October

September 29, 2004

OK. I splurged a little bit today. I decided to finally pay off the Rolleiflex 2.8 F I had on layaway at Terry's. While I was busy doing that, I bought the last Domke 803 bag they had there. It's a neat bag. Heavy duty canvas. Messenger style. Amazingly, it can fit my two Leicas, meter, film AND the Rolleiflex in a bag that has a very small footprint. That's primarily the reason I bought it. Small but enough room to carry all my gear.

I've already shot about 3 rolls with the Rolleiflex. Developed two and made a few prints from the negs. None of the shots were too stellar, but I wanted to run some film through to see how the camera performs. The short of it is, that it works great! The lens is very sharp and has milky smooth transitions to out of focus areas. I can see why Avedon and Penn used the camera for years and why it was once THE fashion camera. Love it.

September 29, 2004

Richard Avedon suffered a stroke tonight while working on an assignment for the New Yorker. I hope he is well. He was one of the first photographers whose images really spoke to me. I was in such complete awe of his portrait work, how his portraits transform people into iconic images that portray the whole gamut of human emotion.

Dick get well.

I've been keeping a budget. Probably not a very wise thing to do for the psyche. My girlfriend is religious about monitoring where every cent goes. I'm a little more lax and tend to spend a little more freely. However, that sense that I should "grow up" and buy a house is creeping up on me so now I'm counting my pennies as well. Everyday I walk through my neighborhood past all the nicely trimmed houses with well kept lawns, I wonder, are they really happy? Or is buying a house merely a superficial way to compensate for some larger gap in their lives?

Anyway, the sum affect of the penny pinching is that I've been slowing my shooting. I'm giving myself an allowance on photographic expenses that I can spend a month. It's suppose to cover film/paper costs and equipment purchases. I can tell you already it sucks.

I hope to finish paying off the Rolleiflex I have on lay away at Terry's this month. I haven't shot medium format in a while and am looking forward to it.

September 26, 2004

I haven't updated the last few days. A friend of mine who I haven't seen in almost a year was in town so I took him around Long Beach and environs this weekend. We went to the Body Worlds show, which was slightly disturbing. The exhibit shows various plasticized cadavers that have been elaborately disected and displayed. It was rather unnerving. Imagine a horror movie where a person's skin gets ripped off and all the muscle and nerves are exposed. The show was something like that. I found it strange to think that these bodies were once real living people or that how beneath us all is this intricate (and slightly ugly) system of muscles, organs and blood vessels. Surreal to say the least.

I took some photos around Exposition park. Developed and printed them tonight:

I also got around to printing an image from Flea Circus. This is just after they had taken down their sign from the front of the building and layed it aside. It was a somber moment. The light that was hitting it was just heartbreaking.

September 22, 2004

So I'm having a little anxiety attack about my photography. I feel like I really have to start making some money at it or else it will run me into the ground. I invest so much time and effort and I've hardly made a dime off any of it. I've yet to sell a print, which positively kills me, because I know some people that are hack photogs in my opinion that sell prints. I've made a little money doing headshots but hardly enough to cover a month's worth of film and paper.

Ugh. The Brazil pics for example, I think they're great and make a neat series, but now what? I wasn't paid to do it and they seem a bit random for anyone to buy. I doubt I'll ever see a cent from them. I contacted the organizers to see if they would be interested, but usually it's the case that everyone wants to use photos for free. I'd understand if I was just shooting some hack photos, but I'm actually partial to these. I think they're great and dynamic.

I find that I really do love photography, but it will be difficult to make a living out of it. I suppose I'm just down on myself because I finished another box of paper and not a whole lot to show for it. My apartment is strewn with prints and contact sheets and as I nimbly jump from a clear inch of carpet to another, I wonder if it's all in vain. Oh well....maybe things will look better in the morning.

September 21, 2004

Here's another from the Brazil festival. I printed it at 8x10 but wanted to see what it looks at 11x14. Scale plays a factor in some images, changing the point of focus in an image. At 11x14 it really looks good. I shot on the shady side of the street. The dancers were wearing white translucent costumes and every time the sun hit them, it was just heartbreaking. Beautiful rim lighting. It took me about four frames to get this shot. I knew what I wanted. I wanted her to face me, hopefully in some interesting pose and to position her with the sun directly behind her so it would seem as if she was glowing. I think it worked out pretty well. It's such a different photo from the woman holding the flag. I think the backlighting really makes it more surreal and dreamlike, rather than the standard front lit photo. The 21mm focal length helps too, exaggerating the lines in her body and the sense of motion.

September 20, 2004

12:30am

Busy weekend. I shot some photos at a Brazilian festival they had at downtown LB. Also took a snap or two of Laura after a few beers. It's a tough shot for any camera, but i think it would be nearly impossible for a digital. It's strongly backlit, but I'm able to retain detail in the foreground and the background. I could probably burn in the tree a little more but it would start to look a little unnatural. The picture looks simple, but is a testament to how much information film can capture. Enough to get detail in blazing sun and in the shade.

Laura and I went to an antique swap meet this weekend. I picked up a leather bag/purse for $10 in hopes of using it as a camera bag. It has an accordian style storage layout, pretty neat. I broke it in at the Brazilian festival. Worked well but I would make some changes. I'm thinking about seriously designing my own camera bag and having a prototype made. Tired from printing...will write more in the morning.

September 16, 2004

Where did I spend my Labor Day? Someplace like this:

September 14, 2004

I approached Runner's High today about including them in my documentary. It's a small shoe store that caters to runners. The staff is pretty knowledgeable and is more inclined to sell you a shoe that suits your style rather than just pushing the more expensive shoe. The owner Todd seemed pretty enthusiastic about my project. They organize Fun Runs twice a week with customers. I'm planning to shoot the Fun Runs every week until the Long Beach Marathon on Oct. 10th. I'm hoping I can convince maybe one or two runners to allow me to follow them closely and possibly let me shoot a large format portrait of them after they cross the finish.

I'm going to try pitching the story to the local paper as a short photo essay. Hopefully they'll bite. Otherwise, I'll just do it on my own and count it as more practice.

I'm firing up the 4x5 again. Vaguely playing with the idea of shooting a portrait a day of a complete stranger with the 4x5 camera. Why the 4x5 camera specifically? Well, I feel like I get a different type of photo from people with it. They seem a lot more calm and relaxed, even though the camera is big. I think the fact that they see me working so hard to take the picture, sort of diffuses the hunter/prey dynamic of photography. It appears as more of a joint effort. Or if anything, it appears as if I'm paying homage to my subjects rather than just exploiting them.

September 13, 2004

The group show at OPEN went well. I got a chance to meet some people from photo.net which was pretty fun. It's nice to know that the screen names I trade messages with on the computer actually exist as flesh and blood human beings. We did a little camera fondling and passed our toys around for each other to play with.

I shot about 6 rolls that night, running between OPEN, Koo's Art Centre and Blue Nile Cafe. There's always so much to photograph during the ArtWalk I feel like I have ADD. I'm jittery and darting in and out of stores.

I met a few other photographers at a show down the block. We chatted awhile and I got them to go down to OPEN to check out my photos. Both of them were around my age and did enlargements through optical/chemical processes. Hopefully, it's a sign that the traditional processes that I like so much won't fade away.

On Sunday, I shot a few rolls at the Belmont Shore Car Show. Nothing too exciting. I'm not a big fan of cars so I was more interested in the people there. The whole thing had an odd dynamic. It was part festival, part tailgate party. Car owners would sit proudly in their recliners watching people oggle over their cars. Strange. I haven't developed those rolls yet, but I do remember shooting a series of an Elvis impersonator. Should be interesting....

Pics from the ArtWalk:

September 10, 2004

I finished my final prints last night. Whew.....I'm tired. I dropped 14 images off at OPEN Bookstore this afternoon and they'll be hanging them up for tommorrow. The only thing left is to mount some text to go along with the series on my brother. I'm pretty happy with the series. Annie came over the other night to help me figure out how to arrange the images. It's set up as a series of dyptichs with a portrait on either side flanking them.

The paired images are meant to create a tension. There's a push and pull between the images. Some images show a sort of mindless conformity adjacent to a picture of isolation. Hopefully it goes well.

Here's the text to go along with the images:

We arrive in Atlanta at 10 pm. It’s raining. I’m tired and part of me really doesn’t want to be here. I’m traveling with my father to Columbus, a small town in Georgia for my brother’s graduation from Basic Training. We haven’t really said much to each other except for some nominal catching up. I think we’re both caught up with our own thoughts.

When my brother said he was thinking about joining the army, I told him that he was crazy. Didn’t he notice there was a war going on? A war that I felt was unjust and misguided. He said he was joining because he felt that he needed some discipline and direction and that the army would give it to him. I pleaded with him to wait until this year’s election. Maybe something would change. Maybe the country would come to its senses.

He enlisted anyway.

There was a going away party for my brother before he left for Basic Training. I wanted to take his portrait before he left because I knew he would be different the next time I saw him. He was wearing an army shirt and a sweatband around his head, already playing at being a soldier. This was my brother. Shaved head, bad acne and all the attitude of an 18 year old boy. The next time I would see him he would be a soldier.

I had him stand in front of the camera and close his eyes. I told him to think about what he was going to do. I told him to focus all his anticipation, excitement and fear and look at the camera. As he stood in front of me I realized that I had been away from home a long time and many things had changed.

September 9, 2004

It's 2am and I've just finished a print session. I'm still drying the prints, hanging four of the prints at a time in my neg drying cabinet. I'm tired. I've been printing for this group show on Saturday for the last 2 weeks. I'm averaging 2 prints per four hour session. I still have about 6 more images to go (2 of which are 16x20s). I'm hoping that I can finish all the images in time to hang them on Friday.

I've run out of Ilford Satin in a middle of a series. Terry's didn't have anymore, so I'm forced to complete the series with Agfa Semi-Matte. The Agfa behaves very differently than the Ilford. It's a lot contrastier so I find that I'm having to use lower contrast filters than I'm use to. I'm also having to burn in the highlights more than I have been with Ilford papers. I'm hoping that the paper qualities aren't too noticeable. I don't have any time to get more Ilford paper, so this will have to do.

Ideally, I would have printed everything on fiber paper, but that would have taken twice as long and I'm short on time. In addition to the photos, I'm writing accompanying text. I've forgotten how much I enjoy writing.

Ugh. This project is pretty draining, emotionally and physically. It's hard to print the series on my brother's graduation. I want everything to be so perfect. I'll take ten sheets of paper to get the image right if I have to.

September 8, 2004

I shot a friend's headshots yesterday. 2 rolls. I just looked for a shady area where I could get atleast f8/125 and put a reflector infront of him to bring his face up. Not too bad for a Leica and a 50 yearold lens. I'm rather surprised at how well HP5 holds up when I enlarge it. No way, I could have done a full page 8x10 with TX without someone commenting on the grain.

September 7, 2004

Yikes...I haven't updated in a while. I've been busy printing some images for grants and an upcoming show at a local bookstore. The show is very politically themed, so I'm printing images from my trip to Fort Benning for my brother's army graduation. I'm also printing some images from the March for Women's Lives in DC and the Iraq war memorial in Santa Monica. Busy busy busy.

I shot 4 rolls today. I was walking by a barbershop I'm shooting for my documentary and the barber was cutting a young boy's hair and the light was just heartbreaking so I had to take pictures. I'm training myself to shoot when I feel like it. I've come to realize that the shots that you say to yourself "I'll take those later" never get taken. Do it now or never. I had to talk the mother into letting me take pictures. She was really skeptical at first but when I showed her the article on my project and my portfolio she eased up and was rather encouraging.

I've really been deeply influenced by Eugene Richards' The Fat Baby. I've atleast identified that missing something in my photos. As well composed and technically good they are, I can feel something lacking--an emotional connection with my subjects. Of course, it's one thing to know the problem and quite another to fix it. I'm thinking about approaching certain store patrons and really follow them around, get to know them and try to capture a little of that power that Richards' has. A tall order, I know...

September 2, 2004

I borrowed a 21mm/2.8 from Terry's camera a few days ago and have been having fun with that wide focal length. It really does force you to get in close when photographing people. I've been interested in it after shooting with my 25mm Snapshot Skopar. It's a good lens but slow at f4. The Avenon/Kobalux lens is a stop faster and would make all the difference between a very blurry shot and an acceptablyl blurry shot.

I finally broke down a few days ago and bought The Fat Baby, Eugene Richards' collection of photo essays. It's a very powerful and humbling work. I feel that there is more emotion in one of his pictures than in all of mine combined sometimes. It is amazing how close he can get to people and photograph but still have them act in a natural state.

August 2004
July 2004