Shape of Things to Come

Let me start off with an apology for missing last week's posts. I could go into detail, but there's a reason for every day, and I don't think anyone reading this really cares all that much about what ELSE I was doing last Tuesday, so suffice it to say I missed and I have a lot to make up for this week.

Anyways, the blog is going to take a slightly different direction from here on. It's going to be the same basic formula - show picture, explain story behind or connected to picture, repeat - but after the response from some friends on my last post regarding DJ Erika, I think I'll stick to anecdotes about the images I post, and only go into the more philosophical aspects of a photo when I deem it necessary.

The story was pretty long, but at the same time I had a lot of fun writing it, and quite a few people had a lot of fun reading it. While I have some pretty strong ideas about what makes a good image, or what a bad picture is, I'm still young, and I'm still an amateur. Honestly, I have no more to teach on the subject than some kid that just got his/her first point-and-shoot Nikon for Christmas.

Rest assured, you'll still hear my opinions on my shots and others. Just try and stop me. But from here-on-out, unless I deem it a major necessity, my overall philosophy will be a side-point, not the epicenter of the article. I just meshes better that way, I think.

On that note, there's another change happening, but not specifically blog-related. Last week - I believe on Tuesday - I was taking a long walk through the woods near my house to find something cool to take pictures of, when I stumbled upon a large trail that looks like it had been weathered down by a truck. I decided to follow it, and I walked and walked down this trail in the dead woods for about 45 minutes, hoping that at the end of the trail would be photographic gold. Instead, what I found was a family friends' house (to whom the trail belongs for hunting, I later found out) and a lake I didn't know was out there, which was frozen and very boring to look at.

It's a photography thing, I've come to find, that you can walk around for hours and hours and still find nothing you NEED to take a picture of. It's part of the hunt, and in a way it makes finding one of those shots all the more magical. But I live in an area where there is nothing but hunting-trails and farmland in all directions for miles, and rarely does anything interesting to photograph pop up (unless it's an abandoned place, and while I enjoy that, I don't want to beat a dead horse). So, my girlfriend and my mother gave me a challenge.

We put a bunch of random words and phrases that they wrote onto strips of paper into a bucket, and every few weeks I'll pull out a word and set up a photo that I feel represents the word I pick. Simple, but it could have awesome results.

The word for now is "Flying," and I think I may have a clue of what I'm going to do already. Stay tuned, folks, things are about to get interesting.

-Track

P.S. While you're reading, visit my Etsy page and check out the photos I currectly have for sale. I'm going to try to add a new piece every two weeks or so. Stick around and I'll start putting up coupon codes for anyone who reads the blog to get discounts.

Example pic of the week:

I need a cooler watermark. All in due time.

A Picture With No Critique

Today is a bit of an off-day. It's very, VERY cold outside, so I don't have the energy or willpower to walk very far in search of a cool photo. Call me lazy, call me weak, whatever, I'm not doing it. You can't make me.
So, I'm going to share an older picture I've done before, but instead of any kind of critique or observation on my work, I'm going to relay the story around this photo. It's gonna be long, but trust me, it's a good one.

This is DJ Erika, who you can listen to at her website. This picture was taken last spring in Ann Arbor, at a small show in the basement of the incredibly popular comic book and nerd store, Vault of Midnight. We were promised a huge show, one that used "interactive media and music" to create some sort of play. My close friend Cado (his website here) sent me the brochure and I was pumped. I was imagining giant Plasma screens showing incredible images that the musicians would interact with, there was supposed to be dancers...how awesome it would have been. We loaded up into the car and headed to Ann Arbor, excited for what magical, musical wonders we'd see.

That...isn't quite what we got, but more on that in a moment.

The show opened at around 9 pm, the only way to access it in the back-alley behind VofM. We had some good fun chatting with the folks in the alleyway, actually, sharing stories and discussing nerdy subjects like Doctor Who and model-making, and musical interests like what we'd do if the other three Ramones came back to life and started touring. Then the doors opened.

The basement for VofM is awesome. So many vinyl figures and posters line the walls and ceiling that any geek would go down there and grin to himself (or squeal, if s/he was THAT kind of geek). Erika was setting up, and in about 10 minutes she started her magic. Honestly, Cado and I thought this WAS the show, and were a little disappointed that there was no Plasma screen, belly-dancers, or hell, any kind of "interactive media" besides some pretty lights that she had set up behind her.

But DAMN, her beats were good. Honestly, after a few minutes of listening, we took our spot on a couch and just let the trance-techno she was bringing forth whisk us away to dreamland. The stage-lights definitely added to the trance as well, the colors on the buffed floor acting like some sort of LSD light show. Naturally, having brought my camera, I started taking a few pictures, but kept my spot on the couch so as not to get in anyone's way. I was just starting out last year, and didn't exactly have the willpower to push my way through a crowd just yet.

Then the music stopped, the fluorescent lights went back on, and we snapped out of our haze. Erika was packing up, and some other guy was pulling out an electric guitar while they set up drums in the background. "Oh, she was a pre-show. THIS is the show we came to see!" I exclaimed to Cado, sitting back up in excitement. "If she was that fun to listen to, these guys must rule!"

My optimism diminished somewhat when I saw them pull out not a series of monitors, but an old-as-shit looking projector and a white sheet that was to be our screen, which they dangled loosely from the pipes in the ceiling.

I tried not to judge, it was possible that they had a kick-ass show but little money to spend on the extravagances. My optimism returned when the man who appeared to be the main singer stepped forward, with a device on his hand that was similar to the old Nintendo Powerglove (it's so bad). He explained that he used to develop this device, which connected to computers through USB, to allow people to manipulate their computer programs. I thought that sounded groovy.

Then the first song started, "The Glory of the Sing" or something new-agey sounding like that. He used a voice modifier on himself to make him sound not unlike Daft Punk, but if they were trying to sing over a Speak-and-Spell at the same time, and we got a taste of what our "interactive media and dancing" would be for the night. He brought up a program on his Mac that was projected onto the sheet, which was nothing more than a photo-stitching program that lets you form a 3D image with a series of pictures from the same place, and was trying to spin around an image of some woods as he sang about...something.

I said "trying," mind you. That glove didn't work very well, apparently, because instead of a smooth-pan through a spherical image, the program bounced and snapped all around, looking like someone was having a seizure in the middle of the woods. I looked at Cado with a worried expression, and he returned it right-the-hell back. Luckily, we weren't alone; no one seemed to be enjoying the show.

The next song was worse. He put away the damn Power Glove (halleluiah), but then then the dancer stepped forward. Mind you, she wasn't ugly or anything, but she was wearing a black turtleneck and pants, black ear-muffs (it was April, so that was odd), and her dancing seemed to consist of staying in one spot and performing interpretations (badly) of whatever he was singing about. It was more embarrassing to watch than entertaining, mostly because I got the sense that she didn't want to be there.

And this song consisted of admittedly jumpy beats while commands about what to do came up on the screen. Mind you, I'm in a room full of people in their late teens to early twenties, a number of which had alcohol in their hands. I'll leave it to your imagination what it was like when "FREAK OUT" popped up on the screen and he was encouraging everyone in the room to jump up-and-down and wave their arms around.

To quote Cado later that night about it: "It was like one of those Christian-school shows I went to when I was 8 that had some overly-cheery performer would bounce around the room with the kids and tell them to 'jump for Jesus!'" If you've ever been in an elementary-school assembly, you know what that's like as well.

So that song ended, and the next song had a slight delay as he clicked around his desktop looking for the file. The dancer stood their, staring at him awkwardly, as he brought up a video made with Bryce 5.5. Oh boy.

For those of you who don't know, Bryce is a program (sharing my real name) that is used to make 3D environments, sometimes for video games, mostly just for images. I actually knew the program very well at this point, having worked on it for years as a hobby. I was able to whip up a large, snowy landscape in an hour once back in high school, and was commended for it.

So, I was a bit unnerved to see what he was displaying on the screen. It was a tiny, poorly-made island with a shitty palm-tree in the middle of some sort of ocean. I didn't realize that at first, because the "ocean" was flat-grey with no texture of waves or ripples or anything, and the island was reddish in color and just odd to look at. The song he sang was about isolation or something, I think, since he talked about a "panoramic view" somewhere in there, but the only panorama in the image was a huge grey sea under a crappy pre-rendered sunset sky.

In my experience with the program, my guess is he whipped that up in 5 minutes and called it good. The dancer went from a strange moon-walk to some sort of modern-day twist when the chorus hit about 5 seconds late, obviously never hearing the songs before and trying to adapt to the terrible tune on the fly. Awkward doesn't describe her performance adequately.

Suddenly, a beat I recognized started playing. "Walking on the Moon?" Hey, I knew this song! It's not the greatest song, but surely with a cover-version of an older song, it can't suck that bad, right?

Wrong. Sooo wrong.

First of all, you'd think that the moonwalk would be kind of obvious for this song, right? So did the dancer, apparently, because she instead opted to do an "interpretive" version of what walking on the moon would be. Tell a 10-year-old to pretend to walk on the moon, and you'll see the "dance" she was demonstrating to us. Good lord, if I was with my girlfriend at the time, who dances professionally, that girl would have been chewed out and we'd be asked to leave. Not that we stayed much longer, though.

The song was going...okay, though the singer could NOT hit the high-notes properly, but then he busted out his electric guitar for the solo. He had played it earlier, and while not terrible, he wasn't amazing, but I figured he'd do about the same level of performance this time. I don't know what happened, maybe he just lost his bearings for a second, but the sounds coming out of this guitar were like a giraffe being strangled with piano-wire; high-pitched, pitiful, loud, and just painful to listen to if you can't save the poor creature.

Slowly I turned to Cado, who was looking at the performance with an emotion that could only be described as "shocked and appalled," and suggested that we go down the street for Fleetwood's for a burger. He just nodded, unable to speak about what was going on in front of us. We quietly made our way out, closed the door behind us, and stepped onto the chilly alleyway's pavement.

And we laughed. Friends, you have no idea how hard we laughed. I don't know why we didn't downstairs, but once we got outside, we just couldn't help ourselves. I'm sure people passing by the alley were a bit concerned, seeing two men in their 20s laughing so hard together.

"Come on," I said, wiping the tears from my eyes as short gasps of laughter escaped under my breath, "I need something with bacon on it." We walked the rest of the way to the diner, laughing and mocking the show, and knew without question that this was our favorite place to live.

-Track

Down the Tracks and Away

Train tracks. The most lovable cliche of photography. I don't think I'm exaggerating, either, just run a Google search for "train tracks" and you'll see basically the same image over and over again; low-angle, peering down the tracks until they converge on the horizon or turn around a corner.

Usually this would be a good time for some corny Inspirational Poster line about life or following your own path. Something groan-inducing to anyone that's not a middle-aged woman or an easily inspired pre-teen.

But let's get something straight, I LOVE this type of shot. Something about train tracks draws teenagers in (I blame the film "Stand By Me,") and I spent a lot of time over the last decade walking up and down the tracks in my hometown, dreaming of adventure or just goofing off with friends. Subconsciously, that's what train tracks mean to me; adventure, pioneering, travel. For someone stuck in a small town with big-city ambitions, it's definitely a symbol I relate to.

As for the cliched angle I described above...well, how else do you take a picture of the tracks? From the side or overhead, all it will be is a picture of two bars parallel to each other with some wooden beams in-between the space. Unless you see where they're going, and get the feel of just how endless the track is, they just lose their imagery and become steal and wood.

So, the shot may be cliche, but I think it's a shot every photographer either has done, or should do, without worry of how many people have done it before you. Just try to put some of your own unique style into it.

My style happens to be Photoshopping the absolute shit out of it until it looks prettier. Behold!

Funny enough, this was actually one of those pictures that came out very well from the beginning. Hell, with the original, it already looked like I had applied a filter to bring out the color a bit. (This doesn't count as my second pic of the day):

Honestly, the only thing I set out to change at first was the sky. It's a bit bland and boring, and would be pretty simple to replace and enhance. Admittedly, I got a bit carried away at that point. Then again, the point of this was to add a unique spin to it. I took a good picture, if I may say so myself, and the setting of this track and how old it is (it's currently out of use, hence the state it's in) speaks for itself. But there's nothing about it that really felt like it was MY perspective, so I added a bit of flare.

If I share some of my older Mad-Max style photos I did with an old friend, you'll understand how I can go overboard with the above color-scheme. I love it a bit too much.

This picture also taught me something about cliches. While they may be overdone, and there may be a hundred pictures of the same thing at the same angle as yours, you can always makes yours unique in a way that revives the cliche, if not for others, than at least to yourself. This is a lesson I'll have to take to heart, as I've avoided certain pictures in the past for fear of blending in with the rest of the photography crowd.

For the TL:DR version: today I learned to strive to be unique, but not to automatically shun a certain shot because it's been done before. You'll never get any pictures, or practice, that way.

-Track

Oh, before I forget; bonus picture!

I found this little guy scooting around the road a few months ago, and forgot all about this picture until I found it last night. He was sprightly for a caterpillar, too. Usually the monarchs roll into a ball when you pick them up and play dead, but this one kept wriggling around and shuffling along my hand as I tried to get a close-up.

This is actually the second pic I took of him, the other one was a better close-up of his head. Then I realized just how terrifying caterpillar faces look when up-close.

Just be thankful I posted this one. Trust me, it's the shit of nightmares and you'll never think of these spiny bastards is cute ever again.

Obligatory talk about SOPA

You knew it was coming.

You had to, if you knew anything about the Stop Online Piracy Act. I'm a guy who's trying to establish himself as a payed photographer, after all, which means sharing an ass-load of images around the web for public view as to promote myself and the purchase of those pictures, or my personal services and skills behind a camera. Something like SOPA completely destroys the online careers for people like myself.

Look, if you're any kind of internet lurker, you know very well what SOPA is, and if you're any kind of decent person, you're against it completely. I'm not going to add much fuel to that fire, so I'll let other and better-informed people do this rant for me. Just go to Google and click on the logo tonight, you'll get all the info you need.

As for the folks who aren't in the know, watch this video, do some research, and discern for yourself. I'm not going to put the blog down for tonight since I'm posting too late, but this will be a no-picture post.

Don't be afraid to act and stand up for your rights. Now is not the time to be complacent and uninformed, folks.

Tomorrow will be a dual-picture post to make up for today. I'll try to get something really interesting to discuss.

-Track

Creepin' in the Graveyard

Graveyards and tombstones have to be one of the most recognizable and iconic images in the human consciousness. I don't think there's any kind of location on the face of the planet that has the same kind of energy and emotion that a graveyard does, no matter what culture you hail from. How could there be? What other location can have such a large range of emotion in one spot? There's the Gothic and macabre feeling of death and decay, loss and mourning...but at the same time, there can be a hint of remembrance and respect, and those slabs of rock with the deceased's name carved into it allow their names and memories to live on forever (or until the carving fades away).

Yes, I understand there may be other places that carry all these emotions for someone on a more personal level. I'm talking in a broader sense, don't be self-centered.

Naturally, this makes graveyards pretty damn easy to photograph. Almost too easy. Take for instance the admittedly dull picture I took for today;

I didn't do much to this picture, really. The smudgy blur on the sides of the image are from the extreme cold fogging up my lens, which was a very happy accident considering the mood it gives the picture. All I had to do was darken it a bit and bring out some of the color from the sunset and, viola, a nifty picture of a tombstone.

But I'm going to be honest with you guys for a second; I'm mostly using that picture as an excuse to rant about something that's been bugging me for a while.

I know I said taking pictures of a graveyard, especially an old one like the above picture (that tombstone is over 150 years old!), was easy. And it is...provided that there isn't a model in the picture.

Do not get me wrong here, an actor or model in a picture can really bring out the scenery and add an extra level of depth to the photograph. The pic I presented today may be a nice picture of a cemetery, but that's all it is; a picture of a cemetery. There's nothing more to it, it's just there to look nifty.

However, with a model in the picture, you can use their expression, their posing, and even their clothing to add an air of mystery, or a sense of mourning...in essence, you tell a story (something I've gone on about before). A graveyard is far too iconic and complex of a location to do a simple face-shot or model shoot.

I bring this up, because this is a strange trend among quite a bit of aspiring punk or goth photographers lately. I will not name names, but suffice it to say I'm seeing a lot of pictures centering around women, who are very pretty, but are wearing incredibly complex or out-of-place clothing (example: a black-and-bright-pink zip-up corset).

My problem with this? It's too...needy. That outfit in a creepy old house or in a studio shoot? Perfect, great, works wonderful. Out in a graveyard, though, it looks like the model (and by connection, the photographer) looks like s/he is trying to wrestle the attention away from the scenery and put it all on him/herself. By doing so, they look out of place, add nothing to the location, and make an overall unremarkable picture.


I guess you could edit it and make it quite a bit better in post, but in my opinion 1.) they almost never do this, 2.) it's a lot of effort to go through if you don't have a very specific idea of what you're doing from the start, and 3.) on the whole, only take a picture that's interesting to look at from the start. Photoshop can make a dull image look fabulous in the right hands, but it's easier and feels more authentic when the original image is dynamite as well.


Not that taking crappy photos is bad. God knows I do that all the time. Just make sure your original idea is strong enough to be presented despite all the flaws and it should be just fine.


Anyways, rant over, feel free to tell me what an idiot I am if you disagree. I love the attention.


-Track


P.S. Also try to remember, when you're in a graveyard, you're standing over the remains of someone's beloved grandma. The last thing someone wants to see on Facebook is a picture of you slumming it up on top of Nana's coffin. Food for though.

So...woops.

For anyone who might've been interested in what my blog was offering, only to have it suddenly stop updating...sorry about that! It seemed like we were really getting into the swing of something awesome, too.

Now, I can type away as many excuses as I want for why the blog got postponed for so long (I was busy, there were no good pictures to take around here, etc.), but honestly, it all comes down to one major factor: I was lazy. I let too many things in my life stack on top of me for some strange reason, and I put the blog on the back-burner even though I was perfectly capable of updating it on the schedule I allowed myself. Not very responsible of me, but hey, there it is.

So. After that long hiatus, and a new year finally here, I'm back to announce a bit of a (late) New Year's Resolution for myself; I plan to take a new picture, patch it up to make it look pretty/gaudy, and make a subsequent blog post for it every weekday of this year, instead of only Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For any days I can't get outside to take pictures, or when there are simply just no interesting photos to take in the area, I'll reach back in time and find some of my older work to either criticize or show off (depending how self-loving I am that day).

On top of that, if I miss an update for any reason, legitimate or just laziness, I'll update the next day with two pictures.

Hopefully, this will help get the creative-juices flowing (since Winter tends to make it coagulate in me), and will entertain all you wonderful readers out there.

This will start tomorrow. Hope to see you there.