Nastutium + Tomatoes

I’ve been trying to match a hundred or so photographs from my Shooting from the Hip series into complimentary pairs. A lot of questions came up regarding color, texture, light, camera angle, and a myriad of other qualities. But the one overarching question was, what makes two photographs viewed together, side by side, visually more interesting than one?

That lead the discussion back to my last posting, where Feature Integration Theory was mentioned. Okay, I’m not out on the street taking in the sights (or in caveman style, looking for food or danger), but sitting at a table with a carpet of two inch thumbnail prints I’m jockeying around like a board game. Intuitively I arranged pairs of little prints on the fly – instantly, they either matched or didn’t. Of course there were some gray areas where I couldn’t decide. In many cases however, I simply took two images I had glanced at and instinctively paired them, left and right.

In Feature Integration Theory, “Preattentive Stage” is the first stage of seeing, when we recognize color, shape, direction of light, etc. I researched this a bit, but didn’t find anything substantial online about differences in perception between the left and right eyes when viewing two different images. But I have to think there is something in our brain that definitely favors seeing a particular color or shape on either the left or the right. Probably has something to do with predatory animals attacking from our left, because they are mostly right-pawed or something like that.

Maybe I should have been a researcher so I could get funding and figure this out.

Last Stop Coney Island

I don’t know if there are any formulas, books or websites for quitting, like there are for starting businesses. I didn’t see, “When to Quit Investing in Your Losing Business Venture,” on Amazon.  But I did a search for those words and what did I get? Mostly I found links to information on starting a business, finding or borrowing money, entrepreneur guides, articles on bootstrapping and little about quitting. It appears as if quitting isn’t a really popular topic.

There was one story.  It’s an April, 2009, BusinessWeek.com article called, When It’s Time to Shutter Your Business. In it, Joe Kennedy, author of The Small Business Owner’s Manual, says, “maybe it’s time when you’ve already unleashed your best products and ideas into the market and they did not work out well.” How can that apply to an industry where we essentially make customized solutions and not “products” as defined by a consumer market?

What would be our best products and ideas? Our last job? Our last good job?

It shouldn’t be a job at all. It should be ideas. The images we produce as examples of our skills, the ones that we exhibit on the web or via other promotional vehicles, to introduce potential buyers to our interests should go far beyond looking like a product we sell. They should represent ideas, motivation, our interests –  because what we create is so deeply personal, just showing samples is not enough to create interest in you. Shoot, shoot and shoot more until there’s a body of work that says, “I have ideas, good ideas.” It’s work, planning what you shoot and what you show and what you don’t show, but then a great body of work says volumes about who you are.

We don’t really sell photography, we sell trust, creativity, reliability, insight, and let’s not forget quality. If you’re not selling that, you’re just selling pictures. These days, you can get those anywhere.

“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Detail of Chard in Wooden Box

Union Square Market, NYC – 9/5/2009, 10:50 AM

I’ve most likely walked through the Union Square market a thousand times, yet it wasn’t until I started shooting for this blog that I discovered a market rarely seen. It’s the vendors who, unknowingly, set up my photos, so it’s a wonder that anything works at all. In the end, it is a market filled with the commonplace caught in the random and uncommon act of being in the right place and right light at the right time when I come along. Truly, there is a familiarity to so much of what I see, it’s not unusual to wonder if anything I do today can be any different from yesterday or the day before.

There is an elegance to the much of the stationary world that goes unseen. It is hidden away, out of view simply because it is surrounded by comings and goings, tables and pavement, laughter and silence.

I’m humbled by what the market gives me for my patience. I sure hope she never gets bored with me.

3:09PM 06/24/09

Red Onions as Fireworks, Union Square Market, NYC – 3:09PM Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I couldn’t help but think of the 4th of July, post processing these puppies. It wasn’t until a “root mask” was made and the contrast boosted that these absolutely incredible roots revealed themselves, metaphorically, as a trajectory of sparks. Later in the week I whipped up a stir fry with these guys – some fresh broccoli, snap peas and carrots and a nice chunk of broiled salmon marinated in mirin, garlic, ginger and soy sauce on a bed of somen noodles.  I have to learn to plate this stuff. I can cook. I can’t plate. Maybe I just need a stylist.

Happy 4th.

12:01PM 6/19/09

Bundles of Rhubarb, Union Square Market, NYC – 12:01PM, Friday, June 19, 2009

The Union Square market reveals its little secrets…

Three months of lessons and lots of practice to make 7 of these guys.

A lot of advertising photographers invest in hand-made portfolio housings. They are the finishing touch to a lot of hard work and make for an impressive presentation. I hand-made my own portfolios and slipcases because it seems like a really important part of the process. How could I entrust anyone to the task of making a book for my work? I had just finished shooting for an entire year, working on a new style and vision, and the vision couldn’t just stop there. The craft should continue from the digital world and carry through to the physical one that wrapped around my printed pages. I’m a hands-on kinda person and I love research.

I sought out Barbara Mauriello, a brilliant and highly regarded bookbinder, conservator and artist, who agreed to take me on as her student, to become a one trick pony. That is, to learn screw post bookbinding techniques, the style in which many commercial photography portfolios are bound. I also joined the Center for Book Arts on 27th Street, to rent their bookbinding studio equipment, a remarkable resource for an archaic craft. I later assembled the books in my basement workshop.

After four long training sessions with Barbara and months making countless “test books” using dozens of different fabrics and techniques, the real books went into production, with the goal of making ten in total, knowing a few would be ruined along the way. Two Three of the books didn’t make it. After all, I was just an apprentice, more or less copying what the master demonstrated.

As an added element to my books I designed my own logo based on the iconic jumping goldfish photo to create a copper die for imprinting the covers. No, I didn’t make that myself, too, I sent that out to engraver, Owosso Graphics, in Michigan.  Sophia Kramer was my mentor on this part of the bookmaking and with infinite patience taught me how to use the kindly used, but ancient, Kensol 36T, three-ton press (ooooh, sounds impressive, doesn’t it?) at the Center for Book Arts.

They’re done, they’re gorgeous, and I’m sending them out in the world (not unlike my teenage daughter to college) to see how they fare.

12:43PM 6/15/09

Tilefish, Union Square Market, NYC, 12:43PM, Monday June 15, 2009

Bad name, great eating – grilled with a little ginger, garlic, mirin and soy sauce.

2:30PM 6/12/09

Carrot stack, Union Square Market, NYC – 2:30PM, Friday, June 12, 2009

These guys were screaming, “Eat me.” So, I did.

In the Mirror...

In reading The Craftsman, by Richard Sennett, I was reminded of the guild hierarchy: an apprentice spent 7 years before becoming a journeyman and the journeyman, another five to ten years before earning the title of master craftsman.

After years of producing elaborate, complicated photography projects, my new style of work has become rather intuitive, natural and technically comfortable. Unconsciously, a natural perspective and a vision evolved out of years of experience. At first, however, I didn’t trust it; the process seemed too easy to me. Yet after a year of producing fun, new, portfolio images, I had to acknowledge my talent had become quite innate. I have become a master craftsman, not a charlatan wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Sennett also notes that, “Masters should be pestered to explain themselves,” in a way that makes their process clear to others. That was meant in the context of training future masters, but I’d like to think it also pertains to relationships with clients. After all, everyone benefits from the dialog and the outcome is better work. And so I offer up this blog, without much pestering.

This new portfolio will never be finished. It’s a work in progress, always. Not just for the sake of marketing, but also for my own satisfaction and personal growth. I have to keep reminding myself, this portfolio took decades, not months, to develop—years spent honing technique and craft until it’s become second nature.

Now, I promise not to let this go to my head.

Or think that I’m wearing really nice clothes, when it’s just jeans and a t-shirt.

Ladybug dripping from espresso machine

So, here I am, launching a new portfolio of work feeling as excited and motivated as one can be, even in the midst of all this economic disaster. Photography consultant, Selina Maitreya, has guided and groomed me over the past year for this event. We’ve looked at the vision, voice, and process of my work and clearly identified them, and then I set about the journey of reinventing myself one step at a time. At times I felt a bit disoriented and wanted to take the easy path, returning to old habits. Gradually I got my orientation and the vision emerged from some undefined region of my brain. As it turns out, contrary to popular belief, John Medina’s research shows that some parts of our adult brains stay as malleable as a baby’s. Lucky me.

Selina and John have both proven that, if we choose, we can create new visions and new ideas if we put our minds to it.

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