System Disparity

Oh hello there, Kneejerk Imagery blog, I forgot you existed for a while.

Pardon my hiatus, but the period between my last posting and now was filled with rampant, indiscriminate photography in practice, and my return to posting has only occurred due to the tire-locking brakes put on my creative momentum due to a particularly persistent (and immensely annoying) cold. So please, allow me to present you with an update on the status of Kneejerk and its exploits in this (thus far) most glorious of New Years.

Perhaps by accident (but much more likely by surreptitious intent), I've acquired a new partner in my forays into the detritus of discarded Western architecture. The repeat subject of candid portraits I met rather late into last year, Kyle, has taken a particularly strong interest in the scenic subjects predominantly featured in my online galleries, enough to express interest in visiting them in person to satisfy his curious appetite. Normally I am one to keep these locations private, but having developed a solid working relationship with Kyle and having discussed in great detail his core motivations for wanting to visit there derelict locales, I saw an opportunity to further nurture the relationship into a collaborative effort in the artistic. Having engaged in multiple "explores" with him at this point, he may very well amount to one of the best partners in crime I'm had.

Our first outing he brought along a camera of his own, a solid Nikon superzoom, but given that his interest lay less in the photography and more in the simple pleasures of exploring the unseen, he often asked if I would like to put his camera to use. Subsequent expeditions he traveled sans camera completely, opting instead to bolster his assortment of equipments to include many tools that would make even the most hardened explorer drool with jealousy. With this local and very focused compatriot available to coordinate with for expeditions, I found myself willing to take far more risks with locations, expanding from my countryside locales deeper and deeper into the less pleasant areas of the inner city. While my guard is down in the middle of composing a photograph, Kyle manages to be ever vigilant, often volunteering himself to be the point man of the expedition, clearing areas prior to my entry. An appreciated service. I owe him more than he knows.

Interestingly enough, he and I have even encountered a couple of the worst case scenarios for explorers such as ourselves, what with flustered, shotgun toting property owners and thumping helicopters having been obstacles in the way of our benign objectives. In all such instances, his conduct has been most impressive - without a word needing to be uttered, he knew not to panic, and as if on some telepathic wavelength we operated as necessary in perfect unison to avoid unfortunate and dire consequences in pursuit of high art. Suffice to say he is a long awaited boon. I am proud to have him accompanying me on our little adventures.

What with the recent and successful pairing with Kyle on so many explores, I felt encouraged to escape the hermit shell of my former modus operandi of solo exploration and actually latched onto the reigns of the urban exploration community at large. Though my New Years Eve saw early conclusion in a 10pm bedtime, the first day of 2012 was spent with a couple of the community's more hardcore iconic figures on a day-long road trip to a neighboring city and great trio of successful inner city explores. An absolutely fantastic time, to say the least.

The third of the New Year's Day explores would stand as a personal landmark occasion on a private measure. For a long time I've harbored an irrational fear of heights. It has often left several choice opportunities for impacting images unfulfilled, such simple obstacles as a ladder or moderate climb over a ledge face standing as my ultimate undoing. On New Year's Day, the third explore of the group was a certain high rise building of ill condition. Though I have explored many a building of notably sour condition, this one in particular very much took the cake for being the superior deathtrap. It was a structural nightmare, with a majority of stairs collapsed, ceilings sinking in, and the rooftop itself was an imploding funnel of certain doom some double digit stories high above the concrete jungle. But dammit, I scaled that building, and I indulged in the forbidden pleasures of my first rooftop. And by god was it a gorgeous view, and among the most liberating of feelings.

A good start to the new year. Far better than the sloppy drunken mess that rang in the misery of 2011.

Energized by that Hallmark moment of conquering the self, I was invigorated, eager to punch forward at 2012 with a binge of exploration. With Kyle at my side, that vigor was expressed most magnificently. No longer was it suffice to stick to locales I'd explored before, no, I was encouraged to venture forth to new ones. And in the first week of 2012 I already had 5 new locations under the proverbial belt. Challenges were faced, but with a good partner and a keen shared instinct they were conquered. Honestly cannot think of a better way to have rung in this New Year. I can only hope it is replete with the successes it has been met with so early on its timeline.

To boot, with the ringing of the New Year, so came the opportunity to make the final necessary purchases to complete my Olympus System, not just bringing me back to the capabilities which I'd lost with the death of the GF1 and 20mm f/1.7, but expanding far beyond what capabilities that limited system had. For the longest time, I did not understand the greater appeal some had for the Olympus line of MFT products, far more endeared to the strictly utilitarian approach implied by the styling and function of Panasonic's Lumix line. My former inclinations have altered tremendously, and indeed my understanding of what makes a camera system genuinely resonate with the hands that bear it. Point being, it feels good to shoot a sexy camera, and the Pen line manage to tick all the boxes from a suave visual appeal, modular nature, peak image quality that just about caps out the capabilities of its sensor completely, and the control layout and handling ergonomics of some dream camera molded perfectly for my hands. To have the system completed is a wonderful thing. So now my bag (or lack thereof is occupied as follows:

• Olympus E-P3 (In black, because it just looks better in the hands of one of my Mediterranean heritage)
• Larger Grip for the E-P3 Body (Because it helps a whole hell of a lot to have a firmer grasp on such a minute body)
• VF-3 Electronic Viewfinder (Facilitates that one-on-one connection when shooting a person to have the camera up at eye level... not to mention stability when street shooting off the tripod)
• Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (The perfect portrait lens for MFT)
• Olympus 12mm f/2.0 (The perfect everything else lens for MFT, especially interiors and manual focus in low to non-existent light)
• Olympus XZ-1 (Not just the perfect backup, but also ideal for a different feeling image, something with a more faded, aged tonality that some scenes simply appeal to)

That last bullet features a point I'd actually like to touch on as it has become more and more apparent the more I shoot. At this point I am typically shooting both cameras in RAW, barring dedicated portrait shoots in which the E-P3 with its 45mm compatriot and e-portrait touched JPGs are impossible to pass up. I develop in ACR for both as well, which has a tendency to default any RAW image to settings most akin to the "natural" color and contrast settings built into most cameras. Whereas most cameras seem to develop in RAW with a similar crispness, a boldness that is something of a standard, files out of the XZ-1 differ in their almost washed look and lack of stark blacks and heavy contrast. I imagine some of this has to do with the compact sensor being utilized, which in turn would lead one to expect lesser sharpness due to compact-oriented glass, but the XZ-1's Zuiko lens even overturns that expectation, presenting a degree of sharpness even wide open that one simply does not expect from a compact.

What I have gathered to be the case is that the end result in this formula is the camera exhibits the sharpness of a larger sensor camera with a sharp prime in front, but the color disparity that should ultimately be expected of a compact sized sensor. The end result is something more akin to a polaroid or expired roll of Fuji Superia, faded, muted colors against random, fine grain (which looks all the better when slightly over sharpened). It's a look I've come to love, and although I bring the camera with me every day and take regular snapshots of what I see throughout the daily grind, I rarely post these images because I feel they cheat it out of the recognition it deserves as being a uniquely hipster-ish icon of photography. Not that I'd expect any hipster to waltz around carrying one of these expensive pocket rockets around, but if they actually showed genuine interest in photography and weren't simply grooming an image, they'd find a lot to like with the files it produces.

To expand on the above point, I feel compelled to pop the VF-3 off the E-P3 and try it out on the XZ-1 some time. It's a remarkable tool, the only thing lacking in its list of features being a built-in level, but there are certainly ways to survive without such a spoiling contrivance. Of course, then I feel neglectful of my mainstay in photography in general, and with the 12mm f/2.0 finally in my inventory I feel particularly ill chosen with naught but the XZ-1 at my behest. Oh well, that struggle will never get old.

So now that my assorted of photo taking goods is complete and I'm sitting pretty in the spoils of their capabilities, I can once again trek down the road towards studio lighting and other portrait-oriented goods, all ultimately leading toward realization of the business I set upon founding almost a year ago. This time around I have a far more rational, carefully constructed base upon which to start on the journey, a step-by-step plan concretely defined and laid out to bare in a business plan which will be my initial guide in my foray into this nebulous territory. More so, I have made some incredibly helpful contacts in my passive attempts at networking, people who are already steadfast and grounded in the business of photography and therefore the ultimate role models to follow (especially measuring by their success). Those contacts have even extended a warm invitation to open house venues in their respective studios, as briefly touched on in the previous post (unfortunately my subsequent invitation to the Graffiti Warehouse dissolved with the illness I'm still in the heat of combating). Though nothing is yet established, the grounds on which I intend to plant the business side of Kneejerk are very fertile, and come Spring I very much intend to bring the beast to life.

This is going to be a fantastic year.

Took a Walk In Those Shoes

This past weekend saw me engaged in the kind of shooting that deep down I've always (and will always) yearned to do for a living. Candid portraiture. Studio portraiture. High fashion. Makeup. Glamor. Beauty. Those things that the photography industry rode on so easily in the 80s, hit a plateau on in the 90s and then lost monopoly on completely in the 00s. Not that I cared. I wasn't in the thick of this world of pretty girls and dramatic vibes to make money. Hell, I wasn't really so much there to make friends (barring Friday's shoot with Allyson, featured to the right here... but she was already a friend so that hardly counts). I dunked my core into this world to discover whether or not it really, truly, honestly bore the satisfaction I would demand from it should I stake the bread and butter of my business plan on its practice (a business plan which is complete, by the way, and currently undergoing scrutiny and polishing by several third parties). The vigor and adrenal rush of the portrait shoot was already apparent, but would it stand up to the required structure and uniformity necessary to function from a business standpoint?

The short answer is "Holy Shit Yes" (and yes, indeed, that is the shortest possible answer, period). I'll start with Friday.

As is my typical working Friday, I was due to be off work by the early afternoon. And, again, as is typical for my working Fridays, I intended to capitalize on available daylight and go photograph... something. Originally my plan was to slip into abandoned building X and photograph my typical decay and detritus, and in hunting for a partner in crime I quietly posted a casting call for company on the adventure. Instead, I was accosted by Allyson, a girl I'd grown up with in high school, a most lovely young lady with high wit and incredible intelligence, a standalone in the crowd (from which I collected more than a few standalone friends of similar caliber). For some time earlier in the year she'd discussed wanting to serve as a candid model for me, but with her working 2 jobs and myself being horribly unavailable and spontaneous in my dealings, schedules never aligned and we never managed to get together for a shoot. This particular Friday, however, planets aligned, and so we agreed to meet at Starbucks for coffee, catchup and cameras.

It had been nearly 7 years since we last saw each other, so the initial passing of life stories was of course in order. More than that, however, this introductory phase served as an easy mode test bed for a critical part of my business plan which emphasizes not passing through clients rapidly, but rather developing a comfortable, familiar relationship with the client first, something which is both conducive to the portrait shoot itself by merit of making the process feel casual and natural, but opens up future opportunity to work with the client again as a preferred photographer. Now, of course, working with Allyson was easier than trying the same with a complete stranger given our history, but with enough time having passed since our last face to face the need was still there to break into that zone of comfort prior to the engagement of the portrait shoot. And it worked out famously. We spoke of her college time, her plans in life of saving money and buying a house, family and relationship situations... we quickly made our way to frank, honest confessions to one another, and that is the critical point at which a portrait shoot has the utmost potential to ascend into genuine art, not simply forced expression.

I popped the lens cap off and started snapping. The conversation continued (as it should), but because we took the time to communicate and trust each others' intentions we synched onto this abstract wavelength I always strive to achieve with my portrait subjects. Although we were still talking, still engaging in business as usual, through a combination of conversational cadence and body language we communicated when the moment was right for a photo, and she would pick up on my subtle cues immediately and freeze whatever position, direction of eyesight, expression, what have you, and wait for me to take the snap, all of which occurring in a matter of milliseconds. I easily snapped 200 plus frames of Allyson while we talked over coffee at Starbucks, and only but a few times, less than could be counted on one hand, did timing and mental communion falter and lead to a silly eyes-half-closed false frame.

To date I've only worked with perhaps a half dozen models who've connected on such a pertinent mental wavelength. Granted, most of the time, I don't go out of my way to establish that communion of mental states, however Allyson would be the first person I've ever attempted to establish that connection with very deliberately, and seeing the fruits of our collaboration in this portrait session, it is without a doubt the most critical facet to the success of an artistically considered portrait shoot. To that end, I thank Allyson for our session last Friday if for no other reason than for opening up that critical insight via hard, deliberate testing (although the portraits themselves are exceptionally gorgeous too, gotta say).

With our session concluded only due to a dying camera battery, we parted ways and enjoyed the rest of our evenings in our own respective fashion. We are, however, bearing all intent of working together again, an on-location shoot preferred by both parties. Aside from being another opportunity to photograph a lovely girl, that shoot would serve as a test for another aspect of the provided services in my business plan. Hopefully I'll have some competent studio lighting equipment to utilize by the time the weather outside is slightly less frightful. Anyway...

... Then Saturday happened.

Ren Garczynski, purveyor of Random Eye Candy Photography and owner of dedicated studio space at Baltimore's Graffiti Warehouse, a very, well, "Baltimorian" art studio venue that encourages rampant graffiti murals and all levels of high glamor studio photography, invited me to attend their holiday open house. The premise was simple enough - $20 for photographers, $5 for models, pay your way in and you have 6 hours in which to link up with models, utilize community backdrops, props and portrait lights, and go to town creating vogue photographic art. I walked into the place Saturday afternoon expecting a collection of the lost and confused wandering around afraid to mingle and network. Whew, was I wrong... instead I walked into a party.

Right from the get go, after paying into the main vestibule I stepped into a room crowded with makeup artists, costumers, models and photographers, everyone at work experimenting with the most random and often nonsensical combinations of light and style imaginable. And it worked every time. Very often the process was model driven - instead of the photographer leading the model in a certain way, the model would select props and backdrops and a flood of up to a dozen different photographers would gravitate around her (well, I suppose there were a few "hims" in the modeling roster, but really, let's be honest, they were predominantly "hers"). It was a few levels of insane, augmented by live electronic music being mixed on the spot by a 3 DJ crew which cycled interchangeably. Nonsense in tandem that somehow functioned without a hitch.

One element really stood at the forefront of the separation of myself from all other photographers there, however. I would venture to guess that easily 90% of the photographers around me were shooting models with kit zooms, amateur (by which I mean sub-$1000) CaNikon DSLR bodies and direct, occasionally diffused shoe mounted flashes. In other words, the standardized, homogenous setup "expected" of all "serious" photographers. Meanwhile, I'm happily strutting along with my Micro Four Thirds Olympus E-P3 with a fast prime 45mm f/1.8 mounted on the front and no viewfinder to speak of barring a rear OLED LCD screen. It could be argued that I was the venue's iconic minimalist. And as hipster of me as it is to feel a sense of pride in that status... I don't know, I think my results with such minimalist gear stand up well on their own.

While most photographers never touched the constant lights available to them, I couldn't stop screwing around with them, and I found 2 in particular that I very much liked and would love to add to my equipment list some time. A pair of 8-bulb compact fluorescent soft boxes that put off the most spectacular light as they heated up. When a photographer insisted upon utilizing a strobe, I used nothing more than the constant preview light they emitted, not once synching to a strobe because... why? I had all the light I needed, and by god was it soft and smooth and gorgeous. A couple times, while using the constant lights, photographers insistent upon using nothing more than their directly aimed, off-branded, non-metered flashes would demand I take the hot lights off the model because their impact on the frame caused their exposures to be blown out, to which I typically responded "Then dial down your exposure or turn off your flash". Unfortunately, not a single person I imparted this suggestion onto took it at all because, of all the hilarious things, very few photographers there knew how to meter on their own, completely dependent on either the Auto setting or Program for everything. Manual EV adjustments be damned, I suppose.

Complaints aside, the venue was absolutely fantastic, however I felt it too overcrowded just 2 hours in and resigned myself from shooting to simply spend time seeing the talented Ren at work in her private studio with a model and friend who I've photographed before, Kyle. The pair were engaged in a Mr. Winter themed portrait shoot, with Kyle covered in white body makeup and whitening hair spray. Her results were very cool (double entendre not withstanding). All in all a very good day and very good experience, and at least a partial foray into the world of high fashion/glamor/model photography that I also hope to implement in my business should I ever manage to network my way into it. For years I complained of how little time spent at college meant to ones skill as a photographer, but more and more I'm coming to realize the investment in college for artists is never, EVER about acquiring new knowledge and applying new technique, it is all about meeting people, gaining exposure, assembling the right portfolio and attaining the required recognition to more or less "buy" your way into the world of high art photography. And to think I had it all wrong all those years.

Perhaps it's time to take some courses...

When Does a Snapshot Become Art?

Go ahead and laugh at the question if you must.

Photography, and what defines a photo of artistic-grade aesthetic value, is both fickle and maddeningly nebulous. It is the nature of a non-quantitative thing to be impossibly abstract and reluctant to be weighted down by something so mundane as "definition". Thus the selection process I employ when sifting through my photographs for the "keepers" buried amongst the snaps is... difficult.

My habits when sitting down at the computer at the end of a day of shooting are predictable and brutally consistent. Rip the photos onto the hard drive, pop open Adobe Bridge and peek through them one by one. What is horribly inconsistent, however, is what exactly I'm looking for. The night of a shoot I will have in my mind exactly what I'm excited to review and edit in post, the compositions I stopped to think out carefully on a venture with the direct intent to produce art. Eager to share them, I will punch through editing in a couple hours of miserable repetition and upload them to Flickr, distribute them into groups and sit back with the giddy "Look at me and what I did" anticipation of a toddler.

But then there's a phase that creeps up after.

Not every photograph I take is meticulously considered. A great many of my captures hearken directly to my namesake. Knee-jerk images. Moments come and go without stopping, there is rarely a second chance and if the moment is not quickly taken advantage of it will pass on and be forgotten just as quickly as it cropped up in the first place. Snapshots. Candid moments that can embody a vivid memory that would otherwise be completely discarded by what our brains will allow us to recollect.

Now, they aren't always pretty. Such fleeting moments require sloppy spur of the moment reaction, and the attempt to capture that moment isn't necessarily success. But if you're quick enough, if the planets align in that moment and the light is right and the camera is set and the camera is trained on the scene, sometimes that moment is captured beautifully. BUT, assuming the occurrence of a miracle allowed that passing moment to be captured, that memory photographically recorded... is it art?

In my foolish efforts to apply a quantitative definition to what defined a photograph as artwork, I have assembled a set of rules by which an image must abide before I consider it as artwork. The exposure must be balanced, not too dark, not too light. Focus must be spot on and the image must be marked by tack sharpness. Verticals and horizontals must be meticulously aligned and considered. Faces must have some specific expressions or elements of appeal. A million considerations which result in a mass casting out of images from my consideration. I've found a trick, though... a segue into loosened rules, lowered defenses and less process oriented, whimsical thinking.

I sit down with a couple glasses of vodka/rum/whiskey/what have you. Magic happens.

My vision and coordination are woefully stunted and suddenly things that my active conscious rejected outright before are met with consideration as my subconscious takes over. Those rigid, defined images that involved prudent planning and compositional assembly fall by the wayside, they are silly things only an engineer could love. Instead, I look at the snaps. I look at faces and skies and isolated subjects and melting focus and I find things with an undefinable appeal. Pop them into Photoshop and drunkenly give them a muscle memory touch up, post them to be shared, and only the next morning do I realize what I've done.

Not even my active conscious can deny them consideration anymore. I see relationships and shapes and lines and colors and tones and expressions and suddenly they are the most beautiful images I've ever seen, often embodying memories I'd cast aside for sake of the pursuit of "higher art". And in those moments I wonder what it is that defines the art-value to begin with. There are two sides to me, both with grossly different appeals but due appreciation for each other. The sobered, rigid, detail oriented clear mind and this spontaneous, flimsy yet emotionally intuitive mind. Which one is the artist here? And under what instinct does a snapshot meet the standards of "art" to this subconscious drive?

The answer is elusive. Maybe I need a drink to find it.

A Filter is Fine Too

This past weekend saw a fun, photography filled road trip through what I and those I was photographing with endearingly refer to as "Coal Country". A one day trip, half of which total likely having taken place in the cramped space of a car, cruising through rolling hills coated in dead and albino-bleached trees. The ensuing back pain was well worth it.

We met up early in the morning, on the brink of twilight just before sunrise would blanket the landscape with golden light. Our itinerary had only one specific location set firmly in stone, the rest of the trip being much more wishy-washy and open to spur of the moment ideas. Though an enjoyable and very much fruitful venture, I find myself wanting to take it again on the sooner rather than the later. It felt like a dry run, a first impression of the subject, and with knowledge now of what works and what doesn't, the second trip would be an assured tapping into a photographic gold mine.

On the subject of the "what works" elements I discovered in my dry run shooting, I actually tapped into something of a lost art that benefited my exterior shooting especially. Back when I was still sitting squarely in the Nikon camp (good lord, am I glad I'm done with those days of brand elitism), filter use seemed like an obvious route to go down. I was still in the habit of applying UV filters to all my lenses (again, so glad I'm not longer following antiquated practices), and every time I'd run to Ritz to pick up a new multi-coated piece of crappy glass I'd see what else was in their 52mm filter stock. My filter collection was pretty considerable by the time I realized I was never using the damn things, laden with starbursts and diffuse and neutral densities and polarizers. Ridiculous. Except for two - the NDs and the polarizers.

Though their function was clear as ever in my brain, their use seemed grossly unnecessary once the habit of shooting RAW became standard practice. At the time, nearly everything I shot with a filter saw the filter's effect negated by the tendencies of RAW processing. They had effect when shooting JPG, but there was no point to JPG shooting with Panasonic's lackluster rendering engine. Enough curiosity gripped me the morning of the trip that I grabbed the polarizer and ND before stepping out the door. Holy crap, am I glad curiosity bit.

How I could forget how gorgeously polarizer use affects skies is beyond me. The effect is simply delicious, and with on-board bias of white balance favoring the warm, the exposures didn't suffer the ugly blue cast typical of all Quantaray filters (the cheapest of the cheap). Sharpness was unaffected because I wasn't forcing an image through a UV prior to the polarizer like I had done for years on my Nikon equipment (seriously, if you're using a UV, TAKE IT OFF). The skies, my god, the skies... they just looked... GOOD.

Though slightly less effective, the ND was another missed item in the bag. The joy of fast primes is the creamy bokeh and limit of area in focus when the aperture is able to keep wide open. In broad daylight, this is obviously not reasonable. However, slap that 2-stop ND on the lens and suddenly daylight shots are as creamy delicious as you'd ever want them to be. Again, with the E-P3's built-in A2 bias, the blue cast typical of Ritz's cheap filter glass wasn't an issue. Lovely!

Some time down the road I would do well to purchase a polarizer and ND set from a more respectable filter maker, B&W of maybe Tiffen. But in the mean time, I'll deal with on-camera filter fault correction.

I Don't Know What to Blog About (But this weekend was chock full of photography)

This is a frequent problem, really. I want to write, want to bash the keyboard in true neanderthal fashion spouting fancy lyrical verse about the wonderment of events before they become stale and cumbersome installments of my fragmented memory. And naturally, that is exactly what happens every time. But damnit, it's hard to go from one intense experience to the other, from the zen of a photographic high to the frustrating grunt work of post-processing and then somehow segue into vivid recollection and retelling. By the time I can recoup, sit down with intent to post, it's already 2 days later and the weekend is a smeared finger painting. It could also be because I usually only ever take the time to sit down and write while sitting at work, which presents its own issues entirely. But hey, you're not going to tell on me, right?

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were three amazingly charged days chock full of the kind of out-in-the-sun activity I needed to recover from a week-and-a-half of getting maybe 30 total minutes of vitamin D exposure per day. Winter is a cursed season, the sun all too willing to drop under the horizon before standard business hours are even over. Should the daylight savings tradition ever be abolished, I will celebrate with brash public drunkenness and a camera in hand. In the mean time, I will simply have to take advantage of the weekends, and the aforementioned 3 day spread were very much taken advantage of.

My shift on Friday was short, as it is most Fridays. Despite a steady, week-long period of rain preceding the weekend, Friday saw the sun punching through an all but clear sky, a kind of temptation I was in absolutely no way going to pass up. The muse was rusty, though, and marked by the creative low period prior, so to ensure I exercised my eye I managed to entice a new friend (and photogenic to boot) into an afternoon romp through a low key locale followed by coffee at Starbucks (the latter sealing the deal... works every time).

Needless to say it was a good time. The feeling was akin to what athletes must feel when first returning to a punishing routine after a period out-of-commission. Inspiration was scattered, no single arrangement of lines, no poignant sources of light leaving strong impact. I resorted to snap shooting, damn near pressing the shutter button for no sake other than that of the pressing. To hear the sound, the slap of the mechanism. The images themselves meant nothing. I was building up, doing jumping jacks, stretching, exciting the heart rate in preparation for a sprint. A slumbering beast, the muse stood and shook itself of dust and grime. It's appetite awakened, its vision attaining pointed focus. It stirred, restless and hungry, and sank its venomous teeth into my lethargy. It demanded satisfaction, and the rise of creative excitement was more than willing to oblige.

After so much time spent stagnant and miserably resigned to depressive seasonal darkness, the afternoon spent shooting aimlessly was like a revival. Once our time spent exploring the well-trodden dank regions of the valley lost its luster, we spent even more time casually conversing (and yours truly snapping) at Starbucks. Simply put, it was a nice day, the kind of nice day one wishes every day would turn out to be but unfortunately so rarely ever does. It reset my disposition from disquieted and cynical to chipper and floaty. A weight dissolved in my brain and again my dreamy nature was permitted to coax my perspective into benign, curious childhood naivety. Which happened not a moment too soon, I might add, seeing as the following morning I was expected to participate with a local troupe of photographers on a photo walk through a territory of subject matter that never seems to stop calling out to me for attention.

Long had I intended on joining this particular band of fellow photographers but consistently backed down (generally due to my own damn laziness). The proposed adventure for this particular hike, however, tripped every possible pleasure center. A morning hike to an abandoned hospital with competent people. I couldn't have asked for more. And upon meeting the group members and having time prior to our trek to chat them up I grew only to like them more. We were all different people with different chosen disciplines, different motivators and different specialties. Unlike past experiences with photo groups, it didn't suffer the obnoxious aura of competitive nature (as if any art could ever possibly be competitively judged). Everyone had something unique to share, something to bring to the table, and our conversations were of mutual respective, learning and teaching one another. It was wonderful. Idyllic, even.

Since the location of the day was a spot I'd photographed many dozens of times before, I committed myself to putting a very different approach to the test. Although I had my E-P3 handy and shot a good bit of video (but have nothing to do with), my primary stills camera on this venture was the comparatively diminutive (to everything, including the E-P3) XZ-1. When I first needed a camera to replace my lost GF1 it was the logical purchase I directed myself toward. It triggered every positive logic response possible, but I never really did put it much through the paces in hard, directed creative practice. Saturday saw its status as a backup revoked, replaced instead with an earned promotion to full fledged Creative Instrument.

The entire morning we spent shooting the hospital, the XZ-1 remained mounted on my tripod without an ounce of regret. I shot wide, and even if I'd stopped it down to only f/2.8 I'm certain the depth of field would've been more than ample and the sharpness beyond anything the sensor would ever be demand in resolution, but running off of prior experience I kept it stopped at f/4 for unlimited depth of field and peak sharpness. Not that I distrusted its JPGs, but curiosity also saw me shooting RAW files, which offered an absolutely exceptional amount of breadth in dynamic range for manipulation in post. At base ISO 100 the shadows offered remarkable retention, with highlights only ever clipping where they naturally should (unless your definition of a photograph demands a -7 to +7 stop spread).

Many times in the past I've used the XZ-1 as a snaps camera, rarely if ever using it in calculated, intent driven image recording. The E-P3 has simply been too tempting, a veritable bar in the way of my realizing the capabilities of the tiny pocket rocket. Now that it has seen its test, I am far more inclined to approach a location with only Olympus' bastion compact. True, it may be in no way suited for the high demands of bokeh in subject isolation shooting, but it may very well be my new go-to tool for all things wide. Complain about the 10 megapixel resolution all you want, I've managed terrific prints with far less not so many years back.

Hours upon hours of adventure later, I bid adieu to my fellow photographers in the troupe and parted ways. The day left me exhausted, sore and desperate for sleep. Despite a solid rest the day before, my wearied body gave in to the seduction of the sandman by 8. Not necessarily a bad thing, however. My adventuring for the weekend was hardly over. I had one more date to make according to my calendar, a rendezvous with an incredibly like-minded photographer I'd shot with only a month before. Anticipation was the defining factor of my sleep because of it.

Saturday night, I dreamed of rot and decay. All things beautiful.

Sunday began much as a Sunday of last month. Awaken to the dark. A quick shower, donning attire befitting of the exploits to come. Dine and dash at the Dunkin Donuts just up the road and hop onto the West-bound highway, running from the sun as the minutes tick by to almost melancholy post-rock consuming the airwaves. Again, the destination was a new locale for me, and the excitement associated with anything new only quadrupled when paired with the clandestine nature of our art. I arrived early. I arrived eager.

Having spent the entire previous day doting on the XZ-1, I felt I needed to counteract the neglect of the E-P3 by bringing it as my only camera (odd how I assign very human emotions to simple tools). A vast majority of my shooting was handled by the 45mm f/1.8, and in an act of the most incredible laziness, I disregarded the tripod entirely while exploring this new locale. Not that it much mattered - with the 45mm my intent and my approach suffered an enormous shift. No longer was I accommodating an entire room and wide dynamic range in my images. With 90mm being my point of view, there was only one proper way to utilize the presented perspective. Subject isolation.

Not that the locale offered much interest in the way of wide angle photography anyway. Subject isolation, however, is still a new discipline to me, something which I have always intended to learn. While "normal" focal length shooting was a strong introduction to the considerations of the art, there are new challenges to face when locked into a focal length that often puts one's back to a wall. The results, however, are absolutely worth the effort required, and it is only a matter of time before it becomes a second nature skill. It is a style of photography that is almost minimalist, but whereas traditional minimalism leaves the worst of tastes in my mouth, it seems to work with a unique level of charm in the capture of my coveted "ruin porn".

Though the time spent exploring this new location was short compared to most adventures, it felt fruitful, and incredibly satisfying. Afterward, we wound down our appetite for traditionally incongruous imagery with a revisiting of the location I had just spent a majority of Saturday combing through. In celebration of our mutual artistic accomplishment, we dined Italian, sipping pinot grigio with fervor and talking the core essence of photography, the "why" that carries real meaning. Another day of driven artistic outburst, met that early evening with a very familiar weariness. A "battle worn" photographer.

I've yet to sort through most images from this weekend. For three days, I was more productive than I'd been in over a week, and the activity has built up a reserve. For at least one more week of rainy weather, I can be satisfied.

Unless the sun comes out before this weekend, anyway.

Consumerist Dribble

I suppose I should have seen this coming. Whenever here has been an absence of doing in any field of interest of hobby, my attention inevitably fixates voraciously on the buying. Capitalism has taught me well - against my will, I find myself wanting to buy buy buy in the delusion that a new acquisition will somehow lead to some degree of artistic ascendance.

Yesterday, in my maddening and stir crazy loathing of the daily 5pm blackout, I set up a shoddy excuse of a studio to practice with some simple lighting. The setup was rudimentary and grossly amateur, a wrinkled black bedsheet, two 100 watt halogen bulbs in cheap Walmart shop light tins and a half-broken old stool (since I'm so tall that the bedsheet would need to reach the ceiling to leave room for my head). Simple and straightforward.

Out of laziness (since the tripod mount was already screwed in) I locked my XZ-1 onto the tripod and set it up right against the bed. Working distance did not exist - the space between the stool and the camera amounted to maybe 3 feet at best. Even with the massive depth of field offered by the smaller sensor, f/1.8 still proved a challenge to nail crisp focus without being behind the camera. Plainly put, the entire effort was both half assed and a royal pain because of it. There really is a reason photographers are supposed to stay behind the camera in these situations.

In the wake of that horrid act of futility, I've been pricing the needs associated with a competent portrait/studio setup. Much to my surprise, it's not nearly as expensive a pursuit as I originally thought it would be, but it is still money to be spent and money is something of a scarce resource to me still (although it is a situation constantly improving). For about $125 there is a solid studio backdrop set available that comes complete with a solid black and solid white background. Lord knows a flat, not-wrinkle-ridden background would do my studio efforts wonders. More importantly, the backs of the backdrops are rugged, permitting outdoor setup of the unit and use of a light I've always been more comfortable with using, natural light. At that point, the only possible future purchase interest would maybe be a beauty dish or some other kind of reflector to bounce light as I see appropriate in any given circumstance. Win win. But, from the financial standpoint, requiring patience.

Shopping for studio backdrops unfortunately proved to be a slippery slope. From backdrops, my mind wandered into artificial lighting, and from artificial lighting it wandered to glass. Never a good way to go because deciding on what you want tends to make you eager and impatient in anticipation of acquiring those things you've chosen. They become like milestones, miniature goals to be achieved that have no real impact or merit other than providing one more item to the list of gear to boast about. Sadly, I've come up with my mini-goals. My consumerist demise is a looming dark in my future.

Truth be told, I have the equipment at my disposal that largely completes my gearing wishlist. But I am a brand loyalist. Shameful, I know. My 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 outshines Olympus' own 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens in sharpness, but it is of a different brand, an antique piece for an extinct camera system, and so I will side with my Olympus lens with subdued reservation. The case for my 14mm f/2.5 isn't nearly as clear. It is my choice fast wide prime, but it is not THAT fast and it is not THAT wide. More so, Olympus' offering in the 12mm f/2.0 is far sharper and far less distorted and just generally much more appealing than the pancake I have, up till now, suffered with. As such, I predict in the future I will sell off my 14-45mm and 14mm lenses, perhaps to a friend who can put them to good use. From that point, I have 2 pieces of glass in mind to construct the kind of system I feel I can stand behind. Two systems, actually. For the casual, the family candid shooting and documentarian approach to events, the 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R paired with the acquisition of the 40-150mm f/4-5.6 R is ideal. It is a kit lens system, much like the Nikkor 18-55mm and 55-200mm combo I packed for years. For the art, my 45mm f/1.8 lens has already stood in competently for a normal prime (which I'm still not sure about needing/wanting), but for the wide interior shooting I'm prone to do, the 12mm f/2.0 is a very clear front runner. Two lens systems for 2 very different kinds of shooting. The final complement to the camera system in total is in speedlights, and with the remote capabilities built into the E-P3, a pair of FL-300R flashguns seems more than perfect for bounce, direct and remote, creative flash use. $1600 in acquisitions total. Not as bad as it could be, but wow do I find places for my money to go.

Maybe I'll manage to build such an ideal system up before the end of next year. We'll see.

Today, however, I think I'll go home, iron that black bedsheet, push-pin it to the ceiling and try my faux studio setup one more time.

Holiday of Pessimism

It's neat when you can peruse your own photographic library, meticulously organized by dates and subjects and what have you, and find out just what exactly it was you were up to 365 days in the past.

Myself, I was wandering the large campus of a very recently vacated and left to rot mental health hospital campus not far South from where I live. I remember the day pretty clearly, actually, despite the shoot itself being rather uneventful. November of last year still saw my appetite for exploring the abandoned both voracious and insatiable, and much as I did most weekend mornings I hopped in my car with camera gear in tow and pursued the next spot on the list. It was a Sunday, as I recall, and I parked at a nearby church still flooded with cars and people attending morning mass. Bundled up in my typical jacket and scarf and gloves, my main interest was less direct infiltration and more... scouting.

My gear list was short back then. Short, simple, sweet and complete. A Panasonic GF1 with 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens and LVF-1 viewfinder attached (the primary and most important bastions of my daylight artistic photography) and a bag concealing a shutter remote, 20mm f/1.7 pancake and the necessary spacers and step-up rings to allow for use of the circular-polarizer tucked in my pocket. No need for a tripod this time, the sun was shining high, maybe an hour from its noon-time peak. Diminutive as the gear was, the petal lens hood on the barrel of the zoom really gave off the air of Professional Photographer, so when security and police both inevitably stopped me to ask what I was up to it wasn't hard at all to write off my shenanigans as the musings of a wandering artist. Not at all far from the truth, really.

I only ever spent my time shooting various exteriors, but the place exuded enough personality to where those were all I really felt I needed to visually describe the place. Entry very quickly showed itself to be against my better judgment. Can't much complain, though. The more difficult a place is to access the more likely it is to stand the test of time sans vandalism until my persistence and brash decision making get the better of me.

Anyway, pardon my abrupt subject change.

It's been a solid 7 days since I've taken a single photograph, and this fact is supremely depressing. Granted, I was also sick enough to stay home from work both Monday and Tuesday, a rarity to say the least. Even today, a full week later, I'm still on my way out of a state of being sickly, but that's still no excuse to my personal high standards. To boot, the onset of illness was paired with that most woeful time of year, Daylight Savings Time, which most people embrace for getting an extra hour of sleep before work but then progressively learn to despise because it often means coming into work in sunless dark and leaving just the same. For certain, I've noticed my own mood take a very sharp nosedive since the onset of night began taking place at 5pm.

At current, I'm wrestling with my memory trying to ascertain just how it was I endured this period of time last year without rolling down into this godawful slump. I'm fairly confident I had some underlying motivation driving me to venture out in the cold on early mornings and photograph the seasonal death and decay. Perhaps it was in part due to lingering sickness, but nothing could assuage my pessimism and defeatist attitude this weekend. Despite two days of strong sunlight and lovely temperatures, I still chose to stay indoors. What's worse, with no sunlight to command my biological clock to stay awake and aware, I have consistently been falling asleep at or before 8pm, sometimes sleeping a straight 12 hours or more only to awaken for a measly 12 and sleep again. It's clear that I have slid into a funk, and the only way out will require a mountainous store of persistence and effort. Perhaps when I'm not also combating illness I will again have such reserves.

This week there is a planned photo walk being led by a fellow photographer to one of my more illicit locations of guilty enjoyment. Much as I would love to attend the walk for sake of meeting other photographers with similar interests in decay and detritus, I can't help but to feel wary of the circumstance itself. Best as I can tell, this walk will consist of several members of a considerably sized group. Though the location itself is admittedly one of the less fortunate in that it has been very blatantly vandalized and commonly tread upon by wandering curiously 16-24 year olds with a healthy dose of boredom, I can't help but feel traveling through a location of this type with any group (especially one as green as this one may in fact be) is an invitation for bad times. After all, it's almost been a year since a similar situation cropped up, and the lessons learned from that experience are still bright and fresh in my mind, and this particular photo walk triggers all the alarms my experience from a year ago should have. I suppose the only reason I'm humoring it at all is a strong sense of desperation to be around my kin, my fellow shutterbugs.

Aside from this proposed photo walk, I'm also feeling an odd kind of jealousy toward those who engage in formal modeling and portrait shoots. I can take candid portraits all day and they look well enough, but in the end it is still not what I want to be doing, and when people I've photographed in my signature candid fashion come back at me later with formal (and markedly beautiful) modeled shots a peculiar blend of jealousy, territorial rage and disappointment in myself surface in my psyche. They are the kind of shots I've wanted to be taking for close to a year now. My budget, impromptu studio sessions in the past have always been a blast, and I want desperately to construct a space in which to do such shoots again. It is beyond frustrating to take a backseat to my own desires and watch as those with the resources (or willingness to go into debt) reap the satisfying rewards of studio work. And worst of all, my greatest challenge in this pursuit isn't the gear at all. I like the minimalist approach and I'm more than capable of cranking out art with very little in the way of gear at my disposal. No, my conflict is with space, which is to say I have none. My apartment is not permissive of modularity, I cannot simply rearrange my furniture anymore to make room for a backdrop and hotlights like I did in the past. There are no empty rooms to use or space to set up and stretch out. Everything directs back to what I determined to be an absolute necessity in April - I need a dedicated studio space. And sure enough, it is the one thing I cannot afford anymore.

The only other option I can think to humor is to force the gear-centric route and pick up 2 or 3 battery driven LED banks and light subjects on-location, which is still not my intended goal but at least meets that goal halfway with my current capabilities. But then I'd also need to find a model willing to endure the dangers and risks associated with less-than-cozy locales, because I'm certain my inclination would be to photograph models against the backdrop of the decay I already love. It's a hairy state of affairs. At least I can predict my own tendencies and inclinations, at least.

So here I am, treading water still, more pessimistic than ever with the shade drawn on the sun for this Winter season. For the most part, my gear set is a workably complete kit, with the 45mm f/1.8 for strong portraits and 14mm f/2.5 for wide interiors. The E-P3 has managed to impress me more than my old GF1 ever managed to, despite my longing to once again shoot with that old glory (the GX1 is a bit of a downgrade at best from what I've seen, and this is strictly coming from an ergonomics and control standpoint). Future lens acquisitions will likely include the 12mm f/2.0 to replace the temperamental 14mm f/2.5, the VF-3 because sometimes it's just nicer to hold the camera to your eye, the shutter remote for experimentation with HDR once again, and maybe the 40-150mm f/4-5.6 for sake of having a "for work" kit to complement a prime driven "for art" kit. Aside from those pieces, perhaps a speedlight or 2? I'm not sure, I've always been partial to WYSIWYG lighting, so hotlights might be my better route. I suppose that list is not cheap, but the pressure is not on for any single piece acquisition. They are simply tools to make what I'm already capable of even easier.

Cheers to the patient wait for financial stability.