Today I finished and uploaded my latest SoFoBoMo book, Road Ends. Follow the link to view and download the book. It’s free!
I’m going to be working on a print version of the book shortly, probably through Blurb. I’ve been wanting to try doing a book through Blurb and I sized this book for their 8×10 format. Stay tuned for details!
Just this morning I experienced one of the less-pleasant rites of passage into the realm of approaching-old-agedom. It wasn’t a lot of fun but as it turned out the anticipation was far more difficult than the reality. In the course of answering all the questions and giving my name and date of birth for what seemed like a dozen times, one of the nurses mentioned something about my age and said something like “we don’t usually see men under 60 in here unless there’s a problem.” I hadn’t given it much thought other than to wonder how many people actually follow their doctor’s advice, and I guess her comment kind of answered my question. Sometimes you just have to do something even though you really don’t want to because it’s the right thing to do. So I did, it’s done, everything is fine and I couldn’t be happier.
Arnold Palmer used to do a commercial for Pennzoil where he talked about “taking care of the old equipment.” He was primarily talking about using the right motor oil, but the implication was that the right maintenance was important regardless of the actual “equipment” being referenced.
We change the oil in our cars, check the air in our tires, change our furnace filters and (sometimes) clean out our refrigerators. And that’s all fine, but don’t forget to first and foremost take care of yourself. Do the scheduled maintenance.
This has been a public service announcement.
Kathy & I traveled to Belhaven, NC this past weekend to celebrate the 4th of July with our friends there. While in the area we spent some time photographing for my SoFoBoMo book project that I decided to call “Road Ends.” You’ll have to wait for the finished product for all the details but it’s basically about discovering what is at the end of all these dead-end roads that we frequently pass by but never take because, after all, they are dead ends.
The thing that I found most interesting is that we so often pass these roads by because we see them as detours or distractions from our primary journey. Making them the actual destination changes the approach considerably, as all of a sudden by giving ourselves “permission” to stop and see what’s there we no longer pass them by. Every time we saw a “Dead End” sign we drove down the road to see if anything was there. Many times there was nothing there. A few times we thought we heard Banjo Music, but frequently we found something interesting.
It’s easy to just drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway or down some main road and just look at whatever you pass by, but just like the idea that ones photography can be improved by spending time with interesting subjects, it’s really beneficial to look for subjects in different or unusual places. By “forcing myself” to explore the ends of the dead end roads I not only found some interesting and unexpected subjects but perhaps a new way of looking that will hopefully improve the way I see.
What better wallpaper for July than a great summertime view from the Blue Ridge Parkway?
The Roy Taylor Forest is a section of the Nantahala Ranger District of Nantahala National Forest that includes the rugged and scenic Tuckasegee Gorge. The Roy Taylor Forest Overlook is at mile post 433 on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesville, NC. At a cool elevation of 5580 feet, a paved path leads to a wooden platform that clings precariously to the mountainside here, with a more or less southwestern view overlooking the Balsams and eventually the Tuckasegee Gorge beyond.
This is a viewpoint that would benefit from some judicious pruning, as the view will soon be choked off by trees unless a helpful wind or ice storm comes along. It was in good form on a summer day last year and yielded this photograph that I hope you enjoy.
I hope your July is an excellent one!
Does the cost of your gear keep you from getting out and enjoying it? Does thinking about/worrying about/paying for your equipment keep you from using it?
David duChemin recently wrote a blog post titled “Buy the Tickets” where he compared the cost of buying less-expensive but still good-quality gear instead of “pro” gear and investing the difference in the experience of photographing. By his analysis the difference between the cost of the “high end” kit and the so-called “budget” kit would buy an around-the-world plane ticket with money left over for food and lodging. Not 5-star food and lodging perhaps, but good enough. Fascinating concept.
“Don’t spend money on gear. Spend it on plane tickets.”
Whenever someone writes an article like that they get a lot of “must be nice” and “that would never work for me” and “what about the kids and the mortgage” comments. Happens to Kathy and me when we talk about the vacations we take. Our ability to do the traveling we do is because of the choices we have made and make. What people too often fail to realize is that once you have established a goal, any choice you make that doesn’t directly help you accomplish it is an excuse.
If your goal is financial security for retirement you need to be making choices and saving enough to get you there, and hopefully you started a long time ago. If your goal is to be able to travel the country or the world – whether you are a photographer or not – how does owning a house/buying a car/watching TV help you get there? If you are fortunate enough to be able to do both, great! If you have to make choices you need to make them. If the cost of doing those things – and that includes the opportunity cost associated with the money, time and attention – keeps you from getting where you want to be then you either need to make different choices or set different goals.
“Forget the shiny stuff, it gets tarnished fast. Put your camera into the bag and book a flight instead. Go make memories and photographs. Live. Buy the tickets.”
I write a lot about how I don’t need to have the latest and greatest equipment to take good photographs. I have made what I feel are very successful photographs with equipment that for a lot of people would have been traded in or sold off years ago. I’ll admit that part of my writing is probably to console myself for not jumping on the bandwagon, but I truly believe that the choices I make – to spend the money on the destinations and not the equipment – is part of what will allow me to achieve my own goals. If I had to choose between a new camera and a vacation – and sometimes I do – I would choose the vacation every time.
I get comments and questions all the time from people, especially those I work with, that ask why I am working at a day job when my photography is so good (their words) and I enjoy it so much. As much as I love photography, becoming a full-time photographer is not my goal. It’s not even my dream. I enjoy photography a lot, but I enjoy it for the places it takes me and the things it allows me to see. I enjoy the learning and the creative expression and the continuous development. I love sharing my work with people who appreciate it, whether they pay me for it or not. The sacrifices it would take to be able to do photography full time – and especially to make a living from it – would first and foremost take a lot of the fun out of it for me, but most importantly it would keep me from achieving my personal goals. Many of the full-time photographers I know are only able to do it with the help of a willing spouse who provides the income to pay the mortgage while they spend their time being a photographer. I think that’s great if they can swing it. But my goals include Kathy & me traveling and experiencing the world together, and if that means we have to do it on a few weeks’ vacation time every year until we are finally able to trek out on our own, that’s fine with me. That moment is getting closer all the time.
My ultimate wish would be for everyone to be able to do whatever they want to do for as long as they want to do it. Unfortunately not many of us get to do that. So we set goals and make choices. Sometimes we make sacrifices. But I prefer to call them compromises. Hopefully your goals are clear and your choices will allow you to meet them. If not, take a look at what’s getting in your way, make the changes necessary and get going. It’s not too late!
A few weeks ago I entered 4 prints in a juried photography show. There were a total of 140-some submissions, and 2 of my 4 entries were chosen out of about 30 overall, with 1 of mine receiving an Honorable Mention. All 4 photographs were taken with my now-ancient and so-called obsolete Canon G9.
The prints were done on canvas at an 11×14 size. Admittedly that’s probably about as big as they will go without losing some quality, but I can live with that. There’s no reason why they need to be bigger. The main point – and one that brings me great satisfaction – is that the type of camera I used was immaterial. All four of the photos I entered were made while I was on vacation. If I had taken only an SLR I probably wouldn’t have made the photos at all, because more than likely I would not have had my camera with me. Having a compact and easily-portable camera that I was willing to carry made the difference. I could have made the photographs with any camera – and made them just as well – but I could only have made them if I was carrying a camera at all. If I had taken only a bulky SLR I probably would have left it in my room.
I recently attended a photography workshop with Les Saucier, who has been one of my mentors and has provided much of my recent photographic inspiration. In part of his presentation Les uses as an example a phrase that represents his choice of camera brand and pokes fun at those of us who favor the superior make. It’s all in fun and we know it. At one point during the class he mentioned that while he can easily tell the focal length of the lens used and can sometimes tell whether the lens was high-quality or not, he has never been able to look at a photograph and tell what brand of camera was used. The images reveal a lot of things but they do not reveal the brand or type of camera.
During the critique session four of the six images I submitted were made with my G12. No one even hinted at knowing or wondering (or caring) what camera I used. In fact, the two that I shot with my G12 got favorable commentary from Les as well as the participants. This only serves to emphasize my point.
I know this is a subject I probably beat to death, but it’s one I feel strongly about. It’s the photographer that makes the photograph. The camera he uses is obviously the most important tool, but the end result is about the photograph itself, not the equipment used to create it.
I was just reading a post on Kirk Tuck’s blog where he took himself to task for being a Curmudgeon, stuck in his ways and not willing to try new things. If you follow Kirk you know that nothing could be further from the truth. He tries lots of new things, and sometimes tries some old things just to see if they are as good now as they used to be. Usually they are. But when the money is on the line and he’s doing a job, he is always very careful to select the right tool for the work he’s doing. Sometimes it means he can use an 8-year old Kodak SLR and sometimes he relies on the trusty 5D Mark II.
The subject of this specific rant was that he had recently allowed himself to use Topaz to process one of his swimming images, and he thought the image was interesting and that “I really like the tones and the colors I ended up with after playing.”
I find myself feeling like a bit of a curmudgeon at times. I like the way I do things and it’s hard for me to change. I know that I should probably try new things, if for no other reason than to say that I tried them and didn’t like them. Sort of like you can’t complain about the election if you didn’t vote, right? And I suppose it’s good to learn new things, even if it’s just so I know how to talk about it when I’m teaching a Lightroom class. But I worry so much that the “gear” will get in the way that I tend to not do that.
I think the main thing for me is that I like the tools I use because I like the results I get from using them. It’s part of the pre-visualization process. Yes, there is probably some merit to knowing how to use other software, but in many ways isn’t that just like buying another lens? The more lenses I have the more time I spend thinking about whether or not I’m using the right lens and the less time I spend thinking about whether I’m pointing it in the right direction.
As I’ve traveled on my photographic journey one of the things that continues to fascinate me is the art side of the medium. I pay attention to it not necessarily because I fancy myself as some kind of “artiste” but because I am interested in learning about the historical influences and hopefully a little about what makes “good” photography good. I think it is helpful to see what the possibilities are and use that knowledge to form and cultivate my own vision and refine my approach to my own work.
I understand that art – and what makes Good Art – is very subjective. And there seems to be sort of a consensus, at least to the casual observer, that art has to be weird to be good. And the weirder the better. Terms like “cutting edge” or “pushing the boundaries” or even “visionary” are thrown around like compliments in a singles bar. After spending time looking at various mediums and what people do and don’t consider “Good” it becomes quite apparent that art, and one’s taste and appreciation in art, is highly personal and very subjective.
Kathy & I recently attended the opening for The Light Factory’s Annuale and annual Member’s Show. The Annuale is a juried show, where they bring in a prominent curator or director to be the juror, and submissions come from all over the world. This year they had something like 120 submissions and 6 were chosen for the show. I’ve entered the Annuale for the last 3 years. Not because I think my work has a chance to get in, or even because I think that my photography would ever even be considered Art, but because I find the exercise of choosing a theme, editing the photos down to the required 5-7 choices and writing an Artist’s Statement that describes the work and outlines my intention to be a fascinating exercise and a worthwhile educational process. For me that’s pretty much all there is. It would be great to have my work chosen, but there’s not much chance of that. And that sentiment is only reinforced when I see what work is chosen.
It’s interesting to me that for the last 4 years’ shows there is always work that I look at and think, “yeah, I get that.” I see the photographer’s intention, can somehow connect emotionally to the work and appreciate what they have done. And there is always at least one selection, often two or more, that I look at and think, “huh?” And this is not unique to this particular museum or this particular show. I find myself wondering these things any time I look at a show where the work was somehow “chosen” based on someone else’s interpretation of artistic merit. And I don’t necessarily mean to imply that I think there is anything wrong with it, I just find it fascinating.
After the opening we had dinner with some friends, several of whom had also submitted work to the Annuale and at least one who did not enter because he didn’t feel like his work stood any chance of being picked (although I disagree). All of them had the same conclusions about the same selections. They tended to favor the same ones I did and were shaking their heads at the same ones that make me question my own taste.
It would be easy to get discouraged by all this, and many people do. I find it to be a fascinating part of the educational process and am actually encouraged when I feel that I have been able to come up with a series of photos that work pretty well together and write an Artist’s Statement that sounds – at least to me – cohesive and coherent. Whether my work gets picked or not doesn’t really bother me. It would be great to have my work chosen, but that’s not why I do what I do. I truly feel that I would rather have people who appreciate my work find me, and not force my work on others and try to convince them to appreciate it. That’s probably backwards and not the way a true artist would work, but that’s the way I do it.
I had a different photograph all picked out for this month’s calendar, but this afternoon my June issue of WNC Magazine arrived. In it is a two-page spread with this photo, one of the two images chosen for the newly-revived Vistas feature. It’s pretty special to get a big spread in a great magazine, so I decided I would rather look at this one for the month of June. I hope you agree.
This photo was taken several years ago from Craggy Pinnacle, in Craggy Gardens on the Blue Ridge Parkway just north of Asheville. The vertical version of this is one of my all-time favorites, and now this one is growing on me too.
My friend and mentor Les Saucier frequently asks, “when is the best time to take a horizontal photograph?” To which the proper reply is “just after you’ve taken the vertical.”