Dynamo Donuts

As much as it's changed over the last fifteen years, the Mission isn't swank. Oh sure, there's Liberty Heights, or Foreign Cinema, or that one bar where all the Marina people disgorge from limos, and there's a lot of condos, TIC's, and "lofts", but that hasn't changed the Mission's dirty, artfreaky little heart. And I still love the Mission.

I had a hankerin' for a donut, and I visited Dynamo Donut. Of course, it's been in the Mission for over a year so it's probably played out, but whatevs, it's donuts. Also, I'm 41 years old, and I don't care.

I went in the afternoon on a Sunday and it was real quiet. There's the counter there, on the sidewalk, and there's some seating inside.

That's right. These donut flavors are little round brothers to Bi-Rite Creamery's ice cream flavors. And yeah, check the prices.

Nevertheless, they're very good. Ugly, but good. Sweet but not so much your teeth hurt, you know? That's a spiced chocolate, a candied orange blossom, and a pumpkin chocolate chip. And no, I didn't eat three...I brought the pumpkin one home to Jackie.

It's very San Francisco to gourmet up some common food, and Dynamo does it Mission style. Well worth the visit.

How to get there Dynamo Donut + Coffee

2760 24th St at Hampshire. Ten minute cab ride from downtown, or take the BART to 24th and walk about six blocks, Eastward through the always "colorful" 24th St area. If you drive, take care where you park.

And if you hang out in that neighborhood, you could get lunch at Roosevelt Tamale Parlor (although it's really not the same since it's been remodeled), or have a sandwich at the St Francis Fountain, not to mention getting more coffee at Philz Coffee.

Bi-Rite Creamery's maybe a 20 minute walk from this area, if you feel like seeing if they have any identical flavors.

Everybody Is A Photographer

The day after my son was born, Jackie and I were in the hospital room watching him sleep. A woman in scrubs came in the hospital room and told us that she's the photographer and do we want pictures of our baby? She was stonefaced and abrupt. I was taken aback, because I thought she was another nurse, because we'd been taking all kinds of pictures with the iPhones, the point-and-shoot, the family's cameras, etc. And also, I'm a photographer.

But it was a valuable moment, because for that moment I was the photography buyer, and I got to see what a sales call might look like. And it was really bad. It seemed like she didn't want to be there, wasn't interested in us or our baby, and was totally closed down.

Was that nerves?

It made me realize how awkward it can all be, especially now that the ratio of content creators to professional content buyers is so high.

Based on this experience, it looks like the best approach is to be curious about the buyer and the situation. Interested. Open. Personable. But that only works if it's authentic. And it can only be real if it comes from confidence.

So, yeah, everybody is a photographer. Anybody can point a camera at a subject and stand a good chance of getting a fine photograph.

But not everybody is a salesman, a businessman, a marketer, a leader, an accountant, and an artist.

Of Packing Materials and the Environment

Sexed Up Bubblewrap

I met with a rep some time ago, and she suggested that while my lighting is beautiful, my subject matter is a little challenging, and that she thought that more mundane content would be more accessible. So I've collected a bunch of packing materials - boxes, padding, tissue paper...bubble wrap.

I'm looking for the story here in this stuff, and all that's come to mind so far is something about waste, about overpackaging. I headed in a couple directions during yesterday's test, and some of them explored that idea, so I'll be getting back to that.

But the bubble wrap photo really demonstrates the tension in my art right now, between cautionary tales and glamorized objects. If the message of the photo is that we use too much packing material, how does sexed up bubble wrap convey that? More appropriately, what is the message of sexed up bubble wrap?

If I want to suggest, and I'm not sure that I do, because I'm not even sure it's an issue any more, that we use too much packing material, is this the way to go about it?

And more broadly, I think the essence af the advice from the rep was to make pictures that people can and want to relate to. And few people want to be preached at.

Well, whatever. It's very early in the project and these things tend to work themselves out. I'll be fine with the sexiest collection of packing materials ever; I'll be fine with a sermon on the evil of packing materials. And maybe that'll be one set of photos.

Branta Canadensis

Octopus

I was Christmas shopping with Tom, my brother-in-law, a true manly man road builder with a big diesel pickup. I saw a dead goose by the side of the road. Tom was full of warnings about poaching, but made the two 3-point turns to come back around. I could not pass up the opportunity.

I thought I could make a photo to go with the very popular octopus photo.

Alexander Pope, The Wild Swan, 1900

I've also been fascinated with Alexander Pope. The De Young has a couple of his paintings, including The Wild Swan, which I love.

Two-thousand, ten is for composition. I spent last year intensely focussed on lighting, now I want to focus on composition, creating more complex images, and working with moods other than "this object is awesome" and concepts other than "this lighting is tricky". So, I tried to do as many different shots as I could.

The bird had a broken wing and a bunch of abrasions, so I figured it had been struck by a car, but with a newborn in the house, I needed to be extra careful. Luckily it was freezing outside, so I kept the the bird on the patio when I wasn't photographing it. Besides, I wasn't sure how quickly I'd be able to shoot (again, newborn).

Goose on Black

My interest in animals continues, especially as symbols, and often dead, although I think that's only because they don't move. In looking for more information about Alexander Pope, I found I like a lot of old still-life, old French stuff and American trompe l'oeil, which, along with my affection for Norman Rockwell, is sure to get me kicked out of San Francisco.

Of course, a goose is not a swan, and a white door is not a black door.

After Alexander Pope

My picture is more gruesome than Pope's, I think, which has to do with the asymmetry, and the uncomfortable way the wing points. This goose is some kind of undead avian doorman. Also, belly forward is far more vulnerable than spine forward, which is another way that Pope's is more flattering, more uplifting. Finally, the visible, bound legs connect the goose to the door and make it more real, whereas Pope's is realistic, but also sort of floats there like an angel.

Still-Life with Goose

I had to work with what I had around the house, prop-wise, since the goose had an expiration date and I was in the middle of the holidays with a newborn. The chinese mushrooms in the jar are not perfect, and the dagger's kind of weird. But I like the fall of the roses, and this picture holds together as a still-life. It's a scene, rather than a picture of a goose with some stuff around it.

In making this last photograph, I realized I have some interest in doing classical still-lifes of modern vocations. Jackie's a nurse, so I'll probably start there. Any volunteers?

Better than Arithmetic

Several years ago, during my second portfolio build process, I had many pages that had two images side-by-side.

This made sense to me, primarily because I created these images at the same time, in the same project, to convey the same idea. The theme is consistent across both images. I sat with Thomas Broening to review the book, and, about all these pairings, he had this to say:

When you put two images together, one plus one should equal three; all these are like, I don't know, one plus one equals 1.85.

As we talked about it, I began to just get a sense, a whiff, of the possibilities of combinations of images, and that I'd been looking at pairings in a very simplistic, dogmatic way. Which I'm sure I'm still doing, 'cos I'm kinda authoritarian that way. But still, it's nice to shoot for improvements.

So I'm rolling up my PDN Photo Annual submission candidates, and I've rearranged the Resolutions series I did early in the year. At that time, I'd conceived the images in threes, but I've taken the best images and recombined them into what are hopefully subtler, more effective combinations.

How do these work together? Is there synergy, or just repetition? Is there a visualistic, a thematic, a moodalistic, a formalistic connection? All four? None? Is there tension or harmony, or points of tension and harmony in each? Do obvious size disparities create story material or merely distract? Is it too direct, and if so, is it like a wake-up call or a punch-in-the gut?

Just trying to make 1+1=3.