Cooperation and My Decision
Sometimes in life it’s about working with people, and the bringing the skills and energy of both together create more. Sometimes, well, sometimes, it’s better to provide a person with a more limited set of choices.
These two scenarios are very different, but in someways, relate, so just trust me for a little bit here.
First there is Meagan. She is 10, and a nationally ranked wake boarder. I don’t ask certain questions, like “Why do they rank 10 year old female wake boarders?” I just nod and smile. So the photo request is basically, “cute kid photo”. Right.
Take a fair number of photos of her, I’m feeling okay, but not good, so I ask her if there is anything she’d like to do. She starts hamming it up, sometimes all tough, sometimes all modelly, whatever she felt like. I had just let hamster out of the cage and it was now tearing around the room. She had been kind of somber, serious, then she got all happy and was having a good ole’ time.
As I see it, she wanted to set her image, she wanted to create the view of her, rather than have, probably yet another adult do it for her. And it worked out all for the better. Some of the photos I know we won’t use, but we may choose one of her having more fun for the one image we do run. I hope so.
On the other side, and the identity here will be obscured so as hopefully nobody knows who I’m talking about, out of kindness, (though to be fair, I will happily have the discussion with the performer, but I believe it is between me and the performer), but I have a performer who I made some images of who needs further assistance in helping choose their imagery.
To be less vague, but still vague, I took a number of photos of a friend/performer as a favor. I then gave the performer some nice cleaned up images, and as is my normal, but sometimes bad, habit, I also gave them access to some of the outtakes. The reason I give performers access to the outtakes is in case what they are looking for, the image they are looking to craft of themselves isn’t represented in the images I like.
Usually this works at least okay. In this case, limits will be placed in the future. The photos the performer has chosen to use are images where the face is in total or near total black, washed out white, slightly out of focus, etc. There are some really nice, clean shots, moody, attention grabbing, etc. Those are the unused images.
I don’t get it. I’ve got some guesses, but they are only guesses as to what this performer was going for. Could be business issues, could be personal, could be combo, could be anything, I just disagree.
Yeah, these are currently only small web images, but I’m me, and I don’t care, and I demand the best all the time.
Oh well, maybe some further structure in the future will help. I’ll try that and see what happens. Alas, this performer is really quite good and I’d like to help this performer out. And will, even if I don’t agree, and don’t understand.
On a side note, I think I like the Cha-Cha. I got done with dance class tonight and was Cha-Chaing down the aisles of Jewel.
On Arrogance and Hubris
I’m all for the amazing creations of humanity. I’m just waiting for a few changes in the iPhone and I’ll be a happy boy. I’ve always loved that people love to create new things.
Some days though, it’s important to realize that what we may think of as a great invention of mankind, is really not so much an invention of man, but our discovery of an idea from nature.
In this case, I’m talking about barbed wire, the great and simple invention that helps with so much modern security and more importantly, large scale animal husbandry. It’s great stuff. It’s also not original. Wikipedia says (and when Wikipedia speaks, it’s in a booming voice from above) that a man, Joseph F. Glidden, created barbed wire.
I hate to disagree with the Grand Wiki, but Joseph may have made the first metal barbed wire, but Mother Nature invented it, and she made it in the Ozarks. I don’t know what this plant is, and I don’t care really. I know what I need to know, stay away, and that this is an evil plant. It likes to grow in vines, often horizontal vines. And it somehow seems to live with few to no leaves. A plant that has no leaves is like a man who doesn’t pee, th
e deal with the devil is in the beast.
Suffice it to say, this evil plant, had it’s way with me, especially the first few days. The photo of my leg is from my 2nd of 4 days in the wild. I never did a final count of the number of cuts I got, 30 to 50 per leg sounds about right, plus some on my arms and the cuts pictured aren’t the deepest of them either.
The Ozarks are like a beautiful woman (aren’t all wonderful things?), she’s beautiful, but dangerous, and she must be treated with the care and respect she deserves.
I have learned.
PSA: Bike Helmets are Good
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to take a nice bike ride. I figured it was a holiday, I suppossedly had the time, I’m going biking.
Had to fill up my front tire, it was low on air. The first gas station the air didn’t work. Went to the second gas station, buzzing down Harlem, take a soft right into the station. Somewhere in the turn my bike started sliding sideways. I knew it was unrecoverable pretty quick.
The bike and I went down as a unit. I didn’t have time to unhook my shoes from the peddles. For the third time today, time was going slow motion. The first two were when I was in the air jumping from a five meter platform into a pool for the end of my Summer Love project, more tears on that later, and it almost is tears.
So I’m going down locked into my bike, my whole body contacts at just about the same time. I don’t remember much about much of my body hitting the ground. I do remember my head smacking into the pavement. This wasn’t a light fluffy smack either, my head hit hard, viciously hard. When my head was bouncing of the pavement I remember actually thinking to myself, “Wow, I’m glad I’m wearing this helmet, because my head is hitting really hard.” I love real life slow-mo time.
My bet, no helmet, one concussion. One helmet, I walked away with a scrapped-up elbow, no big deal there, I’m probably going to develop bruises on my right hip, and my right shoulder hurts when I move it, but all and all, a mighty fine crash. Bike sustained no major damage, I sustained no major damage, thanks to the helmet, and I even got to go for my bike ride after the whole incident was done. Perhaps the biggest problem is that every time I wince in pain I start laughing which just doesn’t make it feel any better.
On a massive tangent, I will say that there was one problematic side effect. After riding for the a bit, and thinking about all the slow-mo time during the day, I came to a conclusion, I need to jump out of an airplane again, and preferably soon. I mean I’m just jonesing to jump. Anyone want to join me? I prefer jumping with people, but not many like to jump (theme of the summer, jumping) but I highly recommend it.
In my experience I’d say, at least right now, that there are three major intense experiences in life. The first two I’m not sure on the order. (Just to give you an idea what I think these beat, and mind you, I try really hard to live a quite life: having a gun pointed at you (this was tempered by knowing she didn’t really want to shot me, just get my attention. And before you say anything, this wasn’t anyone I dated, though I will say if your girlfriend/boyfriend suggests not having sharp knives in the house, listen to them. And when you start thinking they’ll use them, it’s a good idea to leave then, it’s great idea to have left when they suggested not having the sharp knives in the house. I love love, I hate love.) these experiences are more intense than flying upside-down in airplanes, firing big guns, floating on Lake Superior under the stars and many others which I just can’t remember right now. Okay, done being a show-off dork, back to the three most intense experiences in life….)
There is the moment when you capture, and you now you’ve captured a great image, or story. The fulfillment that courses through my veins when I know I’ve hit, it’s like nothing else. Day to day, life is good, those moments when you get the great images, those are the reason for all the other days. It may happen only a few times a year, but it makes the year worthwhile.
The second intense moment isn’t so much usually a moment but a day, culminating in moments. It’s that day you get to spend with a woman you love. The day you get to do nothing but love her, and show her that you do. Just let that pour out. And at the end of the day make love to her (get over the scandalous reaction, none of us are twelve, we’ve all been there.) And I mean savior her, with every sense, for as long as you both can, as much as you both can, not about the sex, but about each other, and loving each other. Where everything is just about showing each other, openly, unreservedly and without the existence of the rest of the world, just how you feel about each other. Nothing else exists.
The third moment, and it’s definitely third in my experience but it beats out so many others, is jumping out of an airplane. It’s a overwhelming, it’s hard to remember because it so much, and impossible to forget for the same damn reason. The rush of falling, straight into the ground, at 120 mph, nothing there, nothing to do but wow at the wonder of the smallness of everything, and how it’s now just a little bit bigger than it was at the beginning of the sentence. Followed by floating in the air, alone (okay, usually with your
jump-master because you’re not certified to jump alone.) Just hanging out, slowly descending, looking at the world around you, with just the wind blowing by. It’s both the most intense adrenaline rush and the one of the calmest, most free moments, wrapped into one.
So anyhow, if you want to jump out of an airplane, let me know. I’m ready to rock and roll.
For those who are curious, all the images are from my Summer Love project. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, okay, if you want to know more though, great, it starts here and you can find out more in the stories section. There will also shortly be a rambling post about my lose from the end of this project. It hurts, but it was wonderful.
On my way out for a fun night and…
Life seems to have a bad habit of having random bad things happen when I go out for an evening with the friends. Not bad things happening to me at least, but bad things happening to other people that I then must take photos of.
So I’m driving a few of my friends over to another friend’s new apartment for a night of hanging out. We’re almost there when we turn onto Lake St. only to have it blocked by fire trucks and cop cars.
At this point I know I’m going to be delayed for a little while. Drop my friends, and take the two block walk over to the scene of the accident.
In photojournalism classes they teach students to always have a camera with them. I use my carry around camera very little it seems, yet it comes in so handy. So I did what I could with my little P&S (Point & Shoot).
What amazed me about this is that the other car, a BMW four door, had the front drivers side knocked in a good foot or so, but was otherwise alright. What I would call major damage, but nothing that would make me think that the accident was all that bad. I apparently don’t understand the dynamics of car impacts very well.
At least from what I could see there were no major injuries.
A Good Day, or the end of creative constipation
So I think I’ve mentioned a couple of time over the few weeks that I just haven’t found anything, any stories that have really got my blood flowing.
I, like most artists, need a subject to be working on, a piece to be completing. Otherwise I just feel like I’m missing something, and something vital to me.
The advantage to journalism is that different subjects are put in front of me day after day. This means, if for no other reason than the sheer chance of numbers, that one of these assignments will eventually turn into something interesting, into something more than an assignment, and more about me creating something I want to create for my own reasons.
So I got lucky and got one and half of those in one day, and it was a damn long day.
The one, the main one, was covering Chicago’s Chiditarod. It’s a grocery cart race around Chicago’s northwest side with bar hoping interwoven. Basically the competitors run from bar to bar, where they must wait, until they get to the end. The different teams all go with themes; secret service, bunnies, team zissou, etc, and the associated costumes. The grocery carts are usually decorated also.
Basically it’s a reason for a bunch of people to act silly, dress silly, and drink. Good time for all. Not to mention very easy to get a fair number of decent photos out of.
For me it’s a chance to work on something more interesting than “this week’s business feature is…” It’s a chance for me to have a story that makes me want to create something cool. A chance to make something longer and with at least a tad more depth. It’s not the long-term story I’m still looking for, but it’s a nice filler for a while, and I should be proud of it when I’m done.
I’m hoping to turn it into a audio slide show in the next day or two. Just got to do the computer work now.
That was my morning assignment. As soon as I got done with that I got packed and made a two hour drive down state to the girls high school state basketball championship.
Typically sports kind of bore me. They’re a bit repetive and we rarely run anything too different photographically. State championships though can be more fun, if for no other reason than there is more energy and emotion.
So I spent the night shooting Fenwick winning state. I got a lot of jube (jubilation) shots out of the deal plus some good action shots. The tighter the game usually the better the action shots.
I’ve shot state championship many times before, and I’ve shot losing teams before, and I get good shots out of those, but they’re just not as much fun as winning teams. Anything you photographic the emotions of the subject are going to effect your emtions. Does it really need to be said that over-whelming happiness beats saddness?
Now I need to turn all the basketball images into a slide show. The other thing about a good day, is that it tends to be followed by a few long days to get all the back end work done.
A good morning of shooting a fun subject and a night of shooting shooting good sports with good celebration.
A good day, all and all.
Problems, Problems, Problems, or…An Ode to Bitching
Something I’ve discovered over the last few years is that I love to bitch about things. Most of the time the things I bitch about bother me, but not all that much. I just find joy in the art of bitching. It’s fun.
Now, luckily for me, my job gives me ample opportunity to bitch in that something always seems to be either getting messed up or just randomly falling apart. I bitch about these things, pretty much every time. But I’ve also discovered that I like it when it all falls apart.
It’s just no fun when things are working well. There’s no challenge. I thrive on the challenge. Put me in a situation where I have every reason to fail, and usually I’ll do pretty well, come out with some decent to good images, and have fun doing it. Put me in a situation where everything is alright, or working for me, and I’ll do fine, I’ll make some good images, but probably not as nice, or at least not to me, and I often won’t have as much fun. I love the thought of overwhelming failure, and the ability to succeed in those situations.
Really, who doesn’t like a challenge? It brings out the best in all of us, or at least in me. I have to get more creative in my problem solving. I have to look beyond what I’ve done and I know I’m capable of and find more and go further. If people only grow by pushing their limits and expanding their horizons, aren’t the situations I should fail the perfect opportunity to grow?
I really rather wonder how poets, musicians and painters do it, how they grow. They often don’t have loads of problems bearing down on them. They don’t have to worry about a word not showing up to the party. I guess they might have writers block, and maybe that’s the same as the candidate not showing up. I don’t know. I just think it helps when artists have obstacles to overcome. It pushes them to find that extra something in themselves to succeed. I’m sure it also builds confidence in themselves as well.
One of personal, favorite, sell imposed limits, and I work so much better when I have this limit than when I don’t, is using prime lenses. For the non-photographers out there, that means using lenses that don’t have a zoom capability. When I have a zoom lens I can just stand there and select what I want in the frame and be done. With prime lenses I have to figure out how to get the lens to work regardless of the fact that it’s just a little to wide, or a little to tight for what I would like. I look at this problem, and compose around it, but I also have to spend time examining the image, thinking about the image, and then finding some way to cope with the limits. Often this leads to making a better image. If for no other reason than I’ve spent more time thinking about the image and thinking about what else I can get rid of in the image if the lens is to tight, or what else I can add if it’s too loose.
Plus there is something that is good for the ego and self-image (I have done the entry on “Don’t feed the Ego” yet?) in success in the face of obstacles. Sometimes it’s nice to show off and just show, “I’m a bad ass, I’m so good, you can’t stop me! Bring it on, I got it, I’m that good.” Okay, this wasn’t that serious of a situation, but really, this was asking for trouble.
The situation was that we had to cover election night. The other photographer, and my boss, had to bow out of working due to illness. So now instead of two photographer we got one. This meant I had to cover 3 candidates for mayor in Forest Park, plus at least three candidates for alderman in Chicago. The 3 Forest Park mayoral candidate images also had to be in pretty quick as the paper had to be out the door an hour or two later. The aldermanic images didn’t need to be in till morning at least, but involved a lot of driving. This just had the potential to fall apart, there is no way to be in six places at once. Three sure, six is a definite stretch though, especially with driving.
Suffice it to say they all got covered, with images to spare. 6 locations, 4 hours, 30 minutes of editing in there, and over an hour of driving. Loads of fun, though not even close to my personal record for number of locations in that amount of time. Now mind you I can’t take all the credit. Once we at the paper realized we had one photographer my editors did a great job of narrowing down coverage locations and minimizing drive time. They deserve a lot of credit, but I’m still really, really cool.
I’ve also discovered when I’m happy, my ego is feeling good, I tend to sing, mostly in the car. I think it’s my new sign of happiness. I don’t know when it started, but it did, and I like it. Mind you, I don’t sing well, but I enjoy doing it. I think it’s important to notice those signs, the tells we make when we have different moods. For me it’s singing in the car, and singing the song “I’m too sexy for my….” when I’m walking down the street.
When it’s all against you
I love situations where there is every reason you shouldn’t get a photo. I actually love situations where you should lose and are expected to lose. I love them because there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.
In this case this was the second group to come up and sings carols. I knew I was at least covered with the first group. This group came up and stood in front of the Christmas tree, the previous group stood behind it. Where this created a problem was that there was virtually no other light except for the Christmas tree. Any street lights that were around this park were a long ways off and pretty dim to start with. For the photographers out there this exposure was made at 1/50th of second, f1.2, at 3200iso, for the non-photographers, pushing everything to the max. I really liked how the lighting turned out, has a nice ethereal quality to it, and for a situation where I probably should have got nothing, it gives me a smile that I got something. Now to see if it runs, it is a bit noisy so it’ll have a tough time going big, but should hold up fine small.
Better, but still leaves some room for improvement
So I wanted to try something a bit different for the wrestling preview I needed to shot. It’s better than a straight action shot, but it leaves room for improvement. Need to do better prep on site and remember that atheletes don’t always make for cooperative models (my first idea rather fell apart because the subject had trouble doing anything but laughing his ass off, which is personally the kind of attitude I love, just not great for the particular photo), but the ideas are a move in the direction I’d like to go.
Blackout
I’ve always been a fan of a challenge. They’re the main thing that keeps life interesting. Now, a challenge is one thing, taking a photograph of a moving person, sometimes pretty quickly moving, in a pitch black room, that’s just brutal. One of my assignments today was to shot firefighters doing night training. Basically the firefighters would wear something over their visors to reduce visibility then enter a room that was pitch black. This was all to simulate a smoke filled house or building. This left me hand holding 2 second exposures that I couldn’t even see well enough to vaguely focus. It was actually kind of fun. I love a situation wear failure is expected and all you can do is take the chances and see what you can get. And well I wouldn’t call it a great success, I’ll take it considering.