February 22, 2005

Leica...

Originally released in 1924, Leica was the first and foremost 35mm camera maker from the very begining. I was never able to own one of these Rolls Royce of cameras. I had thought recently that if I had one, I would probably shoot a lot more film, even on some jobs! But for me, the expense of having a loaded set up was just beyond me, financially... I hope the end is not near...

German website, Spiegel Online, has reported that Leica is in financial crisis after many banks cut its credit lines following an announcement last week which said it stood to lose half its operating capital. The company, which introduced the first 35mm still camera in 1924, is also expected to close the financial year with an operating loss of €10 million (approx $13 million). Last year it reported a loss of €1.6 million (approx $2.1 million). Shareholders will hold a meeting on May 31 to discuss the future of the company. Spiegel Online says that Leica has missed the boat where digital photography is concerned and it is also suffering due to the low rate of the US dollar versus the Euro.

Press Release:

Following the ad hoc announcement of Leica Camera AG, Solms, of February 17, 2005, stating that the Company expects a loss of half of its registered share capital in March 2005, the banks have partially terminated their credit lines. The remaining lines still cover the current liquidity requirements. The Company's Board of Management has entered into negotiations with the banks on a solution that will carry the Company until the time of its Extraordinary General Meeting on May 31, 2005, at which capital measures are to be proposed to the shareholders.

Press Release:

Leica Camera AG, Solms, expects the existence of a loss in the amount of half of its registered share capital in March 2005. The Company’s Board of Management will make a corresponding announcement according to section 92 (1) of the German Stock Corporation Law (AktG) at a General Meeting to be held on May 31, 2005.

Concurrently, the Board of Management prepares a turnaround strategy. It will propose at the General Meeting on May 31, 2005 that capital measures be taken. In connection with such measures audits are conducted at present. The measures proposed will be announced and published in the designated journals at the time of the convening of the General Meeting and the announcement of its agenda.

February 18, 2005

YES!

The meeting I had yesterday turned into a commision today!

February 17, 2005

Mind set...

I just finished up a meeting for a possible commision that seemed to go well. Work is a good thing. My general outlook on everything spruces up when there is the possiblity of work. I just went thru weeks of being depressed because no work was on the horizon. I get a few bones thrown my way now and then, but nothing really sustaining. I know that by June, July, I will have a different outlook, and generally, my life will have some sort of a foundation I can be happy with. But dog days are dog days and they really mess with my psyche. The solution to this now is to get more work!!!

February 15, 2005

Noguchi

I was first introduced to Isamu Noguchi by a friend who had one of his infamous coffee tables. Upon seeing it, I loved it and have wanted to have one ever since. I have followed his career and life as a sculpter, furniture maker and of course master of light. I did not know...

-As a resident of New York, he could have escaped the internment forced on Japanese Americans on the West Coast. In solidarity with them, however, he chose to join them in the camps for seven months in 1942.-

As a Japanese American, I feel even more of a kinship to the great man.

Deft Benefits in the Washington Post

Claire

February 14, 2005

My Man Bill

I picked up a recording of a performance done almost 44 years ago, that I had not had the chance to listen to ever before. Mr. Evans and his trio played at the Village Vanguard. I knew 10 seconds into the first recording that I had selected an important collection of music. I am thankful that he decided to play on the night of June 25th, 1961. It is important, to at least me, that I know for sure.

While listening to his music... I read the liner notes in which Mr. Evans talks about Zen and how it relates a lot of ways to jazz. Most specifically, he says "he enjoys Zen because it is comforting. Like Jazz, you can't explain it to anyone without losing the experience. It has got to be experienced, because it's feeling not words."

I would like to think that somehow, 40 years down the road, I will have been able to inspire, or involke a feeling in someone who happens upon my work. Why is it I do what I do, the toils and struggle? I have had the desire to be able to take photographs for a living, in a way that was specific to my own needs. I still feel that way, for the most part. I'd like to be able to recreate myself, in a lifelong work of progression. That is in fact what an artist does, isn't it?

If somehow I was able to effectively set a tone in the mind of someone, something of the likes of what Mr. Evans has done for me, I know I have succeded in being an artist.

February 11, 2005

February 09, 2005

The bite of Reality

January and 2005 started out on a high note where I was rewarded twice from hard work I had put in from the begining of November of 2004. I had visions of light at the end of the tunnel and things seemed to be moving for once. I hadn't felt the confidence I had in January for a LONG time. I knew things started to slow down, but didn't pay too much attention. This last week I've been feeling it. I've got the weight back on my shoulders. I know how quickly time can change things. I always get sucked in where I breath the sigh of relief. BAM, and there it is, reality, my reality rearing its head and leaning on me, whispering in my ear that things haven't really changed all that much. DAMN!

February 08, 2005

Google Maps

Google Maps

alt photos dot com

Many of you probably know this site, but I just recently found it. Amazing photography with soul.

ALTphotos.

Flight

As I woke this morning, I had a series of unrelated dreams, of which the last do I really remember...

I was flying thru the air, with the most amazing feeling of control, like a bird. I was with another friend, and we played chicken, swooping down and heading directly at each other, then change direction at the last second, circle and do it again.

"Flight - To dream of flight, signifies a sense of freedom where you had initially felt restricted and limited. "

I had this feeling, but has recently waned...

I'll use the dream to keep the hope alive.

February 07, 2005

What Time is it There

I picked up a movie from the Library that was laying on the shelf. Rarely is there anything good waiting to be plucked, but this looked interesting. The film festival from my home town of Chicago gave this movie the Grand Jury Prize, Best Director and Best Cinematography. How could I not bring it home... Though challenging to watch for most viewers, I revelled at the cadence at which this movie was shot. I'm not going to give anything away here, I just wanted to mention movies that hit home that are snatched out of the blue are very satisfying. If I was able to grasp many of the messages this movie has to offer, I'd consider a review. Maybe another time after I've seen it again...

An eloquent review can be read here.

February 06, 2005

Jess / Portrait from the past...

I'd been working on trying to shoot Jess for over a year. She was a waitress at a cafe when I met her. Months went by, then she was gone. I'd run into her every so often, small talk of getting together and then be off. Finally, eventuality stepped in and we were scheduled for a shoot. From the moment we began, her movement has danced in my head to this day. It would be difficult to photograph her badly...


February 05, 2005

and again...

OK, I posted my last post because I knew my daughter and I were on our way to another Photo Expedition, this time Downtown. There are many characters out there, shady and not, but I find it amazing how this little girl can disarm the most intimidating. She will tell me that someone looks intersting and that she wants to photograph them. She knows I'm off stage, but right behind her, and waits for my cues. With some, a genuine show of interest comes into play before their curtain falls. With others, you just know there won't be issues with taking their photo. My daughter seems to know this.

Mr. Statue was a pretty easy proposition. She dropped her coin, to which he gestured a hand and thank you. Dara snapped off 2 frames and off we went.



I find it wonderful to have some big inspiration come from my 5 year old!

Inspiration

Inspiration can come from anywhere, at the most unlikely places and often from people that are the closest to you. For Christmas, I gave my 5 year old a digital camera. At the begining of the year, we started to go out on photo field trips together. I let her go and do her thing. I'm often enlightened by the things she comes back with and I learned early on that she wants her photos to be hers. Whenever I would suggest a point of view or subject matter, she just walks away from me...

We went to a park she loves going to and just walked. Here and there she goes, snapping away. Good thing got her a large memory card! Coming back home and reviewing her photos together, we go thru them and delete "ugly" ones and keep the "pretty" ones. It will be cool to see her progression as she gets older. Anyway, days had past and I took a look at them again, under a little less chaotic circumstances. I saw three really great images she shot. I took the liberty of converting this image to Black and White. I loved this one so much, I printed it out with the intention of hanging it. Her Mom saw it and decided she wanted it as well. I gave in and it now hangs in their house.

February 04, 2005

Sitting in a gallery / cafe, the sounds of Charlie Parker plays thru the ambient noise of buses, loud conversation and a game of pool behind me. For the most part, I am unemployed, with a few freelance gigs here and there. Not enough to make it over the hump, and often times I have to scramble to make ends meet. But I do get to enjoy the pleasures of sitting in a place like this, having an Americano in the middle of the afternoon and enjoying the time go by.

of days gone by...

I spent the majority of the day in the darkroom during my time being introduced to photography. When my classes ended at noon, I'd go straight to the darkroom and live in there til it closed at 9:30 pm. I'd print side by side with Doug, another photographer wanna be. We were the only maniacs that spent more time in the dark then the day. We lived and breathed photography and learned from each other as we brought in books by Avedon, Penn, magazines like American Photographer and Zoom. Openly we shared printing technique and built our portfolios, of which there are photos I am still proud of today.

During those learning years, I don't remember so much hitting the shutter, as much as seeing the image slowly appear from nothing. The smell of dektol, stop and fixer and the stepping in the room filled with amber. The communion between all of the other students trying to create "The" print, regardless of subject matter was the goal. We all worked towards that goal, together.

February 03, 2005

Top 10

I got this from another blogger, Rainer Maria...

Put your itunes or ipod on shuffle and write down the 1st 10 songs it plays, no matter what. Fortunately this first go around in not embarresing at all.

01. Antipop Consortium - SVP
02. John Legend - Used to Love U
03. Mogwai - Mogwai Fears Satan
04. Moby - Body Rock
05. Skylab - It's Wonderful/Rhapsody in Blue
06. Eric Alexander - What are you Doing the Rest of Your Life?
07. Seal - Fast Changes
08. John Coltrane - My Favorite Things Live in Stockholm
09. Mundy - To You I Bestow
10. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message

Senaka

If this doesn't make you feel better, I don't know what will...



click HERE.

Rose

This photo was taken a few years ago, from my first foray into Shibari. I was hired to take tutorial photos of basic ties. For the most part, the photos were very trite, sterile... After viewing the hundreds I had taken, I chose this one and converted it to Black and White. The image started to have a soul. I worked with it more and turned out to be one of my favorite images.

Recently, I again reworked the image to give it a more organic and aged feel. I want to see it as a huge print.

February 02, 2005

an Outing

The joy of photography comes back when I had nothing planned to shoot, but explored with Ann an industrial section of town. Where there are train tracks, there is always something interesting.



We got stopped by some guy working for the rail road, but he let us slide, so long as we didn't get too close to the trains. Down the tracks and on the other side we found a pioneer graveyard created in the mid 1800's. We spent most of the time in there, among the deceased, amazed by the history. The earliest born I saw was a woman from 1804. Fucking Hell, 200 years ago!

On the north end of the Cemetery, there is a section of an old run down rusted fence. It doesn't run the width of the grave yard, only a small portion survived the years. And not more than 3 feet to the other side of this fence, lay the most ugly of a manufacturing plant, or warehouse that was probably built in the 1980's...



One of many amazing headstones...


Artist

I am an artist. It has taken me quite sometime to admit that to myself. I've had no trouble referring to myself as a photographer, but "artist," took until recently. I guess the change or the ability to have that admission was when I realized that I had my own perspectives, points of view that was often different from others.

A tangent in my life, which I have been on for a very long time got shifted back in the middle of last year. Slowly, that line finally hit something to slightly change its course. With this new perspective, I am realizing changes that has enabled me to have
epiphanies, and also the ability to see things in another light.

So, upon this new path, an Artist is born.

Tabula Rasa

" The mind before it receives the impressions gained from experience."

I'm going thru a transition in my life, a Chapter 2 of sorts. I'm leaving a way of thinking and hope to envelope a broader more enlightened perspective.

 
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