Plane of Focus

New Blog

2010-12-23T20:57:00.001-06:00

I'm trying out tumblr, and as such will likely be neglecting this fair posting service.

Check me out here: http://ztdavis.tumblr.com

Against the Day

2010-04-18T17:46:00.001-05:00

The New Yorker's summary of the book I just finished, which all sounds about right:

"The rest of the novel is shapeless, just yards and yards of Pynchonian wallpaper: fantastic invention, arcane reference, virtuosic prose. Elaborately imagined characters and incidents, from a man who may or may not be transformed into a jelly doughnut to a city beneath the desert and a near-death experience in a mayonnaise factory, pop up and disappear after a few pages, so many raisins in the enormous loaf. The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893; the mysterious collapse of the Campanile in the Piazza San Marco, in Venice, in 1902; the equally mysterious Tunguska Event, in 1908, in which roughly eight hundred square miles of Siberian forest was flattened, evidently by an exploding asteroid; the Mexican Revolution; and the troubles in the Balkans leading to the First World War all figure in the book’s pages. Longer-running characters include the eternally youthful crew of a sometimes invisible airship, Inconvenience, who style themselves the Chums of Chance; initiates of a British spiritualist society called T.W.I.T.; a private eye named Lew Basnight; a glamorous mathematician named Yashmeen Halfcourt; and an itinerant photographer called Merle Rideout, his daughter, Dahlia, and his ex-wife, Erlys, who has run off with a magician named Zombini. Scenes are set in (among other places) Colorado, New York, Venice, Paris, Croatia, Macedonia, Mexico, various points in Asia, and Hollywood. Characters are given names like Alonzo Meatman, Ruperta Chirpingdon-Groin, Professor Heino Vanderjuice, the Reverend Lube Carnal, and Wolfe Tone O’Rooney. Pig Bodine, a recurring avatar who appeared in Pynchon’s first novel, “V.” (1963), puts in his ritual appearance. There is a literate dog, a machine for time travel, a “subdesertine frigate” for voyaging beneath desert sand, and assorted mad inventors, shamans, clairvoyants, terrorists, drop-dead-gorgeous women, and drug abusers. The whole thing sloshes along, alternately farcical and magniloquent, with threads left dangling everywhere, sometimes for hundreds of pages, ultimately forever. The novel doesn’t conclude; it just, more or less arbitrarily, stops."

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/27/061127crbo_books#ixzz0lUjPRAJi

today

2010-04-18T17:23:00.000-05:00

This is what Julie and I did today:

View Larger Map

Why we should fight fewer wars.

2010-04-07T20:02:00.002-05:00

If you haven't seen it already, and if you can watch a video where innocent people are being killed, there is a classified video,leaked by Wikileaks, in which a dozen people, including a Reuters photographer and his driver, are killed.

There is a lot of interesting commentary on this video which, as a photographer, I have been watching with interest. I think the most cogent argument boils down to, essentially, "don't hate the player, hate the game."

Because war fucking sucks. It sucks for soldiers. It sucks for civilians. It sucks. I think this video is a particularly blunt and effective reminder of what everyone was protesting in 2003: war. Not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, but war. Anyone that watches this video and dislikes the actions of the soldiers is, as you were saying, not placing the blame in the right place.

One of the Economists posts (linked below) mentions that we only see this video because they were Reuters employees, which is worth paying attention to. This video is most likely one of thousands with people being shot at and pilots treating it the situation with such disdain, and we are only seeing it because of the special circumstance. Again, more reasons to be mad at the system than the participants.

Here's some commentary from elsewhere:

Politics, Theory, and Photography:
"War is shitty. And the young men we send to fight are desensitized by the experience. War is kill or be killed. So we should be surprised not in the least about the crass attitude articulated by the American troops in the video sound track. In fact, this is precisely what you claim to be grateful for when you thank military men and women 'for their service.'"

The Economist has two very good posts, from different authors.

The first:
"The second essential point is the moment at 15:29 of the Wikileaks video, when someone, a pilot, gunner, or controller, says, "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." Another voice answers, "That's right." No. Nothing could be more wrong. When you see children being evacuated from a van you've just destroyed, the thought running through your mind should be: What did I just shoot at? Who was in that van?"

The second:
"...no matter how precise our weaponry gets, no matter how much information we feed into our targeting systems, the decision to fire will always be based on incomplete information and come down to fallible human judgment. So while it is normal to react to these tragedies with varying degrees of moral repugnance, let us not be shocked. This is the nature of war and there is only one truly effective way to avoid such incidents."

Both the NYTimes Lens blog and The Online Photographer have thoughtful posts remembering Noor-Eldeen.

This comment, from a poster on reddit, is also a worthwhile addition to the discussion, and easily the most personal feeling.

healthcare reform

2010-03-21T21:29:00.001-05:00

Finally. Sheesh.

Telephoto

2010-03-03T19:39:00.002-06:00

There are two measures for the "zoom" of a lens -- focal length actual distance from the lens to the focal plane -- which for the image below is 800MM -- and then the degrees, or field of view. Field of view is a bit easier to understand, I think. If you could see in every direction at once you'd see, of course, 360 degrees. You and I see roughly 45 degrees. The lens I used for the image below sees 3 degrees.

What is cool is that when you crop in on only 6% of what you normally see things get very, very dramatically compressed. We judge distance not only by our stereo vision but by relative size -- if I see two shopping carts and one is bigger than the other I will assume one is closer, not that there exists a shopping cart XL for heavy shoppers (Sam's Club shopping carts aside).

So what we have here is visual compression: a lot of objects, all looking roughly the same size, and thus right on top of each other:

Broadway from Catalpa, 2010

That building in the distance? 1.2 miles away from where I took that picture. Really, the stop light you barely see in the top right is already a block away (at Bryn Mawr).

Anyway, this is just a long way of saying that I love this image because the street lights look like they are practically leaning on each other, instead of the 80' that actually separates each one.

Books and backgrounds

2010-02-24T10:05:00.003-06:00

Another desktop background for you. This one was taken over a year ago at our friend's apartment. Apparently we are so steamy we fogged up the windows pretty dramatically. Again, pretty textures but little artistic merit.

And desktop size

I've been spending enough time and money on books lately that I'm going to add a module to the blog that shows what I am currently reading and recently read. Hopefully it'll get me to read even more, because the stack of "books I anxiously want to read" is quickly growing. Stupid Economist and your book suggestions!

Desktop Backgrounds

2010-02-18T19:03:00.002-06:00

For better or for worse, probably worse, I have been taking pictures lately with the intention of using them as desktop backgrounds. While one one hand I consider desktop backgrounds to be the elevator music of photography, on the other hand making things that are over sharpened, unoriginal, but pretty is damn fun.

So, anyway, with the season in mind here's a few from this weekend:

And, of course, desktop size

desktop size

Top Movies of 2009

2010-02-05T20:06:00.004-06:00

2009 was a great year for movies. Perhaps not great movies, but a lot of very enjoyable movies. Here are my top 10. I've ranked them but bear in mind: I'm no critic, this is based solely on my own enjoyment.

1. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
I cannot name another movie with a character so despicable, who does such horrible things, while at the same time is incredibly endearing, weak, and lovable. By the end of the movie you have plenty of reasons to hate Nicholas Cage's Bad Lieutenant: his horrible lack of integrity, his drug addictions, his willingness to suffocate old women, etc, but you can't help but be happy for him at the end of the movie.

2. Hurt Locker
An intense thriller, excellent character study, and a movie about Iraq that you aren't sure is pro-war or against (I say against). Regardless, I hope this wins best picture at the oscars this year.

3. Up
If you haven't seen this, go see this. The first fifteen minutes are a perfect vignette, and the rest of the movie is great enough.

4. Inglourious Basterds
Best supporting actor speaking four languages.
Best rewriting of history.
And this song:

5. Up in the Air
Just like Juno, Up in the Air slowly and quietly succeeds at being a great movie about everyday life and everyday people.

6. Hunger
I knew nothing about these hunger strikes when I watched the movie, but damn. Most of the movie feels like an amazing photo series: small vignettes that are carefully composed and crafted and subtle. But then, in the middle, is a seventeen minute long conversation about martyrdom between Bobby Sands and his pastor.

7. (500) Days of Summer
I love these people. I love love scenes in IKEA. I love the premise. I love the random dance sequence in the middle. I love the soundtrack.

8. Let the Right One In
After True Blood and the dozens of more irreverent movies about vampires it was great to get one with a pale color palette, blood that is black, and a friendship between two eight year olds.

9. A Serious Man
Don't you want somebody to love? Don't you need somebody to love? Maybe we just need Jimi Hendrix to explain how god talks to us...

10. The Brothers Bloom
After watching Rian Johnson's Brick I decided, come hell or high water, that I would be this director's biggest fan. Thankfully, he made a good movie so it was easy. Also, how much does it cost to take a steamer across the Atlantic? I want to do that.

Ongoing projects and ideas

2010-02-03T22:28:00.004-06:00

The primary consequence of deciding to always have my camera on me is a ton of images like this:

Lake Shore Drive

Which is fine, and I actually really like them, but I think I am the only one. There's a few simple reasons all of my pictures look like this right now.
1. My camera cannot take pictures in the dark
2. The sun rises at 7 AM
3. I wake up at 8:15 and am on my way to work by 8:45
4. I get to work at 9:30
5. The sun sets at 5 PM
6. I leave work at 5:30

So yes, that's right: I can only take pictures during my morning commute driving down lake shore drive. That's why all of my images look this way.

I plan to edit them down, because I bet there actually are a dozen good images, at least from a typological / comparative study type standpoint.

Every now and then I rent a camera that is different and can take pictures at night. So then I take pictures like this:

Lake Shore Drive at Night, January 23, 2010

Man, it needs to get warm so I can shoot after work. Or I need to start using my tripod, one of the two.

Anyway, more of these to come.

back at school

2010-02-01T23:17:00.002-06:00

So, in a roundabout way because of Julie's job at SAIC, I can take classes for free at Roosevelt University.

Every Monday night, then, I am taking a marketing management class and I am loving the hell out of it. Which I kind of don't want to admit, given how many hours I spent enjoying my liberal arts degrees and being glad I never took any business classes.

But this is pretty awesome stuff, and giving me plenty of ideas for my job.

Now if Amazon will only send me my damn text book...

Natalie's

2010-02-01T22:33:00.003-06:00

Did I already mention that we loved Natalie's place? Her kitchen is 100% my aesthetic, although gas ovens are way cooler.

Flatiron Building

2010-01-31T13:17:00.004-06:00

The Flatiron Building, in New York, went up in 1902 and ever since there's been a tradition of large format photographer's taking pictures of it. Well, there was a good solid tradition of it at least until the 20s.

Edward Steichen did in the pictorialist style when he was 24:

Stieglitz did it with straight photography in 1903:

Coburn took a great image from the Flatiron in 1912:

So I was looking forward to getting my own shot of it when we were there a few weeks ago. But, instead, I just fucked it up and double exposed my negative with the tree in Rockefeller Center.

Oh well. Next time I visit.

Posting more often?

2010-01-30T23:19:00.002-06:00

So I was busy in December and then lazy in January, so my apologies for posting. I do want to point out, though, that even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his blog, had to apologize for not posting. So at least I'm not setting any precedent's.

Natalie's place at Red Gate Farms, Ashfield, MA 2010

Julie and I love traveling, but don't have much money or free time. Because of some luck with vacation time scheduled over the holidays, we had five days of down time.

So we drove to Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts: about 2,000 miles

It was great, we saw some of Julie's family in PA, our friend Anna in NY, our friend Natalie on her farm in MA, and some more of Julie's family just minutes away from where Natalie is living.

The drive back, straight through of course, took 21 hours thanks to lovely horrible weather near Erie, PA.

It was great.

Anyway, I'll try to post more.

2009-11-29T21:28:00.002-06:00

I've been busy printing images for my print sale in two weeks and getting my computer happy with Windows 7 (which is super easy, for the record), which has just given me a good excuse to organize all my files.

In the midst of all this I'm rewatching lost to get ready for the new season. Oh, meeting Ben for the first time. I could watch you manipulate people all day.

images

2009-11-13T08:22:00.003-06:00

Which is ~~this park thing that I can't remember the name of~~ or, rather, The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pond, one of those great places in town that you can forget there's a city surrounding you.

Although it is closed for the winter...

2009-11-05T18:17:00.001-06:00

From one of my new favorite blogs, Black and WTF?

Fertility Rate

2009-11-04T11:32:00.002-06:00

World Fertility Rate (sorry for the cheesy graphic)

The decline in worldwide fertility rates is by far the most exciting prospect for the future of humanity: by 2050 the population of the world will be shrinking (after peaking at 9 billion, which is still insanely high). This means more opportunities for more people (declining population leads to higher standards of living), a light at the end of the pollution tunnel (fewer people means fewer polluters).

That said, 2.4 billion more people than we have today will not be an easy problem to cope with. But I do find it incredibly fascinating that within my lifetime things will peak and level out and we'll be more able, as a world, to move on from there. Demographics always amazes me, because barring a huge disaster, it allows us to extrapolate a lot of information about what our future realities will be.

"The move to replacement-level fertility [2.1 children per woman] is one of the most dramatic social changes in history...it is changing traditional family life by enable women to work and children to be educated.
...

By about 2020, the global fertility rate will dip below the global replacement rate for the first time".

Read more at the Economist: Go forth and multiply less, falling fertility, and their sources

how to eat a chicken wing

2009-11-01T02:20:00.000-06:00

I've been doing it so wrong for so long.

Silence

2009-10-27T21:56:00.003-05:00

Cline Ave, East Chicago, Indiana, 2009

"[...] Augustine was no die-hard biblical literalist. He took science very seriously, and his "principle of accommodation" would dominate biblical interpretation in the West until well into the early modern period. God had, as it were, adapted revelation to the cultural norms of the people who had first received it. One of the psalms, for example, clearly reflects the ancient view, long outmoded by Augustine's time, that there was a body of water above the earth that caused rainfall. It would be absurd to interpret this text literally. God had simply accommodated the truths of revelation to the science of the day so that the people of Israel could understand it; today a text like this must be interpreted differently. Whenever the literal meaning of scripture clashed with reliable scientific information, Augustine insisted, the interpreter must respect the integrity of science or he would bring scripture into disrepute. And there must be no unseemly quarreling about the Bible. People who engaged in acrimonious discussion of religious truth were simply in love with their own opinions and had forgotten the cardinal teaching of the Bible, which was the love of God and neighbor."
-- Karen Armstrong in The Case for God

Having just read Dawkin's new The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, this was a particularly enlightening passage in Karen Armstrong's (also new) book. In the risk of sounding too "see, can't we all just get along?", can't we all just get along? Why must science be the antithesis of religion?

This is a question for both the ardent anti-theists out there (like Dawkins) and the ardent anti-science-ists out there?

(Bear in mind, though, that I say all this as an atheist, so perhaps it is a bit much of me to request that Christians out there demure to my views on science.)

Chicago

2009-10-27T21:10:00.003-05:00

Foster Beach, Chicago, 2009

First of all, this picture has little to do with this post. Secondly, I love Chicago and what it has to offer. In a two week period, partly thanks to Julie's job, and partly thanks to Chicago, we'll have done these things here in the city:
1. Watched "Rashomon" on the big screen at the Music Box
2. Gone to the Field Museum (for free)
3. Walked six miles along the lake between downtown and where we live
4. Eaten the best Chinese food ever in Chinatown
5. Gone to a free talk at Columbia College (which was awesome)
6. Gone to a free talk at the School of the Art Institute
7. Watched "Valentino: The Last Emperor" for free at Gene Siskel
8. Signed up for free three credit hours via SAIC
9. Gone to a Bob Dylan concert
10. Been invited to (and hopefully go to!) four or five Halloween parties

Which, I realize, most of which you can kind of do in other cities, but I feel like Julie and I are doing a pretty damn good job of taking advantage of our city.

2009-10-25T22:28:00.003-05:00

Wind Turbines, Benton County (?), Indiana, 2009

These guys are now the coolest part of driving between Chicago and Indianapolis. This last time we drove was the first time they were actually moving.

This picture at night gets closer to capturing how many are in the area: each red dot is one turbine.

Wind Turbines, Benton County (?), Indiana, 2009

70 degrees and sunny

2009-10-21T21:25:00.002-05:00

On Approach, Chicago, 2009

I consider it great, great luck that I happened to take today off because of a dentist appointment. Since noon today I have been outside walking, or sitting at a cafe, or reading by the lake. Every time we have a day like today and I am stuck at work I want so desperately to be outside, so it worked out well.

The image above is actually from Monday night, when apparently planes are landing at O'hare every five three minutes. Julie and I walked on the lake and this was the view pretty much the entire time: constant planes appearing on the horizon and flying in over our heads.

I'm going to go out there next Monday and take some shots with my 4x5, although I'll need to buy some Provia for the long exposure (this one was 30 seconds).

2009-10-16T19:36:00.002-05:00

A woman sleeps accompanied by her cat, inside an evacuation center for victims hit by floods caused by Typhoon Ketsana, locally known as Ondoy, in the town of Taytay, Rizal east of Metro Manila, October 13, 2009. (REUTERS/John Javellana)

Today's Big Picture is for World Animal Day, apparently, and it has what you'd expect: a slightly more sophisticated version of cute overload.

But this image (bear in mind I am a sucker for cats) is just a great, great image.

2009-10-14T21:43:00.001-05:00

This American Life's "More is Less" is well worth the listen -- and a free download for the next few days.

"An hour explaining the American health care system, specifically, why it is that costs keep rising. One story looks at the doctors, one at the patients and one at the insurance industry."

Listen to it.

Deep Field

2009-10-01T20:18:00.002-05:00

I'd read about this before, but Exposure Compensation, a lovely blog, was so kind as to remind me of Hubble's Ultra Deep Field image, which is one of the more profound photographs ever made.

The Economist used it as prime example of why risk taking is important to science, as before these pictures were taken no one was sure if they were taking a picture of anything.

2009-10-01T20:05:00.002-05:00

Fuck, man. Shit. Between how much of our national debt they own and how outnumbered we are, if China ever decides they want to rule the world I am pretty confident they could.

I mean, look at their celebration of 60 years.

Maybe, though, I've been playing too much Fallout 3.

finance

2009-09-30T13:48:00.005-05:00

I love my current job, and I especially love my position. I imagine I'll be here a while.

I imagine I'll probably go back to school eventually, but not for a while. A law degree has been kicking around in my head for a while; but after looking at a practice LSAT I don't think I'm that ambitious any more.

The plan had been to get an MFA and teach photo -- that is still probably the most likely thing to happen if not just staying where I am (which is nice).

The other thing that I've been speculating is an MBA. I like money, and MBAs can get you money, right?

Anyway, The Economist has an article about how business schools need to change in light of the current crisis and I enjoyed this tidbit:

"Andrew Lo, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, was fond of pointing out that in the physical sciences three laws can explain 99% of behaviour, where as in finance 99 laws can explain at best 3% of behavior."

Yeah, sorry. That funny adage got my brain working again about whether or not I could get or even want an MBA.

Maybe...in several years. Depaul does have a night school.

And, since I made a rule about always posting a picture:

"181st St Station", from the series The 1 Line, NYC 2006

day to day

2009-09-27T19:08:00.002-05:00

Everyday...

2009-09-14T23:03:00.001-05:00

Factory Window, Damen at Rascher, 2009

As you might have noticed, I've been drawn to this factory and its windows.

color balanced

2009-09-13T23:21:00.003-05:00

Untitled, Bryn Mawr at Paulina, 2009

I discovered the other night how awesome it was to shoot tungsten balanced film, which for some reason I'd never done before. It's like, you know, at night -- I can shoot, and like, you know, things look like they should.

Crazy.

2009-09-12T12:28:00.003-05:00

Ivy, north of Berwyn red line stop, 2009

This image is mine, but after looking at it for a moment it definitely reminds me of Nikki Graziano's Found Functions. I like to think of mine as a bar chart, though.

typologies

2009-09-11T00:18:00.002-05:00

So, lying in bed tonight, this is what my brain was thinking:

A large part of why I wanted to move to Chicago was (were?) all the people: so many histories and personalities. I want to document that in a way that visually makes it easy to compare the individuals. Easy in the sense that the photography does not interfere, as much as it might other wise at least, with a reading of the image.

A la Bernd and Hilla Becher, who, just so you know, have had a larger impact on contemporary photography than any other photographers out there. Done, said it.

Water Towers, 1980 (© Bernd and Hilla Becher)

So...any friends want to volunteer? Help me learn a technique before I try it out on, you know, strangers?

4x5

2009-09-10T21:25:00.003-05:00

I love shooting with my 4x5. I should get out there and do that more.

"Positively No Admittance"; Damen at Rascher, 2009

I had a customer today that shoots portraits for a living and lives in Andersonville. We talked about good locations for shooting and swapped a few ideas. Made me wonder if I could do this for, you know, a living or something some day.

I am going to set up a system of portrait typologies, I think. I just need to get the balls to shoot strangers in the street. But I'm thinking the same film, roughly the same distance to the subject, same framing and composition, etc.

We shall see...

Internet Cats

2009-08-06T18:51:00.003-05:00

Now, for anyone out there that subscribes to my blog, I wholeheartedly apologize. I apologize for the months in between posts and I, especially, apologize that this is what I am posting after you've waited so long.

Now, I don't care about sports. I don't really care about local news. So I subscribe to two magazines: The Economist and Entertainment Weekly. This way I get to hear about the political fallout of the end of the Sri Lanka's civil war and that Dominic Monaghan showed up for LOST at comic con (could he still be alive?!). If I had money I'd probably get a few photo magazines, like Aperture, but I don't and there are blogs.

Anyway, Entertainment Weekly proved its value this week and inspired me to post with a four page spread ON CATS ON THE INTERNET complete with reviews of the most (in?)famous of cat youtube videos. Yeah, EW, that's news that is incredibly relevant to me, thanks! (Oh, and thanks for reviewing the new Thomas Pynchon detective novel, too.)

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure:

Catcerto!

Gizmo flushes!

Keyboard Cat!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Daily/Colbert - Keyboard Cat

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Spinal Tap Performance

Keyboard Cat on Colbert!

Maru and the Big Box!

Kittens Inspired by Kittens! Or something...like that...I think.

Simon's Cat -- Fly Guy! (check out the rest of Simon's Cat's cartoons)

Stalking Cat!

Begging Kitten!

EW has even more at ew.com/webcats

By the way, I'll be backpacking with Julie at Isle Royale all next week, so even though I probably wouldn't be posting anyway, don't look for any posts next week.

less-bad

2009-07-09T14:27:00.000-05:00

One of my coworkers took the time to point out to me today a USA Today headline Investors seek less-bad earnings: Evidence companies are turning around is goal.

There was a good debate on Meet the Press a few months ago about how much an alleged lack of good financial journalism contributed to our current malaise. A CNBC correspondent retorted, and I'm paraphrasing here, "we were doing good work -- whether or not anyone was listening is the real question".

I'd argue he was mostly correct. If you want to sit down with The Economist, Financial Times, or the WSJ then you can seek out good, detailed, and insightful analysis. In 2005 The Economist had a detailed analysis of savings where they practically qualified every paragraph with caveats about how things seemed to be in a "brave new world" of finance but there was little evidence of a great change. It turned out all the rules we thought we could break you couldn't, but that's another store.

By and large, though, I think a lot of the media covers finance poorly. And I'm confident that more people read USA Today than read the financial section of the Economist, so more people see the poor coverage than the good.

Another article in today's paper: "Junk bonds pay off in 1st half with 23% surge: They could generate more gains, or they could get trashed".

Friends

2009-06-30T19:52:00.003-05:00

Top Row: Stepho, Bryan, Julie, Jane; Bottom Row (including arm rests): Peter, Maeve, Tim, Annie, Zane (me), Trevor, Rob

I had the incredible fortune my freshman year on college to live in the same dorm community -- the nerd fest that was the Honors Residential Community (HRC) -- as almost all of the people in the above picture. There are plenty more great friends I have that lived in the HRC, but everyone above was here last Friday.

Julie, Peter, Maeve, Tim, Annie and I (as do WB and Tom, who were around a lot but not the night of this picture) all live here while Stepho, Bryan, Jane, Trevor, and Rob were all visiting. For over ten days we all got to relive a little bit of college and remember how lucky we all are to know each other.

camping

2009-05-16T09:16:00.003-05:00

Julie and I are about to go backpacking at Kettle Moraine South in Wisconsin, so if we disappear you know where to look. Not, at the rate I post, that you'd be able to tell if I disappeared.

Also, cooked bacon last for four days. Take some on your next trip and have it for your breakfasts.

And, anyway, someone figured out how to do my "well disposed cameras" project: charge for it. Almost an identical idea...they mail you a camera, you take the pictures and mail it back.

Charging money! I feel so internet-pre-bubble to think that I didn't come up with that.

nation ready to be lied to

2009-05-04T22:35:00.004-05:00

Nation Ready to be Lied to about Economy Again.

The Onion is so, so good at telling the truth when they make up bullshit.

Tired of hearing the grim truth about their economic future, Americans demanded that the bald-faced lies resume immediately, particularly whenever politicians feel the need to divulge another terrifying problem with Wall Street, the housing market, or any one of a hundred other ticking time bombs everyone was better off not knowing about.

In addition, citizens are requesting that the phrase, "It will only get worse before it gets better," be permanently replaced with, "Things are going great. Enjoy yourselves."

"I thought I wanted a new era of transparency and accountability, but honestly, I just can't handle it," Ohio resident Nathan Pletcher said. "All I ever hear about now is how my retirement has been pushed back 15 years and how I won't be able to afford my daughter's tuition when she grows up."

"From now on, just tell me the bullshit I want to hear," Pletcher added. "Tell me my savings are okay, everybody has a job, and we're No. 1 again. Please, just lie to my face.

young whippersnappers

2009-04-24T20:46:00.002-05:00

So, a lot of the traditional sizes for prints -- the sizes you can find picture frames in, for example -- are mostly related to the width and height ratio of the most common formats of film.

35mm film and digital usually spits out a 2:3 ratio, hence your 4x6 prints.
4x5 and 8 x 10 film -- which were the main formats for the first 100 years of photography -- prints out nicely on 8x10, 11x14, and 16x20 sizes.

These three, 8x10, 11x14, and 16x20 were THE sizes for most of photographic history. All darkroom, color or negative, paper is sold in these sizes (and on up). It still is.

But then Epson and inkjet printing came along and someone -- someone very, very silly and uninformed -- decided that all printing should be printed on the standard sizes of paper for prints and documents, 8.5x11, 11x17, 13x19, 17x22. Where, tell me, where, can you find a 17x22" frame?

This has led to a forced transition. All of your images will now need to be cropped funnily or paper will be wasted on blank space. All of your storage boxes, portfolios, binders, frames, mats, etc. are all the wrong size. It is infuriating.

I've had customer after customer asking for 8x10 or 11x14 size inkjet paper. There are two -- Epson makes a glossy 8x10 and a matte 11x14, and not even of their best available quality.

But, and this is why I am posting, I did have a first today. As always, the youngest generation of photographers doesn't give a damn. Paper sizes relating to your film? What's film? A younger college girl asked me for 11x17 sized darkroom paper and was then confused as to why it isn't made that way.

At least I can be glad this is only an issue to people 24 years of age and older -- everyone else doesn't care and as soon as my generation dies off no one will know the difference.

2009-04-12T23:23:00.000-05:00

Portuguese water dog.

guggenheim fellowship

2009-04-10T08:10:00.004-05:00

Backrooms_02

I discovered yesterday that possibly my favorite contemporary photographer, Brian Ulrich, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. The front page of Brian's website I think probably alludes to his opinion of this.

Kenosha, WI 2003

Brian has done a lot of documentary work looking at American consumerism. Appropriately, his most recent work, Stores That Are No More shows the now-evident consequences of our overconsumption.

Klingman's Furniture
Grand Rapids, Michigan
October, 2008

For those that don't know what this is, Guggenheim's FAQ says "the purpose of the Guggenheim Fellowship program is to help provide Fellows with blocks of time in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible."

To me, what's cool about this year's Guggenheims (complete list here) is that I know both Brian and another winner, James Nakagawa, one of my professors at IU.

Congrats to both!

Bloomington

2009-04-08T14:39:00.002-05:00

I've been out for a bit because Julie and I took a four day weekend to get down to Bloomington.

Spring has already hit down there, which makes Chicago feel even gloomier and more worthless.

I was just down there to dick around and try to shoot some, but Julie and my parents actually ran (and/or walked) the mini marathon on Saturday morning. Just to be silly, I took this shot with my view camera of Julie running by:

For an image looking directly into the sun of someone running I quite enjoy it, but the best part is that Julie is actually in mid-air without either foot on the ground:

Anyway, more images from Bloomington soon (like this one on etsy).

April Fools

2009-04-01T23:08:00.002-05:00

I'm so glad that PDNpulse has a post rounding up all of today's april fools shenigans so I can link to that instead of putting in any effort.

My favorite, though, of course is the new theme park from the Economist: "a public-entertainment facility that combines the magic of a theme park with the excitement of macroeconomics."

etsy

2009-04-01T08:02:00.003-05:00

I imagine that most of the readers of this blog already know this, but bear with me one moment for some shameless self-promotion.

A few weeks ago I set up an Etsy account for selling my own prints.

http://ztdavis.etsy.com

I wanted to wait to mention it here until I had at least a good handful of images up, and at sixteen I guess now is the time.

No sales as of yet -- I'm not sure if it is a matter of directing enough traffic there, if my images suck, or if my images just aren't the right aesthetic for etsy. I am trying to choose images that are fairly appealing in general -- pretty but nothing of any great original artistic merit.

I have had a fair number of requests -- from college friends, of course -- for pictures of Bloomington. I will be there this weekend and intend to take some I can post soon!

We shall see what happens.

Infographics

2009-03-26T21:31:00.004-05:00

So, rather than give you a meaningful post on the savings rate, economies of scale, or how I jazzed I am about the newest plan to save the banks -- rather than talk about any new photo projects I'm working on or any interesting news in the art world -- rather than all of that I'll just link to this wonderful video, that I saw via Amy Stein's blog.

Little Red Riding Hood shown through infographics:

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Apparently it was made by Tomas Nilsson, a graphic design student from Linköping University, and is based on this thing.

Yeah, I'll just post this instead.

2009-03-25T10:22:00.002-05:00

Via Jonathon Gitelson's blog, I present you with Chicken Fried Bacon:

I'm just going to add this to my list of things I need to try:
Candied Bacon Ice Cream
Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcake
I can already sing the praises of the bacon waffle from the Original Pancake house near State and Bellevue down in Streeterville.

2009-03-20T20:28:00.004-05:00

I am hoping that everyone enjoy's this weeks cover of the Economist as much as I do.

You might have to squint to read it, but there is a billboard that says "WITH APOLOGIES TO Steinberg AND The New Yorker", in case anyone didn't get the reference.

2009-03-16T20:25:00.002-05:00

So, I'm trying to figure out what image to put on a business card. The card pretty much just says:
Zane Davis
Photographer
specializing in people and places
(and of course my contact info)

I am looking for an image of mine that meets the following criteria:
--pretty
--indicates skill of some kind
--doesn't pigeon hole me as a certain kind of photographer
--doesn't feel cliche

So, does anyone love or hate any of these images:

#1

#2

#3

Any advice for or against anything is welcome.

Useful Way to Waste Time

2009-03-15T12:06:00.003-05:00

So, this is what you get when you combine a mouse (in your house) and the inventor of wireless triggers for strobe lights: a better mousetrap.

Read the whole story of the set up and how he caught the mouse over at David Hobby's blog, Strobist.

20 Questions

2009-03-13T17:41:00.004-05:00

Planet Money had a recent post called "What is the Economy?"

One of the commenters had a little fun with a 20 questions type website that guesses at your answer and this is the (probably correct) result:

1. Is it hard? No.
2. Does it have a tail? No.
3. Can you smell it? No.
4. Can you buy it? No.
5. Is it located in the sky? No.
6. Does it have feelings? No.
7. Can it affect you (cause an effect to you)? Yes.
8. Do most people use this daily? Yes.
9. Is it white? No.
10. Can it help you find your way? No.
11. Is it soft? No.
12. Is it considered valuable? Sometimes.
13. Is it ferocious? Sometimes.
14. Is it annoying? Sometimes.
15. Is it spontaneous? Sometimes.
16. Is it a feeling? No.
17. Does it involve contact with other humans? Yes.
18. Does it make noise? No.
19. Is it pleasurable? Sometimes.
20. I am guessing that it is stupidity? Right, Wrong, Close

(via)

For the record, the computer did get it on the 29th question.

Bernie Madoff wins his prize

2009-03-12T19:56:00.004-05:00

If you want to feel better about Bernie Madoff swindling $65 billion away from trusting investors, take a look at where he's living now.

He'll be in that cell or another for the rest of his life.

Art Killed Our Culture?

2009-03-12T14:03:00.003-05:00

The blame game is starting to go around about this economic mess we're in. Was it the government's lack of regulation, banker's greed and lack of ethics, or homeowners that took out loans they knew they couldn't pay?

Jonathon Jones, a blogger/columnist for the Guardian, thinks he knows.

Pop art and Andy Warhol!

And, well, the dude does have a point. We are (or were until five months ago) steeped in an excessively consuming culture. At the root of our current mess seems to be an utter belief on the part of the majority of Americans that debt is irrelevant and that spending money is awesome. Somehow a lack of thrift has become ingrained into our culture.

I say all this as an avid capitalist and a proponent of materialist consumerism -- within reasonable limits. American consumerism sustained economies around the globe, Taiwan being a prime example, that never would have flourished otherwise. The key word here being "sustained" -- our shortsighted spending has since crushed many of the same economies. So when I defend, know that I am a proponent of consumerism, of pointless material goods, inasmuch as they are consumed while saving responsibly and not taking on $13,000,000,000,000 of debt like we have.

I'm trying to say that consumerism itself isn't the problem -- the problem is that we let our worship of it eclipse all of the lessons of fiscal responsibility that we've learned from our past. We pushed too far, and now the pendulum of our economy is swinging catastrophically in the wrong direction, right past the tepid but safe middle ground that we should have -- and could have been on from the beginning.

Update:
I thought it prudent to mention (as, you know, a kind of shout out) that I got this link originally from Ed Winkleman's blog.

Jorg Colberg, over at his blog, Conscientious, takes great exception to this idea that contemporary art was somehow integral to our current consumerism. Since he's smarter than I am, you may want to check out his thoughts.

Colberg quotes from another piece for the Guardian (this one by a Michael Archer):

"This process of congealing also produces the dangerous idea of a "culture" that we need to protect against all newcomers. It is a pernicious idea precisely because once you believe in it, you find yourself forced to match all contemporary activity against it. For sure, not all contemporary art is good, but to proceed in this way is to deny the intelligence, thoughtfulness, doubt, practical competence, intuition, sensitivity and humour of anyone with the temerity to make art now. And all because poor Damien Hirst cannot be all things to all people."

(for reference, this guy is Damien Hirst.

2009-03-11T19:29:00.003-05:00

I've been reading The Baseline Scenario, which is mostly run by a former IMF economist that gave some choice quotes in the Bad Bank This American Life episode I recently mentioned ("If America were any other country they would have nationalized the banks by now"). He blogs mostly about the wonderful mess were currently in, but from a I'm-British-so-I-can-see-the-bigger-picture-about-America perspective.

Anyway, the most recent post linked to a nice little 43-page (thanks to a lot of graphs) chapter for a new textbook about the current economic crisis that Charles Jones a Stanford macroeconomics professor, just published a draft of.

You can find it here.

The draft has all the best, fun graphs that demonstrate how much we screwed ourselves: housing prices (the lowest in a decade!), the intra-bank borrowing rate (higher than ever!), the S&P 500 (worst value since 1994!), unemployment (highest since before I was born!).

It is certainly dry reading, and Baseline Scenario's description of it being "for beginners" assumes, I think, that we've all taken at least two college level economics classes. But, even if you just skim through it to look at the images, you'll get the picture: things haven't been this bad in years.

This business that we're in...

2009-03-11T12:20:00.004-05:00

Sometimes I just have to step back and laugh at how complicated this world we live in can get.

So, right now:

And end user at a college in town is waiting to hear how long it will take for them to get a light bulb they ordered. They passed that on to their school's buyer, who passed it on to me, I inquired with our distributor, who is now checking with the manufacturer.

I like to imagine that, just for the sake of hilarity, the chain continues and the manufacturer is waiting for their glass supplier, who just made a phone call to someone collecting the raw materials and asking when they're going to get their next shipment of sand in that they can melt down. Or maybe we're waiting for some tungsten?

When the system works well, it really works. Our store gets shipments in for product that comes from everywhere from Switzerland to Japan to nearby suburbs on a regular basis. But when the system doesn't work, oh, such fun we can have.

Blogs I Recommend

2009-03-11T00:40:00.002-05:00

The one inevitability about reading a lot of blogs is that you discover even more blogs. Like sharing sorrow, I figured I would try to share my lack of free time by suggesting a new blog once a week. So, for part one...

"A progressive blog dedicated to visual politics, the analysis of news images and the support of 'concerned' photojournalism."

This blog is an incredible resource for staying on top of what images are driving popular opinion and, more importantly, what the images say and why different photo editors have chosen them.

Joanne

2009-03-08T22:49:00.002-05:00

Tim is putting on a play towards the end of this month and to help him help his actors I am doing head shots for some of them. This is Joanne, who will be playing Ahab (!) in Moby Dick Rehearsed.

I'm not charging anything, for better or for worse, but stuff like this makes for great, great practice at doing portraits -- something I hope to do a lot more of in the future. And any good images here will also be good images in a portfolio some day.

Also, technically, if it is a working gig I would have to pay for half of my rental -- I can't afford to pay for anything more than free rentals.

subjectify

2009-03-08T12:02:00.003-05:00

self-portrait (with the help of Julie)

So I've gotten to the point where, on a technical level, I am just fine and peachy taking most kinds of photographs. I'm not the best or the most efficient or anything, but I can usually achieve my goals.

Now, though, I am looking to get more and more into portraiture and am needing to acquire a whole new skill set of interacting with and posing people as subjects.

Any one have any advice on how to pose people? Or how best to instruct people to pose? It probably isn't made any easier, either, by the fact that I am trying to do portraits of friends, family, and complete strangers on the street...not professional models that are experienced with this themselves.

Don't get me wrong...

2009-03-06T00:01:00.003-06:00

The situation we are in today fucking sucks. It. Fucking. Sucks.

As much as it might partly be "our", the consumers, fault, it is nowhere near solely our fault.

And the Daily Show captures this sentiment perfectly:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Savings Rate

2009-03-05T22:11:00.006-06:00

The Hole We've Dug

Q: What happens if we all spend years assuming that nothing can ever go wrong with our investments and budget decisions?

A: Our current economic situation.

What I am slowly beginning to realize is that everyone -- you, me, everyone -- based their budget decisions around the idea that what is happening today can only get better, not worse.

If your house will only become more valuable, why not take out a second mortgage? If your job situation can only get better, why worry about your credit card debt? If your bachelor's degree will get you such a great job, why worry about your student loans? Right? Why save money -- boring old cash -- when the things you can purchase today will act as assets from which to draw more wealth down the line?

And so we didn't save money; we spent money. We took out even more loans to spend more money more quickly, assured that we would be so affluent soon that the debt we incurred wouldn't matter anyway...

And when we all reached that limit, where we had spent more than we could pay back, the economy died. None of us could pay back our debts, mortgages, and credit cards. This only exacerbated the situation and made us even less likely to pay the money we owed.

The graph above is the savings rate. It asks us, "for every dollar you made as income, how much money did you put into the bank at the end of the day?"

You'll notice that on a few occasions the resounding answer from the average American was: nothing! Nothing at all! We spent every cent we earned.

The economy won't be fixed until we manage to payback some of what we already owe, and that will be a slow process. Last time this happened (the great depression) we were rescued by WWII: it gave us all jobs, and demanded that we save money since there were no cars or expensive items to be purchased. What will save us this time?

If you want to feel depressed about how stupid we are, I invite you to read some articles from 2005 about how we then had a 0% savings rate:

U.S. savings rate hits lowest level since 1933
Consumers depleting savings to buy cars, other big-ticket items

"With employment growth strong now, analysts said that different factors are at play. Americans feel they can spend more, given that the value of their homes, the biggest asset for most families, has been rising sharply in recent years.

But analysts cautioned that this behavior was risky at a time when 78 million Americans are on the verge of retirement."

The zero-savings problem
Some savings measures show households are flush, but consumers are spending every dime they make

"The low savings rate has kept consumers spending, which in turn has kept the economy growing.

'We've backed ourselves into a very dangerous situation,' said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. 'The economy is dependent on everyone consuming like crazy...' "

Some dollhouse or other

2009-03-05T21:21:00.001-06:00

A quick update to my NPR post:

Congress and our Treasury Secretary both agree that last week's This American Life episode on Bad Banks was useful.

day in and day out

2009-03-04T23:03:00.007-06:00

This by the way, is what our lives have become: Julie and I eat, sleep, work, and in the downtime our lives are little more than watching TV (exclusively Battlestar Galactica, LOST, and oscar nominees) while Julie knits and I read my many, many blogs.

Speaking of blogs, I read over fifty photo blogs (68 blogs total, once you add up the other odds and ends), all of which I have finally figured out how to add to the side of this blog. I wish I could do this shit for a living, that'd be awesome.

So look over there --> and you'll see why I am so busy.

Julie is knitting a sweater, which is keeping her even busier.

Another Frightening Show About the Economy

2009-03-04T22:55:00.002-06:00

There are a lot of great resources for learning about this exciting economy of ours, but might I recommend This American Life's excellent attempts explain what the hell is actually going on.

Over the past year they have had three episodes, all of which you can stream or buy from their website:

355: The Giant Pool of Money, 05/09/09.
It was the housing crisis that started our current debacle, but how did every American household get such an artificially high price, and how did so many people get loans they would never be able to repay?

365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy, 10/03/09.
The economy died when Lehman Brothers died on September 16th of last year, and the government's decision to allow it to fail might be the biggest mistake in handling this whole crisis. This episode explains what happened and why.

375: Bad Bank, 02/27/09.
The most depressing episode of the bunch, it basically points out that every major bank in America is insolvent and -- if we were any other country in the world -- would have been nationalized by now. Who is to blame, anyway?

These episodes have been so popular that the two guys that put them together, Alex Blumberg of TAL and Adam Davidson of NPR news, went on to start their own blog and podcast, Planet Money.

I'll go into this more in a post soon, but here's a (scary) quote from a conversation between Alex Blumberg and David Beim, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University:

Alex Blumberg: "We're looking at a graph and it is basically a measure of how much [...] we all owe on our mortgages and credit cards and auto loans compared to the economy as a whole -- the GDP [...] This ratio, household debt to GDP, bounces along between thirty to fifty percent most of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s; it breaks through 50% in the 80s and then..."

David Beim: "From 2000 to 2008 it just goes -- just like a hockey stick -- it goes dramatically upward. It hits 100% of GDP. That is to say, currently, consumers owe 13 trillion dollars when the GDP is 13 trillion dollars[...]"

Alex Blumberg: "And [...] has there ever been a time in history when we have owed that much before?"

David Beim: "I'm glad you asked me that. [...] This is a map of twin peaks; one in 1929 and one in 2007."

Alex Blumberg: "Does this chart scare you?"

David Beim: "Yes. That chart is the most striking piece of evidence that I have that what is happening to us is something that goes way beyond toxic assets in banks; something that has little to do with mechanics of mortgage securitization or ethics on wall street or anything else. It says the problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us. We have over borrowed. We have been living very high on the hog. Our standard of living has been rising dramatically in the last twenty five years and we have been borrowing much of the money we needed to make that prosperity happen."

NPR has a longer story on this if you find David's view interesting (and, by the way, you should).

The aforementioned chart:

Household Debt vs. GDP via Planet Money.

Elasticity of Demand

2009-02-27T15:01:00.001-06:00

Cats are a necessary good; no matter what their price demand remains high (especially our cat, Pynchon).

It isn't my intent to turn this blog into economics 101, but I did want to take a second to talk about luxuries, necessities, and the elasticity of demand. As tempted as I am, I'll try to not use any supply/demand graphs.

I am writing this because I feel it will explain lot of how I feel about Ritz Camera and why I feel the situation is so dire for photo retailers in general.

Elasticity of demand roughly translates into "how much will a change in price for a good impact the market's demand for that good?"

If ipods double in price over night, a substantial share of prospective buyers would shy away and wait for prices to drop. Who has to have a new ipod, anyway? It's a luxury.

Your heart medication could double and, as much as it would suck, you still need it. You'd die without it. That makes it a necessity.

Although you aren't seeing the prices of goods bounce around wildly, our interest in various products fluctuate wildly relative to the amount of "spending money" we feel we have.(Economists call this the marginal propensity to save, but don't worry about that).

Last year I didn't have any more or less money than I do this year (you can trust me on that), but I didn't feel a desperate need to save every dime while I sat around fearing for the worse.

This year I am begrudgingly spending money on the things I have to: rent, groceries, etc. My wife and I have budgeted a small chunk of money each month for entertainment, just to stay sane (and to buy film!), but we are spending far less than we were.

~~~~~

And that is why Ritz is dying: photography is a luxury market for the vast majority of their customers (and so are boats, which is why they were silly to own two businesses that would suffer from even a small recession).

My store, and other stores in the Chicago area that cater to professionals, are living off the fumes of professional photographers and schools. I have probably made more money for my store this year off of seamless background paper than I have off of point and shoot cameras.

Because we're down to the customers -- the only customers -- that actually need their equipment. We are the working pro's heart medication and the typical consumer's ipod.

I don't think Ritz will make it. I don't think enough people will feel they have the luxury of buying camera equipment soon enough for Ritz to work their way out of debt. And with Ritz will probably go a few manufacturers (Olympus? Pentax/Hoya?), a few other retailers, and any companies that weren't well positioned before this all started.

I am thrilled and amazed to still have a job. I am working for a company that sells what most of the world views as luxury goods during the worst economy in my lifetime. I have every confidence that we'll weather through this because of our clientele and how we're positioned, but I know how bad it could be.

The Bankruptcy of Ritz Camera

2009-02-25T15:02:00.006-06:00

Ritz is -- still, for the time being -- the largest camera retailer in the country. With 800 stores in 40 states, they are probably one of the most universally recognizable names in the business. As I posted on Monday, they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. You can read more about it here, at Business Week, but let me quote from that article briefly:

"Despite Ritz Camera's continued success in selling cameras and photographic equipment, the loss of revenues and profit margins from the diminution of the photofinishing business proved too much of a burden, coupled with the losses experienced by the Boater's World business in 2008, for Ritz Camera to remain a profitable company under its current structure," Marc Weinsweig of the financial advisory firm FTI Consulting Inc. wrote in a court affidavit."

Photofinishing (making prints/developing film) is an incredibly high margin service that let Ritz not worry about selling low margin cameras. It is/was such an integral part of most camera stores that I was shocked when I discovered my current employer did not -- and had never -- used photofinishing as a source of revenue. Obviously, with digital photography, people rarely choose to make prints. Eamon Hickey, writing as a guest on The Online Photographer, says more about Ritz's problems with photofinishing here.

As a brief aside: boating? Ritz decided to diversify their business into another luxury product market? Really?

Just like we are seeing with newspapers and in many other industries, Ritz had been skating on thin ice because of their inability to adapt to the digital era. The economic downturn thawed the rest of the ice and Ritz has been drowing in 2008 and 2009.

Another quote from the Business Week Article:

"In its initial filings, the company is seeking interim court approval of a credit facility of up to $85 million with existing lenders. According to Weinsweig's affidavit, the company would be unable to meet payroll and other expenses without the interim financing approval and would be forced to shut down."

I hope, for the industry and for the thousands of Ritz employees that could find themselves in a nasty job market, that Ritz does not go under. But $85 million to make payroll and other expenses in the short term does not look like they are in a promising situation.

Ritz has been stringing along for 15 years, apparently, and using more and more money to do so as profits have continued to fall beneath expectations every year. Ritz may become a prime example of "creative destruction", a term Alan Greespan uses in his memoir to describe the continual evolution and survival-of-the-fittest-consequences of American capitalism: change or die.

Ritz has been using an old business model and this shitty economy has forced their hand. They will either have to change a lot, quickly, or get out of the way for a new company with a new model. We shall see.

today

2009-02-23T20:06:00.002-06:00

Today I learned:

Ritz Camera is bankrupt: The US's largest photo retailer is going to try to restructure but may have to liquidate.

This is Chicago's coldest winter since they started keeping records 137 years ago.

In Mobile, Alabama, They've been celebrating Mardi Gras since 1703 and throwing moon pies at each other for twenty-five years.

The first widely felt effect of the bailout will be more money in our paychecks.

~~~~~

I didn't learn this today, but I thought yesterday's oscars were probably the best I've seen. The slightly modified format felt more inclusive and more like a big party. I enjoyed both what won and the speeches of the actual winners winning.

2009-02-21T16:58:00.002-06:00

I am stealing this blatantly, from Conscientious who stole it from here, who stole it from Mike Rosulek, the guy who made it and posted it here.

Darwin is 200 this year, and Origin of the Species is 150. Apparently even the pope decided that Darwinism was OK and good to go.

hotlinking and copyrights

2009-02-12T11:30:00.005-06:00

Hotlinking is one of those fun, weird, blog jargon terms. I'm hotlinking right now (see above)! Isn't it great?

Hotlinking is, plain and simple, using someone else's bandwidth without their permission. The img tag is stupid, it doesn't care where the image is coming from so you can pull a photo from anywhere. So if I display an image being hosted on someone else's server, everytime you load my blog you'll use up a bit of their bandwidth. That's just what happens.

There's a clear and simple solution to that problem: save their image and host it on your own server. That's what I've done for every image I've posted so far (except the above), and that's what I intend to always do.

But posting someone else's image is also a copyright issue. You can post any image, any time, as long as you're critiquing (or, say, praising) the image or artist. My first two posts were both fair use, although I always feel better if I get the photographers permission (which I did, but obviously never did for the Fairey/Garcia/AP debacle. So I covered the hotlink issue by hosting the images and the copyright image by getting permission.

But many, many blogs out there use images as decoration or as a reference, which aren't covered by fair use. The blog Art Fag City discovered this when they received a cease and desist order (NSFW image there) from the estate of Helmut Newton (again, NSFW). Art Fag City's original post was about Naomi Campbell and used a Helmont Newton image of Campbell as the lead in for the post.

While initially claiming fair use (and with the support of others, saying things like "Kowtowing to wrongfull copyright infringement claims is a dangerous precident I’m not willing to set," they did in the end take down the image from the original post. Why? Because the image was decoration for a post about Naomi Campbell, not a critique or discussion about Helmut Newton's work. The poster violated the copyright, plain and simple in my book. Is it worthwhile to sue every blog that does that, though? Probably not.

I bring this all up because Edward Winklman, who has a very, very good blog about art and politics, recently switched to one extreme in this debate. He writes, in a recent post, "In some instances, in which the image was simply a decoration, I'm deleting them altogether. In others, where the image is important to understand the text, I've replaced the hot link image with a simple link out to its original source. In other places, you'll still see images that I'm hosting here on the blog and have express permission to use."

Seems polite, maybe, but I think a bit much. The internet is such an incredible opportunity to share photographs that we should err towards displaying more, not fewer. Maybe copyright law needs to bend a bit for blogging and not blogging for copyrights.

Shepard Fairey v. Everyone?

2009-02-12T11:14:00.003-06:00

Just as a quick update to what several blogs are now referring to as a "Frankenstory" (it just won't die!), about that Obama poster...

So Shepard Fairey has a long history of toeing the line between fair use and infringement, perhaps even plagiarism (some definitely think so). Popular opinion, blog-wise at least, seems to be a little less favourable than it was a month ago.

Anyway, the AP sued Fairey for infringement. Then Fairey sued the AP for a court to declare his use legal. And now, maybe, Fairey and Mannie Garcia, the original photographer, might be teaming up together to sue the AP. Or, rather, they might seperately be suing the AP. Or something.

The oddest situation is Mannie Garcia, the original photographer, and whether or not he was working for the AP. This seems to be the basic summary:

1. There is an event the AP wants photos of.
2. Their normal photographer can't do it.
3. They hire Mannie Garcia to do it freelance.
4. He signs a contract with AP for the assignment for freelance writing.
5. He takes the disputed image.
6. AP claims they own the image and are owed money from the revenue Fairey has generated.
7. Garcia says not so much...you own the copyright for any words I gave you but not any images.

And that's where we are right now. It's just weird.

2009-02-02T20:31:00.002-06:00

In my own images there are two themes that seem to be emerging in the photographs that I "like most" and can see my own eye in: very slightly geometric compositions and windows. You might argue cats, but that isn't thus far what I have been intentionally going for.

I like quiet geometries from a head on angle thanks to my 4x5: they just look lovely in the ground glass and help me simplify compositions as I am shooting them.

Windows imply a separation of spaces, and as dynamic as that sounds I really have yet to explore it as a theme I think...I'm still working on finding times of day and exposures where inside and outside can meet. This image is one of my personal favorites.

We were in Atlanta this weekend visiting my wife's brother and our new sister-in-law. While I didn't have my 4x5, I found many more compositions there than I feel like I see out of the windows here in Chicago. Hills: hills are a key element I can't find in Chicago. (The above image was taken in a Holiday Inn in Pennsylvania). Hills provide views with layers stretching into the distance; views that look out straight ahead into massive obstructions; views onto other hills with their own curving lines.

It seems like there are more possibilities that I can't easily find here in Chicago. Chicago does have, as Michael Wolf proves with his work Transparent City plenty of views into other views, however. As much as I love those images (and have even inadvertently imitated them), that isn't the cup of tea I'm looking for.

That said, I'm not moving to Atlanta and I don't have enough time to drive every weekend to hillier areas. I suppose my next goal, then, is to get the balls to start asking strangers if I can shoot pictures looking out their window.

(Speaking of cats, though, I have been thinking about pet photography; through work I met Karen Morgan -- she goes by Morgan -- and I love her work with animals.)

2009-01-30T11:10:00.002-06:00

2009-01-26T20:33:00.005-06:00

The Nikon D3x has been catching a lot of flack for its price of $8,000. Even the Hitler/downfall/screaming meme has a video about it:

But it's okay, because Hitler only shoots JPG.

The Nikon D1x and D2x, as well as Canon's new 1Ds Mark III and their older 1Ds Mark II and 1Ds have all had an initial list price of approximately $8,000. It is the price point for this kind of camera, and will probably be the price point for this kind of camera in the future. That this price surprised anyone surprises me. Sure, it is expensive, but this is a camera that will distinguish professionals from amateurs. This is a camera that you mention in your marketing material because it can help set you apart from the rest of the pack.

For those of you not following along at home, the D3x is Nikon's 24.5 megapixel flagship camera. It is their absolute top-of-the-line, pro-level, rugged, best camera. Pixel peepers out there know that, along with the -- far inferior -- Sony A900, it is tied for highest megapixel count in a DSLR (highest of anything goes to the 60 MP P65+ back). Two CF card slots, 5 fps, 100% viewfinder coverage, live view with 27x zoom, etc.

Well, I took one home this weekend along with Nikon's new 14-24mm f/2.8 lens for some fiddling around. As always, our cat, Pynchon, was more than happy to pose for me as long as it didn't interrupt his daily routine of napping in front of the window.

Unprocessed 14 bit RAW files come in at 48.5 MB, so roughly 500 images over three days amounted to 20.5 GB of files -- so the first thing you should know about this camera is that you will need a system that can handle and process big files. I'm using a Drobo, and as much as I love my no-worries backups loading previews from these files is tests my patience. Even with absolutely no uprezzing, though, these files will give you a 13" x 20" at 300 dpi. You should be able to print massive images with no loss in quality.

Here's a 100% crop:

As far as image quality goes, though, I think the D3x starts shining compared to the competition when you start discussing "RAW headroom", which is a fancy way of saying how much usable data is there in the file. DP Review's blog has a very excellent discussion of it here. Think of the difference between shooting color negative film vs. slide: latitude. With progressively larger sensor sizes you get more and more latitude, something ignored fairly often in most camera reviews. Michael Reichman has an egregiously naive example where he compares a Canon G10 to a Phase P45+ digital back -- which is like asking a cafeteria chef if they would rather use two forks or a heavy duty food processor to prepare a meal -- both might get the job done but which would you prefer?

Er, ahem. Sorry about that rant. What I meant to do was show you this, the original "unprocessed" image on the left and a cleaned up version on the right:

I don't mean to say the D3x is the exception and the only camera that can pull data out of seemingly blown highlights, but it has an obviously large and incredibly useful tonal range.

All this said, I and most of the people out there can't afford a D3x. I have no doubt that Nikon will eventually release a D700-like body with this sensor for closer to $3,000. The $8,000 price tag of the D3x is partly reflected in the camera's image quality, but I think is just as representative of the camera's performance level -- the body is practically indestructible and with in camera back ups you'll never have to worry about losing data to a corrupt card.

It is, plain and simple, the best out dSLR out there right now.

Progress

2009-01-23T22:28:00.008-06:00

Almost exactly a year ago, in the run up to the election Shepard Fairey made this famous image:

Well, the famous-er version has "HOPE" instead of "PROGRESS", but you get the picture. While no one claims Fairey's work violates any kind of copyright -- it certainly falls under fair use -- there has been much hub-bub and curiosity about the source image.

Several blogs, including PDN Pulse and The Year In Pictures, raised the question formally and asked people to submit possibilities. For his part, Shepard Fairey said he found the image via a google image search and didn't remember the source.

But lo! The internet hunted and found out that Jim Young, a Reuters photographer, had taken a very similar image. Mystery solved! With just a little bit of fiddling, flip the image, stretch it a little, imagine a tie and...

Well, OK, close enough, right? I mean we got to be happy and get a few good quotes from an excited Jim Young.

More internet sleuthing led to another image, which was an even better match. An exact match, even, with no fiddling required.

But no one knew who took the photograph -- not even tineye. For a few days at least:

Manny Garcia is apparently a freelance photographer out of DC that was working for the AP. Tom Graylish has a quick interview with Garcia, who says, "I've been on the campaign for twenty something months, so I would see the artwork, I would photograph it, and think what is with this image? But it didn't snap. It never occurred to me it was my picture." Everyone has posted about it since then. Here's a really good analysis that pretty much proves this has to be the image. Hopefully this time it is mystery solved...for good!

Most importantly, though, someone has made a script so you can make your own and called it Obamiconme!

Elated

2009-01-22T22:30:00.003-06:00

Oh, and I unfortunately don't have the photo credit for this, but this pretty much sums up how I feel inside every time I see a picture of Obama doing something presidential (sitting in the oval office, signing stuff, etc.):

Ah, that's right. Pure joy.

Inauguration

2009-01-22T21:14:00.006-06:00

Out of all the images to come out of the inauguration -- I suggest checking out The Big Picture's selection -- this is probably going to be (if not already) the most famous.

This picture has it all: the moment, the scene, the composition and -- most importantly -- it is incredibly unique. You'll see what I mean if you watch this video about preparing for the inauguration: every other photog had a long lens right next to a bunch of other photogs with long lenses.

Apparently the hardest part about taking the image was getting permission to set up right there. Chuck Kennedy used a 5D Mark II with a 16-35mm f/2.8 lens wrapped in a pelican case (to make it silent). It was triggered and transmitted the image wirelessly via Canon's WFT-E4A, a nice piece of tech that had the images online in minutes. You can read more about how it was done here and here.

In terms of planning and the technology used, it reminds me of Heinz Kleutmeier's amazing image of Michael Phelp's narrow victory at this summer's Olympics (discussed wonderfully at The Year In Pictures).

Customers

2009-01-22T12:40:00.006-06:00

I apologize for all my posts being Debbie-downers thus far, but it isn't a terribly cheerful time to be working retail. I promised myself that I would post a picture with every post, but I can't think of a good one so here's a random one:

There are roughly four kinds of customers that walk into a photography store:
1. Professionals
2. Students
3. Hobbyists
4. "Consumers"

Consumers is just an easy way to say people that use cameras to take snapshots -- which is fine and a good chunk of business -- these are just people that have no grand ambitions towards drawing any income from their photography.

Hobbyists probably don't plan on ever doing just photography, but selling a few images at a café sure would be a nice way to justify getting that new lens, wouldn't it? I would bet the majority of flickr users and people on the places like the dpreview forums are hobbyists. User-friendly cameras like the Nikon D40 and Canon Rebels have made this market explode.

We are all students, all the time, when it comes to photography. But when I say students here I am talking about kids taking classes, coming in with a syllabus from their professor or teacher. What I love about students, especially here in Chicago, is how wildly varying their goals are. They all want to end up professionals, but most disagree about what that means.

Professionals, to me and in this blog, are the people that make a living as a photographer. Assistants at a catalog house, artists exhibiting in Pilsen, an architectural photographer that owns his own company, or even the darkroom coordinator of a local college are all photo professionals.

I truly think that in the current economy you have to draw business from each of these four categories. And you have have have have to deliver consistent service to all of them. Each consumer may spend just 5% of what the typical pro spends, but I promise you that you will probably be helping twenty consumers for every one pro that walks in your door.

Furthermore, with a diverse customer base it is less likely for demand to drop from every group all at once. Right now retailers are seeing a drop in consumer sales across the board -- who wants a new camera when you are worried about your job? -- but for our store students, working professionals, and enthusiasts are keeping us busy. Pros still have to buy the everyday items for studios. Students (and colleges) still have to buy film, paper, and ink. And enthusiasts have been busy drooling over the new 5D Mark II.

You just have to keep them all happy and treat them all equally.

...and an end.

2009-01-20T22:38:00.000-06:00

As always, the Economist says it better than I:

"There is a growing belief, even among luminaries in the retailing industry, that the orgy of consumption fuelled by cheap credit, which has driven the retailing boom of the past decade or two, is at an end, and that a new age of frugality is dawning. This is not just because credit is no longer so readily available (and may never be so again). Consumers may actually be reappraising their lives, and realising that “shopping ‘til you drop” is imprudent, and perhaps even vulgar."

Brian Ulrich, also a fine Chicago photographer and teacher, says of his image here, "The picture is part of a new series called Dark Stores, Ghost Boxes and Dead Malls." He has long been looking at how America spends its moneys and the places we've created for doing just that.

As retailers get more and more desperate and as stores have fewer and fewer people in them, I imagine Brian will find many worthy subjects in the coming months.

Circuit City represents a very large and very visible failure for the free falling electronics industry. And, for better or for worse, they represent the overconsumption that is helping to kill our economy.

I am torn about this, because I really do think that it is materialism that contributes to a large chunk of growth in the economy. But how many things did Circuit City sell that anyone really needed? The computers and TVs and ipods and dinky cameras?

About five years in a row now the average American has spent $1.20 for every $1.00 that they have earned. We have duped ourselves into what our new president today called our "collective failure to make hard choices."

But it has been over a century since America has thrived on a primarily agrarian economy. Necessities like food, health care, and constructing houses are integral to us, but a fairly small corner of the overall economy. It is all the stupid, material goods that we buy at places like Circuit City that have allowed our economy to expand and continue to grow and thrive well beyond the point where we were managing to feed ourselves and live under roofs.

Our economy has swung way too far in the direction of easy credit and lax spending and we are crashing towards no credit and no spending. Too many people will lose jobs and too many business will go bankrupt, but eventually we'll have to swing back the other direction. Hopefully sooner than later.

A beginning...

2009-01-19T21:01:00.003-06:00

Jason Lazarus, a fine Chicago photographer and teacher, posted this image two days ago:

And it is as near a perfect summation of my feelings as I can imagine. This image is so spot on -- just think of the obvious symbols, much less the hidden ones -- Obama, hope, new arrivals, white gloves and a slow appraisal of a delicate situation. Please pardon the cliché, but I truly do believe that many of us are hanging our dreams on our hope and belief that Obama will be able to reverse the fears that are destroying the economy.

Which might be true. While the collapse of the economy can be blamed on dozens of factors: the mortgage crisis, the bankruptcy of Lehman brothers, greed, easy credit, the government's ad hoc response; how much of what is happening today is because of fear? How much money have you not spent recently because you were afraid you would need that money for some necessity, like rent or food?

On September 18th Ben Bernanke told congress that if they did not pass the bailout bill "we may not have an economy on Monday." It is incredibly simple-minded to blame this recession on emotions and feelings and fear, but it is mostly emotions and feelings and fear that will prolong it.

There is a quick and simple downward spiral that makes recessions worse than they need be:
1. We, as consumers, put money aside because we are uneasy about the economy
2. We spend less money, and in turn businesses have less revenue
3. Businesses are able to pay fewer of their employees (who are all consumers)
4. We, consumers, now in fact do have less money, businesses even less revenue, etc.

It is an incredibly hard cycle to break out of. What can restore our confidence? When will we feel secure enough to start spending money again? When will businesses look at their balance sheets and decide it is time to hire?

And that is why I look forward to tomorrow and Obama's inauguration. He has literally become our best hope for allaying our fears and curing our ills. His confidence can become our confidence.

And that is why I love this image, because right now I feel like we are stuck right in between yesterday and tomorrow, waiting for something to happen.