Season To Taste

One Day I'll See You There

“Tools are easy to learn. Training your eye takes time.” – Jeff Sheldon

It’s fun to laugh at a graphic designer when they use Comic Sans. “What are they thinking?” the cry goes. “Don’t they know.”

Often, they don’t. Often, the “graphic designer” is a secretary at a church making a community dinner flyer. She doesn’t know any better.

So it goes with any art form. The inappropriate HDR, the selective color, the breaking of any “rules” of photography – it’s often a new photographer who is mimicking what he or she sees elsewhere, ignorant of the kitsch they’re putting on display. They haven’t developed good taste.

(Tangent: Go look at Flickr’s Explore page and you’ll see lots of birds, landscapes, flowers, and light painting. I wonder – because that’s what’s being put forward as popular work on Flickr, is that why so many people make photos of wildlife and macro blossoms?)

After absorbing tons of good photography (and shooting a ton), you can acquire self awareness and taste. It’s like this with any craft. The more good work that you devour, and the more you practice, the more you can season your own projects with a unique viewpoint.

My goal is always to look back at my old work and cringe. That’s how I know I’m developing my taste.

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The Legend Of

It wasn’t my pick. Honest.

No, it was the boy saying, “I want to be a bokoblin for Halloween” that got the whole train started. Now, we’re doing the Legend of Zelda costumes – the whole lot of us.

The forecast looks chilly for trick or treating tonight. Let’s hope our mostly-homemade costumes keep us warm.

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Down On the Farm

I’m a gala man, but really any apple will do.

This year, it’s easy to get positively drunk on them. And with some cider varieties, that’s entirely possible.

I’ve always been an apple guy. As a kid, my mom would get bags of red delicious, and I would have half the bag gone in the first day. As I developed an actual taste, golden delicious and gala, jonathan, and fuji were all favorites. Just this year I discovered the pinova variety – what a beautiful apple!

Here in Michigan, it’s apple season, so we packed up the family and headed out to the countryside – our old stomping grounds – for the annual pumpkin and orchard trip. It’s easy to stick to the regular old apple varieties, so this year I looked for some new kinds. Apples, and squash. There are a million squash varieties.

And like apples, I’ll try them all.

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Serving The Song

My first experience with the Tragically Hip was a memorable one. My friend Driver invited me to Pine Knob, the summer after our freshman year in college, to see this amazing Canadian rock band I had only barely heard of, with an enigmatic lead singer and bluesy vibe. I was really going to see the opening band, Guster, but the Hip were a new, added bonus. I had no expectations.

Then they opened with “Tiger the Lion,” a booming, slightly psychedelic rant on a hot July night, and I thought, “My God, where have these guys been?”

The rest is personal history. I’ve since seen the Hip more than any other band (more than a dozen concerts, easily), traveling back and forth over the Canadian border to see the North’s favorite rock and roll band. The last time, in January 2015 at the Windsor, Ontario casino, was just months before lead singer Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

The news hit last week that Gord passed away. I’ve spent the last week in mourning. It’s been rough.

Last Wednesday I loaded up my Hip playlist, grabbed my camera, and hit the streets for some fresh air and therapy. It’s all I felt like doing: playing music, and making pictures. What else can one do when a music hero dies?

All of Canada mourns Gord’s death. But we sure sent him, and the guys in the band, out on a high note last summer when the Hip headed out for one more tour.

Thanks Gord, for everything: the music, the memories, and that magical summer night in 2000 that gave me 17 wonderful years of your performances.

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On Camera Reviews

Waiting For Another

Om Malik, on the cruddy quality of camera reviews:

All I want to know from reviews is how it feels in hand, the pictures it makes and what is the actual performance from a daily usage stand point. The sensor size, the sensor type and what kind of processors mean absolutely nothing — what matters is the photos.

Even more helpful: give me a year-out view, after you’ve spent some quality time with the camera, and really tested its capabilities.

What would make me love it more than what I already have? What are the limits of its use? Where have you taken it, and what did you see?

A few of the big photo sites take a stab at this philosophy, but I value reviews from individual photographers more than any review-heavy site.

(via CJ Chilvers)

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