This month’s print is out the door and it’s a special one. For the first time, a genuine, hand made, in the darkroom, silver gelatin print is being sent to members. 5x7 very limited edition. Archival materials and process. There’s till time to sign up and receive this one. Join Here. Fifteen bucks a month or $150/year. Hell of a deal. Get Brett in you mailbox. There’s nothing quite like holding a real print in your hand.
After a year and change of having my studio, I’ve finally got my darkroom up and running. It’s kind of my M.O… I’ll get an idea, I’ll ruminate and grind on it for a good long while, put it into action in a sprint, get 85% of the way there then ease off the gas. Make sure things are aligned. Put final touches in place. Then refine, tweak, fine tune. Thats where I’m at right now. Refining, tweaking, tuning. It never really ends. It’s never perfect. It’s never done.
Remembering the old processes. My hands remembering how to wind film on steel reels. Mixing ratios of wet chemistry. Getting developer down to 68º in a hot studio with a water ice bath. The muscle memory comes back quickly. Echos of 16 year old me figuring it all out for the first time. The first darkroom didn’t even have plumbing. Or ventilation. This one is a luxury.
Dissolving grains of Dektol in 120º water. The way the developer makes your fingers feel slippery… And how stop bath takes it away. The slight sulfurous scent of fixer.
This is the first roll of recent film processed and printed in the new lab. I’ve been shooting film on most of my shoots for the last year and a half, in anticipation of having a proper darkroom in which to develop and print them. I have quite a backlog to get through. I’m looking forward to it. I’m not in a rush.
I thought it would be fun to post one single, entire roll of film here. The good, the bad and the derpy. This is from one of my shoots with Brett. Kodak Tri-X shot with my Nikon FM2, with probably the 85mm lens. Developed in HC-110. If you’re a member of the “Print of the Month Club” you’ll be receiving a sliver gelatin darkroom print from this roll. If you’re not, you’ve got til August 1st to sign up and get one. It’s a hell of a deal at $15. Less if you sign up for a year. Your free members only access will get you high res scans of every frame from the above contact sheet. 37 images. It’s been an interesting experience working with this roll. Developing, scanning, printing a contact sheet, printing a couple test prints. There’s more care and intention and purpose put into these 37 images than all the hundreds of digital files I’ve shot of her over our maybe five hours together. There’s lessons here.
More. Lots more to come.
This week’s photo set is with Anneke. Lots more in the now free, members only section. Join here.
I’ve been running this little experiment of a site now for a few years. Tremendous thanks to all the members and visitors. After lots of deliberation, I’ve decided to drop the paywall to the members only galleries. For a number of reasons. I think the primary one being the self imposed pressure I feel to keep updating things at a pace that may not suite my life and schedule. I have a fairly demanding day job shooting for a large apparel and footwear brand, a number of side hustles, tintype shoots, personal work, personal life, etc, etc. I feel a twinge of guilt every week that goes by that I haven’t updated. I think its acceptable to expect something you pay for to be updated weekly. Sometimes I’m lucky to hit monthly. I also feel this push to publish the kind of images that people want to pay for, heavy on the T&A, yet not so much T&A that will piss off the hosting overlords. And not just publish, I feel this expectation creep into the shoots that I’m producing and the work in general. . . Really trying to embrace creating for myself first and just letting the chips fall where they may.
The income that I derive from this is nice, but is in no way supportive of materials of model fees or hosting costs, etc, etc. So, maybe there’s more to be gained by making it free. I’ve never really been comfortable with the hard core self promotion needed to drive people here. Always been a kind of, take it or leave it situation.
Additionally, Squarespace has a fairly liberal policy on artistic nudity, but the payment processor, does not. I’ve come close to having the site shut down because of that and losing access to that payment portal’s services across the board would be detrimental to my other businesses. Their reach is vast. So this move is in part, self preservation. It really does feel like we’re in a puritanical time online with a handful of gate keepers. SESTA and FOSTA really did a number on the expression of nudity and sexuality.
You’ll still need to be a member, but now its free to sign up. If you’re paid for an annual membership and are upset about it, drop me a line and I’ll happily refund the remainder of your membership.
This path, this career has never been about the money for me. Of course everyone needs to be able to support themselves. Long ago I decided I’d never be a starving artist. I would also never compromise on what I wanted to be doing just to make more money. I’m a commercial artist and I’m extraordinarily lucky to be able to earn a comfortable living with my craft, doing what I love, doing what I’m good at.
So, how can you continue to support this work you may ask? And thank you for asking! The print of the month club is still available at $15/month. There is physical work for sale in the Store and more on the way. I am looking at some kind of tip jar, that could be fun.
In the immortal words of Joe Walsh, “I can’t complain but sometimes I still do. Life’s been good to me so far.” Lets see where we go from here.
-Cheers!
There was an uproar last week. Most weeks. Days? Everyday. Apple had an event on Tuesday. I usually tune in to the Apple events. I like them. I like Apple. Always have. Always will. I’m a stock holder. I’m invested in Apple. Literally. As a creative and as someone who’s believed in their mission to design for people, people who are by nature creative since I was 14 years old.
But this event aired at 7:00am. Thanks but no thanks. Too damn early. That would mean waking up at 6:30 to get my shit together, get the espresso made, settle in to watch. Not gonna happen. Apparently while I was sleeping, Apple tripped over it’s own dick. In the unveiling of their new, super thin, super capable new iPad Pro, they aired a spot where a hydraulic press crushed all number of creative tools and musical instruments, paints, a piano, guitar, etc, etc. etc. One of the last shots featured a foam smily face emoji, crushed til its eyes bugged out. It was fucking disturbing. I’ve only watched it once. My happy expectations turning to horror. I should watch it again in the writing of this so I can cite more accurately, but alas, I will not. You can go find it if you want. The metaphor is obvious. All these wonderful creative tools from instruments to finger paints, crammed in to this one, deliciously sexy, thin, sleek piece of tech that can be yours for the low low price of $1299. Glass and silicon and titanium and rare earth minerals mined by children, can replace everything you love. Miss me with that shit. Most tech companies are forgoing the human for the pay off. I mean, of course Apple has too, but up until now, it felt like they were empowering people. This didn’t feel that way.
They’ve since retracted the piece and apologized. The uproar has been loud. Everyone else should take notice. You can only push people so far before they jump ship. Instagram is about to learn this. Not that they’ll care. There are enough idiots (myself included) who will spend hours on their platform watching the nonsense to scrape in the ad dollars. A thoughtfully considered and composed photograph holds no sway in this sea of noise.
Apple built itself as a tool for creative people. Full stop. From the very early days of word processing and post script. The relationship between computer and physical output. They built the tools that not only enabled creativity, but were themselves, designed for creative people to utilize. This is fucking huge. It has shaped the society we live in. Using a Macintosh in 1991 felt like a revelation. I could put my hand on an object and make a cursor on a screen move as I moved. It was connection. This is what Apple is. I had watched my friends fumble with DOS interfaces and clumsy keyboard input and it was so fucking boring and stiff. The first time I touched a Mac, it was my cousin’s and she had a program that let you perform open heart surgery. Talk about human.
Apparently they’re throwing Chiat Day under the bus for this misstep, but believe me, nothing this big happens at Apple without a dozen important people signing off on it. But I do hope they’ve heard the feedback. I’m pretty sure they have. These companies need to remember, that at the end of the day, they’re designing for PEOPLE. And we’re goddamn fickle. Once you lose people, your days are numbered. This whole damn thing is the scorpion on the frog fable.
We’re feeling crushed already. By our politics and society and capitalism, and technology and Ai and the struggle that is every day life. Don’t give us a visual representation of everything we hold dear being literally crushed in a hydraulic press. Do better. For fucks sake, do better.
This week’s set is a solid retro vibe with MaryJ The Muse Second in the series. Think there may be one more in the works. TBD. Click here to see em all 50+ Oh, and if you’ve joined my Print of the Month Club, and you have not responded to my email requesting your mailing address, do it! I can’t send things to nowhere. Please and thank you. And thank you for subscribing!
Just a quick update this week.
Life has been a whirlwind lately. Caught the eclipse with a big group of friends in Texas. Highly recommend. If you have the chance to see a total solar eclipse, take it. You’ll never experience anything on this planet like it. There are no images or words to adequately describe it. It’s the only time I've tangibly felt the vast mechanics of our universe in action. The interplay of gears and pendulums swinging through the vastness of space, aligning for such a brief moment, in such a precise and delicate way to create a spectacle that boggles the human mind. . . The next one will happen in 2026 and will be visible, notably, in Iceland, Portugal and Spain. Plan accordingly.
2024 Total Solar Eclipse as seen from Lampasas, Texas.
From there I went straight to a shoot in Utah, flying into Salt Lake City and driving out to the Bonneville Salt Flats. My crew had flown in a couple days before as I lagged behind for the Eclipse. Photographer extraordinaire, Will Saunders shot action on day one, and I shot fashion on day two. It certainly felt weird dropping into this other worldly landscape, just on the heels of a celestial event. The shoot felt great. The day flew by. It was weird being on vacation with 8 friends, super social for days on end, then being flung into work mode. I was looking forward to it. I like being busy. I like being on set. I like being productive.
The Salt Flats as seen from highway 80 heading west.
Last week was spent in L.A. shooting a casting for a new crop of potential models for the coming seasons. Some really excellent prospects. L.A. is a whole vibe. It’s easy to shit on, but honestly, I really liked the feel. It felt vibrant and alive. Lots of people out, lots of energy. Very much a contrast to Oakland where it seems like a new restaurant closes every week. Not much of a social scene in the Town. L.A. has its issues for sure, but I didn’t feel on edge like I do here. Something to think about. I chose to drive down. Sometimes I would rather spend some hours on the road, listening to music and pod casts and my own thoughts than deal with airports and all the bullshit. Feels more free. Came back on 101 thru Santa Barbara. Lunch at La Super-Rica, swung by one of the old Brooks Institute of Photography campuses (RIP) which is now a middle school. All kinds of feels. Beautiful as ever.
Back at home in Oakland, the darkroom in the new studio is progressing nicely. I’ve gotten better at soldering copper plumbing. Today was spent scouting locations for our next shoot up north. I almost stepped on a new born fawn bedded down in the tall grass.
Gorgeous day. Fried chicken sandwich and a beer for lunch. Zero complaints.
This week’s photo set is another slice of the shoot with Verronica. There are very few images that are safe for work so you’ll have to click thru to see the bulk. Here’s a taste.
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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.
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.
I spent five nights last week taking a class at our local fire arts education facility, The Crucible. It’s a great resource in the Bay Area if you want to learn glass blowing, welding, casting, forging or in my case, Neon. I’ve been mildly obsessed with Neon art for a long time. Neon signs have a deep and rich art and science that can’t be met by the abundance of today’s LED dominance. The history and discovery of Neon feels a little like that of tintype. Somehow, someone figured out that if you evacuated the air from a glass tube, introduced an amount of inert Neon gas and hit it with very high voltage, you can get it to glow. To create the fourth state of matter, plasma. And light. I’ve always thought it was beautiful. Lightening in a bottle. Quite literally. Learning how to bend glass to make something tangible, was a humbling experience. Heating a ten millimeter tube to near glowing, to the point where it bends and sags, nearly out of your control, and then coaxing it into something intentional. Eighteen hours of instruction and at the end of the week, I felt like I had just barely had an understanding of what was possible and how to achieve it. I can’t imagine how many hours someone competent in this skill must practice. How many broken and discarded glass tubes must be sacrificed to the learning.
Having an appreciation of the difficulty combined with the knowledge that it’s a fundamentally dying art doesn’t give me a ton of hope for the future of Neon. There are definitely pockets of people keeping it alive, but man, it must take a ton of dedication and sacrifice. To rage against the dying of the light.
And now, on to this month’s photo set.
Cute little story…
A while back, I had a fan reach out and ask if I had any more images of Jasmine in the archives. Realizing I’d never put together a comprehensive set of our work together, I did just that. Jasmine saw my posts about it on Instagram and was was tickled that someone was seeking her out. Coincidentally, she says, she has a trip planned to San Francisco to meet up with a friend from L.A. in a couple weeks. And would I be interested in shooting with the two of them. And the rest is history, seen below. Shot a hand full of tintypes, but it was a pretty gray day. I rarely shoot people together, it was a really fun experience. Probably helps that they know each other so well. Tilly was a blast. I’d happily photograph these women any day.
As a reminder, there is now a print of the month club available, link up top in the menu. Every month, a physical, signed, hand made print sent to your door. Support physical art!
Thank you!!
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.
I’ve known Bunny since she was a wee, black, Italian car part. I met her on the set of a shoot in San Francisco for Fiat in 2012. I was assisting photographer R.J. Muna, in his studio, Left Space on Bryant. Fiat wanted an attention getting campaign for the release of the 500 Abarth. Their premium US offering. The concept was an image of the car, made of human bodies, painted to make up the various components. They chose to cast a bunch of circus performers and contortionists, people who had an intimate familiarity with their own bodies, and could form them, bend them, make them into the shapes needed, and to hold those shapes, under pressure and physical discomfort, long enough to assemble the car and photograph it. RJ had a good network of these folks in the Bay Area. He’d been working on a personal project of amazingly beautiful portraits of circus performers in the Bay. It took hours to build the form and for the body painters ( Craig Tracy and Trina Merry) to execute the design on the bodies. With multiple assemblies, test shots, and reviewing the results. It was quite the thing to witness. My roll, as assistant and digital tech, was pretty light. Once the set was lit and built, there wasn't a whole lot to do. So I was also shooting a bunch of BTS stills. Here’s a link to an incredible BTS video that shows the whole thing: Youtube/Fiat/BTS
Looking back, I think this might have been near the pinnacle of print advertising. I can’t really imagine something like this happening ever again. I’m glad to have been a part of it.
Bodies for Fiat on set with RJ Muna
Somehow or another, Bunny and I connected and exchanged info. I was always on the lookout for people to photograph. I dunno man, sometimes when you meet people, the right variables fall into place. She and I have shot a ton tother. And in hindsight, it’s a super varied body of work. She appears in my timeline of images over and over, over the years, she and I in very different places as people, but always coming together to make good shit. It feels really casual, but also really powerful at the same time. And the people and projects that i’ve encountered due to Bunny proximity have been expansive. Connections lead to connections. I’m happy she’s a friend.
This last shoot was no exception. I had wanted to shoot tintypes, but the weather was not cooperating very well. 450 square feet of glass between us and the world wasn’t enough. Heavy rain for most of the day, really putts a damper on the UV light necessary for the wet collodion process. We shot a handful of plates. A couple few may be good enough to share, someday. But then with the flagging light, we switched to digital and shot this set. I’m pretty happy with it. There are some really nice moments. There are certain people you photograph that give of themselves. That connect. And that connection, for me, is what makes an image. Is what makes the practice of photography worthy of a life’s work. Bunny is one of those people.
I’m pretty sure she’s the roof line and passenger side, rear window in the top image.
Side note, after the wrap party for this shoot Craig and I ended up in a mosh pit at a FishBone concert. I miss those days. . .
Credits and links: R.J. Muna, Bunny, Craig Tracy, Trina Merry
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you’re a frequent reader, you’ve noticed my preoccupation with the decline of social media. I’m old enough to have witnessed the birth of the internet. The moment I saw a friend log onto a computer across town with his dad’s computer, coupled to a land line hand set, watching him type out commands on a clacky keyboard, on a tiny six inch, black and white CRT, and seeing the computer on the other end of the line respond, I knew something was up. I felt that way over and over again throughout my life. Seeing the potential, feeling the connection. The squeak squall sound of an analog modem trying to connect still makes my ears perk up. Some modern technical synesthesia. The early days of social media was full of that promise. As an image maker, being able to share photography and have people all over the world like it and follow you was intoxicating. The hardest thing about being a photographer was and is, getting people to see your work. And then, maybe hire you. If you wanted to make a living, this was critical.
Photographers would spend tens of thousands of dollars on their marketing budget. Buying placement in sourcebooks like Workbook, Alt Pic and the Black Book. Purchasing mailing lists of known employees at advertising agencies, catalog houses and magazines, then sending out physical, printed pieces, from postcards to elaborate multi page mailers, throughout the year. Casting as wide of a net as they could afford. If a potential client was interested you’d follow up by sending them a portfolio. A large, beautifully printed, bound book via FedEx. Frequently in a protective hard case. And it had to be current. These books were usually insured for thousands of dollars because they were so costly to make and maintain. A busy photographer would have maybe eight or ten books being shipped across the country at all times. I myself still have three very nice books bound in celery green goat skin with my logo embossed on it. They’re collecting dust around here somewhere. Right around the time I was gearing up to pursue a similar tact of self promotion, social media took the reigns. Flickr was popping off. Then Instagram. Suddenly you could maintain an ever evolving gallery of imagery online that potential clients and fans could discover. Talented photographers built large audiences. Tens or hundreds of thousands of eyeballs could access your work. The business of self promotion became far more democratized. Custom PDFs replaced the printed portfolios. Art buyers were scouring the net and discovering photographers organically. Careers were made. It was quite beautiful and exciting. Then, slowly, and then not so slowly, something happened. Cory Doctorow has coined it as 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.” I recommend you read the whole piece: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
Money ruins everything apparently. The promise of a more connected, democratic, open society was nice while it lasted. And I write like this from my point of view, as a photographer, but you can extrapolate it to just about everyone, every interest, every niche. What once brought us together is now pulling us apart. Strange times.
Back to the title of this piece. I’ve been spending a bit more time on Threads, Meta’s new platform. An answer to the shithouse fire that Twitter, er, X? Has become. I do like it. I like the interface, its simple and clean. Images look good with no or minimal cropping. You can post links to other things. There is an algorithm, but it’s currently tuned to actually work. Showing you others with similar interests and content. There’s no advertising yet. They’re undoubtedly gathering user data behind the scenes to sell to the bidders. But that can be done in secret. It feels familiar in it’s early promise. And yet. . . And yet. I feel a little like Charly Brown and the football. Knowing that Meta is not an altruistic organization, that they exist to make money. To make money off the backs of people who make things. As the old saying goes, if something is free, you are the product. So I’m watching Threads. Watching people share of themselves and make connections. Seeds sprouting, thrusting tender roots into the soil. Taking hold, waiting to blossom. To grow, to flourish. And I know, when enough time has passed and the crop is ripe, the reaper with his scythe, will harvest what we have sown. All they had to do was provide the dirt.
This month’s photo set is of the stunning and sweet Verronica. Its one of a series we shot a ways back. She was in town recently, I’m sorry to have missed the opportunity of shooting with her again. Busy is as busy does. Click through and subscribe to see it all. Its worth it.
The new Polaroid I2
Confession time. I have a bit of a fetish when it comes to instant cameras. I’ve been chasing the perfect solution to shooting various instant films for years. There’s still boxes of expired Type 55 in my fridge. Every Fuji Instax ever made. Vintage SX-70s and SLR 680s. Obscure large format backs that will take Instax wide. A Fuji press camera from Japan to shoot FP100 peel apart film. The holy grail is always control. The ability to adjust exposure, f stop, shutter speed, force flash or no flash. Every solution has its compromises and seems to fall short in some way. My love of instant is also partially why I embrace TinType. It’s instant gratification 1860’s style.
Click thru for this week’s gallery of Whitney.
Then one morning a few weeks ago while laying in bed, checking my email, I see an announcement for the I2. Devouring specs and available info, I hit the buy button. Yeah, it’s pricy for a Polaroid, but not out of line with what the first SX-70’s were going for in 1973 when they debuted. It showed up in just a few days, bundled with a few packs of film. It feels nice in your hands, solid and a nice weight. The viewfinder is bright and settings are visible through the eyepiece. It’s rechargeable via a USB-C port, which is one criticism. The internal battery is not user replaceable. Reports about the previous iType camera have the battery dying after two or three years. I wondered if you could shoot the camera while its charging, and you can. Which makes me optimistic that you’ll be able shoot the camera with a dead internal battery while connected to an external battery pack. Not ideal, but not the huge issue some will make it out to be. The images from this camera are definitely the sharpest I’ve seen from cartridge film. Owed to a completely redesigned lens purpose built for this camera and film. Polaroid claims that their “plastic” lens is superior to film. I’ll have to agree. The proof is in the pudding.
I’ve run a few dozen sheets of film through it by now. I’m mostly using it on aperture priority, wide open at F8 and using the exposure compensation ring plus or minus, depending on the situation. F8 sounds like a small maximum aperture, but you have to remember the film size. F8 on the I2 is the equivalent to F2.8 on 35mm. I need to see how it couples with an incident light meter. I’ve found in bright sunlight it tends to over expose images. I’ll knock it down by 1/3-2/3 stop. Overall I’m very happy with it and have been recommending it to everyone who enjoys shooting instant images. The iType film is quite good. One sticking point is the development process. You should keep freshly shot images in the dark until they’re done cooking. And they take much longer to fully process than the film of yore. This makes it harder to see what you got and adjust and reshoot. You can also use the SX70 and 600 types of film, though I’ve not tried that yet, don’t really see a reason to. There’s also a setting on the I2 for double exposures, looking forward to getting good with that. There’s an app from Polaroid to connect the camera to your phone via bluetooth. Giving you control over all the camera settings and a remote trigger. I just installed the latest firmware through the app. It also lets you shoot up to four multiple exposures. Connects easily, works flawlessly. This thing is a lot of fun to shoot with. It feels natural and nostalgic. It feels a bit like magic. This is by no means an exhaustive review of this camera, I’m sure you can find that elsewhere. Rather my first impressions, thoughts, plusses and minuses as I see them. I’m happy to discuss it or answer any questions.
I’m trying something new and have signed up as an Amazon Affiliate. If you’d like to purchase the Polaroid I2, I’d love it if you used this link: Amazon/Polaroid I2. And this 40 pack of film is the best deal I’ve found for price per shot.
This week’s photo gallery is of the lovely Whitney. A mix of tintype, digital and polaroid. This is the first pack of film run through the I2. Click here to see the whole set or to join.
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.
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.
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.
