dispatches

Attention to detail

 

I'm leaving on assignment Monday, and today was my day to attend to some tiny but irritating gear issues. This won't make much sense unless you're really into your camera kit, but here goes. 

An issue with the Canon 5D Mark II is the batteries. Specifically, how you tell when one is exhausted. The battery covers have this window in them that, when you flip the orientation, should show you the status of the battery. But there isn't enough contrast between the light blue of one side of the battery, and the light grey of the other. I corrected that today, with some bright enamel paint. Now, when I have a pile of batteries in the pocket of my camera bag, I'll now know which is which without squinting. 
 

Gitzo tripods are the best in the world. It's just true. But, the legs loosen up sometimes, and the modern ones don't have a 10mm nut on the legs anymore, but require a specialized #25 star wrench. 
 

On my last assignment the tool shop on campus actually gave me a tool to keep the leg tight (I kept stopping by, and they got tired of me bothering them). It's dodgy whether I can get it through TSA security at the airport (it's big and long and pointy), so today I bought a set of allen wrench-like star wrenches. I'll slip the one I need into the camera bag. 

These tiny details are the things that, when you use your gear hard, become important issues to attend to. You want to not have your gear get in the way of why you're there.

 

Extreme workflow

The recent blog post by Chase Jarvis could be one of the more important posts in the field of photographic process, at least in terms of keeping your digital archive alive and well. He goes through the process of how a large and busy studio processes and manages the digital tsunami of data that results from a busy professional practice. It is a valuable read, and the accompanying video is a great way to drive home the main points. 

I am about an order of magnitude beneath Chase in my data processing needs, and most photographers are an order of magnitude beneath me. So, it is worth keeping that in mind in viewing his post. You probably don't need two Apple Xserves and 64 terabytes to manage your daily data needs. Nonetheless, the concepts of constant backup, and geographically separate locations for your backup drives, are relevant regardless of scale. 

So, read/watch it, and implement it. Remember, hard drives are like lightbulbs. They all fail, eventually. 

if you are thinking about your gear, you are failing

I just came upon Daniel Milnor's blog for the first time. Brilliant, sharp perspective on the photographic process from someone who knows who he is and who he is not, and is completely at ease with himself and his old school, film based methodology. This, from his latest, long post on the photographic process: 

"In a nutshell, if you are thinking about your gear, you are failing. Period, end of story. I see so many young photographers completely at the mercy of their hyper-complex dslr. And then subsequently, at the mercy of their hyper-complex software. I actually feel kinda sorry. And now we are adding sound and motion. This is why most of what I see from the new media looks like one person doing three things at once. That is such an unfair burden to have to work under. I’ve used the same cameras for so long I don’t have to think about anything but what is front of me. This is a very liberating feeling."

Check him out. 

Recharge needed, now

 

I've put in 30 hours in front of Final Cut so far this week. This is the aftermath of my April shoot at St. John's College for a series of short vids for the website, and some longer ones for an admissions portal. The last 12 hours has been to get to a rough cut of one 5 minute piece, documenting the 28th Annual St. John's/Naval Academy croquet tournament (later this summer, after the client gets it, I'll be delighted to share it with you). What I want to know is, how in the world do you Same Day Edit wedding people pull this off? 

I am maybe a third of the way through the project (and there's three more jobs behind it in the queue). But I couldn't look at a screen any more today. I tried reviewing the clips for the next vid, but nothing was registering. I was spent. 

One cannot do creatively intense work without recharge. The stores need regular replenishment. We need influence and sensory input from outside. Which is what sent me, finally, down to the Fill this afternoon.  

The Fill is in full summer dress, with head high grass and fully leafed out Cottonwoods and summer birds. Swallows careened over the open water. Savannah Sparrows sang their grasshopper-like song from deep beneath the prairie grass or, sometimes, from a blackberry cane. An Osprey fished just offshore. Redwing Blackbirds screeched and chased each other, as their mating territories are breaking down and conflict is the rule. 

I slowly did the entire gravel path loop, with a long lens and tripod, working to get bird photos. I'm used to this place as a winter landscape of sere brambles, and I'm always shocked to see it so verdant.  It was like a new place for me. 

I came home, continued my avoidance of editing by processing the photos for the day, and writing this blog post. Tomorrow I'll be back at the grind. 

The Photo Farm

 

If I were to catalog my entire photo collection, I may well find out that I have more photographs of my garden than anything else. 

The garden is my default subject. Part of this Daily Photo discipline is that I get myself into the Zone and find a photograph, every day, no matter the circumstance or my mood. My circumstance, when I'm not on an active assignment, is usually parked in my basement, in front of a computer monitor. There are days on end when my carbon footprint is quite small, when I don't leave the neighborhood. Sometimes I don't leave the house. 

Nonetheless I am quite busy these days. At the moment I am plowing through some 1600 video clips from St. John's College, putting together a series of short videos for a "virtual tour" website. I have at least three more video editing jobs in the queue after that. I have not had a day off in a long time. 

Still, the Daily Photo beckons. And the garden is the most convenient environment to find it. There are birds at the feeder, if I want to put a long lens on. Usually, I put on a 50mm macro, which makes any small area potentially interesting. Typically, I find my photograph in about 10 minutes. 

Usually in the afternoon, when I am exhausted by the computer, I go outside, and wait for something to drag me hither. The other morning, I opened the door to go on an errand, and the sunlight was wafting through pieces of the garden in fragments, broken by the tree across the street. A blast of a beam was falling on a dew covered alium, and I stood, stunned by the beauty of the moment. I grabbed a nearby camera and went to work. Usually, however, it's gray, and drizzling, and I stand waiting for a summons. The azalea is about to pop (I keep photographing it, unsuccessfully). The weedy columbine, which has spread everywhere, beckons. The aliums, they're almost too easy. So is the dogwood, a fantastic pink specimen that had I known would be so stunning and perfect in it's vase-like profile, would be in a way more prominent place in the yard.  There's always the Japanese maples, but I feel done with them. What is new around here? 

I actually try to not repeat myself. I fail at this all the time--you can detect the same solutions to the same subjects across years if you look through the Daily archive. But gradually, new approaches, perhaps out of sheer exhaustion, show themselves in the daily review. In this way I grow my repertoire, and I witness the expansion of my visual acuity and the need to solve the same problem in some new fashion. It is how I progress. 

It has been years since I had some Big Project, some compelling subject (that required a passport) as the center of my photographic life. Now, it's the quotidian that matters most to me, the ordinary, daily experience of my life from which I extract a daily dose of beauty. 

What an ad!

There is some great storytelling going on in this Nike ad.  From Vince LaForet's blog.