The (in)famous Whyphotograph's Blog

Setting up for Laurie Klein’s class “Bodies in Water”, my only “womens only” class at Peters Valley Craft Center.
Running one of these is an quite an experience. If they are in a figure mode I have to be around monitoring the periphery, insuring, not only, the class and the general public don’t interact but that the models are treated appropriately. Sometimes it’s like herding cats.

Up until this year, our figure class was 100% nude figure work. This year it will be 25%, with a model coming in for only one day & a clothed one coming in with Laurie for the other 3. Laurie is also hoping the class will also work within itself, using each other for models. This is the 1st time I’ve tried to run a class like this. It should be interesting.

This year we have an interesting additional problem of a drought in the area that has reduced water flow in the streams and waterfalls significantly. We got a good shower last night so that may help. Time to go do a quick survey and check it out.

Once again, off into the fray!

The class description was to learn to shoot the Anti-Sears Portrait. Cheryl, the original teacher, is famous for this but now we have another teacher. How would he accomplish this?
Since the class had a range of skill levels, from experienced to shooting with the lens cap on and wondering why the pictures were soooo dark, Bruce started out by reviewing camera useage while moving and seeing.
It can take a while for some people to understand something, especially when they constantly defend their actions instead of listening to the instructor explain why it was not the best way to do it and how to remedy the situation.

The Manual setting on cameras is ludicrously foreign to most people who consider themselves to be good photographers. The problem is, it’s the only way, short of using reflector cards or portable strobe, to balance light on a face and keep the contrast and dimensionally without blowing out the highlights or blocking up the shadows. This is coupled with using the in camera histogram to determine where the highlights and shadows are falling and adjust the exposure.

I would get questions about why someone can’t get a meter reading and notice their camera was set at f18 + 1/250sec . (A tough start to use inside a dark blacksmithing studio.) It’s interesting to watch photographers attempting to do this while also watching their framing and their subjects.

The concentration shifted from exposure compensation to framing your photograph. Framing, looking at the corners along with the subject, is something view camera users are very familiar with while 35mm camera users aren’t quite as easy a time with their little screens. It requires concentration, before and during the taking the shot.

Bruce constantly mentioned the need to become familiar with the camera to prevent confusion and reduce the photographers fear factor. You can see how the agitation quickly grew when a photographer got outside their circle of comfort with their camera. Constantly challenging them to shot, shoot, shoot, project after project, yielded familiarity that was visible in both their actions and results of their actions.

The class finished up with a printing session that ran into the night on Sunday continued on until Monday afternoon. I’ll post some examples of their work & the class working in a few days.

We’re finishing up day 3 of the “Shooting the Emotive Portrait” at Peters Valley Photography.
After the primary instructor, Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai had to drop out due to a serious family problem, a second instructor was contacted & hired, I thought.
The day before the class was to start I contacted the instructor to see when he would be arriving. Imagine my surprise when he told me he didn’t think the class was running & there was no way he could get packed & travel to Peters Valley in time.
After some hyper ventilation and a heck of a lot of phone calls we received a call from Bruce Byers, a New York based photographer, who had been referred to us by another photographer we had contacted…the joys of networking.

Bruce was nice enough to immediately pack a bag, kiss his wife goodbye and drive to Peters Valley, arriving at eleven o’clock Thursday night.

First thing Friday morning Bruce faced the class & dove in………

I’ve shot a bunch of “phone-y” pic’s but nothing I would consider a Real Photograph.

Do phone-y pic’s count? What is a “Real” Photograph? …Why is there air?

Sorry, I digressed when I realized what I have gotten myself into.

Real Photographs are ones that I take, save, show friends and counterparts, display on various websites, print, show, sell…
Phone-y pics are ones that I take, save, show friends, display on various websites and always seem have with me….

Funny, I’ve never printed an iPhone pic. I’ve managed to make small groupings with it but I’ve never done anything “real” with the images.
Is this wrong? Am I being pigheaded about a technological innovation?

I use to carry a small Canon camera in my pocket. Wherever I went, I used this for documenting day to day life and a notebook for things I wanted to return to with a “real” camera.
A “real” camera use to refer exclusively to one using film. Be it my Canon 1V or an 8×10 or a pinhole, they all took film. Now it refers primarily to my Canon 5D MII digital camera and less to pinholes and much less to the view cameras. My poor 1V pretty much never gets used anymore… 8o( …which is a shame since I feel it’s still the finest 35mm camera I’ve EVER used…
So I appear to have changed cameras again, this time in my selection of documenting and recording devices. The iPhone has supplanted my pocket Canon but why? It doesn’t have any zoom capabilities, the images aren’t very large, there isn’t even a little fill flash.
I think it was a question of real estate.
I’m a guy so I don’t carry a purse therefore my only options are pockets or a belt clip thingie. I HATE belt clip thingies, mostly because I’ve become accustomed to not wearing a belt. The iPhone takes a decent amount of pocket space, especially with the rubber Otter Box cocoon it lives in.
Adding in a Canon on top of it has a bad effect, especially on shorts. Not only do they get really lumpy but the added weight is affected by the call of gravity and they keep trying to respond.
Not a pretty sight.
To remedy this, I’d have to wear a belt, which would solve the problem in the first place I guess…

decisions, decisions, decisions….

(BTW..WHAT the h*** is an Otter Box anyway? Otters don’t make boxes…do they?… sorry, I digressed again)

When Mark Z. designed & gave birth to Facebook, he could never considered have all the ramifications his new baby would have on the world.
One of the more recent uses is in the field of employment.
Both people seeking employment and potential employers now use Facebook for a major research tool.

Job seekers primarly use it as it was initially designed for, a networking tool. A place to connect to people & keep their ears to the ground about jobs. Sort of a Linked-In Lite.

Employers, on the other hand, have discovered that Facebook is a dandy tool for finding out what a person is really like outside of the job environment. The half naked, drunken photographs send quite a different impression then the prim & proper one the applicant presented at the interview. Whether it is right or wrong to judge an employees fitness for employment by their outside activities, it is done.

Calling in sick on a Friday or Monday then posting images or narratives about the kickin’ ski trip you just got back from can get you in a heep of trouble.

Talking about or announcing future plans while telling the current employer something completely different is just a bit disingenuous, don’t you think?
Actually, it’s just plain stupid.

A note to employers and other people using Facebook or other Social Networking sites to investigate individuals.

If you run across something that runs counter to what you are being told you do have the OBLIGATION to ask the person in question for an explanation of the disparity. I have run across several instances where research doesn’t reveal all the facts in a situation. By inquiring of the person in question, I was able to easily resolve the disparities to everyones benefit.

Unfortunately, the sites that accumulate information on individuals and sell it probably don’t bother to do this so please be careful in using them.

As I had previously mentioned, the scheduling of Workshops and finding appropriate instructors to present them, is a 2 edged sword.

One of the dull or bad sides of the schedule sword is when an instructor cancels out a few weeks prior to the class starting.
I’ve only had this happen a few times in the past 10 years and only one that just outright said he had a better offer ($) to shoot a layout in NYC that weekend.
Now I thought long and hard about this, trying to balance his need to make money with, what I call my Trust Factor.

My Trust Factor is calculation of will they do “the right thing” in a situation and it’s a hard one to define and becomes cumulative over time.
“The Right Thing” isn’t always defined in strictly my favor …..
For example, in workshop schedules:
Extenuating circumstance with family or personal life can cause an individual to make an understandable decision to cancel a contract, even if it causes a mess for me to clean up…. The Right Thing!

Waiting several weeks to inform me of the difficulty instead of giving me a warning of the potential disaster really isn’t fair to me or especially to the Students….not really The Right Thing!

If the class tanks because of it…..The Wrong Thing!

Waiting several weeks to inform me of a superior job offer and its ultimate acceptance causing the class to cancel….. The Wrong Thing!

As I said all, it boils down to Trust.

If I can’t trust a teacher to treat my Students, my Assistants and I as equitable human beings that deserve proper consideration, then they probably aren’t worth working with and learning from, no matter how famous or good at their subject they are.

By the way, the guy who canceled due to the job in NYC?
Since the economy was tanking (the last time) and I been given enough time so that I was able to replace him and run a successful class, I tried hiring him the next year.
He gave me the run around while I was setting up the schedule.
By that I mean he would accept a date then call a few days/weeks later and say he couldn’t work that weekend due to such and such coming up, forcing me to find currently scheduled teachers that didn’t mind having their scheduled weekend changed. Successfully changing everybody around and a little while later receiving another call from him with a similar story. (This is another example of doing “The Wrong Thing!”)

Even though he frequently contacts me about teaching a workshop and was a good instructor, I can’t really trust him so He doesn’t work here any more.

I find I photograph because I can.
Ever since I started carrying a smaller camera I find myself taking photographs EVERYWHERE…yes, everywhere.
I started this with one of the small Canon cameras bulking up my pocket, as a repository for ideas,and now with my iPhone that I can produce useful work with.

Once again, Off into the Fray….. from the play “The Fantastics”
This seems appropriate for me, starting this new blog called “WhyPhotograph”.

I run the Photography department at Peters Valley Craft Center, more about this later on, and have managed to ask this question either directly or indirectly to hundreds of Photographers, Teachers & Students.
As you may imagine, I have derived hundreds of answers from “I don’t know” to “Because if I don’t, I’ll die”.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to enumerate them all, one at a time…mostly because I can’t remember them all but I will try to provide some thoughts on this and probably a zillion other things, mainly Photography, but not always….

So Thank You for stopping by,
please sit a spell and take a gander at the continuing work in progress.
Leave a comment or 2 would be nice…

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