Metamorphosis

I have for as long as I have remembered, experienced the creative urge. I have spent most of my life ignoring, squashing, or running from the same. Yet I have also consistently dabbled in one form or creative expression or another: cartooning, writing, sculpting, painting, metalwork, interior design, urban planning. It's just that whenever my efforts in that form threatened to move from easy execution to difficult, I stopped. Photography has stuck, or rather, I've devoted myself to it, drawn the line in the sand. So now, when it goes from easy to difficult, I don't stop, I just slow to a crawl.

My self-promotion machine is getting built, it's just really slowly. I assembled my portfolio images in May, and the physical book will likely be done in January. I initiated a logo redesign in March and it was finished in August. I did a magazine review to find targets about three months ago and have not revisited it. Yet.

Technically-speaking, the last year has seen a lot of improvement. A friend of mine told me I've spent the last year 'setting up still life problems and solving them'. I have really tightened up my techniques, and as well I have improved my gear.

Talking last night with my lovely and smart girlfriend, I was saying that it feels like I've moved further away from the conceptual side of things, which is what I truly love, in favor of the technical side, for which my love is a little fleeting. She said maybe what I really want to be is an art director, and it really touched something in me, stopped something.

But I don't want to change forms again. I lose too much each time I do. And after thinking about it, it seems that really good art directors are a little bit photographers, and really good photographers are a little bit art directors. Each needs to be able to communicate, anticipate, support, reach a common ground.

So I think I'll just keep on.

Portfolio Design

I'm getting there on the portfolio creation. I've been printing it, although that's only muddling along, so I've got some test prints at the lab that I need to review.

But I'm planning this bright red plexiglass portfolio, and I think it's going to be killer. I found Google Sketchup, which is awesome for modelling 3D stuff quickly, and built out this model for the plastic machine shop.

Plastic machine shop? Why not just to TAP Plastics you say? TAP is great and all, but every time I went in and even started talking about what I needed done, they were like "Oh...no, we can't do that." I eventually realized that they're a chain and they do what they do. So yeah, plastic machine shop. I'll send these drawings to the ones that TAP recommended and see what they say.

And the bookbinder's been great. Not only do they listen patiently when I bring in this kinda crazy idea, but they point out problems that might occur and help to come up with solutions.

Got my new business cards and...sa-weet!

My new visual identity is way more pro than my old one. Jennifer Pyle did a great job on the design.

I'd sleep with them next to me but I worry I'd fold, spindle or mutilate them.

Went to a photo assistant event last night. The photo buyers on the panel started off by saying that it was totally cool for assistants to promote to them, on the set of the hiring photographer. I was all....no way.

That reminds me. I was working on an ad set for the first photographer I ever worked for. There was a whole creative team there. I got a little crush on one of the designers, so about midway through the shoot, I gave her my card 'if she ever needed it' (I swear, I didn't wink). Further, the account exec was getting married, and hey, I can shoot a wedding, so I gave her my card too.

After we wrapped, and were loading gear, the photographer walked with me along the hall. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was basically, "So, there's not to be any passing out of cards to the creative team on my shoots." I immediately realized how my actions looked and felt horrible. I explained the wedding/crush angle and he explained that I can do that, no biggie, I just need to alert him to it first.

And that makes sense to me. At last nights event, the panel eventually got around to expressing what I think had been their assumption all along - promotion like that happens, but it's got to be low-key, appropriate, and timely.

Photographers, assistants, and buyers know:

• that assistants are pursuing careers in photography
• that photographers would like to keep working for their buyers
• that buyers need to work with new photographers

Everybody's on the same page, and it's inherently awkward. The whole assistant/photographer dynamic could be so loaded with tension I'm surprised it works so well.

Usually. I worked for one photographer who approached the client of the photographer he'd assisted, and that client abruptly hired him to the exclusion of the old photographer. When I first heard the story I thought it was nasty, but now I'm not so sure...perhaps it was time.

There was another photographer I worked for, and on one shoot, the AD handed his card out to everyone (me and the photographer - it was editorial). Five minutes after the AD left, the photographer turned to me and said "I'll take that business card if you don't mind.", and I was all "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA here you go, chief." I don't work for guys like that for very long.

And happily, I have my own gorgeous loving girlfriend now, so there's no passing cards around for that anymore.

Guess I'd Rather Be Notorious than Famous

I was travelling the last couple of weeks, assisting a photographer on some portraits in Boston and Minneapolis. The art director from the Boston shoot knew we were going to Minneapolis later and asked us to get some photos of 'the famous bathroom'.

I think I don't understand 'fame' any more. Or maybe I never did. I'd have thought this bathroom would be notorious, not famous, but I guess it's a matter of interpretation. Like Paris Hilton.

We were on our way out of Minneapolis when we remembered the art directors request. Since the photographer is a woman, I volunteered to take the photos, helpful assistant that I am. I picked up her digital 35MM with the 24-70 zoom and headed over.

I got some views of the outside, and without really thinking about it, moved inside. I was just concentrating on documenting the thing, really, and it seemed some shots of the stalls in question were vital. Once inside, I picked up on some serious vibes. Like, "What the hell are you doing with a camera in the mens room?" vibe. Oh geez. I tried to be discreet, you know, pointing the huge lens at the floor if anybody was nearby, but it was only when I'd come back out that I realized how ridiculous my behavior was.

So, back to the photographer, showed her the pictures, all's well, and I'm repacking the camera. Suddenly, the long arm is right there, the real thing, not a rent-a-cop. He's talking to me in that weird way that's kind of addressing me, but kind of addressing his radio:

"So what's the deal with taking pictures of people in the mens room?" "Ha, ha, well you see....".

I explained, showed him the pictures, told him there were no people in the shots and that they were for nonpublic use. He asked for my ID, and wrote down my address. Said that someone had complained.

Pretty reasonable, all told. I would have done the same thing, I think, were I in his position.Next time somebody asks me for pictures of some infamous bathroom, it's one shot with a camera phone and I'm 5000.

Tricknology

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.