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A Drive Through Northern Arizona on a Sunny Day

Posted by wizwow on Mar 25, 2012 in Featured, Off Topic Sunday |

It was a bright Friday morning as I left to go up north. I had planned on leaving a bit earlier than 8:30, but those plans were offset by the need to get my youngest to school and finish some things at the office.

Sometimes the plans we make don’t work out. They just don’t.

I had wanted to leave very early so that Flagstaff would be breakfast and the Navajo Reservation would still be in morning light when I arrived. By the time I got to Gray Mountain, the sun was higher in the sky than I would have liked. But, since it was the end of February, it was still quite south and was throwing some interesting shadows.

The road from Flagstaff north to the Vermilion Cliffs is one of my favorite roads… ever. I love this land. You can see forever there. There is much to love about the wooded areas of the Midwest and Atlantic states, but there is also a slight sense of claustrophobia from all the dense foliage for this western deserts boy.

In northern Arizona you can see a hundred miles. Climb up to the top of a mesa and add a few more.

My mom told me that when he was born, my brother Frank became my instant new best friend. I don’t remember much about the little house on 44th St. But I remember the day my brother was born. It was a terrific thunderstorm and the doctors came to the house. I was put to bed in my parents room, and when I awoke the next day he was there. I would care for him and take him on walks wherever I went. He was my brother and I thought that was pretty cool.

To be able to see that far… well, that changes a person. It becomes part of the DNA… at least it has for me. It is where I want to be most of the time I am awake.

But I live in Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the country. Spread out for miles, it sits like a giant turd in the middle of a valley made humid and green from too much irrigation and not enough common sense. We have a river here, right though town. It is bone dry. One of the things that fascinates me about other places is that when you cross a bridge over a river, there is actually water in it. WTF is that about?

Leaving Flagstaff, you meander a while through some beautiful pine forest before becoming a beeline-straight highway pointing due north. It is so straight for so long that people have been known to stop at the slightest curve and do some silly dance moves. Or take pictures. “And this is where the road had a curve in it…”.

The land is barren, dry and beautiful.

And yeah, I have been there when it was a hundred and ten. Then it is barren, dry, beautiful and very closely resembling a toaster oven. If toaster ovens had color.

And the colors are amazing. Reds and grays and pinks and deep mauve blend with the bleached dirt that seems to have been recently shoveled along the road. There is no sign that anything has ever changed there. Time seems to be persona non grata among the rocks, badlands and mesas. It’s like time stopped there.

Except for the fences. There are fences everywhere.

Fences to keep someone out? Or to keep something in? Damn, I would hate to be the grazing cow on this acreage.

When we were growing up, Frank and I did a lot together. He was young enough to look up to me and I felt it my duty to take care of him. We built forts out of Christmas trees and he would be our “inside man”. Kids can’t do that today… nanny state bastards have sucked as much fun out of growing up as they can. We rode bikes and I remember the day we got Frank a brand new “Stingray” and headed out for an adventure through the alleys of west Phoenix. We were like buds at that point. I can still remember the areas of our youth like it was yesterday. Glenrosa, Mariposa, 31st Ave, Granada Elementary… the places where kids could wander without fear. “We’re heading out mom, see you before sundown…” and we were off. Brothers.

I saw the tanks in the distance and immediately knew I had to photograph them. They looked so oddly shaped in the landscape. Bright colored blue and yellow… and that face. What was that about?

I have no idea what they were painted for. There were flyers for an indie rock band all around the other side. OK, we’ll go with that.

Finding incongruity is easy in the badlands of northern Arizona. A river winds through incredibly barren rock with nary a single tree, or even that many bushes, at its edge. Brilliant blue sky meets bright red mesas in a clash of hard edged rock. The distance between where you are and over there becomes difficult to gauge… there is so little context.

The Vermilion Cliffs are one of my favorite places. They look big, but in fact when you get close to them you realize they are even bigger than you can imagine. Huge and forbidding, they stand like a silent fortress holding proudly against the valley below.

I had once planned a hike there, but only got about a mile in before I finally came to grasp how incredibly huge they are. 4×5 camera over the shoulder, I retreated to the safety of my camp.

Sometimes the plans we make don’t turn out. The mountains are bigger than we figured they would be. That can be both a relief and a disappointment. Go on… you choose.

It was a cold November morning. My dad was packing us into the old panel truck he had bought for going fishing and camping. My brother and I were on pins and needles the night before. We couldn’t wait to get in the back and go on another adventure in the high country of the Mogollon Rim. We huddled together in the back of the cold van and shared hot chocolate. He fell asleep leaning against me and I didn’t move for hours for concern that he would awaken. Frank eventually became quite knowledgeable on the central Arizona area, and would inform us all about the gun battles and historic civil war occurrences whenever there was something to tell. He studied the civil war and the rancher wars of Arizona, and there was no skirmish or event that he hadn’t covered. I eventually began music school, so Frank and my dad were the ones that adventured off together on the weekends. As many as they could, it seemed.

The earth holds us near as it changes and morphs at a much slower rate than we do. Artifacts of our lives, things that are inconsequential and things that are vital are of no meaning to the earth. A discarded glove would be the same as a pile of hundred dollar bills to the drying cracked ground that makes up this area of the southwest.

Men have no standing here. Women have no standing here.

We come and go so fast, too fast, while the earth takes its time to decide what it will do.

Marble Canyon is here. Pariah a little north and but a tiny sliver in the wall of the gorge. The Grand Canyon is but a little ways off to the left.  A canyon so deeply cutting through the cliffs that it has very few hours of sunlight. And still it carves its path… day after day. Millennium after millennium.

We can stand for a few moments on a bridge and watch the water slowly meander below. Cutting and carving and deepening the canyon each and every second.

But we will not see it change. Neither will our grandchildren.

Frank got married and I took the photographs. He looked so handsome in his tux, and Lorna looked so beautiful. My mom and dad got all dressed up and man, was it a party. He was a happy guy, and soon two boys would appear to make a family. There were periods of stability and a few periods of crazy. At first the crazy was limited to a now and then occurrence. We would hear the apologies and the promises and things would get back to normal. For a while. But eventually the crazy became the norm and the bouts of normalcy became brief respites. While change happens slowly to the land of northern Arizona, it happens all too fast to the lives of humans.

Boulders left to stand on small amounts of tightly packed sandstone dot the landscape near the Vermilion Cliffs. How long did this take? The rainfall in this area is so slight that in many places measurement is not even entertained. The millenia that it has taken to carve these rocks into standing remnants of a landscape we can only imagine can humble the passing visitor. One day they will fall. I will not be here to see that, but someone may.

Will there be an announcement? Those who have stood for uncountable years will have fallen?

Something that has been here before man walked on the dirt will someday topple, and the earth will enfold it and begin again. That’s what the earth does. It forgives, forgets, and keeps on keeping on.

I am reminded of that every time I venture to this magical place. Well, it’s magical to me.

Sort of like a hot, dry, high desert Disneyland without the crowds and fast food.

The beep of the cellphone alerted me to a message early that morning, but I didn’t check it right away. I get a lot of messages. A lot. And I was packing and getting the car ready for the drive. I stopped to check my messages just outside of Flagstaff. And there was this note in the little window: “Frank passed this morning. He was in hospice, and thought you should know.” The message was terse, and final. Like life. It was indeed a final chapter in some way, but it was also the culmination of the process of losing my brother. I lost him so long ago. The drugs and alcohol had taken a good man and made him nearly unrecognizable. His kids didn’t want much to do with him – hadn’t for a while now. Frank had used up all his credit at the “next time I will be better ” bar and they simply turned off his tab. I hear folks tell me that drugs are victimless crimes. Victimless? I beg to differ… I really really do. A man loses his sense of humanity. Brothers lose each other, mothers and fathers lose a son, a couple of good boys never knew what it was like to be around the funny and smart Frank I knew when we were younger. Victims? You bet your ass there are victims.

I got to Zion that evening and my mind was full of days long past and those uncountable days yet to come.

I was wired and restless at the hotel – I had to get outside. I had to make photographs. Photographs mean something to me. While not as permanent as the earth, a photograph becomes a touchpoint – a thought, that can be remembered with the prompt of an image. A photograph is one of the most powerful things that we make as artists. It is a moment, and a memory, and a lifetime captured in a blink of an eye.

Ansel Adams said his photographs were not about landscapes, they were metaphors; allegories with the land as his pallet. I was out to make a photograph and it didn’t matter to me what it would be. I wanted to record something on this day. This special day… a day that will never be again. A day I will always remember, and yet want so much to forget.

That evening, at dusk I made this shot of the river running through Zion. When I was shooting I was thinking of the lovely light on the river, the reflection of the clear sky, and wondering how to keep the brightly lit mountains within the range of exposure. I was making an image of a river in the dead of winter, and I wanted it to mean something to me. As I look at the image now, I don’t see the river, and the mountain. I see time measured so carefully as it flows through the canyon, carving its legacy slowly through the earth, and the mountains in the distance bathed in the light of promise.

We always plan on what is promised.

But sometimes our plans don’t work out the way we thought they would.

I miss you Frank, I have for a long time.

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Why I Think You Should Watch My creativeLIVE Show in April

Posted by wizwow on Mar 21, 2012 in Featured, LE News and Info |

Hi, gentle readers of this blog/zine… err, whatever it is.

If you have been following along for any time you know that I don’t have a lot of stuff to sell, nor do I spend much time hawking how fabulously cool I am.

Really.

But occasionally I need to do a little self-promotion and this is one of those times. I hope you bear with me. If I could indulge you for a few minutes, I would like to tell you a little bit about the upcoming creativeLIVE show/workshop/thingy I am doing.

It will be on April 5, 6, 7, and it will be a lot of fun.

And somewhat serious as well.

I got a tweet one day from @creativeLIVE wondering if I would be interested in doing a workshop with them. I had been a fan of the project for a while, and of course said “sure… talk to me…” Apparently many of you folks had emailed and talked about me in the chats, so they took an interest. And, BTW, thanks so much for that you guys… wow – appreciated.

I was asked to submit a video of me teaching, and I thought “no problem”, I have plenty of those. And I did, but there was a catch… they all pretty much sucked. Craig asked me to submit a bit of the DVD I did 5 years ago and – well, it sucked pretty bad too.

But I guess they saw through the suck and saw something I hope you all see.

A little bio for those who don’t know who I am.

 

I am not a famous, world traveling photographer. I have been a commercial photographer for over 30 years and a photographer for over 40. I have had studios in Chicago, and New York, and spent a few years in the LA market back in the day.

 

I am a working, nuts and bolts photographer /  designer, and I have run my business on cash flow from the beginning. I have never had a business loan or a line of credit. I shoot photographs and get paid for it.

 

I specialized in people, product and location work (mostly corporate) but have shot nearly every genre out there. I added graphic design to my work and by the year 2001, I was Creative Director/Partner of Ocean IMG, the third largest advertising agency in Arizona. Sitting on both sides of the “hiring” table is quite interesting to me. From being a photographer interviewing with a creative director to a creative director meeting with hopeful photographers taught me so much about the business I hadn’t realized before.

 

These days I shoot, design, do marketing and advertising for a few select clients, write and generally have a blast being creative. Oh, and I teach. Whenever I can, wherever I can, I teach.

 

At the end of things if people ask me what I would like to be remembered for, it would be the teaching. The legacy of the teacher lives in the power of the students.

I LOVE to teach. I think it is one of the most interesting things anyone can do. Sharing the knowledge of 4 decades of being a photographer, and the big ideas and small ideas that come from that life is important to me. Teaching is simply a passion with me.

To teach.

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GalleryPro: A Portfolio Tool for Photographers

Posted by wizwow on Mar 19, 2012 in Featured, Going Pro, LE News and Info | Comments Off

Back in the fall I was discussing an idea about maintaining a portfolio over multiple platforms with Scott Forman, a photographer in Omaha. Scott is also a terrific coder, as you will see.

My idea has always been to make it very easy for photographers who do not have coding skills to be able to maintain their portfolios without having to resort to a flash based system.

I wanted a place where the portfolios could be created, moved into categories and sorted to image order. And then, with a push of a button, the images are out on a photographers or designers website. Actually, web siteS.

Having a blog and a website and maybe a social media page or a Tumblr shouldn’t mean having to open up each and add/modify images for each platform. With GalleryPro, that becomes un-necessary.

Scott took my ideas, and started researching. By Christmas we had a pretty good handle on what it was going to do and now – well, we are in Beta and very very excited about the whole thing.

With GalleryPro you maintain your portfolio at one place on the web, and publish to any multiple of sites

And with GalleryPro you only need to copy a tiny line of code for the WordPress sites, or very few for traditional websites. Cut and paste… seriously easy.

We have a full set of features now, and more on the way. We are looking for some Beta users, so if you have a couple of sites and would like to try out GalleryPro, there is a lot of info on the site for you to check out. Let us know if you want a Beta account and we will set you up if possible. We have had a pretty high level of interest and we need to go slowly into our production servers to be sure we are totally secure.

BTW – no rights grab, no fuzzy copyright language… it’s your stuff, your images. Our TOS will simply state that you are allowing us to publish to the places YOU have set up on your account. We ain’t gonna do anything with YOUR work.

Here’s a video for you. After you watch it, head on over to www.gallerypro.me to check out all the other cool things it will do.

See you next time.

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Shooting With “Abundance” or “Scarcity” – A Creative Choice

Posted by wizwow on Mar 16, 2012 in Featured, Rants & Raves |

Do you shoot with an “abundance” mental approach? Or is your choice to shoot from a mental state of “scarcity”?

It makes a difference, you know. It makes a difference in how you approach your subject matter. It makes a difference in the way you see the world. It can have a dynamic effect on your imagery, and on the work that you do in post.

Scarcity breeds contempt and anger, while abundance nurtures awareness and action.

An example – and I will use the old me as the example, as I used to have a scarcity mentality. I looked at the glass of water and saw it as half empty. In fact, I wanted to know who stole the rest of the water that should have been in there so I could kick his ass.

Heading out for a shoot, I would think about what I didn’t have. What gear I wished I had that would of course make the shot way better. I didn’t have the time I needed to prepare, or do the proper scouting. I would find fault with every thing on the set, and be a taskmaster to create perfection. Anything less was not going to be good enough, and I didn’t achieve perfection – ever. No one who lacked as much as I did could ever come close to perfection.

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Improvisation with Pods… Lighting for Dramatic Effect

Posted by wizwow on Mar 12, 2012 in Featured, Studio Lighting | Comments Off

I have promised myself that I will get out and shoot more for myself this year. These “improvs” are part of the process. I limit myself to one subject and one hour. And the subjects can range over whatever happens to be near me or catch my eye.

This time it was pods I picked up while walking the dogs on Friday afternoon.

I used only speedlights for this set of images as I was curious as to how much I could do with them in an hour. The bigger guns can take more time, and I thought it would be pretty cool to work with some small strobes and modifiers.

I used the SpeedlightProKit grids and the small SpeedlightProKit softbox for these shots. One boom (LumoPro) and three stands rounded out my gear. Err… along with the three speedlights, that is.

One hour from beginning to shoot till wrapping it up.

Here is what I got.

A little video showing my setup/

Let us know if you are doing any improvs and share the links.

See ya next time.

Creative LIVE, April 5, 6, 7, 2012

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OT Sunday: Posts of Interest and Some Tunes for Fun

Posted by wizwow on Mar 11, 2012 in Off Topic Sunday, Rants & Raves |

Occasionally we get a little off topic on a Sunday post. While this one is no exception, there are some very interesting posts from photographers I think you should check out. You may have missed them along the way, or not even known about the blogs, but they are posts I have kept in my bookmarks and will share a few with you.

Derek Shapton’s blog, Planet Shapton, is one of my must reads. This article from a while back asks some interesting questions and will also be of great interest to the emerging shooters who visit this blog.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself – do you want to be a photographer, or just look like one? If you’re in it strictly to create the impression of success, and can sustain the expense required to do so, then more power to you. Enjoy your fabulousness. Otherwise, swallow your pride, buy (or rent) that second-best lens, get in your high-mileage vehicle, and start knocking on doors.

The first time I saw Rodney Smith’s iconic photographs in the pages of Vogue and Bazaar, I was hooked. His blog is one of the best around, and this piece, talking about the value of a photograph, is not to be missed.

So dear photographers, others before you fought hard and long to give you a gift. And although everyone from corporations, to magazines, to art buyers try desperately to take it away from you, I implore you not to give it away.

Most of you are young and feel the need to work, and feel powerless against larger forces. You do not realize that when you get older, having the rights to your own work will be the best gift you have as a still photographer. It will help you when you need it most.

Robert Wright is a photographer in New York. He has a heck of a blog (when he gets to it, and I wish it was more often… heh). This is a very heartfelt post on the loss of the “snapshot”.

I miss the snapshot. I realize that what I am calling the snapshot and “snapshots” are very different things. Winogrand liked to point out when asked about his “snapshot aesthetic” that the garden variety snapshot was not very haphazard or uncontrolled, what his frames seemed to be suggesting, but actually a very staged and formalized genre of picture making, a subject in front of some object, owned or mastered by the person depicted. Like the photograph above. What I mean by snapshots refers to the vernacular use of snapshots and the lack of control and innocence that film allowed. When you can’t see what you are doing instantly, you can’t be that self conscious. Or styled or controlling. The snapshot was a memento, like found beach glass, and it is made with the speed of our reaction to life, instantaneously. And permanent. I think this is why digital compact cameras have never really done it for me, they can’t focus and shoot fast enough to matter in this way.

All good posts to get you thinking on this lovely March morning.

And while you are thinking about photography, you may want to also think about listening to some music.

Up first is Samuel Barber’s Adagio. One of my favorites.

Joe Lovano tears it up in this great live recording.

And I would have traded everything to be a Pip for a while. Just to hear Gladys everynight.

My wife has been writing some short stories. Here’s one she posted on her blog last week.

Matthew May’s blog on creativity is one that I check daily. This is an interesting post on checking the ego at the door.

As business artists, we must consciously move ourselves – and those within in our sphere of influence – beyond excessive self-interest. It is the enemy of business artistry. While this may be easier for some people than for others, it is never easy.

I hope you enjoy this post. See you soon.

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Some Assignments Are Just Sweeter Than Others

Posted by wizwow on Mar 7, 2012 in Featured, PROJECT "52" | Comments Off

And that’s a fact, Jack!

Over at Project 52 (www.project52.org) we did an assignment on Desserts. The job was to make a dessert shot so inviting that it fairly SCREAMED chocolate (or at least DESSERT).

We had a lot of submissions.

Here are twenty that caught my eye… and believe me, I could have done 3 times 20, there are that many good ones there. Here is the link to the Flickr page where the images are. Take a look at the incredible work that the students are doing.

Let’s take a look:

Michele’s lovely Chocolate Dessert shot!

(Our cover shot is by Bret Doss.)

More after the jump:
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Does Culture Lead or Follow Photography? Hint – Look Up Ahead…

Posted by wizwow on Mar 6, 2012 in LE News and Info, Rants & Raves |

I think it leads it.

Simply and right out there.

This story on F-Stoppers has a lot of comments on it, most of them missing the point by a swing and a miss (sorry…).

[Shocking] Getty licenses Nick Laham Photographs Of NY Yankees Taken With iPhone

The story is about Getty licensing the images, and how this may seem odd given that the camera used was an iPhone.

“Shockingly” it didn’t surprise me.

For a lot of different reasons, but mostly it is because the culture leads photography. Photographers and their ‘pixel-peeping’ counterparts will have you believe that they set the direction of the art we call photography, but in reality it is the culture that leads the photographers.

Sometimes kicking and screaming like back in the day when Kodak came out with the first ‘Brownie” and like this article when some photographer breaks with ‘tradition’ of multi-thousand dollar pixel-pumpers to make images that someone would want to use.

Why is that surprising?

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Still Life for Article on the Challenges of Home Gardening / Pesticides…

Posted by wizwow on Mar 5, 2012 in Studio Lighting |

… or something like that.

I don’t remember the particulars on the slant of the article.

Late on a Monday, the art director called in a panic with a rush job. Could I do an illustration for a publication that was going to press on Wednesday. We had to shoot it, approve it, scan it, get it separated and into the layout in a day.

Sure, we can do that. She faxed over the page layout and the ideas for the shot and we went out to get the props instead of heading to a planned dinner. (You gotta have a very understanding spouse in this business.)

I started out at the local hardware store and they had the scoop thing, as well as some very course fertilizer. They also had some very nice work gloves that I bought. I had an idea, but I know I needed gloves anyway, so I got them and we headed back to the studio.

On the way, I dropped in on a local nursery down on Baseline and about 32nd St and made one of the guys an offer. Trade the brand new gloves for his pair of ratty old gloves. Well, it was a deal he couldn’t turn down.

So back to the studio and it was now going on 6. The AD was waiting and we got going on the shot.

She wanted:
Black and white.
“Gritty and Earthy”
Vertical
It will be framed by copy.
Small area bottom right to be used for copy (call out).

More After Jump.
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Some Fun Videos of Lighting Setups

Posted by wizwow on Mar 3, 2012 in Featured, LE News and Info, Studio Lighting |

These were quick and fun little videos I did while Regina was shooting at the one-on-one workshop she won at the Lighting Essentials Contest last winter.

She has a great little studio for shooting and making great images, and with 7 lights and all kinds of modifiers at out disposal, we simply did a lot of fun lighting setups and had a blast.

I will not apologize for the crazy video moves… it ain’t about the video, folks. I was simply having fun and thought I would share them with you.

Let me know if you try any of these, and they can be done with hot lights, speedlights or studio lights. Share them at the Flickr page or post a link to them in the comments.

Here ya go… (hit the jump)
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