To the window, to the wall
Feb. 28, 2009. Dance marathon. Tonight was the first time I realized how dirty that song “Get Low” is. To all skeet skeet…
Art lesson
Feb. 26, 2009. Shot video today for a story about a World War II veteran. The associate editor was interviewing this gentleman about how the applique artwork behind him helped him be at peace and deal with post-traumatic stress — one of his jobs on the US aircraft carrier Saratoga was sorting body parts following kamikaze attacks. Sitting there with my headphones on, I saw how the sun-like pattern in the work really seemed to echo his personality. I grabbed my still camera and, audio be damned, shot this angle until I was happy.
The assignment was simply to get a shot of him with the art, but I figured I’d bring the video camera with me since I’m, erm, “encouraged” to do a couple videos a week. I have to admit, if I hadn’t had to sit there to babysit the footage, I probably wouldn’t have gotten a decent still for the paper. I likely would have just busted out a quick portrait and left before the editor arrived. Lesson: I need to be more patient, especially with my portraiture. Now if only I could make the video process go faster…
Coincidentally, this man’s name is Ray. He really brightened my day.
Downtown construction
Feb. 24, 2009. Parking garage construction. This kind of assignment is usually not something I enjoy, but I was happy to see this pop into frame. The background is kind of messy, but what are you going to do — chop down all the trees and lamp posts? Tried to clean it up with a wide-open aperture, but it didn’t help and I couldn’t move up or back at all. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try this angle again when they get another level higher. Maybe not. After all, it is just construction. Bleah.
Subjects past and present
I’ve often heard of authors that wonder about the well-being of their characters. Similarly, I sometimes wonder about some of the subjects I’ve shot. Where are they? How are they? What has happened since I took their pictures? About a year ago I tried to locate (with no luck) Spc. Russel Alcorn, who I photographed Dec. 2004 kissing his girlfriend as the Indiana National Guard 1438th loaded onto buses for deployment to Iraq. The other day, I thought about this picture again and tried a Google search just for the heck of it. I found that Alcorn was recently awarded a Purple Heart after being injured in an IED explosion. Below is a clipping from The Expeditionary Times detailing the incident.
Reported shooting
Feb. 18, 2009. Intoxicated people and firearms aren’t a good match, but pretty police lights and silhouetted investigators are. It was a great day – my D2h finally kicked the bucket, and the purchase of our first D3 was subsequently approved. Yay! This shot was made with another sickly D2h. It was hiccuping and burping the whole time I was shooting. Can’t believe I got this.
Update: March 23, 2009. This picture finally published – they were able to tie it in with a story that explained how crime is on the rise now that the economy is in the dump. It wasn’t published initially because there wasn’t enough info about what happened, and then it turned out no arrests were made. Anyway, I’m glad it made it into the paper. It got cropped a little funny, but when you live by symmetry, you also apparently die by it. Also, we still don’t have a D3, and my damned D2h seems to have miraculously fixed itself. I give up.
A pleasure to burn
Feb. 17, 2009. Chris has a wife and two kids, and they’re all living on $281 a week. I don’t smoke any more, but I get it. You feel guilty about the habit when your finances are in the red, but the last thing you want to give up in a time like that is your cigs.
Photography 101 – a salty college tale
I recently wrote a short “about me” section on this blog (for all you, um, fans out there), and in it I mention that I took two blow off photography courses in college and how I nearly failed them. No sooner had I written those words than I was digging in the closet hoping to find the booze my wife hid from me something from one of those classes to see if I was really as terrible as my grades showed. Well, I found some negatives and, yep, I sucked. There were a few diamonds in the rough, but I didn’t know how to edit back then either and therefore didn’t know what was good or bad. You see, these were dark days. Erm, darkroom days (yes, I’m that damn hilarious – look out New Yorker).
In my defense, I studied my porno mags Essentials of Photography textbook quite a bit between keg stands and really wanted to grasp two coeds at once the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed. My biggest problem was that I didn’t understand my camera’s metering system (a Minolta X-370) or how in the hell parking services always knew where to find me. Frustrated, one day after class I asked the professor if he could take a look at this rash at the camera and tell me what I was doing wrong. He told me to wait right there and left the room. After about fifteen minutes I began to wonder where he was, so I wiped the drool off my face and walked out into the hallway … just in time to see my professor outside getting into his baby blue station wagon and driving away with the girl that sat behind me. I never asked him about it again, and it wasn’t until years later that I understood what the problem had been: I was drunk Unlike most manual cameras that displayed the aperture in the viewfinder, mine displayed the shutter speed instead. Son of a bitch!
For my final photo assignment that semester I cruised The Armpit of America Muncie, Ind., trying to gather an essay on what I considered “eclectic commercialism” (deep, huh?). The pictures I took were just a bunch of uninspired still lifes, but I thought I was on to something. Later that day I found myself half-cocked at the golden arches shooting my naked body in the bathroom different views of a Ronald McDonald statue. This, thought I, would be high art. Nothing about old Ron really seemed to inspire, however, and just as I was about to call it a day a young boy climbed into the clown’s lap and posed for a picture. He must have been to see Santa a time or two before and thought this was the same kind of deal. Only in this situation, it was the photographer who smelled like gin. Whatever the case, I humored him with a smile, a suppressed belch and a shaky-handed *click* … and I think this is the first picture I ever made that approached the realm of photojournalism.
Knowing I have a tendency to exaggerate memories (or flat-out can’t remember), I just checked my Ball State transcript: It turns out that in 1997 I got a B- in Black and White Photography, and a B in Color Photography – not near-failing as I had remembered. Perhaps that professor felt guilty. Curiously, I see that I failed underwater basket weaving. Hmmm.
So that’s it, but one last thing: Why am I writing like I’m some old over-the-hill fart strolling down memory lane? That little boy probably isn’t even old enough to drink yet. Of course, it’s possible the clown photo experience scarred him and he started boozing early. In which case I say, “Cheers!”
Recent, somewhat
Archive photo from June, 2007. Sometimes an image lingers in my mind as though it were the stain of a high water mark. That’s what this is. I’ve taken features that I’m proud of since I made this image, but I’m not sure if anything raises the mark. I had already taken a shot of this school demolition site the day prior, but I returned because I wanted to try something different with a Holga (see below). I’m glad I brought my “real” camera as well, or this moment may have slipped away.
From Oklahoma
2003 archive. I overedited this picture (or blew it out and couldn’t give it up or something), and now the original is gone. Oh well, the DOF wasn’t any good anyway. Just a hipshot that I should have composed. I sure do shoot a lot of stuff blind. I need to quit doing that. Or invest in a waist-level viewfinder.
Tanked
Feb. 13, 2009. The great thing about swimming practice is that nobody cares about the photographer kneeling poolside with his arms stuck in a fish tank. Not the sharpest picture I’ve ever shot, but I’m fairly happy with it considering the gear limitations and blind shooting (excuses, excuses). Ah, my kingdom for a D3 and an underwater housing. And a Borat mankini. That’s-a nice! Below is a more successful (and sharper) attempt I made using the fish tank two years ago.
Up and down
I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t been shooting many vertical compositions lately. It might be due to my one-time dream of being a cinemetographer – vertical compositions aren’t possible in cinema, therefore you don’t have to think in terms of them. Now that shooting video is part of my job description, perhaps my brain has switched back to my former point of view. I do however shoot basketball action in mostly verticals. And, apparently, reflections and silhouettes. Hmmm. Anyway, here are a few from the past to remind myself that I can still shoot them. Maybe I’ll shoot one tomorrow. Maybe.
Nothing to see here
Feb. 12, 2009. I felt like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man (1971) today. I went out for a feature hunt, and it was like I was the last person on Earth. Then I went home and talked to a bust of Julius Caesar.
An otherwise dull day
Feb. 11, 2009. No photographer can pass up a red umbrella. I dare you.
Church pew beds
Shot from the hip, the more I looked at this picture of a homeless shelter the more I wanted to keep it. Not because it’s that great of a picture, because it isn’t. But it’s natural, and that’s why I like it. People tend to scatter at shelters the moment a camera is raised. Also, this shelter is facing eviction in ten days, and I wanted to get an accurate documentation of the place. But the bottom line is that I didn’t have permission from the men to put their pictures in the newspaper, and that’s that. I went back and asked, but they kindly declined (I’ll just have to live with any shame that comes with posting it on my blog to make a point). I guess this photo is just a stray dog that followed me home.
On the up side, I think I’ve built a bit of trust with the men. I’ll no doubt be back on eviction day.
Wrestling, not wraslin’ – Pt. II
Feb. 5, 2009. Prep regional. No barbed wire thumbtack death matches until you get to the state tourney. Then you take on Ox Harley for the hardcore championship.
Looks like everyone is shooting the same assignments this time of year. Some incredibly talented colleagues had themselves a little wrestle-off on their blogs. Check out the cool shots by Amanda Lucier and Katie Barnes.
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