Under an Oak Tree

Finally.

2011-08-22T09:29:00.003-04:00

After more than a year of searching and three years of testing, I've found a location where I can start my next major art series. If I can make it to twenty prints, it should only take about a year to shoot.

Weekend Shooting

2011-07-24T23:05:00.004-04:00

D2x, f11, 1/30th, CPL, .9 GND EI 100 ©Adoniram Sides 2011 NRWP

Came across this heron while driving. I don't own "good" long lenses for my Nikon system

and so have to rely on post-crops. 600mm f5.6 1/60th, EI 800

I have a bunch of CCGNDs and was fooling around with them in this landscape. The results

are … a little ridiculous. Might be good for shooting video. I'll be investing in better glass soon.

I've fallen behind on my updates which can only mean I've also fallen behind on shooting on my own time. The good news, I've found a willing land owner, in a dark region of New England, with good sky exposure, and the right polar alignment, to actually test my first "real" shot of my new series. That's some exciting news. For now, however, I'll leave a few images from this weekend's travels.

Backpacking the WMNF: Welch-Dickey

2011-06-05T17:57:00.016-04:00

Nikon D2x, 14mm, f8, hard GND

I hiked the Welch-Dickey loop with the intention of camping somewhere along the ridge-line, assuming I could find a site that complied with the White Mountain National Forest Guidelines (must be a minimum of 200' from a trail, stream, or road and trees must be 8' tall or greater). Found a number of photos there. I made notes too, a rare occurrence for me (though I am trying to do better).

June 5th, 2010 - Mt. Welch, NH

I am getting to witness a marvelous sight: sunset over the wilderness of the White Mountain National Forest. It's amazing to bear witness to a scene unchanged, less the interruption of logged woods re-grown, since the last ice age.

I am fortunate to rest atop a mountain where only a small fraction of man has come and even fewer spend the night.

Night is falling, albeit slowly, and the wippowill are singing so beautifully that it is almost heartbreaking. There is only the wind, the river, and the wipporwills. There is a rural road about two thousand feet below and every hour or so a car will move lazily down it like a meandering will-o-the-wisp.

I think I use too many similes and not enough metaphor when I write. It is surprisingly cold. The wind is a mountain river. It is not yet too dark to see but my sweatshirt is partially cotton. Silly fool I am, playing hypothermia roulette.

Now the stars are coming out. The thermal winds are dying down. I can see stars that I had forgotten existed and the darkness is rich and textured. The river reminds me of home. I have never realized before that distant, low rivers have similar sound to highways in the dark. It is still just light enough to see and this light is honest. It's not a sodium vapor nightmare. The air smells sweet and reminds me of flowers.

The photograph I am making is a proof of concept. It will be the foundation to my series on time. Photos are two dimensional scuptures. They freeze time with some degree of reality. The frozen realities we recognize we call "photographs." The frozen realities that abstract our sense of time we call "time-lapse photographs." Both are equally surreal abstractions of spacetime, based on the human way of seeing. The latter we like to categorize though because it bears less resemblance to our more immediate sense of existence.

Memory, on the other hand, is more similar to a time-lapsed view. We tend not to see this because memories are ephermal and transient. We construct them and amend them as they fade away but for a brief window of our lives, they are great monuments of countless immediacies, compressed into a window in our minds that reveals deeper patterns than our superficial sense of daily reality.

This series of images then seeks to reveal our own abstract impression of time by resolving day and night together. Our experience of days punctuated by nights is a human one. The earth, our any celestial body, has a different experience. Eternally bathed in starlight, both near and far, the stars do not rise and set on it. It dances amonst the stars.

Without its own motion, the stars would lie nearly still, moving like great snails, [propelled by] the movement of galaxies, and the expanding universe. We are mad ants swarming over a stone that is caught in a glacier.

The entry ends here. I was interrupted by a lost luna moth that decided to light upon me. I've never seen luna moths in the wild before, they are astonishingly large. They live a short time as adults. I was writing with a near-IR headlamp and was shocked to see that its eyes luminesce in the infrared light, making them appear like rubies set upon a green field. Its wings were damaged from some cruel encounter and it was exhausted and barely able to fly. My camera was in the act of exposing and so unable to make a photograph I was contented only to make memories.

They are feathered like birds (or seem to be) and their wings make a beating sound that is loud upon anything they touch. They are heavy and when it landed on me, I easily felt its weight on my clothing. It was in distress and so I placed it away from me where I might not step on it but for a few minutes it rested on my chest and we both just sat there, bathed in the starlight that accompanies a new moon.

And so, I took a few steps further forward towards making the images that I've been carrying around in my head. A few weeks of scouting has turned up some potential locations but I still must master the right filtration to deal with light pollution, get the equatorial mount to work properly, buy some extra grads, and invent a device that can move the grads in and out of place. Oh, and test my filmstocks with a modified zone process. It's an adventure but now, at least, I feel it has an air of fate.

Nikon D2x, 14mm, EI 100, f2.8, 35 minute exposure
Hard GND .9 flagged in.

Worcester Tornado Clouds

2011-06-01T23:39:00.001-04:00

Spectacular skies above Worcester, Holden and Sterling, Massachusetts.

Moonrise

2011-05-31T23:23:00.004-04:00

Nikon D2x, f8.0, 1/80th, CPL, GND .3

©Adoniram Sides NRWP

Off the coast of Maine in heavy fog.

Rivers and Land

2011-05-24T23:28:00.004-04:00

"Waning Sun"

Nikon D2xs, 50mm, f8, CPL

Contrast and a Lack Thereof

2011-05-23T01:25:00.003-04:00

I love fog and mist but I must confess, I'm never totally certain on how to expose it. Fog produces a heavily diffused light that our brains tend to read (psychologically) as under-exposed. In actuality, fog can be quite "bright." I'm usually inclined to put it somewhere near Zone VI. This gives me the chance to deal with more reflective objects in the scene than the atmosphere itself as well as creates a mood that I like. I often want to drive the contrast up and get objects that are clear (that is, near to the viewer) to be more black. This creates a more stark mood and I like this.

By contrast (hah) the magic hour can provide a lot of interesting scenarios, particularly when dealing with objects that abut both open and closed areas. The close area can function as negative fill and create really wonderful ratios between light and dark, sunlit and skylit.

Found a Snake Today

2011-05-23T00:03:00.003-04:00

He looked recently fed and of this I was assured when he was too lazy to move when I approached him closely. This isn't the best thing to do, I know; a snake that has just eaten, if started, can injure itself or regurgitate its hard won lunch. I moved along quickly, appreciative just to see him.

Summer Light

2011-05-14T00:38:00.002-04:00

More trees, but maybe this time, more meaning too.

It's a Beautiful Day

2011-05-09T22:58:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, I just need to accept that it's a beautiful day. I watched birds, grass, and other things move in the wind. Simple documentary was as close to photographing as I got.

Another Movement

2011-05-03T22:57:00.002-04:00

Same day, later. More haze has moved in and a front has established a wall behind the tree.

Haze Makes for Good Light

2011-05-03T22:41:00.002-04:00

I've decided that haze is just about the best thing you can hope for, as long as some clarity in the sky remains, for black and white images. If the haze is just right, the shadows open up in a way that is borderline surreal. Fortunately, today was one of those days.

Trudging Through Swamps

2011-05-02T21:40:00.003-04:00

One of the interesting things about finding your inspiration in water, particularly slow water, is how often you find yourself in a swamp. So, between looking for images, I am often compelling to photograph the flora and fauna around me. Today, it was waterfowl and it was mating season, the birds were quite active and for the most part photogenic.

Making the Transition

2011-04-17T01:12:00.011-04:00

One of the things that has plagued me lately is this trouble about making the transition from "mediocre" photography to "good" photography. So much of what we're saturated with on a daily basis isn't particularly good work, though it is very compelling visually. So how do I get there? To "better" work. It's a combination of things, all of which have to do with being more mindful, of course. Better exposures, better composition, better subjects: all of these things have primarily to do with thinking before shooting, rather than wandering about. The latter is what I tend to do. Maybe I'm fighting natural tendencies.

I think it might be, partially, shooting too quickly. I don't need a camera to photograph anymore. More often than not, having a camera, particularly a digital camera, is a crutch of laziness rather than a tool to improve. There's nothing that an image review can do that my mind couldn't have done other than make me more slothful and less mindful.

I know I am interested in abstraction, time, dusk, and water. What more than that, I no longer know.

Swamps

2011-04-16T21:54:00.003-04:00

I'm obsessed with swamps. I think it's some combination of the sounds that they (and their denizens) make and the sheer amount of stuff to look at. I also think there's a charm in loving something that most view merely as a nuisance. Nothing portfolio worthy … haven't had much luck in that department in a while. Stuck in a series in my head.

Plum Island at Sunset

2011-04-11T00:50:00.003-04:00

I'm having trouble with abstracts but a recent self-revelation regarding exposure and darkroom techniques with the zone system has (I think) improved my landscapes. Disappointing, I suppose, that it took me ten years to really start to understand zone, but I think this year will enable me to demonstrate a command of it. I hope.

Disintegration

2011-03-31T00:39:00.001-04:00

Spring is Coming

2011-03-17T21:15:00.003-04:00

The light is finally starting to persist after I end my day (typically around six thirty or later) which makes it possible to get out and shoot. This year, I intend to shoot more and do so more thoughtfully.

Fire Flower!

2011-03-11T20:10:00.002-05:00

As a part of a different ongoing project, I shot this today.

Pictograms!

2011-03-08T21:52:00.013-05:00

I created an icon for work yesterday and this evening I animated into a gif. I'm pretty pleased with the results. The icon set is better than the gif itself, but the gif demonstrates the different states and that's pretty good! Unfortunately Blogger doesn't seem to support animated gifs (they reprocess images when uploaded and I don't really want to host the image elsewhere) so I can only share the png.

I modeled it on the industrial design aesthetic of HP and Epson, melding different influences between them. I think it could use some more work before it was really dynamite, but it works!

The "High Resolution" PNG

I tried to over accentuate the "interface" so that it would still be visible at very small sizes and used shading to add an element of realism while still remaining very graphic and simple. At the "high resolution" is it somewhat cartoony, but that's fine; the delivery size should probably never be more than 150px.

All of the design was done in Adobe Illustrator CS5, starting with a rough sketch I had done (also in AI). It would be interesting to create an entire UI library of agnostic icons as a part of an identity project for a business that had a website.

Finding History

2011-03-06T01:09:00.004-05:00

One of the nice things about reworking portfolios, as a photographer, is the archeology of one's life that is simultaneously undertaken. I found this image I made of my paternal grandfather, about five years ago now.

Photoshop Expert Tips

2011-03-01T10:55:00.006-05:00

Once I migrate my blog to my personal website (which is still in design... I know, I know), I hope to put up tips and tricks in the Creative Suite that I've come up with or stumbled upon over the years. I hope to do it weekly!

Today's is a good one for the heavy retoucher that even cutting out one keystroke will save time at the end of the day:

Every power-user knows that it's faster to navigate to the mask icon in the layers palette when you want to apply a mask (if you haven't customized a keystroke).

However, you've probably noticed that when you hit the mask icon, you get a "reveal-all" mask. You probably often want a "hide-all" mask. Typically, you have to invert the mask immediately after, or navigate to the Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. Instead of that… there's an easier and faster way!

Hold down the option or alt key when you click the mask icon in the layers palette and you instantly get a "hide-all" mask instead of a "reveal-all" mask. Simple!

Late February Snow

2011-02-27T21:20:00.003-05:00

Took a hike today as well, into the late February snow. This was the ideal snow: a few inches (maybe six) of powdery, dry fluff. The hardpack of the trails was easy traveling in my winter hiking boots but when I broke off into trailblazing, I was amazed to find the snow three feet deep in place. I regularly sank to my waist in the somewhat risky conditions; the standing snowpack has gone through several melt and freeze cycles, making layers of it stiff enough to support the pressure of a step but not strong enough to support full weight. It was hard going but so beautiful that I had to continue onward, into the deep.

Wendell State Forest

2011-02-26T23:38:00.004-05:00

Hiking today. It's cold again and the ice is returning to its hardened state after the mid-winter thaw. It's not safe but it is beautiful. If anything, the risk to oneself and humans in general increases its beauty.

Stamp Design

2011-02-13T03:38:00.003-05:00

I have become utterly obsessed with sealing wax for envelopes. Why? I think it's not that written communication is dying but that the written communication we receive is incredibly pedestrian. Even when we receive a letter from a friend or family member, it's often in a nondescript envelope, colored at best, mangled and with a failing seal at worst.

Sealing a letter with sealing wax brings an air of excitement to opening it. Sure, you've read the name on the return address, so you know it's nothing of tremendous import, but there's something romantic about a sealed envelope. Perhaps it's a result o

f cinematic indoctrination: countless Arthurian-inspired films mark secret and sacred communications with wax and flame.

Whatever it may be, I find myself compelled to seal any personal correspondence. As a result, the standard monogrammed stamps found in any stationer will simply no longer do. I've designed a concept using my own initials (in the manner that I tend to sign them) and have been looking for artisans to take up the job.

It's interesting because the right to "bear arms" meant not to carry weapons (in the archaic sense) but to literally be allow to use, in communication, a family standard: the coat of arms. Such a standard was as good as a signature and often marked the seal of important documents. It's interesting to think that once the right to seal documents with your own mark was reserved to only the sovereign classes - and now that anyone could go out and make such a thing, nobody could recognize the significance even if they happened to get such a letter.

So, in honor of the rights that we enjoy without even knowing they exist, let alone are special in some manner, I have completed my design.

I hope to find a craftsman soon!

A Deep Blanket

2011-02-02T18:46:00.005-05:00

The "storm of the century" has come and gone with a bit less ferocity than its fanfare suggested. Nevertheless, the travel was more than a little precarious and snowshoes made for better transportation than much else. Between the snow and ice, cars were mostly useless with a dash of dangerous thrown in for good measure. I took a moment to break from working at home and ran out quickly (quite literally, no driving for me) to photograph the new snow. It's deep enough now that it's somewhat difficult to judge by eye alone; clear scale is needed to really comprehend how much snow has fallen.

Ice on the Pond

2010-11-28T20:59:00.003-05:00

Winter has come and as it settles in, it provides wonderful opportunities to use both liquid and solid water to photographic advantage. I spent the afternoon on a beaver dam that had flooded a section of a small stream into the surrounding swamp, creating a pond. Winter makes these regions of New England passable. Normally they are havens of nasty bugs, dangerous muck, and general unpleasantness.

Gaining access to these places often means for new photographic subjects, as man (and animal) haven't had the chance to move the natural sediment of the landscape. The composition below was found here, amongst the water and felled trees.

It took a little while to get the composition right: I paid careful attention to the patterns in the ice and water, the negative fill of the trees on the catglass, and the clouds in the reflected sky. It'll need some more work before it's print quality work but I think it's a good effort after a few weeks of failings.

Graduated Stacks

2010-11-21T22:00:00.010-05:00

Winter is beginning to really take hold and though there is not yet a bit of snow on the ground, the still water of ponds and calm lakes has catglass, and in some cases, a true layer of ice. I'm looking forward to the ice setting firm because it provides wonderful photographic opportunities, particularly at dawn and dusk. It's a bit easier to make sunrise and sunset when they happen at 7 am and 4 pm respectively, instead of 5 am and 9 pm.

Today I spent in Princeton, as I often do, for its quiet and general absence of people. It's easier for me to work, personally, without people around. I find that I can settle into a place and be more relaxed. I set up with the intent to photograph some wildlife but it was too still and I'm sure my presence was detected too easily by any nearby fauna.

I was a little late getting to high ground and couldn't quite catch the moon correctly, it was a little too dark and I really had to stack the grads on. The window of opportunity for photographing in twilight is so spectacularly short, maybe five to ten minutes at most, that it can be quite frustrating. I'm still trying to get a series done, based on twilight, but the light changes every day (literally) and it's been very hard to track.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

2010-11-21T20:39:00.003-05:00

Amazing. Who knew that the entire suffrage movement was just a prelude for women to finally have the right to smoke? Virginia Slims, of course.

Shadows in the Clouds

2010-11-07T19:01:00.008-05:00

It has begun to get cold here in the northeastern part of the country. As the cold begins to settle in, there's usually a period of time during the month of November where one has truly spectacular sunsets. These can be used to great advantage, both for the quality of the skies but also for the color of the light, which tends to be unique.

The skies are still relatively clear in November and the angle of the sun is increasingly low, resulting in alpenglow for even the lowest of elevations. The extreme differences between the red, twilight from the west and the deep blue, night of the east makes for really exceptional color opportunities.

28mm, f8, hard GND 3

When conditions are just right, you can see cast shadows (at dawn or sunset) in the atmosphere itself. It's incredible to watch the cast shadows travel along the landscape and then up into the clouds, as if to illuminate some secret place: its existence within our own plane ephemeral and insubstantial.

It's easiest to see this occur from ridge lines or mountains, particularly those that have significant elevation above the surrounding landscape. The ceiling has to be low and interrupted, usually with breaks right on the ridge or mountain that you're on.

This evening, the conditions were just right and though it's quite subtle, you can see the shadow of Wachusett Mountain on the clouds to the east. The smooth, rising mountain in the image isn't a mountain at all.

Hopefully, as the late fall wears on into winter, we'll have many chances to play with both phenomena.

Late Fall Trailblazing

2010-10-31T22:09:00.005-04:00

Spent the day trailblazing through western Massachusetts (and genuinely so, by compass and undergrowth). The nice thing about late fall is the openness of the woods. Free-hiking is hindered only by the danger of deadfall. I saw several potential close calls today near some rivers, where deadfall hid several feet of open air.

I have learned that the key to successfully trailblazing in early winter is moving slowly. It makes you appreciate your surroundings more, certainly, but in doing so, you're also inclined to pay more attention to details around you, and that is key for successfully traversing through the bush.

My intent was to practice more for other series, but instead I worked on hand-metering again, a skill that's easy to fall out of practice with. I tend to rely on my "internal" meter, a learned process of judging exposure by eye. This works typically, but it's good to remind oneself of zones and proper exposure for given contrast. Packed my Hasse in too but in the end I shot digital all day. I wish I could spend every day wandering the woods in search of images. It feels highly metaphorical to the rest of my life.

In the end, I need MANY more grads to feather winter skies. Very frustrating day.

Images from Down East

2010-10-18T22:21:00.007-04:00

Traveled north this weekend to go down east; where one can travel north to travel "down" is a strange place indeed. In this case, it was a series of barely incorporated, and wholly unincorporated, townships in Maine on the eastern border of the White Mountains. This region is mostly national, state, and local forests. Some of it is managed (i.e. trees sold wholesale to make the government some money), some of it is truly protected (i.e. too dangerous to log), and some of it is simply wild (i.e. too far away to care about).

It's frankly the ideal place to travel, if you're the sort of person that wants to be away from it all and then a bit further away still. Though there's civilization 100 miles north, south, east, and west, it might as well be on the moon. There are few planes above (I counted four in four days), no cars, no trucks, no lights, and not much electricity, as it goes.

It's heaven.

I had the intention of making some actual images but the truth is that the place is so overwhelming, particularly in fall, that almost everything was a "snapshot" in the literal sense: the greedy thefts of a wide-eyed tourist. I only took the time to really make an image at a place called Screw Auger Falls. We got in a fair bit of hiking, particularly up at White Cap, from where the majority of images come. Haven't made much of value, but the persistent hands-on-the-camera is helping my head.

White Cap Mountain, Low Timberline

28mm, EI 200, f8, 1/50th

White Cap Mountain, Low Timberline

50mm, EI 200, f8, 1/500th, Soft GND 1/3

White Cap Mountain, Low Timberline

50mm, EI 100, f4, 1/100th

White Cap Mountain, Low Timberline

28mm, EI 200, f8, 1/160th

White Cap Mountain, High Treeline

28mm, EI 200, f8, 1/160th, r25, Hard GND3

White Cap Mountain, Looking Back Into High Treeline

28mm, EI 200, f8, 1/200th, Hard GND3

White Cap Mountain, Low Treeline

28mm, EI 200, f8, 1/160th, r25, Hard GND3

White Cap Mountain, Birch Forest and Steam

28mm, EI 400, f8, 1/25th

Screw Auger Falls

28mm, EI 100, f11, 1/8th, r25, Inverted Hard GND3

Screw Auger Falls

28mm, EI 100, f11, 1/5th, r25, Inverted Hard GND3

Screw Auger Falls

28mm, EI 160, f8, 1/60th, Hard GND3

Old Speck Mountain Lowland

50mm, EI 400, f8, 1/15th

Birch Trees on Wildcat

28mm, EI 100, f13, 1/80th, CPL, Hard GND3

Looking North Toward the Presidential Range

50mm, EI 200, f13, 1/160th, CPL, Hard GND3

I've noticed a few things: getting better with transitions and choosing exactly the right GND; my filter stack causes horrible vignetting and needs to be addressed (i.e. larger filters) and all of my GNDs have a slight color cast in the density areas that's a real nuisance to deal with. Matters not with the black and white stuff, but it's a pain with color. Need to get the Galen Rowell's as they're still relatively inexpensive and presumably better.

I'm back to not cropping anything. I know it's a small, petty thing but it's a bit like a mantra.

Down East

2010-10-18T18:50:00.002-04:00

Must make time to develop many other images, but a pano of early Mt. Washington snow never hurt anyone.

Rose on Set

2010-10-13T16:55:00.003-04:00

Sprout had some killer roses this week.

Foliage Past, Continuing to Plan

2010-10-11T01:13:00.007-04:00

As I continue to do pre-work for the next series, I've had to travel all over Massachusetts to find places that are relatively undisturbed, allow tent camping, do not have (much) light pollution, and have open sky. As one might imagine, this is almost inherently a set of mutually exclusive requirements.

I have definitely learned a variety of things from the snapshots:

1. Shooting north during falling light is slightly superior to shooting south, as the sky darkens uniformly under a polarizer. Shooting south, for some reason, causes a lightly off-centered darkening. I have a nice polarizer, so I don't believe it's a glass issue. This issue can be resolved with a stack of weirdly angled grads, but it's not ideal.

2. There are corridors of darkness in Massachusetts, but they're hard to predict, as the sodium vapor lights from even a very rural town cause light pollution in even slight moisture. Sodium vapor lights are worse than awful for the night sky. I cannot comprehend why anyone likes these things. Surely someone makes an industrial LED solution, and SURELY it isn't necessary to have the amount of light the current sodium vapors produce.

3. In order to do this series, I absolutely must print out a map and begin defining shootable regions. There aren't many and I won't be able to do it without a map.

4. Setup will need to occur around three hours before sunset, and the light will need to decay at least two hours after sunset.

5. I need to prepare for winter. It should be ideal, clear skies, black and white by nature.

I also need to retool my tripod heads.

Templeton and Royalston in Fall

2010-10-03T22:41:00.005-04:00

Just as there is no new idea, no new art, so too are there no "new" photographs of foliage. Nonetheless, I can't help but be moved by the beautiful forms that emerge in fall, previously lost in an ocean of green or white, now illuminated by a patchwork of color.

Royalston and Templeton are two somewhat forgotten towns in the western part of central Massachusetts. Too central to be "western mass" and too far west to be "central mass", these areas style themselves as part of the Great North Quabbin Woods. It was a region, like most of Massachusetts, once environmentally broken under the crushing weight of industrialization, then broken by the imminent domain of the State, and now economically wounded from a lack of commerce. When these areas lost much of their agricultural heritage to the "breadbaskets" in the west, they became very reliant on business to provide them the means of survival.

Now much of that is gone and these communities survive on small business, community support, small farms, and a certain degree of tourism. They are hardy, enduring, strong communities. They are New England in the purest cultural sense. They are the increasingly silent guardians of our New England cultural memory, the only places where you can find incandescent street lamps and town commons that still trace the colonial patterns they inherited.

It's tough to photograph these places without casting them in a negatively cliche light, as one of those "destitute","dying", or "troubled" communities that are the ever-so-popular destinations for passing politicians in election years. These glad-hands set up signs and tsk-tsk the empty storefronts and condemned buildings. They are transient, they are nothing.

But the communities here are not so ephemeral, for their roots often stretch generations, and increasingly they have bound together to preserve, both literally and figuratively, the culture and history of their space. I, the passing visitor, am grateful for them, because I live in a so-called "sub-urban" place that pours all of the concrete of a major city into the land of a rural community in the hopes of instilling "industry."

I hope they keep at it, and when people return (as they usually do), the downtowns will be relit and the buildings rebuilt, and visitors will remark, "what a lovely New England community." For now, I try to capture the surroundings, because the land remembers and reflects us as we reflect the land.

28mm, EI 100, 1/3 sec. @ f8, hard GND3

28mm, EI 320, 1/80th @ f8, CPL & hard GND3

Friday Creative

2010-10-01T17:48:00.005-04:00

I don't get to spend my hands in creative nearly as much as I'd like, but today I made some time to photograph some assets for a new media project I'm currently working on. I had to grab some images of a variety of invitations and save-the-dates, and this one really caught my attention.

Pantone says that color analogs are in vogue for styling and colorways, so I brought in a rich lavender tone in the surface to accentuate the aubergine color of the paper. It sets the greens in the peacock feather off nicely. The stunning bloom is from Sprout as always, great stuff. It's nice to work with a more avante-garde product, as it enables a styling that might be too modern for most settings.

This product is a "Save the Date" by Checkerboard, Ltd., it's out of a book called "Unveiled" which was designed by several of my friends. Nice stuff.

Plum Island Excursion

2010-09-26T20:53:00.011-04:00

As the years have gone by, I have become increasingly convinced that the weather services are getting worse, or their models no longer work, as relying on the daily forecast is a risky endeavor. In the warmth of a beautiful, clear, sunny morning, I checked the weather to see what the daily forecast was on Plum Island. I assumed that, given Plum Island is a mere fifty miles away (as the crow flies) and that I only needed the weather forecast for the next twelve hours, that there would be some chance of accuracy.

Weather.com suggested that it would be clear and in the low seventies. Encouraged, we struck out to Plum Island. Halfway there and huge cloud banks had rolled in, as had a slight mist, and a steady wind. The temperature was not nearly seventy; it was far more likely in the high fifties. One might think I would learn after a few decades of this but apparently I'm still willing to give technology a chance.

Nevertheless we continued on and fortunately so as the weather, while not as predicted, was beautiful in its own right, providing lovely light for color and a stiff wind on the water to prevent any pesky bugs.

The public access portions of Plum Island are a collection of reserves and parks: national, state, and local. Boardwalks, gravel trails, single track, and open beaches connect one ecological beauty to the next. It is a wonderful mixture of dunes, salt marsh, open ocean, quiet oak and pine groves, and the occasional wild beach plum. There are lookouts, a remnant from the late mid-twentieth century, that provide interesting and wide views to all points.

It is clear that the collection of organizations responsible for this beautiful place are both active and careful; human debris was small and irregular, which is a genuine testament to someone's effort: I have been to some extremely remote places and still find trash. The only way to prevent this is to actively remove it. The caretakers have erected and maintained boardwalks over the fragile dunes and marsh, making it possible to venture forth into the flats without disturbing the flora or fauna.

Heading south from the first lookout from within the National Wildlife Reserve takes the hiker through secluded high bush plants and briar, occasionally opening into small, wooded groves with soft grasses amongst the ivy and roses. The ocean can be heard all around, and the wind cuts through the trees, making a sound much like the hot coals of a new fire.

In these arboreal tracts, the wild beach plum can be found. At first I thought they were blueberries, but ever the gastrofool, I crushed one and gave it a taste. It had a wonderful, sweet, and richly plum flavor. I cannot even imagine how delicious a jam of these small fruit would be. Most of the fruit was quite past, and the few I found fell off at the slightest touch, so I did not worry too much about the eating of one fruit (and spat the seed at the base of the bush, so that it might germinate over the winter).

The trails move east and south, opening to long dunes and the Atlantic ocean. All along the beach, humans have piled driftwood into pyramid shapes. I have noticed an increase in these communal structures, sometimes made of stone; I wonder if there is a subconscious urge to participate in meaningful rituals that have now long been lost from our modern culture. There is something about a stack of debris that, like cairns, says "we have been here, we have seen this, follow us."

I think these random behaviors say more about us as a creature than much of our modern development.

The ocean, awakened by offshore storms and an increasing wind, was a shocking alexandrite with blue topaz and emerald tones, under a darkening sky. It was the sort of color that inspires one to paint.

Wandering south along the beach eventually leads to Sandy Point, both the name of the place and the physical feature itself, where the rising tide breaks the beach into a large, dry bar, and provides an ample playground for the plover and gulls. The human attendance here must be very high as many of the gulls and plovers were quite content to settle only a few feet from me. They didn't appear to be waiting for me to hand out goodies, so I assume that they are simply used to the human presence.

Across the water break (which was rapidly increasing in width and depth, prompting us to move north again), several young men interacted with one of the driftwood pyramids. It's interesting to me that even teenage boys are not compelled to destroy these structures. Instead, they added a few pieces found along the beach and moved on their way.

It's interesting that we are compelled to vandalize architecture but not nature; whereas we happily ignore the destruction of nature and lament the destruction of architecture. The value of wild things is hard to express until they are gone.

A juvenile gull plopped down beside me as I watched the men from a distance (I had brought along a 300m lens, even though it has numerous aberrations and problems). He seemed vaguely curious but I think he was more interested in using me as a windshield.

These (plover?) followed suite and landed behind us in a group of five or six, to play in the water and rummage through the mishmash of fallen leaves and sea debris.

Another gull eyed us warily, but was not so concerned as to get up and leave. The wind was so strong that most of the birds could take off vertically, floating straight up off the sand like a kite tethered to an invisible anchor. Only the vultures pushed forward into the wind.

Moving back north, chased by the rising tides, the skies churned from light to dark, but always overcast, and I had to ride exposure and filtration up and down to control the constant variability. Every photo, no matter how frivolous, offers the opportunity to practice and learn. The light is always teaching you something, if you care to pay attention.

As we walked, the occasional light would create incredible depth of color in the ocean, even more so than its already extraordinary jewel tones.

Eventually, the rising bluffs cut the beach into a gravelly path, and instead of walking along the parts of the beach that were less pleasant underfoot, we began to cross west to the marsh side of the island.

The marsh side of the island is protected both by lines of bush and briar, as well as fences and signs warning the beachcomber to stay out. Though it isn't clear the reasoning, presumably sections are blocked off for study and to let the land recover; land management has really started to improve in the past twenty years, even if our broader society hasn't moved its values forward as fast as those we entrust to care for our shared resources.

The footpaths lead to occasional breaks in the land and bush, exposing open areas that can be seen from blinds. I assume that during nesting season these blinds are well attended, they offer excellent views for the birdwatcher with a decent pair of binoculars or lens.

Another playful plover. In their winter plumage, it is hard for the rank amateur to identify the type of bird, and I shouldn't even describe myself as an amateur. Maybe "inquisitive observer" would be better. I'm more interested in behavior and their place in the world than I am in taxonomy and nomenclature.

In some areas, the footpaths get close enough to the marsh that I could photograph landscapes with decent composition, rather than either a high-angle or man-angle view. I think the perfect height for landscapes is about ten feet off the ground. I think this is why Ansel sometimes used the back of a truck as a shooting platform.

28mm, f8, 1/50th, CPL, Hard Grad ND3

Moving north, before leaving, and crossing the swale above to the small ridge, I was able to get a nice panorama of the dry fall marsh under the cloudy sky. You can see, from the grasses and soil, the patterns of the rise and fall of the waters. It's incredible that time is encoded into the earth around us, both in extremes like the great canyons and rivers of the earth, and in brevity like the fast changing marshes, swamps, and alluvial flood plains.

28mm, f8, 1/125th, Soft Grad ND 3

I like to imagine these places untouched by modern man, where native footpaths lead to the best shellfish and fishing grounds, and where our ancestors lived on a knife's edge of survival. Though it may not have been comfortable, it was most certainly beautiful.

All in all, it was a gorgeous (albeit cold, wet, and cloudy) day. I don't think I'd rather any other sort of weather, though winter may offer some stunning views as well. An early snow, when the skies still have blue, would definitely provide for inspiration.

La Luna HDR

2010-09-25T18:02:00.001-04:00

The moon was incredible the last few nights. While HDR is not my bag, it's about the only way to expose the moon and sky together unless you get lucky with good atmospherics. As the latter wasn't true last night, I had to rely on the former.

Ghosts!

2010-09-22T16:45:00.002-04:00

Occasionally I'll have a set at work that is fun enough to use a second time for something other than the original product. In this case, I had a bunch of toothpick creatures from a Toys R' Us cupcake set (it's only twelve bucks and it's freaking adorable) found here: Trick or Treat Cupcake Kit.

Starfields

2010-09-21T00:18:00.005-04:00

Still working hard on techniques for the new series. First shot of the "day" always has to be a starfield to check my tripod head's orientation. It's amazing the amount of objects in the sky that we can't see without the help of an extended exposure (or an uninhabited area). Getting a good dark sky exposure like this gives me hope for integrating dusk landscapes into the frame, and eventually transitioning to infrared film, the end goal (for this particular series).

There are a lot of things to be lamented about a modern civilization, but dark sky is by far one of the worst romantic losses.

The biggest problem is a lack of sharpness, due to two contributing factors: laziness (in transitioning the rig from static to tracking) and digital sensors. It's always interesting to find a place where digital sensors fail utterly and this is definitely one of them. I'll have to rent a D3x to test, but all of the bodies I own, and the 1Ds MK IV all do a terrible job with noise and smearing at the lengths of exposures I need (hours).

I need a sophisticated technology like film. What goes around comes around.

Revisiting Old Techniques

2010-09-19T20:37:00.004-04:00

Quite some time ago I developed a technique to expose starfields in dusk, daybreak, or sunset scenes. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult. I have a new series in mind and intend to do it, and fall is usually the best season to undertake this technique, as there is still good ground and tree color, but the days are shorter and nights longer. The key is to use physical masks in front of the lens, as well as grad stacks and an equatorial tracking tripod head. It takes me about a half hour to set up the rig. My goal is to get back into the swing of the technique, then focus on making good images. For now, they're just hallucinogenic dreams.

A Black and White from the Pemi

2010-09-13T22:52:00.006-04:00

One of the few actual photographs I made while in the Pemigewasset. Hard ND with an approaching storm made for a deep grad between the heavy clouds and mist. As a result, adding contrast was all that was needed to bring out a lot of detail, instead of burning. Not a great day to hike (or walk around, for that matter) but when the light was right every few seconds, a good day to shoot. If it had been slightly safer, I would have made more images.

Soloing the Pemi

2010-09-13T21:30:00.020-04:00

After reading online about the many exploits of backpackers and thru-hikers who have braved the Pemi Wilderness, both in the lowlands and alpine zones, I decided that I really wanted to explore the region for myself. The Pemigewasset River cuts through the wilderness area and is bordered on all sides by mountains.

The mountains are high by eastern United States standards, most of them stand 4000' or more, but more importantly, their prominence is very significant, and climbing any of them means at least 2000-3000' elevation change, often more. The route I took lay along the Pemigewasset: it lies as low as 200' in some places, so the pure prominence from river to the nearest summit by my path was 4000'. The total vertical, including cols, is somewhere around 5000'. It's not an insignificant climb. I decided on the central aspect of the Pemi Wilderness because it was less likely to be covered in people, a common problem to the West, near Owl's Head and the Flume.

The entrance to the region is in Lincoln, at the Lincoln White Mountain National Forest parking area. There's about three miles of walking through the woods on an old lumber rail grade before reaching the "great bridge" that separates the Pemi from civilization. It's a great way to divide the landscape, as it provides a psychological impact that you are truly crossing over into the wild. Immediately after the bridge are a variety of signs regarding backcountry policies and warnings about bridge removals (as a part of the WMNF's wilderness policy, the land has been returned to wild, and most human intervention has been removed, including bridges).

I hiked in several miles until dusk, as I had somewhat of a late start, and found myself enough of a clearing in the broadleaf woods to set down my tent and make "home." The Pemigewasset Wilderness has restrictions on camping: no camping within 200' of trails or streams (though the latter is a bit softer than the former), so it takes a fair bit of hiking to find a good spot, or reliance on previously tread areas. I didn't find any well marked spots, so I made my own in a ridge just above a swamp.

The night came quickly and I put up my rainfly for warmth rather than rain. It turned out to be a wise decision, as it got very clear, cold, and still. My tent kept the warmth well and I was infrequently visited by some sort of tiny mammal, maybe voles or mice, but they clearly were just passing the periphery of my campsite. I am paranoid about food cleanliness for fear of bear visits: not fear of bears specifically, but a fear that they'll eat my tent or something important. The next morning came bear-free and quite comfortable.

I had intended to make more photographs while on this hike but the truth is that the hike required focus and my pack was a bit too heavy to be pulling off and on all the time to photograph regularly. Not having done this hike before, I didn't have a good sense of timing and was somewhat concerned that each stop would slow me down and prevent me from reaching my destination, Guyot. It didn't matter as I wouldn't be able to reach Guyot due to weather interference. Most of the trail is interesting, somewhat serpentine path, but occasionally it breaks into long, monotonous straightaways. I photographed one, looking back. They often lasted for more than a thousand feet and were dead straight. This can be encouraging or demoralizing, depending upon your mood.

Fortunately, most of the straight sections are broken by turns at their bottom and top, or by stream crossings like the one below. Even in late autumn, water still runs clear and fast. I filtered it, but I'd guess it's probably potable regardless.

After the first two thousand vertical feet, you get the chance to view your efforts, before attacking the steep final approach to Bondcliff. The clouds were rolling in but didn't yet look threatening. They looked more like ceiling moving up and down, a common event in elevations that reach the ceiling. The valley is very steep and looks more like a gorge.

After another mile or so, I hit the alpine zone. There is a dirty, somewhat worn sign to mark your crossing. The "timberline" is different from the "treeline" or at least that's my understanding; the timberline is where 8' or larger trees can be found whereas the treeline is the presence of trees, period.

I rolled into the treeline after climbing a small cliff (wouldn't want to do it without crampons and maybe even axes in dead winter). I overcompensated the exposure so the clouds are overly bright, it was quite a bit less pleasant than it appears, but still passable. The wind was gusting occasionally, it was maybe 40ºF on the high side, and beginning to drizzle. Less than ideal conditions, but I was still on track to reach Guyot.

Soon, the heavy clouds descended and it became tough to get a good exposure. This was about 1:30pm, high sun. I'd occasionally get breaks to the surrounding ridgeline, but the visibility was rapidly collapsing. I tried to get a photo of Carrigain and it would occasionally peak its summit out, but too quickly to photograph. Instead I only got local ridgelines.

Heavier banks of clouds moved in and it got colder. I had a fleece and put it on but it was still cold even with wool socks, long pants, and fleece. Owl's Head was invisible, except the lower approaches where the Lincoln and Franconia Brooks merge, so I got an image of those slopes.

As I moved forward toward Bond, it got very cold, began to rain significantly, got quite windy, and very dark. I took one last photograph before becoming enveloped by the weather and packed up as tightly as possible. Guyot was only about a mile away and the campsite is on the treeline, but I was concerned about exposure and hiking out; I had enough gear and warmth for a dry 20º night but not a 10º night with rain, and only one day in which to hike out. I opted to head back toward Bondcliff immediately and try to make camp below the timberline on the south side of Bond, in the backcountry.

I succeeded and got below the weather. Overcast skies and light drizzle kept me company for dinner until I went to bed at nightfall. It was dry enough that my tent went up dry. I slept next to a brook for white noise, but high enough off the water in case of bad flooding, as I didn't know what the weather held.

It was a great site, I'll have to remember it: a thick bed of decades of pine needles and a steep enough slope that I didn't get a drop of water, not even condensation, but not too steep as to be uncomfortable. I slept like a baby until early morning, maybe three or four am, when it really started to pour. I awoke in a start for fear of water coming in my seams, but the tent held up like a champ. I could have stayed for a week. It was lovely. I went back to bed and awoke at daybreak.

Daybreak came and I hiked the six or seven miles out in a light mist; the rain broke around daybreak and miraculously held off until I reached WMNF Lincoln, when the skies opened up again. All-in-all, a stunning trip with true wilderness backcountry and no more than ten humans encountered (after actually entering the Pemi). Hopefully the aggressive policies of the National Parks Service stay strong. They are annoying, yes, but the results speak for themselves.

More Random Objects from Beckett

2010-09-02T02:25:00.013-04:00

The "goal" of most of my hikes and excursions is to put myself into a place with a different sort of noise than the daily noise floor. The result of that is usually creativity in some form - sometimes immediate, sometimes something I have to go back home andcomplete. Along the way, all of these little satellites spin off from the creative process.

I like to think it's a childlike enthusiasm for the world but the truth is that I simply have trouble making sense of my surroundings, and composing them into a frame (not a camera, necessarily, but a visual frame) helps me make sense of our interaction. It's not dispassionate. It's more like standing upon a balance beam where your balance isn't quite good enough to close your eyes without falling, so you have to rely on a spot on the wall, far away, to center your mind.

There's probably some sort of relationship between "oneness" and "creativity." I've avoided this completely by trying not to be too pseudo-spiritual. It's easy to push unwanted or unwieldy emotions into supernatural boxes, like clothing you can never hope to wear again but can't bear disposing of. It's a good way for the lazy brain to avoid too much mortality at once.

In a sense, photography is similar, a categorization of things "too big" to encompass in a frame, or even a motion video, done in a well edited way so as to present a subject in an appealing view. Religion can be like this; to omit parts of life that are distasteful, or to compartmentalize and sanctify parts of life that are cherished, it's good to classify them as sin, or holidays, or rights of passage, or whatever you may have at hand that takes the polarity out of life and stuffs it into a well ordered catalog for the psyche to reference at will.

The Keystone Arch Bridge Trail

2010-08-30T00:24:00.008-04:00

In a little known part of Massachusetts, so small that many native Bay Staters have never been to the surrounding town(s) nor even heard of them, there are a few beautiful keystone bridges that remain in use to this day by the CSX railroad. They are perambulated by means of the 1841 Keystone Arch Bridges Trail or the KAB.

As the conservation area was only just completed in 2004, I added the KAB leg to a hike that took me through the towns of Chester, Middlefield, and Becket. The combined population of these three towns is 3605 as of the 2000 census, so it is quite rural, though the tiny community centers are vibrant and clearly well-loved. It is an area of New England that enjoys a quality of life that some might assume vanished a century ago.

The bridges are hidden amongst the river and deep foliage, at the bottom of a significant cut in the landscape. From the tracks they cannot be seen and would be missed entirely by the pedestrian following the rails. To find them, one can follow a path that takes you in relative proximity, or hike along the water edge to see them close. They appear around the river bends like some sort of mythical castle architecture.

The arches themselves are very functional and lack the ornamentation of trestles and bridges easily viewed by the public. However, they are extraordinary examples of the keystone and voussoir construction, and are beautiful in their own right.

It's wonderful that these landmarks were preserved, though a shame that they're virtually unknown. Use this link to Google Maps to find the entrance: Keystone Arch Bridges Trailhead. Hopefully I can return in the near future with full foliage and better skies; it was 90º and severely humid when I passed through.

Looking West

2010-08-09T07:56:00.003-04:00

It was a beautiful day in the Bears' Den, a wildlife preserve in Athol, Massachusetts. I hiked well into twilight and really enjoyed the play of humidity on the hills and mountains of western Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Unfortunately, it was extremely windy and the conditions weren't right for printable long exposures. This was a thirty second exposure at f8, with a 0.9 ND grad. It's tough to shoot with grads after sunset and still have exposure times in a reasonable area, while accounting for reciprocity issues and impossible metering.

The TTL and ambient meters are useless with the color bias that occurs after sunset. The 28mm lens is reliable on crop bodies for use with grads, it's wide enough to have a lot of coverage but not so wide that the gradient transition is too fast to screw up. I'll go back to shoot some more, I'm sure. It takes a while to learn the location for light after dusk. I liked the simplicity of four elements though; tree, dirt pile, rock pile, fence.

28mm, f8, 00:30 sec, .9 ND Grad, appx. 25 min post sunset

Proper Exposure and Natural Silhouettes

2010-07-07T23:55:00.005-04:00

Getting the "correct" exposure is often difficult for photographers because they are not certain what "correct" means. Many photographers, particularly early in their careers, default to the excuse of "that's how I wanted it to come out", when in fact the exposure was serendipitous and they chose their final selection based on how they felt in review, rather than what they intended on location.

The difference is marginal, sometimes irrelevant, but I think you can pick out the different motivations through the amount of post work required. A shot that has been "forced-in" to an attractive image is indicative of a shot that was chosen post-crop, rather than pre-visualized.

Today offered a pretty good example for me of choosing the "right" exposure for the scene, rather than picking an image post-process. There has been high heat and almost no rain in the northeast, resulting in a significant amount of haze. I waited for an hour and a half, standing on the roof of my car, awaiting the right light. I really appreciate the color work of Homer, where a strong but muted single source creates a strange contrast in the image. I wanted to capture that feeling of beauty and a touch of foreboding.

As a result, the image is underexposed, significantly so. However, I think this is what makes a proper silhouette. Most natural silhouettes that I see have no shadow detail at all and absurdly extreme color. A good silhouette in nature captures a nuance of tone and shadow. It's not necessarily chiaroscuro.

It's very exciting to be able to think out the result of an image, set up the conditions correctly, and await the exact moment. I didn't take many photos today, but I spent several hours "photographing." I think this sort of process, a process that embodies time itself, makes photography valuable - not to the customer or client, but to the photographer. The more frivolous we allow our process to be, the less value we can realistically assign to our images.

Work Rabbit

2010-06-23T22:27:00.005-04:00

Well, apparently a family of rabbits has taken up residence in close proximity to the studio. One of them is fairly fearless. He'll (she'll?) let you get within ten feet of him, less if he has cover and you move slow. I love the notch in his (her) ear. Rough Rider Rabbit.

Nerf Gun Mod

2010-06-19T00:47:00.013-04:00

A while ago, it somehow occurred to us to have an inter-department Nerf war (this was right before the holiday break). Somewhere there are incriminating photos of the creative departments assaulting the developers. Around that time, as we all acquired our Nerf weapons, I happened to be browsing the web and saw some mediocre Nerf mods. A few decent ones, mostly mechanical, and a good number of terrible paint jobs (mostly matte black spraybomb jobs).

I thought I would combine a little bit of tech and a lot of faux finish. It's not perfect, but I have to say, it's kinda awesome.

I started with a Nerf "Launcher" (apparently, Nerf has to call them launchers for liability reasons) donated by my wonderful assistant photographer. It was neon green but provided lots of cast details to work with, and was relatively easy to disassemble. I pre-planned the finishes and hardware, somewhere I have design sketches, but they're lost for now.

Upon opening the thing up (about fifteen or twenty machine screws) it has a remarkably sophisticated trigger and pin mechanism, with an actuated plunger that propels the dart. I was pleasantly surprised because this would make rigging in a laser a little bit easier (more on the laser later).

I wanted a steampunk-cum-tactical look, so I decided to create contrasting matte and gloss metal details beneath (and above) a wood grain faux finish and brass fittings. It's against the law to make the barrel of a fake weapon black, so I went with brass there too. I did a basecoat of primer, then taped the details off and oversprayed matte, followed by two very, very light coats of wetlook, which acts as a sealer and gives a slight polish. I had to do a fair bit of taping.

Once the undercoats were done, I taped off the entire body (assembled, without the firing mechanism or barrel) and hand painted the faux wood grain, which took about ten coats of various matte laquers. I then spraycoated the faux finish in a glosscoat, about three coats, from very light (a fast mist) to heavy. If you don't do it this way (building the finish up), the lacquer will slough off. The result is a fairly realistic looking polished wood, particularly from a distance.

The next step(s) involved building the laser and trigger assembly. I wanted the "launcher" to activate the laser sight when the trigger was pulled halfway. I did this by purchasing a laser diode, lens, and fitted them into a bit of steel pipe with hot glue. I then attached the brass lens assembly to the pipe, and fitted the whole laser assembly (less power supply) into an old dart carrier.

I ran the positive and negative leads that I soldered onto the diode to the trigger. I built a pressure switch using some parts from Radio Shack, using a metal coat hanger as a form for the metalwork (basically a series of bends and wraps). I soldered leads to the metalwork, which pretty much got me a primitive pressure switch. Then I connected the switch to a battery supply I added in the handle. It took some Dremeling and glue, but the whole thing ended up functional, stable, and you can even replace the batteries (miraculously, considering that I had to make the battery holder from chunks of a AAA holder).

The steps after that were pretty straight forward: reassemble the launcher and test. I had added some brassing and wear to the metal parts of the "gun" while assembling the trigger and switch. I was pretty excited to find that the whole thing worked, pretty well, on first assembly, and the laser is only about a foot low at 20' of distance. It IS a toy, after all. I photographed it at two angles to show the profile and the laser assembly. Lasers are usually not visible from any angle outside the actual diode's angle of view, so I dragged the camera shutter after the strobes fired and blew in some haze from a fogger I bought for the studio. The trigger works, so I had to composite out my hand when I pulled it to get the laser in the shot. I'm slightly skeptical of using tape on the body.

I didn't buff out the Nerf logo. Two reasons for that: firstly, it's a good bit of industrial design and while I don't know whom the designer was, the company gets props for making such a cool toy. Secondly, it (marginally) reduces the realism of the launcher, so hopefully if I'm carting it around, I won't get shot. I'm pretty happy with it. It's not perfect by far, but I'll do another photo in a few weeks and do some decent retouching, and it should look fairly phenomenal. These photos aren't retouched, so you can see some of my sloppy handwork. My finest brush is still twenty bristles or so, and my hands aren't as still as they used to be. I'm probably just out of practice, haven't been painting enough.

I could publish the circuit for the diode and switch, but it's pretty simple, anyone with the slightest skill can make a mechanical pressure switch (it's just a spring). Sparkfun sells whole assys if you don't want to make your own.

Another Beautiful Evening

2010-05-31T02:32:00.004-04:00

I feel more confident with my grads, combined with a little bit of raw processing. I've been carrying more gear into the field, which makes it harder to travel, but I feel like I'm making images, rather than taking photos.

It's a good feeling.

D2Xs, EI 200, 28mm, f11, 2 Seconds, ND+3 Grad

Kearsarge Mountain

2010-05-15T13:55:00.010-04:00

Hiked Mt. Kearsarge yesterday with the anticipation that it might rain. I don't take vacation days very often but since I accrue vacation time, I'm trying to force myself to take them. Hiking and photographing are always at the top of the list. Kearsarge is one of only twelve mountains in New Hampshire that has a prominence of more than 2000', meaning that the mountain must rise at least 2000' above the surrounding landscape. Kearsarge itself rises 2100' and has an elevation of 2937', according to a park sign I found at the summit.

The clouds hung around for most of the day but a low ceiling made it possible for me to literally hike through the clouds, a rare occurrence for New England. When I was at the summit, they burned off and blew out, leaving beautiful blue skies and some huge cumulonimbus that apparently carried thunderstorms to the south.

I found some interesting things: a blue heron feeding, an alpine bog that wasn't mentioned on any trail map (but had a sign nonetheless), and standard alpine beauty. I spent the day relying on a CPL and ND grad as usual, and shot mostly around EI 200, though when in the canopy, I was usually EI 800.

I've also been trying to add at least one image to my art portfolio every trip (these I never or rarely upload - the images on this blog are either commercial or sightseeing). I'm trying to complete two books by the end of summer.

I started my day near the base of Mt. Kearsarge, in Rollins State Forest, and found a heron hunting for breakfast. In the first image, he's leaping/flying to the next stand of swampgrass where he had clearly spotted a fish. I waited around a bit for this, since he was clearly doing something odd when I saw him, stretching his neck out and peering about. I was probably about 1/125th of a second early on the shot below, I could have separated his wings from the grass a bit more if I had waited a cycle more. I tend not to rely on my servo, it's never fast enough to capture the exact moment, and if I have to choose between my failures and a machines, I'll go with mine every time. Used a CPL to knock some of the UV on the pines to blackish and get a good reflection.

EI 500, WFO, CPL, 1/640th of a second

Once he got to his destination, he set about prowling for his prey. I had a sequence of him doing this, maybe I'll upload it. I shoot in manual and my finger knocked the shutter open to 1/500th during the "feeding" so I'll have to bring the EI down to 400 in raw. Frustrating, stupid mistake. The shot below, however, was right after his leap, and captured under the same (correct) conditions.

EI 500, WFO, CPL, 1/640th of a second

I moved from Rollins up into the mountain and I was exerting so much energy simply trying to climb that I spent only a little time making images. The image below was taken at dusk on my way down the mountain, but in the sequence of "climbing" it makes sense here. It's a pretty decent image, though my composition was off by a few feet, I think I can make it into something attractive. Not much meaning... just romantic.

EI 400, f8, no filtration, 1/6th of a second

My map didn't show an alpine bog near the summit but someone knew it was there and placed a helpful sign that said, "Alpine Bog." The light was really excellent for good color reproduction. Felt like a Kodachrome kind of day. Shame that there will never be Kodachrome days from now on.

EI 200, f11, ND Grad, 1/60th of a second

This image was from the summit looking north into the White Mountains and you can actually make out the Presidentials in the red channel, but they're hard to see in color due to the haze and UV. This was taken as the ceiling blew out and before the big clouds arrived. I was mildly disappointed that the thunderheads waited until dusk to arrive. Not knowing the mountain well, I had already begun my descent. With a little bit of work, this image could be attractive.

EI 200, f11, ND Grad, 1/60th of a second

Royalston Falls

2010-05-09T23:08:00.003-04:00

Hiked into Royalston Falls today (or rather, this evening). Hiked the length up to the NH border along the M-M, and down into the slot at the falls as well, which was quite the hairy descent. Had to rely on the CPL for all of the images to balance out the reflections as the canopy was receiving a huge amount of light, while the floor was quite dark. Overcast skies made for phenomenally saturated color in the underbrush, moss, and lichen.

Nikon D2xs, 28mm, f11, EI 100, CPL

Had to get my obligatory shot of the falls, a feat that is surprisingly tricky. There are clearly several "scenic areas" that are beaten down by footfalls, along the rim. A few winding paths plummet down the slot to the riverbed, which was fortunately tame. I hiked to the most reasonable vantage point, also well packed. Nothing particularly special, plus a lot of free limbs causing issues. About ten meters upstream, in the center of the slot, is the idea location for a photograph, and it would even permit a longish lens, but I'm fairly certain the only way to it is to rappel from one of the rims. Still, I'll return and see if I can't freeclimb in (because once you're in, you have to get out).

Nikon D2xs, 50mm, f11, 1.6 seconds, EI 100, CPL
Margins Post Cropped

The Wind Blows Through The Mountains

2010-05-09T02:24:00.005-04:00

It's unseasonably cold tonight, and after the sun had set, I went about in the (near-freezing) rain and howling wind to shoot. The world is its most beautiful when it is its most inhospitable.

Nikon D2xs, f11, 28mm, 1/30 sec, EI 320
ND +3 Grad on Camera

Nikon D2xs, f11, 28mm, 1/30 sec EI 500
ND +3 Grad on Camera

Nikon D2xs, f11, 28mm, 3 seconds, EI 100
ND +3 Grad on Camera

Redtail Hawk in Leominster

2010-04-25T15:43:00.003-04:00

Went for a drive today and along 31 in Leominster, I saw a Blue Heron. Slamming the car to a halt in hopes of grabbing a photograph, two paddle-boaters managed to splash over and disturb him before I could reach the pond shore. I was about to leave when this fellow landed above me.

Clearly I need a better long lens, but I was still able to pull some detail out and you can see the blaze of red on the tailfeathers. I think he looks irritated and chalked it up to the boaters as well as two geese that were flailing about, not far away.

Afternoon in Warwick

2010-04-24T20:51:00.003-04:00

I spent my day in Warwick, MA. It is incredibly rural. Frankly, I did not know any place like this still existed in Massachusetts, other than lands protected by the state or private organizations like the Trustees of Reservations. It was really lovely to see such forgotten wood. In the photograph below you can see a bridge or dam in the distance along the brook. The bugs were relentless along the water's edge, so I did not continue downstream to investigate. I'll return to see what it was exactly. Unfortunately, it seems that there is very little information about this place available.

Nikon D2Xs, CPL, 28mm, EI 100 pushed +1 EV in Raw
© Adoniram Sides 2010

Rigging and Lighting

2010-04-14T22:12:00.023-04:00

It's fairly common for me to rig and light a set and let the light develop as I go. I'll rough in the lighting and set the ratios, but then modify the light with other tools. After a while, it's amazing to look at the set and see how much stuff has managed to make its way onto the set. It's even more interesting to see how the lighting relates to the image. The insets below show the results of this evolution. At the end of the post is the resulting image.

One of the really interesting things about lighting is that you can replicate a set identically and still fail to reproduce the original lighting results if your ratios and choice of exposure aren't exactly right. The relationship between the camera and the lighting is an intimate one. The camera (the eye, the mind) define the composition and the reproduction of space, but the lighting defines the environment and the volume of the unseen space. Claustrophobic lighting suggests a tight, small space. Broad lighting suggests an open, endless space.

These cues will be noted by the observer, even if they are unaware of it. I find that emulating "natural light" is quite frankly the most difficult. Photographers, cinematographers, gaffers: all tend to underestimate the complexity of natural light and tend to rely on broad sources to get the job done in a pinch, with a little dapple to break up the uniformity of the exposure. As I have aged, I have increasingly modified the light heavily and want it to be conceptually motivated. A window light is not a chimera and cookie because actual, available light is not nearly so simple.

Available window light is usually filtered through the edges of window treatments, a tree or row of trees outside, bounce from surrounding structures, varying densities in the glass and screen, etc. Speculars and overfill are often complicated by interference from skyscrapers, or traffic lights, or billboards, and so on. We unconsciously accept and know all of these subtleties when we're sitting in our living rooms. When these things are absent, an internal switch is tripped and the suspension of disbelief is momentarily lost. Retaining that suspension is usually reliant upon building a universe of similarity; if the lighting is uniformly unrealistic, we tend to accept the fallacies and buy into the illusion. Like most things, humans pick up on the violation of patterns more than the patterns themselves.

Promotional Image for Checkerboard, Ltd. ©2010
See more at the Checkerboard, Ltd. Booth at the National Stationery Show in NYC

The above image is a direct result of the sets shown in the insets. Available light has a natural, draping, dappled quality to it. In a large room, like a dining room or ballroom, passive fill drops away and most of the light is surprisingly chiaroscuro in the afternoon.

Odd Client Things

2010-03-08T10:56:00.002-05:00

It's not the lighting, it's not the composition, it's not even the angle - most of the time, clients seem to respond to the colorways and the particulars of their product, rather than the overall environment or look and feel of creative.

It's Cold!

2010-02-08T09:25:00.001-05:00

Well, in an attempt to not let my blog languish, I'm updating this to say - it's cold.

Collabo Sneak Peak

2010-02-04T23:23:00.005-05:00

I had a shoot today, collaborating with colleagues and business friends. Without revealing too much (more to come!), here are some of the stunning flowers provided and styled by Cathy of Sprout Flowers on June Street in Worcester. If you're into the Twitter thing, follow @eInvite, @FestivalCreativ, @SproutFlowers, @NeenahPaper, and myself, @adoniramsides, to see more in the very, very near future. Stay tuned~

Moar Testing

2010-01-17T16:34:00.000-05:00

This time, with those little Godiva pearls. This bit of lighting needs some work too, and I really should have strung in a "pearl" necklace, made with the chocolates. The composition is good, though. The type will need to be re-set before it really looks decent, and I'd like to have a beautiful pen flourish beneath the logotype, but that might be overkill and I can't actually get a good, even flourish. Which means I'd need to find someone who can do it.

Fresh Testing

2010-01-16T18:50:00.006-05:00

Right out of the oven. It was a good opportunity to try out some new lighting techniques and I learned some new things about specular spread that I'll need to go back and alter (if at first you don't succeed, try again). I think with a bit of work, you could come away with a good concept and a good shot, down this path. It's always nice to feel that you've learned something. It's funny how much this lighting pulls the damaged bits of the apple out. Picking produce will have to matter a lot more if I want to get something book-worthy out of this. I'll also have to do a fair bit more retouching to balanced out the gradient on the left and right (or take more time setting the head next time).

A Visit to Bonsai West

2010-01-10T23:32:00.008-05:00

I spent this past Sunday at Bonsai West, in Littleton, MA. This is the world-renowned bonsai center run by Micheal Levin, whom reportedly has one of the more impressive collections of bonsai in all of the United States, and certainly has the finest I have ever seen. He keeps a small business through sales, but it seems like Bonsai West relies mostly on giving classes and caring for the bonsai of others, which imparts a very caring, human aspect to the place. It has none of the qualities of a "business" and all of the qualities of the private gardens of a horticulturalist. That matters a great deal to me, because the transactional business of garden centers renders out all the love and passion that has kept the art alive for as long as agriculture has existed.

Micheal started by showing the trimming technique on this slightly bonsai that had gotten a bit between the growing season and its over-wintering. I managed to grab this image of it, before it got chopped to its proper shape. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the "finished" state, as he spirited it away quickly. They have some wonderful tools at Bonsai West, one of which was this impressive wire spooling device, which made it possible for Glen (Michael's student and co-worker) to wire trees very quickly (a method that he advocated).

Glen used the spool to wire the next tree, a beautiful piece of Redwood stock whose inner shape was very hidden to the audience, other than the most simple gesture of form. I have tried to claim stock from the wild before, as is done in the traditional art of bonsai, and this was very inspirational to me, as I might have avoided a tree that looked this crazy. See below:

After a half hour of shaping, pruning, and wiring, the tree's inner beauty was quickly revealed. A nice break at the crown of the main trunk of the tree would have been perfect for a natural jin, in my opinion, but Glen took a different direction, which I must admit is very beautiful, particularly once it heals and fills in. Working with redwood is something I had not considered, given that it is not native to this part of the country. Hopefully they'll offer a redwood workshop. See the finished results below!

While it may be difficult to see now, that tree will be stunningly beautiful as it grows and takes the shape it seeks. Wonderful work by Michael and Glen, and more wonderful - the entire three hour workshop was free!

Economists say, "The Market..."

2010-01-08T00:19:00.007-05:00

I was romanticizing, not too long ago, about a rose-colored past where humans believed in myth and legend; where we put ourselves into the hands of the unknown and relied on shamans to read the threads that fate wove. Then, it struck me suddenly that we haven't lost mythology or belief in clairvoyance at all. Here's a fun experiment. Consider the following sentence,

"After a couple of surprising predictions, the Oracles say that the Gods may be heading toward a turnaround."

Sounds like some ancient Roman or Greek history. Now if I replace the words: "the Oracles," "that the Gods," and "predictions", with "economists," "the market," and "reports," the result becomes,

"After a couple of surprising reports, economists say the market may be heading toward a turnaround."

That gives you a quote from CNN Money. Not just a quote, but a sub-heading! Economists have the same performance evaluation standards that television meteorologists do, and "the market" has become our omniscient, omnipotent god, whose mind and ways are beyond the knowledge of mortals.

I find it hard to believe that there could be any doubt regarding the thesis of the transformation of a pseudoscience into a faith, with myriad acolytes. I don't intend to use the word "pseudoscience" as a weasel word, but rather by its definition,

"a system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific" - Merriam Webster

that precisely describes what the popular media call "economics" but is, in fact, a great deal of discussion not limited to academic study (where economics gets as close to science as it can, in the realm of social science). I tried a second experiment. I used a search engine and typed the words "economists say" including the quotation marks. The results were phenomenonal. Wild, outrageous statements, contradictory claims, and utter nonsense (speaking in tongues?) are quite normal. The first two results, published only three days apart, were,

I wouldn't be surprised if both editorials could cite their sources. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the sources were respected professional economists. It would be a more reasonable matter if there was a body of knowledge that was generally agreed upon, but had disagreements upon esoteric details (like those found in physics, for example), but in the popular study of economics, every aspect of every study is up for debate. There is no reason, no method; it is just a series of popular myths that wax and then wane, born of a dumb hope to simplify a tremendously complex system into broad, grandiose statements that always have an inherently political and ideological underpinning.

The faith that we put into this "science," particularly now that we are in a time of financial constraint, is no different than the faith our ancestors put into their polytheistic traditions. If we consider the latter to be absurd, than we must also consider our current behavior to also be absurd, and abandon the efforts that our belief in charlatans has required. To borrow their own language, we should "reinvest" in the culture and communication of our own communities, and ignore wholly what the Oracles say.

Discovering Artists

2009-12-30T23:59:00.012-05:00

During my time off, I've tried to travel to as many local galleries as possible. In doing so, I've come across some contemporary artists whom are new to me. A few that stood out in particular were Barry Moser, Gordon Thorne, Dave Fullam, and Christopher Armstrong.

Barry Moser is an illustrator and print-maker. I found his work in Northampton at the R. Michelson Gallery, but it can be seen around the world in myriad publications. I wrote a small piece about him that you can read here: eInvite's Insights.

Gordon Thorne is a co-owner of Thorne's market and the founder of the A.P.E. art space (also in Northampton). He had an interesting show of interactive devices that slowly created art by natural mechanisms, such as wind. Some of it was a bit absurd and unrefined, but some of it (particularly the work on water) was very thoughtful and polished.

Dave Fullam is an illustrator, represented by Clark Gallery in Lincoln, MA. His style is a sort of impressionism cum illustration, and his work is fairly large (one piece that the curator showed us privately was about 5' in width). Photographs do it no justice, like much of art in an impressionist style, it needs to be seen personally to be appreciated.

Christopher Armstrong's work was simply astounding. Another artist represented by Clark Gallery, the curator told us that he worked only with water as a subject. The level of study is obvious and almost unnerving. One piece in particular, "Dorsal" was on display, and the heat and haze of the summer in midday sun was palpable.

His perspectives range from a standing eyeline to just a few inches above the water, the latter of which is quite terrifying. "Strata" is a work that is composed from this lower angle, and though the waves are calm, the low angle and utter sense of isolation makes the fear of slipping beneath the waves very real.

The Clark Gallery is quite excellent, though hidden. If it were not for Google Maps, I'd probably never have found it. I intend to visit them again. Their curator (whose name I unfortunately didn't catch) was quite kind and personable, and was more than willing to pull work out for us to see, though we were obviously not intending to make a purchase. I think that making a good impression on every walk-in makes a difference, though. It's nice to see this put into practice.

Santa and His Llamadeer

2009-12-20T16:59:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure I can explain this. I saw them on the side of the road. They weren't related to any sort of event or business... it was just the side of a rural road, this Santa, and a "Llamadeer" (according to Santa). Well... enjoy:

When I Dream, It Looks Like This

2009-12-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

In my dreams, I spend a great deal of time wandering through woods or fields. Whatever wanderlust I have in waking life, I seem to carry with me into my unconscious. I found this place over the summer, while driving. It is a collapsed dam and this is the remnants of a concrete raceway that is slowly being reclaimed by the forest.

I think my fascination with these places is born out of a desire to see the world after humanity has passed. Urban and rural decay help remind us that, no matter how permanent we might make ourselves or our manifestations, nothing of us is infinite. I find this concept very comforting. It's a bit like hedging a bet: I hope that humanity grows responsibly and sustainably, and generations upon generations might enjoy the earth as their ancient ancestors did. Should that not happen, though, the universe moves on; the world moves on, and just as these structures, so too will we wash away.

When you think of humanity as an arc, rather than an endless vector, you realize that the legacy of humanity is only relevant for as long as there are humans to appreciate it. I would much rather quality of life than a standard of living, but it's hard to give up "nice things." So, I try to buy things of lasting value than things of immediate gratification (I haven't been entirely successful).

More Testing... With Pens!

2009-12-18T00:49:00.003-05:00

More new testing. I'm fairly enthusiastic about the photography in this piece, but the layout... eh. Still, the lighting is pretty good here, just look at the color and gradients in the nib. Enjoy.

Pen and Pelikan Logo are the property of Pelikan International

Awesome Football Invitation

2009-12-09T12:17:00.002-05:00

Check out this awesome football invitation by Checkerboard, Ltd. I did the photography for their point-of-purchase materials. I have to say, it's very cool. Basically, it's an invitation that has a paper football attached to the front of the card. Not only that, but it unfolds into a football field with uprights, that you can then use for a proper paper football game. Definitely takes cutting up in school to a completely new level. Check it out (including the point-of-purchase display):

New Work Underway

2009-12-06T01:21:00.006-05:00

Trying to keep as many projects floating as possible, I'm putting some time back into black and white abstracts, which is a passion of mine. Here's a new piece, in progress. I only rely on dodging and burning to create the final print, along with good color integration into grayscale.

Obviously, the cropping is not quite right.

Princeton, MA Windmills From a Distance

2009-11-30T17:43:00.001-05:00

Well, this should be my final update on the turbines. This weekend I went out toward the border of Sterling and Hubbardston to hike inward toward Princeton. This is the area where the turbines are most apparent. Now that fall has past, it is obvious how much clearing was done in order to install the windmills. However, I imagine it will fill in without too much trouble. The windmills are considerably less obvious when the canopy is in bloom. With the bare landscape of early winter, they stand out quite a bit.

They are, by far, the largest object in the landscape. I personally found it interesting because, rather than demonstrating how large the windmills are, I was impressed by how small Wachusett Mountain actually is in comparison. Wachusett Mountain is 2006' at summit, but only rises about 305m above the surrounding terrain, and a 100m object cuts that down to size quite quickly. It's not ugly by far, but it is not subtle either.

This past weekend was extremely windy, with high wind advisories in place, resulting in reports of some property damage in central Massachusetts. This gave observers an opportunity to see the windmills safety features in action, as they occasionally spun down and drafted their blades. One hiker, to whom I spoke, said that it appeared they may have in fact locked into place during the heaviest gusts. It seems somewhat unclear as to whether these are computer controlled safety measures, or human intervention.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing was the noise, or lack thereof. Even when rotating at high speeds, the sound can best be described as the sound of a well-oiled laundry cart moving down a long corridor, or perhaps a very large, empty cardboard box being dragged upon a concrete floor. The sound of propeller and jet airplanes, even fifty or more miles away, was significantly louder than the windmills (at 1.5 miles from my nearest position). Even my footfalls into leaves and branches along the mid-state trail were significantly louder than the sound of the windmills turning. The sound is regular, and pulsing, resulting in a sort of gray noise.

I do not intend to post any more updates on the windmills. In my final estimation, they are attractive, quiet, sustainable power plants. They are large and apparent for many miles, but do not seem to detract from the landscape. They appear to be safe and have safety mechanisms in place. All in all, the town of Princeton should be commended, and in particular, the adjacent landowners whom did not prevent the installation of the turbines, should be commended as well.

Testing with Pelikan Pens

2009-11-28T18:15:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to increase the amount that I test in order to keep my skills sharp. I've shot Pelikan pens before, for use in resale, and I really like the look of the pens, both in manufacturer and design. In my most recent testing session, I went back to the Pelikan pen for inspiration. I came away with a few shots, one of which I have completed and am still in the process of laying out. However, that process will take a little while, and I needed a break. So, I quickly processed and touched up one of the images from the shoot that didn't make the cut. Still, I love the way the liquid came out, and though it is a bit plain, I came away with some extra techniques as a result of the setup. Take a look...

This obviously has not gotten much retouching love, but again, the entire point of testing is to both hone and improve your existing skills. I feel that I at least learned something (and the select shot - not this one - came out quite well in my opinion). I want to document this as a means of reminding myself to push forward in the future.

Datacolor Promotion - Destroy Your Profiling Device

2009-11-26T01:00:00.018-05:00

Datacolor, makers of the Spyder profiling tool, amongst many other things, have been running a contest in which participants can get discounts on future products based on one simple thing: destroy an old profiling tool. After seeing their promotional campaign, it dawned on me that our company, in fact, had an old (out-of-date) Spyder that could no longer be used, and was literally gathering dust in the studio closet.

Thanks to the generosity and general awesomeness of our company's owner, he gave me the Spyder... to destroy! The method I chose was death by immolation. My assistant, Amy DeMar, helped document the process, as it was highly likely that the final shot would look "'shopped" and I would need some level of documentation (beyond the actual finished image) to prove that we had, in fact, destroyed the genuine article.

After taking copious precautions (fireshields, buckets of water, ventilation, fire extinguishers, and pre-shot testing), I discover that, in fact, it's pretty much impossible to ignite hard plastic, which was just fine by me. I'd rather a controlled, mediocre fire, than a out-of-control, exceptional fire. The best that we could produce was a slightly melted Spyder (which did certainly render it useless beyond repair) and an impressive flame. The liquid shown in the shot is water, to protect the various surfaces from potential contact with melted plastic (which, instead of truly liquefying, just warped badly).

To make a long story short, I got the shot without much hassle, and it all took about thirty minutes from start to finish. I would love to see some promotion out of this from Datacolor, particularly as it's a discontinued product, and the shot doesn't have any specific advertising value, other than as a part of their contest and marketing. Hopefully it works out to be mutually beneficial. The Datacolor people return to work on Monday, so with any luck, I'll hear from them soon.

There are five shots below, and they are (in order) as follows:

1. Soaking the device in accelerant (basically useless, as only a small part of the thing is porous).
2. Various safety precautions (waaaaay overboard, but better safe than sorry, I say).
3. Ignition.
4. The finished shot (no Photoshop trickery, that's the genuine shot).
5. The aftermath (a little melting, and all of the electronics were obviously destroyed, but no actual burning to speak of).

Enjoy! I'll update later if anything comes of it.

Photo: Amy DeMar

Photo: Adoniram Sides, 1st Assistant: Amy DeMar

Photo: Amy DeMar

Working on Composition

2009-11-10T00:14:00.003-05:00

I keep working at my abstract compositions. As I've gone, I've noticed that they have developed a more landscape feel. This is an odd juxtaposition, considering that I tend to work with water for its natural ability to abstract. I'm certainly improving with getting elements to line up naturally... or rather, being in the right place at the right time. I can't say that it's intentional, only that it's an intentional frame of mind.

The downside is that none of this is new nor unique. Just my particular take on nature, which has been done before, and better. But I'm starting to come to terms with the reality of my craft. I do think my work looks "different" but I'm not sure it's particularly desirable or communicates well. Of course, I don't always know how I'm feeling exactly, which undoubtedly translates to the image, whether I intend it to or not. Here's the latest work in progress:

Shooting White on White

2009-11-02T18:30:00.000-05:00

One of the real challenges of silhouette photography is illustrating white objects on a white background. It's perhaps only surpassed by representing glass on white. Today was one of the first times in a good year when I've had to shoot a matte white semi-ceramic; meaning: I don't know what the exact material was, but it had the insulation properties of ceramic and had a similar surface. Check out the results below.

Generally, the goal is to demonstrate the surface qualities of the object and render its shape faithfully. In this case, there are virtually no edges and the transition from the bottom of the plate to the rim was seamless, but still contoured. The image above is knocked out, but not yet retouched. It could probably use a bit more drama, but it is quite soothing and not bad for a year's transience.

Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration IV

2009-10-30T09:05:00.001-04:00

This is Part IV of my four part series on a talk I gave on Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration at Worcester Pecha Kucha #1. If you haven't read the preceding parts, please go here: Part I, Part II, Part III.

So I challenge you to take a different path. Attempt not to define the represented object itself, but instead, open a window to a quiet space. If you show a tree, let the environment speak for itself because when you create a given piece, you are doing so in a quiet space and thus the entire world is wrapped in your emotional state at that moment.

This realism is different from so-called "fact", like a documentary, because documentaries dress themselves in the cloth of objectivity when the truth is that there is a language and methodology to "good documentary style" and this is wholly abstracted from the idea of using an object to represent a mode of perception. You cannot represent anything without fundamentally changing its meaning.

Thus, the Way of Inspiration is discovering that creativity is an infinitely deep spring within yourself and can no more be plumbed than it can be quelled. The Way of Inspiration is allowing yourself to experience the creativity that exists in all emotional states and recognizing that no matter how abstract or realistic the composition, it is emotionally encoded and will be understood.

Find the quiet space in those physical places that are familiar and those that are unfamiliar . Look into the depths of your environment, both on the surface and below, both in the light and in the darkness. The Way of Inspiration is openness to quiet space in all places.

Finally, i hope that these images and words have enabled you to see my emotional reflections on finding the quiet space in physical places and inspire you to interpret them with your own creative light. If you search for this silence, you will find your creativity, even "on demand."

Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration III

2009-10-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

This is Part III in my series of my talk on Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration, given at Worcester Pecha Kucha #1. If you'd like to read the preceding parts, they can be found here: Part I, Part II.

You have, no doubt, had the experience of being your "most creative" in a certain place. Maybe on a mountain top. Maybe in the show. Maybe in the car after a concert. But we know that creativity never "stops." So these paces are not where you are most creative but rather, they are the places that look most familiar in the light of your pure focus.

You recognize familiar shapes and there is an emotional reaction. You probably have experienced the wild eyed fear of the frightened mind, maybe in the dark of your house or in an unfamiliar hotel room, or on an abandoned street. But this is still creativity at work, your light just happens to be illuminating the unfamiliar instead of the familiar when you touched a quiet space.

There are two types of physical spaces: human and natural. Human-made physical spaces have a utility, or a combination of utilities. For example, we recognize a cathedral or mosque as being a sacred space but the sanctity of these spaces is a construct of our minds that recognizes the utility of the space. Therefore, the only variable is your emotional state.

At this point, we may ask, "did emotions create the relationship to the space or did the space cause the emotions?" Physical spaces do neither. The mind assigns emotional values to arbitrary spaces and times. Our environment, from before we are born, is merely the carapace in which we travel. It is the quiet space that catalyzes emotional memories into a creative flow.

As artist we must struggle with a communication issue, that all creative pursuits are observed externally, rather than internally. By this I mean that the viewer experiences the art as an outsider. Perhaps the one creative pursuit that isn't observed externally is urban architecture, but even then, the observer knows the environment to be unnatural and therefore subject to interpretation.

Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration II

2009-10-28T09:06:00.002-04:00

This is Part II of my talk on Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration, given at the Worcester PKN #1. To read Part I, please jump to this post: Part I.

Pure focus is a different phenomenon entirely. Pure focus is the "oneness." Transitioning between pure focus and forced focus allows us to weave connections through patterns. This is the process we call "design." Through this we have tools like cellphones and cars. This things require "forced focus" which means paying less attention to everything else.

Civilized life is a loose affiliation of all these demanding tasks. As a result, our minds have become a thousand weak rays instead of a single bright sun. Thousands of weak rays enable our minds to reflect a single impression of our environment very quickly, but do not easily enable reinterpretation. Fortunately, we can be returned to pure focus and creativity through quiet spaces.

A quiet space is like the irregular ringing of temple bells, where the rational mind cannot predict intervals between tones and is then surprised, both expecting the next and thinking it was the last. When our diverted, "forced focus" finds a quiet space, it is not enough to reflect an impression. No diverted attention will fill a quiet space, so creative energy must be unleashed.

When my mentor takes on new students, he asks them to define light. There are no answers to this and many answers to it, but a relatively good way to explain light is to show a shadow, the absence of light. In the same way, a quiet space is the darkness and our existence is the light. When we enter a quiet space, the case shadows are creativity.

A quiet space is not so much a physical location as it is a construct of perception. So the shadows cast by our perception are different, just as the objects that reflect our light are different. In this way, we have a different emotional reaction to the physical and psychological places that we occupy when we touch a quiet space.

Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration I

2009-10-27T08:57:00.002-04:00

At the request of many people, I've uploaded the talk that I gave at Worcester PKN #1. I'll be releasing this in a four part series, right here on my blog. Feel free to leave your thoughts. -adoniram

My talk is titled "Quiet Spaces and the Way of Inspiration." As creative people, we need to be inspired. Some of us like to wait for it, others like to go and seek it out. Those of us who walk the line between commercial artist and fine artist often must do both. This need for creativity "on demand" inspired me, so I began a search for where inspiration is born.

When I began studying photography in earnest, my mentor told me that in every composition there is a quiet place that holds the work together. I believe this quiet place is born into a composition from spaces where we draw inspiration as artists. This is a synthesis of our environments and our experiences: where time merges with space and is codified into what we understand to be memory.

As a result, space impacts us in different ways. We interact with the world through accumulated information. What does this mean? Our existence is multi-lateral. We have two eyes: the distance between our eyes enables the mind to determine the distance of an object. We have two ears: the dynamics and speed of sound indicate its source. This becomes an experience of "oneness."

In other words, we don't see a barn and think "20,000 square feet of wood, sixty billion plant cells engaging in photosynthesis, cloudy skies with 30% diffucsion resulting in shadows with soft edges therefore indicating recent precipitation." No, instead we think "hmm, what a nice day. That's a nice looking barn."

Humans can "focus": an ability that changes our holistic "oneness" into a concentrated tunnel of information. I call this "forced focus." This allows us to "study" something. Outside stimuli are reduced and we seem to take in more information. In reality, this does not increase the amount of information. We limit noise so that the object only appears more detailed by contrast.

Princeton, MA Windmills are Installed

2009-10-25T17:51:00.032-04:00

I happened to be driving along a ridge south of Princeton, MA, and I saw that the wind turbines have been installed and the cranes have backed off. Naturally, I had to investigate the site again for close-up photos of the gigantic power plants.

From a distance, the windmills appear quite large, but do not impose on the entire landscape. They rise above the tree line significantly, but not as to dwarf the surrounding hills, and as a result, they seem quite appropriate. Surprisingly, at close range, the windmills are almost hidden by the surrounding ridges. I'm guessing that they have high visibility from towns west of the western ridge of Wachusett, like Hubbardston and Westminster, but from the immediate area in Princeton, they are quite hidden.

Upon climbing the hill (about 1/4 mile long, with a 200-300 ft vertical), the blades, turbine, and tower become visible through the trees. There can be no doubt that they are very, very large objects. As you approach them, their size becomes only more impressive. The crane to the side is gigantic in its own right, you can read more about it here: Windmill Construction Part One.

I first walked to the windmill seen above, which is located on the south section of the site. The blades and cab faced north, and were completely silent (though a stiff wind was blowing across the ridge). Some sort of internal brake appears to be engaged, as the blades occasionally trembled but did not turn. Standing in front of the windmill was a bit like standing beneath some phenomenally large bird, with wings outstretched and neck bent to the earth. I captured a bit of the crane to give a little bit of reference.

Standing directly beneath the blades gave a wonderful impression of the symmetry of the design, and the complexity of the blades themselves, with their tapered, scalpel shape. The distance to the cab from the ground is reportedly 230' and the compressed visual field really helps underscore how curved the blades themselves are, more resembling a soft gull wing than a dihedral fixed wing on an airplane. There are probably complex engineering descriptions of these shapes, but my aerodynamic knowledge ends here.

In another attempt to show scale, you can see below that there is an access door on the tower, about 6' high. Unfortunately, the wide-angle lens distorts the height of the tower, so you don't get a true perspective of height. Hopefully I can get a shot from a significant distance (a few miles) with a long, long lens, which should help give a sense of scale. Still, the size of these things is obvious. This is the north part of the site, where the second turbine can be found.

I climbed the ridge (the previous site of the smaller, 30Kw windmills at this location), which is within a few hundred feet of the north turbine. From this vantage point, I aimed south to show a better angle of the southern turbine, with the crane in view. The crane is significantly closer to my position than the windmill, resulting in a misrepresentation of scale, but it's still impressive.

Turning 180º, the falling light provided a beautiful setting in which to photograph the northern turbine again, against the backdrop of the New England fall skies. Here you can see how truly huge the windmill is, compared against the crane. If you look a few images before, you can see the same crane, looking much larger than it actually is. From a distance, the true scale becomes more clear.

The site was packed (a comparative term, given the rural nature of the area - there were about twenty people milling about within a half-mile diameter) and I got the chance to speak to a few locals, one of whom claimed to be an abutter. This person said that they could see the windmills from their home and personally thought they were wonderful, though did say, "I'm not sure all my neighbors agree."

I wonder if this perception, of general discontent amongst abutters (which tends to happen with any sort of public works project) is a result of people not speaking frankly about how they feel nor the options available. As I've said before, the choices are very, very simple: you can live next to a windmill or a coal plant, but the energy is going to come from somewhere and people will have to live next to it. Which would you rather have? The smokestacks and pillaged mountains of Kentucky, where whole landscapes have been terraformed to render forth a non-renewable resource? Or a couple of windmills every so often?

Given the choice, it's wind farms every time, in my opinion. And I do think that over time, many people come to recognize the value of an initiative like this; if anything, it should be a source of civic pride. If my city of residence had the wind or space for a windmill, I'd personally be very interested.

I'll only update once more on the windmills, with a few photos from a distance, unless something should happen to them or I should manage to upload a few clips of them in action (once they are in service). If you'd like to read about my uninformed observations on the site up to this point, check out Part One and Part Two.

Things That Have Gone Away

2009-10-13T22:22:00.002-04:00

Much of the old South is gone now. My family called Abbeville, South Carolina "home" for a long while. In the near future, many people will look back and wonder what it was like to have been in a town like this. I'm lucky enough to have a photo, not of the manse or of D. Poliakof's, but of a little bar where some local kids and men were playing pool and drinking beer, on a dark evening in fall. Enjoy:

Princeton, MA Windmills Update

2009-10-12T17:34:00.001-04:00

I took a drive to Princeton this weekend and discovered that some progress had been made on the windmill site for Princeton, Massachusetts' new green energy power generation facility. The first pylon has been erected with what appears to be the bottom two thirds of the tower. In order to capture the size of the windmill, I had to shoot from nearby Wachusett Mountain, as the tower is too high to show scale at close distance. The image below gives a better sense of how large the turbines will be.

(see enlarged view by clicking the image above,

windmill tower is just right of center, beneath crane.)

Though they will be huge, it seems sort of fitting somehow. There's a certain tranquility that is familiar to parts of northern Europe. I'll reserve final judgement until the blades are attached and I get a chance to hear how loud they are, and how fast they move. I am somewhat concerned for the avian wildlife that use the thermals in the area above to hunt and rest. I assume that they're smart enough to avoid an object as large as the windmills, but I don't know for certain.

As they are assembled further, I'll try to bring updates (both literally and visually). You can read my earlier post on the subject, with some nice details photos of the parts of the windmills, here: Princeton, MA Installs Two Wind Turbines.

Rogue Ad Concept Finished

2009-10-03T18:50:00.010-04:00

Well, it took a while but I finally finished the four part Rogue concept series. I feel like I've learned a few things. Firstly, I've gotten a pretty good foundation at this point on all the production aspects. Secondly, it's just a matter of self-discipline to put it all together. However, there were definitely some mistakes and takeaways from which to learn.

If you just want to see the finished work, jump to the end of the post.

Generally, I've found it fairly necessary to pre-visualize; it's too difficult to hash things together later on in the process and by the time you're trying to polish the project, you realize that whole sections don't work quite right and you have to spend twice the time fixing mistakes you could have avoided in the first place. The results are probably pretty close but you've wasted time and it's just not as perfect as it could have been. I think that good previz makes the difference between being mediocre and being exceptional. I've gotten increasingly skilled at pre-visualizing the results of a shoot, but haven't quite gotten to the point where I can put it all together in my head. It's probably a matter of granularity as well because I want to know exactly how all the pieces will contribute to the finished work, ideally before anyone in the project starts on anything beyond concept sketches and storyboards.

I intentionally pursued this project with a professional attitude, I wanted to treat it as an actual work where I just happened to do every job. I have a lot of experience in specialty and advertising retouching, and a lot of experience in product photography. But in doing everything, the art direction, the final copywriting, the set design and building, etc, I gained some insight that I didn't have before into the entire process. For one, it's entirely too large to regularly do on your own. Commercial projects almost certainly need to rely on a team to be completed in a timely manner. You know that a team helps as a professional, but it's not often to really recognize how much they help.

The hardest part was copywriting, I fortunately had help from a copywriter I know, Heather. It's difficult to really understand the relationship between copywriting and actually setting the text. Headlines are relatively easy to set (I think) once you've overcome the difficulty of writing one. However, setting body is damn near impossible, particularly if you have design demands for space. Even when working every position, I struggled with whether to lay out the text one way or the next. I think that having a copywriter whom can work with the artist is invaluable, because each individual can insist on certain outcomes, whereas working as a single person results in weighing value back and forth. Individual creatives are much less likely to negotiate and that's almost certainly positive. I hadn't realized this before.

The easiest part was production, though it could be draining. It reinforced something I've always believed in, that "we'll get it in post" is an absolutely stupid attitude and only means that the creative has gotten bored with working in a team and figures it will be easier later. It won't. You won't have the distractions that you might on set or in production, but it will take twice as long and you'll be twice as bored and frustrated when you're painting in things you could have had set during production. Don't be lazy.

It was also nice not having an actual client to deal with. All of my portfolio work is client work and I realized how ridiculous some of the compromises you make can be. The client doesn't always know best, they just need to know that you'll treat them well and won't waste their time or money. I think a lot of client issues can probably be alleviated by honesty and having a clear vision. Often times you make compromises that you know for a fact will cause problems later, but do so in order to keep things going smoothly. The more clear the vision, the less work you might be open to, but the more your client will know what they're getting.

[click the image below to view high resolution]

Princeton, MA Installs Two Wind Turbines

2009-09-28T11:50:00.000-04:00

I must say, this is just wonderful. I'm sure there's the standard grumbling about bird strikes and noise, but Princeton, Massachusetts, has upgraded their old windfarm to two new 1.5MW Führlander turbines, that will apparently supply 40% of the town's power. That is nothing short of incredible, and good for the residents of Princeton to have the foresight and will to pursue truly renewable energy.

Though the site is closed to the public, it's directly adjacent to a hiking trail and a carriage path goes to a nearby road. Having grown up in the nearby area, I had to take a look. Though the turbines are not up yet, I've a few photos of the un-assembled turbines and towers. There is a crane on the site that is truly awe-inspiring. I've heard that they will stand around 250' (not including the blades), which should give an idea of the size of the crane.

First, the crane from a distance:

Naturally, this doesn't give much of a sense of the size of the crane, and the trees in the foreground are foreshortened, so it looks smaller than it actually is. Before you get to the site, however, you come across one of the thirds of the pylon, and two blades:

Again, not particularly helpful when it comes to scale. You can tell that these objects are large, but just how large? This doesn't really give a sense of how massive the blades are themselves. You can see their diameters in the photo before, with the three cylinders side-by-side (the pylon is on the far left, two blades on center and right).

That is the widest part of a blade on the windmill. Imagine a window fan, for reference. The crane itself is massive, and once past the various pieces of turbines, the crane comes into view (along with the 18-wheeler that transported the pylon segments for reference). Keep in mind that the tiny little truck is the cab of an 18-wheeler:

After seeing this, I really had to get a closer look at this crane. The thing is HUGE. Take a look at a person of average height standing next to the track on this thing:

For further awe-inducing information, take a look at the weight of just one track, some 64,000 lbs. or 32 tons! A schematic on the side gave the numbers:

Finally, I got an up-close look at the blades myself, which have a similar design to airplane wings (I'm not sure what the tiny teeth do, but I saw them on the wings of my plane on a recent flight). However, the topography of the blade is very different from that of a plane's wing, particularly near the tip (at least, I think so - never having been this close to a 747, I can't be sure). Here's a close-up:

The machining on the blades is simply magnificent. Given the size and scale of the things, take a look at the trailing edge of the blade, less than a centimeter wide:

Surprisingly, the whole thing is connected together with your standard twist-lock connector, more or less the same as a 20Amp stinger. There were about twenty of them, however, and I'm not sure if perhaps there's a separate set of head cables for the mains. Still, surprisingly accessible technology:

It's really quite amazing. And though I am concerned about the noise and birds, this is a step in the right direction. It's important to remember that turbines are power plants. Here's a good way to think about the installation: at this picturesque, rural site, would you rather have turbines or a coal plant? Turbines or a nuclear steam cooling tower? Whenever NIMBYs complain about the noise or "unsightliness" of wind turbines, I hope they realize that the alternatives are considerably more offensive to the senses and the environment.

Most Advertising Is Garbage

2009-09-25T12:25:00.004-04:00

I've noticed something lately. The vast body of current advertising is garbage. Even by Caples' standards, it doesn't give information, doesn't entertain, doesn't motivate you to do anything. Generally, modern advertising can be placed in three categories:

"Lifestyle" spots. They're shiny and vapid, have no real content, and capitalize on an existing cultural phenomena to shill a crappy, useless product.
"Solving Problems You Never Knew You Had (and Don't)." This is the realm of direct response ads. The ratio of useless products to valuable products is 1000000:1. This isn't even advertising anymore, in my opinion, it's statistics-based marketing.
Home-grown advertising. This is the realm of actually useful products and services, but because the client puts all of their money into their product or service, they have no money to put into advertising, resulting in a great product that nobody knows about.

I'm looking for good examples of advertising that actually sells a product of value without following the same beaten path of cliches. Granted, being earnest and telling a story is absurdly risky (/sarcasm) but I'm sure they're out there.

New Set of Product Testing

2009-09-22T10:06:00.003-04:00

Haven't had a chance to lay this out with copy and graphics, but the core imagery is done for four images, which is fairly exciting, since it took just shy of forever to get these done.

Print 09 Impressions - Day Two, Part Two

2009-09-12T18:13:00.002-04:00

So, part two of my impressions on day two of PRINT 09. Let's continue with Pitney-Bowes and HP.

Pitney-Bowes and HP make a lot of interesting devices on both sides. One is heavily diversified while the other is not. It looks to me like HP said, "Hey, you can fit in here, here, and here" and Pitney-Bowes said, "Sounds good to us." It seems like a good partnership, Pitney Bowes adds strategic value to the HP t300. The t300 is an extraordinary device. It's truly astounding in scale and complexity. The printing is decent. It will doubtlessly improved, but even the untrained eye could tell the difference between a traditional web litho and t300 digital results. However, consumers will never see these things side-by-side, and probably don't care anyway. The publication world needs to catch up to this thing. With variable data at full speed, the potential for customized products is extremely vast. Adding Pitney-Bowes to the equation was quite logical.

There were quite a lot of other product roll-outs yesterday as well, and I'll hopefully get a chance to see them over the next few days. Tomorrow [today] has a lot of seminars scheduled into it, so I doubt I'll have an update. At the very least, I'll hopefully have a bit more knowledge on Hybrid UV applications and the involvement in setting up such a press.

More to come, not to worry!

Print 09 Impressions - Day Two, Part One

2009-09-11T18:15:00.008-04:00

Here I am, all alone, at PRINT 09, aka myPRINT (apparently an attempt to be cool with the kids). It's big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to PRINT 09. Okay, maybe it's not that big. And there's still plenty of available floorspace, way in the back. But for the first major show since the economic disaster that was 2008, things look okay.

Generally, my first impressions of the show were quite positive. I took a very, very cursory tour of the entire show today, running about to try and establish where things were and what I might want to see. If you enjoy this post, tune in tomorrow evening and I'll have photographs to go with the text. Today was just too hurried.

First Impressions (hah!):

Clearly, some of the manufacturers are still feeling the pressure of the economy, and lugged fewer machines along with them, but still occupy significant square footage. Quite a few people were still setting up today, and some of the booths seemed a little understaffed (with a few notable exceptions, like Agfa).
Kodak's gigantic, LED illuminated, multi-media extravaganza drew significant crowds, and left many printers ("true" printers) feeling shocked and confused at the total lack of Kodak devices on the floor. No presses, no nothing. However, they had some very cool interface design on display, which serviced as their marketing. More on this later.
Pitney-Bowes and HP unveiled their IntelliJet system, a collaboration that is awe-inspiring. I wish they had one on the floor, but it probably requires a nuclear power plant module to run the thing. It is a hungry monster - runs 30" web at 400' per minute at 1200 x 600 dpi. The output is impressive in quality and in volume - if you could run this around the clock with 70% uptime, you're talking 70 million 8.5" impressions per month. Crazy.
A few manufacturers had minor equipment disasters, nothing out of the ordinary with trade shows, jut your standard Murphy's Law. I'm sure everyone will be truly up and running tomorrow.
The first seminar I attended was mediocre at best, which was a little disappointing, as other shows have had excellent seminars. I may be at personal fault for choosing a subject on which I am already well versed. We'll see how tomorrow's goes.
The Agfa booth bordered on scary.

The Details

Let's start with Kodak. Kodak did some extremely gutsy things, which impressed me greatly. First, they didn't bring printers to the show (at least not on days one and two, so let's hope they can go the distance). Second, they put together a bunch of great panels for a simulcast web interview program that they called the "K-zone." The first panel featured an absolutely ridiculous collection of people: Antonio Perez (CEO of Kodak), Shelly Lazarus (Chairperson of Ogilvy Mather), Linda Sawyer (CEO of Deutsch), and Howard Mittman (who was generally ignored, poor guy).

Shelly Lazarus dominated the panel, and understandably so. I felt fortunate to be within a ten foot radius of the woman, who is essentially responsible for reviving the most powerful advertising campaign in history. She is, without question, one of the most influential women in the world. Mr. Perez and Ms. Sawyer were involved to a lesser extent, Perez contributing on such topics that involved Kodak's strategy, and Howard Mittman was generally out in the cold, being the most technologically literate of the group.

They all extolled the virtues of print, with the exception of Mittman and Sawyer, whom identified print as a channel among many, and of no greater broad value than others, but with specific strengths and weaknesses. Sawyer even referenced McLuhan. I got the sense that Shelly Lazarus was also on board with the idea of print being a mechanism of communication, rather than communication itself, but as I'm sure their attendance came at Kodak's expense, they did what they were there to do. Still, some choice bits were offered up, like Shelly Lazarus' quote, "Change [in print] will take a brave CEO."

The second panel, which I also attended, was composed only of Rynn Johnson and Frank Romano. Everyone and everyone knows Frank (whom I finally got some time with in the flesh) and his philosophies on the industry and business in general. Rynn Johnson was new to me, and one of these printers who have vertically integrated everything, including creative. It's an interesting idea, and many large printers are doing this now, but some have failed at it catastrophically. I wouldn't be surprised if, as technology improves, this became a de facto requirement for printers outside of major markets.

Ms. Johnson apparently does 80% of her business in digital. That is a CRAZY number. Even the Kodak interviewer was taken aback. It does, however, go to validate something I've been saying for a while now, though; commodity print will not have much of an influence in the future, whereas VDP and digital printing will take over vast portions of the market. Both Frank and Rynn made statements about the value of digital. My favor exchange, however, was between Frank and the audience:

Frank Romano: "How many of you have mediocre printing?"
Audience: silence
FR: "Okay, how many of you have mediocre service?"
Audience: silence
FR: "Okay, so, you all have great printing and you all have great service. How do you differentiate yourselves in the marketplace?"
Audience: silence

As usual, Frank slaughters the sacred cow in the industry, that there's some sort of magic in the print world where everyone is equally excellent and yet can remain competitive (and survive). The reality, of course, is that every level of "real print" service is commoditized, particularly big iron, and most customers don't know the difference anyway. Frank went on:

"I've been judging printing contests for twenty years, and every year, you know who wins? It's not the best printer or the best printing. It's the most interesting use of the materials; it's die-cut, it's foil, it's texture, etc. It's not the best printing."

I think it was excellent for Kodak to bring Frank on as a panelist, particularly given their lack of devices (on the floor). He underscored the message for them, with brute force, that it is the use of the materials, in a personal, customized way, that makes an impression. Not the best registration. It reminds me of a quote by a sound engineer I once heard, "The audience doesn't hear good mixing. It's the engineers responsibility to prevent them from hearing bad mixing. It's the director's job to worry about whether it's interesting or not." Your pressman, your technical leads, your manufacturers, they should be worrying about quality. You should be worrying about how your serve your customer's needs.

On the matter of customer needs, virtually every panelist (on both panels) said, "I don't want the risk-adverse customer. They aren't worth the effort."

Tree

2009-09-01T07:40:00.003-04:00

It seems that fall has moved in on us here in the earliest days of September. Given the repeated soakings we enjoyed in June, I'm hoping for excellent foliage and a dry fall, but with pockets of moisture so as to ensure big puffy clouds. I'm not sure I'm half as crazy about seeing the clouds as I am in seeing the beautiful diffusion and dappling that they provide. I took the photo above just a few days ago, in those very conditions. It enabled slightly over-exposing the foreground tree, while driving down the sky and woods without the use of a grad or polarizer. I'm not certain what all this "free practice" is culminating in, maybe I'm just reminding myself that I can shoot without thinking about messaging or product - to be creative without thinking about the interpretations.

It's fascinating how advertising will distort your editorial filter as an artist, how it makes you more aware (seemingly) of the audience and less aware of your own internal vision. It's a tough balance.

Movement

2009-08-26T22:45:00.008-04:00

Shooting water is always a joy. Our human brain can identify objects at very small fractions of a second but objects in motion pose a huge variety of identity problems. Entire bodies of research in physiological and psychological disciplines have been devoted to understanding how humans perceive motion. As a rule, the "normal" human brain sees objects in motion as a stream of motion, i.e. we do not see a person who is waving to us as a series of still frames. Conceptualizing how objects in motion will translate to still images is quite complicated. Generally, it is easier to understand how a object will "stop" in motion than how objects in motion will aggregate (as in, the multitude of droplets of water that become a single form in a time-lapse photograph).

Entire craters and valleys appear where none stood before, when photographing with long shutter speeds. The obvious philosophical concepts are enjoyable, but it's also very interesting how time-lapse reveals other things, like how the flow of a moving river will define the riverbed once dry. Our daily lives are punctuated and our memories tend to be static - we remember events as a series of happenings. I wonder if our behaviors would change if we understood the impact of our actions to be temporal, rather than immediate.

Rhythm

2009-08-26T22:45:00.006-04:00

Today's image is part of a series I'm doing with stagnant or slow moving waters. I like how precarious life is in these rivers and ponds, where all of the floral growth is dependent upon the stillness of the water. It reminds me a lot of our own lives, where our comfort is so highly dependent on a lack of change.

Rime Ice on the Low Hills

2009-08-25T00:46:00.005-04:00

Since it's the height of summer heat, I was looking through my archives for interesting images, as I've recently updated a bunch of hardware. One of the images that caught my eye (again) was this photo of hard rime ice. You can clearly see where the clouds made contact with the earth, as there's a clear and defined line along the farmland.

This was taken in Sterling, Massachusetts, just after the great ice storm of 2008. As you can see, the last wisps of the storm were literally receding in the background. It was frigid cold and the National Guard had not yet been deployed to the area, so while the travel was precarious and often impassable, it was still possible to make progress into the hills.

It never ceases to amaze me: the sheer power of nature, both in the energy that can be produced and in the resilience of the flora and fauna. Humanity is always left agape after a "disaster", whereas nature, in the broad sense, just plucks along and transforms trees into thicket and bramble. Now, in the midst of summer, thanks to the sheer violence wreaked upon the woods, the songbirds are numerous, as are the smaller mammals - the storm provided huge new volumes of shelter for these creatures.

At first, I was very distraught over the damage done to the forests, but as the months have passed, I've come to grips with the changes in the horizon's continuity, the density of the foliage, and the thick of the underbrush. This cycle has no doubt been repeating since the last ice age, and in doing so, yields multitudes of new life and new habitat.

Something about that - the duality between human short-sightedness and nature's ineffable immortality - is very comforting. I have no doubt that we are poor stewards of the earth and will ruin the aesthetics of it in the relative near future, but it will long outlast us, and anything that we might create.

Midsummer by the River

2009-08-10T18:49:00.004-04:00

It was really beautiful over the weekend and I spent most of Saturday by a river. I'm told it is the Ware River, but honestly, I haven't the foggiest clue. There was a washed out bridge and absolutely no one around. There is something beautiful about simply sitting and taking in your environment.

I sat on the falling pylons where the bridge once lay and watched the swarms of little bugs curl up the columns of air rising off the water, like little waterspouts in the falling light.

The Lost Boys of Sudan

2009-07-10T18:45:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since I have updated this blog, so why not update it with an interesting story? A co-worker asked, not long ago, if I would mind taking some photos of him to send to family. This co-worker has an exceptionally interesting life stoy, as he is a former Sudanese "Lost Boy." You can read about the "Lost Boys" on Wikipedia, but the rough story is that during the Second Sudanese civil war (between 1983-2005) about 27,000 boys were displaced, many of whom made it to refuge in the United States.

Some of these boys, whom were often very young (under ten years of age) made impossible, incomprehensible journeys across Africa, particularly Ethiopia and Kenya. I can barely imagine living in eastern Africa, much less hiking across the continent over years without supplies, family, or society to assist.

Hopefully I can capture more of Dan's own story in the future. If so, I'll be posting it here. You can learn a lot more about the "Lost Boys" of Sudan at the website of the film, "Lost Boys of Sudan."

Spider Mum

2009-04-28T10:15:00.003-04:00

Hmm, well, I just do not update this often enough. And I was resolved to do better this year! We'll see if I can't improve on monthly updates. Here's a cool spider mum flower.

Genesis and Moderation

2009-03-15T11:00:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis of the Pentateuch. The traditional interpretation is that humanity was cast out of paradise for disobeying God's law. However, the literal events and how they translate to parables for early civilizations is more interesting.

The book of Genesis has its origins in the Sumerian myth of a man called Adapa, who is called to account for his ill deeds by the god Anu, which results in the loss of the chance for immortality. The Pentateuch changes the myth of Adapa into another tale, known as the story of Adam and Eve. There is but a single rule in the Eden, where nothing is for want and all is plentiful: do not partake of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Everyone knows what happens next.

The "Tree of Knowledge" does not represent the omniscience of a god but the pursuit of civilization. Once expelled from Eden, Adam and Eve learned how to tend fields and care for livestock. They became "civilized." The fruit of the tree signified a much more terrible thing than knowledge, it was the nexus between endless suffering (modernity and civilization) and complete contentment (Eden, where all is plentiful).

Interestingly, no physical threat prevented eating of the tree, it wasn't covered in razor-wire or some mythological equivalent. It was attainable and available at all times. The tree represents the opportunity to consume beyond our means. We lived in a place for which every possible thing was available, but chose instead to consume more than even an omniscient being could provide. The only rule of this paradise was simple: exercise self-control of consumption.

Now we can understand a simple maxim: the way to sustainability and happiness is abstemiousness; fail this and humanity shall toil endlessly in suffering until it can reclaim that lost knowledge. Eden is, of course, the earth. The tree of knowledge is the belief that one can have all things without losing anything, and the toils of man are the result of the eating of the tree. Genesis tells us, quite obviously, that godly knowledge is the realization that our suffering is a lack of self-control.

You don't need to look far in western civilization to realize that we are the very opposite of "self-control." In fact, our entire culture is predicated upon the belief that you can have what you want, when you want it, and damn the consequences. Yet, we find ourselves more unfulfilled, more wanderlust, and more lonely. Yet, the answer has been there for millenia: the knowledge of the gods is that humanity cannot find happiness and plenty until it can recognize the need for self-control.

Barring some great change in civilization's trajectory, the earth is as pristine now as it ever will be. It is our Eden. Within this tiny blue sphere is the capacity for total fulfillment, a place in which all basic human needs might be met. There is only one rule to sustain this Eden and it is the very same rule as that ancient Eden. Until we can follow it, we are doomed to toil in the ever growing, outcast wastes.

Tiny Pine

2009-03-08T19:49:00.004-04:00

Just a little tiny pine I found that had somehow survived the ice and snow of this winter. I was captured by the gnarled surroundings that it had chosen to inhabit.

Whew, Music

2009-02-20T00:11:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been getting heavily into Ladytron's latest album, Velocifero. It's dark and heavy, almost oppressive. I highly recommend it.

They have a page at www.LadyTron.com

Integrated-Color

2009-01-19T17:20:00.002-05:00

Today I had the chance to meet (again) with Derrick at Integrated-Color, in Massachusetts. They produce a fairly awesome product called Color-Eyes which allows for the profiling of your capture device, and can significantly improve the rendering of color.

So much of my commercial work involves handling near-neutrals and near-whites, and I have been very frustrated at the workarounds I've had to invent in order to get the reproduction out of my camera that I want. I've probably spend fifty hours on it and still have limitations that I just can't overcome with out of the box profiling software.

I do think my methodology is sound, but it still results in increased perceptual noise, and trade-offs along the channel curves that I don't want to make, both in the specific dimension and in full volume.

More on this later, and hopefully some examples! It was very informative. I met Derrick through PIA-GATF's 2008 Color Management Conference, which in itself was a fantastic primer and great exposure to a lot of vendors that I didn't know existed.

If there's one issue I have with the pre-media industry, it's the lack of marketing to photographers, who (while not being particularly fluid) need color controls, often at a very high degree of specificity. Lacking the ability to manage these transformations has made my life miserable, and I'm sure it's making other photogs' lives miserable as well.

Faux Daguerrotypes

2008-12-30T23:38:00.002-05:00

I'm working on a process to make mock daguerrotypes (given that metals cost a freaking fortune these days), and I'm making a note of it here, so that I don't forget.

I WILL get better at updating this for 2009. 2009 sounds like a good year.