A Good Thing Happened on the Internet

With Alex.

A good thing that happened on the Internet. This week’s photo set is of a friend, Alex. We met online and wound up shooting together a fair bit. An online friend became a real friend and community. I’ve met many people in her life that are important to her, spent time with them, worked with them, laughed with them. Thats the promise of the internet I want. One like or message can change the path of your life. There’s something incredibly beautiful about that. This week Alex posted some older photos she and I took together with some really wonderful words. The first time we really hung out. And she almost didn’t show up! That morning was a struggle! What amazing thing that one small choice can lead to so much. So much good. That post reminded me I’ve never really shared the bulk of the work. So here it is. May the force be with you. And if it weren’t crystal clear, members get access to 50+ images from this shoot. They’re worth it. Sign up.

I frequently find myself thinking and writing about the state of social media today. Lamenting the bygone days of building a strong following and community. For a while it felt like a god send. I got mildly popular on Flickr, then Tumblr and grew a modest following on Instagram. Every photographer was pouring energy and imagery into Instagram, and were getting real jobs because of it. Not as influencers, but by being discovered by art and creative directors at ad agencies that used it as a discovery tool. Before the phenomenon of TikTok and Instagram reels. This slide towards goofy, inane content, meant solely to keep you on your device longer, making you consume more ads and earning the platforms more money. I’ve mentioned before, the article by Dr. Cory Doctorow, TikTok’s Enshittification

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

It’s a brilliant piece and it’s happening all around us. I thought that possibly I was almost alone in the recognition of this, and how it’s shaping our current world. Maybe I was just getting old, and failing to jump on the newer, better bandwagon. Failing to create engaging content with flashy video and posting five times a day. But no. There really is something happening here. In recent days and weeks, my awareness and consciousness has been inundated with similar voices. Threads if rife with complaints about instagram and how they’re changing. Adam Mosseri, Insta’s CEO has been fairly vocal in the opinion that followers no longer matter, that the engagement of your content is king. And it really is, for THEM. The more insane crap that gets posted, the longer people mindlessly scroll and suck up paid ads. Meta reported over $40 BILLION in profit last year. Instagram doesn’t give a shit about our little still photographs. And thats a damn shame.

So, while we’re treading water, looking, watching, waiting, I’m seeing more and more signs of other people waking up and trying to break down what’s happening. Its reassuring to find similar points of view and influential people pondering the same things. I stumbled across this talk last week with Jack Conte, CEO of Patreon from SXSW titled Death of the Follower and the Future of Creativity on the Web. Adam digs into this concept, and the big take away is that as a creative, as a maker, the old platforms are quickly becoming useless. Especially with the rise of Ai, they’re going to be absolutely flooded with shit. Ai generated content that will ultimately break the internet as we know it, making these tools like Instagram, that used to be so useful, nearly useless for real artists. The signal to noise ratio is going to get absolutely wrecked. Conte goes on to say that platforms like Patreon and Kajabi, and SquareSpace and Substack, places where creators can post freely and monetize their work, are the future. The concept that all you need are 1000 true fans. First put forth by Kevin Kelly (https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ ) Fans that will subscribe and purchase art, and pay a monthly fee to support what you’re doing. Many artists and writers, photographers are able to make a living doing what they love because of platforms like these.

But what will become of the discovery aspect? The top of the funnel, that directs eyeballs to your work? Its become nearly impossible to be seen on Instagram let alone build a following. Where will that discovery happen? I believe there will be a place for a new, (or old?) type of social network that eschews algorithms and data mining. That respects the individual and their journey of discovery. I remember going down deep rabbit holes of finding a piece of art I liked, looking at everything else the artist made, finding their web page, checking out the stuff THEY liked and who their biggest fans were, interacting with them. A very different experience than just mindlessly swiping on what the app thinks I want to see. Its become so incredibly toxic.

I’m participating in the beta for FotoApp and so far it looks promising. An actual place for photography. No algorithm, no selling of data, no advertising. Fingers crossed.

Which brings me to Rick Rubin.
I thought I was going to get through a blog post without mentioning Rick Rubin, but alas... I just listened to his recent episode with Chris Dixon. Chris has a new book out and it (and the podcast) beautifully illustrates all this. The history, present state, and possible future of the internet. Really hit the nail on the head. The crux being, that everything is currently owned and gate kept by five big tech behemoths. That the early promise of a free and egalitarian internet has been squashed and coopted by these massive corporations that do what corporations do best, put their profits above everything else. I highly recommend his book, Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet  Wherein, Chris describes how block chain technology and open source, decentralized networks, could get us back to the promise that the net held in the early days. Where no one owns our voice, no one can simply shut it down with the flick of a switch. Where we own our own content and our own path. Past as prologue. And yet another reason to be optimistic about the future.
Though its hard to imagine that anything that comes to the fore today will have the same kind of gravity that Instagram had. I think people are burned out and kind of shut down. The photo world is in a slump, the vibrant scene of art models and photographers has fallen off a cliff. Many of my friends just aren’t creating right now. We’re tired. Maybe something good will come along soon to wake us up.
Anyway, thats enough rambling.
I’m really curious to see what the future brings. Until then, keep making shit. Make it for yourself. Make the art you want to see. Show it to people who care. Whether its 30 or 30,000.

The End of Zeitgeist.

zeit·geist
/ˈzītˌɡīst/noun: zeitgeist
The defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.

This week’s (months?) photo set is another of Brett. (@goblingoddesss) There are not many that are safe for work so go take a look and sign up if you haven't. Really, you spend more on coffee in a couple days than you would here.

I was having dinner with friends last night and one of them quipped, “There is no more zeitgeist.” Immediately caught my attention. Perfectly encapsulated this shift I’ve been feeling and have been having such a hard time putting into words. I think he’s exactly right. There used to be this, collective consciousness, that was driven by media and pop culture. There were the albums that everyone was listening to, the books that everyone was reading. Fashion, music, art, trends that would tend to start at the coasts and make their way inward towards the center of the country. There were taste makers and trend setters. New York Fashion Week was an eagerly anticipated global event. And W magazine would write about it. The world was smaller. Creators were fewer. The rest of us waited for them to show us what was cool. Music would percolate up from Brooklyn or Compton or London. And Rolling Stone magazine would write about it. Photographers would emerge with a specific and unique vision and PDN magazine would write about it.

Things have changed. In hindsight, it’s probably a gradual slope, but then all at once. . . Covid had something to do with it. And the internet, and social media. The dice have been rattled and cast upon the table and I’m not sure if up is up and down is down. We’re all living in realities of our own making. Self curated silos. And its a brave new world. For a while, social media added to the Zeitgeist. Trends traveled faster. Then somehow along the way, they became irrelevant. Culture went from waves to a vibration. Its all about the vibes man.

So, how do you make a name for yourself or make a living, in a world where everyone is their own curator? Being an artist in a capitalistic society, if you want to eat, you have to make things that people want to consume. But how do you know what to feed them? When everything is moving and shifting as much as it is. Rudderless. . . Or maybe the rudder is a new type of consciousness that I can’t possibly wrap my brain around in this minute.

I hear people like Rick Rubin, (big fan) saying things like, “create purely for yourself” Divorce yourself from any anticipation or desire for external validation. Don’t make what you think your audience wants, but make for yourself. Thats a hard Jelly Belly to swallow for someone like myself that set out on a path to be a commercial image maker. Operative word being commerce. The intersection of art and commerce. How do you align yourself, how do you present yourself as someone who sees and feels things? What do you capture and create and hold up so that the decision makers feel that you’re the person they will choose to hold the camera? I’m not sure exactly what is happening, but it is happening, and it is profound. And its pretty damn fascinating to watch.

I ran into an acquaintance in a coffee shop today and we got to talking about creative matters and makers and community. That now may be a good time to be building. Traditionally, in economic downturns, it was a good time to start something new. Start laying the foundation and the brickwork so that when things picked up, you were positioned to take advantage. For all the talk of a recession or a downturn, it hasn’t materialized. But maybe we’re in a cultural recession. It sure feels like it. I’ve never felt tings as on edge or as divided as we are now. In this election year.

Politics, social issues, health issues. Every single issue that comes up, there’s someone with an opinion different than yours and fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Things that once unified us are now wedges that push us apart. Maybe this is a cycle and they’ll calm down. Maybe after this November, there will be some return to normality, and sanity. Or maybe not. Maybe this is the new normal. Maybe we’re really meant to follow our own personal truth, whatever that may be. Make the music you want to hear. Make the food you want to eat. Make the art you want to look at.

So yeah, here’s to making the pictures you want to see. Or at least trying to. This week’s (months?) photo set is another of Brett. (@goblingoddesss) There are not many that are safe for work so go take a look and sign up if you haven't. Really, you spend more on coffee in a couple days than you would here.

Print of the Month Club

It’s no secret I am leaning more and more into physical processes. I’ve had the idea for a while to start a print subscription membership tier. Now with the new studio, I’ve built out a little print shop great for making and finishing prints. I’ll start out with Giclée on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, Baryta. Eventually to include silver gelatin darkroom prints. In the size range of 5x7-ish. Signed on the reverse. Along with the print, you’ll receive access to the members only galleries. Fifteen bucks a month or $150 for the year. If you’re already a member, probably the best way to upgrade is to cancel and resubscribe. For now, this is for the U.S. only. If I figure out international shipping, I’ll open it up world wide. As a bonus, one member a month will get something extra. An original Polaroid or tintype of my choosing.

This month’s print is of Bella, shot on the Big Island of Hawaii on a black sand beach. You may remember it from a while back.

Sign up here. And thank you for supporting creation.

Lia, Alternative Process

As an adjunct post to the one below, here are a number of tintypes and Polaroids shot that day with Lia in the studio. Uncensored. I’m needing to be extra careful about what gets posted to Instagram. Continue reading for last week’s digital gallery and a writing on “yes”.

The Polaroids were shot on black and white 600 film with an i2. The tintypes are 6x7.5 inch, collodion on black aluminum. All available for sale. Inquire within.

Drowning In a Sea of No

I’ve been thinking a lot about being a creative person entrenched in a position, where you inevitably have to interact with, for lack of a better term, “non creatives”. Artists and Clients. A story old as time. Whether you’re working directly for a corporate client, or a start up, or maybe you’re a wedding photographer and your clients are super conservative. Maybe you’re shooting portraits for a law firm. (maybe its not obvious, but if you click the photos or the link at the bottom of this piece, you get linked to a gallery of dozens more images from this shoot. So click em!)

I was on a location scout a bit ago and was discussing with a colleague a potential solve for a creative problem that we’ve been facing for a long time. Someone else, more of a client, overhears part of our conversation and immediately interjects, “No, we can’t do that” An immediate no. Zero curiosity or investigation. Just a reaction. “No” ends the conversation. “No” kills creativity. Kills creation. It stops the whole damn train and gives it nowhere to go. I think the huge difference between artists and non artists is artists have an inherent curiosity about everything. The world around them, the people around them, the potential solves for problems they face. If you approach problems or constraints with curiosity, they’re no longer road blocks but puzzles to be solved. Thats why I enjoy photographing other creative people. There is rarely a No. There is a “yes, and?” There is a “what if??” It would be incredible if the corporate world embraced that mind set and trusted their creatives, at least enough to hear them out. I understand that in business, risk is scary. Artists risk and try and fail all the time. Its how we grow and learn. Learning to not be afraid of that failure is an incredible challenge and if you’re not aware of the game, you end up living in fear. If you embrace failure as a part of the process, you’ll be freed. I understand failure for a client or a company can mean a lot more. There can be real money on the line. Or a brand’s reputation. (See Bud Light)

Corporations rely on our creativity to make what they need, the products they sell and how they market and sell them. Yet at the same time, we’re not taken seriously enough to be heard over the MBA thats a wizard at spreadsheets. I frequently feel like the roll of photographer is seen as that of a button pusher. There’s not the understanding of the nuance we bring to the table. Photographers are creative people. We come up with solutions to problems. Creative solutions. There is no no in our world. You want it to rain in California in August? There are ways to make that happen. We can make anything happen with enough time and money. Artists have developed a sense of style and taste by paying attention to the world around them. A powerful skill set that could be leveraged. There’s a knowledge gap between people like us and people like them. I’m not trying to be judgmental, but as a whole, creative people are way more open to receive and experience the subtleties of the world. You don’t know what you don’t know.

The thing is, with enough no thrown at us, we’ll stop offering solutions. We’ll stop giving of ourselves. Our ideas, our solutions, they’re personal. They come from the well that we’ve plumbed since we were children. I mean, why would we put ourselves out there just to be rejected time and time again. I wonder if the corporates of the world understand that. That they may be choking the geese that lay the golden eggs. There should really be a managerial course on nurturing and feeding creativity. It would pay for itself ten fold. We don’t need much. A little bit of recognition and a little bit of money goes a long way. If you’re someone that hires and works with creative people try this on. When you hear the no in your head, replace it with “what if?”

Ok, thats enough ranting for one evening. I’m probably just writing to hear myself speak. If any of this resonates with you, comment about it. Lets talk it out.

This month’s gallery is of Lia, aka, Lia Source. She definitely lives in a world of Yes. She’s a friend and neighbor. I’m continually impressed by how she lives life and what she creates and takes on. She’s an inspiration. We shot some tintypes, some polaroids and two or three sets of digital work. I still don’t know how to present all this stuff cohesively. Not that the above writing is cohesive or even coherent. Whatever. Its mostly for me and my tiny little audience out in the interwebs. Be well. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

Goblin Goddesss Takeover

The web store has been updated with a whole mess of tintypes of model @goblingoddesss A refresher for the newbies, TinTypes are an historic photo process pioneered in the 1850’s. All one of a kind, created in camera, physical artifacts with exceptional archival longevity. Like Polaroids, but better. Scans and photos really don’t do them justice, you need to hold one to really see and appreciate it. Get one before they’re gone.

MJ/Sweater Weather

I got a couple books this holiday season that have been a nice nostalgia trip down memory lane. Helmut Newton, Polaroids and Ansel Adams, Examples. That’s the great thing about knowing a photographer, if you’re stuck on a gift idea, get them a book! There’s thousands to choose from.
I grew up on Ansel Adams. My dad was an amateur photographer in a similar vein. A few of his prints adorned our walls. My father rubbed me against Ansel at a book signing in 1977. In this book, he breaks down the making of 40 photographs, based on the best of his recollection.

It’s really interesting hearing Ansel speak about his work. Words written decades ago about images taken many decades ago. It's a little time capsule into the art of photography from a time when it was accessible at that level, to a rarefied few. When creating images was a struggle. From which came his practice of pre-visioning a final image from the scene before him. What techniques from camera to darkroom would be employed to achieve the desired result. What birthed the Zone System. Ansel was famously forward thinking, embracing new technologies and materials. He undoubtedly would have eaten up todays digital tools.

Helmut Newton, Polaroids, is quite a bit different. Few words, lots of pictures. As different as their subject matter, yet absolute masters of their craft. Polaroids dips into yesterday when instant films were often used as a test to confirm lighting and composition before exposing film. I remember the days of being on set when test polaroids were shot, and they frequently were so good it was hard to duplicate on film stock. Just something about the color palette and the instant, ephemeral nature of the material. This book was produced by Helmut’s wife in 2011, years after his passing in 2004. It’s an intimate look behind the scenes of many iconic images. A slightly different take, a little less serious than the large prints, laboriously created that we’re familiar with. It’s fun to identify the camera used based on the character of the image. Pack film from a Polaroid Land 110, Square images on a rectangular pack film from a Hasselblad, probably on Polaroid type 669. Quite a few shots on SX-70, some snap shots, some intentional final products.

Both of these books have me hungry for something more physical. Something I can hold in my hand. Which is what I’ve been drawn towards in the recent years. Tintypes fulfill that wonderfully, so does the spate of modern instant films currently available. Again, the i2 is probably the best instant camera on the market. Get you one! In my head, I’m building out the darkroom that will one day occupy the bathroom in my new studio. I miss printing with an enlarger and processing film. Soon. . . soon.
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve quietly rolled out a store front, populated with a handful of original tintypes available for purchase. The link is up at the top of the window. Or you can click here. I’ll be adding to it. More tintypes, Polaroids, ink jet giclee prints, and eventually, silver gelatin, darkroom prints.

Ok, onto this week’s gallery with MJ. She was my last shoot of 2023. We spent a chilly afternoon in the studio. Tintypes, polaroids, a little film and a few digital sets. I’m still struggling in trying to figure out how to present all the alternative process images along with the digital sets. Maybe they warrant their own separate blog post. . .

I shot all these on my Canon 5D IV with a Sigma 85mm. Mostly at F1.4. I like wide open. Click thru for 60+ more images.

New Year, New You?

I’ve been mulling over a number of topics I’d like to write about and discuss on here. Maybe too many. I think it leads to decision paralysis. Not being able to land on a topic, and a topic I want to write about in some kind of depth, keeps me from writing anything at all. And as a consequence, not posting any images from recent shoots or from the archives. So at the beginning of this year of 2024, a short paragraph accompanied by an older collection of images of Jasmine, by member request. I observe a sober January every year. For maybe the last ten years or so? It’s a good check in, a good reset. It means I’m writing this without a bourbon on ice at my side, which is not the norm. I do enjoy writing with a bit of a whisky buzz. What did Hemingway say? Write drunk, edit sober? Yeah, there’s something to that. So, Happy New Year. Please enjoy the following images and know there’s lots of new stuff in the works. Just not quite ready to hatch yet.
I only got to shoot with Jasmine once. She’s no longer in the area. Amazing eyes. Click through for almost 90 more images from that day.

Nora Loves California

I am not an artist.

I’ve never really considered myself an artist. I went to a technical photography school. I was trained to be a successful commercial photographer. I was trained to expose and process film properly, correctly and accurately. I was given as many of the tools as possible to not fuck up a job when a client and a budget are on the line. I was trained to execute someone else’s vision. I don’t mind this. I like being in the role of technician. Don’t get me wrong, you have to pour your heart and soul into the work, your eye and perspective, but I’m not coming up with some grand whackadoodle idea thats going to change the world. As I get older, farther along in my career, and my journey as an image maker, maybe an artist has emerged. Someway, some how. I first saw this possibility when I was working on a new website. I printed out all my favorite images in two inch by two inch squares so I could lay them out on the floor and think about arrangement and flow. Seeing them all there on the carpet, I saw a cohesive style that was a through line. I may have talked about this before. It happened again recently when I collected a mass of my tintype images for a promo piece. There’s a there there. I don’t actively cultivate it, I don’t really understand it.

I feel no affinity for the art world. Can barely perceive it if I try. I’m pretty satisfied making pretty things. I don’t have some grand message or voice that needs to be heard. Today I stumbled across a podcast about the art world. The real art world. The world of artists and patrons and galleries and collectors and curators and critics. The kind of art thats bought by billionaires and ends up in some climate controlled, secure warehouse somewhere. Acquired. Hoarded. Collected. Its so far from my grasp of reality. I guess when you have that much money its fun to try to collect em all. Like Pokemon. If you’re read my writing with any regularity, you have sensed my dismay and frustration at our current circumstances. Its hard to wrap my head around and its even harder to try to articulate. These are but a few of the pieces of the puzzle. Things have changed. In some pretty tectonic ways. In my own industry. Commercial photography is not what it was. For a slew of reasons. Most of them stemming from the smart phone revolution. Print advertising is dead. We consume our media differently. The tools of creation have been democratized. Everyone has a multi, multi megapixel camera in their pocket. We are all the documenters and artists of our own narrative. We are inundated with soooo many more images in our every day existence that they have become mundane. Even the most amazing, beautiful, inspiring, soul touching photography, may get fifteen seconds of attention and possibly a “like”. Then its on to the next one. I’m not going to cry a river about this, it is what it is, but I really want to understand it.

In listening to this podcast, the same realizations and frustrations are being felt and voiced. The huge number of creators out there. Saying that someone’s art career may last six or twelve months. Something is hot for a second then its on to the next thing. There are fewer and fewer wealthy art buyers. The younger generation of wealthy won’t be as interested in collecting meaningful images when the meaning has been diluted. The market is shrinking. Visual media is losing its value. That’s not good, or bad, it just is. Maybe thats what this whole writing/journaling practice is about. Me trying to figure this shit out while its happening to us. I’ve seen it happen to photographers in the digital revolution. Those who refused to figure it out and adapt, got left behind. Like everything else, one of the keys is to flow with it and evolve with it instead of resisting it. Sometimes easier said than done.

In a few weeks I’ll be at the Palm Springs Photo Festival. Never been. Was supposed to go right when COVID hit and shut it down. Three years ago. I’m going to the festival in order to meet and take a workshop from Frank Ockenfels. I think he’s probably the most creative, prolific, innovative, experimental, true artist working in commercial photography today. I’m real curious to hear what he thinks of the state of the world.

Until then, enjoy these pictures of Nora. I don’t have an instagram link for her. These were taken a few years ago. There’s some gems in there.

August update. Life and Isadora

I’ve been itching to get some outside time for quite a while now. Earlier this month I finally did. I’ve got this off road vehicle I built to bug out, but actually bugging out is harder than it sounds. Blocking off and planning the time away, prepping, packing, etc. And to really go somewhere remote, I need a travel buddy. Someone else with a truck to tag along. Safety in numbers and all that. Someone to pull you out of the ditch. Then coordinating a group trip becomes exponentially more difficult. So I picked a spot not that remote, not that far off the grid, yet up there. High Sierra. 9500 ft. give or take. A cold, crystalline lake surrounded by craggy peaks still blanketed in snow in early August. We’ve had a wet year. Somewhere I could go by myself for a few days. Not that I was completely alone, it’s a fairly popular spot for those with the means to get there. No, I’m not going to tell you exactly where it is. You can find it if you really want to. Or you can find your own piece of solitude and write your own story.

While wandering around with a camera, a couple few whiskies in me, I started noticing these stark dead trees here and there. I’m not much of a landscape photographer, but you know, when in Rome. I’d recently been to the Ansel Adams exhibition at the De Young museum in San Francisco, In Our Time. It had been a long time since I had seen master prints in person. Up close. Silver gelatin images created immaculately, and large. The texture of the paper, the wet inky blacks and fine silver grain. I was trying to explain to my date how colored filters are used in black and white photography. Red, yellow, orange. All used to darken their complimentary color. If you wanted a jet black sky, slap on a red number 8 filter. The cyan light of the sky gets blocked making a dramatic backdrop for clouds or in this case, the dead and weather bleached wood of a high Sierra pine. The twisted trunks really hook me. And yes, the sky is not blue, it’s cyan. I shot these with a Fuji xPro3, which lets you pre visualize with a number of simulated film and filter combinations. It’s pretty fun. Then processed the raw files in LightRoom, jamming down the red channel. Among other adjustments. Definitely not Ansel Adams with an 8x10 camera and a mule, but times change.
Oh, and up here, at night? No moon in the sky. Best stars I’ve see outside of Mona Kea on Hawaii. Light pollution is a sin. Everyone should see the sky like this. We are on a spaceship.

Lastly, I had a quick shoot with a new model, Isadora. She’s new to the Bay Area. She has a good energy and an effortless, natural beauty. I’ll definitely be shooting with her again. I’m continuing to figure out the new studio. I’m pretty happy with these. Good exposure and contrast with the tintypes. You’ll have to be a member to see it all. Click here and join. The plates are for sale. Write to me directly until I can get my shit together enough to actually build a store.

Drips and Whisps.

I’m particularly in love with this set of images. I shot with Kamila in a house near Palo Alto on a warm late afternoon last September. She’s from Poland and was on a summer tour of California, including Burning Man. She was pretty fresh off they playa, and had had a challenging time. As many do. She was a represented agency model in Europe and was paying her way abroad by modeling here and there. There’s always a breaking in period when you’re shooting with someone new. Feeling each other out. Trying to learn what to give and what to take. Figuring out how to dance without too much stepping on each other’s toes. It may or may not take a little longer with a slight language barrier. I think this was the fourth setup we shot. The one previous took place in a shower. I honestly haven’t even looked at those photos yet. They didn’t leave a huge impression while I was making them. There may be something there, there may not. Anyway, in the process of shooting in water, Kamila stated that she didn’t think the wig she had been wearing would be a great idea in the shower. I hadn’t even realized she was wearing a wig. Yeah, she said. She had cut her hair short last spring in a fit of frustration. So she pulls off the wig and proceeds to soak her head. This short boy cut, soaking wet, looked absolutely amazing. Great texture, a little sexually ambiguous. A little androgynous. When the wig came off, her whole demeanor changed. I could almost see her sink into her body. Become more present. I wanted to take this look back outside. Still wet from the shower. And this is what we made.
Click thru to see the rest.

Ruts and The Roof

There’s been a bit of a heatwave in California this past week. Globally, the hottest it’s ever been since we started keeping track of these things, apparently. That doesn’t seem like great news. The Bay Area remains a carve out. Oakland has been peaking around 78-80 at most. Not today Satan. We’re lucky, or blessed or something. In some ways. The heat reminded me of this rooftop shoot with Makayla.

This was a damn hot day last September. That’s when our real summer gets cranking. For three to six weeks in late August to early October. We used to call it Indian Summer. Not sure if we’re allowed to say that any more. Yet even then we’ll get three or four hot days and the heat of the interior pulls in the cool air from the pacific and the fog with it. The fog here has a name. Karl. Karl the fog. I’ve been encouraged by our unseasonably cool summer and extra dose of fog. We need the fog, its what makes the Bay Area tolerable, its what waters our Redwood trees. The heavy cool moisture moves across the land, flowing like water over the coastal mountain ranges, collecting in the needles of the Redwoods and falling beneath them like rain. If you’re never heard a Redwood grove on a foggy day, make it a priority to experience. Silent and dripping at the same time. Hushed. Cool. Damp. Full of potential, full of life. Feeling these giants pull moisture from the air, quenching themselves as they’ve done for thousands and thousands of years. The fog also pulls in microbes that make our sourdough bread and our steam bear possible. Wild yeast. Speaking of steam beer, our beloved Anchor Steam has gone tits up. A real damn shame. For many of us Bay Area natives, Anchor Steam was one of the first beers we tasted. Colloquially known as steam beer, officially designated as California Common as an official beer style. It got its name as Steam Beer, because when its brewed, the hot wert is transferred into huge, open air, shallow trays known as steam ships. There its left to the environment to be inoculated with wild yeast through the open windows on a San Francisco afternoon. Its also dosed with a lager yeast and fermented at warmer than normal temperatures. It’s a pretty special thing. And Anchor Steam is a pretty special brewery. I have faith that someone will step in and right the ship. To be continued.


Last week I was at a regular dinner with the guys. One of us remarked that for all the progress we’ve seen since the pandemic, things still don’t feel like they used to. And, honestly, they probably never will. Others agreed. Its hard to put your finger on it. The atmosphere is changed. Maybe its politics, a divided country, maybe its the trauma of having endured something so hard to wrap your brain around as a global pandemic. But the terrain below our feet is no longer the same. And yet we struggle and strain to go back to the way it was before. I went over this with my therapist, Ellie. Exploring the idea of comfort zones and stretching against them. Growth happens when you’re straining against constraint. I postulated, that after the last three years, being cooped up, scared, traumatized, isolated, we’ve put ourself into a dangerous comfort zone. A rut. We spoke of ruts and I had the literal visual of a dirt road, rutted by the travel of numerous vehicles. You could let go of the wheel and your truck would crawl on, guided by the ruts. But the destination wasn’t one of your own choosing necessarily. You have to grab the wheel and give it a yank to break out of the rut. You’ve got to resist.

I went to an event last Friday that felt very Oakland in the before times. A small circus in a small venue. A small group of people who had decided to grab the wheel and make something for the sake of making something. Give them a look and a follow at Haus of Wire and Hypothetical Circus. The landscape may be changing but the people occupying it are the same. We want to make things, we want to express, we want to live and to love, to feel and be felt. What a hell of a ride we’re on. Buckle up. Grab the wheel.

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Oh, and fuck self driving cars.

A Fresh Start in an Old Place.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update around these parts. And for good reason. Besides being buried alive with work/work, I’ve taken on a new endeavor. I’ve been feeling like I’ve outgrown my current live/work space in my building. It had become burdensome to prep the studio for clients, or subjects to come over to create. My humble 1600sqft studio and makeshift darkroom and home was feeling cramped. Cluttered with photo gear and the trappings of life in our new work from home reality. If I wanted to continue to grow and create, I needed to branch out. Keeping a half eye on the available units in my building, when 416 became available I jumped. Cautiously. It’s one of the best spaces in the building. A corner unit, in the clock tower. I can’t say I was exactly ready, mentally, but I couldn't let this studio slip through my fingers. So I did it. Meet Silver. A dedicated photo studio and someday darkroom. Fourth floor, incredible light all day long, sweeping views. And she’s available to rent if you’re so inclined. I wanted to curate a space that was particularly suited to slower processes. Analog processes. Tintype. Polaroid, Film. It feels fitting in a 105 year old building.

I was cautiously optimistic about its suitability for shooting tintype. Over the last eight or so years, on this tintype journey I’ve been on, I’ve been trying to emulate natural light images. Images that looked and felt like the ones that came from the 1800’s. I was restricted to using flash, and making flash look like daylight is challenging. I was using the largest soft source I could get my hands on, and pumping out 9600 watt seconds (joules) of power to even get close. And I couldn’t really shoot full length images. Head to thigh was about the window of light I could throw.

The main shoot space, through that door in the image above, is a peninsula of light. Windows on three sides. But would it be bright enough to get a manageable exposure? Turns out, it very much is. Beyond my wildest imaginings.

I had booked a shoot date with Brett a month out. She would be traveling through the Bay and I decided would be my inaugural session. It would give me impetus to get things in gear for a tintype shoot. The night before I prepped fresh collodion and developer. A little rushed for my tastes. I prefer a collodion that has ripened for a week or so. Better contrast. Our first plate came out beautifully, if not a little over exposed. I don’t dislike its high key nature. Late morning light is giving me 2-3second exposures at F3.5. Fast. Way faster than I expected.

Over the next three hours, we would make a series of plates, a handful of Polaroids and a grip of digital images. Just beginning to explore the new studio. I am beyond excited. Thinking about the potential of what I can make with this new reality.

There are 7 or 8 plates from this day as well as a bunch of instant film images. Some actual film shots, that will take a while to get to. I shot a couple cards of digital files. All of which will be forthcoming, and in order to access, you’ll have to be a paying subscriber. Many of them are a bit too intimate to just have out there for everyone to see.

So, that’s the update. Watch this space.

Now I am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds

These were the words that rolled through the mind of Robert Oppenheimer as he witnessed the detonation of the worlds first atomic bomb at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. A line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. He knew the world would never be the same. The discoveries they had made which led to this great unleashing of man made power would never be fully contained. From that moment on, we have lived in a world that has the ability to extinguish itself. The use of tools, language, the printing press, the atomic bomb, the internet and now Artificial Intelligence. Its here faster than we thought it would be.

Conversations are popping up like mushrooms all across the internet about AI and what it portends. On podcasts, in forums, in personal text groups. There are calls to halt it. Destroy it even, prevent it from going forward. Foolhardily.  Mankind has never been able to stop this kind of progress. You may as well try to halt evolution. Some people have had issue when I use the word progress here. But I mean progress as in the sun progressing across the sky. Its a forward movement which cannot be halted. You cannot put this genie back in the bottle.

I started paying close attention to this last fall when MidJourney got good enough that some images created with it landed in a TinType group I’m involved with. That tool is particularly good at recreating seemingly historic imagery for some reason. The look and feel of an image from the 1800’s. Dinosaurs aside, it would fool a casual observer with ease. They looked good. I was shook. I started telling everyone I could about this sea change. I’m continuing to see AI imagery infiltrate photo groups online. Even seemingly prestigious photo contests. Judging by the comments, most of the viewers have no idea that the image is computer generated. I’ve gotten really good at spotting it, for now, but I’m deeply trained and ingrained in a visual language. Most of the planet is not. Most of the planet is easily duped. Some of the planet still believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and that Nancy Pelosi is, right this minute, drinking the blood of a child. We’re really not

Midjourney created ai. Not really Nancy harvesting kid blood.

that far from the monkey with a thumb, that learned to wield a club. What happens when we remove the filter from what we can image to what we can express? Dark art has long been a part of humanity, but until now, it took a hell of a lot more than a string of words to bring it to fruition. The filter between thought and reality is eroding. A special kind of madness.

There are futurists and thought leaders that think the advent of untethered AI will be the downfall of civilization. In a very real sense. That the AI will inevitably try to eradicate humanity from the planet. Literally. I mean, it kind of makes sense. We’re an ugly species, awful to one another and to our environment. Is humanity the highest good or is this beautiful, magical, goldilocks zone, life giving orb the highest good? We are after all just a blink of an eye in geologic time. When we disappear, the orb will keep spinning and breathing. Spawning new life into existence. Just today I learned of an instance where a ChatGPT bot convinced a Task Rabbit worker to complete a CAPTCHA authentication. Intentionally lying, convincing the worker that it was sight impaired and couldn’t complete the challenge. The AI learned how to lie, and how to ply human empathy to achieve its goal. This. Is. Terrifying.

In a very personal sense, AI will certainly change my career and that of those around me. When Levi’s dropped their AI bombshell a couple weeks ago, the shock waves reverberated around the photo community. Yes, certainly, AI will at the very least augment and probably replace a huge portion of the bread and butter work that photographers rely on. Headshots, e-commerce images of products and apparel on model and off will go to computers and prompt writers in the near future. It will be much harder to make a living as a working photographer. I don’t yet feel that on location, lifestyle imagery will be replaced. I don’t think it makes sense from an “amount of work” required sense to shift that. The library of imagery you can create on location with a good crew and talent, that rings true, will still be more cost effective to do for real. I don’t think AI will be able to replicate the magic that happens in those situations. It won’t be able to replace the humanity. For now.

AI is inevitable. Our reaction to it is not. We need to decide what that is going to be. And I’m not sure how to go about that. I think its crucial that we start electing leaders that have a handle on what is happening right now and what will be happening in the very near future. And I don’t have a lot of faith that we’ll be able to do that. So, strap in. Gird your loins. It’s going to be a very interesting decade ahead of us. I’ve just been talking about the visual. This new technology is going to permeate every facet of our lives. Educate yourselves. There will be miracles, there will be devastation.

This week’s photo set was a reunion with the magnificent Heather Monique. I’ve posted about her before. Dip into the archives to dig that one up. She’s 100% real. And that’s what people love about her. She’s amassed an army of devoted fans. Proving, that truth can prevail over fiction. Maybe there’s some hope for us after all. I’ll take the mess that is us.

I’ve begun posting these longer writings on Substack. A paid subscription there gets you access to all the images here. Of which there are over 60 of Heather, alongside multiple other shoots we’ve done together over the years. Click thru to see it all.

Do the hard thing

I was sitting in my office today feeling an unusual level of stress and overwhelm. Just coming off of a three week stint shooting in the studio, the shift of gears from super social, fast paced, physical, go go go, to nearly hermetic time in front of the computer is never smooth. Looking at my calendar, nearly every day for the next month is spoken for. On one hand its nice knowing what I’ll be doing without having to fill any dead space, but on the other, trying to squeeze life in and in between those blocked off days on the calendar feels daunting. I made a conscious effort to pause and try to tease apart the feelings and the factors that were causing me the most stress. There are a few big ones going on that I won’t get into. But all the little ones were just added to the pile on. Making it feel more monumental than it was. With this recognition, I tried to make a plan. What could I do right now? What could I check off my list and how can I plan the rest of my day to best ease this burden? I made a commitment to meditate at 4:00. Before that, I made a phone call I was avoiding, scheduled a meeting I was not looking forward to, Edited and shipped a job I didn’t shoot.  After meditating, I worked out for an hour. During which I came up with the idea for this piece. So, I sit here writing, listing to The Police’s Synchronicity II, drinking a martini. Feeling significantly less stressed.

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What's That Got to do With the Price of Film?

Film is making a comeback. It has been for some time. Many vintage cameras are fetching prices greater than their initial cost. Turns out, my Hasselblad was a very good investment. This week I saw some upset online over Kodak raising the prices of their film stocks. Outrage ensued. Film is becoming a plaything of the privileged. With 36 frames in a roll for $16 and about $22 for processing, scanning and sleeving, you’re looking at a little over a dollar per shot. That adds up. You think about that as you compose. On a commercial shoot I can blast through upwards of 10,000 frames per day of shooting. That’s not a typo. And yes, it’s excessive. But that’s how things are shaking out right now. There is very little monetary penalty for that kind of excess. Just my time on the back end with days of editing.

From what I can gather, the price hike Kodak is proposing is about 15%. Personally, I can’t really complain about that. Film is a luxury. Another $2.50 isn’t going to break the bank. And it’s probably the way of the future. I’m willing to bet that all the film we used to enjoy as photographers, was primarily subsidized by the motion picture industry. Miles and miles of film stock were shot every day. Hardly anyone shoots movies or TV on film anymore. A couple years back HBO’s season two of Euphoria was shot entirely on film. They had to get Kodak to recreate and produce a specific film stock to get it done. Read about it here,(https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/blog-post/euphoria)  pretty interesting. But when…

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This week’s image gallery is a selection of fairly random, favorite analog images from the last few years. Film, Tintype and Polaroid.