Just Like the Rest
Ann Arbor, Michigan
In Conversation
This is what I miss about portrait projects.
The conversation, the sharing of experience, the laughing and joking around. Remembering local history. Swapping stories. Sharing a complete and consuming love of music.
Last time, it was about art and creativity, about the Jackson market and the struggles of being a small-city artist.
This time, it’s a lot of same, except you swap paint brushes and cameras for guitars and microphones.
It’s good to be back.
[Help the Musicians In Jackson project on Kickstarter!]
Let’s Do This: Musicians In Jackson on Kickstarter
Away we go.
I’m launching my new community portrait project, Musicians In Jackson, on Kickstarter today.
A week ago, I kicked off the project at my studio open house. But this project has been in the works for almost a year now. I’ve thought and thought about it for so long, and now it’s a real thing in the world that I’m working on.
It involves capturing local Jackson, Michigan musicians on black and white medium format film through the summer. I’ll capture our conversations, make portraits, and share the creative love in my hometown.
Why Kickstarter? There are film costs, and the studio space to rent, and photographic prints to produce. It’s also a way to preorder prints or the book when it’s released this holiday season. Really, it’s a way to support creative endeavors like these community portrait projects.
I’d appreciate it if you could help me spread the word, and make a pledge before July 16 on Kickstarter. I also hope you’ll join me for the ride.
Camera Relationships
“Just like any real human relationship, there are better looking, smarter, richer people out there,” says Olivier Duong. “But what really counts is what you do together.”
On Camera Resale Value
Chris Gampat at the Phoblographer breaks down the resale value of the major camera brands, both film and digital.
It’s such a strange way to think about buying a camera.
If I’m going to make an investment in a camera or lenses, I’m going to think about the lifespan of the equipment and how much work I can get done with it. Resale value doesn’t enter into the do-I-buy-it equation at all.
For me, I’d rather have a well-used camera that helps me make photographs than worry about selling it down the road.
Studio Lite
The space isn’t big, and it’s not that easy to find.
But after Friday’s studio open house, I learned that the space is perfect for me and what I’m trying to do.
I had a good group of friends, family, and artists join me in the new studio space. We snacked, and drank, and made music, and made portraits. The kids had a good time exploring the workout room next door, while I had fun watching the light go from “wow” to “gorgeous” over the evening.
You know that feeling where you’re kind of dreading doing something, because of either fear, uncertainty, or doubt? And then once you start doing, those feelings fade away, and you say to yourself, “Yeah, this is totally doable?”
That was me Friday night.
And this is them.
Terrible Fate
Behind the scenes video on the making of Majora’s Mask: Terrible Fate.
(Maybe go watch the original first – it’s something.)
There’s no doubt that a small group of talented people doing something they love is all the reward needed. “Fan-made short film” is often shorthand for “better than anything else out there.”
Begging For Compact Cameras
Bellamy Hunt at Japan Camera Hunter argues for a new compact film camera:
One of the large makers needs to step up to the plate and make a compact film camera. And I am not saying this on a whim or with a wistful idea of halcyon days. I get more requests for compact cameras than I could ever fulfill, even if I had the cameras. People are prepared to spend nearly $1000 for an old Contax or Ricoh, knowing full well that it could simply stop working at any point and there would be nothing they could do about it.
Hunt’s point – that the current stock of compact cameras is dwindling, and getting more expensive – tells me that there’s a market for a new film camera out there, if someone would just take a chance on making one. And with more and more companies investing in film again, photographers need new tools to take advantage of those film stocks.
Compact cameras are my favorite kind of camera, and I’m not alone. The company that stepped up and started making new film cameras again would gain more than money – they’d earn a whole bunch of goodwill.
Studio Open House
Tomorrow night I’m hosting a studio open house in downtown Jackson.
It’s partly to kick off my next portrait project, partly to test out the new space, and partly as a big “thank you” to folks around town who have supported my projects. Plus I have a few people whose portrait I’ve wanted to make for a while now. So, bonus.
Details at my Musicians In Jackson page. Hope to see you there.
Something Of A Legend
Thomas Fitzgerald on shooting with classic gear, like his old Canon 5D:
Coupled with a 50mm lens, it’s a great option for street shooting. It feels like shooting with a film camera in some respects. I’ve grown quite fond of mine again recently, and I’ve been shooting with it more and more lately.
“Like shooting with a film camera” – I get that, too, especially because all it does it shoot straight-up stills.
The Grind
The Grind isn’t the photographs.
The Grind is the selecting your location, choosing which equipment to bring, selecting a film stock, lining up subjects, finding an open slot in your schedule, making time to send/respond to emails, editing the photos when you’re finished with the shoot, picking your favorite picture to present to the world, sending a select few to the subject, backing up your Lightroom library…
But that’s what “photography” means – it’s the photographs, and it’s the Grind to get them made.
Lately, it’s the Grind that has me feeling overwhelmed. If I can pick away at it, bit by bit, I do okay. Otherwise, I feel like I’m swimming in “photography.”
Better learn to love the Grind if you really want to accomplish that project.
Studio Space Unlocked
My long-sought idea for having a studio is now complete. I just signed on a summer agreement with a merchant in downtown Jackson, and am super excited to get started.
There’s a bit of clean-up and moving to do, and I’ll need to get comfortable with the space. But it’s mine for a few months.
Let’s get started.
Camera Mall Interview
Interview with me over at the Camera Mall Facebook page, touching on my projects and style.
Many thanks to my photo pal Jamie MacDonald (above, on one of our urbexing trips) for the questions, and to the Camera Mall for the post. They’re my go-to place for film purchasing and development here lately. It’s nice to have a retail location two blocks away from work here in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Call A Plan A Guess
Pulaski, Michigan
Jason Fried at Signal vs. Noise:
Busting your ass planning something important? Feel like you can’t proceed until you have a bulletproof plan in place? Replace “plan” with “guess” and take it easy. That’s all plans really are anyway: guesses.
As my old boss used to say, plan the work and work the plan.
But I take the same approach to planning as I do for traveling: set up the ground rules and structure, and then let real life interject – as it always does.
Olympus Trip 35
If constraints help to fuel creativity, then consider the Olympus Trip 35 film camera my new constraint.
I picked up my copy on eBay from Light Burn Photo’s store last year – a great selection of re-skinned film cameras. The brown leather wrap is right up my alley.
Get this: You have four focusing zones. Close, near, far, and very far. That’s it. You have 1-6 meters to focus, or infinity.
And you can set the aperture, but the camera only has two shutter speeds: 1/200 and 1/40. The ISO dial goes from 25-400. Talk about constraints.
The results are pretty great, though, from what I’ve seen. I loaded a roll of Lomography 400 color film and picked away at it since the fall.
One niggle: the zone focusing is tricky to master. Quite a few of my shots had the wrong zone picked. I almost prefer full manual focus to this system.
It’s super small and light, and almost fully automatic, meaning I can take it anywhere and shoot. And boy, have I.
(Side note: film photography is saving my butt lately. It’s the one experiment that I can mess around with when I feel like it and not feel any pressure to post recent photos. It’s no-pressure photography, and I’m really digging it.)
A Kick In the Butt
I’ll admit that getting going with new creative projects has been a challenge lately. With the move, and the new baby, it’s been hard to think and plan about doing a big new thing.
“Inspiration,” as most people understand it, doesn’t help. I don’t need to look at other photo projects, or read quotes from famous artists. None of that will help me take a step forward. It’s not how I’m wired. Inspiration, for me, is just a bunch of ideas.
But this morning, on the drive into work, I felt a spark as I was listening to Bill and Jeffery on On Taking Pictures. It wasn’t anything concrete, or the subject matter, or even their mood. I think it was just listening to two people talk about art and creativity that made me feel better about my situation. That little creative fire inside me that’s been so weak the past few months got a little brighter. I can’t explain exactly how it lit back up, but I guess it doesn’t matter.
What I need is a kick in the butt from time to time, not inspiration.
Photographs Just Happening
Johnny Patience on his 365 project:
All of my photographs during the year just “happened”. Nothing was planned in advance. I was able to capture them just because I brought my camera with me everywhere, every single day. And sometimes, because I felt brave enough to ask a complete stranger for their portrait, and I didn’t get chased away.
Planned versus unplanned. Project versus un-project.
This idea of the 365 project keeps coming up, because I’m starting to see it as a worthwhile challenge to any creative person. “Discipline and constant work at the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed,” says Stephen King. Keeping at something, day after day, is intrinsically rewarding.
But what about a planned project versus a project like Patience’s? Bill Wadman, for instance, is doing 365 portraits this year. It’s a project with a set of restrictions: pictures of people, with Wadman’s new-ish medium format camera. There’s a schedule to set and people to line up. There’s structure.
Patience’s project – “capture real moments and make memories, to tell about the good and the bad times” – is a rambling, take-it-as-you-get-it 365 project. He takes the world, day to day, exactly as it is, and lets chaos and randomness dictate his project. Apart from one camera, one lens, one film, there’s very little structure.
My preference? One of each, which is my goal this year.
Days I Tried to Live
If there’s anything to get you off your butt and get in gear to accomplish something, it’s death.
Lately for me, it’s been that way with musicians and bands. Rock musicians die all the time, but the past few years, a few of my musical heroes have passed on. That makes it super important for me, as a live music fan, to see them in concert before they’re gone.
Soundgarden was my grunge band. Heavy, psychedelic, that banshee in a goatee as the lead singer – Soundgarden represented everything about heavy metal and classic rock that I loved. Luckily, I got to see them at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas back in 2011 with my good friend Driver.
Now Chris Cornell has passed. That makes me ultra mega glad I got to see his band before he died. And so it should go with a bunch of my musical heroes. For as much as I love the Smashing Pumpkins, I’ve never seen them live. Nor the fully-formed Pink Floyd (the closest I got was seeing Roger Waters in 1999). I think Cornell dying is good motivation for me to see who I can see, before they’re gone.
That philosophy extends to just about anything. See it, make it, love it – before it disappears.
We need reminders, don’t we?
Saturday In the Park
We wait all winter for days like this: sunny, decently warm, fresh breeze blowing.
In our new neighborhood, we’re surrounded by parks and playgrounds. Sparks Park – kind of Jackson’s own Central Park – is a block or two away, and we have several schools in the street next to ours, lousy with playground equipment. Our old neighborhood was very walkable, but it’s nice being so close to all this fun.
Now, when we go on walks around the neighborhood, the kids beg to go to one of the playgrounds. I have a feeling we’ll spend a lot of time here.
And that’s great. For today, we’re just happy to be outside.