Eureka Springs Rail Depot 1/1/2012

Photographers frequently work with me with ‘taking their portfolio to the next level’ in mind.  This I understand and very much appreciate – people who are trying to improve their work are inspiring to work with.  But sometimes I find photographers doing it kind of half way in this situation.  Meaning, they hire me and expect great results, but put very little effort into the rest of the production.  Shooting me on a seamless in OK light….you’ll get good images, but if the true goal is improvement, why only make an effort with the choice of model?  If you really want professional looking images….do it like a pro.

These images were shot several months ago by my friend Luke.  He gets it.  For this shoot he probably spent enough money to hire me four times over again, but look what he got for it.  He invested in stellar locations, the best MUA available, elaborate styling, and me – a model worth the effort.  These images are easily publishable, and in my opinion definitely take his work to the next level.  These are also images I am delighted to include in my body of work.  He may have only taken four hundred frames all day, and investing in this kind of production may have tapped his budget for months to come….but again, I say – look where it got him.  Being a photographer is about more than lighting, framing, pressing the shutter, post production etc.  As a photographer, in this market especially, you are the producer, the art director, the on set coordinator…moving to the next level requires embracing all of this.  My deepest respect to Luke, for reaching for the stars.

This was a fun shoot during my crazy summer trip!  Thanks Bob!

Just sayin’

My early generation android was struggling to function under a load of 12K+ text messages among other things.  Highly valuing information I’m loathe to delete old texts, even when my phone is moving at a glacial pace.  But my annoyance with my poorly functioning phone was mounting and I began searching for a solution.

Synching seemed to be the thing I needed to do. Being a Mac user I’ve never bothered to sync my phone and computer together.  I now understand there’s an ap for this, but in my experience it didn’t work.  I’m moderately tech savy and while I could make my devices see each other, I could not make them talk.

Never having synched, I didn’t know that its pretty much only good for contacts and maybe moving pictures around.  I’ve been made to understand that your ordinary sync does not include SMS etc.

For this there are aps like SMS Backup but even this ap merely backs up your texts.  As in…if your phone goes boom you have an xml file on your SD card that you can use to restore the texts to your phone.  I desperately needed this data off my phone though.  For this and for general awesomeness I cannot more highly recommend Backup to Gmail. This may be the best $1.99 I’ll ever spend.

This ap copies all of your SMS, MMS, and call history into your gmail under a corresponding label.  Meaning your texts are now quickly accessible and searchable via the same search you use for the rest of your email.  Can I get a hell yeah!?

I’m a little late on this bandwagon, I figured I’d do my bit to help the rest of you hobble out of the cave!

I was about to post and say if I could only shoot art jobs I would.  But this isn’t true.  I just really like art jobs, they appeal to my soul.  Courtesy of Davez in Houston.

But sometimes the impact huge.  Meeting your spouse for the first time.  Taking a class from an inspiring teacher.  Meeting your children as they are born.  Finding a kindred spirit or a thinking mind somewhere in the universe.  Sometimes these people touch our lives for the briefest second and change them forever.  Alternately they might be involved in our daily life over a span of decades.  Several months ago the most amazing person entered the atmosphere of my life.   He caused a paradigm shift spanning multiple areas and now I’m trying to sort out the ripples.   I was building sort of vaguely to a point and the moment for action and commitment was upon me.  I didn’t see it, but he did and was able to lend me perspective.  This gained I jumped into the most fulfilling purpose driven experience I’ve had to date.  Now I think he’s gone.  All it took was a second in the span of a lifetime to change everything about me.

Since this encounter I’ve been living my now identified passion.  It is amazing.  What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was what would happen to everything else.  It makes sense objectively, I just didn’t expect it.  Every day I get deeper and deeper into my work.  I dream about it.  I’m up at the crack of dawn every day ready to take it on.  I’m frustrated when my body fails me and I have to rest.  I eat well and exercise because I want my body to function better towards this purpose.  If you have any doubt about my description know it is all consuming.  I’m losing interest in my interests.  Socializing was always an effort but now I don’t care to try.  People not involved in my field no longer amuse me.  I have tunnel vision for my research.  And these things concerned me.  I thought I was experiencing depression.  But then I spoke to someone else in my position and discovered that all these things are simply the nature of the beast.

Friends close to me caution me to seek balance, which is so this generation.  I never hear anyone saying work harder, be better, that’s going to take more effort, etc.  We’re likely to tell each other to take that vacation, spend the extra money, be diverse, or you deserve to be happy.  Where do all these entitlements come from?  Maybe some people work for them, but for me I don’t think I’ve ever worked hard for anything, so it confuses me when I hear statements like this from my friends.  I think the moment in my life to be fiercely committed to something is now. The time to work my fingers to the bone is upon me. They say be well rounded.  I feel I’ve been well balanced and nicely round for my entire life, and its time to get a little crazy about something   So here it is….I’m taking the plunge, going down the rabbit hole with gusto, wishing gravity would pull me faster.  So if I seem obsessive its because I am, but don’t let this concern you.  Maybe just hand me a cup of water or something as I pass by.  Smile and nod, pat me on the shoulder so I know I’ll see you on the other side.  Just don’t slow me down! This is where I’m going, I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but know that its a good good place.

I’ve wanted to post about this forever!

Many moons ago I worked with in Brooks Ayola in LA. He works commercially but also shoots beautiful portraits. We made a few, had a wonderful time shooting and all that jazz.

Brooks shoots some of his portraits using a view camera. He asked me a few months ago for a sentence or two on what it was like posing for a photographer using a view camera and, never one for brevity (except on Twitter!), I sent back an essay on the topic. It ran in View Camera Magazine a few months ago as part of an article featuring Brooks’ portraits.

Check out the article here and let me know what you think!