wandering the visual mindscape

colors

2011-10-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of days after the shoot with Beth, I was on an airplane to Chicago. Mostly it was a business trip, and a fairly full one; but it overlapped two weekends, and I'd scheduled a couple of shoots on the logic that it wasn't going to be getting any warmer in the Midwest for a while, and (hopefully) I wouldn't need to be back there for a few months. So it was last chance til spring to work through the backlog.

The first shoot was an unusual one; a model from Milwaukee, a newbie not on any of the standard sites yet, who found me through, I think, this blog. I rarely take shoots from newbies anymore, unless there's something unique or unusual about them. This one qualified, she was bald... not only bald, but hairless. No eyebrows, no hair anywhere.

Unfortunately, she wasn't ready for nudity, it was mostly a lingerie shoot. I booked it for early Sunday morning, only 12 hours after I'd gotten off the plane. Really it was a tune-up for other things later in the trip.

Most of the action was on the second weekend. Saturday was a shoot with Gia Maze, that's her in the photo above. At the time of the shoot she was three weeks away from a bodybuilding competition, pretty much in peak shape. She's a pleasure to work with, a very clear communicator, prompt, zero drama. For this one it was back to my post-industrial concept, a little more fitting under the circumstances. Normally those are black and white, but I just couldn't turn off the colors, the spectacular ink and the mane of red hair.

The intent had been to do another shoot on Sunday with an old friend, but she's dealing with some fairly serious health issues recently. We were both disappointed, but decided to wait a while to shoot, possibly when she's on the west coast this winter. Better to be safe. We'd just shot a couple of months earlier, so really all we were losing was a chance to take advantage of the fall colors, which were less than optimal this year.

I'd expected to be done at that point, but one more shoot fortuitously came together before the end of the trip, just barely. More on that a little later.

trinity #2

2011-10-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

One more of Beth on the Trinity River; we're standing in full sunlight on a cobble bar along one shoreline, with the near-vertical rock outcrop on the opposite shore in full shadow.

trinity

2011-10-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

Beth has become one of my favorite models. Initially we worked together on fashion shoots; a couple of years ago, at the end of a catalog shoot for a local designer who paid both of us, Beth approached me and asked about doing an art shoot. The next day we were out at the dunes creating images.

Although she already excelled at fashion work, there's a different kind of learning curve for art photography. There's nothing to hide mistakes. We did pretty well that first time, but it got better with each successive shoot. Beth is now at the amazing level in both the fashion and art nude genres, in my opinion. I've just finished choosing 44 images to work on from the most recent shoot, such a wealth of good things that it was very difficult to choose.

Beth is a chameleon, as are so many fashion girls. Her hair is different each time, and she seems to be a whole new person. This time she'd cut her hair short. She's also been dancing a lot, with a resulting obvious improvement in lean muscle tone.

We set the shoot for early October. Initially I'd planned a major excursion to a remote wilderness area southeast of where I live, it would have been two hours of driving each way with most of it on national forest roads. Fate intervened, a little before meeting time Beth called to tell me her car wouldn't start. So, a change of plans: I drove 30 minutes north and picked her up. On a whim, we decided to stay north, to shoot on the Trinity River instead.

It took about an hour to find a spot a little east of Willow Creek, a river access point that neither of us had ever visited before. The walk in was something a little less than a mile, and very steep on about half of that. The officially designated wild and scenic Trinity River flows in a deep canyon at this point, rocks and Douglas fir looming overhead on the walls of the gorge. The advantage of a difficult hike in, of course, is that there are typically very few other people around. We saw only two others on this warm and sunny day, two women who were friendly and open-minded enough that we just kept shooting as they waved and walked by.

The footing was often precarious as we scrambled over steep rock faces and boulder fields perched over the deep and cold river. The sun was bright and the shadows strong, but with some careful metering I was able to hang onto the highlights. An occasional puffy white cumulus cloud offered softer lighting. We stayed for several hours, alternately shooting and talking.

On the way out we paused at a large puddle in the trail, not far from the parking lot, for a few shots with a very different feel. Then it was back in the Jeep for the ride back to town.

Because of extended travel it's only today that I've had time to really work on the images.

nature

2011-10-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'm in the mood to write again.

Lately I've been taking my photography in a completely different direction. Well, art nudes still predominate, but the mindset is different. I'm back to shooting mostly digital, with occasional brief side forays into film. I'm ending up with the finished product in color more often than not, which for me is a major shift. And finally, I've been getting out into the natural world more often, and that's led me into a fresh concept.

In the past I'd emphasized the post-industrial landscape in my backgrounds. Crumbling concrete, the works of humanity usually in disrepair, a commentary on the absurdity of materialism. It was also a challenge to conventional art photography, all the silly rules and the pseudo-pristine landscape which usually, when viewed through the eyes of an ecologist, wasn't really so pristine. Really, trying to pretend an image with invasive Eurasian buckthorn growing next to the model is "natural" will only fool some of the people some of the time.

But I'm feeling a little more optimistic these days, and I'm also willing to be a little more subtle in my imagery. That's led me back to the natural landscape. It's usually not completely pristine, but I'm able to get about as close as it's possible to get these days.

For a while I've been looking for a way to work in nature and still make a statement. Last spring I found a way to do that, coincident with a planned shoot with an experienced dancer. I'll come back to that, to the concept and that earlier shoot that triggered it. But first, I've had a recent run of interesting shoots, all in the past month or so, and I'll write about those first... and of course, share a few of the images.

again

2010-12-23T23:53:00.000-08:00

Time to start this one back up again. Well, maybe. For a while, and then we'll see.

My writing efforts have been concentrated elsewhere, on entirely different subject matter, for a while now. I'm finding a much larger and more rapidly growing audience there, possibly because those writings are about things that at least arguably matter. This one... well, it's a creative outlet. It can be fun, but it doesn't mean a lot.

Here I'll continue to emphasize photography related things. I've been scaling back on that though, or at least changing emphasis. Shooting with fewer models, mostly with a few favorites and when it is someone new, it's generally someone very experienced. I've also been moving in different directions, shooting more fashion (partially because I have a couple of legitimate and published fashion models close at hand these days) while still overlapping with art. There's also more emphasis on publishing, with the three f11 books already out, a fourth scheduled soon, and some personal publishing projects in early stages as well. Those won't be only about models, i fact that's less than half of what I'm considering at the moment.

Perhaps I'll use this space to work through some of those decisions. As I said, we'll see.

Paradigm shift

2010-08-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

Oakland - On Friday, while walking from a meeting in San Francisco's civic center complex to our office in the financial district, I realized that I was feeling so much more at home here than I had been last week in downtown Chicago... A place that I worked in for 15 years.

That was reinforced this morning when, on 880, a pickup truck lost a load of large plastic bottles all over the right lane. Three people pulled over and helped the guy pick everything up, while everyone else stopped and patiently waited til the lane was clear. No honking, no road rage, no passing. Again, so unlike what I'd witnessed most every morning on the highways of Chicago.

***

This morning, after not enough sleep, I did a shoot with Keira Grant out on the headlands. The light was perfect, fog just burning off, directional light but soft. It was a good decision to schedule just the one shoot here this weekend, fun without the stress that any more bookings would have brought.

Tomorrow I head home after a late morning meeting in San Francisco, and for the first time in two months there's no immediate travel on the horizon.

Hot city night

2010-08-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I decided that I did want to shoot after all, just not with most of the local people who are offering at the moment. So instead I sent a text to Chrystyne and asked her if she was in the mood to shoot. The answer came back in minutes, "how about tonight?

Perfect, because it was too hot to do anything by day anyway.

We walked the few blocks from her place to the elevated train. She wore a very short and very tight black dress, and packed two changes of clothes in a bag. We took the train to the south loop, got off near the Board of Trade building and started shooting on LaSalle Street. It was still hot, 87 degrees and humid, and with lots of people on the streets.

We worked our way north on LaSalle, stopping twice for creative on-street changes of clothes. We ended near the Merchandise Mart, then hopped back on a northbound train.

There's so much light downtown at night, it was easy to shoot at 1/30th second most of the time at EI 640.

On the return train ride, there was a young guy passed out in his own vomit, in the midst of a crowded train car. As we traded mass transit for a car and did a short drive to get a snack, the craziness continued.... Three times, someone stopped in the middle of the street for no apparent reason, just parked mid block in the path of traffic. Then, cop cars converging from three directions, sliding to a stop a block in front of me, dragging two guys out of a van and throwing them up against the side of the vehicle... I didn't stay around long enough to see what that was about.

After dropping off Chryssy, I stopped at Exit about 1:00 am to see the post-apocalyptic burlesque performance. It was bad, actually. Bad fire dancing, worse than most of what I've seen from stoner girls on California beaches. And a too-fast strip tease by a cute girl who spent too much time in a corner where half the audience couldn't see her.

The edgy burlesque craze has perhaps been good in the sense of shaking things up a little, but the act gets old after seeing it maybe twice. Fire and nipple tape and grinders throwing sparks from metal plates can only mask a lack of experience and discipline for so long. There are things a girl with classical dance background can do that most of these girls can't. It will be interesting to see where this trend goes in the near future. Right now, its just overdone.

There were a few friends and acquaintances in the room, Natalya and Kristin and Peter and others. There was another offer to model, one I'll probably take because she's got a really interesting face. Then there was a bizarre moment when one of the performers interrupted my conversation with a friend... This particular performer being someone I've declined to photograph in the past.

This morning I worked after only four hours of sleep, but it was all worthwhile. When I woke from an afternoon nap, the heat had broken, the humidity fallen, it was in the 70s with a nice breeze as night fell.

Ambiguous

2010-08-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I finally got out for the first time this trip, finally was able to take a break from working.

First, a Naked Girls Reading performance, because a friend was up on stage and I'd promised her that I would be there. If a bit long at more than three hours, it was a fun performance, and diverse in more ways than one. Then, over to 1901 Belmont for an art opening, then over to Lucky Number. It wasn't all that late of an evening, I was in by 2 am.

I encountered various women who I have photographed, or who I've talked to about doing photos. Last night was pretty non committal, interest but no specific dates just yet. I could have pushed one or two into doing something this trip easily enough, yet chose not to. I found myself to be pretty indifferent, not really caring if or when they got in front of the camera. If it happens, great. If not, well I'm not feeling any desire to chase after them.

I did have fun taking a handful of on location shots of some of those same people, using the lights and blurred backgrounds and bokeh of wide open images in poorly lit clubs and performance spaces. In fact I might go and do some more of this tonight, perhaps at Exit.... The found-composition nature of this kind of work is closer to my journalism origins, and sometimes offers wonderful juxtapositions.

I did sell a print last night at the Naked Girls performance, an image of one of the participants. A member of the audience asked her about that photo, and she said "the photographer is here" and made the introductions. The randomness of it was far more important than the token amount of money, although the net result was that my evening out was paid for.

Old and new

2010-08-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

Reading the Iliad on an iPad..... A contrast for the ages?

Travel

2010-08-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I drove down to the Bay Area, and after a brief stop in Oakland headed across the Bay to catch an early evening flight to Chicago. Uneventful, as these things go. I've been remarkably lucky with flights these past several years, considering that I fly a fair amount the delays have been minor and few. Other things I'll take some credit for... Flying with carry on bags only means no opportunity for misplaced luggage.

Weather is complicating my Chicago projects, with frequent thunderstorms keeping my team hotel bound too often. If we can get four good days of the next 10, we should be OK. Until we do, it messes with scheduling. One of my key people goes home tomorrow after more than a month on the ground here, which means more work for me to wrap things up.

I haven't planned any shoots yet, and probably won't till the work schedule is a little more set. There are opportunities, if I choose to make them happen, but after three last trip, and hardly any time at home since early June, I'm already behind so not pushing too hard for more. There are also multiple Bay Area opportunities, and I'll have a few days there on the way home.

After this, the travel schedule becomes less certain. I'll be back here for meetings this fall, but may have as little as a week advance notice. Hard to plan like that. It is what it is, all one can do is make the best of it.

Mediocrity

2010-08-02T15:01:00.000-07:00

One of the frustrations of this extended Chicago trip is the feeling of being surrounded by sleepwalkers. The drivers are the most obvious, and the most dangerous manifestation. Thoughtless me-first behavior abounds, and almost every day I witness things on the roads that would make me laugh if they weren't potentially deadly.

Then there's the traffic itself. Some of the highways... I-94 is a prime example... Are gridlock more often than not. There's talk of finding ways to get people out of cars, but no real action. The sheep just return to the traffic jam day after day. Now, even travel in off hours doesn't seem to help any longer.

Then there's the construction, with alternates blocked at the same time as main routes, and the mindlessness of things like street fairs shutting down major arterials on Friday evening rush hour with no attempt at early warning signage to allow detours and avoid traffic jams. Basically, one learns the reason for the jam up at the verge of the event.

There are other things, but the commonality is a tolerance of mediocrity that seem to me to begin at the level of state and city government.

What a waste of what could have been a world class city.

Visuals

2010-07-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've just finished the third photo shoot of the past week.

The first was at one of my standard post industrial sites, some nearly nude shots done mostly for fun. We ended a bit sooner than anticipated when the out of the way place we had chosen suddenly became a favored destination for several people. I haven't looked very closely at those images yet.

The second was an indoor shoot with Crimson, who i've known for a long time but hadn't seen in years. We encountered each other accidentally on my last visit, and quickly agreed to shoot. So I hauled rented lights up to her apartment, and we did some high key nudes against a white wall. It turned into four hours, about half of that just talking. Her face fascinated me, expressions racing by as we talked. There should be some good things to choose from.

The third, today, with Ginger Stone.... Colleen introduced us on Thursday night, and within minutes she asked to shoot. We worked an industrial area on Goose Island, a basic brick factory wall and loading dock in the shade. She wore a thong and a large scarf, usually open except when the occasional truck went by and it served as a convenient coverup. I think it may be tough to choose the keepers from this series, looks like lots of good stuff.

After the shoot we went for Vietnamese food on Argyle Street, and had a pleasant conversation.

These last two shoots may fit in well with a tentative exhibit offer extended last night, and which I should learn more about tomorrow. Some new ideas are already floating around, ways to extend these and some older work into a more coherent and balanced series.

Pause

2010-07-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Chicago - I've been here more than ive been home this summer, and that's going to continue for about another three weeks. Through the early part of the trip work demands were primary, and there was essentially no time for anything else. Now at last things have settled into a routine and some deadlines have been met.

Beginning earlier this week, I've finally had some time to fit in a couple of evening shoots. The first was on location, at one of my standard outdoor spots, the second indoors, in the models living space. Both were a reversion to an earlier time for me, in the sense that they were more about portraiture, if with models who were wearing little or nothing.

Last night i stopped to see an old friend, and walked out an hour later with two more offers to model. There's another in negotiation from earlier. Already it's approaching the maximum I'll be able to fit into the remaining time, and I'm not even really seeking these opportunities, they're just happening.

There are some other things id like to photograph as well, landscapes and other things. Perhaps the first step is to find time to break and think through the goals, the intent. Its going to be difficult to find time to do that for a little while.

summer

2010-06-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm still in Chicago, focused on work this past week. After a cool and dry spring it's turned hot and rainy, sending grass pollen... and allergies... off the charts. Finally it's a little better today.

After two busy weekends, I'm doing not much this weekend. Dinner with friends tonight, and headed over to Evanston in a moment to browse bookstores and have a cup of coffee. Tomorrow I'll need to spend a little time editing a work document, but otherwise it's going to be a nice relaxed weekend. No major social things, nothing even remotely photography related.

geezerpunks

2010-06-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

Sunday night's O'Banion's reunion was at LateBar, a new venue on Belmont Avenue in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood. It's a typical shiny-clean brand new neighborhood bar, with silver-framed square format photos on the walls, 10x10-inch very tightly cropped head shots of fashionable women, and a big screen on the back wall behind the dance floor.

The crowd peaked early and had largely dispersed by a little after midnight, pretty much the reverse of the old days when many of us would grab an early evening nap, and then go out from midnight til dawn.

The punk documentaries on the screen were fascinating even without sound, as the DJs filled the aural spectrum with old tunes. The energy on the dance floor was as intense as ever, and I worked up a pretty good sweat in the crowded and warm room. A thunderstorm passing just to the south, lighting illuminating the front windows, added a bit of menace to the air.

Mariah joined me for the event, and Chrystyne was present for a couple of hours mid-evening. I stayed til closing, then went to breakfast at Hollywood Grill in time to witness some low-level drama; four 20-somethings who refused to wait their turn in the very crowded restaurant, piling into a table still being cleaned up ahead of others who had been waiting. The waitstaff simply ignored them, refused to serve them, and when the protests rose to the level of yelling armed security arrived to suggest a quiet departure. Well, it wasn't exactly quiet, but the troublemakers did depart as additional security and a few cops began to arrive outside.

It was almost light by the end of breakfast, and I took a nearly empty Lake Shore Drive north, Lake Michigan calm as glass in the grey dawn.

Monday was mostly a rest day, and today it was back to work... with e-mails flying all morning, as paperwork related to two large projects came in from clients and was forwarded to admin, and as I arranged to fly out additional folks to help get it all done. There's also a document in quality control, due to go to the client tomorrow, and several other things happening. It's going to be a busy week, leading up to another gallery reception and more photos next weekend.

Seattle exhibit

2010-06-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

Some of the work from the f-eleven books is being shown Thursday in Seattle; I've contributed three pieces, two of them photos of post-punk era bands, and the other a more recent night shot of Chrystyne. The images were sent electronically, and the exhibit is being printed and mounted by Leo Lam. Here's the press release:

-----

The f-eleven books vol. 2 photographers will be showing their work at Eterea Studio in Pioneer Square for the Seattle First Thursday Artwalk on June 3rd, beginning at 6pm.

The show will include prints from 10 of the 19 photographers involved in the book project. The coffee table quality photography book, edited by internationally published photographer and art director Wolf189, features work of multiple genres. The result is a trend-challenging, and visually stimulating collection presented in a luxurious format. Printed on 100lb coffee table book standard paper with a silky finish, the book will handle many years of viewing. The entire book’s sale proceeds goes toward Autism research.

f-eleven vol.2 has been on sale since early April.

“We hope that this book would help raise awareness and provide some financial assistance for this worthy cause," said Leo Lam, a fashion photographer in Seattle, owner of Eterea Studio, and one of the contributors of f-eleven vol. 2.

Eterea Studio is at 619 Western Ave., 2nd Floor North, Seattle, WA 98104

The show will be an interactive, Microsoft tags-enabled event.

For detailed information on f-eleven books, please visit: www.f-elevenbooks.com

For information on Microsoft tags for your Smartphones, please visit: tag.microsoft.com

f-eleven is an exclusive private photography group. The book project was started by its members in late 2009, and since then have produced two book releases. The books are diverse and progressive, with the fundamental aim to affect small positive changes in worthy causes; one shutter click at a time.

website: http://f-elevenbooks.com/
blog: http://www.blog.f-elevenbooks.com/
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/f11books
twitter - http://twitter.com/felevenbooks
tumblr - http://f-eleven.tumblr.com

lucid daydreams

2010-05-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

I arrive in Chicago on Wednesday evening after barely making my connection in San Francisco. Over the next few days, the others converge: Mariah on Thursday evening, Dave and Roman on Saturday.

We're all at Gallery Provocateur by a little after 8:00 pm. It's smaller than Veronika's last gallery, three rooms: A lobby, a hallway with a bar, and a larger room to the left.

My work is in the hall, just to the right of the bar; four 11x17 or 16x20 images. Dave's work is at the far end of the larger room, and Mariah's is at the near end of the same room. The other five artists, painters or related media, are scattered about.

It's already getting crowded by the time we get there, and over the course of the evening the space ebbs and flows, ranging from near-claustrophobic to moderately crowded as people come and go, or move among rooms, or step outside to catch a breeze on this warm night.

Mariah is "creatively attired" with a long skirt of black glass beads and a black butterfly glued over each nipple, with a few small leaves glued about her torso. I'm in a black jacket, Dave in white. Friends arrive: Lauren, Natalya, John, others. V wears red pasties and tight jeans, her and Mariah walking by on occasion in front of my photos of them on the wall.

Near midnight the crowd finally thins, and we move down the street to Lucky Number to see SS-Triple-X perform. The performers are of course scantily clad, bits of black leather and electrical tape in an updated burlesque with bite. A few young goths who had been at the opening walk up to talk to us, perhaps a bit over-respectful and in awe. One of them decides she doesn't need that shirt after all, and finds a few pieces of black tape instead. Toward the very end of the evening Mariah's butterflies finally begin to succumb to the movement of dancing, and she peels them off and hands them to me. No one says anything, and the looks, while perhaps increasing in frequency, remain discreet.

We leave a few minutes before 3:00 am.

7:00 am comes much to soon, and by 8 we're at the designated Starbucks, downing coffee as Dave and Claudine arrive. We carpool to the Iron Works, and spend the rest of the morning shooting a series of nudes among the old ruins. At noon, with the temperature climbing over 90 and shade becoming sparse, we find a nearby ice cream place and relax for a while.

Now, after a few hours of sleep, It's time to prepare for tonight's O'Banion's reunion. More on that after the fact.

busy

2010-05-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

I'm on a string of deadlines at the office... work is fun at the moment, but there's not a lot of time to stand still and think about it.

Then there's the travel. Saturday, a day trip to Oakland, which I'll try to get back here and write about... a fine art meet and greet, with lots of excellent work shown. Wednesday morning I'm off to Chicago, first an exhibit opening at www.galleryprovocateur.org on May 29th, then work, and another reception on June 5th, with a couple of shoots wrapped in on the weekends. And the O'Banion's reunion on May 30th. Home briefly in June, then back to Chicago again. And a few schedule things that aren't for sure yet. It doesn't really slow down til late August, if then.

But really, I'll try to write more....

volume 2 book release party and exhibit

2010-04-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

I'm exhibiting in Chicago, at Gallery Provocateur, with opening receptions on May 29 and June 5. Details are at: http://www.galleryprovocateur.org/upcomingexhibition.html

On May 29th there will also be a book release party for f-eleven Volume 2, which just went public a few days ago. For information and previews of both books, see www.f-elevenbooks.com

a rainy night...

2010-01-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

... and it's time to write just a little.

It was a busy weekend; a revamped website, half done but only parts uploaded so far. That, in turn was inspired by the recent book project. And finally, there was a burst of motivation following Saturday's earthquake. But... that's a different story.

f-elevenbooks blog

2010-01-10T21:36:00.000-08:00

The f-eleven books blog is up and running:

http://www.blog.f-elevenbooks.com/

Take a look for news on members of the group and our next book project, and, today... there's a wonderful video posted by Wolf 189.

a sunny day

2010-01-03T20:48:00.001-08:00

It was clear and mild today, a great day to roll up the garage door and clean out the darkroom... something that's badly overdue, and a bit more urgent now that I'm thinking it's almost time to print again.

I've decided to order a new enlarger lens for medium format work, the existing one is showing traces of fungus between the elements and it's quite old anyway, there are better designs available now. So that will take a few days to arrive. Other things are more basic, the clock seems to have given it up, and that's easier to replace before I put the sink back against the wall. That one I'll take care of tomorrow.

Earlier in the day I pulled the plug for the last time on the HP piece of crap flatbed scanner, which sort of worked OK at first, but then required periodic reloading of the software... and now it's just turned evil, keeps reverting to default after every scan. No, I don't want to scan everything at 200 dpi, and I don't want to be bothered to change the settings for every single scan. A shame, the made good products once, but this is the third thing I've had problems with (actually the other two were owned by family members, but I'm the one who had to deal with them). Three strikes and you're out... no more HP products for me. Interestingly, the problems began during the reign of Carly Fiorina... now she's making sounds about running for U.S. Senate... nearly runs a company into the ground, now she wants to help run the country? No thanks, there are already enough issues.

The Canon flatbed that I've put in it's place is running flawlessly so far, and it takes up quite a bit less space as an added bonus. That's what I like, products that just work.

I'm currently in a mood to work with some older images, 10-year old stuff mostly, at the moment. And it occurs to me that if I wanted to, I could put the cameras away and keep plenty busy for quite a while just compiling things from all that older work.

duality

2009-12-20T21:28:00.000-08:00

I'm in the early stages of updating one of my web sites... not ready to upload yet, but with several pages recoded. This process is turning out to be an excellent way to drag some things out into the light where they can be examined.

It's perhaps easiest to explain by looking at recent photographic subject matter. On the recent Chicago trip, I was periodically immersed in the local gothic counterculture, shooting portraits of various individuals. Today, at home, I drove up into the mountains just south of town, in the rain, and shot landscapes.

There will be both landscapes and portraits in the updated website, and there may be a fair amount of very recent work... although I'm feeling a need for another weekend of shooting to complete even the landscape part of this, and even that will be subject to a refresh before long. A concept can only rarely be adequately examined in a day or two.

I'm faced with juxtaposing a duality; the city, complex, artificial, and teeming with humans, in some ways a vision of nihilism; and the land, nature, seen through the simplicity and minimalism of zen.

As always, there are places where these things overlap, where they connect. However, I need to make a temporal jump to do that.

The gothic counterculture I've so recently photographed is a creature of the recent past, born from the ashes of post-punk less than 30 years ago. Certainly it draws on much older ideas, although these are often presented almost as repetitive caricatures. With a few exceptions, there isn't a lot of depth involved in those older symbolisms.

However, if one looks not at the music-based counterculture, but at that older influence... one anchored in literature, in architecture, in philosophy... it goes back at least 400 years, and it's not really an urban thing. It's perhaps not entirely natural either, but once a rural English estate provided a perfectly acceptable habitat for these explorations of the darkness.

Nature too has it's shadows, particularly in the rainy season. I still have some work to do as far as reconciling eastern and western ideas, but I'm accustomed to this. Things need not fit together perfectly, it's just fine if they complement each other instead, leaving a middle ground to explore, a place where new ideas can spring from this cautious intermingling of different cultures.

talent

2009-12-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

Today I was having lunch in Oldtown Eureka, when someone behind me said "is that a Leica?"

I had a 10-year old M6 today, a blackbody with the white lettering removed, intentionally a bit of a stealth camera. Most people don't notice it.

The young guy at the next table turned out to be a photographer prepping for an exhibit, carefully pondering where on the walls to place his work. He hasn't been at it long, five months, and has a cheap Nikon D60 with a slow zoom lens.

Then I heard the dreaded "will you take a look at my work?"

Fortunately, he's good. It's much easier when that happens. Nice shots of details from old abandoned industrial buildings, sharp, well exposed, good composition with good use of negative space and selective focus.

I spent more time talking to him than I really should have considering I was on deadline today. But it was worthwhile, I think. All he really needs is a little encouragement, a little confidence, a little more experience. And I made my close-of-business deadline with 30 minutes to spare anyway.

mild

2009-12-17T21:42:00.000-08:00

It feels so warm here on the coast, after a week in Chicago. Daytime highs have been in the mid to upper 50s, and it's just felt great.

I took an older Leica, an M6, to the office today and shot some film over lunchtime. That felt good, too. Simple composition, simple equipment; one camera, one lens.

gothic crafts

2009-12-14T12:35:00.001-08:00

Last night I stopped by a gothic craft fair at 1901 Gallery... saw a couple of old friends, photographed a number of interesting people. The merchandise was a little predictable, but fun to look at. really it was the people I enjoyed, the conversations.

I'm flying home tomorrow morning, and it looks like this time the weather may cooperate. Todays relatively mild drizzly weather is giving way to colder and clearer air. It may be a few months til I return here, hopefully after the worst of winter is over.

absinthe

2009-12-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

Last night I stopped by a relatively new (I think) Chicago club called "Lucky Number" which is sort of ironic, because in 1979-81 I spent a lot of time at another Lucky Number, later/better known as Club 950... one of the early punk/new wave clubs, long fallen victim to gentrification now.

This new place, which I assume is unrelated, caters more to a goth crowd, at least in the second floor space. There are regular DJ events. It's not all that far from where the old Lucky Number was, maybe a couple of miles west, but it's far enough that it's still easy to park.

I sat at the bar and scoped out the light, looking for future photo ops. Not much light, except behing the bar and by a pair of exit signs. If I'm going to document this current iteration of the counterculture, it may need to wait til spring when I can take people outside under the streetlights. Or perhaps work the west coast for now, and return here after the thaw.

I did have a nice conversation with the bartender, who calls herself Lolly Gagger, and grabbed a candid shot or two of her. On the way out I met the editor of a year old goth 'zine, and looked through the most recent issue. Looking at the masthead, at the contributors... I know several of them. I've photographed three of them, have backed another one up in a streetfight.

The counterculture, as always, is a very small world.

cold

2009-12-11T10:56:00.001-08:00

Despite the weather, my flight into Chicago arrived 20 minutes early. The snow hadn't been as bad as expected, there were perhaps two or three inches on the ground… there was still light snow falling as I picked up my rental car. The wind had picked up, but again it wasn't as severe as forecast. The temperature was just below freezing, and beginning to fall.

I stopped for dinner, then went into the city. I was seeking a modern counterpoint for my punk photos taken in 1981-82, something to broaden the timeline and include modern countercultures, or better yet, find a way to bridge the two. So I stopped at a small club on Clark Street just north of Belmont, where Scary Lady Sarah was scheduled to DJ. She's the bridge, the person who knows some of my old friends from the punk years, and also moves within the current goth scene. Although she has left Chicago and now lives in Berlin, she returns several times a year to spin music… and coincidentally, I was able to catch the last night of the current visit.

The light was impossible, we had to shoot in faint streetlight filtering through the tinted front windows of the club. Even at ISO 1250, I had to shoot at 1/3 second at f/1.4. I tried to include the colored lights playing on the wall behind her, although the light moved quickly and unpredictably. This part worked well enough, I'd originally intended to convert the images to black and white, but after downloading them decided to use the color renderings instead. The images are a little soft from camera movement, there's a little flare, there's some high-ISO noise, and I like them anyway.

Leaving the club around 1:00 am, the temperature had fallen to 18 degrees; but that was near the lakefront, moderated by the still relatively warm (40 degree) water. Returning to the place I'm staying in the north suburbs, perhaps 10 miles in from the lakefront, it was only 8 degrees.

That pretty much held all of yesterday, in mid-afternoon it was sunny but still 8 degrees. I went outside only once, to a nearby wi-fi place to deal with some attachment-intensive work e-mails. Other than that, I wrote, edited, responded to e-mails on my phone. It was a busy work day, busier than expected.

Today is better, in the 20s, the edge is off the cold, and the weekend looks almost mild in comparison.

reading material

2009-12-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

I'm packed and ready to fly to Chicago in the morning, assuming the weather allows. It shouldn't be any problem getting in the air on this end, but there's a major winter storm moving through Chicago right now. It should be about out of the area by the time I get there tomorrow evening, but high winds and blowing snow could be a problem. So I'm expecting delays, and possibly not minor ones.

I have quite a bit of work with me so can stay busy in airports or wherever. Tonight I went looking for a book to bring with in case I get bored with that. The two things I'm mostly reading right now are big, fat, and heavy, not good travel books. So instead, I'm bringing a copy of J.G. Ballard's "Crash." A nice slim paperback, suitably punk, and appropriate reading material for airplanes, I think. Wonder if it will make the person in the next seat nervous...

The trip was booked on only two days notice and I've made no attempt to schedule any shoots while there, only a few people even know I'm coming. Instead I'll probably brave the moderating but still worse than normal weather forecast for the weekend to get out on the streets at night. Maybe I'll even venture into counterculture-land and see what kind of interesting random subjects I can get to stand in front of the lens for a minute or two. I have some more mundanr things to do while there, of course, but they won't take every minute of my time.

sunday

2009-12-03T22:13:00.000-08:00

For the first time in quite a while, I decided to make a special trip to the Bay Area, unrelated to work, specifically to shoot. The impetus was provided by a visiting model I'd been corresponding with for a while, and... just by a desire to shoot.

V is your basic art model, except with a shaved head. We'd talked when she first started, two or three years ago, but the timing was bad. It's perhaps best that we waited. She's experienced now, more confident of her ability.

Being the tail end of a long holiday weekend, and a nice warm (low 60s) sunny day, this usually almost deserted coastal location was fairly busy with hikers. We had to pause every five minutes or so and wait til someone passed, but the spot offered plenty of places screened from view and we had a good line of sight. The shoot itself went smoothly, efficiently. There wasn't really much of a personal connection, plenty of easy conversation but the energy was more businesslike than enthusiastic. That tyrned out to be an advantage this time... there is a bit of distance and formality in the photos I think, but given the starkness of the eroded concrete walls and her bare head, that somehow felt more appropriate.

It wasn't til a couple of days later that I had time to download the card. In the intervening period I'd felt a little disenchanted about photographing naked models, a little tired of it. But after looking at the images, I'm thinking that as long as I maintain a balance by including other subject matter, it shouldn't be too difficult to pull that creative spark out of hiding on most days.

glass

2009-11-27T23:14:00.000-08:00

One of the downsides of shooting digital is the constant need to back up data... and that's what I'm doing right now. Not much choice, I've nearly filled a 250GB hard drive on my laptop, and really need to free up some space very soon. In a little while, I'll be all caught up, with two full backups... one of them on a portable drive and ready to be stored off-site.

While I'm waiting for that drive to grind away ("three hours remaining" it says on the screen), a few more thoughts on equipment and minimalism.

Earlier today I started to pack my kit for a shoot on Sunday. I'm taking the camera body, a 35mm Summicron, a 50mm Summilux, a spare battery, and a battery charger. That's basically it. The entire kit fits into a small Domke satchel with lots of room to spare, and it's not heavy at all.

Most of the time, I shoot with the 35mm lens. With the 1.3x crop factor of the M8 sensor, it's a 46mm equivalent, so functionally a "normal" lens. It's one of the smaller and more compact lenses made, tiny even with a lens hood attached.

I have a few other lenses, but seldom carry them. The 50 goes when I think there might be a need for low-light shooting, since the f/1.4 maximum aperture helps there, or when I want a bit longer focal length (67mm equivalent, in this case) for tighter head shots. Less often a 28mm gets packed, usually when I'm shooting landscapes. I don't think any other lens has been out of the drawer in a long time.

In the DSLR world a huge backpack full of heavy zoom lenses is probably the norm. It's very easy to be seduced into carrying everything but the kitchen sink, and even using all of it.

But I can get by just fine with one or two fast prime lenses. I find that it simplifies, even forces me to see a little more clearly. It's also a lot easier on my shoulder.

what

2009-11-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

First, let's set the context. Let's get the tech stuff out of the way and then move beyond that.

For the purposes of this blog, I'm a writer and a photographer, and today it's the second of those categories I'm going to talk about.

I've been creating photographs for a long time, since age 15 at least. For most of that time, including my years as a working journalist, I've tended to value simplicity. Very often I'd carry one camera body and one lens, and work with available light. Briefly, at the advent of the digital age, I was tempted away from that paradigm. It didn't take long to return to simplicity. Since I shoot for myself now, as a creative outlet to balance the day job, there are more choices.

But it's harder to do today. I like to compare most camera manufacturers to the auto makers of recent years... digital SLRs have become a visual equivalent of the gas-guzzling SUV, getting ever more complex. 400+ page instruction manuals are now the rule; the cameras try to be all things to all people. The top-end models come close to doing this, as one recent reviewer recently said, they're good at a lot of things. What he didn't exactly say, what he left to inference, is that a lot of compromises have been made to get there.

The two that matter to me are bulk... while entry level models can be smaller and lighter, the pro level bodies can be nearly to size and weight of a medium format rig; and complexity, the deep layers of menus, too many buttons, and those ever-thicker instruction manuals.

The trend toward increased bulk and added complexity actually dates back a while, and affected later generations of pro-level film SLRs. This, combined with my interest in street photography, drove me away from the SLR approach and toward a rangefinder some time ago... a full 10 years ago.

Although I'd used a Leica for a while during my journalism years, it wasn't til about 1999 that a Leica became my primary camera. The compact size, the elegant simplicity, the ability to see more than the actual image during composition... I've become addicted to these things, and the the ease of handling that goes with rangefinder photography. Although I still shoot other things when conditions demand... DSLR for macro work or long telephotos or sustained fast action... medium format for carefully controlled studio work... the Leica is my camera of choice 90 percent of the time.

This forced me to stay with film for longer than I would have liked, because there simply wasn't a digital Leica M of pro quality until 2006. I waited a bit longer than that, as the M8 worked through it's teething problems. By the time I was ready to buy one, the price had come down and demos were readily available. It turned out to be a good choice. The M8 is now my primary camera.

More on this in a bit.

another one

2009-11-27T15:28:00.000-08:00

Just what I need, another blog.

What the hell. I have different things to say this time, let's do it in yet another place.