Summer Love

The problem, the joy of creating, is that it is, at least for me, like falling love. You date around a lot, well at least it seems that what the world does, and it's what I do with imagery for sure, then every once and a while, you meet that one. That one that sparks. That lights you up. You hope it lasts. You want to do nothing but consume it, drink in it, savor it, and be consumed by it. And there is always that fear that it won't last. That it's no deeper than what you first saw, and it's just more of the same, but you hope, pray if you pray, that it has some depth, some staying power.

I know this series won't last more than the summer. That's probably good. I know I have to consume it all now. I know there will be an end, for better or worse. I know I have to work it for the little time I have. I doubt it will survive the winter, usually projects don't survive an extended separation with me.

Hell, I get kept awake at night by this. I just want to make more and more. But I need to temper my time, my passion (tempering my passion has never been my greatest skill for sure) give it time to grow, get it right, not make a mess of it. Find a way to savor her right, treat her properly, the way this one, this particular one needs to be treated. They all have some needs in common, but they are all unique, and must be cared for differently, specially.

What a rambling mess it all is, this note.

My head is all jumbled and I love it.

Hourglass in the Stop-Time Chronicles

Let me start by saying, somewhere, maybe on the right in that little blurb about me, it says something about this blog being sporadically updated. Apparently the last month has been the blank portion of the sporadic. I've got a lot of good photos filed away, and few stories to go along with them. They should, should, start appearing. Anyhow....

This was a PR photo for one of my favorite performance groups, Chicago Tap Theatre, and their new production, Hourglass in the Stop-Time Chronicles a Superhero Tap Dance Opera.


Give me a day or so and I'll find some more images from the production to show. I've gotten through the first pass of all 20 gigabytes. Now I just need to narrow down the next 3 gigabytes.

Tree

Just a no purpose shot from a walk I took after heading up to Milwaukee for the afternoon to visit an uncle of mine who was in the hospital (emergency double bypass surgery, add another check mark for heart attack risk factors.) After seeing him for a while, and being quite happy that he's doing well and should fully recover, I stopped by Illinois Beach State Park.

Nice quite little beach front, with some woody areas also.

Otherwise, this has no real purpose other than making me happy. On the other hand, what real purpose does anything have other than making someone, somewhere, happy?

Admiration and Inspiration and (slight) Apprehension

I was busy when I was a senior in high school. I was photo editor for our school newspaper, I was a foreman (or some similar title) for the theater departments properties section/group, I worked out daily (I miss that), I had an active social life, an active romantic life, on and on. It was a pretty good experience.

On the other hand I did not direct a feature length movie and have it debut at the age of 19, see Kris Rey-Talley above. I did not write, direct, and edit a feature length movie by the age of 18, see Matt Mitchener below.

It is, for me, an awe inspiring site. I hate hearing about all the things the youth of today have wrong with them (today's youths have always been screw-ups, it's the nature of youth and the nature of "old people" to say this crap). I love documenting and watching the amazing things the youth of today do. And the phrase "youth of today" probably isn't a phrase I should use, I should find something better, something more fair, but I can't think of anything right now, so I'm going with it.

Watching the success of these two, plus many of their friends, is a truly gratifying site, and something I admire. It also worries me a bit, to be quite honest. Maybe it's just my nature, maybe it's something of the people I've known, but I worry about talented people burning themselves out. Doing so much, so early, that later on they won't have the energy to do more. In some ways it sounds silly, but I think it happens.

Is life a marathon or sprint, or a mix? Maybe that's over the top philosophical BS, not to mention the middle ground always ends up winning these debates, but it will provide me fodder for thought while I drive around tonight.

To be fair to these two though, they're both pretty smart and I'm sure they'll end up doing just fine for themselves and it's probably more a problem with the old man doing the writing here than it is with them. Sometimes in life though you just want to see the best for good people.

Anyhow, the cast and crew, to much well earned applause, mine included, debuted Love.Blood.Kryptonite. last Tuesday. For 40K dollars, and a largely high school crew and cast, it was an impressive feat. While, it was an impressive feat all around, more so because of age. (I should also mention that I did a story on the making of the movie about a year back, which was how I got to know them.)

It makes me want to go do more with my life. And at the end of the day, if you can inspire someone isn't that a pretty good day?

Okay....Me

Okay, I don't normally like photos of me. As with every artist, I have a wide variety of self-portraits, but those are for me. Some art is for the world, some is just for yourself.

In this case, I'm good with the world. It's really just about having fun.

Simple story, I went to get my hair done today. I used to be a long hair (down to my ass) and a hair cut lasted 30 seconds and I moved on. Now, I get my hair done. I tell my stylist what I want, which is either, "Make me look good" or "Make women want me," and let her go town.

This currently involves a whole host of things being done to my not of which I'm sure I understand. I understand one thing, when she's done my hair looks good. Today when she got done for fun and demonstration she put my hair up in Mohawk kind of thing. I left it in, I'm leaving it in, and I'm going to learn how to put it in. (Also to be fair, this image is from about 5 hours after she did the Mohawk much of that spent driving with the windows open at high speed.)

It's great. It's just a total break from reality. It's fun, it's different, it's probably inappropriate for work, but really, who cares?

Anyhow, Lexi rocks. And in a blatant plug, Beauty Skool Dropout, 773.661.0310. If this time follows past precedent, women will be running their hands through my hair for the next 2 months.

And as such, life is good.

Different Visions

At my "day job" we have an arrangement where the photographer shots, captions and then the designers adjust the images. The is fine and dandy, on occasion.

Usually when I shot I see through the whole process to and can envision the final image as I'm creating the image. So while I may be see this something in front of me, I can also see where I'm going to have to crop, adjust levels to get the appropriate contrast or adjust colors to get the white balance accurate to the scene.

The problem is that while I can see through this whole process the designers don't. They weren't there in the first place to see what's important and know the background of an image. Their skills are variable, their time limited and hence their adjustments aren't always what I'd like them to be. On top of that while they may adjust a few images a week, probably not more than 10, it takes hundreds to do it well, if you ask me.

That difference in experience is often the difference between seeing what's in front of you, straight out of the camera, and what's possible with some reasonably small, but important tweaking.

Many a year ago I did some work for a studio and some days I'd come in and just have to clean. 8 hours of cleaning, it was a real blast. It had to be done and I was getting paid. I would clean for hours, and the studio would still look horrible and dirty. Then at the end I'd sweep. As soon as I was done sweeping the studio looked great. Sometimes a photo would need to get rushed, I'd have to finish my cleaning before I was really done, so I'd just make sure to sweep real quick and get started on the new shoot. As long as I swept everything looked clean.

I learned a lot of good lessons at that job. One of them being that doing those last smaller steps are vital to making the larger job shine.

Shafts

This is largely just to post, you've been warned.

Went to a display of drawings this evening for possible concepts for the Bloomingdale Trail. The Bloomingdale Trail is an old elevated rail line running through Chicago that is going to get turned into a bike and pedestrian path. It'll be great when it happens. That's years away and I want it today. Oh well.

Got the usual shots, life was fine, was chomping on some excellent chocolates they had. Probably shouldn't have been, but the job has to have some perks.

Decided to stick around a bit to play with some shafts of light coming between some of the display panels. This was one of images from that. Probably won't get used, but whatever. Made me feel good. Not because it's a great photo, but because.

What else can you ask for out of a day?

Lost and Confused, or Break Time

Some days I'm not sure if the universe is trying to tell me something, or if it's just trying to screw with my head. I don't know.

It's really rather annoying, and maybe fun, but definitely more annoying.

I want a break from reality, from constant overwhelming quantities of work and personal confusion. (I always thought life would be clearer when I "grew-up." I don't think we ever grow up anymore. I don't think I'll ever feel like an adult.)

And the really funny thing, I know in a few days it will all change. And for no particular purpose, with no rhyme and certainly no reason, but it will change. It will be by some random, wonderful event, it always is.

Such is the joy and torment of life.

I feel deprieved

I feel I should start by pointing out that I have some experience with protests. Not just experience shooting them for the paper, but participating. When I was younger I regularly joined in protests against The Gulf War, or to be more accurate, The First Gulf War.

The marches I joined in were always a good bonding experience. I met a lot of nice people, and grew closer to many of my friends. They were overall a good time, no party, but fun and we expressed our political beliefs.

I think they were also ultimately ineffective, even beyond the whole war happening anyway part.

It makes is interesting to watch the immigration march each year. The political savvy of those organizing the march is impressive. Maybe I set the standard too low because of my experience; the line of moms with strollers, a line of flags from a variety of nations, a well behaved group of marchers and American flags everywhere, just everywhere, enough to make almost all the Forth of July parades I've seen look unpatriotic.

Maybe it's just me, but I love how savvy that is. After all, how can not want to give legal immigrant status to a group of people who love this country? This isn't a group of people proudly proclaiming their love of their country of birth, and I'm sure they do love that country, but this is a group of people showing their love of this country. The mass of American flags are simple, it's obvious, but it's effective. It is also, to me, very American to protest and play the PR game. It also makes it very difficult for me, and much of the media to create an image without an American flag.

It's all and all a very impressive display of thoughtfulness and political intelligence.

On to the part that really impresses me personally about the immigration marches though. When I marches, we marched, we chanted, we closed down streets, we annoyed the cops, all the 60's stereotypes. We did not sit down in the street though so we could go from seated to jumping in the air in a gigantic screaming wave. We did not stop the entire middle part of the march, let the front part walk ahead till there was a half a block of empty space so we could have a 50 yard dash. We didn't have any protest or march games. We just marched.

We marched angry at the direction the country was going and I just don't think groups of angry people can cause positive change as much as groups of happy people, especially when the happy people just want to be able to live here, happily. Did I mention the political savvy? Those who happen to see the march saw over a hundred thousand happy flag waving people.

Models are here

The online slide show for the Dominican Fashion Show "Framed" from 2007 is finally up here. Check it out.

Killing Time

Models curling their hair and killing time before the next part of the beautification process.
Karolina Cabaj reads while Ashley Rounds curls.

Goodbye to the Models

Mike Shallow (gotta love that name, just screams star potential) checking
out his garment "Formal Woodsman" in the mirror during the final fitting.

*Update - The online slide show is here.

The Dominican Fashion Show 06 piece got published. It's not what I would have liked, but it never is.

Over the couple of weeks of my time I spent on the piece I met a couple of really cool students, some nice models and saw some pretty hard work being done. The show consisted of over a 120 outfits on a multitude of models in multiple collections.

More interesting to me watching how many hours went into getting the whole show done. I'm sure there was a lot I didn't see, in fact I know there was, but even what I did get to see I didn't expect going in.

Hours for the final fitting, and last minute adjustments made to get the outfits to their final state and work with the particular models.

Hours more with the models wearing the outfits again so the professional panel could review and critique the outfits. I'm guessing the designers were around these outfits literally every day for the two weeks I was around and from what our story says for months before hand.

And then, and this I think is more shocking for a guy, the hours of hair and make-up before each show. There are many reasons I love being guy, one of these is certainly that should I want to do my hair up nice and fancy it adds an extra 30 seconds to my day, not 30 minutes.

Having said that, the show looked gorgeous. Beautiful outfits, beautiful women and decent lighting makes for an easy shot for me. I need more of these.

As stories go, this certainly wasn't the deepest one, it was after all all about looks. Though that can be kind of fun on occasion.

(middle image) Zorana Duran in "Blue Caribbean" by Rose Turner
(above) Sondra Ellingson curls her hair 2 hours before the show on Sunday.
The room was packed full of models getting hair and make-up done
and the women who were helping them out.

Fish

Max Zavell of the Kids All-American Fishing Team.

A New Edition

Meet Luke Bowker.
First son of two old friends of mine. Happily asleep in his mother's arm,
and she was getting some well earned sleep also, having given birth the day before.

Election Night in Chicago

Former Alderman Wallace with Alderman-elect Fioretti

Vote early, vote often. A great saying, made in Chicago because that's what used to happen. Even in my suburb of Forest Park the election judges, jokingly mind you, asked me if I wanted the ballot of a dead person along with my own. Classic Chicago humor.

So near the end of my very long day, I had been covering election related events since 7am, I was trying to take photos of a new alderman-elect. I showed up at his party as he was walking out the door, literally. I asked him, Bob Fioretti, where he was off to next, he told me "Wallace's" a retraunat on Madison and California. A bit out of our coverage area, but it's what I got to work with, so I work with it.

Turns out Wallace's is a real hoot. I love anyplace where people are genuinely happy and having fun. So I'm watching the band play, the Alderman-elect is having fun, being forced to sing and dance a little, but generally enjoying the moment. Eventually he gets pulled into watching the guitar player play the guitar with his tongue (and the song was even played pretty well still). How can you pass that up?

So I get a photo of Wallace, former Alderman Wallace actually, behind Fioretti watching the guitar player and the singer play the guitar with there tongues. Okay, pretty weird to start with. Now, go back to the office and find out that former Alderman Wallace, is actually disgraced former Alderman Wallace, something to do with corruption charges I think.

So now the picture is of two people playing guitar with their tongues, the Alderman-elect watching with the disgraced former Alderman behind him. That's Chicago.

Easter Socks

My grandfather on my mom's side on Easter Sunday. He's got the most kickin' socks.

Graffiti as fine art

Acid Etching, never heard of it before myself, but apparently it's fairly common. Actually I've seen it plenty of times before, just never knew it had a name, I just thought of it as crappy graffiti.

Acid etching is a method to put a gang mark onto a pane of glass, typically from what I saw on businesses. I could never tell what any of the 5 examples that I found actually said, I could just tell that those businesses were marked.

Christa, left the etching on her windows. It appeared about a month after she opened. She's left it there for a year and has never been marked again. It seems that as long as the business is marked it's left alone, which is good.

On the other hand the acid etching just never had enough content or shape to really look like anything or be visually interesting though. It was just there looking like vandalism. On the other hand old school graffiti. Spray paint on a solid surface, that can just look sweet.

If I owned a building I would probably find a good graffiti artist to decorate the outside of my building. Graffiti artists are can be great artists. I wish there was more of it around. And if the business is really that against spray paint graffiti they can just have it sand blasted off.

Maybe it's just me.

Making Myself Laugh

My impression of the world has always left me with the feeling that people think a joke is only worth while if the listener laughs. Personally, whatever you want to believe.

I know the jokes I like, and they're the same if you tell them or if I tell them. Those are the jokes that make me laugh.

So most of my jokes are focused on making me laugh, and if you laugh also, great. If you don't, bummer...for you.

This image was made during a judging of the pieces for the upcoming Dominican Fashion show. I had spent some time shooting in the judging room. The models would come in, walk to one end of the room, then back to the other, do a little twirl and then approach the judges that asked for a closer look.

It was interesting and somewhat depressing to watch. Beautiful young women, but yet almost no personality behind the walk. Admitadedly that's unfair, and probably inaccurate, but from where I was the ladies weren't much more than dolls with new clothes. Yet these "dolls", I know, are well educated and becoming more so every day and probably have sparkling personalities. It's just a bummer to me when that isn't shown more in any person.

I know it's just this situation, but I just always like it when a persons personality can shine through. Call me cheesy, it's fair at this point.

Anyhow, after watching them show outfits for a while I wanted to get a shot of the line at the door waiting to go in. While watching that I noticed one of the models kept looking back at the vending machines. It's a stereotype, and it's unfair also. I guess you can also call me a hypocrite.

I couldn't help but take the photo though. It brought a good laugh to me. Maybe it's just me, but again, that's enough for me.

Passion for passion

It's been a few years since I've covered the Passion March in Pilsen. Every year that I've covered it previously it's been a circus of photographers. It is still.

Besides every TV station in town sending a crew, you get every newspaper that can justify sending a photographer sending one, plus every college photojournalism class in 10 miles sending half of their photographers. This means you get about 30 photographers of all stripes.

I have no love for photo scrums. They're not fun. They involve photographers climbing over each like a pack over a downed buffalo. They generally make the media look bad, if you ask me. And you get a few people not following the rules, which I think makes the lot of us look bad.

That's what can really bother me. I don't mind when photographers climb over each other so much at political events. That's just the way it's supposed to be, but at spirtual events it just doesn't feel right. We all got jobs to do, but at some point you also just need to be respectful of others and the community.

At the Passion March the organizers ask the press to be out of the ring of the participants at a certain point. As is a habit of the press, they stayed till that point, and then beyond. I've got no problem pushing limits when necessary. I just don't feel this is a situation where that behavior is appropriate.

Ultimately members of the press must weigh the needs of their jobs, the needs of informing the community, but they also must weigh the needs of respecting those participating. This, to me, is especially true when people are practicing their faith. While for me, and the other photographers, this may be another assignment we have to do, for the people participating, this is a religious observation. At some point I just think there is a way to be respectful of people practicing their religious beliefs while also creating the necessary images.

As a further example, and on a humorous note, every Chicagoland photographer has a picture of the Passion March from the El tracks over 18th street. We all shot from there at one point or another. I was coming down from the tracks, and chit chatting with another photographer. As we reentered the mass of people following the march he got ready to start darting ahead. As he was leaving he said to me, "I'll see you at the hanging." Now it's normal enough to say something similar to that, but he could both find a better way to phrase, any other way to phrase it, and know what the proper terminology is. Hanging is just, wrong.

There are many fine members of the press, as with all professions, there are less skilled members, and we all have days where we just say the wrong thing. Still it deflates a person a little.

Passion

The Passion March, or Stations of the Cross in Pilsen, is a re-enactment of Jesus's final days. A lot of places around Chicago do a Stations of the Cross ceremony. The Pilsen community is the only one I've seen that has a man carrying what looks to be a very heavy cross over a mile.

This year there were probably 5000 people in attendance, and it got up to almost 30 degrees. It's always impressive to see people display, viscerally display their faith. It doesn't matter much to me what faith people have, but that they believe in something, anything, that gives them an inner strength is a good thing.

Maybe for the man carrying the cross 30 degrees was a good thing. On the other hand when they put him on the cross at the end, dressed appropriately for the period, meaning shirtless, I'm guessing thirty degrees wasn't so comfortable.

Fashion Fitting

Abby Zupancic checks how the dress she designed fits
model Darci DiBuono during the final fitting

These are a few of the starting images from a story on a fashion show at Dominican University.

The show is an annual affair. The usual fair, student designers and student models put on two shows on the weekend of April 14th and 15th. There might be an interesting twist, but we'll see if it develops. In the meantime I'll be focusing on the seniors, the process, and the finishing phases of getting the show together before photographing the show itself.

The original request was for photos of the show, but why do that when I can get a little more involved and get some more interesting photos?

These images were from the final fitting. The designers had to put their outfits on the models that are going to wear them during the show and have them approved by faculty in charge of the show. She was offering recommendations for small changes while I was there, but everyone seemed scared enough of the process that I'm sure there were some major changes being made as well.

Julie Binggeli fits a part of her senior collection made from recycled sporting goods.

This shoot also presented what may be the most difficult part of the process. In any story the first shoot is always a little tougher because everyone has to get comfortable with each other and learn what to expect from each other. In this case this had to be done in a room full of women who were often changing. I have to say, the models did a good job of ignoring me, and I did what I had to do, be professional, and ignore them and take pictures of the work. Hopefully this boads well.

Next time for shooting is hopefully the designers tired and working on finishing up the last of their outfits.

Doggy Dining

Megan Davey with her 8 week old pup Munch at Potbelly for lunch

Apparently in Chicago it is against health code to take your dog to dinner with you at an outdoor cafe. Chicago is a big dog town. Cat ownership just isn't zoned for the city anymore, all of Chicago is zoned for dogs. (Yeah, I'm a cat person.)

Of course in such a dog heavy city people will be allowed to legally take their dogs to dinner with them. At least for the outdoor patios. So a reporter and myself went to find some outdoor diners.

We got to our second restaurant when we met Megan and Munch. An 8 week old pup pretty much seals the deal photographically. Especially if he's named Munch and keeps chewing on her hand.

Good Music

Went to another another Pat McCurdy show.

Pat shows, or at least the two I've been to, are a good time.

A mix of song and humor. A small club environment. (I'm not a fan of large gatherings. They lack intimacy.)

Fans hanging out chit chating with each other. Fans chit chating with the the sound guy (Jim?) and Pat.

It was also a good chance to hang out with an old friend of mine, Adrienne. She usually has something going on, and who doesn't enjoy catching up on a friends dirt? Well, not really dirt, but it's more fun when you make it dirt with a little exaggeration and hyperbole.

On my way out for a fun night and...

Life seems to have a bad habit of having random bad things happen when I go out for an evening with the friends. Not bad things happening to me at least, but bad things happening to other people that I then must take photos of.

So I'm driving a few of my friends over to another friend's new apartment for a night of hanging out. We're almost there when we turn onto Lake St. only to have it blocked by fire trucks and cop cars.

At this point I know I'm going to be delayed for a little while. Drop my friends, and take the two block walk over to the scene of the accident.

In photojournalism classes they teach students to always have a camera with them. I use my carry around camera very little it seems, yet it comes in so handy. So I did what I could with my little P&S (Point & Shoot).

What amazed me about this is that the other car, a BMW four door, had the front drivers side knocked in a good foot or so, but was otherwise alright. What I would call major damage, but nothing that would make me think that the accident was all that bad. I apparently don't understand the dynamics of car impacts very well.

At least from what I could see there were no major injuries.

And the joke is....

Let me start by saying that I work long hours, some weeks, and have to be able to handle a whole variety of situations and reliably be able to get images out of any situation.

That said, today I spent an hour and half shooting at one park, then went and spent an hour and a half at another park, then went to dinner. All of these things were work, on a warm sunny high 70s day.

To hell with offices.

The other thing I always wonder about. Guys like this guy. In town for a conference on bio-engineering or something like that. Hard core science stuff. Looks like a hippie. Looks like the devil with his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Very nice. People like this are what make the world so good.

Are scientists just artists with the good sense not to go into the arts?