Three Men And A Camera

Last Saturday I was at the playground with my 2 year old son. Weekends are when most Dads watch the kids and the playground is the place to go. The vibe is different on the weekend. Women at the playground will gravitate toward each other and talk about all the minutia of diapers, child birthing methods, and day care. Guys don’t give a crap. Our common ground is sports or cars or gadgets. On this day it was cameras. First guy called Fred wearing his Van Halen 08 tour shirt and Niners cap is sporting a Sony Cyber Shot with an 8x zoom lens. Looks ridiculous, but then again he also has a mullet. Guy number 2 has a Cannon 20D. He’s a lawyer, khakis, V neck sweater and fraternity ring. He explains that according to his partners, this is the best camera on the market. “It’s the BMW of cameras.”

On to guy number 3, me sporting dark glasses and a Diana F film camera. We’re all snapping away at our kids, but because I’m shooting film I can’t share my photos. The 2 guys think I’m nuts, out of the dark ages or something. “Hey Dave, your kid will be driving by the time you take that photo. LOL” Mullet guys is shooting close ups of his kid’s snotty nose, lawyer, having figured out the action icon on the camera is doing low angle action shots of his daughter on the swing. He’s actually lying in the sand, bad angle for little kids and bad if sand gets near the LCD. And me, well half of my shots will be light struck, not to mention black and white which everybody now hates. We’re just three fellas stuck in the playground until naptime, searching for common ground and not really finding it. The one thing we have in common is that we want to take cool photos of our kids, or at least better photos than our wives take. In the old days we’d all have funky film cameras or old super 8 movie cameras. We would have taken the same pictures with the same cameras, the same way, and the photos would be printed and preserved for a lifetime in albums.

I guess I don’t really fit in around here (the suburbs) because as it turns out I hate pro football and like manual film cameras. I don’t really have a problem with the other 2 guys and their cameras or the Niners for that matter. I’m sure I kind find some pretentious, arsty-fartsy dads at a playground in the city.

Point And Shit

Remember the snapshot? I do. I’ve got a bunch of little square photos taken 40 years ago of me as kid. I have photos taken 20 years ago of me in college. They are not fancy photos, but the images share a common “snapshot” quality to them. Now along comes digital and people are snapping photos a mile a minute, capturing pointless minutia, and too many buttcracks. If I’m going to take a picture of my ass, I’m going to at least put the camera on timer, set in on a rock, take a step or two back, and hope for the best. I really don’t think you should be able to take a picture of yourself without letting go of the camera. I really hate those shots of someone’s entire head in the frame because their arm extends only so far! What ever happened to asking a stranger to “take my picture.”?

If I designed a digital camera, I’d make it smart enough to stop all the dumb ass photos people take. Even if it’s a snapshot, it should be taken with care and with respect for photography. Even when we had disposable cameras, it didn’t mean that we had disposable images.

So yeah, I’m a bit of a snob about this, and I’m not sayin’ that I don’t take lousy photos, bit I do think about what I’m doing, and I do care about every snap.

Camera Heaven

No, my camera is not malfunctioning. This image is by design, but if it wasn’t, I’d be looking for a repair shop. Camera Heaven is a camera geek paradise stock full of Nikons, Leicas, Hasselblads, box cameras, and all things photographic. It’s main function is to repair your prized pieces, or just make your point and shoot digital work again. I know this is a good place because there is stuff piled up up everywhere. Every good repair shop is a mess, right?

People ask me all the time: Where can I repair my camera, and until now, I’ve never really had a good answer. So if your camera needs a little help, or maybe just a good cleaning (film and digital), bring it down to Photoworks and I’ll get it over to “my guy” at Camera Heaven.

Confessions of a Wedding Photographer

Local wedding photographer and Photoworks loyalist has written a memoir about her many experiences in the world of wedding photography. EXPOSED, CONFESSIONS OF A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER “Exposed is a book for anyone planning a wedding, or for anyone who has just survived one. It is a book to give to brides as a shower gift, mothers-in-law as a warning, or bridesmaids as an apology… ” Thought we’d get a little pre-release buzz going, so check this out: http://www.clairelewis.com/exposed/

Meet Your Photoworks Staff

Thought I’d introduce some of the people who make it all happen at Photoworks. Starting with our youngest employee who frankly is lucky to be getting paid. I tried to sucker him into an intern program, but he demanded to be compensated monetarily. Normally I have little respect for anyone born in The Eighties, but Alex is a solid citizen with a “big” future, despite the fact that he fabricated his resume. The only truth below is that he was born in Simi Valley in 1985. The rest is bullshit, he’s actually a runaway who I found sleeping in the alley behind Photoworks. Meet Alex….

Name: Alex Martinez
Born: Feb 1st, 1985
Birthplace: Simi Valley, CA
Worked At Photoworks Since: July, 2007
Before that? Getting my BA in Anthropology at San Francisco State
University, with a focus on visual anthropology and documentary
photography.
Film or digital? Film, 35mm mostly, but just got a medium format
camera and have been enjoying 120.
Gear: Nikon F100, Fuji GA645, Yashica T4. For film I shoot Kodak
Portra NC, and Ilford HP5+.
When Not At Photoworks: Interning at Hamburger Eyes Photo Epicenter,
exploring the Bay Area, spending too much time on the internet.
Most important question, matte or glossy? Any borders? Matte, clean
white borders. Always.
Website: http://www.stopinternetromance.com/

Anything Photo Related

Judging by my last pathetic post, it seems I’ve hit the wall in terms of fresh blog stuff. So I’ve enlisted the aid of my wordsmith buddy Donald Ord. He has lots to say about a variety of topics. I’ve asked for “anything photo related.” Here is some of what’s in Donald’s head:

CAMERA

 

For Christmas about four years back my girlfriend, now my wife, bought me my first digital camera in an attempt to bring me into this century. I had worked for about a dozen years in film editing, but that came to an end at about the same time folks stopped using film in the process of making them.

 

I didn’t really make it into this century, but I do love the camera. I was told that I could make these mp4 movie images, which I have, or that I could use it to play songs, which I have not, but what I mainly do with it is take pictures. There were a number of weddings the following year, 2004, which took us to places such as Denver, Portland, Montreal, then down through Vermont to Cape Cod. We enjoyed these trips, though in New England we couldn’t help but encounter Red Sox fans. One thing people forget about Winslow Homer was how he started to paint more and more out of New England once Red Sox fans started appearing on the landscape.

 

What I liked about the camera was that it was tiny, and could easily be stuck in a pocket. Apparently it was the kind used in the movie “Tomb Raider”, which I never saw. Never was really into Angelina Jolie, even before she started using the same accent for ancient or medieval roles. Something about the big lips. Folks make a big deal out of Anna Kournikova and Scarlett Johansson, but again, there’s that big lip thing. It’s not as if Ms. Johansson would be out of options without them, and as for Ms. Jolie, did she never watch “Deliverance” and the trouble her pop almost got into with the hillbilly that didn’t rape Ned Beatty on account of the “pretty mouth” thing?

 

Back to the camera. The problem with it is the amount of pictures I can take. The card that came with the camera was 64 mb, which took me to about the end of June 2004, through the last wedding, including a stop in Plymouth on the way to Logan. By deleting a photo or two, I was able to make room for a couple of shots of Plymouth Rock. One would think that if the Pilgrims were going to travel so far in a boat in order to inflict Puritanism on countless generations they would at least have landed on something more substantial than Plymouth Rock. You go somewhere like Copenhagen, where there are very few Red Sox fans, when they have something really little to photograph like the Little Mermaid, they let you know it’s really little). Anyway, Rock plus Christmas, four weddings, a party or two and a handful of mp4s gave me room to stuff 313 pictures on the original card, which having been born on 3/13 was pretty perfect.

 

Then girlfriend, yet to be wife, goes and buys me this Magilla card, way more powerful than the original. Since then we’ve been to Yosemite, Germany, Buenos Aires, Sea Ranch and attended more parties and weddings. Don’t think I’m anywhere close to filling this card, and for a while there, when I wanted to show somebody a photo of say, the ’76 Olympic pool, I’d have to press a button a few hundred times before remembering, Montreal…that’s on the 313 card.

 

Finally we got married, and my wife took first one card, and then the other, and shoved them in to this thing she calls a device, and shoved the device into one of the computers, so now all I have to do is reach behind the computers and press this button on another device, the one that lets me switch from the stubby, Ned Beatty shaped PC over to the taller, more elegant Mac, which I use to peruse photos in a better way to locate that Olympic pool, but really, not any easier than going up to the attic and opening a suitcase and pulling out envelopes containing just 36 photos thank you, from say 1978, and reminiscing about how folks like Ron Guidry and Bucky Dent fought the good fight.

 

Anybody notice how it wasn’t until everybody, including me, started taking digital photos that the Red Sox or Patriots got any good? Or that Tom Brady was raised on the edge of Silicon Valley? “Capricorn Two”, shot with real film, will expose all of this.

 

 

Murray’s Linhof

On a recent visit to the folk’s house, I went fishing through the garage and discovered an old, but pristine camera case. Inside was a 4×5 camera, a Linhof Technika from the fifties. There were German lenses, film holders, and various unfamiliar accesories. There was also 4×5 film that had to be 50 years old. I brought the camera case into the house, and was about to open it up when I heard, ” do not touch that camera.” Turns out this was “Murray’s Linfhoff” and I was not worthy of holding it. I guess the fact that I walk around without lens caps, or a proper camera case does not bode well for me touching my dad’s 4×5.

I was however, permitted to borrow the camera manual which is in itself a piece of art. I’ve been reading and researching these amazing instruments, and yes, you just don’t grab a 4×5 like you do your point and shoot. It turns out that some of the oldest cameras around are still the best cameras around, and all the digital technology in the world cannot touch the image quality of this 50 year old 4×5 camera. Here’s something from the manual:

“Photography’s function is to record the world we live in, accurately, clearly, in all its true color, as our eyes see it. A photograph should omit nothing, add nothing; a concise definition of its real function, which at times would seem to have been forgotten. This absolute truth to nature is a matter for photographic technique. True perspective, such as one is accustomed to in ordinary vision, critical sharpness, giving clear rendering of the most minute detail, and the full scale of tones and colors one would like to recognize in one’s pictures. ” (from Linhof manual 1957)

A far cry from photoshop! No surprize that with this type of schooling Murray does not “do digital.” And I’ve been missing the old preparation when composing a photograph. The age of motordrives and fast firing lenses has really ruined the calmness of carefully setting up a photograph, and I’m thinking I’m ready for a return to a camera that’’s older than I am, so next time I visit Murray, I’m going to ask for a lesson on the Linhof.

Maybe he’ll let me hold the camera this time.

Abandoned Photos

You take a dream vacation, take lots of photos, bring them to a photolab, and never pick them up. Seems odd, but it happens all the time. About 10% of film and digital images ordered never get picked up. There are lots of reasons: people forget, don’t have money, lose interest in the subject matter, leave town, die………. Sometimes these photos are market “urgent” or “rush” because at the time it’s a freakin’ big deal. I have photos of babies being born, kids parties, Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, naked people, dog portraits, burning man crap, actor headshots, artwork, and everything under the sun.

I can see losing interest in a digital order since it’s on someone’s computer. But negatives and prints??? This is not dry cleaning! And by the way, we make every effort to contact the owners of the photos, and some people do eventually collect their property, but I have pictures here from The Eighties.

So, here’s my idea: I’m thinking of putting together a photoshow of a bunch of the ‘left behind and abandoned” photos. A random collection of the stuff people decided was once important enough to photograph, but not important enough to pay the proprietor of the photolab for his developing services. Is this an invasion of privacy?? Hell yes, but obviously someone doesn’t care enough to protect themselves.

Maybe you will see someone you know on the walls of my shop and let them know that they have film waiting to be picked up. Maybe it’s a picture of you on the beach, or in Paris, or getting stoned in the park, or maybe it’s a shot of an ex-girlfriend from a happy time in your life, or maybe it’s a photo of your old cat, or your old Mustang convertible, or even your Mom and Dad……….

Top Ten Photo Shoot Disasters

Over the years I’ve heard some sad stories of photographer’s “blowing it” on photo shoots. I’ve also had some photo meltdowns of my own. I thought it would be fun to make a top ten list. I’ll start it and add to the list as people send me their stories.

10) Arriving in Ireland for a subsidized vacation I was jetlagged and not happy about driving on the passenger side of the car. I stopped to photograph a castle, got back in the car and drove off leaving my camera bag on top the trunk of the car. I realized my mistake an hour later, drove back but my gear was gone. 2 Nikons, and full compliment of lenses gone. I had been bragging for weeks about this gig as an international photographer, and within an hour of landing at the airport I lost all my gear.

9) Was hired to photograph a party on a whale watching trip. Stupidly I brought my medium format camera which meant I had to look down into the camera to shoot. Well, I looked down, and when I looked up again, I was ill from the ocean. So sick that I had to jump off the boat and swim back. I know longer do any open- ocean photography. Shooting a friends wedding in Berkeley, I became enamored with one of the female guests. So much so, that during the ceremony I was off in the bushes with my pants down, instead of documenting the most important parts of the wedding I was hired to shoot. Luckily for me, the couple split up 3 months later, so a wedding album was not needed. The female guest did not return my subsequent phone calls.

Ok, those are 3 from me, I await the rest from you…………………………………

Show Me Your Stuff

Do you want to share your photography with others in a non-threatening environment that encourages creativity without boundaries? Do you want to cross the line, and possibly offend the uptight owner (me) of this photolab? Yes, well why aren’t you in the Photoworks Photographer’s Showcase? You know this sight is seen by millions of people a day, so why not get some free exposure?

Honestly, I thought this gallery would be a waste of space, but I was wrong. This work is very good, and I’m a cynical critic who hates almost everything. So, let’s see what you’ve got! www.photoworkssf.com/gallery