Flickring Away

It's 1:04am. I'm on flickr. Boyghost has left like three really cool and helpful comments on some of my pics and I am both honored and embarrassed to be honored. I'm also deliriously tired. But I can't seem to turn in just yet. The thing is he notices stuff in my pictures that I don't even notice, like the identical water towers in the picture above that I took earlier today. That's why I need his feedback! Because of stuff like that. And at the same time I worry occasionally that I might be getting to influenced, or even developing a censor when I shoot. I don't think it's a real concern yet though. I still love looking at other people's stuff. I have to look at other people's stuff. My pictures are no different than my writing. Sometimes I'm just to close to them and I get crazy and need to step back or I get bored or stuck. But when I see the amazing stuff people do on Flickr I'm reanimated! I just get so inspired.

I was at ICP on Friday after work. They had a fashion photography exhibit and Fridays are pay what you wish day for museums in NYC. I wasn't really into it though. The pictures were way too high concept, bursting with color and harsh digital effects. I liked some of the older stuff but mostly I liked the black and white stuff in the ICP collections room, pictures from what seemed like the 20s and 30s. After about an hour I wandered out and into the gift shop. I walked over to photo essays and reached for a Richard Avedon book but decided to go for an interesting looking book just one spine to the right. It had no title and was covered in this wierd plastic lace pattern. It was called "Jesus and the Cherries" by Jessica Backhaus. They were a collection of very plain very quietly profound color photographs of families, their homes and neighborhoods in Germany. She has an amazing eyes for the natural composition and beauty of everyday things. Her color detail is amazing, really makes you rethink the whole idea of photography and what makes an interesting photograph.

Stoned at it's best

"turn off your mind, relax and float downstream...It is not dying."

Examples

In digital photography last week, we finally got to look at slide projections of everyone's work. It was for the most part really great, I mean profoundly so. It might be an odd bunch of people but that's the great thing about photography I think. A picture may reflect something more interesting about a person than you would expect. Unfortunately I can't show you any because most people didn't know how to navigate flickr and our assignment was to post to a flickr group created by our teacher so that we could all comment on each others work. Instead, most people brought their pics on flash drives so we looked them that way. Some really fantastic stuff. Below are three of mine that Marget selected but she she showed them in a series of shots by professional photographers! She presented them of examples of good composition, color, focus and sophistication even though the one with the steps is slightly overexposed. Heeeey!!

Our assignment for last week was to take ten pictures in our neighborhood and I picked a really nice clear Saturday last week. I feel a bit of pressure now though. The next assignment is twenty or so pics of the inside of our homes and apartments. Wish me luck!

Two cameras in two days

I had a lovely weekend. On Valentines Day I went took Fran to the Farmers Market at Union Square and then to that cool Housing Works Bookstore on Crosby Street where I went for the first time with Amanda. Then we went out to Crosby Street and took about 200 pictures with my camera. Later on that evening we went to restaurant we frequent called 111 on 111 and Bdway to see a friend play the upright bass in his jazz band and dine in a very chill atmosphere, free of the usual VDAY mania.
Somewhere between Sunday and Monday I purchased a Holga camera on Amazon and then managed the wining bid for a collapsible vintage SX70 Polaroid Land Camera on ebay. They were both relatively affordable although obviously the film for cameras no longer in circulation are very expensive since the film is no longer manufactured. 120 film is like 10 dollars a role! SX70 I'm still shopping around for on ebay. Why go to all the trouble you ask! Well, first remember that I am a person who loves stationary so much that I collect a ton of it even though I hardly write anyone! I have a stash of stationary at work that I acquired from a surplus give away on the tenth floor last week! So this kind of insanity is not beyond me. The other reason is that Holga Cameras are capable of taking pictures like this and Polaroid SX70 takes pic like this.

I'm crazy about the interesting flaws in accidental photography or photography that isn't all polished and beautiful and controlled so I want to experiment with that as well as all the numerous dial modes on my SLR which produce any number of effects both subtle and extreme. Yesterday we did white balance exercises in my digital photography class. A bit confusing to say the least.

My Funny Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh Baby I like it RAW NEF (well sometimes)

I admit I'm getting ahead of myself. It's a problem I've had ever since I was a girl. My African Drumming teacher told my parents that I was too overconfident. I still think he was just irritated because I was a fast learner.

I took about 70 pictures after my digital photography class today. That's normal for me. My class is on Bowery, a great place for night photography. When I leave the YMCA where they hold the classes it's like 9:30 and I'm so giddy I wander around shooting like a freak and I swear that until I hit Astor place I don't even know where I am. I use some tall building in the distance as a landmark to let me know I'm walking towards Broadway. Other than that, I have run into a pole or something before I look around for cross streets.

I discovered I could shoot in black and white just messing around with mode settings in my camera. I was convinced I couldn't when I forst got the camera and was pretty sad about it since I could take b&w with my point and shoot. I AM LIVING!!!!! THE WORLD THROUGH b&W on an SLR???
You don't even know!!!


NEF RAW
This is a setting Marget Long told us about in class. She shoots on a large (really large) format Canon and she mostly shoots raw which is most easily explained as an unprocessed pure image. She likes to do very close editing and control all aspects of her picture, something which digital photography will adjust in every way when shooting in automatic. Digital cameras do everything for you. Shooting in Raw does away with all that and it's interesting to see the difference in photos you take in RAW and the ones with all the automatic compensation of light and color levels you never think about until you see a picture that is completely naked.

RAW

Processed


I have to start keeping a shooting diary so I can actually understand what the hell I'm doing.

Fan Mail

I finally broke down and wrote Boyghost and email about the technique he used to achieve the intensity of his black and white pictures. He wrote me back today!

Here is the email I sent:

"I'm a great admirer of your pictures and I I noticed that you have a lot of black and white shots taken with a Nikon SLR. The one thing I really miss about shooting with my Nikon D60 is not being able to shoot in Black in white because as far as I can tell I am unable to set color options on it the way I was with able to my Nikon Coolpix which also had a Sepia and Cyanotype setting. Are the black and white shots you take in color to begin with or is there a black and white setting on your camera or do you just transfer it to black and white in post production? Your BW shots are so good I can't imagine that they were once color."


And here is his reply. He's nice! : )

"First of all, thanks very much for your very kind message.
I truly do appreciate getting feedback like this, and it
keeps me going out and taking the shots I do.

On to your question, I actually shoot all my shots in
color. The secret is to shoot in the Vivd+ or More Vivid
mode on the Nikon DSLRs and then convert to black and white
later. This way, you'll get lots of nice contrast in your
shots that translate very well into dark and moody black
and white photos. I personally use href="http://www.gimp.org">The GIMP to do most of my
b&w conversions, usually by using a script that emulates
the natural tones of some of the better black and white
films. You could also just use the channel mixer and the
curves/level tools to really up the contrast and tones of
your shots...

I hope this helps!

Cheers,
bg"

Accidental Therapy

I'm a little too excited these days about various projects I'm working on, both personally and academically and I haven't been getting much sleep lately. I've been up past 1:00 every other night for a few days. Plus this weird weather is kind of doing a number on me as well Basically I feel a bit worn down but spiritually I feel pretty giddy.

I had a kind of a revelatory talk with my Urban Voices writing professor last night that really threw me for a loop because I told her things I haven't told anyone about things in my life which I haven't thought about out loud for years. There's something about writing professors. If you're a writer, no matter how much you try to blend in, they will spot you with laser beam precision and single you out. I was singled out. The class has a group blog that we post to weekly as part of the class assignment and then discuss in class. I guess it didn't take long for her recognize who the crazy people were; me and three others. What I mean is that she's a writer and she could tell who the serious writers in the class are so she split the class in two groups, one that needed basic grammatical instruction and us, the group who needs some style usage instruction. It was a bit awkward. And then afterward she wanted to conference individually with a few of us, me included.

She wanted to know why I was here. Which was very self affirming because I often wonder the same thing myself. She recommended some alternatives. She recognizes my potential. It was flattering and yet a bit nerve wrecking. Like I said, our conference spiraled quickly into a therapy session. I unloaded like she was my shrink and she never cut me off or even looked bothered. I'm certain she's no stranger to the psychosis of creative types. I never do this, ever! I'm very good at letting most people I know see only what I want them to. This is very easy as most people are not sensitive enough to perceive any deeper than you will let them or to even assume that there is anything more than what you project to the world on a daily basis, that the face you present is little more than one of a hundred masks. But I think that she could see through that and it's very rare that I feel comfortable telling anyone the things I told her.

Because we are being asked to write about our lives in the class, it is inevitable that we come up against some of the more painful incidents which have shaped and continue to shape us and it's always a delicate situation figuring out how best to expose yourself to strangers. Francis is one of the only people who I can never wear a mask with. He tends only to perceive what's really there, what's going on underneath. That speaks to a very deep trust I have in him. I can't deceive him even in subtle ways. But it's only because of his own innate loving/kindness that he sees beyond my behavioral smoke screens. There's no effort. He just cares. It's an anomaly to me but I just thank my lucky stars because I am not an easy person to figure. I am typically Gemini and at times find that I am almost literally two people.

Boyghost Envy

Its official. Boyghost is my photography idol. And that's probably not a good thing. But there it is. Haruki Murakmai is one of my favorite authors. Boyghost on flickr is one of my favorite photographers. I've been scrolling through his pictures using Cooliris for almost half an hour now. Each picture is even better, more interesting, subtle, poetic and expertly composed than the next! When I think about it now, I realize that he's the reason I wanted to get the Nikon D60 in the first place. I'd seen a bokeh shot he'd done and flipped! I had to know how to do that and what camera he used. I was convinced it had to be his equipment that turned out such amazing work. But I can see now, that it's not. Some people can make masterpieces with a box, a mirror and some film.

He's just got a way of capturing the majesty, the mood of quiet spaces, loneliness and childlike curiosity. Also, the titles he gives his photos like "Won't let go"and "Never you mind" or the "A place in time" the title of the picture shown above, really add a lot to the viewing experience because it really makes me wonder what these pictures mean to him. I read his profile. He's got nothing but glowing testimonials. He's a Baltimore area photographer. His relationship status is "taken" and oh! He's on FACEBOOK. Excuse me...I'll be right back!

The Magnet Man

The day started out dreary but the sun is actually out now, in the mid afternoon. I woke up much too early from having gone to be way too late. I’d fallen asleep while watching an old Salma Hayek and Russell Crowe movie, Breaking Up on my laptop in bed. It was never a very good movie but I haven’t seen in years and the script still holds up for me. I was in love with Russell Crowe in the days when I loved this movie. But it’s Salma Hayek who gives the dialogue its strength and logic. But Russell does have this incredibly unexpected way of transforming in the subtlest ways. By the end of the movie, he’s a totally different version of the character he plays in the beginning. The movie itself is a bit of a mess but that’s mostly because it was written for the stage and not film. It was not a very successful adaptation.

I had to force myself to get out of bed, my only motivation being that I did not want to get to the Ronnybrook Farms stand at the Farmers Market late this time the way I did last week. I managed to get the only Mango Yogurt drink left last Saturday. The Mango flavor is my favorite but one was not enough to get me through the work week. Whenever the vendors move to the south side of Union Square because of construction in the main area RonnyBrook sells out within a few hours! I took the cross-town bus on 125th and Lennox so I could take the East Side express. I surprised myself by scribbling down a poem during my ride, something that had been gestating in my subconscious for months.

I gathered four yogurt drinks, two Mango, one Blueberry and one Blueberry Pomegranate and then strolled along aimlessly through the market. Just a few feet away on my right I saw a table with laminated magnets. I know this is where my dad bought the magnets that practically cover his fridge. The same Curious George magnet he bought me was on the table. The old man who sold the magnets fiddled with some money or something he was counting or maybe they were magnets. I don’t remember. I almost walked right by but something drew me back. I think I was looking to see if he had any Obama magnets and then when I saw that he didn’t, I wondered why. But then I think I kind of liked that he didn’t. He stuck to his usual magnets of people and themes of his era or his particular liking; Reefer Madness, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Robinson, Wonder Woman. I scanned a Wonder Woman magnet and immediately went for one with a poster of the original movie “The Day The Earth Stood Still” which I had literally just watched this passed week with Francis on an old VHS copy I found behind a stack of DVDs. It’s way better than the remake and one of my favorites. I saw that the sale sign said “Two for 5” so I picked up Wonder Woman and “The Day the Earth Stood Still” gesturing to the man that I would take them.

“Pick another.” He said. What? Did he mean he didn’t want me to pick these? I told him I noticed the sign.

“Take another.” He said. “You can take another. For you three for five.”

It took me a second before I realized he was being nice. When for my third choice I picked out a famous Clint Eastwood close-up from on of his great westerns with Sergio Leone, the man smiled and made a noise of approval. He told me he liked “The Day the Earth Stood Still” as well and that “Forbidden Planet” is good as well as he put my magnets in a small baggy. I’ve never seen “Forbidden Planet” but I did know that the comic book store on Broadway just a few blocks from where we stood and in which my brother and spent many weekends was named after the 50s sci-fi movie. I gave him a ten and thanked him as he gave me back a five and said

“No thank you. Thank you.” He said

I walked away feeling very warm and somehow honored that he’d been so nice to me. It was weird. I feel like he was very discreetly observing me even as I stood there looking at the magnets, before I even chose anything. I don’t know when did he decided he would let me have one for free but he seemed genuinely invested in my third choice. I don’t know, it was just a really pleasant exchange. It made me smile as I walked away, feeling like I had gained more than just a few magnets.

Cooper Union Digital

Above is a picture I took last night while I was walking to class. I adjusted it to Sepia and blurred the edges a couple of times for a softer more haunting affect. I like low light photography and the way light creates mood in pictures

My first Copper Union photography class with Marget Long started yesterday. It's actually at the YMCA on Houston and Bowery off of Second Ave. I really like it so far. I was afraid it might be too easy or not cover things that I really need to learn but I think I picked the right course for me. Marget had some trouble with the slide projector but eventually we did get to look at some slides and she explained a bit about the first chemically projected images in the 1800s and camera obscura which I love. She also suggested we all get flickr accounts. As you know I have that fully covered. I sat next to a guy in the back when I walked in. In the second half of the class we talked about our cameras(we both have SLRs), showed each other pictures we had taken (we both had pics of the Washington Monument) and chatted about the pixel range and stuff like that. It is so nice to take a class in something I actually love. I am so psyched!

Dream Job

I had a really intense dream last night that I essentially put my shitty job in jeopardy by speaking up against the management in the form of Diane Sawyer (who I cannot stand even though I watch GMA every morning) Unlike the junior staff where I work now, there was no support from the workers around me in my dream. They were scared shitless and were completely silent in a staff meeting where my words of dissent lingered in the air across the boardroom table between Diane Sawyer and I. I was so pissed, I had to contain a burst of anger and violence. I had basically just become so fed up with all the inefficiency and lame excuses and unnecessary confusion of job duties and titles. I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't fired in the dream but I knew when I walked away from that meeting that being dismissed was not too far off. But I didn't care. Even though I was the only person who would speak and no one supported me I didn't care. I was just done! It felt so real that when I woke up I thought I had to start looking for another job. It was kind of scary. The weird thing is that we actually have a staff meeting with a really annoyingly controversial item on the agenda which I had hoped we we would be done with weeks ago! It's so fucking stupid I won't even bother describing it but senior management has seen fit to ignore something which would essentially benefit it's alleged priorities because basically they don't want to do any of the fucking grunt work the rest of us do so.... here we go.