a factor in better pictures. Experience and a creative eye certainly play a large part, but with the availability of  information in blogs and books on photography many camera owners are quite savvy about photographic fundamentals and are taking pictures from interesting perspectives and with sound compositions.  What has struck me of late is the value of skilled post processing (PP) and it’s ability to carry the message and feel of an image.  I’m not speaking about the transparent attempts at using post processing as an unsuck-filter to save pictures lacking quality to begin with, but of PP’s power to transform an image from interesting and competent to eye-catching and informative; to carry the intent of the photographer.
The example below might exemplify my point a bit. The original picture was good: cute and well composed, but the processed image conveys the softness and innocence that I felt looking at my niece at the time. The work on this was relatively minor: some cloning, monochrome conversion, devignette-ing, a Gaussian blur and selective removal, and some slight skin softening. At other times I’ve used a heavier hand and extracted parts of an image or cloned more liberally, all for the clarity of my message in the image. Experience in PP and its use to improve the content of an image is, in my opinion, a separating factor between the basic photographer with a camera and the serious photographer with skill and experience.  I’m sure this isn’t a trade secret, but it seems rarely mentioned. Post processing almost appears to have a stigma attached to it from some corners; as if it’s a cheater’s trick or that the soul of photography is insulted through PP. Some of this is due to poor use and monotonous overuse of some processing. I’ve been guilty of poor use myself, but when done correctly, I think PP is vital to the final image and can set my pictures apart from the myriad of similar ones.
To be clear, in no way can PP overcome a poorly composed or uninteresting picture. The basics of composition have to be there for any PP to take the image to the next level.  This is when experience with processing software is of importance. I’ll often run a picture through a few different looks until I get the feel that I intend. Other times, I have the look and processing needed for an image pre-planned during my shoot; such was the case in the image above.  A lot of my processing isn’t as extreme as the example of above and typically includes just some sharpening, vignetting, color correction and minor tweaks; but if the image will gain from a heavier editing hand I go for it.
An overlooked aspect of PP experience (at least by me initially) is that a photographer’s time and money invested into software should be a factor rolled into their pricing structure for clients. Most jobs have a pay-scale based on schooling and job experience, why shouldn’t photography? A client might have little interest in the process that led to the final image, but it is up to us as photographers to present an image that meets a client’s needs and this often involves at least minor PP work.
This can be a scary concept for some because it implies that anyone who takes the time can become skilled in processing software and produce similar images―that is, become competition. Primarily that’s true, but such thinking can quickly get converge with the doomsday laments and cries of those complaining of a flooded market and the devaluation of photography. I’ve had my fill of such thinking and reading and have no interest in rehashing it this post. No, a successful image is a recipe of sorts composed of several factors, not just good processing, and it’s up to us as photographers to market and improve ourselves to stand out from others.
What are your thoughts and practices on post processing? Are you a purist who leaves your images mostly untouched or someone who adapts their processing as the intent of the image dictates?
