WIP.CRACKER

I think this is done. It's part of this meandering worrisome project that's really interesting in my head but hard to get out, partly because I've been either moving or busy recently, partly because there seems to be two different tracks to it, and I keep trying to join them together.

I guess that's the meandering part: it's halfway about how technology drives us apart when it ought to be bringing us together, and halfway about our addiction to technology.

The worrisome part is...well, I'd like to shoot for Apple some day. And here's this message, which is maybe not so flattering to Apple. I mean, they could take it in an unflattering light. I plan to have other high tech companies 'represented' in the project, but I notice I keep defaulting to Apple. Which, really, is kind of flattering I guess. And as I write about it here, I'm commenting not so much on the products and manufacturers as I am on the users. And hopefully the pictures are sympathetic, 'cos I feel sympathetic.

And I guess that's the interesting part, and why I'm going to keep making these pictures despite my worries about how they'll be received: what are we doing with all these gadgets, and what does it look like? It looks pretty funny, in my head.

I'm outputting my portfolio on my 2200. I feel like this:



These problems exist:

• my image dimensions don't usually match the standard paper sizes
• my printer is a generation old, slow, a bit unreliable and sometimes a little fuzzy
• I have a mix of vertical and horizontal images so I can have a bunch of white space at the top/bottom or on the sides, neither of which I really want
• I hate printing
• I'm not sure how much margin I need to leave on the binding side, because I haven't determined the binding yet, but I'm not sure I can finalize the binding until I have the paper/image size settled
• I am a whiny little bitch

I think it's time to do something else. Like write a blog entry.

There are dozens of idea in my book right now, but they all seem out-of-reach.

I'm at the Whole Foods seafood counter and I see this big octopus. The clerk packs it up enthusiastically, and I ask him to pack it loosely so it doesn't crease the flesh.

Secretly, I love these slightly off requests. I once bought fifty spoons at a thrift store. I smiled the whole time, my secret purpose making me feel like I had some special mission, like I was getting to be weird, but with a reason.

I get the octopus home and rummage through my collection of glass to find a suitable container. I'm still fascinated by creepy objects in glass, apparently. I put the octopus in the jar, the jar in the fridge. I set up a black surface and background, some lights, camera.

I have a good idea of what I want by now. When I put the jar on the set, though, condensation forms. I decide I can roll with that, and I spray it down to increase the effect. I get the photo I want. Good.

But I'm having a good time, so I continue, playing. I spray water behind the jar, adjust the light to show it better. Suddenly, I have a much better photo than I had planned.

I have a friend who tells me, when I get stuck: "Go play."


Rob Prideaux

I moved house recently, and apparently that messed me up more than I thought. My camera's weighed a ton.

BUT I did get something going last week. My new 'studio' is about 25% larger than my old 'studio' (each of these being a room in my apartment), which is great. There's less of the playing-Twister-on-the-monkey-bars feeling in the new space. It makes things easier.

My new setup also features a new camera/computer combination, which let's me shoot tethered, AND sometimes results, when I'm looling at the captures, in a sharp intake in breath. The new camera and lens are so much sharper, more detailed, and richer in colors than that old outmoded lame excuse for a camera I was using.

That reminds me. I was talking with Hunter Freeman, one of the photographers I work for, about ten months ago. I mentioned that I was unhappy with my camera but that I couldn't afford the new one. He said that it usually wasn't about the equipment as about the operator. That let the air out of my acqusition baloon. I spent the next six months trying to extract every bit of performance out of that old machine, trying to work within its limitations, and trying to get it to do what I wanted it to do.

There's a strong current of gearweenieness in photography, and I'm not immune to it. I love me some new shiny. But Hunter was right, and I made some good photos with that old camera. People make compelling, interesting pictures with low-grade crappy equipment, and people make flat, sterile pictures with top-of-the-line equipment.


I would love to have a 10,000 square foot space with 50 foot ceilings, stocked with all the latest goodies, and I hope to someday. But struggling with a camera that's truly suboptimal has taught me to rely more on me and the creative process, and less on the gear I'm using. Plus I've banished, for now, the I-can't-shoot-because-my-equipment-sucks mentality.

With that in mind, and my new camera in hand, here's to less excuses and more photos.