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Posts published in “Photography”

The Year of 50 Short Stories and 5000 Photos – 6 months on

June 1, 2009 |

About Photography, About Writing, Photography and Writing

Today is June 1st which means it’s time for an update on my progress toward the Year of 50 Short Stories and 5000 Photos. Astute readers will have noticed that I continually update the box on the right side of this page with my current progress as I make photos or write, whether or not I post them here. What you will not know is that I have been keeping a log since January 14th of the progress I make per update. Here is the breakdown for my photographs.

Jan 14 23/5000 (0.460%)
Jan 17 152/5000 (3.040%)
Jan 19 230/5000 (4.600%)
Feb 16 354/5000 (7.080%)
Feb 21 659/5000 (13.180%)
Feb 24 1104/5000 (22.080%)
Feb 26 1202/5000 (24.040%)
Feb 28 1318/5000 (26.360%)
Mar 06 1834/5000 (36.680%)
Mar 07 1904/5000 (38.080%)
Mar 22 2013/5000 (40.260%)
Mar 23 2131/5000 (42.620%)
Mar 28 2206/5000 (44.120%)
Apr 20 2276/5000 (45.520%)
Apr 26 2400/5000 (48.000%)
May 08 2821/5000 (56.420%)
May 09 2919/5000 (58.380%)

You can see that not only has my progress been consistent, but that even early in May, I was beyond the 50% mark before half the year had elapsed. All in all, I think my progress has been appropriate and, frankly, pretty impressive. I’m surprised and pleased that I’ve stayed on track with this. Good job, Joe. Even better is that merely half way through my quota for the year, I can see and feel my photography improving. That is really encouraging and makes me want to get out there and keep making photos. The remaining 2000 (I have some on my camera waiting to be offloaded) should be a piece of cake. I will be interested to see what the final tally will be for the year.

Ok, thats great and all, but what about the other half? Let’s look at the breakdown.

Jan 14 0/50 (0.000%)
Mar 31 1/50 (2%)
Apr 07 2/50 (4%)

Ooooh. Not so good. 4% at the halfway point? Pretty fucking pathetic actually. So what’s my problem? I think I’m being my own worst enemy here. I’m getting caught in creative webs, constantly trying to write brilliant material so that when what’s coming out isn’t sparkling, I get dismayed and stop. BAD JOE! I need to learn from the photos—not every photo I take is brilliant, but every one counts. I just need to put the words down and then worry about them later. Luckily I have 6 months left, which averages out to about 2 stories every week. Totally doable. I just need not to be so fucking hard on myself with the writing and just let it be loose and creative and dark and funny and whatever. Not everything needs to be perfect. I need to remember that.

And with my impending unemployment, I will need to learn to schedule better and make time to be creative for the remaining 48. I can do it.

I will update on my progress when I hit 3/4s on September 1.

> Continue reading...The Year of 50 Short Stories and 5000 Photos – 6 months on

A Life In Art – John Camp

May 26, 2009 |

About Photography, About Writing, Photography and Writing

I think this is an interesting article: “A Life in Art” By John Camp

This is a particularly inspired idea.

Of the successful artists I’ve known, I’d say that the two things that led to their success were compulsion (virtually to the extent of mental illness) to do the work, and the eventual ability to monetize the effort. Most of them never get that success—they’re finally ground down and give it up….

Both suggest that while inborn talent is of some utility, the thing that really determines success in the arts (or any other field) is simply doing it. Gladwell even suggests a standard: ten thousand hours. He suggests that if you work very hard a particular art form—art in the widest sense, including sports, music, law, medicine and so on—that you will begin to reach a mastery of it after 10,000 hours of hard work. That’s 40 hours a week (no cheating!) for five years, or 20 hours a week for ten.

Check it out. Camp has some interesting ideas about what makes an artist and what it takes to excel at your chosen craft, writing or photography or editing or whatever. It boils down, as he notes above, to being a little crazy about it. Food for thought.

But most artists tend to be somewhat reclusive, because of the “compulsion” and “10,000 hours of work” aspects of their lives. They’re not back-slappers, drink-buyers, hale-fellow types.

So selling can be one of the toughest hurdles for a real artist to clear, even those who put in their time, who are doing excellent work.

Hah! I am definitely a “back-slapper, drink-buyer, hale-fellow type”, often to the detriment of my creative pursuits. I guess I have that working for me…and against me.

> Continue reading...A Life In Art – John Camp

The Metric System Naïveté Second Party – 5/08/2009

May 15, 2009 |

Galleries and Photography

The second Metric System party went off last Friday the 8th like gangbusters. It was a good time, maybe not as crazy as the first, but it felt more cohesive. So, good job, us. We kicked ass. Look for another party in 6 months!

Here’s the gallery! The Metric System Naïveté Second Party Gallery – 5/08/2009

Here is a selection of my favorites

I think this set of photos, overall, is pretty good, but not as good as my first one. I don’t know what the difference was. I guess sometimes I’m just not as on as others. Oh well. There are some definite keepers in this which is the whole point. I’ve really got to work on using my flash to better effect when there’s absolutely no other ambient light around, as was the case during this party. I’m not entirely sure what I could be doing better while maintaining the look. I’d like to have better control of the light in general and be faster at adjusting the flash output without resorting to bullshit auto-mode. E-TTL II my balls. What I need, I suppose, is practice. These events are good for learning, but I’ve got to figure out some better shit for next time. I also think it would be helpful to have another photographer JUST to cover the performances, someone equipped with a fast, long lens who could focus on the stage, while I wandered the crowd, telling people not to smile, with a fast, wide lens taking photos of people. I want this one, but I think it’s a little too expensive for my soon to be jobless situation.

Anyway, enjoy the photos. I have a backlog of stuff I’m still working through, so keep your RSS readers peeled for more.

> Continue reading...The Metric System Naïveté Second Party – 5/08/2009

Portola Valley – 02/26/2009

May 7, 2009 |

Galleries and Photography

While at home this past February, Juli and I spent a couple afternoons wandering through the woods surrounding my folks’s house, since, sans auto, we were a little stranded in the cultural island that is Portola Valley. But, shit, what do you need to have a good time but a camera and a sunny day? Not much, I think.

I’ve made a gallery of the first and second sets. I will add a third set to it as soon as I get around to tidying it up.

Portola Valley Gallery – February, 2009

Here are some of my favorites.

I’ve been playing around with extracting as much texture and color from these sorts of photos without making them look like you would expect. I tend to err on the dark side, if indeed I am erring at all. I am interested in coaxing unearthly colors and feelings from totally earthly subject matter. I don’t know if I am being successful or not. Maybe I’m not taking these things far enough. I don’t know. Regardless, I’ve never been opposed to just making pretty pictures. That’s really all I do with my photography. I’m not exploring the human condition or documenting news or shooting edgy fashion spreads. I just want to capture the world in front of me and present it to people the way I see it, the way it makes me feel. I definitely feel like I’m getting better at doing just that, but that I have a long way to go.

My development experiments continue. I feel good about this slightly-off, slightly-too-dark thing I’ve been doing for the last few sets. I feel good about my progress with the local adjustment tools. Next up is making convincing black and whites. I always feel like making black and whites from my color photos is kind of cheating, in a way. Maybe I’m just so afflicted with demo love for the colors I see in the original RAW files (which are actually black and white) that I can’t bring myself to throw them out and work only in gray. I played with the black and white thing a little on the Richmond photos, but that was a cop out since the photos I made black and white were of the underside of a concrete overpass—essentially black and white already. Lame. I need to learn to see in black and white, what to bring from a color negative into a black and white world, and how to compose for a monochromatic universe. I think it will help my photography overall, color or black and white. Look for that, probably in the set after the next Metric System party.

> Continue reading...Portola Valley – 02/26/2009

Belle Isle, Richmond, VA 04/26/2009

May 6, 2009 |

Galleries and Photography

Recently I was in Richmond, VA working with Livio Sanchez, an editor from our Santa Monica office, on a commercial for Canopy towels and sheets. We had been scheduled to work Sunday, but due to Livio’s skillful and expeditious editing, we were able to have Sunday off. Yay! We asked the guy at the desk in hotel lobby where we should cruise and he told us to go to Carrytown, which has lots of “quirky shops”.

Well that sounded like a fucking horrible way to spend a beautiful, hot Sunday. Instead we went to Belle Isle, which is the site of a notorious Civil War prison for Union soldiers and about 8 million times more interesting than shops. I can shop in fucking New York, man.

It was a beautiful stretch of land in the middle of the James River filled with people sunning themselves on the burning hot rocks in the middle of the rapids. There is a footbridge leading to the island suspended from the freeway overpass that sways when there are a lot of people on it. Tons of people were having trouble walking on it as it swayed, but I didn’t. I suppose standing on moving trains has helped me out there. This is a poorly written Black laser entry. Just look at the photos.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Here’s the whole gallery: Belle Isle, Richmond, VA Gallery – 04/26/2009

Count after this set: 2400/5000 (48.000%)

> Continue reading...Belle Isle, Richmond, VA 04/26/2009

2008 – The Year in Photographs

May 1, 2009 |

About Photography and Photography

The Big Picture, which I mentioned last week, put up a series of articles called 2008 The Year in Photographs. They are some of the best images of some of the most important events of last year (duh). I’m not even going to try and post my favorites. Just get over there and look.

2008 – The Year in Photographs, part 1 of 3

2008 – The Year in Photographs, part 2 of 3

2008 – The Year in Photographs, part 3 of 3

Some pretty incredible moments in there.

> Continue reading...2008 – The Year in Photographs