Picture Notes

A National Disgrace

People coming to America from Europe can’t really believe all the homeless sleeping on the streets of Washington, DC.  In the UK they call that sleeping rough, and there are none.  In the UK homeless people are given services and a place to sleep.

In the United States we’ve spent over 400 billion dollars on the “Bush” war and for a fraction of that we could get the homeless people off the streets. Doesn’t anyone else find this unbelievable? We are worse than a third world country because we have the money and we do nothing.

The photograph is of a homeless mitigation project. There was a homeless person who slept on this ventilation grate on winter mornings. Instead of helping him, the powers that are, spent money on a fence around the grate and on welding steel pieces to make it uncomfortable to sleep on. It all didn’t matter, the man figured out a way to sleep there. The area is in one of the Washington, DC tourist areas, down the street from Air and Space and other high profile museums.

I vote to not spend anymore money on the war in Iraq until we’ve taken care of those who are sleeping rough in our “modern American cities.”

Looking for another right hand man.

When your right hand man goes missing it’s like being left on the platform waiting for the train. Do you hear, in your head, “Wanted - one good man for a job to last 515 more days.”

After a life time of political campaigns and years on “the stump” when does it stop? When should a politician stand down and eliminate his political adviser to govern and do the job? There is not enough time left to fix all that’s broken, some of it will take decades and still television airtime is being bought and ads are being aired like there is an election to win.

The problem is that the “job”, that is governance, hasn’t happened.  There was, and is, one long hard political campaign. When one party has an election machine that works well and they understand that process and don’t seem to have a vision for anything else or this vision is flawed and can’t be debated, they can only do what they know how to do - run campaign ads.

There should be a law prohibiting all political ads, by everyone, when there is no election within 12 months. I’d like to see the leaders lead.

The best thing about this site is that it’s Omakase, in this case it’s my choice.

And I have all these flowing water photographs that
I really like, just because they are water.

It seems like the most famous photographs
that have ever been made (besides people photographs)
have water in them somewhere.
I know there are notable exceptions to that statement, but
there are so many great photographs with water somewhere
that I’ll keep that statement up for a few weeks. So, as part of
100 favorite photographs, I add this one of water, out of focus,
flowing out of a beat up garden hose and it looks like light blue jello.

Summer is Best

I was just wondering if global warming equals summer all the time. If so, isn’t that good? Well I guess so, except for the animals that can’t adapt to the new climate, which might include humans.

When it’s 90 outside and you see this fountain, don’t you want to stand under the spray? I wonder if humans will continue to evolve wearing less clothing and more sun screen. I’d guess it’s still too early to say.

Oil industry spokesmen say the science isn’t there, and I’ve heard scientists say it is, that global warming is happening. When I balance the comments with the speaker’s self interest I conclude that we are in for some changes. I’ve also read that the problem with global warming is the ice age that will come when the Gulf Stream goes deeper into the Atlantic Ocean because of fresh water changing the salt content of the oceans.

But I think that all this has a long timeline. The total effect of this climate change probably won’t happen while most of the current politicians are still alive, but near the end of this millennium. It’s a crappy problem to leave to our grandchildren to deal with. I just hope they have some of the money that was created from the current climate of greed.

The Manufactured Photograph

I like to think that some photographs are the product of serendipity but the cynical part of me says no, it just can’t happen, it’s all work. Serendipity is just another word for luck because many times what happens, or what happened, is good luck, like winning the lottery.

Of course there is luck and work and then there is just work - the manufacturing process - the photograph as an object that asks questions and sometimes provides answers and sometimes it can take you to other places - it triggers memories.

Sometimes the photograph itself suggests it’s own further development, like a voice that speaks to you, other times you drop a stack of prints on the floor and two images come together serendipitously to make another.

What about Shadows?

Shadows and digital cameras. I sometimes try and bring a dramatic element to my photographs and use shadows to move the eye across the page. It’s a simple thing, shadows can create depth and add a third dimension.

But who really likes shadows? Who gets to use shadows in their advertising photography, besides concept products like perfume, credit card and drug companies. Shadows are negative spaces - mysterious, hidden, and unknown.

If you are looking for digital noise, look in the shadows. When using digital cameras or backs, shadows are an indication of the quality of the sensor technology. Neither CCD (charge coupled devices) or CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) sensors record shadows like film. It’s as if digital sensors don’t like places without information so when they are detected - low light (a shadow) they want to put something in the space, which usually ends up as digital noise - blotches of random color. Film records shadow as D-Min or D-Max (Density Minimum or Maximum) depending on if the film is negative or positive - the film doesn’t add noise.

Thunder storm in Florida with lightning

Was I in danger? The air was electrified and as I stood on the beach with a camera on a metal tripod I could only guess at what was going to come out of the night and what this photograph would do for my photography business. This image was made in 1976 on Kodachrome film and it has sold all over the world and has been used in hundreds of publications and advertisements.

For the first ten years of it’s life I was using it for self promotions and sending it out to magazines and I had a few sales. Then I put it in a stock photography collection and it was licensed for one time use many times.

The stock agency, Southern Stock in Ft. Lauderdale was sold to Index Stock in the late 90s and the image went to New York. Of the hundreds of images in my stock files this was the sales leader. This image sold every month and was used in many different kinds of publications. Last year I left that stock house and decided to use the internet to market stock photography and the image is now sold royalty free on istockphoto.com.

For a few dollars you can buy this and use it royalty free. Good lightning photographs seem to be used by everyone, they are primordial energy that’s uncontrollable.

This is still one of my favorite 100 photographs because of what it is, not because of the sales history.

It’s where we all begin the hike.

Mt. Katahdin, Baxter State Park, Maine, 1986

When I made this photograph (4×5” sheet film), I thought at the time the light was terrific and I was standing at the perfect spot at the perfect time of day. That’s the west branch of the Penobscot River in the foreground. I was with 9 friends from a summer camp I’d been photographing and we climbed this mountain the next day. On the way to the top there is a sign that reads, “do not hike this trail in bad weather.”

Later I learned that for 300 days out of the year Mt. Katahdin (the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail) is in clouds and rain, that I had had a very lucky day. I also have a color photograph of this scene on istockphoto.com that anyone can buy a digital copy of for a few dollars.

I like this black and white version and wish I still owned that camera.

Sleeping on the Docks

If you are a large tasty animal and there are larger animals where you live that will kill and eat you, a safe harbor is exactly what you need: A place to rest and relax and talk to your friends and family - a home. And a place to be alone if that’s what you want.

These California Sea Lions seem to have it made - they live in San Francisco on the bay and don’t pay taxes, or rent and they get to wear fur coats and still be Californians, like movie stars. They don’t even have to buy food. The life seems idyllic except that when they go back in the water there are some very large Great White Sharks that think of them as food. It would be fun to say it’s like being a human at work, except it isn’t.

There are nice articles on the Pier 39 Sea Lions on the web and if you google them you will see that they are larger than most of us and swim much better.