Built Scrap

January 29, 2005

I know what you're thinking— how can he shoot the film and be sawing wood in the film at the same time? Or maybe a few of you are more puzzled by the unsupported piece of sawed lumber that seems to be leaping off the right side of the image. Logic would dictate that the saw is in one hand and the elevating bit of cut-off is in my other: which is true. Further proof that logic is quite logical. This leaves the camera to be manned by someone else. I'm guessing my wife, as it was her tabletop photography booth that I was constructing out of this found lumber.

By this time in 2005 Ebay had already become a huge entity and there were countless expensive products on offer to help you take nicely exposed photographs for your auctions.* Most of them consisted of a reflective base that you set your sale item on that was lit from both sides by two clamp lights diffused by translucent fire-retardant cloth. Some even used a tent like construction of diffusion cloth that wrapped around the whole stand so as to not only soften the clamp lights, but block out much of the ambient light as well. Having more time than money, I decided to build one out of junk wood in the garage.

Like most things I build it worked, but was somewhat cumbersome as a result of not investing in the correct weights and widths of lumber. It was designed to collapse down relatively flat with a few quick turns of some wing nuts, but its flat dimension was still seven inches. I think it weighed thirty of forty pounds and we were perpetually misplacing the clothespins and cloth needed to filter the lights. My wife used it for about ten months. I think some form of it still takes up precious real estate in our studio.

*For the record, my wife needed to photograph her artwork and accessory line, not precious family heirlooms to sell on Ebay.

Search Me

January 28, 2005

A rabbit's foot? German nutcracker mustache? Bit o' McDuff? Ralph Lauren Fitch Edge faux finish paint brush stirring up January mud? I have no idea.

Reflected vs Incident Light

January 27, 2005

I will assume that the majority of you reading this are not trained photographers. This is not a judgement. I state it only so the next few minutes that I spend typing won't seem pointless.

Cameras are equipped with light meters so that consumers don't end up with horribly over, or under, exposed images. They are very convenient, and if the camera batteries are checked with some regularity, will deliver fairly reliable results so long as you are initiated into the mystery cult of reflected light.

That's right, there's something that your in-camera light meter isn't telling you. A dark secret, if you will, that will sabotage all your brilliant photographs of snow, white ceilings, and polar bears under bridal veils in blizzards. It is the secret of 18% gray.

You see, the light meter on your camera doesn't measure the actual amount of light falling on a subject, it measures the amount of light reflected off that subject. This reflected light enters your camera's light sensor(s) and based upon how much reflected light is registered the meter makes a guess about how much actual (or incident) light is hitting the subject. That's right, it guesses. 

Now some people might find that endearing. It's a nice bit of personification when you think about it— complex sensor(s) and processors do their best to make an educated guess on behalf of the human. . . But it is absolutely maddening if you want a photograph of a white subject to demonstrate a broad tonal range but still read as a white subject.* I know, because it would be some time before anyone helped me understand why all of my pictures of white subjects looked like I'd put a 20% gray filter between the lens and the subject.**

This issue of reflected light and the camera's best guess works great for many subjects because most images contain a fairly broad range of items that are all reflecting light to various degrees. When you average out all these different quantities of reflection you get an overall cast of 18% gray in the image. By assuming that, the camera, more often than not, takes a decently exposed image. However, if you are shooting anything that is predominantly dark (low amount of reflected light) or exceedingly bright (high amount of reflected light) the camera won't compensate and will continue to read as if the image had a balance of tones that averaged out to about 18% gray. Then it becomes the human's problem to compensate for the discrepancy by either allowing more light in to the lens than the meter says to, or allowing less light in (also against the meter's suggestion). In other words, the user has to make a judgement that contradicts what the technology states to do. 

While that seems easy, don't underestimate the power our products have over us now. Our modern culture has embraced the idea of the product being right for decades and I'd say that, generally, we are a long way from the days of inquisitive tinkering and experimentation.*** Even I tend to defer to the light meter when I know it's wrong. I'll take the image at the exposure it wants as insurance against my own arrogance in assuming it to be incorrect.

That's why I love the Photo Phazer. It has no controls of any kind other than ON, OFF, and SHOOT. Like most other cameras it has a set of sensors that find the "perfect" exposure. And like most other cameras, when left to its own devices, it turns the line between a white wall and the white ceiling into a brooding abstraction in neutral gray.

*Excessively dark, or predominantly black, subjects are equally difficult to capture. A good rule of thumb is to not try and photograph your black labrador standing against a black car at night.

**In all these examples I'm assuming that I'm photographing with black and white film, not color. Hence, when I refer to 20% gray it is because I think of black and white film as being a single spectrum, with white being at 0%, black being at 100%, and there being 99 steps of gray between the two. Nevertheless, all of the same issues regarding light meters apply to color film as well, but there are many more spectrums to consider; red, blue, etc.

***Even though it was just those tendencies that led to such technical marvels in the first place. I suppose that nowadays the cost of the equipment is the most prohibitive barrier to amateur inquiry.

Friction

January 26, 2005

It was a dark and stormy night. I sat in the car, feeling the engine vibrating against the loose engine mounts under the hood. The wipers swished away great rivulets of water. About five vertical feet of the oak tree's trunk was illuminated by the headlights, the rest of it hid in the oppressive black. Inside the house there was broiled chicken. Inside the car there was only fear.

Pace

January 25, 2005

While it comes early on in the project I think we've reached my favorite image from the daily practice. My admiration is not born out of adoration for my stylish footwear or the memory of long walks around the scrubby oak hillsides above Glendale. With this image, indeed with the minute long movie from which this still derives, it is about the tiny appearance and disappearance of life in an otherwise empty plane of concrete. Success here is a matter of conceptual affinity and compositional balance. It is an urban sonnet. It is an insular moment. It is the hope for something beyond the gray.

The Suffering Cycle

January 24, 2005

Apparently I went to the pet store on January 24, 2005. I undoubtedly went there to purchase some litter for sweet Pneu. Well, that was one reason I went there— the other reason was to have my heart-strings yanked at by the world's saddest chinchilla. 

This chinchilla had eyes made vacant by months of incomprehensible fear. 

I wanted to save that chinchilla so badly. The thought of it under those florescent lights for week after week actually kept me up some nights. But to buy it would have been to put another one in its place, and thereby become implicit in the cycle of suffering.

Upchuck

January 23, 2005

I wanted to share a real slice of Americana with some friends from France. Where would I take them? What was a defining cultural experience in the heart of LA county? I tried to ignore my inclinations toward irony— how about the tar pits, or that stretch of Long Beach that you couldn't swim in do to an elevated bacterial count, or the Costco in Azusa— but I couldn't help myself. I took them to Chuck E. Cheese.

Apart from the blaring games, screaming children, garish colors, petrie dish carpeting, animatronic abominations, and the sickly smell of burnt cheese I think they found it intriguing. They just kept thanking me in a most emphatic way and I, being somewhat humbled by all this gratitude, assured them that there were many other cool places I could show them. After all, "I grew up among this." This was home.

* * * * *

Inside the Chuck E. Cheese was a new-fangled photo booth that made "drawn portraits" in the style of the old masters Leonardo, Michelangelo, or Rembrandt. I could hardly contain my excitement and immediately insisted that my wife and I have our portrait done. You see, I have a history with this sort of portrait booth that can be traced back to my final year of art school when one such booth played an important role in my thesis.

Here is an excerpt that will explain:

Prior to my thesis year I’d heard rumors of a photo booth that produced a finished drawing of the subject rather than the traditional strip of small glossy photographs. . . My excitement to see this marvel was severely curbed however. . . when I came to realize that the Portrait Studio was little more than a booth that took your photograph, ran it through a filter or two in Photoshop, and signed the resulting inkjet print on bond paper with the name Rembrandt, Leonardo, or Michelangelo (depending of what artistic medium you wished to have your visage rendered in), I was both disappointed and amused enough to initiate a project entitled Self Portraits of the Masters.

Self Portraits of the Masters consists of three framed portraits created by the booth introduced by a computer-printed reproduction of the sign that advertises the booth on its exterior. This poster-like display invites mall denizens to “Step Inside my Studio” and receive “Your Portrait by a Famous Artist in Minutes,” as well as giving a heavily abbreviated list of steps that are required to obtain this masterpiece. Once inside the booth you realize that masterworks don’t come cheap, because a black and white “drawing” costs $3.00 and an original “oil painting or color pastel” work runs $5.00. Leonardo da Vinci works only in pencil, Michelangelo draws with color pastel, and Rembrandt is a virtuoso of both charcoal and oil paint. I was hardly surprised at the Portrait Studio designers choice of representative artists, wondering only about the absence of Van Gogh (I later decided he would prove a poor choice because even in his own day few people appreciated the portraits he painted), because these three giants of the art world are probably the most recognizable artists to the majority of people.

Unable to quell my penchant for irony I obtained large renderings of one of Rembrandt’s painted self portraits and a copy of da Vinci’s supposed late-in-life self portrait in red chalk. I then held these images up in front of the Portrait Studio’s camera, chose the appropriate artist settings, and waited for the booth to present me a portrait of the old master created by the old master (the printouts are even dated by the artist, so now I own a Rembrandt and a da Vinci from 2003). Since Michelangelo’s only known self portrait was as a flayed skin within the Last Judgment on the Sistine Chapel’s anterior wall I decided that the third artist depicted should be the booth itself. Placing a mirror in front of the camera I indicated that I’d like an oil painting in the style of Rembrandt. The resulting image shows a blurry, almost atmospheric, reproduction of the camera that photographs the subject, the screen where one watches their portrait being “drawn,” and the arrows indicating where to direct your gaze when capturing your pose.

After spending so much time and money obtaining these portraits I felt it only proper to protect and present them in a manner befitting their significance, so I purchased three plain, sale-priced wood frames from Aaron Brothers Art Mart and proceeded to pain-stakingly gild them in metal leaf. I cut two decorative mats for each image that complimented the antique luster of the frames. As for the informative sign that precedes the row of portraits, I printed it out on canvas paper, mounted it behind a scratched piece of plexiglass and set it in a bright red frame that was unceremoniously screwed to the wall. This presentation roughly approximated the way such signs are often presented on kiosks, carnival booths, and at bars.

Finally, each of the three portraits is underscored by the gallery tag placed beneath it on the wall. Each tag lists Leonardo, Rembrandt, or Portrait Studio as the artist, each title is Self Portrait except for the Portrait Studio printout which reads Self Portrait in the Style of Rembrandt, and all three list the supposed medium that they’re created with rather than ‘inkjet print.’ While this work obviously satirizes notions of artistic originality and authenticity in our culture, it also attempts to parody the display methods used to imbue art objects with preciousness, as well as to draw attention to some of the problematic notions or art engendered by Post-Modern and Conceptualist ideology.

For those of you who are visually inclined take a look below:

Leonardo da Vinci, Self Portrait, 2003

Portrait Studio, Self Portrait (in the style of Rembrandt), 2003

Jeffrey Baker, Self Portraits of the Masters, 2003

Error

January 22, 2005

Like a person, the Photo Phazer has good and bad days. It will inexplicably drop bands of image data without reason.* This is one of my favorite effects, and I wistfully liken it to the scratches and bubbles that occurred on wet collodion plates in the early days of photography. For a while I seriously attempted to deconstruct the reasons for the glitches; testing my way through hypothesis about temperature, vibration, and battery life with no avail. In the end I lapsed into a zen-like acceptance of the Phazer's "Being" and allowed its unpredictability to remain unquantifiable. 

*The most dramatic example of the Phazer's mood swings resulted in this lovely little digital abstraction:

Center Stage

January 21, 2005

At some point I became a drama teacher. Bear in mind that, to date, I have never once acted in a play. But upon becoming an elementary school teacher I also took on children's theater because it was a school tradition. If I had known then what I know now about the complexity of stage productions I might not have dipped my toe in those turbulent waters. 

To date I have adapted The Little Prince, a selection of Aesop's Fables, and a mummer's play for the stage. Last year I had the exceeding good fortune to hand the directing and scripting reigns to a very talented parent who led the students through a hilarious Commedia dell'arte production. This year that same parent and I will tackle direction of the Mt. Everest of playwrights, the Bard himself, and his Midsummer Night's Dream. 

I have never been a strong student of Shakespeare but after only a few months of studying and rehearsing this one play I begin to have a sense of why he looms so large in the Western canon. It goes beyond the academic, beyond genre: Shakespeare requires so much of you as an actor or director that its impossible to relegate his words to ink on paper. You have to open up a chamber of your mind to him, and plant the meter and meanings there, so that they are ready for your retrieval and use. In short, Shakespeare is a language, and all the stories that have followed him are, in some way, indebted to his translation of humanity.

Shadows

January 20, 2005

Just outside the hydrogen peroxide closet you could open a window to look down on the play yard at my first school. I always found this vantage point to be unnerving, and yet I often found myself standing there admiring the way the harsh California sunshine would carve crisp shadows out of the cement. 

* * * * *

As a teacher, I confess that I periodically miss that predictable sunshine. It made teaching about light and time so much easier. In Oregon it is much trickier to use the colors of sunrise and sunset as a teaching aide, because so often the entire sky is nothing by an endless sea of gray cloud and drizzle. Likewise, building a sundial in the Willamette Valley can be an almost comical exercise in futility nine months out of the year— the very same nine months that school is traditionally in session. On the flip side however, my current students never have to stay inside for recess because of astronomical pollutant levels and it's unlikely that they'll ever sit on the highway watching ash settle on the windshield with the silence of snow.*

*Although, if I recall correctly, 1980 did provide a very dramatic dispersion of ash in Oregon.

Luna

January 19, 2005

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind there resides an old photograph of the moon. Merged with the sepia-toned craters depicted in this photograph is the blurry portrait of a young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, smiling out into the darkness of space. She may be a nanny, or a young mother, I know not which, but the thought of her grants me a touch of calm, and I think that this photograph must have been with me at some point, in some lifetime or other.

So Rank, So Banal

January 18, 2005

What do you do when a really good idea gets rejected? You return to the table with the polar opposite of a really good idea: the excessively dumb idea. An idea so rank, so banal, that its very existence is an insult to consciousness and thought. You bring this wretched display of mediocrity forth as a reaction to your initial rejection. It reveals your pettiness and condescension towards those that deemed it necessary to pass on your genius. If they won't have the steak, they can dine on the hoof. . .

On January 18, 2005 I sketched out my second, and final, submission for a Rose Parade float concept. The design of the previous year had consisted of a collection of family portraits in assorted frame styles. The images in the frames spanned a period of time chosen to match the decades that the city hosting the design contest had been in existence. It was tasteful, nostalgic, and thematically accessible. I labored over that first design for a week before sending it off.  It was rejected for a dancing animatronic cactus.

I funneled my indignation into the second design, which I resolved to make as inane as possible. There would be a group of fat hippos undertaking a new year's resolution of weight loss. They would be exercising under the watchful eye of their new trainer, a buff alligator with shifty eyes. This sad display would take place under a tree where some birds (possibly Kookaburra, this detail was to be decided later) would be laughing at the sad spectacle below them. With this design I could riff on California's new Governator and the narcissistic pre-occupation with self-image that is so deeply entrenched in California culture. It was clearly a horrible design that no one in their right mind would select.

Which was true. It was rejected, as it should have been. God only knows what won.