Selfies, Selphy, Self

My very first selfie taken in Mexico, 2013

I cannot take selfies…I cannot tell a lie. First, it never occurs to me that I want a picture that I am in. After all, I have an image in my head of what I look like and I feel perfectly fine until faced with irrefutable proof that it is wrong. Second, it’s hard to hold a heavy camera out far enough and I still end up with more chins than are necessary. Third, I actually don’t have a smart phone. I have a cell phone that has actual individual buttons that I have to actually individually press and so there is no screen where I can see what is in the picture if what I want in the picture is in front of the lens. So, I can only guess and apparently my self image also has a very different idea of my location than reality will confirm and so I am rarely even in the photo even if I try to be.

I’m not one of those people who refuses to be in photos because my hair isn’t right or my makeup isn’t on. I just don’t want to take those pictures for myself. Other people can see very clearly what I look like and so accept a photo of me as something that actually reminds them of me, whereas I cannot see me and am perfectly happy remembering what other people look like and what I felt like while I was taking their picture. Someone, who shall remain nameless, took a picture of me while I was joking about taking selfies with a big camera and then had the nerve to post that photo on Facebook and it was exactly the photo I have in mind when I think about bad photos. It’s all upper arms and double chins combined with it looking like I actually take photos of myself with a telephoto lens.

Self Portrait in Gatewood @ UNCG

I will now spend the rest of my life indoors.

But, I won’t suffer for it because now I have the cutest little photo printer ever: the Canon Selphy. Since I only have about 10,000 more photos from Mexico that I need to print and put in my photo albums that should keep me busy roughly until the earth crashes into the sun. The only thing I can’t figure out is how to send the pictures directly from my computer to the printer. Instead, I have been putting them on a memory card and then moving that from my computer to the memory card slot on the machine. I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to fix that though because I am so excited to print that I can’t be bothered.

The printer uses a dye sublimation process for printing and the quality is fantastic. It pulls the little piece of paper through four times, the first time it prints all of the yellows, the second pass prints all of the magenta, and the third prints all of the cyan. Then it goes through a final pass where it lays down a semi-gloss clear finish that keeps the pictures from smudging or scratching…et voila! The kids are really enjoying watching it because you can see the picture after each pass so it’s like watching it appear – almost like the fun of old school developing but without the chemicals from that which cause cancer (it’s probably just a whole new batch of cancer causing chemicals…) So far I have printed 100 images and it’s still going strong – it is also super easy to load paper and ink and hardly takes up any space at all. That’s the size I needed too since I hardly have any space at all…you know because I have things to strew all over my desk.

First Photo in Self Portrait Project

I renewed my subscription to Lynda.com because I missed the tutorials. Yesterday I watched on of The Practicing Photographer tutorials with Ben Long. He outlined an interesting project that I would like to do if I could just come up with an idea. It’s a year long project that requires me to pick a frequency (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, etc.) a scope (anywhere, my city, my neighborhood, my yard, my chair, etc.) and a subject (an object, a color, a cliché, an emotion, etc.) Then, I would have to carry that out and at the end of the year I would have a pretty interesting collection of images…if I had any ideas. Right now, I’m drawing a blank.

Self Portrait #2: Hands

The only thing I keep coming back to are self-portraits because I hate the way I look in most photos, because I am always available to me, because people are interesting subjects, and because I will be extremely patient. I could mess around with lighting, makeup, costume, setting, etc. I think I would just like some more parameters for myself, but maybe if I just start doing it, the things I need to try will become more apparent. What I don’t want are a series of my face in the camera, filling the frame. I’m not interested in watching my face change over time like those series that some people have done (which are amazing, just not what I’m trying to focus on here). I’m more interested in the self-portrait as a subject. I found this fantastic compilation of 100 seriously cool self-portraits - there's a lot of interesting things to think about!

Hmmm…maybe I’ve just had my idea, right here.

You’re such a good listener!

MayDay: Warning...Opinion Included

This morning I got a message that there was going to be a stop in Greensboro on the 'Give America a Raise' Bus Tour in support of raising the minimum wage. I had just finished reading about the filibuster that prevented the vote that would have raised it from $7.25 to $10.10 - a vote that would have been in its favor. I've heard all the arguments about why this would be bad...but frankly, I don't buy them. In any case, I thought it might be a good photo opportunity and so I dragged my comfortably resting husband into the car and across town. 

I was entertained/irritated to see that there is a billboard truck that is apparently following the Give America a Raise Bus around the country. I won't reiterate its rhetoric because it isn't worth validating, but I did wonder how much the driver of the billboard truck was being paid. The event this morning was attended by a number of religious leaders from a wide variety of faiths. There were also some workers there who spoke about trying to live life on minimum wage as well as a speaker from Americans United for Change. A bishop suggested that all the millionaires in the US be asked to spend some time living on $7.25 an hour and see just how long it was before the legislation passed. Everyone seemed to agree that even $10.10 wasn't going to be enough but at least it was a step. 

Shalief Johnson, Worker

I spoke to one of the leaders of the faith-based component of the rally, Reverend Hamlin  from the Ecumenical Poverty Initiative and she asked if I could be convinced to travel to Raleigh that afternoon to photograph the rally there. Pepe couldn't come with me to that one because, legally, someone has to pick up our children at their after school care or they (the after school care) get very cranky. 

When I arrived in Raleigh it looked like it might start to rain but the air was refreshing and the wind was fabulous, so it felt good to be there. It had been hot in Greensboro and I had lathered up with sunscreen so as to not burst into flames during the Raleigh event, but it turned out to not be necessary. I felt that my being engulfed in flames might distract from the event's core message.

The Raleigh event was also attended by religious leaders who spoke eloquently and passionately about the human rights issues at stake. The anti billboard truck was there and the driver had pulled it up to park behind the speakers, thinking he would then be in all of the video coverage. The guy who drives the Give America a Raise Bus though seems to be part of his vehicle and he lithely scooted it just between the billboard truck and the speakers, providing a beautiful, vivid back drop.

Religious Leaders in Greensboro Supporting $10.10

This actually turned out to be a paying gig, which is pretty exciting and I'm working on the photos right now, but I wanted to write about them on May 1st. Mayday - and it is needed. I make a lot more than minimum wage (for now) but it still keeps me on my toes. I can't imagine working and still being desperately poor. My feeling has been that if businesses can't afford to pay a decent wage, then they shouldn't hire people. Go out of business if you can't do it, that's the deal. If we are going to plunge people into debt to pay for school then it seems bizarre that we are also willing to suppress their wages to assist business. At what point do PEOPLE get to be in the position of first priority? 

While I'm on this - education should be free, then students could be students and they wouldn't have to work and they wouldn't compete with people who need jobs thus driving down the wages and fracturing the worker's movement. As for this idea that jobs will be lost, again, it's the ones that we can stand to lose that will go and the rest we just might have to pay what it's worth for. I guess we could get up to 100% employment if the wage were $0.10 an hour but how is that kind of employment helpful? It's just a meaningless number. I want to know about the percentages of employment that pays a living wage, when will we get those numbers down?

Finally, I always feel like the anti-minimum wage argument is a bit like being in an abusive relationship. I spent six years with a man who told me that he treated me badly for my own good, to help me better myself; that if I didn't like it, he could always find someone else younger (and cheaper) who would; that no one else would take me and I'd be alone for the rest of my life. I believed him for a long time but you know what? It turns out he was a filthy liar. He just wanted everything for himself and if it meant he had to build his joy on the destruction of mine, then so be it. And when I left, it turned out that the world didn't collapse, I didn't spend the rest of my life alone, and I didn't need him at all. 

So, enough with the threats of pending impoverishment. If we don't pay a living wage, we've got all the impoverishment we can handle. I say: It's time to leave the bastards who tell you that you aren't worth it and realize that you are beautiful and valuable and powerful. 

It's not going to be easy...but it's definitely going to be worth it.

Nude Pantyhose and Alien Skin

It's like this with me, drought and then flood. I know I just finally posted yesterday but I've been thinking since then. Some of what I have been thinking has been, "Why the heck can't my kids learn not to slam the door?" But that's not really all that relevant here. 

My other thought was this: Do you remember when there was a crayon color called 'nude' and it was supposed to be flesh tone, only flesh comes in so many different tones that it really wasn't particularly similar to what most people see when they are nude? The same thing used to be a name for pantyhose. Helpful if you were as certain shade of Caucasian but didn't know how to match it just by looking at the color but not a great marker for match for anybody else. I'm not about to wax nostalgic for those days, instead, they helped me frame something that I've only just realized. A sort of blinding flash of the obvious.

Different skin tones require different exposures and different filters and affects. I've been using this great PhotoShop plug called Alien Skin in and it tells me that a particular Kodak Portra film was low contrast and therefore great for good looking skin in portraits. Generally, the people I shoot portraits of are members of my family who, although we are each a different nude, are on the lighter end of the spectrum. Yesterday, I shot at a rally attended by a broad spectrum of dark to light skin and when I was working with the images later, I applied the low contrast filter and just felt that the pictures looked dead. That's when I realized that the filter that says it is good for portraits really meant that it was good for portraits of light-skinned Latinos and Caucasians. It simply forgot that there are people who are darker than that who also might want to look good in pictures. 

It threw me for a loop.

I played around with a lot of different filters and realized that the low contrast film filters make dark brown skin have a grayish undertone - an unhealthy one. It clears up the red from white faces (or as my daughter calls them pinky faces) but is disastrous otherwise. I have done almost all of my work in black and white up until now and so I was really focused on contrast rather than color but maybe one of the reasons I have like black and white so much is that I couldn't ever get the right feeling when the faces are brown. 

This caused me to think back to a lesson I saw on Lynda.com - I wish I could remember who had given it - about portrait photography. This particular photographer was using an Indian model and shooting in natural light outdoors. He mentioned that he generally underexposed a bit for darker skin because otherwise it tended to overexpose and lose its rich beauty. I also found in post processing that each time I figured the exposure, I had to move it back down about 1/3 of a stop or the skin just became shiny and plastic.

It also made me think about old movies and old paintings where people of color were depicted and something was just a bit 'off' about them, something I just couldn't put my finger on until I realized that they had used white models or white actors and then just dolled them up with the superficial trappings - generally something to shape the eyes or just face paint. It never looked right but I guarantee you that those painters and directors hadn't spent anytime contemplating the faces of Latinos or First Nations people or Africans. I have really been doing the same without thinking about it. Just as I had been doing without really thinking about it - assuming that a visual representation of the very surface which marks us would be the same despite the difference. 

I need more information. A beginning search on Google led me to a really interesting essay by Monte Zucker called "Photographing People of Color." It turns out my approach is still not right and it's going to take a lot more looking to really get this right. Recognizing this lack of skill on my part was a first step, realizing that other people have begun to talk about it was another step. The camera can't do everything, the photographer has to know what she is doing AND she has to remember to really see what or who she is looking at.

The institution of portrait photography needs to be broken open a little bit so that rules about how to photograph people really means all people. We need to talk about the gradient that exists not as an exception (which makes being 'white' the 'norm') but as a state of existence in which we will always find ourselves and that we would be foolish to ignore if we want our portraits to reflect the individual that can be clearly seen without them. 

Never let a photograph get in between you and an opportunity to see someone beautiful.

Noctural Brilliance

Headstone in Monticello Graveyard

I should keep a pen and paper next to my bed because I have all of my most brilliant ideas just before I fall asleep. At least, they seem brilliant - so far, I can't remember most of them in the morning to really evaluate them. I assume that with a pen and paper on my nightstand, I will soon receive the McArthur Genius Award. My plan was to share my latest insights here, but I can no longer remember them...

Tulips on the grounds of Monticello

I just got back from a 40 hour architectural whirlwind tour with first-year students in the UNCG interior architecture program. A total of 31 faculty and students traveled from Greensboro, NC to Charlottesville, VA and then on to Cumberland, MD and Bear Run, PA in order to visit two great American architectural treasures: Jefferson's Monticello and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Including a 3 hour 'layover' during which we waited for a mechanic to arrive and fix our bus, we were on the trip for 42 hours.

It is interesting to see Monticello and Fallingwater in the same trip because they are so different and yet so similar. Both houses reflect the wealthiest segment of the population, bothy were unusually innovative, and both are attempts at a new American architecture. Jefferson placed his home on the top of the landscape while Wright's building is integrated into it. It is difficult to photograph either of these places. 

Fallingwater: The classic

Monticello Grave Crow

Pictures inside of Monticello are not allowed - supposedly because some of the items in the house are on loan and they don't have the photographic rights to them, but I'm unconvinced that this is true because they don't need to have photographic rights in order to allow non-commercial photographers to capture images. I think that the only time they would need rights would be if they were going to use the photographs to advertise or make money. I think it is probably to get you to buy the book that has pictures of the interior). Fallingwater offers a different tour in which photography is allowed, it is a longer tour and more costly, so they freely admit that it is a way to earn the money needed to support the entity. 

The other reason why these places are difficult to photograph is because they are so iconic. The view dead on of the back of Monticello is on the nickel and the view of Fallingwater can really only be captured from one particular spot and it is the photo that is always seen of the building. When so many other people have photographed or drawn a building from the exact same view it seems almost silly to photograph it again. After all, my picture of Fallingwater looks just like everybody else's picture with the exception of the time of year foliage or my technical abilities. 

Fallingwater: The zoom

I was determined to see if I could get a different image. After all, I have seen collections of images of the Eiffel Tower or the Washington Monument in which each image has really been distinct, and surprisingly different than the postcard image that I was used to seeing. Fallingwater is particularly difficult because there are only 3 views of it possible, two of which are at least partially blocked by trees. It is designed to be hidden, so the question becomes, how do I capture the experience? I figured this was a good time to experiment since the 'perfect' shot is one that I have seen so often, it would be easy to compare and contrast.

Fallinwater: Alternate View

Generally, I try to look for another angle, then for a different context, and then to the details rather than the whole. On this trip, students were spending time sketching the different buildings and so I tried to use them to create a different setting for the architecture. I also tried zooming while I took a long exposure shot of Fallingwater - I didn't have a tripod, so it's not great, but it was the first time I have tried that. I also worked with the exposure time as much as I could, it was a pretty gray day and so I couldn't underexpose too much, but I did manage to move the waterfall from nearly frozen to blurring streamers of water.

Fallingwater: Student Context

I don't think I captured anything particularly noteworthy, but it was an interesting exercise. It made me really think about what the point of taking a photograph is if it is just like 1,000 others that I have seen and that I could print off the internet. There is something about having 'captured' it yourself but then it also provides you with a platform for experimentation because you don't have the same amount of initial exploration to do. It's harder to see anything new that might be there but also to realize that sometimes there are things to be learned by understanding how and why others have captured a particular image which can only really happen when you are looking through the viewfinder yourself. 

It's always a challenge to create images of something that is so iconic and so restricted - it's not the images that I created that made it worth it, it's the experience gained in the way of seeing that was the most valuable for me.

The Only Useful Camera

I missed an image. 

It wasn't because I was too slow or didn't have the right lens or a good angle. It was because I hadn't brought my camera with me. I know better, but I didn't listen to myself. The only useful camera is the one that you have with you.

I was only going to Target, about a mile up an extremely non-photogenic road. A suburban development and a busy intersection with chain stores. All on a drizzly day, what could I possibly miss? On my way back from Target, I saw a heavy-set bike cop ditch his transport and chug up a small hill into a 12' high hedge. A brief moment later, I saw a teenager dart out of the same hedge at which point a police car pulled up onto the grassy shoulder. When he saw the car, he immediately lay down in the grass. Two cops ran over to him and aggressively handcuffed him face down on the grass. At this point, my car was parallel to the kid about 10' away from him. We made eye contact. It could have been an amazing photo. 

It might not have been either - after all, the police seemed to be acting within the bounds of their authority, there was no Rodney King style beating. The kid didn't have blood on his hands and we weren't in some war torn neighborhood. However, I am still kicking myself. Maybe the newspaper would have wanted the picture and I've got to fight for every opportunity I can find to make my way in the world of photography. Maybe they wouldn't have, but it might have been a beautiful piece. The contrast between the white, middle-age, large police officers and the skinny, black youth; the look in his eyes as I looked back at him. The point is, that I won't know any of that and I missed my chance.

One of the reasons why I have gotten so many good pictures is because I always have my camera with me and you never know when something interesting is going to pop up. Even if I'm on my way to Target or Taekwondo or to pick up my kids from school, the world is a fascinating place and those decisive moments don't present themselves more than once. There will be thousands more in my life but that one that was missed will be memorable.

These are some images I have been lucky enough to capture because I had my camera with me when I didn't know I would need it. None of them depict world events or captured fame or the making of a hero. Instead, they were animals standing in just the right place, pilgrims traveling on horseback on the side of the road, and bottles filled with colored water in the room through which I could see an event space. The sign at the cemetery and the sculpture of the cars in the trees were happy accidents.

There will be more. And next time, I will have my camera with me.

Quadpolar Steez

If you feel a breeze blowing by, it's probably just me as I swing from breathless egoism to wild despair and back again. I used to wonder if I were bipolar but I have since realized that I can't be restricted to just two poles - I'm an explorer.

So, on the up - I got my first freelance writing gig through oDesk, writing for a photography blog out of New Zealand. I wrote about some tips for photography with children (not of children, but how to enjoy photography with children under 10). When that is ready for its big reveal, I will post the link.

On the down - I applied for and was rejected from a freelance writing position with Photojojo. The response to my application, which included the standard letter & resume as well as writing samples, was:

"Your writing was swell (the intro sentence gave me quite a chuckle)! But, it's not quite a fit for the Photojojo steez." 

I think it was the most adorable rejection I've ever gotten.

Then I had the following reactions, in this order:

• Wait - who are they to say I haven't got the Photojojo Steez?!?
• What the hell is the Steez?
• Is this something I was vaccinated against when I was a child?
• Thank you urbandictionary.com for providing a definition of steez that is only helpful if you already know what steez is.
• Clearly I don't have this if I don't even know what it is.
• Oh my god, this means that I am old. I'll probably be dead within a week.
• Is this really an okay way to write in an email to someone you are rejecting? I'm an adult for chrissake.
• Oh my god, that means I'm old too!
• Fools, I'll destroy them all.
• Or maybe I'll take a nap...because that's what old people do!!

Luckily, I was interrupted by the legal requirement to pick up my children from school and there is absolutely no stewing about self while in the presence of children.

It's funny, I could get 100 positive responses to something and then I get one rejection (which is actually a pretty positive rejection provided that I never find out I am wrong about my understanding of steez) and I'm off the 'clearly my life has been a waste and I should probably just crawl in a hole now' cliff.

After all, I am a genius. I guess I'm just continually surprised by how many people fail to realize this  despite the fact that it has been independently confirmed by at least three people.*

*my mother, my husband, and a homeless guy I offered $10. for confirmation of my genius.

Rats! Plague! Dentistry!

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It is never easy to tell people that you have rats. This is true even if they are intentional rats, meaning rats that you intentionally acquired and not the oh-god-why-didn’t-I-clean-up-the-crumbs-under-my-bed-now-I-have-rats kind of rats. 

It started a couple of days before Christmas with both my children standing in the kitchen chanting ‘buy us rats.’ It ended with my explaining to my husband how I had taken his actual, real, hard-earned money and converted it into a pair of rats. Then, it continued with my father dramatically yelling: ‘Plague! Plague!’ as he walked around the house. That did not help my argument.

Buster the Rat

Contrary to many people’s beliefs, however, we have yet to contract the plague and the baby has not, as of yet, been eaten. The rats are very curious, lively, and entertaining little creatures each with its own personality…or ratonality, I guess. Buster, a black and white rat, is enormous and terrified of everything. Even the smallest noise sends him hurtling through anything in his path to hide in his house. Mister, on the other hand, is a drama queen who gnaws on the bars of his cage as if he hasn’t eaten in a fortnight and looks at us with little pleading Oliver Twist eyes, despite the fact that we just watched him consume his weight in cheerios.

They are also hoarders. Everything that goes into their cage eventually gets stuffed into their house until the house actually lifts up off the shelf upon which it sits, leaving a house shaped mass of newspaper, collectibles, and rats. They will continue to accept treats as long as we will offer them and run off to squirrel (?) them away for later. They generally hide them in the paper litter that lines the bottom of their cage. For this reason, they find cage cleaning time particularly distressing as it means the removal of all of their not-so-carefully hidden treats…upon which they had been walked and peeing…but still.

Rat and Mouse. Ha. Ha.

One day, my daughter’s rat sneezed in my nose. I have yet to develop the superpowers I was certain would come as a result of such an interaction. I’m also on the lookout for signs that I am hiding my leftovers under my pillow. So far, I never have leftovers. The rats will come and look right into your face and explore any opportunities that might smell interesting, such as the inside of my nose or the interior of my cat’s ears (much to her great excitement). Or my daughters mouth which was followed by her exclamation “’ook mah, ey clea’ ‘y teeh” as I follow her instructions and notice that nearly the entire head of the rat has disappeared. I do not consider rats to be a substitute for tooth brushing, but if dental care continues to rise in cost, I may consider switching to annual rat debridement plan.

During the day, when they are sleepier, the will snuggle in my coat pocket or behind my head as I sit on the couch and occasionally stretch. At night, they participate in Olympic level training exercises on their wheel, at least until Buster hears a noise and then he goes back to hiding in his house. I think Mister mocks him.

Mister Contemplates Self

My mother was concerned that it would be difficult to know if we had two rats of the same sex or if we would soon have baby rats. She based this worry on her very accurate memory of my first foray into rodent ownership. A boy I went to school with gave me two male mice. Not a great deal later in my life, I had 32 mice. Despite the paucity of information presented in my school’s sex education curriculum, I quickly developed a male/female mouse theory that could never, however, be verified because mice penis’ are very small and mice also bite. I don’t remember what became of the mice.

A Sharp Shinned Hawk Outside my window

In any case, this is not a concern that one needs to have in rat ownership, as the male rats are very clearly identifiable. For a male human to have a proportionate relationship with his manhood, it would be necessary for him to walk around with a pair of basketballs taped to the back of his shorts. You can sex a rat from 3 houses away. I am pleased that this miracle of the cycle of life is not something that I will have to explain to my children. After all, I have only just recovered from answering my son’s questions about sex that arose as the result of playing Sims. As long as they learn about sex from the internet and video games rather than relationships among animals, I feel like all is right with the world.

As to whether or not it is acceptable to keep animals in cages I will say this. We do give our rats floor time everyday and, in comparison to the footage I have seen of their wild cousins, my rats rarely have to worry about rising sewage or hungry eagles. I’ve given them tiny complaint forms to fill out should they wish to express comments or concerns as well as the number for a rat help hotline.

Sometimes, though, I will catch one of them looking right at me. Staring directly at me for several moments on end as if contemplating the bridge between us; examining this interspecies relationship that has created this trust between such disparate beings, like tiny philosophers. Then, generally, I realize it’s because I’m eating a cracker. So I share.