No Such Thing as a Failed Experiment

I tested out a method to wrangle fire recently, in my long-term mission to devise a way to encourage explosions to form more recognizable shapes. As an aside, people get all uncomfortable once you mention gasoline explosions. Usually, the volume of fuel I'm using is in the milliliters range, and the total volume of fuel on site is less than one gallon, but I guess without more explanation, people imagine the kind of stuff you see in action movies. Which would be AWESOME, don't get me wrong.

Anyways, the idea here was to see what I could get into acrylic tubes.

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And initially...soot. Soot is what I get. This is the first attempt, and the soot preceded the flame, immediately blackening the inside of the tube.

Even that might work, if I was getting what I see in my head, a tightly packed explosion. But there's no sense of containment or channeling. I think the pressure is too low. And of course, any increase in pressure leads to a pretty dramatic increase in danger.

And even with minimal pressure, the acrylic tubes don't stand up too well. I drilled this hole so I could insert a match near the middle of the tube, but you can see how the heat discolors and cracks the tube.

Never mind this much thinner acrylic, which withstood only two applications of burning gasoline.

So, back to the drawing board.

Content Interpretation is Subjective.

I started working with a new client, a new jewelry designer named Victoria Skirpa. We made these images for her self-promotional materials. She's really putting a lot of energy into the endeavor and it's nice to work with someone so fired-up.

Sometimes on set, an image shifts into an unintended look. I've seen it happen dozens of times: the setup is supposed to be one thing, but looked at with a certain attitude, it looks like a completely different thing. Once that starts happening, it's really hard to avoid, and I've learned to keep my mouth shut when I see a shift like that, because much of the time, it's a peculiarity of the moment, but it can totally derail the shoot.

But for a time during this shoot, this looked unavoidably like three little brown googly-eyed creatures.

Infringement in the New Photography Era, Part III

So, following up on Part I and Part II, what to do about licensing and infringement in the New Photography Era?

This image was in use as someone's MySpace background.

This image was in use as someone's MySpace background.

What I want: my images to be published and to get paid. What I have got so far: they remove the images. So that's not really working.

It's barking up the wrong tree, in all likelihood. Most of these infringers are not making any money, have little appreciation of professional photography and what it takes to make it, and sparse or incorrect understanding of intellectual property rights. And I can't say I blame them. My livelihood is dependent on it, I'm interested in it, I've studied it, and still sometimes the concepts slip away from my understanding, and I have to chase them down. And many of my peers seem to be uninterested.

Content creators have interests, but their interests are varied. I want to make a profit on my images, but some people are only interested in attention. For others, giving away some content to sell other works, while others may give away content to sell consulting services.

So it's left to professional organizations, advocates, and corporations to stand up for content creators. The professional organizations fight for the content creators, but they're perhaps a little slow. The advocates are vocal but pull in different directions. And the corporations have a lot of power, but only their own interests at heart, which are usually in conflict with the content creators.

For example, some organizations:

Some advocates:

And of course, corporations:

I don't agree 100% with any of them. But I do know that my images, services, and vision have value, and that it's up to me to manage the perception of that value. So when it comes to infringement, small or large, I will continue to do what I can to moderate it, because, as they say, the way you do anything is the way you do everything.

Accessibility

A couple of years ago, I participated in my first portfolio review. The whole thing was put together by Lisa Wiseman back when the NAOPA was doing a lot of events. There were two buyers from local agencies, an editor from a magazine, and a rep. I had just finished my first book, and even though it was a pretty small event, I was excited and intimidated. I was still at the tail-end of the dying-for-someone-to-tell-me-I'm-a-real-photographer phase (hint: you will probably not believe anyone who is willing to tell you this), and I'd only really shown my work to friends, family, and photography peers, so my insides were all churning.

There was some sort of take-a-number arrangement to ensure that each participant met with each buyer, but I think I was late or there was some snafu or the planets aligned or whatever. I any case, I met only with Jen Small, who was at Ogilvy, I think. In writing this now, I can tell I was quite nervous, as all these relevant details are now fuzzy or missing.

To make matters worse, this guy, who wasn't really involved in NAOPA, barged on my session with Jen, because he insisted that she look at his book after mine, and wouldn't leave while she looked at mine.

She looked through my book, alarmingly quickly, and we talked for a bit. She had good things to say overall, and she has a cool perspective. The thing that has stayed with me was her response to a concern I had.

I told her that I thought maybe my work was too dark, too grim, too anti-example, for advertising.

She told me that she has a list of a hundred photographers that can do happy, sunny, uplifting, sweet work. And she has a list of like five photographers that can do dark, grim, anti-examples, and make it work.

And ever since then, I've looked around, and that ratio's about right: twenty to one. Twenty ads of an attractive person talking on a cellphone to one ad of a shattered phone because someone sat on it. Twenty earnest groups of young adults having fun on the beach to one guy about to get run over by a train because he's not paying attention.

I'll take the ratio. I'm just glad there's room.