End of the Year

As the year winds down, I want to thank the photo buffs who have supported me this year, looking at my stuff, sometimes leaving a comment, sometimes hitting the favorite button…I cannot express to you how much I appreciate your attention to my work, and how much I look forward to going out as often as I can, hunting down images, and especially how I’ve enjoyed posting fresh images nearly every day. I am guilty of sometimes posting lesser quality images on Flickr because I don’t think of it as showing only my best work, but my way of interacting with the photo community around the world.

Photography IS my passion. I live all aspects of it. When I’m not out prowling in the sometimes VERY dangerous streets of Detroit, or looking for ghosts in the cemetery, I am usually reading about photography or looking through a collection of photos. I have a decent collection of monographs by some of my favorites and love to get lost in the images, sometimes trying to imagine what it must have been like to be behind the camera at the instant the shutter button was pressed, wondering what sorts of decisions that photographer made to capture the image.

You might notice a lack of people in my photos. I am a bit of a misanthropist and really enjoy my solitude. I genuinely like people and my occupation keeps in working with people every day on a one-to-one basis. Maybe that’s it…not that I don’t like people, but just that I like them one at a time.

I only go shooting alone. Sorry – I don’t give tours, or take people out on a photo safari. By myself, I can open my mind, stop my thoughts and just ‘look’ and find the things I want to photograph, largely a subconscious process. It’s always fun to get home and download my images, only to discover a few images I didn’t recall capturing.

I did not have as much time this past year to devote to my photography as other avenues of my life detoured my desires. We do what we gotta do. But I did upgrade my equipment and am really enjoying ‘better’ equipment, even though I had been a devout point-n-shooterist. The P-N-S is ideal for my style of photography, with super zoom, all-in-one style focal range. Sometimes I just don’t have the option of getting in close to where I go, and the zoom can get me right into the thick of things.

So, again, thanks for your eyes and fingers on your keyboards and I'll see you in Flickr.

Burning Down - Burned Out

I must confess, I have not been in the Spirit of Detroit photo mood the past few months. Just imagine how difficult , how emotionally draining it is to drive around the city looking for dysfunctional street scenes, burned homes, ravaged stores, trashed neighborhoods, and homeless people. Photographing the city has never been ‘fun.’ I did it because I thought it was important for people to see the conditions in the city. And when I first started doing so, Detroit was a good example of post-Industrial decay, but it wasn’t evident that she was also a harbinger for things to come. Now, many large cities have, like Detroit, taken gas and on in free fall further down the spiral. Crash and burn. Greed is destroying our cities and the people who live in them.

Greed.

Back to the streets of Detroit, the city has changed. It used to be like a ferocious tiger/lion (depending on which sports team one supports) and the streets had a lot of attitude. And danger. I do not enjoy driving around the suburbs looking for trouble as I do in Detroit. However, I can find quite a few Virgin Mary statues in the suburbs, but not so many in Detroit, so I haven’t given up on the ‘burbs just yet. Lately, Detroit’s streets, at least the times when I invade them, usually early morning, have been tamed, feel beaten, on the skids. The trash has mostly been picked up, many abandoned houses have been boarded up instead of torched, and those that were torched have largely been demolished. Some areas where houses sat uncomfortably c lose to one another are now vast open fields with a house here or there, giving some areas a rural, not urban feel.

People are just trying to get by.

If you don’t see as many photos of Detroit flowing through my gallery, you’ll know why. I need a break. But then of course as soon as I commit this to writing, I’ll be back combing the streets, looking for shots. But just in case you don’t, or you see photos from my archives, since some of you are focused on freshness, you’ll know why.

This IS my season right now and when I drive around taking in all the color, roll down the window and feel the cool temperatures, smell the sweet aromas of decay…it’s refreshing and so very different than smelling the putrid smell of natural gas leaking from abandoned homes, and the occasional fermenting trash at the curbside of abandoned homes that have been gutted and left for pick-up.

Under Pressure

Not that what I eat has anything to do with what I shoot, I mean, with a camera, at least...

Good news for the Tooloose homestead...I just received a new pressure cooker. Little known factoid about me is that I love to cook. About 4-5 years ago I went through all my spices and ingredients and completely stocked my shelves with necessities for cooking Indian food. IMHO, it is the best, the absolute best in the world. The hot spicy dishes keep my sinuses clear, for one thing.

A pressure cooker is a necessity for Indian cooking. The legumes/lentils (dal) cook up in a flash under pressure. I have a huge pressure cooker for massive doses of this wonderful cuisine, and a much smaller one, an Indian utensil, for small quantities, and for pressure cooking rice. The Indian cookers are quite different than my American-friendly unit as the Indian cookers work on the principle of building up steam, then blowing it off in a huge blast that might last a few seconds, and cooking is measured in 'whistles,' whereas my Fagor cooks in minutes. Both are great and together, I make some damn yummy meals.

I've been at this for a while now and have quite a library of Indian cookbooks. And I have been honored...a former client of mine grew up in India to a rather privileged life, from what I understand. She did not cook at home. After many discussions of Indian food, she confessed that I knew more about cooking Indian food than her, and even gave me a cookbook from her motherland that she never used.

Dals are my favorite, and usually that with rice will fill me nicely. But I love the vegetables, too, especially eggplant and okra. Since I shop at Indian markets, I also enjoy the wonderful fresh vegetables used in traditional Indian cooking, the various squashes, (opo (aka long squash), winter squash, cayote, bitter melon, etc.) and love to cook simple meals from South India, rasams and sambhars.

I submitted a recipe of my own design to a really excellent You Tube channel that presents Indian recipes, and it was featured here. If you like Indian food, this is a great show to watch. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the two ladies are extremely cute. ;)

So I will be blowing off some steam in my kitchen, butt worry not...I won't be posting pictures of my cooking, neither before or after consumption.

I do also cook Middle Eastern and Thai dishes as well.

Got any favorite recipes in these cuisines, please post to this blog.

Feeling Foggy

Finally...some fog. It wasn't thick as pee soup butt I'll take it anyway.

I love the fog, the mystery behind it. I can almost sense the invisible earth forces at work in the watery visions of fog. And it seems to active in the cemetery, amongst the dead. And like the watery element, the fog environment changes so rapidly, thickening, thinning, lifting, descending. I was very fortunate this time, anticipating the fog and heading out before sunrise to various cemeteries in the area. One day, last Thursday, was very special. The large cemetery I visited had so many different views and settings of the fog. The most spectacular moment, though, was when the sun was beginning to rise. I really felt a sense of piety for some reason. The autumn is truly MY time of year, the time when I have feel my soul forces bursting with a great joy of the return of the elemental forces to the earth, gathering underneath my feet, preparing for the winter.

+ + +

Equal Time

It's 'that' time of year again...when the forces of light and dark are equally balanced on the equinox. The yearly cycle has been a fascination for years. Many years in fact. It probably isn't evident from my photo gallery, but I am quite taken with Nature, the diversity and just the whole process of life...and death. Now we are into my season, the season of colors, of harvest, of chilly temps and hot apple cider, of spicy squash soup, and even the college football games that mean nothing to me. Then after, Nature strips. Black and white. Everything.

I even enjoy early winter and the most uplifting day of the year has to be the winter solstice, when the forces of darkness have reached its zenith and the forces of light are being to wax. If the temperature is not overly cold, it can be such a wonderful day/night. I sometimes wonder what this day was like at a stone site eons ago, like Knoweth in Ireland (never been there), when on the morning of the solstice, a beam of light travels down the passageway of the entrance, hits a special crystal, and the entire inner chamber is filled with a burst of light, signaling the event.

The least exciting season change for me has to be summer. How odd, the forces of light reach their maximum and the hot temperatures are yet to follow.

The whole planet is a living organism onto itself, breathing in for the winter and breathing out for the summer, as new life bursts forth from the earth. It is an amazing process, something I think about often.

Needing Some Fog

Autumn is in the air, so I'm in the mood. Autumn's colors and cool temps tickle my fancy. The sunsets during this time of year are often spectacular. And there is a feeling of activity in the air, with the forces of Nature preparing herself for the cold winter months. The seasons are like a breathing process, inhaling in the autumn, exhaling in spring. And the cycle continues.

This past year has been challenging in many ways and my photography has taken a slam. It is not that I have lost interest in any way as my main focus still is imagery. When I'm not behind the lens, I'm often buried in the pages of books, monographs, pouring over photos of photographers with whom I share a kindred spirit. There are many....Walker Evans, William Christenberry, Gary Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Clarence John Laughlin...the list is long.

I just discovered Christopher Churchill and hope to gather enough pop bottles to purchase his book on faith due out in November. I heard a fascinating interview of him on the "Thoughts on Photopgraphy" podcast and then viewed his website. He's a bit offbeat, which of course appeals to me, and I like that he delves into the topic of spirituality in an offbeat way. He wandered across the country photographing people discussing various aspects of faith, recording their words, and he includes sound clips on his website, which you can listen to while viewing his wonderful photographs.

I've already scored my first gallons of apple cider. Next step will be to scout for some excellent autumn vegetables. Perhaps a spicy butternut squash soup is in my future, with some wonderful Indian spices, of course. I can't wait for the leaves to turn, for the sweet smell of decay in the air, the crunch of leaves underfoot. What a great time of year! When I was a kid, we'd all burn piles of leaves at the curb, and that aroma actually was pleasant in its own way. I don't mind winter at all, so the pending cold waves do not chill my enthusiasm for the autumn. Early winter is equally as beautiful, when the first snows begin. Suddenly, from a world of magnificent colors, we are thrust into a world of stark black and white. Color disappears for a few months, only to return in late spring.

I have already been revisiting cemeteries in my area and whenver I catch wind of fog or haze in the forecast, I plot which cemetery I want to visit. Cemetery photography is not as interesting to me in the summer.

And on top of that I have been trying to get all my photo files in order, redoing so many now that I am getting more comfortable in Photo Shop. I have in the neighborhood of 144,000 photo files on my hard drive, though not all of those are candidates for printing. Actually, only a small portion of them are. And I've started printing my favorites and am sorting through them. I can't believe the hours I spend before my computer screen sorting through, examining and processing images!

So...I'd love to hear from you about who your favorite photographers are. I'm always on the lookout for something interesting to view when I cannot get out and shoot.

Links:

Christopher Churchill's photo website.

Thoughts on Photography Podcast: Christopher Churchill.

We All Fall Down

Time to Drag Down the Sun.

Ah, I noticed while driving home from work last evening the long shadows. Actually, I spotted them descending a while ago. I keep an eye out for that, for this time of year when the arc of the sun drops. It certainly makes for lovely long dark shadows, something that pulls me in.

The summer is winding down. The really hot days seem to be gone…I hope. Cool mornings, chilly mornings…a harbinger for my favorite season, autumn! To me, summer is massive GREEN. Everything is green, a wall of green. Trees and bushes block my view. It’s scenery. But then autumn comes along and starts the transformation to a time when the green turns brown, then disappears and suddenly the world has a barren depth that was hidden in the summer months. Instead of not ‘seeing the forest for the trees’ and suddenly, striped of green, the forest becomes vast, and empty. Soon thereafter, snow will accentuate the bleak barrenness, with everything looking so black and white.

But autumn is coming. The chill in the air…apple cider, squash soup, the crunch of leaves underfoot, horror movies, Halloween…wait, I forgot. No Halloween this year. Don’t you recall that the Rapture was rescheduled for 15 October. Hmmm. I don’t want to miss Halloween so I just might see if I can get our city to declare Halloween early this year, due to Rapture. I mean, I’m sure nobody wants to miss Rapture, but then, who wants to miss Halloween?

I only hope I have the time and inclination to get out with the camera and celebrate my season.

Just Kidding...

Kids say the darnest things. Kids DO the darnest things, too. Since they haven't developed (or been indoctrinated) with social norms, anything can happen in any given situation. Also, there is the element of innocence.

However, if you are familiar with my photo interests, you’d know that photographing kids is not one of my topics. With all the burned out homes and cemeteries about, who needs kids?

Kids have been subject matter of many photographers. An indie B&W photo magazine (in the style of a zine) often calls for submissions of photos of kids.

Why am I kidding you, you might ask?

The other day I heard a disturbing news report on the tube. It was about an unnamed photographer. The newscaster described a photographer, armed with a telephoto lens, who had attended a kid’s sports event. A vigilant soccer mom approached said photographer (armed with a telephoto lens) and asked him which kid playing was his. None. Said vigilant soccer mom proceeded to call the police and report said unnamed photographer (armed with a telephoto lens) and now the police in that city are on the lookout for suspicious lone photographers hanging around kid’s sporting events.

I really don’t care about photographing children, but this story sends a chill up my spine. Photographers tend to be spontaneous beings who are constantly on the lookout for interesting things to photograph. I didn’t invest thousands of dollars into my equipment to take family photos. And yes, I do photograph strangers. I don’t talk to strangers because my mother warned me about that, but I do take pictures of strangers. I can do that. It’s legal. At least, for now.

Sure, this unnamed photographer (armed with a telephoto lens) could well have been a predator of children. But then so could the baseball coach. Or one of the father’s of a kid playing in the game. I wonder if said soccer mom runs a background check on her local priests and boy scout troop leaders? I suppose she would have to…if she really cares about the safety and well being of her children. Better yet, why not lock the kid up in the yard and let him/her out when s/he reaches legal age?

The world is a scary and dangerous place and children need to be protected from these dangers. They just aren’t able to discern another person’s motives. And that goes for said soccer mom, too. She cannot know what the intentions of the said unnamed photographer (armed with a telephoto lens) but apparently we are now only permitted to photograph our own.

America is really a messed up place, morally. We commit crimes against humanity and justify them with a core belief that God is on our side and he has a special mission for us as a nation: we can do no wrong. Corporations are protected by law and stand above the law. A manufacturer of defective medical equipment can knowingly sell their wares, fully aware that the product can kill, and in the event of a wrongful death, get off scott free. You can’t send a corporation to prison, even though by law corporations are considered to be ‘people.’

A few weeks ago I saw a sports event going on and I nearly stopped, just to try my hand at action photography. (You’d think I found enough action in Detroit, right?) I don’t recall if the game was for kids, but had it been, and I do use telephoto lenses, I could well be the subject of a news alert, another unnamed photographer armed with a telephoto lens.

That soccer mom…is armed with a suspicious mind and is VERY dangerous to all of us.

And while you are out taking pictures, keep in mind that a terrorist could be hiding behind any telephone pole or hiding in a phone booth.

a Rousing Round of Q n A

Thank you for all your cards and letters, asking me a wide variety of questions. However, I could easily do without those death threats.

Q: Why do you post so many pictures on Flickr?
A1: Nobody likes me and I have a lot of free time.
A2: Ya gotta do something while you’re waiting to die.

Q: Are you obsessed with death?
A: Not exactly.

Q: You have some pretty strange themes. Are you connected to any secret societies?
A: I can’t really answer that truthfully.

Q: Are you homeless?
A: Not yet.

Q: When did you first start taking pictures?
A: About ten minutes after getting my first camera.

Q: Have you been taking photos for a long time?
A: Yes. I had my first camera years ago, a Minolta SRT-101 but gave it up when it was getting too expensive. I came back when I realized that digital photography was actually quite economical in the photo acquiring and editing stages.

Q: What was your first digital camera?
A: A $300 1.3MP Kodak piece of crap. It was horrible. The color casting was way off and I would have done better using a one-time disposable camera and scanning in my images. Or maybe even a Holga would have given me more consistent quality. Shortly afterwards, I purchased a more suitable camera, a Fuji S5000. I have had quite a few cameras and I seem to burn through them in less than two years each. I take a lot of pictures.

Q: Why do you take so many photos in cemeteries?
A: It’s where I learned how to take pictures, how to compose pictures. I used to take girls there, too.

Q: Do you have any background in art?
A: I would think it is pretty obvious that I do not. However, back around the 90s I was very active in mail art, specializing in rubber stamp art. I did some very sick artwork, which I’m sure doesn’t shock anybody viewing my stuff. It was great fun and I had mail art connections around the world. I wrote for a rubber stamp hobbyist magazine called “Rubberstampmadness” for a short while, personality profiles and ‘how to’ articles, even a series on the history of mail art. Learning how to create rubber stamp art, incorporating a magnificent technique called ‘masking,’ is where I started to get an idea about how to compose scenes. I remember back then reading a book on artistic composition and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.

Q: How would you classify your style of photography?
A: Free style. I started shooting up Detroit because I grew up in the city and was looking for something interesting to photograph. I had no idea what condition the city was in when I rekindled my photography interest. Basically, I just like to make pictures. For me the fun is in the process, with photography as a verb. I’ve developed my own style. While I veer off in the direction of death and destruction, I do not think I am a morbid person at all. In fact, I do not paint my fingernails black.

Q: Do you do any nude photography?
A: No. I find I get too aroused running around naked with a camera. Besides, I have no interest in spending a night in jail.

Mish-Mosh

It has been tough getting away for shots lately. I have swept through areas of the city a few times and what I see is not as compelling as it has been in the past. Detroit is struggling and it does appear that intense efforts are in place (and in action) to clean up a bit. Rather than leaving homes abandoned, doorless, with broken windows, just waiting for a little gas and a match to add it to the arson-fatality list, owners (or maybe concerned citizens) are boarding up the doors and windows.

A few weeks ago I was cruising through a neighborhood and spotted a house with the rear end self-dismantling (with the aid of gravity) so I stopped and shot it. "Why are you shooting my house!" came an loud and angry retort from the man who was boarding up the windows. I had not seen him when I pulled up.

With time constraints and with less brain-freeze photos, I haven't been getting into the city.

I'm working through all my old photos, seeing what I have, reprocessing the better ones in PhotoShop, and renaming each and every file so I can more easily find them, all 100,000+ photos. (These are ALL my photos, incl. the ones I never intended to use.) It's no wonder I have a small cemetery of spent digital cameras. Fuji S5000, Canon S50, Minolta-Dimage Z3, Lumix FZ8, Canon Power Shots (three models in the IS series), Canon Rebel, Lumix DMC-ZS7, plus a few others...

And when I'm not engaged in life-stuff or the above, I am reading/looking...all photography. My latest read is called "Image Makers - Image Takers," by Anne-Celine Jaeger. It is an interesting collection of short interviews with quite a few photographers (many whose photos I enjoy) in various fields of picture taking, discussing their motivations, probing their thoughts about photography. Each interview is about ten pages or so and the book is quite interesting.

And I'm waiting for a reprint of Walker Evan's seminal "American Photographs." Though I have seen most of these photos, I have never seen the original layout and order. Errata Editions has published some very rare and scarce photo books in much smaller format at "reasonable" prices ($40), small editions but copied directly from the original. I have mixed feelings about these because another I have, William Klein's "Life is Good...New York" and the reproductions are murky and very small. I've seen a few larger versions of some of the photos and the quality is in the reprint book is very disappointing. I don't know about publishing, but it does seem when they squashed down the images for this much smaller book, they didn't go back in and clean up the images, maybe resize them or something.

But Walker Evans is one of my favorites and a definite influence on how I was going to shoot up Detroit.

I've Been "Saved As"

I've been converted...and "saved"...and "saved as."

Of course none of you really know me. You see my photos, read my smart ass comments, probably form some sort of opinion about what kind of person I am. I'm not saying those horrible things you think about me arent' true. I may well be all that, and more. One of my favorite portrait artists, Diane Arbus, tried to crawl between the facade and the person revealed to the outside world, and I suppose self-evaluating myself, telling you WHAT or WHO I am is ridiculous because I have this mirror set up where I can't really see what you see anyway. Maybe it's better that way.

So now I'm going to tell you something about myself: I'm an outsider type. You know, one of those sorts who sits in coffee shops, peering out at all of you, keeping to myself, pulling the book I'm reading closer to myself when you walk by so you can't see what I'm reading. That type. And I love being on my own, alone. I never bore myself. I don't watch tv. I don't have an iPhone.

But I actually do like people. But please, save yourself the rejection, asking to join me on a photo session: I do that alone. Well, there was that one time with Dmitri, but that somehow was different. And there were a few times with Bethany and that was a big mistake.

I like to use non-mainstream everything. I shop at local stores as much as I can, and support the independent business. I am an independent business person and I am watching the corporations forcing all my favorite stores out of business and offering me less options in their replacements. I do not want to live in a corporate state, but it is slowly happening, isn't it? Now corporations (and very very rich people) can buy politicians and elections. Money = free speech. That's what our beloved Supreme Court says. Did you know that Justice Scalia's father, in 1934, founded the American Fascist Party?

Anyway, I'm drifting.

I like to shoot with cameras that the photography elitist snubs his/her nose at, brands like Fuji, and maybe even Samsung (if I can sell my Rebel and lenses at a decent price.) For photo editing, I have for years used Paint Shop Pro (PSP) since v.7 was the current version. It was easy and did everything I wanted. That was only because I didn't know what I really wanted and didn't know what alternatives I had. Another thing I didn't have was the money to buy it. I refused 'free' copies and stayed with my PSP. Last spring I purchased the Adobe CS4 for my business and when I fired up Photo Shop, was immediately frustrated when it was so different than PSP, a very easy to use intuitive program. PS is NOT that. It's a member of a secret cult and the only way to get the program to perform is to know the secret words that unlock the initiate's secrets. The program does not 'think' like a person. I am convinced it is The Beast.

So I did what I normally do when confronted with the need for information: I bought a few books. That turned out to be a disaster because both books took a very long time getting to the meat and potatoes of the program, the secret recipes. I'd have taken the sections in the front of these books (calibrating the screen, learning everything you need to know about the Bridge program, etc.) and stuffed it in the back of the book, where it belongs. So I didn't get anywhere with the program, and let it gather dust as I continued on with PSP. I just don't retain all that information in those early chapters before I get my hands wet. And just finding a spot from which to begin was difficult for me.

Then a few weeks ago, I decided I really need to learn PS, and dug in. After another frustrating bout with the books, I hit the web, watched tutorials, joined a forum, and now I can do very basic things in the program. And the results are dramatic. And the potentials are even more dramatic-er. It's an incredible program, with unbelievable power and gives the editor so much control. I'm taking some of my early shots, taken on not-so-popular brands of cameras in the earlier days of digital photography, and finding that with PS, and much prayer, I can fix up some of the technically weak issues on the photos. Amazing. Truly amazing.

For the past few weeks I have been going through my entire catalog of photos and picking out files that I would want to represent the body of my work. Right now I'm working on Detroit. I have quite a few ready for the PS treatment now and am slowly taking a second shot at editing them. No doubt, as I learn more, I'll have to go back and reedit some of the work I'm doing now.

If you are a stubborn, anti-corporate outsider like myself, and you're determined to stay out of the curve of statistics of those using PS as editing software, but you really would love to see your photos match the way you originally conceived them...