Make Pictures

July 12, 2009

Festival Goer

The Davisson Brothers and I arrived early at the venue. The All Good Festival was just getting going for the day and a steady stream of folks were making their way along the path behind the stage before the music began. With the sun still fairly low in the sky I saw an opportunity to make some portraits. I found a fairly neutral fence and tent combination that serves as a background and went to work.

For obvious reasons, this woman caught my eye and she was more than happy to pose. That was a relief. I'd have been bummed if she'd said no. While shooting, I was worried about the sunlight on her hair but that proved a non-issue in Lightroom.

It was my first portrait session of the trip and of the dozen or so folks I shot that morning, she's my favorite. I'll upload more to my Flickr steam later.

Make pictures in West Virginia

July 10, 2009

Good Hope Mini Mart

Hometown Hotdogs needed a little back up image since I'm talking about collections, it's always good to see more than one of something.

Image-wise, I am doing almost all of the "manipulations" in Lightroom the a little kiss of the special sauce in Photoshop. It's about a 2 minute process per image.

I am strangely attracted to the vignetting offered by the lens correction slider in Lightroom, perhaps to a fault. We'll see.

Make pictures.

Hometown Hotdogs

Because food has become such a big part of my trip so far, (something that has me a little shocked given my normal approach to travel) I am increasingly attracted to the road signage enticing folks to eat.

Maybe by themselves they aren't all that interesting but I suspect if I put my efforts towards this stuff, a collection of strong images would emerge fairly quickly. Let's see.

The idea of "collecting" images isn't an new one. It seems a body of work is just that, a collection of images on a theme. It bugs me to think that I'm just being a pack rat, just of a more artistic nature. Like most folks, I spend hours culling stuff out of my closets to give to goodwill and removing excess papers from my desk with too frequent abandon but it all manages to creep back in. Now here I am actively adding to my already burdened hard drive collection with road signs. It's a sickness that I can couch as the artist's bane.

Make pictures, collect wisely.

July 09, 2009

Hot Spots

The left is a bar/lounge, the right is an abandoned gas station. I wasn't sure if each image was better by itself or as a diptych but when they lined up as nicely as this I was not going to quibble.

For me, there is a humor in this stuff that I suspect is lost on most locals. The simple approach to signage, the inertia of neglect, and fairly radical difference in priorities comes through over and over again while riding past these places. Thanks to the Vespa's nimbleness, I must have made a dozen U-turns today all in an effort to make shots of buildings and signs. It's what's catching my eye. We'll see what happens tomorrow but portraits just haven't been an option.

Make pictures.

July 07, 2009

Cones

Local Time Vespa Tour

Simple. I like simple. And it doesn't get simpler than this for harvesting chickens. After spending the better part the day yesterday on the Ayrshire Farm checking out the amazing grass, the herds, the gardens, and much more, my head was filled with tons of new knowledge. I was trying to file all the ideas that came from hours of quality conversation.

Upon entering this room I was drawn to the cones. I appreciated the simplicity by which the chickens were dispatched and I lowered myself to make this shot form about 3 feet off the ground. No lights were on. just the doorway illuminated the wall and metal. I can't figure out how I'll ultimately use this shot. It feels like it belongs with something else. I share it for now on it's own but I might use it again.

As a side note, the past two days have been far more social and educational. Photos have been made but not addressed beyond the camera. I'm hoping to get to more tomorrow. I thought 45 days would be a long time but it's quickly proving to be too fast. Each city, each region I visit is full of local color, local food, local flavor. Each person I meet suggests more for me. This could be a life's work. I am only giving a random sample.

Make pictures.

July 06, 2009

Heading Out

I made a little time-lapse video of me heading out of New York and into the Meadowlands. There's no sound. Enjoy!

Urban Fringe

urbanfringe

The approach or departure of a city using the quieter roads allows one to see what is often invisible to those following the numbered red white and blue shields. When you meander your way in and out at the mercy of traffic lights and potholes, the fringes reveal a less happy tale of urban blight and economic hardship.

Baltimore, which is where this diptych was made, felt like every other outskirts I'd passed through so far. It's not intended to single out but rather to represent what I'm sure to see again and again as I pass through our American cities.

And I'm not being political here. So far it's a pattern. No different than suburban strip malls and multiplex parking lots. These areas are just more textured, more layered, and more complicated on many levels.

Make pictures.

July 05, 2009

Circle & Sky II

Circles & Sky

So for anyone who isn't aware of what I'm doing, check out my little mini-site for the Local Time Vespa Tour. One of the more striking aspects of the trip so far has been the annoyance of traffic lights,the economic hardships of the times expressed in empty and abandoned shops and homes, and the abundant and distinctive visual vernacular of commercial businesses. I'll be sure to share more as the days unfold but for now this shot does a nice job of distilling it down.

Since I was moving slowly along a quiet road on the outskirts of Wilmington, past a bunch of refineries, an abandoned mall, and otherwise familiar neglected urban fringes, and having logo fatigue already numbing my brain, this rather clean shot appeared almost made for me.

I'm not sure what it means that my first thought was "that's the old Pepsi logo" but sure enough, I stopped and made the shot. I like that it goes nicely with the Burger King circle shot I < a href="http://blog.clayenos.com/2009/07/circle-sky.html">blogged about earlier.

Make pictures.

Circle & Sky

I had just pulled over to make a few phone calls. I knew I was near an airport having seen the tower a few minutes earlier but wasn't overly concerned with it. I was more intrigued by the McDonald's and Burger King sitting on adjacent commercial lots and the guy holding a sign doing roadside advertising. Just as I hung up and started moving I saw the plane coming in for landing. I calculated that if I framed things just right I could get the Burger King logo in the corner. Two frames later I had it. This is the second.

Now to be fair, I cropped it a touch and that's not my normal M.O. but with a twenty four megapixel Nikon and a helmet on my head, it's going to happen. If I'm rushing and can't get the camera flush to my eye because of the face mask I widen out a bit with the understanding that I'll crop later. This image is a case in point. You have to work with what you've got.

Make pictures, crop 'em if you got 'em.

July 04, 2009

American Flag on Freeway Overpass

I like this photo for two reasons and neither is because it's a good photo in the classical sense.

I was crossing the freeway on Route 1 in New Jersey when it caught my eye. As mentioned in my earlier post, flags had been more abundant than usual marking the July 4th holiday and for whatever reason they were catching my eye. This one did so because it was "backwards." I scooted past, noted the reversal and carried on. Then I realized that flag was probably always there and it wasn't hung for me. It was hung for the freeway-goers below. It's a flag like so many I'd seen before as I sped beneath them. I'm usually down there on the highway, not up on the local streets, not up where things move slower. That little moment made my freeway-free rule real.

And it was quickly followed by something else nearly impossible on the freeway, the immediate U-turn. I will probably be making a lot of u-turns over the coming days to make photos that otherwise would pass me by. Even though I'm wearing my camera over my shoulder and around my neck, I need my right hand on the throttle, not poised with my finger on the shutter. Hip-shooting just isn't an option. You understand.

Make pictures.

The Dash on Fifth Ave.

Yesterday proved a success as I made my way from NYC to Philadelphia on back roads far more traffic light-laded than I expected. As it's the holiday weekend the landscape was draped with more American flags than usual. My next post will share those.

This shot is part self-portrait, part show and tell. It's what I'm going to spend the better part of the next month and half looking at. That's my iphone on the left and my little point and shoot on the right which I used to make time-lapse movies of my ride until the battery died somewhere in Jersey. With every bump the monitor pops on unnecessarily wasting power. It's a kink I'll try to work out. I'll share the little video of my ride from Manhattan to Jersey City shortly.

Make pictures. I am.

June 26, 2009

Wired.com, Me and You

Wired.com Screenshot

The good people at Wired.com posted a video of me shooting Streetstudio-style in San Francisco last month. The video is a lovely distillation of ideas and strategies for other similarly motivated folks to take up their cameras and get to it making portraits.

I spent all day in Kansas City last week sharing many of the same concepts but seeing it distilled into just a couple minutes is really fun. I'm grateful to Wired.com producer Annaliza Savage and her crew.

Make pictures, watch videos.