revisiting good advice...

 https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2017/08/schooled-again-by-kid-want-more-video.html

Another Milestone Notched. More Words Set Free. More Photography Discussed.

 I was deleting a bunch of old posts just now when I happened to check the VSL stats. Looks like we just turned over 33,000,000 pageviews. Mind you, Blogger doesn't record RSS feed pageviews, just people coming directly to the site. 

While some other photo bloggers have been at this longer and have generated more content, I have to remind myself that this is a completely non-profit undertaking; a hobby, and that I have done this while maintaining a full time, profitable business, raising a great kid, doing my share of spousing, writing five successful books about photography, as well as one novel, taking care of two parents and then their estates, and getting in five or six days of swimming every week. It's not a bad track record. At least I don't think it is....

As you can see from the screen shot of today's stats we reached 33,000 viewers just yesterday alone. If only I had monetized this blog I might be rich!!!

Oh wait. I guess the (long, long) journey is the real reward. 

self reflection. 2016 style.

 

Changing gears is sometimes about hitting a wall and realizing you missed the door.

I have a persona on the web. To some I am a techie guy who has a typical liberal arts education, has had some modest successes over the years as a commercial photographer and who has parleyed the fear and boredom of the years from 2007 to 2012 into a modestly successful bout of book writing and, by extension, blog writing. Most of my readers know that I swim, that I have one child, a dog and a wife of some 35 years. I've tried to keep my political viewpoints out of my public writing and I've worked to keep my views about religion personal. So, in fact, most people know very little about who I really am or what motivates me to do what I do beyond the usual, human responses to fear and greed.

While walking with my wife and my dog through our quiet neighborhood this morning I found myself taking stock of how my life has changed over the last twenty years. A change that I should have resisted more. Controlled more. In 1995 I felt as though I had a modicum of control over what I did both for a living and as an art. My audiences were the ones I actively attracted by actually meeting them. In person. Face to face. My portraits were made with tools that I loved for a number of reasons. My approach to making the portraits was nearly always predicated on a very personal view of what portraiture should be, not what popular, and every changing markets might dictate.

I had yet to write my first book or type my first blog. My days consisted of making beautiful work (at least I thought it was so), having face to face meetings with clients and friends and colleagues, and then spending many quiet evenings reading everything I enjoyed; from novels to poetry to economics. I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times because it seemed important to be both informed and to have a foot in both political camps for balance.

When photography changed, along with everything else that was touched by the encroachment of the digital hegemony, in the early part of this century, it was like an anchor was cut loose for our art and even the previously codified flow of our everyday lives. The relentless drumbeat from media everywhere was about the unalloyed advantages of "being digital", of being one's own publisher and of being "on" for every cycle. A relentless march to the future that rewarded the media much more than the message, the number of followers more than what was being said or shown. Followers equalled eyeballs, which were connected to mostly functional brains, which were connected to credit cards, the exercise of which could conceivably create new income streams for "artists."

The problem was that the race for eyeballs and money led to unexpected consequences and behaviors. Instead of continuing to do the work I loved the lure of creating media and content that would sell to a mass market was alluring, intoxicating and seemed so much smarter than working in a small and contained market. The trade off, which exists for almost anyone who wants to grow an anonymous market, is that at some point you have to give your audience what they want. Not what you genuinely have to say but what they genuinely want to read. It's an enormous trade off and one that sociopaths have very little problem with. Just separate what you like from what you do for money and off you go. But the issue is a bit more complicated for people who aren't sociopathic and have a warm affinity and attachment for the things that they love to do well. Which for me is meeting people and making portraits.

I was playing around with small flashes and cheap, optical slaves in 2006, about the time that I was active on David Hobby's Strobist site. I did an image of then Dell CEO, Kevin Rollins with the small lights and wrote about it for a magazine. I also posted an article about the nuts and the bolts of the shoot on Strobist. Which led to an offer to write my first book with Amherst Media. I was living the new, social media marketing dream.

But. But. But. The process of writing a book took me away from the ongoing craft of working on portraits. Of shooting and doing what I really loved. The first book took six months to write and illustrate and when I finished with it I told myself I'd never do it again. It took so long. The effort was so concentrated and, worst part, I wasn't moving my art, craft or brain forward, I was crafting an educational resource based on stuff I already knew by heart. But then the book hit and sold very well and it became a focus point for me. People called me to do workshops. They called to interview me. They did all the things an artist with an ego thrives on. They played to my desire to be someone in my field. An expert. Someone who has "made it." And that's the most dangerous and destructive part of moving away from the things you love to embrace a different persona that's inauthentic and not genuine. And most of the attention given to me by web sources was in service of me creating "free" content for them; one way or the other. The interview or the copied blog post.

The ego accepts every offer. And the ego goads the brain to move in the direction that yields the most self-esteem building gratification. More books equal more eyeballs. More validation of your position as a successful and business savvy photographer. But the books required care and feeding. Any publisher will tell you that the writers who are successful are the ones who jump in and help with the marketing of their properties in any way that they can. I proceeded to do my part by writing this blog and flogging the books when I felt like the balance was right.

And all the time the web and technology and the media is ever changing and morphing and the targets are constantly moving. I started trying out new stuff all the time. Moving ever further from my own, innate and satisfying targets from decades before. Digital had killed my tools (or so I thought) and relegated me to a desperate and ongoing search to replace them with (woefully inadequate and homogenous) digital replacements. And all the while my artistic vision was fading. Ever more diluted by my bifurcated searches for general relevance, applause, and a desire to seem relevant within the context of a new generation of imagers. I was trying to constantly keep up with the younger Joneses even though none of them possessed a map to the future either.

I bought my first EP2 on a whim but stayed engaged in the Olympus system partially because of a huge surge of readers who seemed to hang on every word I wrote about the system, regardless of whether it worked for my real, personal vision or not. I never lied or accepted graft but somehow my sense of not only being part of a new community, but also a taste maker within it, kept me buying and writing about cameras that were ancillary to my core aesthetic. My way of seeing images and translating them.

By the fifth book I had come to realize that my "artist self" had been totally sublimated, suffocated and left in cold storage by the combination of income, ego stroking and delusions of using the eyeball base as a market to sell books to. To extend my reach as a "web personality" which might deliver me opportunities.

But the things that keep coming my way are truncated and compromised, to a certain extent. Witness my brief and rocky relationship with Samsung. Was a one week trip to Berlin, in the clutches of Samsung handlers, really valuable enough to make up for using a flawed camera? I could have easily dipped into the business checking account and sent myself to Berlin for a peaceful week of shooting, unencumbered by one dimensional marketing serfs. Some of the cameras were interesting but would I have ever even tried to shoot with a camera that has no EVF or OVF if it had not been offered as part of being in the program? Of course not.

I must seem naive now to so many people who know that there is no "free ride" and that all the web stuff is really just extended B.S., is a massive shift of value from the owner of art to the endless distributors of art waiting for ephemeral payment while the old hands at the aggregators and the many thieves on the internet actually get the payments. In a sense my years of blogging were/are my own form of resistance to just getting my own work done. Shooting those singular portraits I want to shoot for an audience that never, ever came from the web. And still doesn't.

It's interesting to have had all this play out in a public forum. It's like broadcasting potty training. Highly embarrassing at times and in the end it's all more or less poop.

Where does it all end? Well of course, in the grave. But at what point does it dawn on an artist that you've ceased to do your authentic art and you have moved into the more or less "blue collar" job of maintaining a web presence with the hope for tips and affiliate income, and that by doing so you've relegated yourself to modifying what you talk about into stuff you think will have wide interest, including techniques you know by heart and gear that's nothing more than transient entertainment?

Well, at least this confessional outflow is more interesting to me than whether or not the new Pentax camera will have HDR bracketing. Of course, my fear in publishing this particular piece is the very real possibility that I will be writing for myself, alone in the near future.

Ah well. What value is a blog if we can't interject a bit of honesty from time to time?

Street photography tip #317: The ugly bucket hat draws all the attention away from the big bandage on my left cheek. So subtle and discreet.

There is a set of mirrors set on an A frame stand out in front of a women's clothing shop called, Sezanne. On either side of the sign are benches. If you sit on either bench you see yourself in the mirror. I sat down and photographed myself in the mirror. I just had to see how chic that faded green bucket hat looked. Impressive. I had to go out and photograph today because I'm banned from swimming until Tuesday morning and the withdrawal effects are starting to get to me. I figured that walking around with a bit, fat, heavy, Veblen Leica and an equally big lens might be a good way to vent some energy. It's rare that I go out photographing with a fast 85mm. And I think it's true what the nuns at my deeply spiritual and very prestigious photo-prep school always said: "When the Lord puts a fast 85mm lens in your hands everything seems like an excuse to put the backgrounds out of focus." 

Zen dining al fresco. With ground grid included. 

Recuperating with super models at the San José Hotel...

The washroom at Jo's is lit during the day only by sunlight shining through a deep red filter in the ceiling. I thought I should document the effect for posterity. I also had a large coffee so.....

Women being photographed in front of the famous wall at one end of Jo's Coffee. 

I don't know how this image got in my camera. Really! I don't know.

I think I was adjusting something on my camera and accidentally hit the 

shutter button. Honest. Random chance. Or are Leica cameras so

advanced they can anticipate what you might have wanted and engaged 

autonomously without your knowledge?

All supervised under the watchful surveillance of the Mannequin squad.

Discreet surveillance from under a wide brimmed hat...

 

Recuperating with coffee at Jo's.

It was a good day to be out having coffee at Jo's. Not crowded. Not too hot. No big agenda. Just me, a camera and a cup of coffee with a slug of half and half in it. Out and about with the big 85mm. Shooting everything I could find at f2.0. Relaxing. It was one of those days on which I was thrilled not to have a job.

 

Cantaloupe. The luscious candy of the fruit world.

 

The more time you waste doing something the more you cherish it.

Currently on Medical Leave. Nothing too big. Just a bit of knife play...

 Went in for a follow-up with my dermatologist. The squamous cell tumor had come back. Right there on my face. We went over the options. I elected for the most savage and barbaric of the choices. A deeper scoop with a sharp blade --- right there in the chair. The probability is that we got it all. The betting runs to 70-80% good chance. That leaves 20-30% chance of try something else. What's left? Mohs Surgery. Been there once before on a different spot. Not so bad if it happens. 

Dermatologist advised that I'd have a little divet where the offending intruder had been. I can deal with that; I'm not currently dating and my on-camera movie career never took off. On the upside, I know a beautiful plastic surgeon and she'd just love to fill in the pothole left on my face...

But any procedure is disheartening to a certain extent. It chimes with the distant sound of mortality. A creeping disintegration of the corpus. But at least I'm not battling sleep apnea, obesity, hearing loss, diabetes, heart failure, or any of the other common ailments of aging. I can still remember where I parked and how to compute compound interest.  So I'm ahead in those regards.

But the tragedy of yesterday's run in with medical reality is that I've been advised not to swim again until Tuesday the 3rd of June. Almost a death sentence. That's five days out of the water. Five days of implied sloth.

But the CFO of VSL reminded me that I have running shoes and five miles of sweet running trails around downtown's lake. That I have weights and stretch cords. And a gym membership. I guess that will do fine until Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. 

But I figure that if I'm not having fun then I'm certainly not going to sit down and write stuff so that you can have fun reading while I'm in the midst of hard core swim withdrawal. So....adios until Tuesday afternoon. But before I go I thought I'd share some images from this morning's massive walk through everywhere.... All with that puny Leica DLUX 8. I'd say it's growing on me but I've liked it since the day I pulled it out of the box. 

Austin was the victim of a huge, quick storm last night. Hail the size of hen's eggs, wind gusts up to 70 mph, 2-3 inches of rain in less than an hour and lots and lots of subsequent damage. The big tree that sat in front of this old building was here two days ago. It's gone now. The power was off for 30,000+ electric utility customers. Whole streets are blocked off around town because the wind and hail tore down utility poles, branches and whole trees. And the low water crossings filled up quick.

I walked around downtown this morning to see what everything looked like. It was hit and miss. The VSL headquarters  over here next other the house was spared. But there is more weather coming back tonight after midnight. This is the season for crazy atmospherics in central Texas. 

this stuff fell off the roof of a six story apartment building. 

The old power plant was unscathed. It was built to withstand hurricanes and bomb blasts.

And, at least for this afternoon, blue skies are back in fashion.

big and happy news for me today! I walked by the main library and there's a brand new café business in the spot that had the original café. The first one closed as a result of both Covid and a relentless hounding by homeless men. The new version, under new owners is polished and nice. 

They just opened and have a limited menu of coffees. Both "real" coffee and espresso based coffee drinks. Also pastries. No surprise here because every coffee shop in town gets the exact same pastries from Quackenbush's bakery over in Hyde Park. Even the other bakeries are not above importing "anonymous" pastries...

I had a cappuccino. It made by face feel better. Fractionally.

the Leica DLUX 8 is attracted to fun t-shirts. In real life you can see every thread and every bit of fluff

and texture on every thread. It's really a nice camera.

the wind came through fast and furious and in my back yard, as I watched, it looked like swirling gusts. Like mini-tornados. No damage at my place. All our trees are equipped with titanium reinforcement rods, but look what the wind did to this tree down in front of the Hilton Hotel. 

and this power pole.

And this tragic little minivan.

Changes have been made to historic East Sixth St. Now it looks like a crappy construction zone all the time. Thanks City Council. What next? Tear down the 20 year old Convention Center? Oh, that's right; that's already in progress. Or de-progress...

People still use the word, "Gnarly"? Amazing throw back. What's next?

"Groovy"?

And then, apropos of nothing, here is my favorite Parking Garage --- designed by M.C. Escher. 

Radical. 

So, I'm sitting by the pool (not in the pool) sipping Cuba Libres, hanging out with the busload of super models who came by to check on my progress, and counting the money I'm making betting on the TACO tariffs. Such a life. 

Back in touch on Tuesday.