“Hey man, whatcha been up to?” I can hear some of you asking (and by “hear” and “you”, I’m referring to the metaphorical voices in my head). Why, thank you for asking–it has been a busy holiday season, work has been completely demonic with the completion of a multi-million dollar project, and I can’t seem to shake this idea that there is a perfect Dorito out there somewhere.

Up top, a previously unpublished self-portrait from December, wherein I’m playing with new hot-shoe softboxes (Thanks Honey!) and the concept that monochrome doesn’t have to mean black and white.

A few days later, I pulled out those very same softboxes for a client/friend commission. She saw the very first shot, and said something to the effect of “too much shadow. Can you get more light on the other side of his face?” When it came down to my toy versus her vision: definitely her vision won. The project was the spawn of ShinyYouth, an endeavor to empower youth to be strong media advocates. It started when the young man pictured below walked around a tech conference asking folks “What technology would you be?” They wanted a portrait of him to help promote the project, and I immediately thought of the image below.

We shot the image on the Kindle Fire first, then tried a bunch of times to get him to hold the Kindle (with image) in the right place. OK, it wasn’t really a bunch, it was like 5 tries. In and out in 45ish minutes, including time for my daughter to chat with him to help get the natural smile.

Speaking of my daughter, she had a birthday recently, and was, for some reason, feeling particularly shy while we sang. And shy while I was holding a camera. I just don’t understand what happened…she used to be so forceful.

At a recent family gathering, I again played with the idea of “almost black and white”. Its an extension of some ideas I picked up from The Photographer’s Mind, that some photographs can allow details or subjects to be revealed slowly upon inspection. (This iPhone photo was another example–the subject, cars, are not immediately obvious. You have to follow the leading lines to see them.) I really like this picture because of the very subtle yellow tint (that you might not have noticed until I mentioned it) and the fact that the candles are all embers of about the same size. We were celebrating three birthdays, and I just love the symmetry of their faces, and the candles just barely emitting light.

Baby pictures are almost of their cutest moments. This is not a cute moment. She was tired and frustrated, and had a messy face. I was totally attempting to document the moment, showing that this sweet little angle really did have her moments.

And speaking of having his moments, this is my friend Skippy. He has, how shall I put this, camera issues. We did a grand family shoot–three hours all over their house and front yard for a great set of concept pictures (all their idea) that they are planning on putting into a book. I can’t wait to see the finished product. I had just finished taking pictures of his step-daughter on white seamless, and we were at a break in the rhythm  of shooting. So I told Skippy to step onto the seamless. And I waited. In normal photog-subject interactions, this is considered a no-no. You should be guiding, instructing, leading the subject. No need with Skippy. He went through poses faster than my flashes could recycle, some of which are best described as “outhouse gothic”.

The other project I’ve been working on is developing the materials for a photography class for a local camera shop powerhouse. They are well respected around the world, and I just happen to live close enough that when they asked “Who wants to teach a class in exchange for a bunch of store credit?” I just about wet my socks. I seriously didn’t think my experience or work would be good enough, but I decided to let them make that decision. An application, a bunch of e-mails, and an interview later, and I’m “in”. I’ve given them a “bio”, a self portrait, and examples of my work that don’t require a model release. My first class, Intermediate DSLR Usage, will be at the end of March, and I’m really stoked. My presentation materials are about 98% complete, and after they announce the class, I’ll post more about it here.

I’m also continuing to push shots up to Instagram. If you don’t have Instagram, you can view my stream here. My over-the-top enthusiasm has simmered down a bit. I’m still not sure why, either that I post there, or that my enthusiasm has waned a bit. Instagram has its own community, and its own look, memes, and cliques. There are people who post only images from their iPhone and hate all non-iphone images. There are people who use it exclusively for self-promotion, though I’m still unclear what benefit they get from it. Some people even advocate using Instagram as an extension of their portfolio. I don’t take myself that seriously, but I do love the little endorphin hit when a photo gets Liked. My wife described me as a bit of a “Like Whore” and though it stung just a little, it’s sadly not far from the mark. Instagramers are more giving with their Likes than my friends on Facebook. I blame that mostly on Facebook and the fact that people only see people they interact with. On Instagram, I see (or could see) everything that everyone everyone I follow posts, whether I’ve interacted with them in the past or not.

So, thanks for calling, or stopping by, or checking in, or creepin on my blog. I’m glad you asked.

What have you been up to?

Candle and wine, taken by my wife

A couple of years ago we drove through Utica, NY, stopped at a restaurant, and were absolutely enamored with a local dish (we were told), Chicken Riggies. In the broadest sense, it was chicken, rigatoni, some veggies, and a pink sauce. When we got home, my wife sent an e-mail to the restaurant asking if there was any approximate recipe we might make at home, to which they responded with silence (unsurprisingly). Ever since, I’ve been attempting to make something like that dish. Our memories have faded significantly in the intervening years, but tonight I made a dish that we all enjoyed a great deal. I did not measure ingredients (I rarely do when I’m cooking from the hip), and since this isn’t baking, you’ll just have to adjust to your own personal tastes.

Start heating water for pasta. Cook, in hot olive oil:

• 1 to 1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut in 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon of coarse salt

When the chicken is about half done, and has dropped its liquid, add (still on high heat):

• 1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried oregano

After the chicken has cooked through, add:

• One can quartered artichoke hearts, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup of coarsely chopped jarred mild pepper rings
• 1/4 cup of coarsely chopped jarred roasted red bell pepper

Heat through, then add:

• 2-3 cups prepared spaghetti sauce (we use Prego Traditional)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low. Throw one pound of pasta into the water (should be boiling by now). Rigatoni is ideal, but any tubular pasta works (tonight it was mastaccioli). A minute or two before the pasta is finished cooking, add to the chicken mixture:

• one jar prepared alfredo sauce
• 1/4-1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Continue to simmer to just bring it up to temperature. Drain the pasta when aldente, then toss the pasta with the sauce, serve in a big bowl, with garlic bread, salad, and wine.

Makes 6-8 servings.

In response to some gentle ribbing from my friend Skippy, I respectfully submit some images NOT shot or shared via Instagr.am. I actually dusted off the Nikon, found a batter that still had some remnants of a charge, acquainted myself with the power button, then headed out. It was raining off and on, so I had to use a make-shift rain sleeve (Thanks Panera!), and I didn’t cut a hole for the eye piece, so these were kinda best-guess composition.

OMG, I totally love this image. If you have Instagr.am, you gotta follow my wife, bennettanneb. She’s totally come out of her shell, photographically speaking. I knew she had an eye and latent talent, but was a bit intimidated by the millions of settings on a dSLR. Instagr.am has helped open her up. I just wish there was a way to link to her feed or something outside of the iPhone app [Update: I figured it out! Her images are here, and so are mine]. So, while I’m thinking about it, here are some other images she’s posted…

Imma so proud of you sweetie!

As we prepared to visit family on Christmas Eve, I nearly left the D5000 at home in favor of my newly acquired iPhone. I figured, what the heck, it has an amazing (for a phone) camera, so why call attention to myself as the family photog? I grabbed the D5000 along with the Jive 35 while my kids and wife were waiting in the vehicle. It was literally a last-second decision.

Boy am I glad I took it with me–I’m very pleased with the results. I’ve used the D5000 just long enough that I’m able to use it without putting a lot of thought into the process of changing settings. Spot metering? Bam. Auto-iso? Check, or not. Can I hand-hold @ 1/30s? Just barely, better brace, and spray-and-pray.

Then my daughter decided she wanted to take an arms-length portrait with her cousins. Given the low light in the room, her camera phone was too blurry, so I offered my iPhone. That freed me to take the picture above, which I dearly love. And this one.

Boys will be boys. If you’re curious, here’s the picture they created.

For all the Instagr.am hatin’ I’ve done recently (mostly in blog comments elsewhere), I am sorry. I just didn’t realize how much fun I would have with the filters. I’m trying not to take pictures just because of the filters, but I have to admit, a few of my images were dramatically helped, even given life by, the filters.

A few weeks ago I “wished” that I had more demand for my photography skills. That was 11/26. At that time, I had one pending head-shot session, scheduled for 11/28. A couple of days later I was approached by the leader of our corporate orchestra–a volunteer organization that does performs as a part of community outreach–to see if I would shoot a performance a local elementary school. One of the images from that performance is above. One of the guys whom I know in the orchestra asked me to take pictures of the Jazz Ensemble a couple of days later. That was the source of the iPhone comparison I did.

Then the orchestra asked if I would do portraits for all the members–all 42 of them–before and after another performance (that was a lot of work, and great fun; they were all great sports, considering I spent between 30 and 90 seconds on each of them). A couple of days later, a friend asked if I was interested in doing senior portraits for his daughter. Another coworker, out of the blue, asked if I would do a head-shot session, and now the leader of the orchestra is interested in portraits. Phew.

Be careful what you wish for. Or, for those English majors out there, be careful for what you wish. Or something like that.

I’m sure it has been done a thousand times (or maybe a million), but I just had to do it for myself. I’m comparing my iPhone camera to my Nikon D5000 with Tamron 18-270mm lens. So here’s the set up–I was asked by the jazz ensemble that’s affiliated with my employer to take pictures of them during our holiday performance. So I got permission from security (photography is normally prohibited) and from facilities (to mount remote flashes on a bridge over the lobby area), and got to work. I spent about an hour shooting the performance, attempting to incorporate the lobby area, decorations, crowd,  etc. When I went up to the bridge to remove my flashes, almost as an afterthought, I pulled out my iPhone (4s) and took a picture, assuming that it would be darn tough for it to perform in the very low light. When I looked at the image on the phone, I was very impressed. But I thought that was the end of it.

When I downloaded images from my D5000, I noticed that I had taken an ambient only image from the exact same spot on the bridge. So here was a chance for a perfect comparison, and at first glance, I wasn’t happy–the images are a bit different, but there isn’t a significant change in quality. Above is one of the images, below is the other. Can you tell by looking at them which is the iPhone and which is the DSLR?

To be fair, I’ve cropped them exactly the same, to the aspect ratio of the iPhone. And ignore the color differences on the performers–they had color-shifting LEDs on them. Also, I had the D5000 set to save “RAW+Basic” which saves the native sensor format data plus a heavily compressed JPG. Since I don’t want to introduce post processing bias in the RAW file, I’m using the JPG for this comparison. So, yes, the FULL capabilities of the D5000 will likely be better, but I really thought the differences would be more dramatic, even using a small JPG from the D5000.

So, can you tell which is which? OK, check this out: here’s a close-up crop of the bass drum.

At this level, it starts to become clear to me which is better, but only barely. And in all honesty, I can see slight differences in the larger images, and the DSLR produced the better result. But still–this is incredibly impressive for such small optics and such a small sensor.

The D5000 took the top image, and left drum, the iPhone the others. As many others have said, amazing, simply amazing. I’m not saying that I’ll dump the D5000 because it has a lot of features that the iPhone doesn’t. But for “spur of the moment” shots, I will definitely not regret that I’ve left the D5000 at home. I’ll proudly whip out the iPhone and be a happy snapper.

The idea of correctness or rightness segues into the notion of the ideal, which plays a part in all kinds of beauty, including human beauty.

What really struck me was his section titled ‘Cliche and Irony’, where he essentially lays out the idea that cliche in photography is anything that has been done before. Then he spells it out very clearly in a sidebar titled “What makes a photographic cliche?”:

• An inherently attractive subject with a conventionally attractive viewpoint
• Established points on the tourist trail that fit the above. [My own example of both.]
• A strong stylistic technique that is … identifiable and over-used. Example: racking the zoom during the exposure for a radially blurred treatment. [My own cliche'd example.]
• Any subject or style that becomes so popular and so reproducible that it is taken up by many other photographers. A victim of its own success, in other words. [My example above.]

My ‘fork you’ picture is the first picture I ever took with Instagr.am, the incredibly popular photo app for the iPhone that I’ve been known to bash. Actually, I have no problem with the app–I dislike how the use of filters has become (though I don’t think I ever said this before now) cliche’d. In fact, you might even say that canned post-processing as a whole has become cliche’d by Freeman’s standards. Anyone who applies the ‘toy camera’ filter to a photo is guilty of cliche. Any consumer grade photo toy is, because of its popularity, cliche.
And that led me to feel a bit of sadness, or ennui, or angst or something like that. Would the four basic lighting patterns be cliche just because everyone has done them? If everything I do is based on some technique I’ve learned from someone else (especially on the internet) am I capable of getting out of the cliche? Oh look, there’s a band on stage. Cliche. Blurry feet to show movement? Been there. Menacing shot from below? Done that.  Biker on a path by a river? I’m pretty sure a Flickr group has come and gone with that theme. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, be they Rembrandt or Hobby. Just because an individual imitates those greats or an uses a popular technique doesn’t mean their contribution to our discourse should be demeaned.

It suddenly occurred to me that the word “cliche” ends up representing a form of tribalism. For one group to all stand around sniggering at someone whispering “cliche” is really just a way for the group to say “We’re in, you’re out. Ha ha ha.” Its a way for that group to say to themselves “we know whats cool, and that technique used to be cool, sure, but now, no way. That was SO 8 months ago.”

As I’m continuing to learn about photography, and have learned quite a bit in the last 3 years, I’m starting to recognize people who are where I was a year or two ago. I was in an off-camera flash class recently and one of the participants hadn’t heard of David Hobby. I was shocked, but quickly realized it wasn’t so long ago that I took my first baby steps in off-camera flash. I feel like I’ve progressed a fair bit since then, but have I produced something that someone can’t call a cliche? Probably not. I try to do things in interesting or unique ways, but I’m always applying my own experiences to what I think is “interesting” or “unique”. I’m sure a million people have taken pictures of the tidal river from Conwy Castle. I tried to make it interesting to me and my family by framing the river with my wife and daughter. Is “tourist overlooking a pretty vista” a cliche? Sure, I suppose. But so what? Its my image and my family (or client or band or pet or whatever) and if you don’t like it, then you can stuff your cliche soaked sniggering finger up your butt.

This, of course, means I’ll have to stop my sniggering at Instagr.am and the over-worked and over-used filters that seem so popular. I may find them tiresome, but clearly not everyone does. I personally have taken a liking to the Camera+ app, and applied the cliched Ansel Adams filter to my Stalltography images.