So far, so good.
I’ve successfully launched four email newsletters this year. Not bad for starting totally fresh.
Content-wise, I’ve covered everything from sunshine to digicams and shared proud parent moments and books I’m into. Along the way, I’ve also added some new subscribers (thanks!).
Catch some of the action by subscribing here. I hope to see you in your inbox.
I think the pain and frustration we feel when we’re confronted with our lack of talent and skill is also the path to overcoming our talent ceiling. The pain an athlete feels when exercising is the proof that they are getting stronger.
Shawn Blanc: Overcoming the Talent Ceiling
Bingo. I’m always thinking, “I wish I could do that.” So usually, I go out and learn how. And keep at it until I’m satisfied or move on.
I’m kissing Squarespace goodbye and moving my two portrait projects to my blog. Instead of sending web traffic somewhere else, Artists In Jackson and Musicians In Jackson—as they’re updated—will live here, where visitors can learn more about my other projects.
As I was putting together the project landing pages, I remembered JTV’s Bart Hawley Show featured Musicians In Jackson late in 2019, but I never shared that conversation on this blog.
So here it is. And many thanks to Bart for having me on to talk about my musicians and artists portrait projects.
Let’s try this again.
After I launched my Artists In Jackson project, I also launched an email newsletter to keep my subjects and buyers updated. Over time, it became a periodic vehicle to share what I was doing, interested in, or working on.
Then, midway through the pandemic, I lost it. I couldn’t bring myself to work on it like I wanted to, and the newsletter slipped away from me. Mailchimp closed my account for inactivity, and I lost all the momentum I had built.
Now I’m relaunching my email newsletter with beehiiv, and I invite you and anyone interested to sign up (or re-sign up) and join me as I get this thing started again.
I’m shooting for monthly or bi-weekly, and I may try out a few new formatting ideas, but mostly, this newsletter will be an update, a few items I found around the internet, and some new blog posts.
Subscribe here, and talk soon:
I like my holiday season to be truly peaceful.
Quiet music, winding down the to-do list, cozy days at home catching up on movies, and looking back on the year that was – that’s my ideal Christmas.
Yes, we have the spirited family get-togethers and the hustle of Christmas morning with the kids. There’s all that shopping and cooking. But mentally, when I think of Christmas, I think of a quiet season—peace on Earth, goodwill toward men, that kind of thing.
This year, I’ll use the quiet to plan ahead to next year and develop some ideas.
There are always more ideas than time and energy to see them through. That’s just how I work.
But mulled long enough, like a fine dark wine or some spiced cider, good ideas get better with age.
Settle in. Enjoy the season. See you all in the new year.
One our way up north this summer, I took the scenic route (as I often do) through the little towns of Stockbridge and Perry, Michigan. Along the way, I made a mental note to stop by both towns and take photos.
I picked a foggy morning on the first day of autumn to head up to Stockbridge. I’m glad I did, because the mist gave the town square a vibe. I made a whole morning out of it, shooting along the way and back home, and it ended up being a really productive (and fun) day out.
Shot on the Canon 5D with a combo of the EF 28mm and 40mm.
Year after year, Flickr keeps trucking along. It’s still my favorite photography social/sharing platform. I’ve “met” so many great photographers on the site.
One of my go-to favorites is Zach Huggins out of Texas.
Where are you, and what do you do?
I live in Oak Cliff, a small neighborhood in Dallas, and I work as a scanning technician at an art printer. I scan artwork for printing.
How did you get started in photography?
I had a few cameras when I was a kid and in high school, and I loved snapping shots with those, but I didn’t really get into photography until college. I was a film major and I took my first digital camera on set to take behind the scenes photos, and that was when I was hooked.
What do you like about your photography, or photography in general?
I draw a lot of inspiration from movies and film, so anytime I get a photo that looks like it could be a film still, it’s a win for me. I like it when my images imply a story that started before that frame and continued after it. I love visual language, and to me, filmmaking and photography are siblings.
One of the things I love most about photography is that it has kept me curious about the world and people around me. It really is the art of seeing.
I got to know you through Flickr, where you manage several groups and bring a real sense of community to fellow photographers. What do you enjoy about building communities and sharing with other photographers?
One of the things that keeps me inspired is looking at others’ work, and Flickr is still one of the best places to see a wide variety of photography and meet other photographers. I also appreciate that, unlike a lot of other photography-oriented sites, I’m not inundated by ads and bots trying to sell me things. It keeps the focus on photography, and that’s why I have stuck around.
Originally, I started getting more active in groups to keep active on here when COVID shut down the world and I wasn’t able to go out and take the kind of images I’d like. I’ve found it’s a great way to find new photographers.
Your photos feature friends, your community, and different events you attend. Do you keep a camera with you at all times? What inspires you to shoot what you do?
That’s another thing I like about photography! It keeps me social and going out. If I want to take interesting photos, I have to go interesting places and meet interesting people.
I started carrying a camera with me at all times a long time ago, and that’s the number one thing I recommend to anyone wanting to get more into it. I got tired of seeing cool things and not being able to capture them (this was before cell phones had cameras worth a damn), so I started carrying one every day.
Even now that smartphones are pretty good, I like to have a camera because it makes me a little more intentional with my shots. If you are lugging something around and the only thing it can do is take photos, you’re more likely to do just that. 🙂
You shoot with a variety of cameras, on film and digital. Any favorites? What’s your go-to gear?
At this point, I will shoot with just about anything, and I like being able to pick up almost any camera and figure it out. During the pandemic, I started buying older cameras. I found a Youtube channel called OneMonthTwoCameras about using older ‘outdated’ equipment and fell down a rabbit hole of early 2000s digicams. I started buying cameras that I couldn’t afford when they were new, but you could get for garage sale money now. There’s something very satisfying about getting a really cool image with an old digital camera that is as slow as molasses and has limitations that modern cameras don’t.
As far as favorites, I have a couple of newer cameras I love: a Panasonic S5 and a Fuji X100v, and those are amazing for paid gigs or shows. For older digicams, there’s three that come to mind: The Canon S70, just a great all-rounder, a perfect party snapshot camera. And two Olympuses, the C-7070 and the C-7000. The 7070 has some of the best ergonomics of any camera I’ve ever used, and the C-7000 has a certain something about it that I can’t explain. On paper, it doesn’t sound great, it has a weird focal length, a slow lens, the camera itself is horribly show. But something about it clicks with me. 🙂
Any upcoming projects or shoots you’re working on?
A friend of mine released an EP last year, and we’re in the pre-production stages of making a music video for it. I take any opportunity I can to get back on set doing BTS photos; it will always be my first love with photography. I’m also hoping to do more portrait photoshoots this year, and I’m putting together a zine that I want to get printed before the year is out!
Check out more of Zach’s work on Flickr.
I moved around a lot as a kid, but I call Brooklyn, Michigan, my hometown. It’s the place I lived the longest, went to school the longest, and really grew up.
Brooklyn is a small village in southern Jackson County – the home of Michigan International Speedway, the Irish Hills, and Hometown Pizza, my first jobby-job through high school and even into college when I came home for breaks.
My family still lives in Brooklyn, but not in town, so I don’t get to see the village square every day like I used to. That’s why I took a hot August night, grabbed some pizza at Hometown, and hit Main Street for a photo walk using my trusty Canon 5D and 40mm f/2.8 lens.
So you haven’t made anything in a while.
Maybe you broke a habit, or a long streak of productivity. Perhaps you haven’t taken your camera out in months. It could be you have nothing to share.
It’s fine. Don’t apologize. When it comes back – whatever it is for you – do it, share it, and keep going.
When you’re ready, we’re ready.
This time of year is busy: it’s apple season, and that means lots of picking, juicing, and fermenting apples.
Each fall, I’ve looked for and picked apples wherever I can find them. Family trees, random trees in the park, and this year, I met a neighbor who had a half dozen McIntosh trees. So we went one early Saturday morning and picked apples.
The McIntosh apples, a half bucket of sweet yellow apples from my father-in-law’s yard, and a collection of bright red crabapples from our own backyard helped create about eight gallons of unfiltered apple juice.
From there, I split up those eight gallons into a few batches of hard cider.
The bright red juice is from the crabapples, which helps create a cider with a kick – a little something extra. When you ferment all the sugar out of juice during cider making, you have to have a little personality, and the crabs – with their acid and bitter tannins – helped add complexity.
From here, I stick a bit of yeast into a fermenter, sit the juice in a dark, cool spot, and let is sit for a few months. In the juice, the yeast turn all the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
And I had a bit of juice left over to enjoy with the kids – some “family-friendly” sweet cider, like what you buy at the orchard.
I officially started making hard cider in the fall of 2019, but this really became my pandemic project. I practiced, made hard cider out of store-bought juice, added other fruits and flavors to it. Now, I have it down pretty pat, and have even started making mead (fermented honey) and cyser (fermented apple juice mixed with honey).
There are lots of guides out there on how to make cider, but my favorites come from the folks at City Steading Brews – here’s a good starter recipe. Just know you’ll have to invest in some equipment and supplies: fermenting jugs, funnels, sanitizer, yeast.
But the juice? That’s the fun part. You can do like I do: pick and juice your own, using a standard home juicer. Or you can pick up a simple gallon of cider from your local orchard (just make sure it has no preservatives in it – ascorbic acid is okay), bring it home, and have it start bubbling into hard cider in no time.
Much like photography, the process is just as fun as the final results – except with cider, you get to drink it.
For my last two big portrait projects, Artists In Jackson and Musicians In Jackson, my goal was to interview and photograph local creatives and assemble those stories into a book. Prep, execute, deliver – all in one big thing.
I had the thought: what if, instead of treating them as projects, I treat them as platforms.
Instead of disappearing for a few months and coming out with a deliverable – like Moses carrying down a photo book carved in stone and delivered by divine inspiration – those projects become a channel that has regularly updated photos and stories. Instead of releasing a set of stories as a book, I keep releasing stories and never really finish.
Now, I could collect those stories and photos – say, every 20 – into something like a book. But the book isn’t the point. The doing is the point. It keeps building, more like a seasonal Netflix show than a daily newspaper.
This would relieve some of the pressure of feeling like I had to make a collection of something. As an alternative, I keep writing and making pictures and posting something when I have time. These projects become more like living, breathing websites than printed, finished books. The stories then become material for social media, newsletters, and website updates, rather than the reverse.
I’ve been collecting lists of creatives that I missed out on the first time around. By building and adding to that list, I can keep the stories coming – as long as I’m alive to tell them, potentially.
Not projects. Platforms.
I’m not Catholic, but I do love the idea of giving stuff up for a limited time from now through Easter. I’m in the Ben Franklin school of self-experimentation, and I’ve been giving up things I love for years. Potatoes, coffee (ugh! that was a rough one), alcohol – limitations are good, and knowing you can survive without these things builds character.
This video by HealthyGamerGG kick-started my flirtations with Lent deprivation this year. I was initially attracted to the title (“Why Finding Purpose Is SO HARD Today”), but after watching, Dr. Alok Kanojia’s points made a lot of sense about life in general.
I do tend to stuff my brain with external stimuli. I don’t let myself get bored anymore. And while I’ve taken up meditation again this year, it is a bummer to read social media all the time and not have time to just sit and think.
So for Lent, I gave up Twitter.
Twitter is a trashbin on fire these days, with all the behind-the-scenes ownership and business fumbles it’s made. I choose not to follow that stuff closely, but I have noticed that Twitter mostly brings me negative news. It’s a bummer to scroll through tweets every day. Giving it up means not allowing that negativity into my brain. It also means more quiet time to do something else.
Like edit photos! Or take photos! Or anything else that actually brings me joy.
While this blog post will appear on Twitter, thanks to a WordPress plugin, I won’t see it or the reaction. Instead, I can devote more time to being bored, thinking about my purpose, and reducing my overall anxiety.
Here’s a harsh truth: I’ve taken fewer photos each passing year since 2015.
It’s not for lack of trying or interest. No, it’s mostly because the rest of life got busier – three kids, a demanding job, a new house, chores, spending time with family, etc.
(Another consequence of moving home and work is that I don’t have an interesting commute anymore. It’s mostly city and highway driving instead of the beautiful back country roads that used to fuel my hobby.)
That means, besides family vacations and a rare sunbeam coming into the home office, I have fewer and fewer photos to take, edit, and post for public consumption. And I miss doing that! I miss the process of capturing pictures and making them my own.
Lately, my solution has been to go back and rediscover some of my past work. I can look at it with fresh eyes, and tinker a bit. I have a good selection of photos that I’ve taken but never touched or shared in the years since.
Take my film portraits from the Musicians In Jackson project. I was initially so dissatisfied with how they turned out that I shelved them in favor of the digital versions. Now, looking back at them, they were actually pretty fun, and using a bit of Lightroom magic, I can make them look how I prefer.
There’s a ton of abandoned pictures and others that are stuck in a Lightroom folder somewhere. All I have to do is look for them, play with the sliders, and boom – something to share.
Now, that also means I’ll eventually run out. And I can’t fix the not-enough-time-for-picture-making problem – not easily. But this scratches the creative itch well enough to keep me busy for a while.
Is there a word for “guilt over not making something?” I’m sure there’s a German word out there that expresses this sentiment perfectly: That feeling of remorse for not making or doing anything in a while.
There’s productivity guilt, but that’s not exactly the same thing. I’m talking hobbies and interests, not work.
Here at the year’s end, that’s been me. Sure, I make photographs all the time. But I feel guilty for not having any big projects in the works. I have ideas, but I always have ideas.
Instead, I have to tell myself it’s okay to take a break. Recharge my batteries. Start anew.
My bet is that once I start again, it’ll be hard to stop.
Have a great, safe holiday season and a very happy new year.
When your favorite band or musicians compiles a greatest hits album, it’s usually a collection of their singles and fan favorites. Over a long career, a productive band or artist will have enough singles to make a good greatest hits record. Take Genesis or the Temptations – multi-decade output combined with hit singles makes for a representation of the artists’ career.
Now, a greatest hits album may not include your favorite song from that musical act’s portfolio. For me, “Supper’s Ready” is my go-to Genesis song, but it’s not considered a “greatest hit” on their album. Too long or too weird, I imagine.
How about for visual artistic output? How does one compile a list of “greatest hits” in photography, painting, or video work? Do you pick your favorites, or someone else’s favorites?
Brooks Jensen at LensWork had me thinking about my own work, and what I would consider my best pictures. In fact, I recently submitted a few images to Flickr’s World Photography Day contest. I had to think about what are my best people and nature images, out of all the hundreds and maybe thousands I’ve taken over the years. It was a tough exercise, combing through and wondering, what are my “greatest hits?”
Do I pick the popular images? Or the ones I consider to be my best? If I start picking my favorites, it could be a random picture of one of my kids, one that I hold dearly in my heart.
It’s the same if you’ve ever had to develop a portfolio of images to share with others: your best wedding photographs, or your top artistic representations. How do you pick?
Like musicians, it could be a combination of popularity along with your own personal tastes that make a “greatest hits” collection. If the Rolling Stones don’t want to play a popular song, they leave it off the playlist – no sense in spending effort on a song for which the band has no passion, right?
Looking at photography and our best-of list, we can use the same metric to guide us: what do people like? What do I like, too?
There’s your list.
“A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.” – Phyllis McGinley
For those of us that embrace it, part of living the liberal arts lifestyle is you’re interested in everything. You get to know a little about a lot, which makes you great at trivia, but maybe not so great at developing a long-term skillset. “A mile wide and an inch deep,” and all those other cliches, come from a place of truth.
I have 20 different ciders and beers in my fridge because VaRiETy iS thE sPIce oF LiFe or something.
This is true for hobbies as well, and as I look back, I can see the corpses of a handful of hobbies I’ve picked up, absorbed, and then left behind. It’s had me thinking about why I do this sort of thing, and what are the downsides. Is there any relief for this sort of “serial hobby” behavior and mindset? Is there anything worth correcting?
What is a “serial hobbyist,” anyway? Here’s what The Hobbyist Girl has to say:
Serial hobbyists get fully engrossed in the hobby of the moment, learns as much as she can very quickly, can think of nothing else and does nothing else for a while, then gets bored, loses interest, and moves on to the next shiny new hobby.
I can see all of the above in myself: going from one interest to the next; going all-in on something to learn everything there is about it; all while not ever completely leaving a hobby behind.
Lately, I’ve picked up my Newton Poetry blog after a five-year absence, only to find the blog had shut down sometime in the past due to a WordPress and database error. That’s fixed, but now I’m surrounded by my old Apple Newtons and Macintoshes and reliving some past blogging glory from my previous hobby.
There is something gratifying about rediscovering a hobby, like chatting with a long-lost friend. But it can also be like going out again with an ex, and you start to remember why you left.
Giving some credit to photography – for me, it’s always been there. I’ve consistently been the shutterbug in my family and group of friends. Taking up photography was simply “getting serious” about this ever-present activity. And, it’s been my longest-term hobby, lasting more than 10 years since I picked up my first DSLR (a Canon T1i – remember those?).
Some hobbies stick around forever. I’ve always loved to write, read, spend time outside, play a Mario or Zelda video game, and I’m starting to count photography in that “always” list.
Except for regret, there’s little in terms of downsides to being a serial hobbyist. You do spend money on hobbies, but not so much that your financial wellness is in jeopardy. There are space and clutter considerations, and that became the big issue with my classic Mac collecting. When I bought my first house, I had more space to collect – but it made me stop and think, “Do I really want to fill up my new home with G3-era Macs?” So I stopped.
Photography can be an expensive hobby, but it can generate income as well. Most of my new gear was paid for by doing wedding gigs. Now, I’ve pretty much stopped collecting any new photography gear because I have everything I’d ever need. Any new acquisitions were mostly gifts from people who knew I was a photographer – in fact, that’s how I received most of my film cameras. Still, all of that photo gear still only fills two boxes next to my desk.
For me, the biggest downside is – what’s next? What is going to take over my brain and consume all of my short-term passion? Because if the past is any indication, there’s another hobby with my name on it, right around the corner.
And there, too – maybe there’s no downside at all. Maybe this is just me.
Here in our yard, we’ve noticed a lot of life this summer: we have two new skunks roaming our bush edge, a couple of aggressive squirrels that eat our bird seed, and now a gangbuster garden.
My garden memories go as far back as my memory goes: digging potatoes with my grandpa as a toddler, eating fresh green beans my grandma would cook southern-style. As soon as I had a home of my own, I planted a small garden in the back lot.
When we moved, this house had three years of not-great gardens. For one, the neighbors’ mulberry tree shaded the plot too much. And for two, maybe the weather? It’s hard to say.
But this year, it’s the biggest, healthiest garden I’ve ever had. It’s so big, it’s creeping into the neighbors’ yard. I told them whatever grows on their side of the fence, they can keep.
So I grabbed the macro lens and captured the texture and tendrils of this banner-year garden – the fuzzy stems, the searching vines, and the green and light-thirsty leaves.
Growing a garden has its benefits, of course. It’s good to get your hands dirty. It’s great to eat healthily. And the convenience factor – it’s so great to pick fresh lettuce and make a salad for lunch.
Along with cider, the garden has been my escape from the pandemic. Growing a garden is mostly a passive activity. You just let the water and sunshine do their thing. But I do wander out back to check on its progress, make sure the bugs aren’t eating all the greens, and picking whatever is ripe and ready.
My other hope is that, someday, the kids will remember eating fresh veggies from the garden – much like I did as a kid – and then want to grow their own.
It’s not much, but as the plague and politics and craziness gets worse, it’s good to grow something for a change.
It’s easy: grab three bottles of Simply Apple, a bit of yeast, mix them together, and then wait a while. A week or two is enough.
After that, add something else. This spring, I’ve tried blueberries, grapefruit, mixed berries, and now honey. A few reusable bottles, a bit more time to mature in the bottle, and you have yourself a nice summertime drink.
It keeps me busy. I have the process down pretty pat by now. And with all this time on my hands, I’m experimenting with more fruits. Maybe a pineapple, maybe a peach when they come into season, or some tart cherries if the crop survived our late spring snowstorms.
Fruit, yeast, and time. All we have is time.
Now that the whole world is under quarantine, what’s a photographer to do? Especially if you’re stuck at home? I think this is a great time to work on a few photography projects, and here are a few ideas to help keep your mind off the outside world.
This time of year, the light is changing dramatically. Photograph your home, your yard, your neighborhood, and pay special attention to how the light transforms. I’ve made this a hobby inside a hobby. It’s how I explore spaces and get to know a place.
Take advantage of being closer to the people in your life, now that most public events are canceled or on hold. Sit your significant other down next to a window and take their portrait. Photograph your kids, now home from school, at play. Invite friends over for drinks (nothing celebrates global chaos like booze) and make it a project.
Now’s a great time to dust off your old gear, wipe down your lenses, empty out your memory cards, and clean out your camera bag. I know my Canon 5D has a notoriously dirty sensor. My batteries probably need a good recharge. Grab your gear, turn on some music, and get to work.
My Lightroom catalog has folders and folders full of unedited photos. My iPhone photos could use a backup. My whole photo collection could use an external hard drive backup. It’s a great time to take care of organizing your photos, updating your metadata, and caring for the digital side of your photography.
Whether it’s individual prints or a book, now that you’ve organized your photo collection, you can put those beautiful pictures on paper for safe-keeping. Snapfish sends me an email every day talking about their photobook sales. Why not take an album full of your 2019 photos and make a photobook? You can even do it on your mobile device.
Edit your photography website. Pre-write a bunch of blog posts with idea starters. Update your social profiles. Do some digital housecleaning.
Always wanted to try out film photography? Or take a stab at still life? Now’s the time to try something new – or, more accurately, it’s always a great time to try something new.
What are you doing to keep yourself busy?
What’s easy for me? It’s easy to brainstorm an idea – to come up with a creative project that I want to see out in the world.
It’s also easy to ship that idea once everything finished, to cross the finish line with the idea and have it live in the world
What am I not good at? The middle. The gut check, the finer details, or thinking through the unthought-of things. The implementation of that original idea.
For example, in a photo project, coming up with my subject theme comes naturally. I want to photograph creative people in my community.
But what then? Where do I start? How do I find subjects? What do I do when things get difficult?
Once I have that figured out, it’s easy for me to take the outputs and put them together in a finished product. I get a deep thrill out of that final crunch to ship something on a self-imposed deadline.
In the middle, I know I need help and guidance on getting something started. Imagine pushing a car that’s standing still. It’s easy to figure out I need to move it, and once it’s in motion I know where I want to go. But getting past inertia? It’s tough for me.
What works in that middle is to find a person – a colleague, or a family member, or friend – who provides good, honest feedback and advice. I’m humble enough to know when I need help, and humble enough to ask for it when I’m having trouble getting going.
Otherwise, I’d be stuck in the middle.
Our local art and history museum has an annual summer event, the Art, Beer, & Wine Festival, which features those three things on a (usually) beautiful June day. I often wonder about participating in the festival – maybe as a way to get some of my photography out there, promote my books and projects, and meet more people around town.
But then I think about the whole art fair crowd, and what you need to do to appeal to a mass audience like that, and I wonder if my work is the kind of stuff that would be interesting. My portrait projects might be good conversation starters because they feature local creatives doing interesting things – many of whom are usually at the fair.
The cost is fairly minimal, but you do have to devote an entire day to standing out in the sun. It’s a fun event, one of the big draws on Jackson’s summertime event calendar. And there’s always the try-it-out-and-see-how-it-goes philosophy, where if it goes well, great, and if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t do it again.
The benefit would be spreading the word about my latest musicians project, as well as reminding people about my artists project. I might sell a few books, and get some subscribers to my email list. Would I make some photo prints to sell as well? If so, how many, and how much do I sell them for? Do I want a bunch of inventory sitting around after this festival is over?
When I approach a project like this, it’s best to keep a clear goal in mind.
This year, it would be to promote Musicians In Jackson, and remind people about Artists In Jackson. In conversation, I could ask for suggestions on my next project, too. Have some photos of the musicians and artists on hand to see the final products, and offer the book for purchase.
Keep it narrow. Keep it focused.
Many artists are fine with making their work and leaving it at that. For my projects, since they are about the community I live in, part of my job has to be to let people know about the work. A bit of that is personal outreach, a bit is letting the musicians and artists promote the project to people they know, a bit is local media efforts.
The festival could be a new way to get the word out: taking my photography directly to the community, in person, where I can talk about my goals and spark discussions.
The art fair-type approach to selling my photography is not appealing; I don’t think I’m that type of photographer. But if I look at the festival as a public relations tactic, I can keep the whole experience in focus with clear goals.
Writing non-fiction, a writer is basically organizing information (facts, data, analysis, observations) for your audience. It’s creative filtering, using words, sentences, and paragraphs to make sense of the world.
With photography, a photographer does much of the same, but uses portraits, pictures, and projects to organize visual information and tell a story to an audience.
Words are the basic units of measurement when writing. In photography, it’s the individual photograph. But for both, it takes talent and experience to make those basic units do work in an audience’s mind. What do they say when put together?
Taking photos is fun, but organizing information is where photography’s true power shines through.
After two years of work, interviews, and shooting, my newest community portrait project, Musicians In Jackson, is live and available.
The project, like my previous Artists In Jackson project, is available on the web and in book form. It features local musicians doing interesting things. Each of them represents a unique facet of Jackson’s creative community, from musical theatre to rap to folk, and many styles and media channels in between.
Together, they help make our small Midwestern city a great place to live, work, and play. They help entertain us, heal us, remind us, and connect us. Our musical scene is small, but tight-knit, and gets a ton of support thanks to local venues that value arts and culture. Jackson musicians are just as talented as anywhere else.
Musicians In Jackson took longer than I expected, and I struggled along the way to get the portraits, interviews, and stories done. Something snapped in me earlier this year, where I said to myself, “Enough is enough.” This summer, I made an arbitrary deadline – autumn 2019 – put it out into the world, and then worked like hell to finish the project.
And here it is. I’m excited to share these 14 local musicians with you, and I ask for your support: purchase the book, visit the website, and help me spread the word.
Luckily, our neighbors and the in-laws have apple trees weighed down with apples this year. That meant plenty of fruit for the juicing and fermenting I had in mind.
I’ve long been a cider fan – an apple fan in general – and consider owning an orchard one of my retirement goals. Somewhere along the line, I got the bug to try my hand and making my own hard cider, taking advantage of all the modern brew making equipment and methods. Right here in town, we have a home brewery store with all the supplies I need. That, with some online advice, and I could easily give a batch a try.
There’s a lot to do: wash the apples, juice the apples, sterilize the equipment, add the yeast, feed the yeast, etc.
But first, I had to grab six little hands to help me pick and wash apples from the neighborhood.
Projects don’t need to be fancy, or long, or all that involved.
Sometimes, all you need is an idea and a bit of time to see it through. In this case, it was playing in the backyard with the kids and wondering, how many corners can I find?
This has been my way out of a recent photography slump: simply shooting what’s around me, and finding something creative to say with my everyday surroundings.
Spring and summer means more time outside, more birthday parties and events, more walking and ice cream shop visits and hiking. All creative fuel for making photos. All slump busters.