speaking of photography…

Posted on July 21, 2024 by greg

I have a complicated history with Instagram. I downloaded the app and joined 11 years ago today, on 21 July, 2013. I did it under a pseudonym–Knuckles Dobrovic–because, like every good photographer I knew, I assumed Instagram was trash and I didn’t want to be associated with it. As I wrote at the time,

We sneered at Instagram for being a cheap, easy, lazy way to turn crappy photos into images that look artsy. Not ‘artful’ or ‘artistic’ but artsy. We sneered at it because the learning curve for using Instagram is — well, it’s hardly a curve at all. It’s almost a straight line. You shoot a photo with your cell phone, you flip through a couple dozen preset filters until you find one you like, tap to apply it, and hey bingo, you have yourself an artsy photo of your drunken friends at a tacky Chinese restaurant.

I hadn’t actually looked at Instagram; I was just operating on the assumption it was trash. I had to join it in order to confirm my assumption. And hey, I was right. It was, in fact, trash. It still is trash, mostly. But eleven years ago to my surprise, I also found a healthy dose of really fine photography. All sorts of photography, from street work to portraiture to landscape to editorial work to fashion photography. There was (and still is) solid work to be found on Instagram.

I used the Knuckles Dobrovic account mainly to explore IG. But I also felt an obligation to participate, so I used it as a platform for a hastily cobbled together project. After a few months, I decided to more fully embrace IG; I created a second account under my own name. Originally, the account was devoted to square format monochrome photos. Now, of course, it’s my main IG account for all types of photography.

I continued to use the Knuckles account as a platform for random photo projects (for anybody interested, I’ll include a list and a description of those projects in an addendum at the end of this post). The last Knuckles project ended in April of 2023. I haven’t posted anything under the Knuckles account since then.

Until today. My IG anniversary. I’m starting my 8th Knuckles project. Appropriately, it’s going to be pretty similar to how I began my personal IG account. I’ve always had four simple rules for a Knuckles Dobrovic project.

It’s got to be simple (which means I won’t have to do a lot of planning or a lot of post-processing).
It’s got to be organic to my life (which means it’s something I can photograph during the course of an ordinary day — whatever that is).
It’s got to have at least one intellectual component (which is more accurately described as a pretentious bullshit element).
It’s got to be able to keep my interest over time.

So here we go. Simple: high contrast monochrome, which is made easy with my new Ricoh GR3X camera. Organic to my life: my normal flâneur walk-about style plus whatever I happen to see that catches my interest. Pretentious Bullshit Element: my ongoing fascination with the Japanese Provoke-style photography, which is NOT how I normally see the world. Keeping my interest: Well, yeah. I’ve played around with this style of photography before and I see no reason why I’ll ever stop. At some point, I may feel the need to start a 9th Knuckles project, but until then…well.

ADDENDUM: Previous Knuckles Dobrovic projects.

Things on a Table — I put a thing on a table and photographed it.

My Feet on the Earth — I took walks, stopping periodically to photograph my feet. I selected two or three of the images during a walk and created multiple exposure images.

One Hundred Appropriated Google Street Views — This was sort of an homage to Hiroshige’s ‘One Hundred Famous View of Edo’. While playing the online game GeoGuessr (which involves finding a random location based on Google Street View), I made screen captures of interesting vistas. I converted those screen grabs into square black & white images.

Slightly Dislocated — During the enforced isolation of the pandemic, I shot square format photos during my solo walks or masked errands. I diddled with the color a wee bit, digitally sliced the image in thirds, then re-arranged the pieces.

Are Bure Bampot — I’d been playing Geoguessr again, and during a break I read something about Daido Moriyama, the godfather of a photographic style called are bure bokeh, which roughly translates as “rough, coarse/crude, out of focus.” That same afternoon, on Twitter, a Scots acquaintance referred to somebody as ‘a total bampot,’ which I was told means “an idiot, a foolish person, a nutcase”. For reasons I can’t explain, the phrase are bure bampot came to me, and I decided to follow through on it. As before, I made Google Street View screen captures of scenes and locations in Scotland. This time I modified them using the are bure bokeh style.

Geoguesser Bus Stops — A bus is the most democratic form of public transport. They’re most commonly used by the poor and working classes, but the bus stops for everybody. A bus network is fundamentally simple: a series of designated routes with consistent designated arrival/departure times and stable designated boarding locations with predetermined fees. It’s a predictable, reliable, efficient dynamical transportation system in which bus stops act as fixed point attractors. Bus stops are ubiquitous; they’re everywhere because a bus network is socially elastic–the design can be stretched to fit almost any community anywhere in the world. Bus stops are both local and global.

the flâneur school of photography

Posted on July 20, 2024 by greg

There are people–lots of people–who like to name things. I know people who’ve given names to their car, who’ve named their computer, who’ve named their favorite camera. I’m not one of those people. I don’t anthropomorphize gear. A camera is just a tool. You choose the tool best suited for the job you’ve got planned.

I say that, but lawdy, I’m starting to develop a relationship with my new camera. My Ricoh GR3X and me, we’re becoming buddies.

Why? Because this camera seems to have been designed almost specifically for the way I shoot photographs. I’m not a street photographer, although I enjoy shooting street. I’m not a landscape photographer, or a fine arts photographer, or a portrait photographer; I don’t really belong to any of the more common photographic traditions. I belong to what I like to call the flâneur school of photography.

If you’re not familiar with the term, a flâneur is somebody who roams around idly observing the world while being somewhat emotionally detached from it. Somebody who’s not necessarily involved in what’s taking place around them, but is keenly aware of it. One writer described a flâneur as “an amateur detective and investigator of the city.” The term is usually applied to urban life, but it’s a philosophical approach to the world that can take place anywhere. It’s a strange nonjudgmental balance between being analytical and emotional.

(By the way, the term flâneur is French but it’s derived from the Old Norse verb flana, which meant “to wander with no purpose.” And if you’re wondering how a French word is derived from an Old Norse word, you need to read more about Vikings.)

I don’t think those guys were intentionally walking in step, but…

That’s how I shoot photographs. Hell, that’s largely how I’ve lived my life. I’m a flâneur both by nature and by training. Almost every career I’ve had involved the same basic process: observe, analyze, filter the analysis through emotion (or the emotion through analysis), then act. It’s a skill set that helped me as a medic in the military, as a counselor in the Psych/Security unit of a prison for women, certainly as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense, and even (to a lesser extent) as a teacher.

In terms of photography, being a flâneur just means noodling around, paying sharp attention to detail, and seeing stuff in terms of composition. What’s cool is that when it all comes together–the scene, the light, the moment–there’s an immediate emotion, a serotonin hit that’s generated whether you have a camera or not.

My Ricoh GR3X is ideally suited to the flâneur school of photography, partly because it’s so compact and easy to carry everywhere. I’d heard you could carry it in a regular pants pocket, but I assumed that was mostly bullshit. It’s not. I’ve done it; I’ve walked around–I’ve ridden my bike–with this unit IN MY GODDAMN POCKET. It also turns on almost immediately, which is incredibly handy. Best of all (I’m not sure this is actually the ‘best of all’ because there are so many ‘best’ things about this camera), you can shoot with one hand. Even in the manual mode, you can control all the settings you need with one hand.

Seriously, you can pull the camera out of your pocket, turn it on, compose the shot, adjust all the elements of exposure with one hand, take the shot, turn the camera off, and put it back in your pocket…and you can do all that in just a moment. Which is pretty much what I did with the photo above. As I was walking down the street I noticed the ginger cat. I stepped off to one side so as not to spook the cat, which is when I noticed the woman’s legs. Her legs were in shadow, so I had to quickly adjust the exposure to make sure they’d show up in the photo. Then a step back to include the tree and the window in the frame, and there it was. Maybe ten seconds from seeing the cat to taking the shot. One hand.

It’s not a perfect camera; I’d love for it to be weather-sealed and dust-proofed, but I’m not sure it’s possible to do that without making it bigger. It’s more important (to me, at any rate) to have a camera I can tote in my pocket than one I can shoot in the rain. There have been a couple of instances where some fill flash would have been handy; the GR3 series doesn’t have a native flash. But, again, that’s small beans.

The fact is, this camera has already allowed me to get some shots I couldn’t have done with any of my other cameras. And it’s allowed me to get some shots quicker and more easily than with my other cameras. I could have made the shot above with any of my cameras, but it would have taken longer and I’d have had to use both hands. It’s not a great photo (I shot it largely as a reminder to go back when this bar was open), but I was able to get the depth of field I wanted with a minimum of fuss. That absence of fuss is like heroin; it’s fucking addictive.

So yeah, it looks like me and the GR3X are becoming good buddies. I look forward to spending time with it.

in which I look at an old photo (part 2)

Posted on July 10, 2024 by greg

I used to pay a lot of attention to photography. Not just the practice of photography (you know, shooting photos and all that), but photography as a craft and art form. Then, for a lot of reasons, I stopped doing that. For a few years, I just wasn’t interested in photography. I shot occasional photos with my cellphone and that was enough. But a few months ago I picked up one of my old cameras and…hey, guess what. My interest in photography was resurrected.

I started thinking about photography again. I started reading articles about photography again, and studying other photographers again. In doing so, I came across an article that suggested looking at your old photos as if they were made by a different person. I’ve never really bothered to look at my old photos. I saw them when I took them and again when I processed them; why look again? But I thought, “Well, what the hell, I might as well try that.” And I did. I picked an old photo and studied it (and wrote about it here). Now I’m doing it again.

Here’s a thing I learned the last time I did this: looking at old photos–and I mean actively looking at them, not just thumbing through them quickly–is weird. It’s sort of dissociative. At least it is for me. It turns out there’s two or three things going on at the same time. You 1) look at the photo as a photo, an object in its own right. But you also 2) consider what was happening in the world around you when you shot that photo. And 3) you remember why you shot the photo.

This photo was shot on a Sunday evening, at 6:59 PM on the 7th of August, 2011. It was shot at a hospice facility for veterans, where my brother Jesse Eugene was dying from pancreatic cancer. I visited him almost daily during his stay. On that particular day, I’d wheeled his bony ass out to this small enclosed porch so he could look at some trees and feel some sunshine. He stayed in his wheelchair, I sat on the bench. We didn’t talk much. I think the trees and sunshine meant more to me than to him. He may have been humoring me when I suggested visiting the porch. We were only out there a short time before he said he was tired and wanted to return to his room.

I remember wanting to shoot his photo while we were out there; the light was amazing. But he looked awful–the cancer had pretty much ravaged him–and I knew he wouldn’t want his photo taken like that. After I got him back in his bed and comfortable, I scurried back to the porch and took this photo, catching the last little bits of that delicious sunlight.

He died a few days later. This may have been the last time he left his hospice room. I think it was. It’s possible somebody else might have wheeled him out to that porch, but I don’t think so. At the time, it never occurred to me that he might never get to sit in the sunlight again.

Here’s a weird thing. I knew he was dying, but I can’t remember ever thinking something like, “This will be the last time he ever eats black-eyed peas” or “He’ll never get to hear this song again.” I take that back; I vividly recall bringing his dog to visit, knowing it would be the last time he got to hold and hug his little buddy. That was pretty crushing. But that was unusual; mostly I always thought there’ll be at least one more day. But, of course, eventually there wasn’t.

Here’s another weird thing–an uncomfortable weird thing. There’s a selfish part of me that wants this to have been taken on the last day Jesse Eugene sat in sunshine. Why? Because it would give the photo more emotional weight. That complicates my thoughts about this photograph. I have to wonder if my memory is reliable. It’s entirely possible I’m remembering this as the last time my brother sat in sunlight because I want to remember it that way.

Without all that context, I think it’s a pretty good photo. The light is sweet, that yellow bench is an absolute treat, the hint of flowers in the left of the frame is a nice touch. The last rays of sunlight give the photo a sentimental quality that, I hope, isn’t entirely sappy.

I’m still uncomfortable with this idea of examining an old photo of mine, but I’m willing to consider there may be some value in it. I’ll probably do it again in a month or so.

a pagan half hour

Posted on July 8, 2024 by greg

We’re living through the early stages of a climate change nightmare right now. Persistent heat domes with dangerously high temperatures, torrential rainstorms, exceptionally powerful hurricanes forming earlier than usual, drought-based wildfires whipped into firestorms by freakishly high winds, stronger than usual tornadoes that stay on the ground longer, thousand-year floods every couple of years leading to dams collapsing.

Because of the exceptional rainstorms, the Des Moines River is currently 20-22 feet higher than normal–not quite at actual flood levels (which, I believe, is 24 feet). A visit to the dam which creates Saylorville Lake yesterday was compelling. The 6000 acre lake has risen almost two feet in the last 24 hours; the spillway was releasing over 16,000 cubic feet of water every second — that’s 190% of its normal release. It was loud and furious and utterly fascinating to see.

View of the spillway from the parking area

People showed up to see it. Young people, old people, families with kids and dogs, couples, people on their own — a constant low-volume parade of people just to take a look at the chaos of the spillway. Just a few dozen at a time. Most of them would slowly approach the fence guarding the spillway, gawk a bit, gradually move closer to the release point at the bottom of the dam. The turbulent water was mostly unpredictable, and would splash people unexpectedly. Most laughed and ran away from the fence. A few got irrationally angry, as though the water had played some sort of trick on them.

That large solid hill behind the spillway? That’s actually the dam holding back the Saylorville Lake. On other side, the water level is probably 30-35 feet higher. There’s a second, emergency spillway (not pictured in any of these photos) in the dam. The water level in the lake is expected to peak in a couple of days, and (it’s hoped) will remain a couple of feet below the emergency spillway.

Visitors on the other side of the spillway

“If you fell in there, you’d die.” I can’t tell you how many people I heard say that. They’d stand at the fence, look at the raging water cascading out of the spillway, shake their heads, and say it in an awestruck voice. They often repeated themselves. “Wouldn’t have a prayer, if you fell in there. Nothing you could do. Nothing anybody could do. Find your body somewhere downstream.”

Everybody was a photographer at the spillway

Normally, the only people you’d see at the spillway were fishing. It’s a popular fishing spot; apparently it’s one of the few places you can catch eight to ten different fish species along a single short stretch of the river. Under normal conditions, that also makes it a popular spot for birds — pelicans, cormorants, gulls and terns, eagles. I didn’t see any birds even approach the spillway yesterday. Birds have too much sense for that.

There was something almost pagan about the experience. Not pagan in a religious sense (since ‘paganism’ is just a term early Christians applied to any pre-Christian belief system), but in the sense of common people making a sort of pilgrimage to witness, awestruck, the beauty and savagery of nature, to experience their own smallness in the world. I doubt many of the people at the spillway thought of it in those terms, but it was there. The awareness of a natural power beyond our control and our understanding.

We were only there for a half hour or so. It seemed like longer, but time gets weird in the presence of the old gods.

Editorial Note: I was informed about this fishing video that shows the spillway under ordinary conditions. You don’t have to watch the entire thing; the opening seconds will give you a sense of what it’s normally like at the spillway.

almost, almost…

Posted on July 3, 2024 by greg

Yesterday, to distract myself from the SCOTUS-induced alternating rage/depression cycle, I sorted through some of the photos I shot at Saturday’s Farmer’s Market. And there was one photograph that…well, wait. I need to back up a bit. Two things.

First thing, a reminder: I recently bought a new camera, a Ricoh GR3x. It’s unlike any camera I’ve ever owned. To begin with, there’s no viewfinder; you compose the photo using the rear LCD screen. I was actually hesitant to buy the camera because of the lack of a viewfinder (yes, you can buy an attachment viewfinder, but that’s more coin and fuck that.) Composing with an LCD screen seems wrong; that’s what you do with your fucking phone. To my film-trained mind, it’s NOT how you use a camera. And yet, with the GR3x it turns out to be surprisingly handy and intuitive. Old dog, new tricks.

Second thing: Alex Webb. He’s a street photographer who’s famous for extremely colorful and complex photos. When I say ‘complex’ I mean many/most of his photos are composed in a way that organically divides and separates the elements within the frame into what could be different, distinct photos. I’m not going to include an example image here because when I publish this and post the link on various social media, there’s a good chance it’ll feature Webb’s photo instead of the photo I’m writing about; I don’t want people to think I’m taking credit for Webb’s work. But seriously, if you’re not familiar with this guy, do a quick image search. He’s amazing.

So, back to the opening paragraph, me sorting through Saturday’s photographs. At the Farmer’s Market I noticed a woman comforting her dog (which looked to be some sort of spaniel/poodle mixed breed) behind a vendor’s booth. The dog had apparently been overexcited by the crowd. There was something very sweet about their interaction and I wanted to photograph it. Having recently re-examined Alex Webb’s work, I thought it would be cool to include the vendor in the shot. But there was a guy who kept moving in front of me (I think he thought I was trying to cut in front of him to get the vendor’s attention). I’d shift to one side hoping to get a shot, and the guy kept shifting with me. With each step, I was losing sight of the woman and her dog. Just as I was about to give up, I saw a mother & child walking by behind the vendor.

I took the photo.

Not a great photo, but the potential is there.

Okay, it’s not a great photo. But I like it because it’s as close as I’ve ever come to shooting something almost almost in Webb’s style. Not in terms of color (my photo is rather drab in terms of color), but because the frame can be visually divided into three distinct image areas. The woman and her dog, the vendor, and the mother and child. Granted, the original idea of the woman and her dog largely gets lost, and the image is badly off balance…but still, there it is.

The thing is, if I’d been using a camera with a viewfinder, I wouldn’t have seen the mother and child before they entered the frame (and yes yes, if you’re shooting with a rangefinder camera you can keep your left eye open, which allows you to see outside the camera frame, but that only works if you’re right-eye dominant…and I’m not; I compose with my left eye). If I’d been using one of my usual cameras, I’d have missed the shot.

The GR3x allowed me to compose this photograph thoughtfully and almost instantly. It’s not a great photo by any means, but it demonstrates (to me, at least) this particular camera’s potential to catch unique, unexpected moments. I understand why this camera is beloved among many street photographers.

I don’t do much street photography. I’m not particularly good at it, but I enjoy it. But I also believe in practicing in public, in showing work that doesn’t quite meet my standards for what the work could be. So this is why I’ve inflicted this photo and this blog post on you. Thanks for being patient.

new camera…and lawdy

Posted on June 22, 2024 by greg

A few months ago–October/November of last year–I got sucked back into the Cameraverse. I’d pretty much abandoned cameras (cameras, not photography) in favor of my phone. My phone was convenient, did a fine job, and had the massive advantage of always being with me. But my hands began to miss the feel of a camera in them.

That’s only partly a metaphor. Shooting with a phone and shooting with a camera are two very different tactile experiences. I felt a strong desire to pick up an actual, no-shit, physical camera and go shoot photos. I resurrected my 12-year-old Fujifilm X10 because it was 1) a real camera and 2) it was small. I flirted a bit with another larger Fujifilm camera, but it soon became clear to me that, for a variety of reasons, I don’t enjoy larger cameras.

With a new camera, you photograph whatever is at hand.

So I began to noodle around the InterTubes to see what was out there in the Small Camera World. That introduced me to the Cult of Ricoh. I DO NOT do cults. I resist cults. Cults are bullshit. But after enough exposure to the Ricoh GR3 series, I was ready to shave my head, shake a tambourine, and buy one of the wee bastards. Except I couldn’t find one. Seriously. The problem is/was the Ricoh GR3 series is so popular, they’re on continuous back-order everywhere.

Persistence paid off, and four days ago I was able to unbox a brand new Ricoh GR3x. Here are three inescapable things about the Ricoh GR3 series: 1) They’re small. Really small. I kept hearing them described as ‘pocketable,’ which I assumed was bullshit. It’s not. You can actually tote the thing around in your pants pocket. Regular pants, not baggy cargo pants. I’ve no idea where women carry them, since fashion Nazis have deprived women of real pockets, but lawdy, the camera is small. 2) They’re quick. That photo above? Six seconds. Saw the condensation on the refrigerated beer door, pulled the camera out of my pants pocket, composed and shot the photo with one hand, put the camera back in my pocket. Six fucking seconds. It’s not a great photo, but lawdy. I felt like a gunslinger. 3) They’re easily customizable, if that’s a word. Almost every button on the camera (most of which are accessible when shooting with one hand) can be assigned almost any function. Which won’t mean much to anybody who isn’t a photographer, but trust me, that’s a HUGE deal.

High contrast monochrome — water on a table.

It allows you to experiment. Hell, it almost demands you experiment. During a break in the rain on my first day I shot the photo above. It’s just rainwater organizing itself on a glass-topped patio table, but it has me thinking of a possible new Knuckles Dobrovic project–something about water in its various forms (as a liquid, as a solid, as a vapor, etc) done in high contrast black-and-white. I’ve no idea if it’s a viable project, or if I’ll follow through on it, but the thing is this camera has me thinking about projects again.

The problem? The learning curve. Oh, you can take decent photos almost immediately (as you can see here). But there are SO MANY ways to set up the camera to be responsive to your individual needs/wants, that I expect it’ll take me a couple of months of experimentation. Messing about with different set-ups, trying new ways of arranging things, establishing different photographic profiles for different subjects.

Of the four days I’ve had the camera, two were rainy and stormy, one was savagely hot under a Gibsonesque dead channel sky. A bit of sunshine…even the teensiest bit, nicking through the gloomy clouds…would have done wonders for the photo above. The blue of the chicory was so lovely. But you get what you get.

This camera will, I think, allow me to take advantage of what I get. Yesterday what I got was yellow stripes outside the library exit. I hesitated for just a few seconds, one hand full with a heavy book, the other allowed me to dig the Ricoh out of my pocket, shoot this quickly, and be on my way. (And here’s another thing: I almost never shoot in portrait format, but there’s something about the ergonomics of the GR3 that makes you want to shoot that way. I don’t understand it, but there it is.)

I’ve shot a total of 48 photos in these four days. Forty-eight photos, and I think I’m in love. Because this is the first camera that feels like it was designed to shoot the way I see. It’s unobtrusive, it’s fast, it’s easy to shoot with one hand AND at the same time it gives you a LOT of almost immediate control over how the photo will look. All of the elements of exposure–ISO, shutter speed, aperture–all right there for your thumb and index finger. It’s perfect for shooting fast and loose and from the hip. That’s why this camera is a favorite of street shooters.

But that’s not me. I’m not a spray & pray shooter; I tend to compose a photo quickly, but deliberately. I think this wee bugger will give me some of the speed of a street shooter while still letting me make important exposure decisions. It’ll take me a while to get proficient with it, but lawdy.

And I’ll just say it again. Lawdy.

in which I look at an old photo

Posted on May 26, 2024 by greg

Here’s a thing I’m going to do. Well, it’s a thing I’m thinking I might do. I’m not going to commit to actually doing it because it might be awful–for me and for any poor bastard reading this blog. Anyway, here’s the thing:

I’m thinking I might periodically look at one of my old photos and review or analyze it as if it were shot by a stranger.

I almost never look at my old photos. The very idea of looking at my old photos sounds boring as fuck. The idea of talking about one of my own photos sounds pretentious and annoying (and also boring as fuck). So why am I going to do this? I’ll explain the reasons later. Anyway, here’s the first photo I’ve chosen for this maybe-project.

I shot this one late afternoon in September of 2006 (EXIF data is handy) with my very first digital camera, an Olympus C-770 UZ. A four megapixel powerhouse. It’s shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio, which I’ve never been comfortable with. As I recall, there was an option to shoot in 3:2, but it required some loss in resolution, which was noticeable in a 4mp camera.

I was having coffee with a friend and was somewhat distracted by the pattern of the late afternoon shadows. I recall shooting a couple frames of the shadows, but the images weren’t very interesting. At some point, my friend raised her arm to sip her coffee; the sun had shifted enough to illuminate the edge of the rolled up sleeve of her white shirt. I asked her to do it again and took the shot.

It’s not a great photograph, but that arm and sleeve humanizes the image. It’s not just a photo of some shadows; it’s a photo of a human moment. There’s a palpable mood here–quiet, reflective, casual, conversational. There’s something comfortably relaxed, intimate even, about that rolled up sleeve. I also like the fact that the image is intimate while being sort of impersonal; there’s almost nothing to identify the other person–age, gender, height, weight. It could be anybody. Fill in the blank.

Finally, the perspective puts the viewer IN the scene. Sitting relaxed across at a table with a friend in an almost empty coffee shop on a sunny afternoon.

Okay. Now, why am I talking about this 18-year-old photo? Here’s why.

I used to spend a lot of time thinking about photography. Thinking about different photographers, about styles and trends in photography, about the decision-making processes involved in making photos. For years I wrote a fairly regular series of essays about photographers (which can be found here). I started those essays primarily as a way to educate myself, but they became a tool for discussion in a Flickr group called Utata.

And then I stopped. I could probably cobble together some logical explanation for why I stopped, but really, who cares? The thing is, I just didn’t spend much time thinking about photography and photographers. I continued to shoot photographs, but lackadaisically and rarely with an actual camera. I was satisfied with my Pixel phone. Until a few months ago.

Again, I could probably cobble together some logical explanation for why I picked up a 12-year-old camera, but, again, who cares? I picked it up and started shooting with a camera again. Which led me to start shooting with another of my cameras. Which led me to decide to buy a new camera (which should arrive in a month or so). I’ll write about the new camera when it arrives. But the thing is, I’m thinking about photography again. I’m reading about photography again. And one of the articles I read included some bullshit about reviewing your old photographs.

Here’s a True Thing: I have no real interest in looking at my old photos. The very idea of looking at my old photos sounds boring as fuck. I mean, I shot those photos; I’ve already seen them. I’d rather look at new photos, photos shot by somebody else.

But this article suggested looking at your old photos as if they were made by a different person. The rationale is that we change over time, so our approach to photography probably changes. Which sorta kinda makes sense to me, since in a very real way I’m NOT the same person I was in, say, 2006.

So I said, “What the hell, why not?” and I opened up Google Photos and scrolled all the way down to the oldest photos. The photo above was one of them. It seemed like a good place to start.

I don’t know if this is a good idea or not. I’m not sure I’ll follow through on it. But back in the days when I was actively thinking about photography, I stumbled across some thoughts by Alfred Stieglitz and William Gedney about practicing in public. Although they didn’t put it quite like this, those guys were suggesting that if you’re serious about photography, you’ve got to be willing show your whole ass. Maybe this is related to that whole notion.

photolosophy

Posted on April 25, 2024 by greg

Life is unfair and full of disappointment. Here’s me, with my wee Fujifilm X10 in hand, walking down the street, spotting a mustard-colored corner building. And oh lawdy, there are two women walking down the sidewalk toward that building, one of whom was wearing a shiny blue jacket that would look amazing against that mustard wall. All I had to do was stop, wait for them to be in front of the building, and squeeze off a couple of shots.

But no. They stop before they get there, climb into a parked car, and drive off. So I have to settle for some random guy in a black leather jacket and khaki pants. And if that’s not bad enough, when he reaches the right point for the photo, he’s badly out of step. I shot the photo, but c’mon…it’s like these people have no aesthetic sensibilities at all.

Seriously, would it have killed him to step off with his other foot?

But then I notice there’s a fire escape on one side of the building, casting an absolutely delicious shadow on the mustard-colored wall. But some asshole has (and I assume this was done deliberately) parked a dull white block of an SUV right beneath the shadow, completely ruining the visual. Imagine somebody sticking a big wad of gum or an old bandaid over the woman in Hopper’s ‘New York Office, 1962‘ and you’ll get the idea. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot the photo.

Happily, there was a nice detail worth photographing. The shadow of a string of holiday lights made a nice filigree in an abstract block of color and darkness. It’s not entirely satisfying; it’s like eating croutons that have no garlic. Better than nothing.

But I’ve been told patience is my only redeeming quality (seriously, a million years ago when I was in middle school, in trouble again, having waited in an uncomfortable chair for a long chunk of time for the Boys Advisor to lecture and chastise me for some offense, I was told that patience was my only redeeming quality…and I’ve clung to that one quality ever since), so I decided to wander off and return later when the offending SUV would be gone.

And that’s what I did. I kept walking and shot a few more photos, including this bizarre doorway of a shop that had gone out of business and was blocked by a Port-a-Potty. There’s a sort of warped genius at work there.

Somebody thought, “We’ve got a doorway, we’ve got a port-a-potty, let’s put them together.”

And when I eventually returned to the mustard-colored building? The goddamned white SUV was still there. Not only that, somebody had parked a blue trike motorcycle in the adjoining parking space. I tried not to take it personally, but it hurt. I don’t know what’s wrong with these people. I still couldn’t stomach the idea of photographing that appalling SUV, but I could swallow the blue trike. It allowed me to get a bit of that glorious fire escape shadow. And there was a blue doorway behind the trike, and a rather nice arch overhead, both of which mitigated the offence. Well, somewhat mitigated it.

Okay, but at least I spared you the goddamn SUV.

Life is unfair and full of disappointment. But in a world of white SUVs, there’s also mustard-colored corner shops and doorways blocked by Port-a-Potties. There’s always going to be something around the corner…and you never know what it’s going to be. That’s why we walk around with a camera, right? It’s the philosophy of photogr…ooh. Photolosophy.

Okay. I like that. I’m almost certainly not the first person to come up with that term, but I’m not going to Google it. Not Googling is part of my photolosophy.

Addendum: MDavis commented on the “crisp striping on the trash can in the first photo.” I also found that appealing. Unfortunately, as I noted in my reply, the hurried photo I shot didn’t quite come together. The elements are all there, but it just doesn’t have any harmony. Still, here it is:

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Category Archives: photography