Art / Photography / PotD

Flexible Friday

August 7, 2015

Flexible Friday

And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you’ll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not up to this Friday. —Alfred Doblin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]As I sit down to write this morning, and it’s a rather unusual thing that I wake up on a Friday not already having at least half this thing done, I’m tempted to just set the picture here and walk away, leaving you to look at it and wonder for yourself what manner of meaning, if any, it might hold. For me, there’s a sadness to this image, but that’s a personal matter not really fit for public consumption. There are also the technical aspects of how this particular multiple exposure was achieved; a different technique used due to the fact that the background on each image was bright white. I’m not terribly motivated to recount the steps for that process, either.

As you look at the picture, you might be impressed with the model’s flexibility, and appropriately so. Lord knows I’m no longer in any condition to be contorting myself into such positions. Sure, I have friends who are yoga instructors and they all assure me that there are things I could do to increase my physical mobility without aggravating the pain issues. What no one has been able to do yet, however, is find a way to increase my mental flexibility that seems to be increasingly rigid as I get older. I’m sadly reaching that point in life when rather than being excited about the prospects for fun-filled Friday night activities, I’m wondering how early I might be able to get to bed.

I once met a lovely little lady in Paradise, California, back in 1981, who was 101 years old. She was the first person of such age I’d ever met and her spryness caught me off guard. “The secret,” she said, “is to never let anyone convince you that you’re old.” She was amazingly flexible, a former dancer, who put her stockings on while standing up to help maintain both her balance and her flexibility. She read constantly to maintain her mental acuity and every Friday walked the mile and a half each way to the senior center for lunch just to prove to “those old people” that it was still possible. She was quite inspirational.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]There was a time, and it seems like it was not long ago, when I considered myself reasonably flexible. I could scale a climbing wall as fast as any of my boys. I could straddle two canoes and manage to not fall into the river. I could leap across rocks to the middle of a stream so as to have the best perspective for a picture and not worry too much about dunking my equipment. I was also socially flexible. Last-minute schedule changes didn’t bother me. Long lines were something I could marginally tolerate. Differences of opinion were interesting and often worth considering. Fridays were busy and fun, even when we stayed home.

Not so much anymore. When my alarm went off this morning, the first thing I had to do was pop a dozen different joints that had gone stiff during the night. Walking across the floor to my desk was arduous, slow, with carefully measured steps. Getting up and down from my chair is challenging enough that I’ll sit here arguing with myself as to whether I really need that second cup of coffee before I lose consciousness and fall asleep on the keyboard. Again. Changes to my schedule? Don’t you dare! Once I have an appointment set it might as well be carved in stone. Death is the only excuse I’ll accept for changes and even then I might gripe about how inconsiderate it is for someone to die on a Friday and ruin the whole weekend. Cross opinions with me and you’re just being stupid.

Oh look, I’ve actually made it past my minimum 600-word count. I just got up and put on water for the second pot of coffee (French press). Perhaps I’m more flexible than I thought. I even have plans to go see a friend’s photography exhibition tonight, children in tow and everything. Just don’t talk to me about last night’s presidential debate; that was an exercise in who can pander in the most disgusting manner. I’m still not flexible enough to handle stupid. Don’t expect that to change.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Playing With Your Food

August 1, 2015

Playing With Food

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt. ― Charles M. Schulz

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There is something about growing up and being able to do the things that your parents wouldn’t let you do. Jumping on the bed. Watching scary movies at night. Having desert before the main course. One of those things that continues to bring great joy to me is playing with my food. I think that’s why I spend so much time in the kitchen preparing meals. There is no small pleasure in taking a stack of raw ingredients and creating something that, usually, ends up being delicious. For me, eating the concoction is secondary to the creating, and should I happen to get covered in something delicious in the process, well, I’m probably not going to mind too terribly much.

Having seen three boys through their toddlerhood, I’m rather convinced that playing with our food is inherent and instinctive. From the moment they stopped nursing, all three boys found interest in seeing what all they might do with their food before it went into their mouths. Can it be stacked? Will it fit up my nose? How does it look in my ear? Hey, this makes my hair look cool! You know, this feels very cool on my toes. Wow, look how much of this fits in my diaper! No matter how many times it happened, it wasn’t until they were school age that they reluctantly stopped playing with their food at every meal. I won’t say they don’t still play around on occasion; I’ve seen what a certain Marine tries putting between a couple of crackers.

I am of the opinion that playing with our food is one of our earliest forms of creative expression. Before we’re allowed to play with craft dough or color with crayons, there’s food—food that is soft and often comes with sauce. Baby food spreads quite well, especially across a white highchair tray, or mom’s linen table cloth that’s been handed down for five generations. Daddy’s clean, starched shirt is the perfect canvas for a mixture of strained peas and smashed carrots. Here is where we first begin to express ourselves, to experiment with blending colors and textures, and seeing just exactly what all we can do with these things called hands and toes. As incredibly frustrating as it is for the parent who has to clean up both the baby and the artwork, the lessons being learned are crucial to our early development.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I won’t say that any of the works we’ve shown you this week are critical to anyone’s artistic or motor skill development. I will say that they were each interesting as we shot them. Rarely did the food behave exactly the way we anticipated. Sometimes body heat caused things to melt; other times it caused things to sweat and bead up. We discovered that small pieces were easier than larger ones, especially when it comes to chocolate. We anticipated chocolate being a little messy, but an eight-ounce bar liquefied almost the instant it touched skin. Orange peel curled up, dried out, and changed color within a fifteen-minute period. I learned something new about food with every new concept and in some cases decided to never use said products again, even for their intended purposes. Something that hurts you on the outside can’t be doing anything helpful for your insides.

What this episode of playing with food taught me, though, is that the possibilities for expressing one’s creativity by merging food with the human form. The seven examples you’ve seen this week are only half of what we’ve shot, and I’ve developed plenty of ideas over the past five years should I decide to ever expand on the concept. I’ve not even started playing with pasta or vegetables. Wet sauces are so numerable they could probably host their own exhibition. I did give momentary thought to trying something with ice cream, but given our experience with chocolate I don’t see that working out quite so well. Anything that spoils, melts, or sours quickly isn’t a good choice.

Of course, we could always just work with baby food. We already know its artistic potential, and for all I know it might just help someone get back in touch with their inner child. Although, if that inner child is a brat then perhaps it’s better that it just stays put away. The world doesn’t need more politicians. What the world needs is the freedom to take what is in front of them and use that to express themselves, whether it’s through food, or cloth, or digital electronics, or even tree bark. Art doesn’t start with the exotic, but creates exotic from the ordinary. I can’t think of a better place to start than with food. [/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Your Crackers

July 31, 2015

Your Crackers

I know people that could serve me canned tuna and saltine crackers and have me feel more at home at their table than some people who can cook circles around me. The more you try to impress people, generally the less you do. —Alton Brown

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I am obligated to address the grammarians among my friends and readers who are at this moment questioning whether I have made a mistake in the title of this entry. No, I have not. The intention here is to reflect the possessive in that it is my intention to discuss the crackers that you own. Therefore, they are your crackers. Now, notwithstanding, you may very well be somewhat daft and/or loopy also, in which case I might tell your nurse that you’re crackers and I’ve no doubt she would readily agree with me since she has to put up with your cantankerous old ass on a daily basis. Behave yourself and take your medicine; I almost know what I’m doing.

Crackers may well be one of the oldest forms of prepared food known to humanity. After all, it doesn’t really take much to make them. A little flour, a little water, at minimum; maybe a little salt, possibly a little baking powder if that’s not against one’s religious convictions, is all one needs to make crackers. Those ingredients have been around for thousands of years, and to a large extent the recipes haven’t changed all that much, though one might argue that the base ingredients have evolved along with us. One might argue whether humans or the grains have survived that evolution well, but both of us are still here and crackers are still just as much a staple of the modern diet as they were for our ancestors. Some things just can’t really be improved upon all that much.

Among all the various types of crackers available in the universe, saltines may be the most prevalent. Not only are they simple, they are inexpensive which puts them in high demand among the 98 percent of us who actually have to pay attention to the price of food. They provide accompaniment to everything from simple soups to fancy hors d’Oeuvres without risking upsetting anyone’s stomach. One can even purchase low-sodium saltines, which seems rather counter-intuitive at first, but since I’ve become one of the millions who has to watch their blood pressure I understand the concern over what a little salt can do to a body. My personal preference is for those round butter-flavored crackers, again the low-sodium kind. I can devour a sleeve of those and still eat a full meal. Children love fish-shaped crackers with artificial cheese flavoring. Multi-grain crackers are nice, but seem almost too fancy for everyday use. There’s a different cracker for everyone. What’s important is your crackers and making sure they’re always available.[/one_half]

[one_half padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]My most vivid memory of saltines comes courtesy my maternal grandfather, for whom I’m named. Grandpa was on disability by the time I was born, having hurt his back working for the Rock Island railroad. As a result, he took a lot of medicines to manage his pain and associated ailments. Some of those medicines required eating something before taking the pill in order to prevent nausea. One dose came at bedtime and since it just didn’t make any sense to eat anything heavy, Grandpa would typically slice off a chunk of longhorn cheddar and put it between two saltines. That was just enough for the pill to do its work. There were other times, often around lunch, when he would open a can of Spam® (yes, people actually do that), cut off a slice and put that between crackers. If he was feeling patient he might fry the Spam, but more often than not he just ate it as it was, straight from the can. Saltines were grandpa’s crackers and I think of him every time I see on.

For this project, we crumbled a single sleeve of saltines, going for that fine consistency one gets when the little cracker package one gets with the salad at a truck stop is handed to a two-year-old. While crackers don’t weigh a great deal, they are still subject to the laws of gravity and this is one of the sets we shot with the model standing rather than lying down. Of all the different substances we tried, crackers spread the most evenly. We tried a couple of different kinds of crackers, but saltines provided the most contrast and recognizable texture.

Look around your kitchen; chances are you have a sleeve or a box of crackers sitting somewhere on a shelf. If you are one of my sons, you have a sleeve sitting next to your computer. Your crackers are what gives life to other boring foods, such as simple cheeses or processed meats. Your crackers leave a trail of crumbs to help us find you should you become misplaced (or hiding because you’re two and have pooped your pants). Your crackers fill the culinary cracks where one needs texture without noticeable taste. Most importantly, though, your crackers are your crackers. No one else can eat your crackers without permission. Should you choose to share your crackers, you are a nice person, but we understand if you don’t. It’s probably nap time, anyway. Brush the crumbs off your shirt and lie down. Your crackers will be right here when you wake up. Have a good nap.[/one_half]

Art / PotD

Snap, Crackle, Hold the Pop

July 30, 2015

Snap, Crackle, Hold The Pop

Looking back, some of the happiest moments of my childhood were spent with my arm in packets of breakfast cereal, rooting around for a free gift. —Craig Brown

[one_half padding=”4px 10 px 0 4px”]My generation, those of us commonly referred to as Baby Boomers, should probably be more accurately named the cereal generation. We are, after all, the ones who made the folks at Kellogg’s and Post and General Mills billionaires. We were consumed with our breakfast cereals, those sugary-sweet morsels of sugar infused grain with a sweet sugary coating and all the natural goodness of sugar that made us snap and crackle. No wonder we were hyperactive as hell! And reading the back of the cereal box was the child’s equivalent of the adult sitting at the same table reading the morning newspaper. The information on the back of the cereal box was vital to life because it told us everything we could do with the toy inside the box! Reading it once was simply not enough. We had to go over it again and again and again.

Actually, we were a gullible bunch of youngsters who believed in things like x-ray glasses and super secret agent decoder rings. In fact, I distinctly remember fighting my younger brother on more than one occasion for the right to wear that decoder ring we pulled from the cereal box. After all, there was a message to decode on the back of the box and he wasn’t old enough to read it yet, much less understand it’s super secret agent spy message. We believed the cartoon characters who told us to follow our nose, that sugar was great, and that the snap and pop of milk poured over cracked rice was actually the cereal talking to us. Good god, we were a stupid bunch of kids. And we’re running the country now, so maybe that explains a few things.

Rice Krispies® held an extra special place on the shelf lined with almost-empty-but-not-quite boxes of breakfast cereal. Not only could we enjoy the snap and such of the cereal in the morning, but at least a few times a year Mother would mix the cereal with marshmallows for one of the best treats to ever grace the refreshment table at a school or church party. I’ve no idea whose mom originally came up with this concoction, but she most certainly deserves sainthood in the eyes of children everywhere. What would a party be without those treats? Sure, the same thing could be done with just about any cereal, but no one ever did that because it would have just been a blatant, un-cool knock off of the original. Kellogg’s now packages the things themselves because modern moms are too “busy” to be bothered with the fifteen minutes it takes to make a batch. Trust me, kids, if you’re being fed the packaged goods you’re being cheated. Big time.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4 px 0 10 px”]Cereal is still very big business, of course, but attitudes have changed. Sugar is no longer in the name of anything because everyone pretends to be health conscious. Mind you, the cereal itself doesn’t actually have any less sugar, but they’ve removed the word from the name so that moms wouldn’t be so blatantly reminded that they’re feeding their children empty calories that will establish bad eating habits for the rest of their lives. They’ve also played down the advertising and all but eliminated the prize inside the box. Again, the cereal hasn’t changed. Kids just don’t have the joy of finding true meaning in the bottom of a box like their parents found in the bottom of a bottle. We have deprived our children of one of the basic sources of hope. No wonder they’re committing violent crime before they’re old enough to drive. They never got to figure out the message from the super secret agent decoder ring.

You’ll note we sliced strawberries to put on our Rice Krispies®. Putting fruit on cereal has anyways been a big thing. Parents like it because the fruit is a natural sweetner. Kids like it because MORE SUGAR! In our case, we added the fruit to give the picture some color. Up until this point in my life, I had never really noticed how just incredibly bland looking a lot of cereal is. Those made of a single grain such as corn, rice, or wheat address all monochromatic as they sit there in a bowl of white milk. There’s no visual excitement, nothing that separates one bite from another other than degrees of sogginess. The bright red of strawberries makes a tremendous difference in the visual impact.

I rarely eat breakfast cereal any more. I rarely eat breakfast any more. I’m up early, downing coffee; the kids eat at school and by the time they’re on the bus I’m too deeply involved in work to bother. When I do eat, it tends to be something marginally healthy with granola and dried fruit. No more sugar bombs. No more decoder rings. Being an adult would really suck except for the fact I can now play with my cereal and call it art. Pouring cereal all over someone who’s not my brother? I can get into that.

Our kids deserve to experience breakfast like we did, with all the family drama and hope and encouragement that came from the back of a cereal box. Kids deserve decoder rings. Otherwise, life is like cereal that has sat in milk to too long: still some snap and crackle here, but no pop. [/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Doing It Wrong

July 29, 2015

You’re Doing It Wrong

It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

[one_half padding=”4px 10 px 0 4px”]”We all make mistakes.” How many times does a parent or teacher say that to a child who is distraught over what the adult sees as an insignificant error? I know I heard the phrase countless times as I was growing up and I’m pretty sure I’ve said it to my boys and several other children, and maybe some other adults, over the years. Some mistakes are significant and deserve attention and correction and perhaps even punishment. But the majority of mistakes we make aren’t really that big a deal, even though they may feel like it at the time. We’re good at blowing things way out of proportion. Hell, political pundits wouldn’t have anything to talk about if they gave mistakes a fair shake. None of us are perfect, but we too often expect such of ourselves and, most notoriously, of others.

“You should have known better.” Wow, have I used that one far too often. I’m rather ashamed now that I’m sitting here giving it some though. Should we always know better? Sure, we may have covered the topic under similar circumstances multiple times before, but when we consider the nuances that surround each and every second of our lives that keep up from actually duplicating anything, could it be possible someone innocently, unwittingly, taking the moment for the unique thing that it is, doesn’t know better? What we see as an error born of failure to pay attention may very well be one simply caused by living in the moment.

“You’re doing it wrong.” Ouch, that one always hurts but it has taken on a new life of its own thanks to a “song,” by some guy named Drake. I have to admit to some ignorance here. I’m not a hip-hop/rap fan and if I’ve ever actually heard a song by this Drake fellow no one bothered to tell me. I know he’s no Frank Sinatra but it’s not exactly fair to hold that against Drake, is it? Just because someone doesn’t sing in the style to which we accustomed doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong, does it? So this Drake fellow is being creative, as are millions of other people who choose to do things in their own special way, color their life outside the line. Does that mean they’re doing it wrong?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Powder-like substances were the first thing we tried, but after five attempts with only two that could be considered successful and two that were outright disasters, we opted for thicker, more sturdy substances that provided a greater amount of texture. I don’t like having a concept go wrong, but moving on to other substances was probably the best for the project. Being versatile and flexible is a necessity even when working on one’s own. That doesn’t make admitting that you’re doing it wrong any easier.

At least the only m negative aspect of using flour was the mess quotient, which was considerable. Anyone who has spent any time in a kitchen knows the propensity floor has for getting all over the place, no matter how careful one tries to be. One little whiff of air and there is flour all over the place. Now imagine, we weren’t trying to be all that careful and the air conditioning was on. Every time the model changed poses, more floor became airborne. By the time we finished, flour dusted everything in the room. Clean up took weeks.

I still like this image, though I probably wouldn’t do it again. There’s a phantom-like feeling to it that is a little dark and mysterious if one chooses to let one’s mind wander in that direction. Also like the natural lines that formed as the model moved. The texture and design turned out far more interesting than I had anticipated. While this portion of the project wasn’t quite what I wanted, at least it doesn’t carry that sense that we were doing it wrong. Nothing in life has to be perfect to be correct. After all, we all make mistakes, even when we should have known better.

Forgiveness is often very necessary. [/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Candy Corn

July 28, 2015

Candy Corn

The worst thing about Halloween is, of course, candy corn. It’s unbelievable to me. Candy corn is the only candy in the history of America that’s never been advertised. And there’s a reason. All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911. And so, since nobody eats that stuff, every year there’s a ton of it left over. —Lewis Black

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I have a very horrible confession to make; one that may well cause you to change your opinion of me. I realize this may cause me to lose some friends and if so I certainly understand why. I do not say this with pride, but in acknowledging a life-long weakness against which I am powerless. I love candy corn.

There, I said it. Whew. I am so very relieved to have that off my chest. Well, in this case it’s on the model’s chest, the candy corn is, and I personally think it looks quite attractive there, certainly better than it does encased in cellophane packaging on the store shelf. Have you ever noticed how poor and pathetic candy corn looks when it’s at the store? Candy corn is the Eeyore of the candy aisle. “Thank you for noticing me,” it says, never really expecting to actually leave the store.

How one actually eats candy corn is another matter. Personally, I nibble off the yellow end first and then the tiny white end, leaving the orange colored center for last. No, there is no difference in how the different colors taste; it’s all just a mix of sugar and gelatin. I just like prolonging the great as long add possible without giving myself a sugar buzz. I’ve seen people just grab a handful and drop the whole thing in their mouth. That seems wasteful and unappreciative. All that sugar at once overrides the delicate texture of the candy corn.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10 px”]Despite the fact no one admits to liking candy corn, recent years have seen several variation hitting site shelves. Mind you, for the most part the sugary bland taste is still the same no matter what the colors are, but there’s an autumn version where the bottom is brown and the top is yellow, and a Halloween version where the bottom is black and there’s no white tips. There is even a holiday version where the bottom is green and the middle is red. Last fall we tried a candy apple version that was brown on the bottom and a dark red in the middle; it had a vague artificial apple flavor to it but was otherwise unimpressive.

I’m glad we used the traditional version for this photo. The colors work well with the model’s skin tone and there’s no question what it is covering her. Although, for some reason, people still ask, “Is that candy corn?” as though they can’t quite believe their eyes. That is often quickly followed by the declaration that they don’t like candy corn, but I tend to think those people are lying. No one wants to admit to such a strange indulgence.

This may be the only time in history that candy corn has been used in quite this way. I won’t go so far as to think that is never been used in art projects because people can be very creative. Still, this is likely one of the most unique photos in our archives and gives everyone a chance to like candy corn without actually having to eat it.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

A Cool Thrill

July 27, 2015

A Cool Thrill

After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy. ― Denis Johnson, Nobody Move

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I don’t see them around much anymore, that cool thrill that enlivens a mouth and freshens breath. They used to be everywhere: doctor’s offices, bank teller windows, on the reception desk of every office in the United States, and scattered in little dishes around funeral homes. I spent way too much time in funeral homes as a child, so I know these things. They were the one candy my parents rarely minded me sneaking though they were careful to make sure I didn’t walk out with a pocket full. They were gentle, soothing, just sweet enough to satisfy that sugar craving but mellow enough to not overwhelm one’s mouth. Take a swig of soda while you had one in your mouth, though, and things just might get a little crazy in there.

I’m talking, of course, about the little individually wrapped peppermint candies that are, probably even now gracing a dish in the viewing room of some funeral home. We wouldn’t want our bad breath to bother the deceased, you know. They went by different names. Spangler Candies called theirs Starlight Mints while Brach’s called theirs Star Brite Mints. What relationship a peppermint-flavored piece of hardened sugar has to do with anything related to astronomy I’m not sure, but everyone called them star-something. White candies with stripes of red, they didn’t have an expiration date and the only way for them to go bad was if they somehow managed to get wet. One never knew if the candy had been in the bowl a day, a month, or a year; it didn’t really seem to matter.

What we don’t like to talk about, and quite likely the reason we don’t see as many of them anymore, is that every place of business set out mints because everyone smoked cigarettes, but no one liked smoker’s breath. I grew up in a day when it wasn’t unusual to walk into a business, especially one dominated by male employees, and the air be thick with cigarette smoke. The more people smoked, the more one could be sure there was a dish full of mints sitting nearby. While no one really cared about the effects of second-hand smoke, they did care about how their breath smelled. Having bad smoker’s breath was a far worse social offense than was the actual act of smoking, especially when attempting to comfort the family of the deceased.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]If we’re totally honest, peppermint candies were far from being my favorite because, while they did provide a cool thrill that made listening to adult conversations slightly less intolerable, they took too long to dissolve in my mouth. I never have been the most patient person on the planet. I like my sugar rush to come quickly, strong, and preferably coated in milk chocolate. If I was sucking on a peppermint, it almost always meant I was somewhere I didn’t really want to be, waiting on my parents, trying really hard to not get in trouble despite the overwhelming level of boredom that came with visiting people who were sick, or dying, or already dead. Poppa was the compassionate one. Me? I wanted to get home so I could ride my bike.

Unlike yesterday’s photo where I was able to find pre-packaged bits and pieces of candy, I had to buy a couple of bags worth of peppermints and crush them each myself. The task was not easy and thank god the little things are individually wrapped or there would still be pieces of peppermint scattered across the studio floor. Once sugar reaches the crackle stage, breaking it damn near requires a sledgehammer. Creating enough crushed candy to cover not one but two bodies sounded as though we were undertaking a major construction project. Lord knows I’ve not spent that much time with a hammer in my hand since doing string art back in the fourth grade. Preparation for this shoot was one of the most time consuming ever.

I love how the peppermint just scatters loosely across the skin. I cannot help but look at this picture and think of the holidays, and winter, and Santa Clause, and peppermint faeries. Then, because I’m a child, I have to giggle at the use of the word faeries.

Using peppermint for an art project like this was doing the candy a favor, I think. I saved them from sitting endlessly in a cut glass dish next to a dead person and gave them a brief but exciting life covering a naked person. What a cool thrill that had to be for the peppermint. Actually, the models didn’t seem to mind, either. Cool thrills all around.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

More Than Candy

July 26, 2015

More Than Candy

Welcome, let’s all prepare to be whisked to the magical land of candy. Be warned, candy is very addicting and at Jubilee’s the candy is the tastiest in the world. ― Derek Ailes, Zombie Command: A Horror Anthology

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Wow, here we are already at the last week of July and it feels as though I don’t have nearly enough done to show for it. Sure, the garden has been a moderate success and we’ve traveled a bit to see family, but we’ve not taken many pictures. At times, the weather hasn’t been cooperative; this has been the wettest summer on record in Indiana, and there’s a decent chance of more rain today and tomorrow. My nature is to push myself to keep up with a schedule that, perhaps, isn’t as realistic today as it was fifteen years ago when there was something new to shoot every day, often multiple times a day. That absence of new pictures bothers me.

Then, I look at the collection of pictures we’ve chosen for this week, part of a series called Texture, shot throughout the year in 2010. We didn’t shoot them all in one day. We didn’t even shoot them all in one month. The earliest shoot was done in March, and we strung it out all year with the last shoot taking place mid-December. As a result, we have a full set of images, almost enough to have run two weeks, with a wide array of diversity across the group. We had time to experiment, which was good because only a couple of the shoots came out the way I anticipated. A couple of the concepts were absolutely disastrous. Had we been on a tight production schedule, those two could have killed the whole project.

By spreading the concept out over a year, we were able to figure out what worked best. Lying down produced better results than standing. A popular powdered children’s drink burns when the powder comes into contact with sensitive areas of skin. Taco seasoning doesn’t wash off for almost three weeks. Having a ticklish model doesn’t help. Recruiting models wasn’t as challenging as it is for some projects, though, because they were able to see what we were doing along the way. We posted images soon after they were shot and that made the project more interesting. While some of the first images were full-length, we eventually decided that it was closer, more macro shots that look best, so we didn’t need to cover as much of the body to get the desired effect. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Texture is a series that finds its roots in some very basic, childish, perhaps even primal need to get dirty. Prior to embarking on the series, we played around with mud and paint and sand and even coffee grounds on a few occasions because it photographs similarly to sand. There’s something about dirt on skin that feels natural, that connects us back to the planet in some psychological way I’m not able to explain. Getting dirty, connecting with our environment, is what generates some of our happiest memories as children. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but getting dirty is definitely a lot more fun.

Expanding on that concept, candy seemed like a natural fit for the project. Sure, it meant having to crush it in some cases, but with today’s photo all we had to do was looking in the baking aisle of the local grocery for chips and pieces. Putting a variety of candies in cookies and milkshakes has been a popular enough activity that finding crumbles wasn’t difficult at all. The one question was a matter of which ones would actually look good against the skin. Some worked better than others because even small pieces of chocolate melt against the 98.6° warmth of the human body. And no, one really doesn’t want to eat them afterward. We used a thin layer of petroleum jelly in most cases to help the candy (or whatever other substance) to actually stay in place. This mix of toffee and chocolate managed to look good without smearing all over. The flower was a nice finishing touch.

We grow up with our parents constantly admonishing us to not play with our food, and when it comes to candy there was the added warning to not get it all over the place. Candy can be very messy, and at times very difficult to clean. Chocolate does stain, after all. Yet, what we found across this project is that the texture created by getting personal with food is interesting, surprising, and at times quite alluring. What those candy crumbles do to the landscape of the human form is rather exciting. Be warned, this could be addicting.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Not Dead Yet

July 25, 2015

Polaroid PX 600 Silver Shade Impossible UV+ Monochrome

I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid. —Lady Gaga

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For those whose lives are incredibly boring and/or severely disadvantaged, let me explain why I chose the title for this today’s photo. In the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there is a scene invoking images of the black plague. A man is walking through the streets of London yelling, “Bring out your dead,” as he pushes a cart carrying the bodies of the deceased.

As one body is tossed onto the cart, the presumably deceased man objects: “I’m not dead yet!” At which he is told he soon will be and that he should just lie down and die already.

Then, in true Monty Python fashion, they break into song.

Polaroid is the photographic equivalent of that old man; it just refuses to die, even though there is no longer any logical use for the once-popular technology. When Edwin Land introduced his first instant camera in 1947, he wowed the photography world with his amazing film that processed on its own. The impact was every bit as significant as digital photography would be some fifty years later. There wasn’t a serious photographer on the planet who didn’t snap a series of Polaroids to make sure the light and camera settings were correct before committing to film. Polaroids quickly became an indispensable part of the profession for anyone working in a studio. I shudder to think of the millions of Polaroid images scattered across studio floors that were eventually swept up and thrown away. If those Polaroids could talk …

Then came digital cameras and with them the ability to “preview” an image right on the camera. One knew instantly whether they had the shot or not. No waiting. No shaking. No suddenly discovering one had a bad packet of film (which happened too frequently). As the new millennium dawned, Polaroid’s days seemed numbered. Sales of both its cameras and films plummeted. Bankruptcy was inevitable and talk of the company’s demise just assumed that doors had already been shuttered and no one was left. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Folks at Polaroid weren’t so quick to just give up, though, and as though crying, “I’m not dead yet!” they came back in 2008 with an instant mobile printer and followed that with the Z340 instant digital camera in 2011. The company has recommitted itself to finding ways to bring their instant prints to a digital-centric society that has very little patience. While the Polaroid may no longer be a studio necessity, the new cameras as still a lot of fun and give a person that instant gratification of being able to hold a picture in their hands.

To some extent, creating a digital conversion to a Polaroid-type look seems, well, very anti-Polaroid. After all, having a Polaroid is all about the print, being able to hold something in one’s hands. Yet, for articles about the technology or perhaps just the uniqueness of the look, there are ways of re-creating most of the Polaroid film looks. You don’t want to try this on your own, though, unless you have more patience than I. Fortunately, you don’t have to be the brave explorer here. There are Photoshop™ actions all over the place that make it process much easier and, in this particular case, I suggest using one. I used one from rawimage which is available by clicking here. Be aware the link takes you to their page on DeviantArt. After running the action, we did a little burning around the edges to further “age” the image a bit and bring out the streaks that were inevitable with older Polaroids.

Keep in mind a couple of things. First, the actions require original images with strong lines and good contrast. I ran the action on a picture of a white wedding cake with a white topper and when it finished the topper had completely disappeared! Second, Polaroid images were not meant to be permanent. Don’t try to give them too polished a look or you’re missing the whole point. Polaroid was never a perfect film and the majority were inevitably thrown away. Don’t think the days of Polaroid are completely gone, though. They’re not dead yet.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Subtle Touches

July 22, 2015

Kodak T-Max 100

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Do you remember the first picture you ever took? Chances are it wasn’t 35mm, but rather a popular consumer-grade fixed-lens camera. Poppa wouldn’t let me touch his Brownie, but we did own a series of little 110 Instamatics that were passed around to whichever family member wasn’t actually in the photo. I remember dumping that film cartridge in the back and looking through the small viewfinder, trying to not cut off everyone’s heads as Mother tended to do. If we were inside, there was a requirement for flash, which most often came in the form of a cube that sat on top of the camera. Getting four flashes without having to change cubes seemed so much more modern than the single-use bulbs required for the Brownie. Never mind that they tended to over-light, casts horrible shadows, and were anything but subtle. We were just having fun with friends and family. No one took seriously anything shot with a 110.

Using a 35mm film was different and something I didn’t experience until I was in college. It was the summer of 1981, if I remember correctly, and we were going to a family reunion of sorts, back to Arkansas and the little farming community where Poppa grew up. A friend loaned me his 35mm, loaded a roll of color 36-exposure color film, and showed me quickly how to focus the lens. I put the camera in the trunk of the car, largely afraid to use it for fear of causing damage. When I did try to take a few pictures with it, I was frustrated by the fact that a subtle movement could throw the entire picture out of focus. I didn’t even use the full 36 frames. I was sure, at that point, that photography at any advanced level wasn’t for me.

So much of photography seems to center around the big, highly-produced, carefully manipulated, high-processed images that appear in fashion magazines that we tend to lose sight of the subtle, more nuanced images where careful attention is given to the detail. Finer points of an image are easily lost as we mismanage light or fail to pay attention to precise settings on the camera. Sure, maybe no one notices, and perhaps no one cares, but when I look back at archived images, which is where we find most of our #POTD subjects, detail, or the lack of it, is the first thing my eyes catch. Subtle touches can make a tremendous amount of difference.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No black and white film I’ve used handles those subtle touches better than Kodak Professional T-Max 100. When I first started taking pictures, this was the film I wasn’t allowed to touch; it was more expensive, required a photographer that knew what they were doing, and was reserved for those special occasions when someone of national prominence was visiting. There is no finer grain, no better resolving power, no sharper lines than is possible with this film. T-Max enlarges well, it is consistent in tone from batch to batch, and it handles the most subtle of details with finesse. Art photographers have long loved this film, but I always liked it for portraits as well because I feel like it does a better job of capturing everything one wants to see in a face.

Okay, so there are times T-Max can be fussy, especially in development. There is dramatic difference between the 100 speed and 400 speed versions of the film. 100 speed prefers longer exposure times, which may be great for portraits and still life, but is totally inappropriate for almost any kind of motion at all. The shorter the exposure time, the more the film struggles. Variances in any portion of the development environment affect the contrast and tone of the final image. Even subtle changes in temperature can have strong results. Similarly, one has to be careful with the conversion to digital. I used these settings for black and white adjustment: reds-37, yellows-70, greens-33, cyans-64, blues-28, magentas-68.

Whether there is, or can be, a good digital equivalent of T-Max 100 is open for debate. With digital images, grain, or more correctly, noise is introduced by the camera sensor and is not something easily removed in processing. T-Max 100 has such a fine grain that any noise in the image discounts the accuracy of the conversion. One needs to be extremely careful with any contrast adjustment as well. Still, when one is starting with a good image, this is a good method to use and the subtle handling of detail makes a world of difference.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Surprise!

July 20, 2015

Fomapan

The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh. —Edward Weston

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Surprise in photography is rarely a good thing. One of the most significant differences between shooting film and shooting digital is ease of traveling. When traveling with film, one has to take great pains going through security to make sure the film canisters are removed and not exposed to any x-ray or other devices that might damage the product. Sometimes security personnel were cooperative and understanding, sometimes they weren’t, especially in countries with a history of rebellious violence. Digital cameras sail through security much more easily, though it still makes me quite nervous.

Imagine being in a former Soviet-bloc country, such as the Czech Republic, and your film not surviving the airport. Suddenly, and frustratingly, the success of a high-budget project depends on finding a replacement film with high enough quality to do the job. After asking around, you find a local photographer who hands you a roll of a locally-made film he promises is professional quality. At least, you think that’s what he’s saying; the interpreter was having problems with the vocabulary. You drop the film in the camera and pray, hard. To make matters more challenging, lighting conditions for the shoot are far from perfect and you keep having to adjust exposure by a stop or two. Warning the art director that you can’t guarantee results seems like a good idea.

Next, you bring the film home and hand it off at a lab to be processed. After a couple of hours, the phone rings and you get the strange message that the film has turned both the developer and the negatives a bright blue! After sharing some strong words with the lab manager, he agrees to go ahead and finish processing the first roll. You wait patiently for the results and when they arrive you are pleasantly surprised to discover some of the sharpest photographs you’ve seen. Even when the exposure had to be adjusted, the film compensated more than adequately. Much to everyone’s delight, the project has been saved. Surprise![/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]As the former Soviet Union crumbled and both nation states and businesses struggled to retain some identity in this new existence, we discovered a host of smaller film companies who, to great surprise, created products that excelled in different ways. The Czech company now known as FOMA Bohemia is one of those companies. Founded in the early 1920s, the film products were rarely seen outside Eastern Europe until the mid-90s, after the Czech Republic was formed. They had the bad luck of hitting the global market just before the whole digital craze took hold and never had much of a chance to prove what they could do. The film is still available in limited quantities, but more for hobbyist than professional use.

Fomapan is an interesting film that likes to surprise photographers with slightly different results on every roll. These are good results, mind you, but how the film is scanned and any variation in how long they’re left in developer, which will still turn bright blue, shift the tonal base even for black and white film. This makes the film quite fun from an artistic perspective and totally frustrating when one needs consistency. Recreating the look digitally is easy enough, and one has plenty of latitude. For today’s photo, we used the following black and white adjustment settings: reds- 31, yellows- 89, greens- 105, cyans- 77, blues- 46, magentas- 44. Where the fun, and surprise, comes in is applying various color filters on top of the black and white layer. We used an orange filter to bring out the model’s freckles, but blue and red filters can be very dramatic.

Fomapan does play a little dark on blues and reds, so one has to be careful with shadows and shading. For added effect, mix this setting with a Holga filter if you have one. Fomapan in a Holga is truly a work of art, but is better for landscapes than portraits. Fomapan is a black and white with a lot of tonal flexibility. Try it and share the surprise.[/one_half_last]

Art / pop culture / PotD

Varying Success

July 18, 2015

Aliens Among Us

The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren’t any space aliens. We can’t be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we’re not all there is. If so, we’re in big trouble. ― Ellen DeGeneres

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]One of the most potentially disturbing questions for humanity is whether we are alone in the universe. Many are sure we are not. Many are equally certain we must be. No matter where one stands on the issue, though, the question remains fascinating, one that dominated movies and literature in the 20th century, and is almost considered matter-of-fact in entertainment today. Through the safety of special effects, we’ve explored, with varying success, just how other species of beings might look, how they might behave, and how they might interact with humans.

Almost everyone we meet has a pre-existing concept of how aliens might look, to the point that should we ever actually meet one we might be disappointed; rather like meeting a movie star without the glamorous makeup. What amuses me is how much we want them to look like us. We want them to be bipedal oxygen breathers with, at the very least, two eyes and a mouth on their heads. We prefer them to have arms and legs and walk upright as we do. Movies that present aliens in any other form are rare, with Jabba the Hut from Star Wars being one of the more notable exceptions.

Every day, there are thousands of people attempting to search for and attempt to make contact with alien life. On the opposite side there are hundreds of people whose job it is to debunk any theory of extraterrestrial communication. Both meet with varying success and no small amount of skepticism from the general public. Some think that to make contact with another race of beings could be exciting and propel humanity into a great new leap of evolution. Others fear the chaos that would ensue should alien life actually make its presence known. Some notably intelligent people, such as Stephen Hawking, warn that, should we make alien contact, they may consider us too inferior to be anything more than food, much the way we look at cattle.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Creating alternate worlds and transforming humans into alien beings is something at which Photoshop™ and similar programs excel, if one has the patience and understanding of the tools. Even with a detailed concept of what I wanted to create, there were still plenty of challenges that consumed a great deal of time. Eventually, one has to say, “Okay, we’re done with this project” and move on. I could sit and tweak the image for weeks and chances are I would be the only one who would notice the difference. Almost immediately after declaring the image done, I thought of things I would do differently.

I’m one of those people willing to entertain the possibility that not only does alien life exist, but that they’ve likely made communication with us before. I’m even willing to consider the possibility that we ourselves are some mutant strain whose evolution was hijacked by visitors from another planet conducting a giant science experiment. Given how we approach other planets and our exploration of things, we cannot consider such tampering to be impossible. We may, in the grand scheme of things, be the equivalent of algae growing in some cosmic petri dish.

Experiments such as these, whether in real life or digital imagination, come with varying success and as we’ve seen in our look at variations in photo processing and manipulation, some things work better than others. Processes that may work well on one photograph might totally ruin another. Batch processing photos is hazardous and sometimes careless and irresponsible if one has not carefully curated the images beforehand. What we want is not always what we get. One thing for certain, though, is that as long as we have people with active imaginations there will constantly be the desire to manipulate photographs and see exactly how far we can push reality.[/one_half_last]

Standing Nude (2010)

Advertising / Photography / PotD

Varying Effects

July 17, 2015

Drink More Tequila

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. ― David Honegger

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Nowhere do the varying effects of Photoshop™ draw more criticism than in advertising. I understand why: people are inherently wired to believe what they see; we are not inclined to ask questions. Even with the Internet being over 20 years old, we still tend to trust what we see, especially if it is in print. Yet, if one thinks for a moment, where is the most logical place to manipulate images if it isn’t in an attempt to sell something? After all, there are some boring products out there and without a little pizzazz to spark some interest there’s no way anyone would ever just think to examine the product on their own.

Fashion, and any other ad that features women, draw the most criticism for how they manipulate an image, especially when it comes to body shape and size. Women have, for as long as there have been print ads, used the examples they see in magazines and catalogs as a basis for judging their own bodies and, subsequently, their own self-worth. As a result, for as long as there have been print ads (which originally had to use illustrations rather than photographs), there have been people complaining that the example set forth is “not real,” and “impossible to achieve.” Yet, while campaigns such as Dove’s “Real Women” at least try to move the industry, and women’s opinions, the opposite direction, years of sales evidence points to the fact that people don’t buy products when the image is too realistic. Sexy sells every time, even if it is totally a work of fiction.

What’s amazing is that we know better. We know that ads lie to us, that images have had varying effects applied to them, that claims are deceptive and that some bust-to-waist ratios defy the laws of physics. We have experienced these things our entire lives, we’ve criticized them in conversation, we’ve had countless studies done to prove the degree to which some industries lie more than others (Big Tobacco, anyone?). Still, at the end of the day, when the dollars are counted and the sales added up, the ads work.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]For the most part, I prefer to keep my images within the realm of reason and only apply varying effects that I feel aid the communicative qualities of the image overall. There are always exceptions to that rule, though, and today’s image is certainly one of them. With the proliferation of mobile ads popping up everywhere one looks, it is more important than ever to create images that stand out, that are different, and able to grab one’s attention at first glance. Sometimes, that means going for a more extreme effect such as those composited together for this image.

The original picture (seen below) is hardly recognizable by comparison to the finished product. If one were to drop the same copy over the grey/blue background of the original image, it would get lost. Even changing the colors wouldn’t help that much. As an ad, the original image doesn’t have what it takes to stand out from the crowd. On its own, sure, it’s a nice portrait of a lovely young woman. But if we’re selling tequila we have to apply a number of varying effects to create an image that gets attention. Reality isn’t a concern because reality isn’t our goal. We want an image that looks interesting. The copy, which is a modification of a quote by Ernest Hemingway, encourages one to drink for the specific purpose of leaving reality behind. So, we created an image that is interesting, with little concern for reality.

In our criticism of manipulated photos and all the varying effects applied to them, we forget, I think, that we’re really not interested in looking at reality. We don’t read novels for the reality. We don’t go to the movies for the reality. Even reality television is an over-edited caricature of reality (and the whole genre is losing popularity). We get our fill of reality when we look in the mirror. Fortunately, the varying effects of good photo manipulation hides reality just long enough for us to pull out our wallets. The economy works, we keep our jobs, and the world continues spinning. There’s reality for you.[/one_half_last]

You’ll Dream of Me (2014)

Art / Photography / PotD

Varying Dreams

July 16, 2015

Varying Dreams

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]”I just had the strangest dream …”

How many times have you awoken with that thought? Sometimes it is followed with, “At least, I hope it was a dream.” Varying dreams are something that not only unite us, but also mystifies us. Why do we have them? What purpose do they serve? Why are some dreams repetitive and some even common among different peoples around the world? What would happen if we stopped dreaming? Dreams are the most unexplained yet most common pieces of our humanity.

Talk about dreams and we have to talk about the work of Carl Jung, the late psychiatrist of some prominence who felt that dreams were one’s subconscious and that they could be translated to tell us more about ourselves and why we do the things we do. Jung initiated the concept of keeping a dream journal to keep track of which dreams repeated and how one felt and acted after having particular kinds of dreams. Those who follow in his footsteps are still quite sure that dreams hold answers and may even warn of impending mental issues. The majority of psychiatrists find the field interesting, but largely lacking in scientific authority and research.

Varying dreams definitely have their effect on us. Wake up from a particularly good dream and one is likely to start the day in a better mood. Dream about something terrifying or dangerous, and one may find themselves on edge and anxious for a while. Dreams about deceased family members or close friends may have us feeling depressed and lonely. Then, there are those pesky dreams about showing up somewhere important stark naked. Almost everyone has those dreams on occasion, even in tribes where clothing is practically non-existent in the first place. Opinions differ as to the exact meaning, but they always leave us a little unsettled as we try to laugh at how silly they are.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Artistically, varying dreams are great image fodder, especially if one tends to lean toward surrealism in the first place. Translating dreams into works of art is something we’ve been doing almost since we first started making crude drawings on caves. The challenge for a photographer, though, is that our cameras only capture what is real. While we can perhaps go to great lengths to create situations that are dramatic and seem somewhat unreal, where our dreams take leave of the laws of physics and reason they become almost impossible to capture. Fortunately, Photoshop™ allows us to fill that gap with special effects and tricks that make possible the physically impossible.

Today’s image is a great example of how we can be influenced by varying dreams. The original image comes from a set we did last year with model Loren Hawk. Pouring paint on her was fun, interesting, and colorful in its own right. The original pictures are not something that necessarily need a lot of manipulation in order to look good. When we started playing with this one, though, we became obsessed with trying to communicate a dreamy, etherial feeling, almost like an underwater ambiance. After almost three days of work, I think the image sufficiently captures the surrealness of a dream state.

We may never know with certainty what our dreams are trying to tell us. Perhaps they’re messages from deity. Maybe aliens are trying to teach us something. Whatever the purpose is for varying dreams, they certainly interest us and at times make our lives very interesting. To the extent we are able to do something productive and creative with our dreams is a benefit. Not to mention that visually suspending the laws of physics on occasion is rather fun.[/one_half_last]

Body Painting (2014). Model: Loren Hawk

Art / Photography / PotD

Varying Reality

July 15, 2015

A Game Unthroned

Which is the true nightmare, the horrific dream that you have in your sleep or the dissatisfied reality that awaits you when you awake? -Justin Alcala

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]My dear mother, whom I view now as a paragon on patience, more than once rolled her eyes in despair as she muttered in my general direction, “You’re just like a goose: you wake up in a new world every morning.” I don’t know how true that is of geese, but for children under the age of ten or so reality is a variable that changes on a whim. There is nothing that is not possible and no adult can convince them otherwise. Varying reality is a given. A child’s creativity and imagination create multiple complex universes that make perfect sense to the child and totally bale adults. A new world every morning? Why not?

Politicians have a way of creating their own varying realities as well, though perhaps without as much amusement as that of a five-year-old. Politicians give words and worlds different meanings, create vocabularies the rest of us can’t hope to understand, and argue over the meaning of is. By politicians’ reasoning, charity is bad if it comes from their pocket but good if they’re receiving an act of kindness. Taxation is bad if it effects them and their campaign donors, but necessary to keep the poor engaged. Civil rights are fineto talk about until it means sharing a restroom with a gay person and his transgender spouse. Politicians rarely have any concept of reality that aligns with that of their constituents.

We can also lose reality, which is a very frightening proposition. I remember watching my granddaddy suffer through the stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I was too young to totally understand everything that was going on, but watching his world change from something sure to a unstable mix of memories was horrifying. 5.3 million people have Alzheimer’s and for them reality can change with the blink of an eye. I can hardly think of anything more nightmarish.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10 px”]By comparison, creating alternate realities in Photoshop ™ is easy. All one needs is a bit of imagination and a truck load of patience. Here, we really can begin to create the worlds we imagined as children. Elephants can be any color we want and may fit in a box we keep on a shelf if that’s how we choose to portray them. Light can come from multiple directions at the same time (which isn’t always a good thing) and laws of physics are easily suspended. For a number of very creative people, varying reality is what they do best and we delight in seeing this alternative universe.

Not that everyone is equally gifted in creating new worlds. Creating new space, finding balance and just the right amount of light and shadow requires a level of patience few have. Plug-ins offer some hope of speeding the process, but applied inappropriately or incorrectly they can result in a horrible display of mismatched elements and conflicting tonality. Today’s image took the better part of the days to create and by comparison with some is not even all that challenging.

No one lives in a prefect world and because of that our imagination is consumed with varying realities that solve our problems and make living a little more fun. Digital manipulation allows us to bring some of those realities to life, to get them out of our heads where we can deal with them. Some days is like waking up in a new world every morning. It certainly beats hours of therapy.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

Varying Emotions

July 13, 2015

An Artful Card

It’s much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.― Criss Jami, Killosophy

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]How we feel when we look at a picture, that very first split-second glance, says a lot about how we will ultimately respond to the whole image. If one perceives a picture as flirty, sexy, or possibly even obscene, we are not likely to take seriously any message it may want to convey. If that immediate reaction causes us to feel happy, curious, humorous we are more likely to investigate further and pay attention to any communication forthcoming. Our first response to a photograph is based on emotion and to the extent we can manipulate an image to vary that emotion we change who finds an image appealing.

Dealing with other people’s emotions is tricky, of course, and there’s no guarantee that people will respond how we expect. The advertising world is full of examples, almost daily, of ads where the imagery is so totally off-point that one wonders how they made it out the door. Yet, we can be sure that an entire room full of well-educated and experienced people had looked at that picture and thought it conveyed the exact emotion they wanted. We can also be sure they are surprised to find out they were wrong. Playing with other people’s emotions is necessary, but can backfire in a huge way if not well-tested.

One of the biggest mistakes I made when starting out on my own was creating a two-sided business card that was too sexy on one side. One side was a fairly standard head shot; neat, clean, and well-balanced, nothing surprising or potentially offensive. The other side, however, was a picture of a very busty young woman wearing a white fishnet dress on a white background. She was crouched so that nothing too personal was showing, but there was no question that nothing was beneath the fishnet.

Watching how people responded to that card was an important lesson. If I handed them the card with the headshot side up, their response was generally positive until they saw the second side, at which point many cards were returned to me. Not only did they not like the picture, people didn’t want the card in their possession. If I handed them the card with the sexy side up, something I was careful about doing, more people actually kept the card but were still careful about letting others see it.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Perhaps the most telling response came the night I happen to come across a very popular professional baseball player. Social aspects of the gathering put us in conversation together and eventually, after exhausting how wonderful a season he had just finished, he asked what I did for a living. I handed him my card, headshot side up, and he started to put it in his jacket pocket without looking at the other side. However, his wife caught a glimpse of the other side from across the room and immediately came rushing over to investigate.

Upon looking at the card she apologized for her reaction. “I’m sorry, I thought you were giving him tickets to a strip club,” she explained.

There were dozens of variations I could have applied to that card that would have changed the immediate emotion while still keeping the basic aspect of the image in tact but I went with what appealed to me rather than what experience told me would work. Not paying attention to the emotional content of an image as small as a business card caused a lot more trouble than I had anticipated.

Changes to today’s image weren’t many and didn’t take long, but totally change the emotional impact of the picture. The original (below) is flat, the colors dull, contrast is too soft, and the gradient between highlights and shadows is too flat. One’s first impression of that picture is likely to be somewhere in the range of dismissive. A few changes make the colors more intense, the highlights and shadows more extreme, and looks more artistic rather than borderline pornographic. Toss in the name of a salon, and the image becomes appealing to the salon’s primary audience. Emotional content has changed.

Varying emotions are easy to manipulate in a photograph. Getting it correct, however, isn’t always quite so simple. My best advice is to proceed with caution and never rely solely upon your own opinion. Test, re-test, and then test some more. Even then, be ready for surprises.[/one_half_last]

A Private Moment (2012)

Art / Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Variations On A Theme

July 12, 2015

Low Contrast Colorization

It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. – Timothy Allen

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]If one wants to start an argument among photographers, bring up the topic of Photoshop®™ and what amount of post-processing is appropriate. We don’t agree. We never have agreed. Even before the desktop computer put a professional tool in the hands of amateurs, we didn’t agree. Debates about processing and photo manipulation methods are as old as photography itself and at no point has there been a consensus as to what is best or when one has gone too far. As a result, one can, and often does, see pictures in magazines and other publications that don’t appeal to their aesthetic taste. When we do, we often complain.

I want to spend this week looking at variations in photo manipulation. We are starting today with a very simple low contrast colorization. By the end of the week, however, we will totally transform the images into something completely different. With each one, I will place the original, untouched photo at the end of the post for comparison. This will, hopefully, give one a sense of just how dramatic a simple change can be and how extreme we can manipulate an image when necessary. Half of these variations were possible with film though they were perhaps a bit more difficult. Others, though, are only possible with digital tools and a great deal of patience.

Anytime we embark upon a project like this we get challenges and questions regarding our methods and motives. Let me go ahead and address those now so that we can keep the answers in mind the rest of the week.

Always the first question is why we manipulate images at all. The full answer is a couple of hours long, but the short answer is this: because we want to do more than what the camera can capture. Cameras themselves, even the fanciest modern boxes, are mere tools and as such they have limits. The extent of manipulation is a different issue.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]”I like the original better,” is a comment we often hear, usually from people who are not photographers or otherwise employed in a creative capacity. I understand the sentiment, though, because variations that merely attempt to cover up bad photography rarely succeed. We want to start with a strong, well-photographed image or else the end result is probably going to suck.

Why we choose a specific form of manipulation to go with a specific photograph generally falls into two categories: to change the emotional tone of the image, or to fit a specific artistic vision. Commercial and editorial images more often require changes in emotional tone to go along with a specific message. A photo may be too bright for a serious message or not quite enough for a lighter concept. Those are usually more simple edits (though not always). Matching a specific artistic vision is where variations tend to get tricky and complicated, especially if the concept didn’t originate with the photographer or person doing the manipulation. Endless possibilities often mean an endless debate over minute details.

Yes, there are enough variations to make anything possible. That does not mean the end result will be believable or appropriate and in matters of parody it is sometimes best to not make the end result too believable. Not everyone has the ability to distinguish real from fake and a narwhal horn too carefully attached to a horse could have some folks out looking for a unicorn.

I look at photo manipulation the same way I look at musical variations on a theme: start with a strong melody or image, even one that’s familiar, and explore. See what can be done, plum the depths of different emotional ranges, and test your own skill. There’s no “higher purpose” in what we’re presenting this week. Let’s indulge in the pleasure of variations.[/one_half_last]

A Lovely Necklace (2011)

Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

The Thing of Nightmares

June 19, 2015

My Own Nightmare (2009)

“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.” ― Andy Rooney

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]A lot of people have trouble sleeping for a number of different reasons; for some medical, others emotional, and for some it is totally because they just watched the wrong movie before going to bed. It happens. Nightmares. We hated them as children because they were so wild and ferocious and creative. As adults, though, what we often hate about them is the fact they are too damn real. Nightmares for adults seldom involve exotic monsters drawn from an over-active imagination but, instead, come from real life, involving people we actually know and love, in situations we seem unable to stop.

I rarely have nightmares anymore. I don’t watch movies before going to bed. I’m careful to time my medicine. I pull my adventurous imagination back a couple of notches. And then, I don’t sleep that long. I’m blaming that on getting older. Typically, I can go a couple of hours before my body thinks we need to wake up and check the house for mysterious noises. But then, there are weeks like this one where it has rained every night, causing already problematic arthritis to go into hyperdrive, making it impossible to find a comfortable sleeping position for more than 15 minutes or so. The dark circles under my eyes are almost as black as my wardrobe. When one doesn’t sleep, one doesn’t have nightmares. A small consolation.

Then, there are the nine families in Charleston, South Carolina who are living a nightmare. Wednesday night was prayer meeting night. I remember what that was like. Every Wednesday, usually around 6:30 or 7:00 PM, the church doors would open and 15-20 people, on a good night, would trickle into the small sanctuary. We’d sing a song, Poppa would read a few verses of scripture, then would come the prayer requests. Every possible concern of the community would be raised, both personal and public. After about 30 minutes, they’d start praying, pray for another 30 minutes, then go home. Except, for these nine people, they didn’t go home. They were shot dead, right where they prayed, by someone who had sat through the whole service. A living nightmare in every possible sense.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s photo was meant to be part of a composite where a beautiful young woman was awakened by a more frightening version of herself. The concept required shooting the model twice, once reclining in various states of slumber, and then again as the nightmarish self. Care to guess which this one is? Unfortunately, we only got one finished image from the set. I totally messed up the shoot, failing to mark my tripod settings correctly and thereby throwing off the perspective. Trying to composite the two pieces consumed days as I tried to correct the perspective and make something work. When I say there’s one finished image, it’s only because I eventually gave up and called it done. You won’t find it on display.

When I opened this file and took another look, though, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the makeup work of Kelly Oswalt. Sara Williams is such a lovely little wisp of a thing in real life and Kelly did an amazing job of creating something a little more terrifying. Even without the accompanying “beauty” piece, this makes for an interesting and striking image. I also had to giggle a bit looking at this, as Sara is now eight-months-plus pregnant, about to deliver her first child any day now. Perhaps Sara can threaten the child when she gets older with something like, “This is what happens to mommy when you don’t take a nap.” Of course, then the baby would have nightmares, and that just doesn’t help anyone, does it?

I wish we lived in a world where all our nightmares were those derived from imagination. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. As long as there is hate there will be nightmares like that of Wednesday night. Such events do not happen in truly civilized societies. In fact, the United States is the only first world country where mass shootings such as this are an issue. Our nightmare has repeated itself far too many times and we fail to even bother looking for a reasonable solution for fear it might keep one person from carrying a gun or somehow diminish the shooter’s rights, despite the fact he’s trampling the rights of others to live peacefully.[/one_half_last]

We can’t put a stop to all nightmares, but we can reduce them. We have no choice. Now is the time to seriously put a clamp on gun violence. This is one nightmare we must end.

Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

Look First In A Mirror

June 18, 2015

Twins (2009)

“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.” ― Mel Brooks

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]You are an idiot. That’s okay. Don’t feel bad. So am I. In fact, applying the scale by which I measure myself, there are only about three people in the world that I would not put under that heading and since I don’t actually know any of those people personally it is quite possible that they are idiots, too. Here’s the problem: there is no measurable definition for what an idiot actually is (the APA discarded its use of the term years ago), which leaves the term open to mean just about anything I might want it to mean. The only aspect for certain is that it infers an insult directed toward one’s lack of intelligence. But how much intelligence must one have to not be an idiot? And is intelligence itself even enough of a monitor?

My father had what seems to be a pretty workable rule: judge others by what you see in the mirror. His intent was that we should be very much aware of our own faults and shortcomings before daring to judge anyone else’s. That sounds like a pretty good maxim and is probably applicable in a lot of cases. Yet, when we don’t like what we see in the mirror we are less likely to accept what we see in others, perpetuating a cycle of loathing that ultimately leads to destruction in one form or another. Without a reasonably healthy sense of self-esteem one’s base value system is likely to be askew.

Others would attempt to follow the direction of, “judge not, lest you be judged.” Zero judgement. I think there’s a gym that tries to apply that reasoning, hoping that people who are intimidated by the muscle-bound will use their facility to become more healthy. Yet, just as with any other gym, most people pay for the membership and never actually go. A certain amount of judgement is absolutely necessary. Are you healthy? Will you fit in those jeans without having to grease your thighs? Can you be trusted to handle the scissors without hurting yourself? Going through life without making any judgements at all can be quite dangerous.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I look at today’s picture and can’t believe it wasn’t part of the set originally processed. Simply the different expressions on the girls’ faces tells a story of what it’s like to have a twin. How the hell did I miss this one? Obviously, I’m an idiot. What hurts even worse, though, is that I dropped the ball with these girls in helping them do more. Sure, I had my reasons at the time, but have since kicked myself repeatedly for not at least remembering their names. Yes, you read that correctly. Again, I’m an idiot. I have their names on a release, somewhere, but the motivation to actually go through the stacks of papers shoved in a box in storage has yet to hit me.

Judgements we make today don’t always hold up to future scrutiny. Sure, we can justify our decisions at the moment, but is our thought process in the heat of some emotion as objective as it perhaps should be? Rarely do we take the time to let something just sit, making no decision at all, until we can approach the matter rationally. Yes, some situations are more urgent than others, but isn’t one sign of intelligence the ability to know not only what decision to make, but when to make that decision? While waiting six years to process this image is extreme, might there have been a benefit to waiting a month or so before deciding to shelve it completely?

Maybe looking in the mirror a bit more often is a good idea. Taking a check of reality and one’s relation to it might be an activity in which we should all engage a little frequently. Not only might that give us a better grasp of the immediate tasks before us, but perhaps it would help prevent whatever it is that leads one to walk into a church and kill nine people.

Or maybe we’re all just idiots. Your call.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Anonymously Yours

June 17, 2015

Properly Accessorized (2011)

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]How bad is it that we are still a good 18 months or so away from the 2016 presidential election and already I’m tired of the whole thing? With so many candidates having already announced their campaigns, each additional name added to the roster feels more like adding to the list of extras at the end of a bad movie no one really wanted to watch in the first place. Sure, eventually we’ll have to vote for a couple of these clowns, but at this point there’s too much noise, too much grandstanding, and too much absurdity to take any of them seriously.

I wonder what would happen if we forced candidates to run anonymously through the primaries, unable to present a name, a photograph, or even appear on Sunday morning talk shows in person. How would it change the process, and the number willing to run, if they were initially assigned a number and were forced to run strictly on the merits of their platform, with no personality involved? Would we be more careful about who we choose as our president? Certainly, we would want to reveal the names of the candidates at the party primaries, but in the circus leading up to that point what benefits might there be in ignoring names altogether and having everyone run anonymously, with no indication of race, heritage, gender, sexuality, or religious beliefs? I cannot help but think the process would be much better served.

Personality and ego are a detriment when one is considering who should hold public office, but yet those are the two aspects voters get heaped upon them the most often. In a crowded field such as what we are already experiencing in this cycle, we are forced to endure a constant battle of who can say the most socially provocative thing in an effort to get even 15 seconds of time on a newscast, or perhaps a small storm of controversy on social media. When over half the field of contestants is more well known for their ridiculous statements and social media gaffes than their actual platforms, we have a serious problem.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Sadly, one of the most frequent areas of unacceptable stump speech involves slut shaming and victim blaming on the part of candidates. We saw it too often in the 2012 election, and already the habit is rearing its ugly head in this one. Candidates mistakenly believe that by pandering to the very lowest and most ignorant form of voter that they can appeal to an under-educated and socially inept base to push them forward in the election. What they fail to realize is that the rest of the civilized world would really like to put those two issues to rest. There is never such a thing as “asking for it,” especially in regard to rape, and what a woman does or does not wear is not indicative of her sexual proclivity.

Such inappropriate attitudes toward sex and violence are one of the reasons we have had to stop giving names, even pseudonyms, to models who appear nude. We have had too many instances where technology allowed a model to be stalked after her name came up in some random Google search. With the increase in facial recognition software, I worry that, without any change in public attitude, we may be forced to limit figure art to anonymous forms such as today’s picture. Yes, today’s picture is quite lovely, but I’m always saddened by the fact I’m forced to crop out the model’s beautiful and expressive face because she rightly fears both social and professional backlash.

Anonymity can work both for us and against us. When it prevents ego and personality from obscuring fact and reality, anonymity is a good thing. When it allows shaming and inappropriate blaming to continue, though, anonymity is something that should perhaps be stripped away. I would dearly love to never have to crop another photo or avoid giving credit to another model to prevent putting them in any form of danger.

Maybe I should just run for president. Anonymously, of course.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Waste Not

June 16, 2015

Leave A Tender Moment (2010)

“I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being–forgive me–rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I hate waste. I don’t hate trash, mind you. There are things which, once expired, definitely require disposal. Waste, though, the deliberate misuse or ruination of something still usable, angers me. I hate wasting time, because there’s no guarantee that there is any more of it coming. I hate wasting of resources, especially those purchased with someone else’s funds under the expectation they would be managed efficiently. I loathe large, opulent displays of wealth wasted in the face of massive poverty.

As much as anything, I hate wasted food. I had to throw away a package of bagels today because moisture had gotten into the package and caused them to mold. Five perfectly good bagels gone because care wasn’t taken in preserving them properly. Those emotions crop up a lot and I’ll blame my mother in part for the constant reminder that there are always starving children somewhere. But then, my own brushes with poverty and hunger are an even more recent reminder of just how valuable a single bagel is to someone who hasn’t eaten all day.

The words “waste not, want not” are etched into my brain so strongly that almost any level of waste I observe stirs a negative emotion. Seeing massive amounts of food in a restaurant dumpster makes me momentarily swear off dining out. Observing whole rivers of polluted water makes me curse industrialization. Seeing the Coke lot the day after a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway makes me detest racing fans everywhere. Even this past weekend I was severely dismayed to look at the street after the Pride Parade and see it not merely cluttered but severely trashed with smashed candy and other litter.

We sadly live in a world where waste of every kind is far too common, far too excessive, and leaves far too large a footprint. Getting anyone to care is almost impossible.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Waste in photography fares no better and is one of the reasons for focusing on missed imagery this week. There are some shoots where the amount of genuinely strong imagery we capture exceeds the limits of reasonable display. I prefer to keep presentations between seven and ten images, since that is pretty much the sweet spot for the average person’s attention span. If we have a really strong set, I might go up to twenty. Beyond that, though, people stop looking. Their eyes glaze over as though you’ve just brought them a fourth serving of parmesan chicken, to which their bodies groaned in despair. No matter how strong the images are, beyond a certain point they’re just waste.

Perhaps the worst, though, is seeing wasted talent. Now, I have to be very careful here. I know there are some people whose talents are multiple and for reasons of sanity they are forced to choose; focusing on one or two while letting others lie dormant. I have sympathy for those people. What bothers me is someone who can clearly do well, either in front or behind a camera, and yet lets someone who fails to understand the artistry of either talk them into doing something far less creative, far more temporary, and far less fulfilling. I come into contact with those people sometimes multiple times a day and when I see them not doing what they could clearly do so well I want to cry.

Today’s picture is one from a set of gems that could easily fill a very large wall. I won’t attempt to over-analyze why this particular combination worked; the models didn’t have an especially intimate relationship, in fact they giggled through the first several minutes of shooting. Everything just clicked and the number of frames worth saving far exceeds what should be displayed in a single exhibition. So, today’s #POTD is an example in preventing waste.

Still, I must ask you to consider: what are you wasting?[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

When Bad Pictures Are Good

June 15, 2015

Living In Color (2012)

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I like this picture. I like this picture a lot, so it is a little surprising that I’ve not found an excuse to publish it before now. I like the lighting. I like the styling. The makeup by Sasha Starz kicks ass. One would think that this might have been the first picture from the collection that we would use, and if this one was omitted from the original collection then the others must be absolutely amazing. While the original set of pictures achieves their purpose, though, none of them has the photographic strength found here.

So, why wasn’t this image used? It was not what we wanted. It was a mistake. The original set was intended to showcase Sasha’s makeup using a very dynamic set of colors in an extremely contemporary style. To achieve our purpose, faces needed to be clear of any obstruction. This face is beautifully obstructed by the model’s hair, so it would not work for the desired purpose. That’s just the way things go in our world. In non-digital days it would have gone into the trash bin.

Photographers take plenty of bad photographs. We always have. I am amused now when someone comes across what they think is a treasure trove of never-before-seen old negatives or plates from a long-dead photographer and they decide to publish them. Rarely does one stop to think that perhaps there is a damned good reason why the photos weren’t seen before. Some were full of errors. Some were intended as nothing more than practice. Others were perhaps embarrassing or revealed something the photographer had no intention of ever making public. Yet, now they’re out in the open, quite possibly in violation of the photographer’s wishes.

I remember meeting a young Playboy Playmate, fresh off her gatefold shoot in Chicago. While gushing about how wonderful the experience was, she expressed disappointment that, prior to taking the shots that would eventually appear in the magazine, photographer Arny Freytag had taken several Polaroid shots that littered the studio floor. After the shoot, she went to pick up one of the Polaroids as a memento and was immediately, and severely reprimanded. Those Polaroids, she was told, were the property of the Playboy Corporation and no, she could not have one. Playboy and every other successful magazine and ad agency have long understood what many have not: Losing control of the bad photographs makes the good ones worthless. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]When digital photography first began to rise as the medium that would eventually replace film for most applications, we saw the numbers of both amateur photographers and amateur models increase dramatically. All over the world, there were (mostly) young men anxious to take pictures of pretty girls and more than a few pretty young women anxious to call themselves a model. However, no one on either side of the camera in those situations understood the actual value of an image, copyright law, nor the concept of limited exposure.

What happened was that a young photographer would drop 500 or so frames on a shoot, which could take a couple of hours or more. The model, frustrated and only getting a handful of shots she didn’t like, would ask the photographer if she could have a disk with all the unedited shots. Foolishly, the photographer would comply, the model would put really horrible edits of really ridiculous photos on her MySpace page or blog, and war would ensue between model and photographer over who had the right to publish what.

As we go through this week of pictures that were missed, we’re going to see some photos such as this one where one might be tempted to think, “How could you have missed that one?” When we do, we need to remember that not every frame snapped deserves to be published. There are endless reasons for not including a picture, from its inability to meet product or client requirements to changes in desired color or the wrong hair being out of place.

Prior to digital media, second chances like this rarely existed for a photograph. What wasn’t immediately used was typically burned to prevent an unapproved image from making it to publication. Photographers do well to guard their unpublished work so as to protect their reputations.

Yet, every once in a while, we save one like this that is just too good to throw away. The issue that kept it from being considered the first time make it all the more attractive now. I certainly don’t regret saving this one. Enjoy it, there won’t be more.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Aww, Shucks

June 14, 2015

Anything For Art (2011)

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]This is strange. We’re beginning a new week and I’m not even home to see it. Great Zeus, I do hope this turns out okay. We’ll take every precaution, of course, to ensure that this #POTD is delivered on time, or at least on the correct day. There are still limits to technology, though, and I’m not entirely sure that when it comes time for this thing to post that I’m going to be where I have a Wi-Fi signal with which to check it. I think I will, if memory serves me correctly, but I’m not 100% sure. We’re camping, you see, somewhere out in the almost-wild-unknown, except for the fact we’re not leaving Indiana.

This is a test, actually. This is only a test. We’ll get around to the real camping later this summer, but we needed to make a bit of a dry run in relatively safe conditions and not too terribly far from home in order to see how the children, to whom I fondly reference repeatedly as bear bait in hopes that the one wild bear seen in Indiana will migrate our direction, will behave given that a year has passed since the last time we dared take them into the woods. We’re not going off the beaten path. There are emergency services nearby should they be needed. This is only a test. But we may not have Wi-Fi.

Actually, as long as our phones work we should be safe, right? After all, this site is mobile friendly, in case you hadn’t noticed, and that friendliness extends to the backend as well. As long as our service provider doesn’t crap out on us and fail to cover an area their coverage map says they have covered, we shouldn’t have any problem making sure this entry posts on time. I’m not even concerned about oversleeping. Why? Bear bait, again. First crack of dawn and they’ll be up, which is why I’m better off writing this well in advance and saving it for Sunday morning. Who knows how little sleep I might get and if you think I’m crazy now you should see me when I’ve not gotten any sleep. I think we’re taking coffee, but who knows if we’ll be able to work the camp stove to heat the water to make the coffee without actually having some coffee first?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]How does any of this relate to our topic this week of missed photos? Easy: I want to emphasize just how simple it is for us to make a mistake and misplace or lose or overlook a photograph, no matter how attractive the image might be. Depending on the day, we may take anywhere from hundreds to thousands of pictures but from those only select a handful for processing and chances are even fewer for public display. Often, we delete what we don’t use, especially if the photographs are of a sensitive nature from the client’s perspective. But sometimes, the extras just sit there in folders waiting to be recognized. Sometimes they sit there for years. Sometimes they die.

So, we decided to save a handful of those images this week and display them here. None of the pictures you’ll see this week have been processed and shown anywhere else. Each one of these is getting its world premiere right here and you are a witness to that event.

Oh, come on now, you can show a little more excitement than that. After all, the people involved in these pictures have largely forgotten they even exist. Allison here has moved off to Vegas. Hair and makeup artist Christopher Thompson is off chasing ghosts; not metaphorically, mind you, but the real thing that will scare the living daylights right out of you. The least you can do is show some enthusiasm for their hard work. I can promise you won’t come any closer to seeing Allison naked than right here. That’s one lucky corn husk.

I really hope this thing posts correctly. After all this hard work and all the effort that went into making it possible, it really would be a shame if we didn’t get this up in time. Of course, it always makes us feel bad when you miss something. Most the time that’s your fault, though, not ours. You do know you can subscribe and get a reminder in your email, don’t you? That way you wouldn’t miss anything. Assuming we actually get this posted.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

Splitting Exposure

June 13, 2015

From the Window to the Wall (2006)

“The trouble with rules, though, is that you’ll always be tempted to break one- for the right reasons, due to unavoidable circumstances, because it feels as if there’s no other choice. And once you break one, the rest seem like so much broken glass. The damage is already done.” ― Stacey Kade, The Rules

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Here we are at the very end of this rule breaking week and I can tell by the significant drop in the number of visitors we’ve had that you’re really not too terribly interested in the topic. Perhaps you are too busy breaking your own rules in your own way to find our discussion of them to be of any value. Perhaps you’ve observed the breaking of rules for so long that you doubt, probably correctly, that we are covering any new territory. Maybe you just found other things to do. I don’t know. I only care because I really don’t like that feeling that I’m screaming into the wind.

So, I’m breaking one of my own rules today with a full nude. I had told myself, in my annual introspective meeting of my mind, that I would not post any full nudes outside the Art section of the website. The reason for that being my desire to not overtly offend those who might arrive at the website without prior knowledge of who I am or what I shoot. If one is simply looking for a photographer for your child’s one-year-old portrait, one doesn’t necessarily want to be inundated with nudity. I don’t fault someone for not wanting to look at nude photography without warning. Most the nude imagery is kept to the art section where it attracts people who are interested in that material.

Oh, but you, dear voyeur, have shown your true colors. You enjoy the enticing and even implied naughtiness of some pictures. When we posted a picture of a couple simulating sex last week, our hit count went through the digital roof with us doing only minimal marketing. If anyone was offended, they certainly didn’t bother saying so. If anything, the inference is that, given the opportunity, those of more salacious appetites will beat a webbed path to our world-wide door if we simply guide them with the right picture. Such knowledge puts us in a bit of a quandary: do we go for the increased attention or do we try to be good neighbors in our digital neighborhood? [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Our picture today is actually one of my favorites and I do so miss the model who has moved on to other endeavors. Long exposure shots are always interesting and this one is made more so by the fact that the window through which a street lamp provides illumination contains two different kinds of glass. As a result, the glass in the lower part of the window creates a distortion that dramatically alters the lines. By having the model stand half in light, half in shadow, we open the image to numerous metaphors and interpretations. There is a lot going on here for such a very simple looking photograph.

Are we breaking a photographic rule? Yes, a couple of them actually. We’re not going to tell you what they are, though, since that’s almost assuredly not why you’re really here. If you’re just dying to know, though, you can always drop me a note and I’ll be happy to answer when I return from camping, which is how I am spending my weekend. While we will be taking some pictures this weekend, they are likely to be much more journalistic in nature and almost certainly won’t involve any nudity, or adult situations, or much of anything else that a reasonable person might find objectionable. Note that I said a reasonable person; those who are offended by everything we do are obviously not reasonable.

There’s a lot going on this weekend and I’m sure that no matter where you live there are better things to do than sitting around looking at nine-year-old pictures of naked people on the Internet. If you’ve not found any of those things, you are seriously in need of a life transplant and I cannot assist you with that. You’re on your own. For the rest of you who are stopping by either after or perhaps in between all the festivities, thank you. We take off in a significantly less structured direction starting tomorrow, so please add checking the #POTD to your to-do list. Better yet, just subscribe so that a gentle, loving reminder shows up in your email every morning. [/one_half_last]

PEACE

Advertising / Photography / PotD

Wide Open Spaces

June 12, 2015

Before Leaving (2012)

“The irony of rule followers is they often quote a lot of people that do not follow as many rules as they do.” ― Shannon L. Alder

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Creative people have never liked feeling they were limited in any way. Adventurous people are much the same. Chances are, if you’re a friend of mine, you’re not a fan of limitations, either. Breaking rules? Hell yeah!

There is a song sounding like it’s from the old west that says:

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me in

Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me in

Cole Porter, who wrote the song based on a poem by Robert Fletcher, was nowhere near the “old west,” though. He wrote the song for a movie that was never produced. Go figure. Some ten years later, the song was given to Roy Rogers who made it a hit because, you know, horses and cowboys and those legendary wide open space were a big hit in post-war America. Interestingly enough, Porter never really liked the song all that much.

A lot of people feign amusement with the concept of wide open spaces, including space itself. Yet, when we find it, not too many of us are actually comfortable. Where space is truly plentiful, where there is an absence of things, there is also an absence of people, anyone with whom one might have a decent conversation, and from there matters quickly get boring. And lonely. And suddenly those wide open spaces aren’t looking quite as good as they did when one first arrived.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]When it comes to space, I live in a world of sometimes uncomfortable juxtaposition. A very basic rule of photography is to fill the frame; make the whole picture interesting, give the eye plenty to see, but make sure it’s all cohesive. At the same time, though, advertising needs space, white space, sometimes a great deal of space, for all the copy that goes into an ad. Some are simple, with little more than a product logo and copyright/trademark notices. Others, especially those having anything to do with medicine, can be quite extensive with a requirement for a full list of possible side effects. For those ads, there’s no such thing as too much space.

Today’s picture breaks the fill the frame rule. Maybe it’s still the ad person left in me, but I like the space. I like that there’s room for copy, a lot of copy, but no copy exists. In my mind, the space gives the mind room to create its own story, its own copy, to go along with the picture. We titled the image, “Before Leaving,” because the way in which her body is slightly turned gives one the impression that perhaps she is on her way out the door. Why? That’s for you to decide. Maybe she’s looking for pants. Maybe she’s about to take a shower. Maybe she’s changed her mind and doesn’t like you as much as you thought. Maybe she’s not a fan of the space.

Giving an image space, sometimes a lot of space, leaves a story open to almost endless possibilities. I like that mystery, myself. I’m not looking for a world all neatly bundled together and fitting nicely into a frame. I enjoy concepts that require thinking for myself. For me, space is a friend and I frequently break this rule, especially for portraits. Let this moment be endless, not boxed and framed and predictable.

Just don’t fence me in. Please. Whatever you do. [/one_half_last]

art

And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you’ll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not up to this Friday. —Alfred Doblin

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All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt. ― Charles M. Schulz

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I know people that could serve me canned tuna and saltine crackers and have me feel more at home at their table than some people who can cook circles around me. The more you try to impress people, generally the less you do. —Alton Brown

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Looking back, some of the happiest moments of my childhood were spent with my arm in packets of breakfast cereal, rooting around for a free gift. —Craig Brown

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It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

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After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy. ― Denis Johnson, Nobody Move

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Welcome, let’s all prepare to be whisked to the magical land of candy. Be warned, candy is very addicting and at Jubilee’s the candy is the tastiest in the world. ― Derek Ailes, Zombie Command: A Horror Anthology

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I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid. —Lady Gaga

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Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals

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The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh. —Edward Weston

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The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren’t any space aliens. We can’t be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we’re not all there is. If so, we’re in big trouble. ― Ellen DeGeneres

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Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. ― David Honegger

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Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

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Which is the true nightmare, the horrific dream that you have in your sleep or the dissatisfied reality that awaits you when you awake? -Justin Alcala

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It’s much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.― Criss Jami, Killosophy

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It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. – Timothy Allen

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“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.” ― Andy Rooney

We can’t put a stop to all nightmares, but we can reduce them. We have no choice. Now is the time to seriously put a clamp on gun violence. This is one nightmare we must end.

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“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.” ― Mel Brooks

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“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay

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“I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being–forgive me–rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

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“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

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PEACE

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“The irony of rule followers is they often quote a lot of people that do not follow as many rules as they do.” ― Shannon L. Alder

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