Puppy See, Puppy Do – Day 3:01/17/09

This project will have a distinctively street photography feel to it, a lot a urban details and street scenes. But this shot does not. It’s a photo of my girlfriend and our dog, Jack. She’s awesome and he’s awesome… and recliners are awesome. So there’s a lot of awesome going on in this photo. Forgive the lack of sharpness. The Rollei 35 is a scale focus camera. I’m basically guessing the distance from my camera to the subject. I’m not the best at this guessing process, so you’ll see some other Rollei shots that aren’t exactly in focus. Remember to check out the Flickr Set.

Taj Ma Garaj – Day 2:01/16/10

Were you worried that this wouldn’t be up yet? Did you not think I could keep up this crazy pace? Well, think again! Here’s Day Two of my Frame-A-Day project, and just as importantly, a little background on the image. Some of my frame-a-day images will have a story, some of them won’t.

This image was taken at  fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Dayton. One of the organizers was named Chris and we met him while Jen was getting her transplant. For those of you who don’t know, my girlfriend Jen has Cystic Fibrosis and received a double lung transplant about a year ago.

Chris’ wife, Jessica also had CF and was getting her transplant the same night that Jen was. I met him in the waiting room and we stayed in touch throughout the process. Unfortunately, while Jen recovered rather quickly, Jessica didn’t make it.

It had been a while since we had spoken with Chris. But he told us through Facebook that he was holding a CF fundraiser. We went up, and it was really fun. The event was in memory of Jessica and several of her friends made some great speeches about her. It was moving to get to know the people who were close to her. We had never even spoken to her, but because of the coincidental timing of Jen’s transplant, we took her death pretty hard. It was both a symbol of the risks Jen was taking, and at the same time we had to ask ourselves the question, “why did Jen survive the surgery and Jessica not survive?”

On a lighter note, the event was held at the Taj Ma Garaj (garage, garaj… get it) and was full of vintage Porches and Volkswagens.It was definitely geared toward men, hence the mural in the photo below. The film I used for this shot, Kodak UC100, is 100 ISO film. It’s super slow, so shooting inside with it was really tough. Check it out. Tell me what you think.

By the way, it’s really freakin’ hard not to take more than ONE frame. I get one chance a day to make an image that will work for this project. I hunt and hunt or I shoot something early in the day and I’m pissed when I see something better later on. It is tough, but stick with me. Don’t forget to check the Frame-A-Day Flickr Set of these images, it will also be updated daily.

Frame-A-Day Begins!! Day 1:01/15/10

Alright, it’s here! Get pumped and be prepared for a daily dose of some weird shots. But first let me tell you how this journey began. I stumbled across this wonderful photography blog called Viewfinder.

This is the BBC’s photo blog and is ran by very intelligent man named Phil Coomes. It’s smartly written and taken on a variety of photographic topics. It’s both for the BBC’s broad audience, but it also has an insider feel to it. Many of the articles seem to be written for photographers, which I love.

Anyway, Phil Coomes has the side project which he mentions in the blog. He is shooting a bunch of Kodachrome 64, an awesome slide film that is going out of production, and is posting a photo a day for 64 weeks. Get it, 64 on 64. Check it out on the Flickr Stream of it. Kodachrome 64 will no longer be produced soon, and there is only one place in the world that processes it, it’s a crazy story.

Moving on. Coomes is shooting a lot of film, sending it out for processing, then just posting one image a day once he gets in back. My approach is rather different. I am ONLY SHOOTING ONE FRAME DAY with a film camera. I might shoot more assignments on digital or with a different film camera, but at all times I will have a designated film camera with a roll in it that will be used for the project. So a roll of film is lasting me almost a month. So yes, I’ve been shooting one frame a day for a month already.

I hope to show through this work the small photographable things that I pass by each day and that everyone passes by each day. I don’t want this to be a journal of my life, but there will be parts that may seem like that. Some days will be better than others. I get one frame people, give me a break!

Because I’m working on a strict schedule, I can also tell you the exact date that the photo was shot. I’ll be posting that with each shot. After the title of each photo will be a code with the shot’s number in the series and the date. The shots will be posted about 5-6 weeks after they are shot. I’ve built in some time for processing and scanning. I’ll be posting everyday to a Flickr stream as well. You can find it here.

I hope that this project challenges me to find one great shot each day and nail the exposure and composition. And I hope to showcase a number of camera and film combinations. This first shot (and the next 30 or so photos) were shot on a roll of Kodak UC100 film with a Rollei 35.

Alright, sorry that this first post was so long, but I felt that I needed to explain the project. This first shot was made at York Street Cafe in Newport, Kentucky. I was on a advertising shoot there and saw this little scene. The place was crammed with stuff and the weird red letters caught my eye. Hope you all enjoy it.

If this weren’t the first day, the title of this post would definitely be ROAR WEDKQ. Oh, and more more thing, though this shot was the only shot I made of this scene, I have given myself one safety measure for the project. If the shot is made with a really low shutter speed or is shot with a really shallow depth-of-field, I may make two frames of it just to be safe. BUT ONLY TWO FRAMES and they must be of the exact same subject. I will not change the angle I shoot it or anything. And I will only do this with completely stationary subjects, I don’t want to correct for my timing. There have been two or three times since I started this projects that I’ve let myself do this. Basically just to make sure I was steady when shooting or two bracket focusing. This is the only exception to my frame-a-day rules, and if I remember I will try to tell you when those happened. Hope you enjoy this journey with me.

Self-Portrait or First Frame

I sort of hate what self-portraits have turned into. They seem to modern, too easy, too digital. Most importantly, they seem a little self-indulgent and narcissistic.

In the days of film, you framed a shot on a tripod, pre-focused, used a self-timer and then you ran into the frame, hoping to beat the clock. You wouldn’t waste that kind of time and film on random shots of yourself unless you climbed Mt. Everest or something. You made “self” portraits with your family. It was a vacation activity, and it was actually social. Not just for something on a social media site.

Before that, painters stared at themselves for days in a mirror and for them it was an exercise. They wanted their skills to be up to snuff when they paid a model to come sit for them.

Now people just hold their arm up and click. Then they check the back and do it again if it didn’t turn out. BORING!

All that being said, I have for you today a pseudo-self-portrait. But I’m would rather place the photo in the long standing tradition photographers call “first frames.”

Let’s take a trip in the WayBack Machine to when people still used film. After loading a new roll, you would hammer off a few frames to make sure you shooting on an unexposed piece of film that wasn’t tainted by the loading process. Most of the time these frames are dark or screwed up because the lens cap was still on or your exposure wasn’t set yet. But sometimes, they were cool. Photographers often saved these frames and printed them and they were shared amongst the photographic community. It was sort of fun and interesting. I bet a lot of photographers still have some “first frames” lying around.

Now that we shoot digital, we don’t get first frames anymore. But occasionally, I’m screwing around with my flash or I just accidentally hit my shutter release. I did that recently and noticed that I got a cool shot, so I kept it.

I just realized that I’ve taken you on a very long journey to get to a picture of my shoe, but I hope you like it anyway. Unless you’re friends with me on Facebook, then it’s about as close as you’ll get to seeing a photo of me. I do really hate having my picture taken.

A short note on the photo-a-day project. It’s launching this Thursday, so stay tuned.

After Hours

Maybe it was being across the street from the Cincinnati Art Academy. Maybe it’s this medium format itch that I’ve been scratching. All I know is that a few years ago, I was not interested in taking photos of random inanimate objects. I was not, am not, and most likely will never be an “art” photographer. In my mind, for a long time, it was almost a dirty word. Why waste film or space on a hard drive with pictures of leaves and cracks in the sidewalk and litter?

I’m feeling my photographic life shifting at the moment, and while I don’t completely like it, I can’t really change it. I really don’t feel like I have a choice in what I shoot. I just shoot. And the frames that I’m drawn to later… well, I don’t have too much control over that either.

Maybe I’m not in enough documentary, journalistic situations. Maybe I’m discovering a part of photography that most photographers got out of their system when they were kids, but that I sort of skipped. I just hope it doesn’t suck. I don’t want my photos to suck. I’d take photos crumpled paper the rest of my life if I thought it moved people.

Anyway, here’s a gate. It’s just that, a gate. See it for what you will. For me it’s a symbol of this new tug I’m feeling in my image making. In some ways it seems too easy, too boring, too “already been done.” But we’ll see… together. Because I’ll keep posting my pictures here whether the shots are of gates or people or whatever. Leave some mean comments on this post, so I stop taking shots like this. Unless you like it…. then tell me that, too.