Art / Photography

Some Days We Create Because We’re Pissed

October 24, 2017

Sometimes we create because we're pissed

There are times I get very busy and don’t have a moment to just sit and surf through all the information that’s available. When I get a chance to catch up I’m often surprised by what I see. I was doing just that this past Saturday when I began to notice a trend in what I was seeing.

“You can’t say this word because your skin is the wrong color.”

“You can’t wear this type of clothing.”

“You can’t sing this kind of song.”

“You can’t take that kind of picture.”

“You can’t post links here.”

“Don’t talk about that topic in this forum.”

I soon found myself seething and quickly posted a picture of a sunflower in protest.

Why a sunflower? Because I can. Because it’s beautiful. More than anything, though, because I was pissed and needed to see something that wasn’t as ugly as all the posts and warnings and articles listing things that someone thinks we’re not supposed to do.

This whole trend of trying to control other people’s actions has become too much and I for one am quite done with it. Just yesterday, a report surfaced about a man in Montreal (yes, Canada) who was pulled over by police and fined the equivalent of $118 US for singing in his car! What the royal fuck? Montreal, which we’ve long suspected has a giant stick up its ass, has a law on the books stating that “Noise resulting from cries, clamours, singing, altercations or cursing and any other form of uproar” are prohibited. You can’t sing. You can’t curse. Theoretically, you can’t even yell across the street and say, “Hi, cousin! Ya’ll comin’ over for dinner on Sunday?” How the fuck do laws like this get passed?

The dude is contesting the ticket, which is cool, but my whole point is that we’re way too busy trying to fuck up everyone else’s life and not paying attention to our own fuckups, which are considerable. Don’t you dare try to tell me what I can say, what I can do, which pictures I can take, what clothes I can wear, or what song I can completely butcher when I think no one else is listening.

Restricting our actions in such an offensive ways causes those of us who are creative to do wild and crazy things with our creativity. The pictures below are what I did with my anger. Yes, I know I broke about a dozen rules. I really don’t give a fuck. I don’t care if you understand what we’ve done with the images. I don’t care of they offend your delicate sensibilities or your acquaintances’sensibilities. This is my creative statement against external control. This is where I #TakeAKnee. No one gets to define the who, what, when, where, or how of personal expression even when that expression is stupid as fuck.

So click on a thumbnail to view the full-sized image because the details are totally lost in the smaller version which means that if you’re viewing this on your phone you’re probably not going to see the subtlety at all. Not my problem.

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Fashion / Music

Songs For Dealing With This Reality

November 13, 2016

When it seems the universe has yanked life from your control and turned it against you, music reminds you to keep going and push back

There are so many people we know who are having difficulty finding ways to process the degree to which their reality changed this week. Political decisions made this week generate fear for many, making others severely anxious, and outright depressing for some. Trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and continue on is a real challenge for many.

We don’t have any answers. We looked for some and came up empty. We cannot unify behind hatred. We cannot continue on with our lives as though nothing happened. We cannot forgive those whose sole reason for voting was to dominate and suppress the civil rights of others. We just can’t.

This is when we look to music to get us through the day. The powers of music to alter our emotions, to subdue the anxiety and depression and worry and pull them all down to manageable levels is extremely well documented. We listen, we feel better, we stay alive.

Music won’t make the situation at hand go away. Neither does protesting in the streets, by the way. We’re all better off, for now, staying in, hugging and comforting each other, and carefully watching what happens next. If action is required, we will take it. Until then, we have our music to get us through. We’ve chosen 25 songs we think can help keep us moving forward. At the end, I’ll give you a link to the whole playlist. Be of hope and good cheer.

Songs 1-5

Songs 6-10

Song 11-15

Songs 16-25

That’s what we’ve got for you. Total play time is right around an hour and 28 minutes. If you want the full playlist, I’m adding that link below. We hope this helps.

Credit for pictures in this article:

Models: Rebekkah Perrigrin & Emily Comstock
Makeup: Danelle French
Hair: Kelly Walsh
Styling: Lila Palomares & Allyson Brooks

Photography

Left Out In The Rain

April 30, 2016

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. —Langston Hughes

In the dreariness of a rainy day, we still find beauty, even in things others ignore

I hadn’t planned on doing a second article today, and trust me, this one will be short. I looked out the kitchen window this morning, though, and saw that the kids had left the tricycle out in the rain. Yes, they had been told to put it up, but, being six- and seven-years-old, they didn’t think it necessary to follow those instructions. If we’re honest, few if any of us followed those instructions when we were that age. My father actually backed over my first tricycle because I left it behind the car. Such is the nature of being a child.

While frustrated that, yet again, my instructions had not been followed, I found an odd beauty in the rain on the tricycle. There’s something about the water on the chrome and the metal, the tire in the mud, the drops falling off the pedals and handlebars, that struck me as interesting. So, I grabbed the camera, ran out quickly while it wasn’t raining too hard, and grabbed a few shots.

While processing the images I also thought of how we often leave people out in the rain, so to speak. We enjoy them while they’re being fun and useful, but when we’re done we just leave them out where ever. We don’t bother to see that they’re safe, or happy. We don’t bother to think whether they might be lonely or in need of a friend.

We view too many people the same way children view toys: expendable. Children don’t typically worry about their toys because they assume that Mommy and Daddy will buy them new ones, even though that assumption is likely wrong. In similar fashion, we do the same thing to people we casually meet. We assume that the server at the restaurant, or the floor person at the department store, or the cashier at the grocery, are all expendable so it doesn’t matter how we treat them. Their feelings don’t matter. I’ve seen some treated as though they’re barely even human. We, effectively, leave them out in the rain, discarded without a thought, just assuming they’ll be there the next time we need them.

I’ve felt left out in the rain before. Perhaps you have, too. If so, perhaps you’ll understand the emotion behind these pictures.

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PotD

Many Faces Of A Mom

November 12, 2015

She had a hit for every syllable: ‘Don’t. You. Ever. Talk. To. Me. Like. That. Ever. Again.’ That was the last time I ever talked back to Mom.—Misty May-Treanor

Brittney Jo (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Moms come with more facial expressions than anyone else on the planet, and they know exactly when to use each one. There’s no class they have to take, there are no books they have to read, by the time a young woman suffers through nine months of carrying a child who has poked, kicked, and punched every internal organ she has, she has an entire encyclopaedia of facial expressions ready for that child and is just waiting for the opportunity to use each one of them. A mom is not someone with whom one messes around.

Mom faces are unique in that only your mom’s expressions work on you. Your best friend’s mom can give you the same face and you just blow it off like, “Meh, she’s miffed, but what’s she really gonna do about it.” When your mom gives you a look, though, you know what she can do on the follow-up and you know you don’t want her to go there, especially in front of your buddies. By the time you’re nine or ten and starting to think of some really serious trouble, your mom has those looks down so well she hardly even has to speak to you. You just meet her eyes and you know; either she loves you more than anything, or one more slip up and she’s burning your bed on the front lawn.

I don’t think moms, especially young moms, really have much choice than to develop those facial expressions. They have so many other things going on around them, they don’t always have time to give a child the tongue lashing they deserve. I can remember some Sunday mornings when my mother would be singing in the church choir, smiling away until she saw that I wasn’t in my seat, but under the pew playing with the car I’d snuck into m suit pocket. She’d keep smiling until our eyes met. Pow. I was done for, my future was sealed and it wasn’t going to be pleasant. All that in one very brief glance that most people probably never noticed.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Brittney’s made some interesting faces over the few years I’ve known her. Rolling her eyes is a frequent one that adults are likely to get. Then, there’s that frustrated sigh when people who should be listening don’t. Brittney is a retail manager so sometimes she has to treat both employees and customers as though they were misbehaving children, and out come the danger looks; it’s a necessity of the job. Then, when she is around her own two darling and energetic little boys, there is a totally different set of looks ranging from complete adoration to I’m-Going-To-Sell-You-To-The-First-Circus-I-Find.

There is not anyone who can achieve as much with a single glance as can a mom. One look and you sit up straight and stop pinching your sister. One look and you hear yourself confessing to stealing the last cookie. One look and you really wish the whole earth would just open up and swallow you.

One look and you know you are loved and cherished more than anything or anyone in the world.

I’ve seen comedians who could make a lot of different faces, but no one is as effective as is a mom; it’s a talent inherent to the position. You’re not going to beat them, ever, not even after you’re a mom yourself. I’ve watched it happen while I was backing slowly away trying to not make any noise. The older mom won. No contest. I’m pretty sure I felt the earth shake, though. All the more reason to be good to y our mom. You don’t want that disappointed I-gave-birth-to-you look.

Behave. Mom’s watching. [/one_half_last]

Music / PotD

Baby Grand

October 15, 2015

Steal The Moment (2013). Model: Loren Hawk

Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!—Frederic Chopin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve never owned a baby grand. I’ve played countless numbers of them over the years, but for a variety of reasons I’ve never owned one and that makes me a bit sad. Not all pianos are created equal, you know. Even when they’re in tune there is a significant difference in the tone between a studio piano, which is what I had growing up, and a baby grand. Of course, when I was much, much younger I thought I’d have a twelve-foot Steinway sitting in the middle of my living room floor. Perhaps, had life taken a very different turn 30-plus years ago, that might have happened, but there’ve been many times when, moving logistics aside, twelve feet was longer than any one side of the living room. A baby grand is five-foot to five-feet, four-inches long, which fits in just about any room. I still don’t have one, though.

Still, no matter what size piano or keyboard one has, they make for incredible friends when one has the Blues. A baby grand is the perfect outlet for the widest range of emotion. Sometimes, one is quiet and contemplative, and a gentle touch on the keys produces a soft tone that is reflective and peaceful, full of thought. When one is sad, all it takes is shifting to a minor key and what would be tears fall into beautiful melancholy streams of emotion. Angry? The piano has been the outlet for my anger more times than I care to count; it can not only handle the power of the emotion but sends it back with a musical force that is satisfying.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The problem with relying on a baby grand as one’s emotional outlet is that often one feels those emotions most deeply and strongly in the middle of the night. Timing tends to be an issue for anyone not actually playing the piano. No matter how skillful the playing or how beautiful the song, people tend to not be too terribly receptive when it jars them from their sleep at 3:00 AM. I’ve even had one neighbor threaten violence over what he considered to be the inappropriate timing of my playing. During the quiet moments of the night, even the softest tones are too much for most people.

Perhaps it is better, from a relationship perspective, to put one’s worries into a good book, divert the energy toward more physical pleasures, or at least some activity that doesn’t wake the entire neighborhood. I can tell you right now, though, even taking pictures of beautiful women, such as today’s photo, as much as I love doing it, is not as emotionally satisfying as sitting down and becoming one with a baby grand. Nothing else responds to the Blues in quite the same way, personally, deeply, as though it were a part of your body, as does a baby grand. There is no better therapy.

Ray understood. Enjoy the music. [/one_half_last]

Music / PotD

Damn Right, I’ve Got The Blues

October 11, 2015

Feelin’ Blue (2012). Model: Aubrey Carr

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.—B. B. King

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I listen to a lot of music while I’m sitting here editing pictures. Walk in on me during one of these sessions and you’re likely to hear anything from The Gaither Vocal Band to Florence + The Machine. The playlist that I hit most often, though, is four and a half hours worth of the Blues. Everything from remastered Robert Johnson and B. B. King to Bonny Raitt and Aretha Franklin is on that list. The Blues get me through those sessions when I’m just not feeling it; when I’ve lost the emotional connection I might have had with a picture. One thing photographs have to do is make people feel, and if I’m not feeling anything chances are pretty high no one else will, either. The Blues gets me over that hurdle because the Blues are little more than pure emotion given some rhythm.

Contrary to popular belief, having the Blues doesn’t mean one is depressed. Depression is a serious mental illness. The Blues are just the realities of living and the challenge of living them. A Blues singer wails about what’s bothering them, whether it’s a lover that’s done them wrong, a boss that demands too much, a car that won’t run, or a leaky roof. Sing it out. Sing through what you feel. Put it out there, let it be what it is, and then move on with your life. A good Blues song doesn’t try to solve life’s problems, but unites us all in the fact that we all have the same issues, that we all survive, and we all keep right on going, because that’s what people do.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Musically, the Blues aren’t especially difficult to play. Take a smooth walking bass line and drop three, maybe four, chords over it, and then take that wherever you’d like to go. The Blues don’t require one to have a lot of musical skill or training, but simply that one has the ability to feel. Sure, there are some people who do it better than others, but it’s the emotion, not the music skill, that they bring to the song that makes the difference. The deeper one can feel and communicate that feeling, the better the song.

So, all this week, we’re going to have the blues. The pictures are all processed with a blue tone, using a variety of different processes. No two are processed alike. Then, we’re going to pair those pictures with some of my favorite blues songs, which I’ll include with each picture. The pictures don’t have any direct connection to the songs chosen, but our hope is that between the photograph and the music your day will be a little bit better.

What’s important in life is that we are not afraid to feel, and that we find positive and appropriate ways to communicate that feeling. We don’t need anyone else getting upset and picking up a gun, or taking out their frustration physically on another person. Sing it out. Even if you can’t carry a tune, you can still sing the Blues. We don’t mind. Go for it. Feel better. Enjoy the Blues.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Pain

September 14, 2015

Attic Fashion (2011). Model: Sarah Harris. Hair & Makeup: Christopher Thompson. Styling: Tiffany Gilstrap Scott.

Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.—Angelina Jolie

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Humans are designed with a built-in warning device called pain. We feel it soon after we are detached from our mother’s umbilical cord. Hunger is our first experience with pain. We cry and someone feeds us. The pain is our body’s way of telling us that something isn’t working correctly, that a part of us needs attention. Yet, as a society we are intolerant of pain and just as we remove the batteries from smoke detectors so that we don’t have to put up with the screeching sound going off at unexpected moments, we try to mask or cover or ignore the pain we feel. We shove the pain into our emotional attic and try to forget that it exists.

As young children, we are taught that expressing our feelings of pain is not acceptable. “Walk it off.” “Suck it up.” “No pain, no gain.” Our intent is to dissuade children from complaining about every little insignificant boo-boo they encounter. “If it’s not bleeding, you don’t need a bandage.” The longer-term effect, though, is that from those very early moments we teach children that feeling and expressing pain is a bad thing. No one wants to hear about your pain. Ignore it and it will go away. Be tough and play through the pain.

Often, however, that strategy backfires on us. My father’s youngest sister succumbed to cancer perhaps sooner than was necessary because she chose to treat the pain, not the cause. Rather than being consistent with the chemotherapy, she chose alternative treatments that only covered up the pain. Only when the pain became intolerable did she return to her doctor, and by then the cancer had spread too for treatment to be effective. She didn’t even communicate to her family that anything was wrong until the pain became debilitating. She didn’t want them to worry. She had seven children and wanted to put pain aside to care for them. While her attitude might seem noble, in the end it took her from them sooner than might have been necessary.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Part of our problem in dealing with pain is that we look at it as an inconvenience and a bother rather than the warning system it is. When, as a child, we first encounter something hot and we pull back from it, learn to treat it with some respect and don’t touch it again without taking appropriate precaution to not burn ourselves. That is an appropriate response to pain. Consider what causes the problem. Fix it, if possible. Respect what caused the pain and then take steps to not repeat the pain again. Yet, we don’t apply that formula too often once we pass the age of five. We prefer to ignore the pain and keep going.

Philosopher/poet Kahlil Gibran penned these wise words:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.

As we get older, pain becomes a more constant part of our reality. There are some pains, both physical and emotional, that will never go away no matter what we do. Our challenge is to not look at our pain as an inconvenience, but rather an opportunity to learn.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Life’s A Blur

June 7, 2015

Watch Me Hoop! (2011)

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. -Richard Branson

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Photography has enough rules to choke a mule. There are rules about exposure. There are rules about depth of field. There are rules about framing and composition. There are rules about color, rules about black and white, and rules about mixing the two. Rules here, rules there, and there will always be that social media troll who wants to argue that you didn’t follow this rule or that, therefore your image is flawed. I have even seen student photographers carry around and religiously consult notebooks full of rules, making sure with each shot that they weren’t breaking any of the important ones. I don’t think any of those students ever actually made it as photographers.

While rules are certainly there for a reason, and the greater majority of the time actually do make sense, photography is not about rules. It can’t be. When photographers set out to only play by the rules, they get photos that may be technically correct but are emotionally lacking in anything resembling passion. Photographs without emotion are pointless. Why capture something that doesn’t make us feel, that doesn’t stir something inside us, that isn’t worth remembering? We take enough flak already from those who say photography is too automated, too reliant on technology, to be an art. If all we are doing is following the rules then we prove our critics right: the results are not art.

So we are devoting a full week of #POTD to breaking all the rules. Well, okay, we won’t have time to break all the rules. After all, there are only seven days in a week and just about any photographer can come up with at least ten rules that govern their specific style of shooting. So, I’ve chosen rules that I, personally, am likely to break most often; the ones where, for me, passion and creativity are more likely to outweigh the need to observe the rules. Young photographers, please note: when I break a rule, I almost always do so intentionally and with a specific purpose in mind. This isn’t arbitrary, except when it is. Totally.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The obvious error in today’s image is the amount of blur, not just in the hoop, but the little girl as well. We talked about motion blur just a couple of days ago, so click the link and read that piece first if necessary. I won’t repeat much of it here. One can easily argue that the motion blur of the hoop is like the effect of water in a stream: the picture just wouldn’t look right without it. That part isn’t really breaking the rules. The question comes in whether I should have used a slightly faster shutter speed to stop the motion of the little girl. My answer, obviously, is no.

Children are, themselves, a constant blur of motion, especially when they are between the ages of two and three. I love being at the playground with Kat’s little ones and seeing all the motion, and with it an equal dose of emotion, coming from all these tiny creatures who are having the time of their lives. If children are so naturally given to motion, shouldn’t their photos reflect that reality? Sure, we can make them sit still momentarily for a portrait, but when one is trying so very hard to show me, with incredible amounts of pride, just how well she can hoop, just like momma, to not include the motion of her little body would have been absolutely criminal! She was gyrating so fervently as to involve every muscle she has.

So, we break the rules about motion and blur. We still managed to capture that look of determination on her face and all the colorful richness of that early summer morning. She’s framed well and the background isn’t overwhelming. We still have a very good picture. What’s most important, though, is we have a picture her mother cherishes. This little girl just finished kindergarten and is growing, as children tend to do, with more speed than a parent wants. She’s beautiful. She has a little sister now and I’m guessing by this time next year she’ll be trying to teach her how to hoop as well. Capturing the joy of these moments is more important than following a set of rules. [/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Riding The Wave of (e)Motion

June 5, 2015

Removing the Afternoon (2010)

I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do — that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse. – Diane Arbus, On Photography by Susan Sontag

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]When I first started taking pictures, holding so tightly onto a Canon F1 to the point it couldn’t help but shake, motion blur was my most common menace. Figuring out how to work the combination of f-stop and shutter speed with whatever ASA film I was using (usually 400) so that I wouldn’t get blur was a severe obstacle for me to overcome. I don’t even want to think about how many potentially great pictures were lost, or how many rolls of film I wasted, simply because I could not, for the life of me, keep the damn camera still. The bad news: I still can’t, even though it’s for much different reasons now. There are days when having a tripod, even for simple shots, is a lifesaver.

What has changed over the years, though, is our attitude toward motion blur. While there has always been some acceptance of the error under very limited circumstances, such as pictures of flowing streams of water, it is generally considered a mistake. The most common one I caught then, and still often have problems eliminating, is that the subject will move, just a hand or maybe shift a foot, right as I’m clicking the shutter. I hate having to count aloud before taking each shot, but there are some people who cannot stand still for more than a split second, and some toddlers who can’t stand still at all. For them, warning exactly when the shutter is about to click is the only way to get a clean shot in environments where one can’t work with a super-high shutter speed. Otherwise, you’re throwing away the frame.

Today, we’re more forgiving of certain kinds of motion blur, such as in today’s photo. We are more likely to understand that the motion is necessary to communicate the story of the photo effectively. Capturing just the right amount of blur confirms for us that the subject isn’t just posing for a picture, but that something is actually happening; that we’ve captured an event as it was taking place, something that will never happen exactly the same way ever again.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Natural light indoors makes motion blur practically inevitable. Shooting natural light indoors always requires a higher ISO (we used 800 for this shot) to capture the light, and a slower shutter speed/f-stop combination (we were at f/2.8, 1/125 for the series from which this shot is taken). If we put the camera on a tripod, which is generally what I would suggest, then those settings are probably workable for most portrait situations. But if you’re not shooting portraits, if there is actually something happening in front of you, then blur is inevitable. That puts the photographer in the position of asking themselves, “Is it worth the blur?”

Honestly, when I took these shots, I fully expected that it was the fringe on her top that was going to give me the most problem, and there’s not a shot in the set where every strand is staying still. Could I have fixed that on camera? Sure, but doing so would have left us with a much less emotional image. With the motion, we have a greater sense of what is going on. We are closer to understanding the story (or creating our own) and connecting to the energy of the image. Without the blur, especially in her hair, this picture comes off bland and a bit boring.

This is an example of natural light sometimes giving us what we don’t know we want. Experimenting, being willing to risk some mistakes, knowing from the start that nothing you’re about to shoot may be usable, is one of the things that makes photography exciting, and that excitement becomes part of the fabric of the resulting image. Motion blur still isn’t something we want to see too often, and the majority of images do better without it but, don’t be afraid of the emotion that comes with a little bit of blur; it may just make the whole picture worthwhile.[/one_half_last]

Songs For Dealing With This Reality