Field notes and late night rambing

I'm not Gary Larson, or "How big of a pigeon do you think I am?"

I'm in the process of putting together some new folios for the spring marketing push and as chance has it there has been some interesting talk lately about promotion on the interwebs. I was reading how one photog mentioned that he annually spends enough promoting himself to buy "a nice German luxury car". Zounds! I think to myself, "Self! If you had $50,000 to spend every year just to let people know that you exist and do good work I'd think that you already have loads of people who are paying you good money to do what you do." I mean I'm talking about photographers here not companies with production lines and distribution networks and dozens of people on the payroll. The big car companies spend 3-5% of their annual budget on advertising and it's thought that 10% is a big amount for marketing your biz. So even if this guy and his buddies are spending 10% to keep their rep going they are still billing a half million dollars a year. Excuse me buy my head is swimming here. (Deep breath!)

So the whole idea is to reach out to potential new clients to let them know that 1) you exist and that 2) your work is good and 3) they should hire you because you are better and more interesting than the guy that they currently use. Something like that. Also to keep you freshly in the mind of the folks who already adore you. That's important too ya know!

But that is where things get funky. The people who hire photographers seem to have a funny way of seeing us creative types. They want to hire the guy who does that thing. Ok, cool. But if said guy decides that "that thing" is now kinda boring and starts changing up his style it can freak out the guys who hire him because he's not doing that thing anymore. Or the hiring guys get bored of "that thing" and stop hiring the guy who does it because, well we've seen it already! Can a brother get a break?

So this one shooter who mostly shoots lit location portraits gets the idea that it would be funny to shoot some farm animals in the same style as his people and does it as a lark for a promo piece. In one he shoots a cow and up to that point was the only cow he's ever photographed. Well low and behold that little post card gets him a job because to the art director at the ad agency he obviously knows his cows! (giggle)

He hires the same animal wrangler as the promo shoot and even uses the same cow for the big job. All goes well. Then the ad person moves to a different company and he sends a note to say something like "congrats on your move". He gets a reply that says "If I need any cows photographed while I'm at this agency I'll be sure to call you." Wha? Right. Check the guys folio, website and all his promo material and except for that one cow there are no animals to be found. He shot one cow twice and now he's pegged as The Cow Specialist. (Are you on dope?)

Right. A folio full of portraits of people and all he's know for at that agency is a guy who photographs cows.

They want specialists because it's easy to figure out. Need a cow shot? I know the dude to call! Need the guy who does that thing? I've got his number. Easy as eating pie. Or not. It's a bit of a catch 22: if you shoot cows, or any one kind of subject matter usually in a particular way, you can get work for doing that one thing but if you don't shoot that subject matter in a particular way you won't get that work even though you can shoot it and well. The blinders are on it seems.

But where does that leave guys like me who have to be able to shoot just about anything at any time? How do we fit into the ultra narrow vision of the people who hire us without becoming artistically leaden?

It all reminds me of this quote:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

-Robert A. Heinlein

That sums it up for me as I sit here writing, sipping one of my fine home brewed beers (a Belgian golden), having finished a nice dinner that I made for the wife and yes my gravy is that good, and am putting together a set of fashion images for the a few lifestyle magazines that I'm targeting. Tomorrow I'm shooting a video in the morning and then in the afternoon doing a portrait of a guy who in an inventor. If I can do all these things, and if you can too, why is that not an asset but instead a hindrance to getting a broader client base?

I think that it come down to risk. We as artists risk all the time. We risk emotionally with each piece of work we take on. We risk financially with every project we do because we believe in it. We risk creatively to push ourselves as artists. But the ones on the other side don't want to risk. They want a sure thing. If they hire the guy who does the thing they get exactly that and it's comforting. 

The only ones who don't seem to have this problem are the newspapers. They expect their photographers to be able to do anything they throw at them and at any time. If you are, say, a large format portrait photog who only works with available light you will never get work from the newspapers because you can't shoot sports, news, features, food/product or any of the other things that will come you way on any given day. But if you are a news guy and are therefor not a specialist you are locked out of work that you surely can do because you don't have a book that is essentially the same shot over and over. Gad!

So I will be stubbornly me. I will show what I do and what I can do and if they don't get it - fine. In that spirit I the guy who photographs people will submit another of my still life camera-phone-o-roids.

Freedom! (or cookies. That's good too.)

I was dreaming ...

about developing film the other evening. Really and no it wasn't because of eating too much spicy food. Ok I'll admit that in the dream I was developing it in a fish tank while the lights were on but hey - it's a dream so cut me some slack jack! Now from time to time I am shooting film and developing it but I haven't in a while. So this all got me thinking. What does it mean?

Well I've been reading some postings about how some non-news clients are finding film interesting again if only because it doesn't look like digital. I think that's cool but when you consider that most publications ditched their scanning person/department atleast 5 years ago when digital replaced film I'm wondering that if they are interested in me/you shooting film are they expecting me/you to have it scanned properly? I mean THEY don't have a scanner anymore, right? Do they expect us to have a $5,000 film scanner for the occational job where they let us shoot film or are they willing to wait while our only remaining pro lab in the area does it? Hmm ...

Anyhoo it made me just think about the simplicity/joy/anachronism of shooting film. Maybe just maybe our digital "gotta have it now!" mentality has a sliver of a chance of slowing down and allowing our photographic vision to not be based on turn around times. Still I'm glad that I never got rid of my film cameras and am still using them.

2010 - I’m so excited

Huh? Am I crazy? Nope my eyes are open and my heart is eager for the upcoming year.

Yes everything is in flux and moving too fast. Yes the economy is still faltering and markets are precarious. And I’m certainly aware that clients are tightening their already taught purse strings. I don’t care.

 

Why? Because we photographers, especially the ones who work on location, are used to adversity. Things never go “as planned” in our work so why should any of this really bother us? We always have to think on our feet, adapt, adjust and bring back the goods.

How is this current state of transition any different? If anything because of the newfound glory of all the digitally inspired niches and their various info pipelines we have more opportunities for work.

 

Ok some venues are just not doing what they used to and as such some kinds of photography are becoming “rarer than an honest politician” but that’s not that big a deal. There was never really a big market for gritty news and documentary work ever. Even during the 50-60’s with Look and Life battling it out that was only a tiny fraction of all the photographic work out there. Frankly I wonder where all the death and dying photo stories that get the big photo awards ever get published anyhoo!

 

My prediction is this: With all the venues for reaching potential customers now the power of compelling imagery is even more important to cut through the din. This will require a different way of pricing/licensing since your photos won’t be used in a specific given publication/advert space. The photos will be used essentially everywhere but for a very short period of time because in a blink everyone will have seen the image and the next time they see it it will loose its impact. Ads will have to be generated more quickly to keep up with saturation and as a result the photography will have to be new.

 

That’s the ad/marketing dude stuff. For the news dudes we are going to loose the vertical image because 99% of the venues for our work will become screens which are horizontal. Forget the cover shot as there aren’t covers anymore. Cool! We never liked verticals and cover shots, although lucrative, were a ton of work and never really any fun. Also just as with the advertising mess people are getting tired of sorting through all the information clutter and are wanting a focused source of news that is relevant and vetted. Newspapers/news magazines will mostly stop being printed and will be online but not the same as they were. But their need for serious content will be just like the old days if not more. With things happening so fast we need to be plugged in to the news stream more than ever. I mean who are you going to trust to give you the skinny on that mess in City Council, some dudes blog? Who is going to sort out this whole deal with the scandal with the Governor? A “citizen journalist” who by day works at the car dealership? The guys who run news organizations are going to realize that the simple puff pieces that they ran for the last decade don’t cut it anymore and they have to go back to doing hard news, investigative news to survive. Now from a classic news photographer’s perspective, how can that be bad?

 

I’m not a soothsayer by any means. I have no crystal ball but peering into my beer glass of wonder I’m still pretty certain that although things are making many of us feel rather sea sick, it’s going to be a fun although bumpy ride.

 

As for me I have 4 personal projects in the works, one quite long term, new energy and fresh ideas and a decidedly confident attitude about 2010. New work, new clients, new horizons.

 

Happy photo to go with the prior delusional rant: A quick snap from my phone. BTW this is an ice cream shop made to look like a milk jug. The thing is about 35 feet tall.

 

BTW, it cracks me up to think that my phone has more resolution, although not as good, as the Nikon D1 which changed everything for photographers a decade ago. The D1 made millions of film photographers cower in fear that the digital photography revolution was at their door while others embraced what it brought. My phone, my lovely Google G1, seems to represent the current digital fear - compact and instant information access and “The death of print”. With its 3G/WiFi connectivity with full web browsing and e-mail along with a digital camera and camcorder that allows me to shoot a photo/video, write a story to go with it and upload it all from a device that costs less than $200 and fits into my pocket. Our tools are pretty Sci-Fi so shouldn’t our mentality be too?

11 hours, 1755 frames but I got more than just soggy shoes

So my friend LuLu tells me that she and her long time sweetie Chris were finally getting married. Since their little mountain town throws a huge party on 4th of July they thought "why not join in?"  She is a chef and he is the drummer in the popular Phish tribute band Phix so you know that it was going to be a good time. How's the day going to start?, I ask. "Well", she says, "we are riding the fire truck in the parade and there's a kazoo marching band ..." AaaahG! I'm in! How can you pass THAT up? So I assigned myself to be their officially unofficial photographer.

Well the area has been getting monsoon weather lately and it didn't let us down - as in downpour. It rained and rained but luckily it stopped for the hour of the ceremony and some family pictures then it rained during the reception but then it cleared for the big fireworks display that this tiny town somehow finds the money every year to put on. Which is odd considering how many cities canceled their fireworks due to budgetary issues. Anyhoo it was a total hoot. This little town is nuts in the best mountain hippy way possible. Here's some of my faves:

During the parade, which is about 6 blocks long, there was this kid who made this hat from a cardboard box. Love it!

Except during the ceremony I pretty much shot everything with my Nikon D700 and Nikon AF-D 28mm f/1.4 wide open. I so love this lens.

 Like I said: it rained but that didn't stop them from dancing like the happy bunch that they are. I found the hard way that the weather seals on the D700 work really well. I was totally drenched shooting the dancers but the camera acted as if nothing happened. Whoo-Hoo!

There were dogs everywhere and not a clean one in sight.

This is the kind of shot that frankly you just couldn't get a few years ago. It's shot with my AF-D 28mm f/1.4 wide open at ISO 3200 at one and a third seconds; yes with a tripod. The files these days are so clean at what used to be insane levels of sensitivity that it's stunning. Combine that with long exposures that don't give hot pixels and an available darkness shooter like me is in heaven. This was done at EV-2 which is a stop below the lowest light level that Nikon says that the camera will autofocus at. By using the autofocus on the guys Nike shirt I was able to get a focus point in conditions where our eyes could never ever register as sharp. Man do I love this technology.

The red glow is the fire fighters setting off fire works while the moon shines through the evening fog. Kinda spooky huh?

Please don't yell at me but ...

I don't get it. Photography, and being an artist in general, is about trying to see beyond the obvious. We are to try and explore the external and internal world in an attempt to reveal some kind of truth and encourage the audience to engage in a dialog about our subject and point of view upon it. Right? Yet every few years there is a resurgence of portraits that seems to me to be taken by photographers who are using basically none of the tools of photography to make a compelling/story telling image about their subject. 

What I'm talking about is almost always a person usually standing directly in the middle of the frame with very little environment around them and almost nothing in the foreground. The person has their hands at their side or in a position where there is no kind of gesture. The subject has no expression - call it the "thousand yard stare" if you will so there is no emotive state other than possible boredom as they look into the lens. The scene is either lit with direct on camera flash or unflattering ambient light.

I call this the "Diane Arbus effect". I'm not blaming her but she is one of the originators of this kind of work. Since she's dead she won't be directly confronting me about it. But this kind of look which I've been seeing a lot of, again!, lately makes no sense to me.  There is no: 1) use of color/graphics, 2) dynamic composition, 3) dynamic lighting or 4) moment that makes the photo interesting. The image, which is printed in an established and visually respected publication, is just plain boring. Now Arbus did a whole body of work this way and I have never understood why she's famous - that's me just ranting btw. But all these people, professional photographers mind you, appear to be telling their subjects to "go stand over there and look like you wish you were somewhere else". The most boggling thing to me is that these images get published and the creators get more assignments to produce the same kind of work. Wha?

I think that there is a huge difference from producing a photographic likeness of a person and creating an evocative portrait. The kind of images that I'm picking on I find to be neither inspired nor inspiring. They just puzzle me. Meh!

So here of mine that I'm happy with: This is Sven Hadenas, part of my "Chef's that I dig" series.

Snow is my blanket - death the lulabye

One of the reasons that I quickly decided not to pursue becoming a conflict zone photographer was the same reason that  I couldn't let myself become a psychotherapist: I feel too much. I can't be fully objective, clinical or detached. I'm pretty good at putting on my professional mindset and being fair to a subject that on my own time I wouldn't want to be around. I've had to photograph people who I don't at all care for but I can reserve my opinions and treat them professionally and decently. Once I get home I'll make whatever quiet commentary I want about the scumbag but never when I'm working.

The difference to me is not people who are mean but people who are suffering. Animals in pain and neglect bring me to tears. Pain is something that I never ever want to either get used to witnessing or worse learn to ignore. Humans do so many horrible things to each other and the world in general that it's hard to not notice. That's why I try to focus my work on the positive things that people can do. We need to know that there is good in us even if there is a distinct cruel and destructive streak in our species.

That said my wife and I live with 3 predators - the cats. I love them dearly but every so often when I see them beating the stuffing literally out of one of their toys I think about the power and ferocity of those soft, fuzzy, purring death machines. I wonder about the abject terror that a sparrow or mouse feels when faced with a pouncing tabby. It must be like what a small child would feel if a tiger decides to "play" with them. House cats are about the only animal besides humans who kill for pleasure. Despite that I still love our kitties.

We have a large bird feeder that attracts lots of sparrows and finches and they delight the cats. We call it the "Feline Entertainment Center". A while ago my wife noticed a little field mouse eating some of the seed the birds knocked out.  She thought that the little guy had made a nest at the base of the bush. I had pet mice as a kid and have a soft place in my heart for little furry whiskered things.

I went out this afternoon to refill the feeder happy because of the beauty of the fresh falling snow. But then I noticed two dead mice on our porch. When I saw them my heart felt like lead. If finding a dead mouse makes me want to cry it's a good idea that I didn't try to cover a famine.

I didn't know what to do so I took some photos of them as they lie. They are so small and fragile - the snow flakes alarmingly large. It made me think of how sudden yet inevitable the end is for any of us - person, whale, mouse. All I could think of was to make a photo of the tiny guys in memory of animals I've never met before who were just trying to survive the Colorado winter.

It proceeds me

I just finished a quick shoot which means one hour to load in, figure it out and set it up while only needing 5 minutes to make the pictures I needed of 4 consultants. As I was loading out one of them confided in me that they were worried about the shoot. He said "when we saw what you did with him" pointing to a cover shot that recently hit the shelves, "we thought that we aren't nearly that cool. But the shot you did with us is pretty neat. Thanks!" Wow.

Something new, something old.

Just a few days apart came my two new cameras and man-o-man are they different from each other.

 

 

First, since I do a lot of photography of people who are not used to being photographed the smaller my gear is the less intimidating the gear is to my subjects. The D200 was the first small Nikon DSLR to be pro quality so I’ve been happily using them for the last 2 years. But I must say that I’m thrilled, thrilled!, by my new Nikon D700. When the D3 hit the scene with a thunderous sound everyone took notice. I knew that Nikon would eventually release a “full frame” DSLR but when they did it would not be a Me TOO! That pretty much made Canon and everyone else head back to the lab to work up something that was competitive. Well, I knew that they would soon release a baby version kind of as they did with the D200 to the D2x: essentially the same chip but a bit slower and much smaller. Well the D700 is just that: the guts of the D3 in a small body but with the built in flash so that I can control my SB-800’s without any additional units. Whoo-Hoo!

 

This also means that I can go back to my favorite wide lenses that were rendered less than themselves due to the DX chip and it’s 1.5x crop factor. Thus my favorite lens, the AF-D 24mm f/2.8, shown, is out of the mothballs and will get back in regular use. This also means that my “Secret Weapon” the legendary AF-D 28mm f/1.4 is useful again! Yeah!

 

Now I rarely need an ISO greater than 400 but I gotta tell you - the ability to have ISO6400 that looks better than the ISO800 of my D200 means that I have a whole new world of photographic possibilities in marginal to nearly no light.

 

Next as I’ve mentioned in a prior post I’ve been shooting a project on not only film, yes it’s true, but on a 6x6 twin lens. It’s a series of portraits of local chefs that I really like. Since I’m such a foodie it’s like getting to photograph your favorite sports stars any way that you want. But I wanted the images to be rather timeless looking, not look like all the punch color digital capture images that you see and none of the guys are standing at the stove holding a whisk. So I shot it on 6x6 B&W film.

 

Well that camera, a Seagull 104, broke and wasn’t worth fixing. That was replaced with this darling Yashica Mat-124G which is as old or older than I am. Luckily the Seagull broke at the end of the first leg of my project so it didn’t get in the way of my work.  I pitched the story and the editor I had in mind loved the images from my 6x6. Yeah! I’m looking forward to using the Mat to finish the project and lots of other things in the future. Oh I must say that these cameras are so very nice and are going for a song these days. Get one if even as a lovely paperweight/conversation piece.

 

Sorry about getting geeky on ya but when I get new tools that open up new ways of seeing. Well … I get pretty excited.

Starry, starry night ...

So the wife and were at a big fundraiser dinner thing for a museum the other evening. Not the kind where you wear a tux. Nah, that wouldn't be my style. Rather it was a fun event with a bunch of local restaurants serving little dishes of nosh to go with a slew of superb craft breweries who were our real interest anyway. We went with some new dear beer friends and well we all had a splendid time. While I was walking through the courtyard to get a refill, I pulled out my camera and as I was walking along in the near dark made this exposure. Its just how I felt that evening.

 

A strand in the web

I was listening to NPR today and they were talking about the classic story by E.B. White, Charlotte's Web. I love that story and upon reflection what now really seems to be the moral is not that Charlotte put all the animals to work to save Wilbur the pig from becoming bacon nor was it Charlotte's loving selflessness. The animated version, as book adaptations tend to do, changed and added a few things. One of which was the ending. It seems that when White did the audio version of the book he couldn't read the ending. It took him 17 tries to get through it without sobbing. If you remember, in the end Charlotte dies but in the book she dies alone and without anyone knowing her or her passing. Total obscurity. Heck, listening to him finally reading the ending, I started to cry as I was driving in rush hour traffic. Oh yeah ... I'm a "tough guy". It made me think of how many amazing and inspirational people do what they do without fanfare. As Charlotte did, the do it not for fame or money but because it's the right/natural thing to do. On principle, I love these people especially in our current shallow celebrity based world. That's why I try to do stories about these truly heroic figures whenever possible. They give us hope and strength. They show the beauty and powerful grace that humanity has to offer. Even if that humanity comes from a spider.