“Take only what you need to survive.” – Captain Lone Starr, Spaceballs
How much photography technique is too much?
Is it good enough to learn the techniques to be able to do what you want to do? To be able to say what you need to say?
What good is any more technique?
The liberal artist in me says learn all you can – simply for learning’s sake. I’m a lifelong self-educator. Part of me can’t help but dive into technique and tools and tips just because that’s how my brain works. It’s a sponge.
But then I hit a skill ceiling. I don’t need to learn much more about Photoshop, or exposure compensation, or lighting, because I have just enough to be able to express myself properly.
From here, with what I know now, the rest is just noise.
Out here, where the roads are named after the family farms, we slide into the quiet season.
It’s all warm colors here at Adams Farm: yellows and reds and oranges. A few greens, but mostly the rustic hue of autumn.
The textures are everywhere, from smooth pumpkins and apples to mottled squashes of every different shape and size.
We’re crazy about the foods of autumn. I could live on apples and squash, while the kids transform into sticky hornet magnets with cider and donuts. We wipe our hands of cinnamon and sugar, we feel for the rigid pumpkin stems, and we toss the bumpy buttercup from crate to wagon.
This is what we live for – the texture of the season.
It’s almost like all this is a bit too cool for Jackson.
International mural artists? Tons of people downtown? Beauty where once there was empty brick?
It all happened, thanks to the Bright Walls mural festival, this past week. But really, it started months ago with one of the best marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t go anywhere in town without seeing that sunrise-and-brick logo. The campaign worked, too, because people – both Jackson natives and out-of-towners – showed up in droves, slowing down traffic in an otherwise sleepy downtown.
Maybe it’s obvious, but here, right in front of all of us, was the power of art on display. It was a spectacle, sure, but it was also a reason to celebrate.
This is usually our springtime ritual, heading to the Hobbit Place, grabbing flowers and thinking about landscape decorations.
For this year, we went full autumn: mums, pumpkins, decorative gourds – the whole thing. As a Tolkien fan, I love the greenhouse’s name. As a person who cares about their yard, I appreciate their selection.
Tick tock goes the beat of the year. On and on we slide into fall.
After our Wisconsin summer vacation, I had the thought to take the photos from the trip and make a little picture book out of them.
This week, I did just that after receiving a discount email from Snapfish. Just $12 for an 8×11″ book with 20 pages? Sold.
I rarely jump on those deals when I get them, but once in a while the opportunity and the idea come together to make something happen.
There are a ton of photo printing companies out there, just begging you to make something. These places are constantly sending out coupons and discounts. Test a few out, see what you like, and then wait for the sale emails to come in. It’s too affordable not to something.
It was about 7:45 p.m. Saturday when I swore for the first time. It wouldn’t be the last.
That first time, it was because Michigan, early on, was looking paltry against Notre Dame, and the weatherman kept interrupting the football game to tell us a thunderstorm was heading toward Jackson.
After that, I swore because a tornado was making a mess of our neighborhood – just 15 minutes later.
The second time I swore was because I watched a giant oak limb fall into our street, snapping the power lines and cutting our electricity. I don’t remember what exactly I said, but it was enough for my wife to spring into action, grabbing the kids and heading to the basement.
After that, it was a blur: torrential rain, downed limbs, no power, giant trees snapped in two, and a little crowd of drenched birds, shivering and frightened, gathered around a spared maple.
With the power gone, we made the best of our quiet night in the house. The next morning, we woke up to a new view of the sky: those majestic oaks that shaded our house were gone, as was a hunk of the magnolia in the back yard. It covered our dining room window, making it feel like we were in the middle of a hedgerow.
We were lucky. Our neighbors got the worst of it, losing most of their front yard trees and a few others – plus it was their power line I watched get cut in two. A block down, a street fell across the street, smashing a Cutlas Sierra. Another oak fell on top of a house, the trunk teetering like a seesaw. Strangely, a block or two in either direction, it looked like no storm had come through at all. Just our luck.
So we spent the next two days cleaning up from the confirmed tornado. Much like some John Mellenkamp song, we were small town people helping our neighbors, chipping in with a rake or a chainsaw when we could.
This pilgrimage to Pentwater, Michigan, is a nearly annual tradition for us. Unlike many Lake Michigan towns on the western side of the state, Pentwater isn’t touristy like cities like South Haven. It’s quieter and smaller here.
We have our usual spots: the fish market, with some of best fish and chips around; the go kart track; the quiet little beach on Lake Michigan; the farmers market; and the Methodist family camp where my wife spent her summers.
This is our Michigan holiday, in a nutshell – along Lake Michigan, enjoying the sunshine and the food and summer before it leaves us again.
As with any vacation, getting back home feels like you never left. Even with a week and a modest agenda, time flies on holiday.
But we certainly made the best of it. One or two things per day, venturing out and about this peninsula, we felt like we went on enough adventures while still managing three kiddos.
For my photographic eyes, it was plenty. Those red cherries, that blue Great Lake, those violet lavender blossoms, the golden sunsets, and – just like Michigan – plenty of green everywhere we went.
Two out of the three kids would probably never remember this family vacation. For me, it was memorable enough to consider creating a photo book of our summer trip – a reminder of where we went and what we saw. And perhaps a reminder for if and when we consider this place again.
Taking photos is how I get to know a place. With any new home, or job, or vacation destination, my camera becomes a sixth sense – another way to feel the vibes of a location.
To our family, this little corner of Door County, Wisconsin was completely new, yet spiritually familiar. We knew this lake, we knew these trees, we understood this climate. What was different was the little touches of Scandinavian culture (Lutheran Churches everywhere!), and the supper clubs, and fish boils – those little touches of Wisconsin that made us feel we were really somewhere new.
This cabin, too, reminded me so much of my grandparents’ farm house. The slanted room, the crawl spaces, the outdated furniture – it was like stepping back into my own past.
Here on the other side of the Niagara Escarpment, we felt with our eyes and tasted with our sight.
I knew I wanted to go to Wisconsin, that upper midwest state on the other side of Lake Michigan. My dad stayed at the Wisconsin Dells, in a rustic cabin, and I figured we could do some fun family things while trying to avoid too much of the touristy parts.
But we love Lake Michigan. What if we could spend a whole week in one spot, by the big lake, and keep it quiet?
I did a bit of research, and found Door County – the little peninsula that sticks out into Lake Michigan, north of Green Bay. In essence, it’s a more westerly version of northern Michigan: cherry orchards, lakeside towns, fishing charters, and a bit of that stepping-back-in-time feeling when you visit our Upper Peninsula.
And boy did we step back in time. The cabin we found, near Sturgeon Bay, barely had cell coverage. It was barely updated since the early 1970s. It was perfect.
We had a little beach down by the lake, we could cook a random meal right there at the cabin, and it served as a launching point for plenty of fun family activities.
It’s been a busy month. We had our family vacation (more on that soon), and I did some traveling for work. Along the way, I had big plans for my musicians project, even paying for studio space for the month.
Last night, I had my first subject join me in the space for a portrait session. It took the whole month of July for me to get one musician in the studio. That left 29 other unproductive days.
Finally, after things settled down, I hit a day last week when I got fed up with my lack of progress and jumped back into the project. I sent some emails, confirmed some dates, and boom – photo making.
It’s easy to feel guilty over all that lost time. I’ve beaten myself up all month long, but enough is enough. All it takes is pushing one pebble down the hill, and pretty soon you have an avalanche. For me, the pebble was sending an email invitation to a stranger.
Few things have been constants in my photography hobby. Not cameras, not lenses, not subjects, not styles.
The thing that has remained constant: the On Taking Pictures podcast by Bill Wadman and Jeffery Saddoris.
The duo just wrapped up their last episode, number 325, after putting out six years worth of weekly, hour-plus shows. We, as listeners, tuned in as they discussed the art and craft of photography, the creative method, art culture, and personal struggles. Bill and Jeffery built an audience and a community, and as they did so, On Taking Pictures become a can’t-miss podcast for me each week.
In fact, as I think about my photography practice, I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t listening and learning at the same time. OTP was responsible for one of my first photography projects, and Bill and Jeffery helped me think of projects as larger bodies of work – something that has helped me create my portrait projects, and much more.
Even as my photography practiced has waxed and waned, especially lately, Bill and Jeffery helped me stay in touch with my passion. They reminded me that photography was a worthy hobby, and that some issues – what we view as “good” work, how others see our work, how much of a difference photography can make – may never be resolved. Their point? That lack of resolution was okay. It was normal.
Gear was sometimes a topic, but rarely a subject of their show. Instead, what they focused on was the art stuff: exhibitions, project goals, their Photographers of the Week. Cameras were important, but never as important as the subject.
OTP was a great show – a perfect photography podcast, when so many others have come and gone, or lost my interest. I’ll miss it. The good news is, the shows are archived at 5by5 for future listeners.
“Turns out the stuff that makes you happy is mostly everyday and boring.” – Hugh MacLeod
My bio says that I use photography as an excuse for adventure. But lately, being boring is far more attractive to me.
It could be getting older, becoming a parent, priorities shifting, all that. Anymore, I feel like simply photographing what I see, around the house, or on a walk, is plenty satisfying.
I look back at my early landscape photography, and all the abandoned work I did, and I recognize the “adventure” involved in making those pictures. Part of me misses that phase of my photography – the hunger to wake up early on a foggy morning and watch the sunrise, making lovely images all the while.
When I get the chance, I still do that kind of stuff. But I don’t actively seek it out anymore. I’m becoming boring.
I still have my portrait projects, and the kids are always great photo subjects. I work on the occasional family portrait session. It’s just that the adventure stuff has taken a backseat.
That’s the great part about photography as a hobby: I don’t have to feel guilt about settling into a groove.
One year ago today, I purchased a Nintendo Switch, and made The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild the first game in our library. That first Friday night I stayed up until the Switch’s battery ran out, playing this wonderful adventure game.
Since that adventure started one year ago, I’ve been a bit of a Zelda collection hound, grabbing books and figures and merchandise where I can find them. The music, though, has been elusive.
I’ve been playing the “Hateno Village theme” nonstop for a year now, but now I own a copy – along with all the other great tracks from the game (some standouts include Tarrey Town, Waterside, Riding at Night, and any of the other village themes) in this beautiful collector’s package. After loading the tracks into iTunes, the set makes a nice edition to my Zelda-theme bookshelf.
The set even comes with a little playbutton: like a mini MP3 player that holds the Hyrule Field theme from each Legend of Zelda title. A nice bonus.
With this soundtrack set, it’ll be another year filled with great Zelda tunes at our house.
This June I’m participating in Essa Art’sPeople, Places & Things exhibition, featuring three local-ish artists presenting those three topics.
Me? I’m taking on the “places” part. In spite of my avoidance of landscape photography, I have enough in the catalog to be noticeable, especially with my focus on our local Michigan landscapes. I’ll be featuring several landscape images from rural areas from my past commutes to and from work. It’s the kind of scenery I don’t see anymore, but I can look back on them and remember how much fun I had taking them.
The gallery is hosting a reception on Saturday, June 9 with all the participating artists. If you’re in the area, and you’re free, I hope to see you there.
Wrapping up my latest project, I thought about what kickstarted the whole thing.
It was the film. Lomography advertised a new, limited-run film stock that you had to buy in bulk – 10 boxes an order. That got my brain, and my math, going: 10 boxes of 36 exposure film equals about a year’s worth of shots, if you took one shot per day.
Boom. A project.
Sometimes we don’t need grand ideas for personal projects. Sometimes it’s the gear that sparks an idea.
Grab a cheap-o camera and see what kind of project you can make out of it. Take a simple piece of equipment – a vintage lens, or twin-lens reflex camera – and see where it leads you.
