Working on personal projects is something I still try to do, it’s very important to me. I also believe it plays an important part in developing your own style, staying creatively motivated, exploring new ideas and learning new things…I try hard to produce personal projects fairly regularly, even when I’m busy with actual work. I try to produce and post something usually once or twice a week.
GIF artist Al Boardman talks about personal projects in a way a lot of artists do: It’s important to do the fun stuff and the paid stuff.
The paid stuff keeps the lights on, but the personal stuff keeps you, you.
And it’s usually the personal work that makes people sit up, take notice, and ask if you’re for hire.
They call me “Jake” on the streets… because… it’s my name. I am located in the Pacific Northwest, which is just about one of the greatest places ever… if you travel around inside of it. I do things. I like to take pictures (surprise!), ride my bike, sleep, sulk, and eat. You know, human stuff. I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and work at a hotel… so you know… living this dream.
How did you get started in photography?
I was a curious child. My mom used to take a lot of photos of our family with old point-and-shoot cameras, and I would always chew o n them…. or try to eat them or something. Once I became a teenager, I stopped trying to eat cameras, and started using them for their intended purpose. I took a few (film) photography classes at my school, and really enjoyed all the processes involved with taking photos and printing them.
What do you like about your photography?
I don’t really like. I think it’s a little dramatic. I think I’m good at being dramatic with my photos… but do I like that? Ehhhh… The things I like about my photography are the things that people don’t get to see. Photography is and will always be (hopefully) cathartic for me.
A lot of your work focuses on nature, especially at the macro level. I love your sense of depth and layers, and your color work. Where do you get inspiration for your style/ideas?
I tend to be a fairly reserved, quiet, non-confrontational person… and so I suppose photography is my form of therapy/anger management. I feel like I’m venting when I’m rummaging around out in the freezing cold taking pictures. I feel the same when I’m editing my photos. It’s my time to be in control.
What kinds of themes do you explore with your work?
I think most of my themes (for me) are emotional in nature (get it!?). Obviously, nature is a big part of that. I consider myself an environmentalist, so a lot of my photos end up being some kind of dissonant personification of nature reflected off myself. I hope that makes sense.
Any upcoming projects or shoots you’re working on?
My work is kind of inhibiting when it comes to making future plans. I do have plenty of locations I am planning on visiting (with a camera) when I get some time. The Bruneau Dunes and Payette River are certainly within my grasp.
It seems I’ve become the “Dave Will Take Your Old Film Camera” guy.
To be fair, I did pick up the Canonet at a yard sale. The film, too (all of it expired), was a flea market grab.
I’s been a fun way to stretch the photography hobby into new areas. Yes, it’s expensive, and yes, there’s a learning curve. But what else do you do with a hobby but spend money and pick up new skills?
Missing from this photo: a Yashica Mat 124 TLR camera a friend from high school gave me. My first foray into medium format.
Thanks very much to the judges. Honored to earn that purple ribbon at my first fair competition.
I’m slowly creeping into the “show more of my work in public” zone. This fair photo competition was my first bit of outreach, besides a few local shows here and there. There are lots of local artists who have done shows, exhibits, and contests, and I’m starting to chat with them about how they go about it, and what advice they have for someone like me.
The fair’s competition was tough. The list of rules and regulations was about three pages long, and I had a mix up picking up my prints after the fair was over. I don’t think I’ll go hog wild (10 photos) like I did this year. Maybe next year I’ll pick one or two that I think will do well.
Printing the photos, preparing the photos, delivering the photos – this competition, like many exhibits and shows, took a lot of work. And treasure. Something to add to the “now I know” list.
I always describe Tycho as sounding like a day on a California beach set to music.
And not just the audio; their visuals tell a definite story. So I was pretty excited to see them last Friday in Royal Oak, Michigan, at the Royal Oak Music Theater.
For one, they don’t come to town very often. Heck, they don’t tour often. As soon as I saw they were heading to town, I snatched up a ticket.
But two, I love shooting live music, and any chance to photograph a band with such a visual vibe is an adventure.
Tycho did not disappoint. They drip with cool summer days, surf-side acoustics, and enveloping color and sound. They’re great musicians as well.
The problem? Concert goers who lit cigarettes and try to shove their way to the front row. I was second row, and felt a responsibility to those in front of me to help them enjoy the show unmolested. One 17 year old girl who tried wedging her way to the front, after a few shoves and blocks, called me “old” and said I looked like her dad. Fair enough – but you’re still not getting up front.
I’ll say I’ve never had a worse concert-going experience than I did at the Tycho show. The music and performance? Great. Perfect. The crowd? Miserable.
Still. Tick this one off the photographic bucket list.
Now that the new Cosmos series is out and in the world, it’s got me thinking about how the original Cosmos book changed my life.
I was too young for the original TV series, so the book is all I had. Later, I purchased the PBS series on VHS, and watched it through, but I did that as an adult – after the book made its impact.
The book was my cornerstone. And Carl Sagan’s voice spoke to me in ways no other author had. It taught me, at a fairly young age, to think big. Like, cosmos big.
Sagan taught me that there’s a number with 100 zeros called a googol. And that a one with a googol zeros after it was a googolplex.
He taught me what the fourth dimension meant in a fundamentally easy-to-understand way.
The book showed me what the surface of Mars looked like. A view from another planet. In a book. And it looked a little bit like home. Amazing.
Through Sagan’s stories, I learned that the ancients were figuring out that the Earth was round, well before Christopher Columbus, and that the stuff of life (not life, but the raw materials) could be made by zapping soup with lightening bolts. How cool is that?
The book was a journey through space and time, and it had a profound affect on me. I went on to read all of Sagan’s books, appreciate his fiction, and watch the original Cosmos series.
The other Sagan book that changed my life was The Demon Haunted World, which was more about myth debunking and critical thinking. I read that one as a freshman in college, and it couldn’t have come at a better time in my life.
Fast forward to now: I’m so grateful that Neil deGrasse Tyson has rebooted the series.
Tyson has all the makings of the “new Sagan.” His famous speech, above, moves me to tears just as well as anything Sagan ever said. His passion for science, and space, and education, and a space program, is infectious. Tyson makes for a good space advocate.
He makes for a good Cosmos host, too.
The final segment of the first episode, with Tyson remembering how he met Carl Sagan, was a tear-jerker. Call me sentimental, but seeing Sagan on the old Cosmos series and interacting with children on TV touched on something very deep for me. This man, who has taught me so much, and served as a sort of guide through the important idea-forming years of my life, was mortal and flawed, and has been dead for almost 20 years. But the impact he made was huge – asteroid-crater huge.
The segment also offered an important point, says Phil Plait:
It humanizes scientists and shows science as a human endeavor. It is the most human of endeavors, in fact. It is our imagination, our urge to explore, our desire to discover, and our unquenchable need to find things out.
We’re made of starstuff, sure. But presenting science as an emotional, human, and spiritual endeavor was one of Carl Sagan’s goals in the Cosmos series and book.
And that’s the idea that changed my life. Science is lofty, yes, but when you bring it down to earth and say what it really means to all of us – that the universe is a big place, and even though we’re tiny we can make meaning out of it all – it makes an impact.
So thanks, Carl. And thanks, Neil. I’m hopeful that you change someone else’s life through this new Cosmos series.
I often tell people that I get to Chicago at least once a year.
This year? It’s more like five or six.
A fun trip. Another fun trip. A business trip. A work trip. A conference. It seems I’m heading to the Windy City, on average, every other month.
And boy, I don’t mind. Every time I head to Chicago, whether for personal trips or business, it feels like a getaway.
I’ve said it before: I feel like I know Chicago better than I do my nearby metro area. That goes mainly for the downtown areas, because once I get out of the main hub of Chicago I’m not so confident – whereas in Detroit, I know the surrounding areas fairly well.
But since taking up photography as a hobby, Chicago has been one of my favorite subjects. The people, the architecture, the city life – it’s a smorgasbord of photo opps.
For a work trip back in October, I hit the streets to specifically grab more street photos than anything else.
(Most photos taken with Canon EOS M and EF-M 22mm f/2, edited in Lightroom with VSCO Film 03)
I don’t take many landscape photographs. Landscapes are lovely to see, when done right (read: not obnoxious HDR), but it’s probably the patience required that turns me off. You have to wait for the right combo of weather and subject.
But toward the end of summer, things line up just right, especially in my daily commute, and especially near where I live. The fall light, the earlier sunrises, the mist covering the fields – it’s all great for photos.
This one is a country block from my house. I caught it on the way home from the Jackson County Fair, in early August, and snapped it with my Canon EOS M (and edited with VSCO Film 04). Not bad for a little mirrorless camera with a pancake lens.
Landscapes still don’t interest me all that much, but I take advantage of the scenery when I see it.
About every year, I need a mountain fix. To fly away from our flat-ish peninsula state and land somewhere above sea level.
Luckily, I’ve kept to that pretty consistently. I’ve used mountain states to escape, to reflect – and to drive.
The driving is therapeutic, too. I take in the countryside by mostly driving through it – with little stops along the way to get out and explore.
It’s not my style to stay in any one place for very long while traveling. I hit the highlights and move on to the next thing in fairly rapid succession.
But it’s important to absorb the highlights. Especially with mountain scenery. Soak it all up.
Michigan is a fantastic state. I love living here and traveling here. Seeing the lakes and the woods and the wilderness. Michigan, though, doesn’t have mountains.
Colorado has mountains. Virtually a whole state full of them.
And every once in a while, I get the itch to see them.
