Welcome back to the blog! It's time to get back to work. And play.

R. Zellweger by Kirk Tuck. The pursuit of your passion defines your destiny.

Hey! We're all back, let's dive right in. I've spent August trying to figure out why some people have long and happy careers as photographers (both amateurs and professionals) while others have trouble getting off the ground or burn out and walk away from what should be an almost infinite source of fun and self-expression. There's been a lot of news and gnashing of teeth over the last month about the closing of Brooks Institute and other "for profit" photography schools and it begs a metaphorical question: How long can we keep listening to Beatles tunes in elevators as background music? Everything changes. Everything moves on. 

Looking at Brooks, historically, shows me that what Brooks did  really well was to unlock the secrets of lighting and exposure, and show students how to focus this knowledge, along with the cumbersome photographic tools of the day, to make good quality photographs. During most of the school's long tenure these were necessary secrets to unravel and acquire. There was much more than nuts and bolts configurations in their teaching; more than just concepts of lighting, exposure and how to pose a model. My friends who attended Brooks in the 1970s really do understand (with great competence) the details of view camera movements and how these movements impact final images. The students absorbed helpful technical knowledge that was oh so relevant in the heady days of film photography--- stuff like reciprocity failure and exposure corrections required for close up work and macro imaging. They could calculate "bellows factors." They learned how to develop (in actual chemicals) films in all sizes, from 35mm to 8x10 inch sheets. They even learned the finer points of selenium toning double weight, fiber papers.

And guess what? We taught the same basic curriculum at the University of Texas at Austin, in the college of Fine Arts. These technical classes were described in the (printed) course catalog as "Commercial Photographic Illustration."  Very few of the now arcane film techniques have relevance for photographers working today.

Digital imaging has mostly obviated the need to learn anything but

A pleasant afternoon spent in the studio with black and white film. And an actor.

I was remarking to Belinda about how the change over to digital had presaged my addiction to the wild merry-go-round of camera buying and how it was well nigh impossible to choose "just the right camera" to use in making the images I really want to make when she laughed, derisively, and said,  "The camera indecision has been going on since the day I met you.  You can hardly blame digital."  And I was prepared to defend myself because that's what guys do when they get called on their bullshit.  But I took a few moments to reflect.....

These studio images of Rene Zellweger reminded me of my dalliance in the small field of medium format cameras.  Convenient memory wants me to believe that I only dabbled in prestigious German and Swedish brands but actual filmic proof demands that I recognize that I also sampled most of the Japanese fare as well.  These images were done back in the early 1990's with the first Pentax 645 camera and whatever lens I was enthralled with at the time.  I remember liking the very hip sound of the motor and shooting at least twice as much film as I normally would have.  The lighting camera from a studio, electronic flash with a 60 inch Balcar Zebra Umbrella, covered with their unique (and thick) diffusion attachment.  These were the days when I eschewed fill light altogether so the one light is it.

I came to the Pentax 645 from the Pentax 67.  That camera was a beast and the film had a wonderful look BUT unless you were shooting in the studio that gigantic mirror took its toll interms of vibration and very slow flash sync.  It sync'd at 1/30th of a second and the mirror slap was agressive enough to create secondary image blurs even when mounted on a hernia inducing tripod.  The practice of the day was to only buy the model with the mirror lock-up and to use it on every shot.  Even when doing flash. You got your ten images and then you loaded again.  You can see why I was lured into the 645 system with its preloadable inserts and 15 images on a roll.  You could shot forever.  At one point I even own a second 645 with a fiber optic enabled Polaroid back to shoot tests with.  But the 1/60th of a second sync speed stunted my affections for that system as well.....

It was always fun to shoot with Rene.  She would show up and we'd shoot whatever one of us had in mind.  One day we'd go out and shoot cross processed negative film down by the train tracks and other days she'd float down the steep hill on Tenth St. towards Congress Ave. in a giant platform heels, a tiny black dress, a leopard print scarf and Bridgette Bardot sunglasses while balancing a coffee cup and saucer in her hands...(we were making an ART video about coffee entitled, "Coffee.  Is it a gift from God or a tool of Satan?" And we were using the very first Canon L1 high eight system in Austin.  Very bleeding edge.)  But the amazing thing to me, when I look back on our shoots is that fact that we rarely used the same camera twice.  There are negatives from both of the Pentax systems and from Leica M's, Nikons, Contaxes and Leica R's but we never did nail in a "favorite" camera.  

Which brings me back to Belinda's observation.  I've always enjoyed mixing it up.  In fact, I'm toying with the idea of opening a store for people like me.  We'd have a couple of all the coolest cameras and we'd charge a subscription rate.  Every day you could come in and trade out and use a different camera.  I haven't done my market research and it could very well be that I'm more or less unique in my indifference to routine.  Especially inventory induced routine.  But I don't think so.

None of my subjects have particularly cared which camera or lens or film I used.  They just wanted to enjoy the process and like the end results.  My only regret in my shoots with Rene and others at that time in my career is that I wasn't shooting with the square yet.  That would have made things a little more perfect.  As it is the work is still fun.  

It's cold and windy and wet today.  A nice day to stay inside and scan.  A nice day to blog.  I hope everyone is having a nice start to the week.

What is portrait photography all about anyway?

I think it's about preserving what we love now to enjoy in future time.  This is one of the images that resonates that concept for me on several levels.  This is a portrait of a fireman/father and his young daughter.  He's in great physical shape.  She's adorable.  Both will change over time.  But this moment, captured in the amber of digital will not change.  It locks in what it was to be then.  How it was to look like that in the moment.  (taken with a Kodak DCS 760 camera and a Nikon 85mm lens. ISO 80).  Even the attribute of it's digital heritage is locked into an historical context.

This young boy must be twenty by now.  But this image locks him into the middle of the 1990's in a profound way.  Taken for a United Way campaign and later given to his parents as a gift it's a print the captures the transient joy of childhood in a genuine way, unadulterated by the cares of the time.  He is real and this reality of him will remain forever in the continuum of time past.

This image of Rene Zellweger is a testimony to what she looked like as a young woman.  Now you can see how she has aged just by going to a movie theater.  But this image is proof that she looked this way at one time in her life and it was this look that was critical to launching everything for her that came after that day.  And this image is a permanent marker of a time past.

 And this is how a young Russian girl presented herself to the world on the Spanish Steps in Rome in 1995.  And now it's part of the visual history of my career and a monument to my pleasure at shooting in the street.  But what do all these portraits really mean?  In my mind it's all about capturing the beauty and truth or beauty or truth that you come across as you float through life and add to your stack of aesthetic knowledge.  Just as it's often said that "we stand on the shoulders of giants" to pay homage to the people who broke ground before us, each image we take forms a continously shifting and growing foundation both for our relationships with people and our growth as visual artists.

It's a reminder that we are the curious ones who want to show the world, "Look how beautiful or strange or magical this image is.  It was a time.  It happened and it affected the forward passage of time and reality. Even if just by an infinitesimal fraction of time and space.  It's proof of a reality.  Mine.  Yours.  Ours.  Tis the season......

My monday went like clockwork. How's yours?

Didn't Rene Zellweger have fantastic legs when she was a student at UT?

I always thought so but this image from my San Marcos Street studio has nothing to do with today's blog.  It's just here to visually anchor the post......

I crawled out of bed this morning at a quarter till six in the morning.  Might be normal for a Dell Executive by not for this pampered Austin photographer.  But that was the core issue.  I wasn't in Austin, I was out on the road for a photo shoot.  So I spent the night in the Wingate by Wyndham hotel in exciting, downtown Longview, Texas.  I hit the lobby at 6 for a little breakfast and I knew we were close to Louisiana because biscuits and gravy were front and center on the complimentary breakfast "buffet".  I was on the road by 6:30 and in greater Daingerfield by 7:30.

The plan was to get a bunch of great exterior images of the client's building.  Actually, two buildings.  But when I got there the rain beat me to it.  It was pouring down so I sat in the car and listened to NPR.  What else could I do?  The rain lightened up and the client's people started arriving around 8:30 so I loaded up the cart and headed in to scout and set up.

Three things right off the bat.  Set up a seamless background and lighting set up for formal portraits that would match the lighting and the look that we established in the Austin offices on Weds.  We did that with the Elinchrom gear in the main conference room.  60 inch Softlighter as the main light and, for kicks, an Alien Bees ringlight on the background.  Fill light via a big reflector opposite the flash.  One room set and ready.  Gitzo tripod with camera and 100mm lens.

Second set up.  Our first shot of the day would be eleven people in one group.  I found a great stairway and a great place to put a light so the Profoto 600b with a Photek Softlighter went there.  I needed a little more light for the background behind the group so I pulled an old Metz 54 MZ3 out of the case and slapped on a radio trigger.  Same frequency as the one on the Profoto.  I set up a second Gitzo and tested the set up with the second camera.  On to the next task:

I needed to find a space in which to do environmental portraits with natural light.  I found what I was looking for in the firm's library.  Lots of space, a big skylight and some really pretty window light.  I marked the floor with tape so I'd know where to put the tripod when I broke down the set up for the group shot and moved gear around.  If we'd been in Austin I probably would have brought a third tripod and a third camera system so I could keep everything in place.  But out here I working naked.  Only two complete set ups and two camera systems.

So here's how the day was planned:  scout and get interior architecture shots from 8:00-9:00.  Set up three locations fromm 9-10.  Shoot the group photo at 10 am.  Then, for the rest of the day I'd take each designated person and shoot a formal portrait in the conference room, walk them upstairs to the library and take a cool environmental portrait and then release the subject, unharmed, back into the wild.

We got a little ahead, which was all for the best since the person who scheduled the day for me forgot to leave a bit of time for lunch.  At the end of the day I'd shot about 600 frames and logged in over 20 gigs of data. An hour to break it all down and then in the car to drive onward to Texarkana.  I didn't make a hotel reservation so when I hit the town I drove to the client's location and then looked around for a decent hospitality property close by.  I always bargain for rates when I walk in the door.  I struck gold at the Holiday Inn Express.  

Back to the routine.  Download the cards to the hard drive on the laptop.  Back em up to a portable, external hard drive.  Burn a DVD.  Rinse and repeat.  Walked across the hotel parking lot for what I thought would be a lonely dinner at an Outback Steakhouse only to be seated next to a couple of attorneys that I knew from my neighborhood in Austin.  What a small world we live in.  

Back here to work on a presentation for the Austin Photo Expo.  These things always sneak up on me.  Back in the hotel I was typing and had the TV on in the background.  Saw a commercial for adopting dogs from the shelter and immediately became incredibly homesick for my rescue dog, Tulip.  

Laid out new clothes, repacked, took the batteries off the charger and brushed my teeth.  Tomorrow I get up, do a shorter version of the same thing I did today and then head back to Longview to get photos of people working on a private jet.  Wish I had a private jet but that's one of the things you give up when you decide to become a photographer.  Not even Annie Leibovitz has a private jet.......

Tomorrow I'll spend another night in Longview and then head to Dallas for the last leg of the project.  So far the client is great, the files are nice and the deposit check (shame on you if you don't ask for one) has cleared the bank.  Life is good.