PAW 4

Picture a Week 4 is late, but worth the extra day. I actually didn't shoot at all last week. Today during a shoot, I was able to work with a great model during our off time. Not enough off time, but I was able to work in an elegant nude.

revise

Going thru an update on one of my websites has brought a lot of images in front of me. I'm sort of in an edit hell! What I deliver to my customers is not often images I would use for myself. Hence only 5 to maybe 10% make the cut for consideration. I've shot a ton and have gathered more than 150gb of imagery. Do you envy me?

But there are a few that stand out and will be a part of my splash page on my first Flash site. I hope to have it up in the next week, maybe 2. Just thought I'd share a few of my favorites from 2005. I'm in the Bride | Groom section of my edit, so this is what you get...









btw, the photographs are stunning,especially the bride and groom photographed against the white on fine art paper. WOW!

Storage

It isn't that I have shot profusely in the last few years, but I have shot more in the last 2 years than I have in quite some time. And now that I am in the midst of recreating my websites, herein lies my problem. I have folders of images on CD, DVD and various hard drives. I'm finding for a continuity thought process, I need to have images available at moments notice. Having to pull a CD or DVD from images I shot from previous years is dividing my work flow. I think I am going to have to invest an a large capacity device where I can store at least 2 years worth of work. It only makes sense to me, especially as I go thru various mediums and not be able to follow thru on an idea.

Red and White | PAW 3

Lots of things to do this week, mostly finishing off that presentation portfolio I was working on. btw, the results were very pleasing. I was surprised at how well it came out. I didn't get much of a chance to go out and shoot much. I did have an event earlier in the week. Here is one of the resulting images, that I also submit as my Picture of the week 3.

Tangible

I've been a photographer for quite some time. The days before the internet my only calling card were my portfolios. Presentation is always everything as often, I wasn't even around when my client was viewing my book. Around 1998, I posted my first website as an added addition to promote myself as a photographer. 2000, I paid more attention to updating and revising my website more so than my portfolio. By 2003, my portfolio hadn't been seen or touched. The ease at which I could update my best images only made sense to push the website.

I've sort of reached full circle. Today I started working on a portfolio, a physical entity that I have to feed and carry, again. I haven't been in the mindset of a concrete illustration of what I do for years. I purchased a portfolio box, containing empty mattes, to be filled with my photographs. While going thru images, on the computer to figure out how my presentation was going to look, I pulled out a recently printed (read hardcopy) double image of 2 women put side by side on a sheet of paper. The print itself is just a beautiful object. Seeing depth on 2 dimensions, feeling texture and just the sense that holding this object in your hand is a thing to behold. I put it in one of the mattes just to get an impression of what I was working with. Suddenly, I felt excitement. Physical beauty that you can hold in your hands. A work of art! The print itself had meaning to me, but set in a simple frame of the matte, the presentation of my image suddenly made it larger than I could have imagined. I've pulled it out several times today just to look at it, admire it and just hold and look.

Upgrades Continue, spend more money...

"It‘s still a rumour, but it‘s not unlikely - end of February Canon might announce the successor to the EOS 20D:

Some more concrete rumours emerged these days, suggesting that Canon might announce the EOS 30D as a successor to the 20D, featuring:

• 10.1 megapixels (8.2 megapixels)
• 1.6X crop
• 21 point AF (9 point AF)
• 7 fps (5 fps)
• DIGIC II (DIGIC II)
• better noise reduction at ISO 800 and higher
• New body design
• Introduction February 21, 2006"

Taken from Photoscala

noir

"Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics (first by Frank Nino in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark' and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France following the war. It was a style of black and white American films that first evolved in the 1940s, became prominent in the post-war era, and lasted in a classic "Golden Age" period until about 1960 (marked by Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958)). Strictly speaking, however, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film."

I've really been in a cinematic mode lately. Going thru some of my older photos, I came upon this image. I can see this pulled from a movie still, which is a direction I may follow, or not. I am quite interested in the look of movies and how some can capture this mood in still photographs. I need to study more!

Homage to Helmut | PAW 2

Often, I do not, get the opportunity to shoot erotica. Of course when that opportunity happens, I enjoy the challenge. And when not working with professional models, I do have to work for everything I get. In this case, I also got the rare opportunity to go after my own vision. The hardest part in the process of finding the rhythm, is time. I had plenty of it, but getting the understanding conveyed to the model is what becomes difficult. This shoot wasn't a marathon process, but it wasn't til the very end that I started feeling comfortable with the images that started coming thru.

Concentration... It is not an easy thing to accomplish under the circumstance one is put upon with trying to capture an essence of sexual content, without being sexual. I don't do this often and maybe because of that, I overcompensate with idea that I am a professional and that I maybe didn't let go and create what could have possibly been a more artistic/erotic photograph. But, with circumstances being what they were, I am only too happy with the process and conclusion of what I got.

Oh my!!!

So the inevitable-ness of THIS, we all knew was coming. I am surprised that such a huge company is dropping so much of their line. But I wouldn't want to be the head of any film company at this time either. Loosing 8 track tapes was one thing. In fact, all recording tape has stopped being manufactured as well. Our analog ways are disapperaring and we will only be reminded by them by finding the great lost treasures in Grandma's attic or at the flea market where I used to find 8mm movie cameras for practically nothing. At this point there just a little more useful than a doorstop.

I'm probably just not up on the lastest news of other companies doing the same. I know of Hasselblad, Contax, Kodak, Ilford all making the shift. It just saddens me because I was so hands on with the products of these companies. And the memories of the process is so instilled in me. I guess it is not as bad as the Key Line and Paste up industry where their drop off rate was maybe just a few years.

Time moves forth... we are for the better, right???

Mabarosi

Discovery is a wonderful thing. I've all ready have had a few epiphanies since the year started, and I am thankful for all the elements that have come together that has enabled me to come to the various associations related to my own life.

On a lighter note, I was purusing the internet and came upon a blog with a most facinating photograph that grabbed me by the neck and shook me. It is a still from a movie and whatever it is about, I want to see it. This photograph by association will put into works my deliberate search to find and view this movie.



It makes me think about how some of the smallest interactions we have in our daily lives can put us in a position of change. I wonder now what effect I will have after viewing this movie.

Monaco Optix XR

For close to a month, I was under the impression my less than 1 year old monitor was dying because I couldn't properly calibrate it with the Colorvision Spyder, an older measureing device and software that had worked fine over the last 3 years I had it. I had no reason to think it should malfunction, which led me to the idea my monitor was dying. I then went on a journey of emails, several phone calls and finally returning the monitor to it's manufacturer (fortunately local) and was graced with another, newer version. Same problem... I had lots of words with this manufacturer, not good ones either and was about to give into having to deal with a bad monitor. However, I also had suspicions that maybe my calibrating device was also dying. I tried to calibrate other known "good" monitors, but not with much confidence. Finally, I went ahead and got another calibrator, a Monaco Optix XR. Very simple to use, elegant and allowed me to see much more information than the Colorvision software allowed. I'm now gifted with a finely tuned viewing device, one that I have confidence in! Hats off to Monaco!!!

2006 PAW 1