ain't it fun?

I've got to admit, one of the really fun things about this gig... is that I get to sit in a coffee house, and when the charismatic girl walks in, the one who makes everyone turn and stare... she comes and sits down with me.

Today was a variation of the usual theme. I got there right on time, as I was getting out of the car Inga called and said she was on the way, five minutes out. So I got my coffee and sat down.

The last time I shot with Inga, she had medium-length black hair. She had told me that it was shorter now, and that she had bought a couple of wigs and was having fun playing with them.

In walks the girl, the one that everybody turns and stares at... and she's got her back to me as she walks up to the counter, I can see her in the next room. She's got long blond hair, leopard-print tights, and bright red boots. And right away, I know it's Inga. A second later she turns and waves.

I've taken an interest in this girl. For one thing, she's currently the only "real" alternative model in Humboldt County, the only one who calls herself a model, at least since Bella finished school and left. Inga is a long-time Suicide Girl, and at my recommendation she applied for Wicked Talent... and Donna accepted her immediately, which means that she too sees the potential. But I don't think Inga has lived up to her full potential yet. Too many paid shoots with guys who want to do nudes and couldn't take a competent photo if their life depended on it. She's good, though, and she's improved since our shoot last fall. Today I got her to understand that she needs to get that cute butt of hers out there and shoot tfp with a few people besides me, and get a range of top-quality work in her various portfolios. To make the point, I showed her a few web sites... people who do "oh wow" shots. I think she understands now. She says she gets to LA about once every three months, and will be in the Bay Area in a few weeks, and says she's going to find some good photographers to shoot with.

Anyway, after our chat, we drove over to the nearby Samoa Peninsula and shot at a couple of locations. This is my first real digital shoot with a model in probably four years, it's all been film since then, so I decided to just let it happen, see where it takes me. I haven't had time to really go through all 300 or so images carefully yet. But I like at least some of them, and I just traded e-mails with Inga, she likes the first few, too.

visual wealth

For a while, I'd posted on my various web presences that I was taking a break and not actively seeking models. It had the desired result, the steady flow of unsolicited requests gradually tapered off; one nice thing about working mostly with smart models is that they can and do read.

So for about three months I didn't shoot a whole lot, just a few times; one that I solicited, and a couple that happened as a result of in person encounters.

With the recent change of direction, it was time to shoot again. So I got active in various places again, thinking it would take a while to stir up some activity. But then a few days ago, signs of life began to appear. Lots of them.

It began when I posted a casting call, something I don't do all that often. There were four or five responses, not as many as I've gotten on some previous occasions, but these were mostly quality replies. Then someone I'd talked to months ago about a local shoot resurfaced. Then coincidentally, one of my favorite local models e-mailed and inquired about shooting again. Two more out of town unsolicited offers came in last night and today.

Currently I have two shoots scheduled here, one scheduled and two tentative at a time to be negotiated in the Bay Area, and offers for if-I-ever-get-there from Fresno and somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Iowa (but she offers to drive to KC or St. Louis).

The local shoots happen first. From there, we'll see what happens.

cold toys

I'm having fun with the new digital gear. Having fun seeing in color again. It's diversifying my photography.

The added bulk and weight is taking some getting accustomed to. I've kept it manageable by carrying only the one camera body and one lens, in a very small case. I may just keep doing it that way for a while, it simplifies something that is already too complex. Similarly, I've settled on some settings that I hopefully won't need to change too often. I still feel that all those levels of menus get in the way of creating images.

So far I've been doing street photography, objects, a few landscapes. There hasn't been time to set up local shoots with people, so I'm looking at waiting til the next Bay Area trip, probably in about a week and a half, for that... already a couple of nibbles.

"the path...

... into the light seems dark."

from the tao.

all my colors

After quite a few years of mostly black and white film photography, I've found myself more interested in colors recently. Since it's now essentially impossible to get E6 processing done in Humboldt County, or any kind of color in medium format, that's been pushing me back toward reconsidering digital.

My last foray into digital was in 2003-04, and I wasn't very happy with it. The 6mp DSLRs of that time had tiny, dim viewfinders (amazing, considering that photography is about seeing), and often did very bad things to skin tones. it didn't take long for me to consign that camera to collecting dust and return to my Leicas.

I pulled the DSLR out again a few weeks ago, after ordering one of the relatively new Zeiss ZF (Nikon mount) 50mm f/1.4 lenses.

The lens is compact, all metal, solidly built, and focuses down to a foot and a half; with the DSLR 1.5x factor, that's pretty tight framing. It won't meter on my ancient D100, so I had to shoot with a handheld meter. But even with the dim viewfinder, it was crisp and easy to focus.

The early test results were amazing. Not only are the images incredibly sharp (this lens design allegedly resolves 320 lines/mm, the best ever tested for a 35mm mount lens), but they seem to render the color better than I've ever seen out of this camera before. And the bokeh is pretty fair, too.

So this morning I dived back in and ordered a brand new D300. It should be here in a couple of days. I'll then be able to meter with the new lens, and have 12.3mp, a nice bright 100% coverage viewfinder, better dynamic range, all in a metal-frame DSLR. Basically, they've fixed almost all of my gripes from the earlier model.

I think I can make it work by keeping it simple. The intent is to carry only the body, the one Zeiss lens (for now), a few CF cards, all in one compact case. Maybe a backup film body, depending on the situation. By keeping it light, easy to carry, and by using manual focus to eliminate some of the over-complexity of DSLRs... we shall soon see how that translates into actual images.

/geektalk

simplicity lost

I vaguely remember, many years ago, hearing a couple of old guys wax nostalgic about the simple old days, before everything got so new-fangled complicated. I pretty much scoffed at the time, thinking they just couldn't cope with change, or had a bad case of grass-is-always-greener syndrome.

But today I'm thinking that maybe they understood something that took me a lot longer to learn.

Now I'm no Luddite. I wouldn't know what to do without my Blackberry and my laptop. Hell, I'm a consultant, we thrive on change and ambiguity... we better, or we would have gone nuts in the first two weeks.

But today, I'm responding to the confluence of two things.

First is something I did at work these past few days. In the process of preparing the environmental documentation for what was originally designed as a fast-track federal permit, something to cut down on red tape and reduce the time and expense of obtaining fairly routine approvals for low-impact transportation infrastructure projects... I had to wade through more than 1000 pages of background guidance and participate in one meeting and several conference calls from the state implementing agency (Caltrans). And I'm not done yet. Someone obviously missed the point here.

Second, I'm seriously thinking of upgrading my DSLR. I've never been very happy with my 4-year old D100, it does bad things to skin tones, and after all this time in the damp coastal climate it's starting to create rare but annoying little glitches. Not often, but too much. Almost time to replace it. And in the digital world, 4 years ago is practically the bronze age.

Looking at D300 literature, I'm seeing that there's a 421-page technical manual, and interspersed with all the high praise I'm reading complaints about the complexity of the menus. I don't really think that's going to be a problem, there's enough in common with the D100 in a control layout sense that I'm pretty sure I can have it functional in a basic sense in an hour or less, and I have no problem thinking in hierarchical terms and dealing with elaborate menus. Although I pity someone touching one of these things for the first time, with no previous DSLR experience.

I probably need to do this sooner or later. Yet I'm seriously spoiled by years of playing with my Leicas and their stark minimalism.

But those are just the symptoms prompting the rant. What I'm seeing is ever increasing complexity. I never knew those allegedly simpler times the old guys talked about, the post-war economy was well underway before I was born. Yet in that relatively short timespan I've seen ever increasing complexity, and if anything the rate of change is only increasing. Rapidly.

I can't help but wonder how long we can sustain it. Probably beyond my lifetime, with any luck. But I wonder what todays kids might witness, or their kids.

There's no turning back. It's easy to utter platitudes about cutting bureaucracy, but all those bureaucrats are real people with real mortgages and real families. Chop all those regs I had to deal with today, and a whole lot of people are out of work. Chop enough at once, and throw the economy into the mother of all depressions. As if we could chop them anyway, because the workers and the special interests have already built a powerful political lobby to keep them in place.

The technical complexity is harder to pin down. The consumer DSLR highlights the paradox of it all; it caters to the masses looking to take a picture without thinking too much (as they have since the first Kodak Brownie); yet to do top-end work with a DSLR requires understanding that 421-page manual and a bunch of software and peripherals. They aren't simple gadgets, even as they create the illusion of simplicity.

In practice, it makes us either become specialists, good at a few things, or a drop out.

The recent news about how many Americans are locked away in prisons highlights that drop out rate. Lots of others fall into a perpetual underclass, unable to function in a high-tech society even as corporations clamor to let more educated foreigners in on work visas.

Our entire economic philosophy is a 300-year experiment based on the assumption of never-ending growth. It's scary to think there might be flaws in those assumptions.

I have no idea where it's headed. The possible paths diverge from here, and a lot depends on the vagaries of political will and outside circumstances.

But I'm pretty sure of one thing: Whichever road we follow, it's going to be full of potholes, because of all the paperwork required to fix them.

silver

Why does it matter?
What happens when we've seen too much?
When it's too easy, and too hard?

High above it all, seeing everything and nothing.
Seeing the colors.

notes on the apocalypse

The story begins in the suburbs of hell, under a few old billboards. The sky darkens, and it begins to rain. I see the glow reflected in her eyes, trace the light over the curves of her body. The world races by, and no one notices.

Meanwhile, in New York, a young woman ascends the razors' edge. She is colorful, marked with reds and blues, and with irreverence. The sharpness passes through to the other side, eight times. 3,000 miles away, and yet so close. Two others watch and wait.

The straight lines become vertical curves, and wind becomes cold. Shades of brown fade to dark green, then blur and disappear behind. There are two kinds of limits, one real and one imagined, both so poorly understood. Hope fades, then revives. It is only the rebellion that matters. As always, a few will do it their way, the hell with the conventions of society.