Constantly seeking newness
Shadows for a while – Ilford HP5+ Rodinal – 1:50 – Leica M6
The other day I posted a question on Paul Maxim’s blog: Why must someone surprise you? Today, he posted a response to that question with this post. It was a very well thought out post, worth the read. I have already posted a response to his post and I will do my best to NOT repeat it here, but instead to go into a different direction.
Monte, here’s another one of those random, pool ball shots that my brain takes. 
This post has been on my mind for some time. If you’ve read for any time, you know of my affinity for Tao, Zen, and now meditation. These things, together, naturally form a different way of looking at things that is, in my own words, very un-Western. I like quiet. I like sitting. I like solitude. I like exploring things again and again, digging deeper and deeper, trying to get a feeling for “it”. At this time, I don’t feel the smallest need to try new things, photographically. I’m not against it, but I just don’t feel compelled the way that I used to.
I’ve been reading John Daido Loori’s book, The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating your Artistic Life. There is much in the book but it needs to be read slowly, deliberately. But, I shall not delve into “art”, but just the concept of authenticity and what it means to me. However, the one thing that I notice is that his work is not ground breaking, new, or shocking. It is, in a word, simple and, more important to me, authentic.
I don’t mind hopping from subject to subject, trees, sky, water, sand, people, back to sand, whatever. All that I’m doing is exploring. From time to time, when I have a group of photos up, without really looking, I’ll see some themes and wonder about them for a time. I, for example, wondered why, oh why, do I have so many images of small people under big skies? I finally figured it out last week, I think. It’s rather personal, so I’ll keep that one to myself, but the one thing that I can see is that my photographs are authentic. They are truthful. They are mine. When I go out, I usually don’t have anything in mind, other than to shoot.
Lately, the fascination has been shadows and I think that I might know what that’s about, but perhaps not.
Authenticity, I think, is what I’m shooting for, if there is any goal whatsoever. To be truthful, not impressive, nor original. In my travels through the software world over the past 25 years, there’s always some new technology, or at first blush, it appears to be new, but in reality, it is the same old thing with a different coat of paint. It appears to be a different way to solve the same problems. Ultimately, all of software, it seems comes down to CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete), there are just different ways of doing it. Nothing original, but many different, authentic ways to provide a solution.
This is certainly NOT a post damning new things. It is a post that is in favor of being willing to go against the grain of ‘newness’ in favor of exploration of what may already be known … partially. To not play to the crowd. Though, in truth, I am affected by the crowd at times by the pictures that I select to go with the post, but I’m working on that. 
So, what about challenging yourself, as the mantra goes? Challenging yourself doesn’t necessarily mean moving on to something different, new, unfamiliar. It could mean getting to know, even better, that which is already known. It could mean having the courage to explore deeper.
Lightroom 3 Beta – a quick look
Ilford HP5+ – Rodinal 1:50 – Leica M6
There are many reviews out there about LR 3 Beta; however, you just want to try something yourself, sometimes. Although this version has been out for some time, I finally downloaded it about a week ago. I had a lot of time on my hands during the day, let’s say. Having used it for about a week, I’ll give my impressions thus far on the pieces that I’ve used.
Importing
The import has been radically changed. It is a lot faster than previous versions of LR, plus they have made the import dialog a lot more convenient by making commonly used items available at the single click of the mouse rather. From this single, simple dialog you can add keywords, indicate the import behavior (copy as DNG, copy, move, or add), and specify where to place the files. The dialog seems to be arranged logically, input on the left, keywords and behavior in the middle, output on the right. There is a larger, more comprehensive import dialog where you can most any and everything that you want, including which photos to import, how to rename them, etc. You can do everything that you could do before, except that it is arranged much better. Lastly, the actual importing of the photos is noticeably faster. They’ve done an impressive amount of speed improvement in this area. Certainly worth upgrading just to get this feature especially if you import logs of files. It will save you a great deal of time.
Vignetting
Vignetting is something that I use rarely; however, in some cases it really can make a significant difference in the photo. The new version of LR functions the same as the old in this area. Sliding the slider to the left causes the edges of the image to darken, sliding right causes it to lighten. In this beta release, they’ve added another slider, Contrast, to the Post-Crop Vignetting sliders. This allows you to adjust the contrast of the vignetted area to give it a less contrasty, softer or harder look. This is different than the Feather slider, which controls the rate of change between vignetted and non-vignetted parts of the image, or gradation. The Contrast slider affects only the vignetted area’s contrast.
Slideshows
I like the use of images and music together. I use SoundSlides when I want to put together such a display. LR 3 Beta allows you export a video slideshow with music. This is a fantastic feature, but can be limiting, depending on what you want to do. With SoundSlides I can choreograph the sound and the images, that is, I can make an image fade on a certain part of the music, or stay a bit longer, etc, a dance if you will. With LR 3, you click on the duration of the music, and LR will figure out how long each image will need to be displayed and display your slideshow accordingly. You can adjust the fade or display duration, but not for an individual slide. The adjustment is for all slides. If you have no need or desire to choreograph, then this works perfectly! The video export offers several different flavors of video to choose from. Here is a good video explaining the export, as well as other features. It’s right at the beginning of the video and lasts only a couple of minutes.
Grain
Since I also shoot film, I am aware of grain. Each film has its own characteristic grain pattern and size. This can be further ‘enhanced’ or downplayed, depending upon developer chosen and method of development. To be sure, different films certainly look different in the grain department. I was curious about the new grain slider. I thought back to the fact that when digital recordings first came out that they sounded clean and sterile. Later, a bit of ambient noise was added to give warmth to the music. No digital vs. film flames here, please. Anyway, I’m not against grain. The grain slider works pretty nicely, allowing you to add grain to a photo as well as allowing you to choose the amount, size, and roughness of the grain. You can get some pretty grainy photographs, simulating some type of film. In the above image, I’ve added quite a bit of grain, but it’s kind of hard to see at this size.
Watermark
If you watermark your image with copyright information, one of the annoying things about Lightroom, at least for me, was that you couldn’t control placement of the watermark or the opacity of it very well. In the new version, you can control the opacity, placement, orientation (horizontal, or vertical), and whether it is text or image. This is a nice feature. If you look at the image at the top, you can see that I placed a slight, vertical watermark at the right side of the image. It’s rather unobtrusive and was easy to do with the new LR.
Those were the only items that I tried out. I liked what I saw and, more than likely, would upgrade to Lightroom 3 when it comes out, depending on what Adobe wants for an upgrade price.
The addition of “er”
I was listening to a fiction book during my drive and a couple of lines jumped out at me. They went something like:
Character 1: So, what did she want to do?
Character 2; She wanted to be a painter.
Character 1: So, did she have the chops to make it?
Character 2: If she had wanted to paint, she would have probably made it, but since she wanted to be a painter, then probably not.
So, my brain picked up on that and started to wonder if there is a difference between someone who loves to photograph vs someone who wants to be a photographer and further someone who loves to photograph and becomes a photographer. Certainly, one who photographs is already a photographer by definition.
It’s just something for my brain to twiddle around with. Perhaps one is about the journey, the other is about the destination. Who knows?
Yank: Part 2 – Settling of the dust.
Continued from yesterday’s post:
My head was swirling. Another change. 18 months ago, I embarked on this journey, not knowing what it would entail. During those 18 months of being alone, I’ve undergone tremendous growth as a person. This is not to say that I’ve acquired any special powers, but I sure have learned a lot about myself. Solitude, not loneliness. I am so thankful for that time. You cannot imagine how valuable it has been.
Regarding that statement about the company giving us 3 or 4 weeks to look before giving us our 2 week notice, well, it turned out that what they really ‘meant’ was that we would have 3 or 4 weeks … period. So, after 1 1/2 weeks, we were given our 2 week notice, which expires on March 17th! As it turned out, we found, they were going to make the end date March 12th, but the manager was out of town, but then again, they owed us nothing. It was a nice gesture.
The week of February 22nd was a foundation week, a week of new beginnings. The four of us sat in the chilly, windowless, florescence of the aXiom lab. This large, sparsely furnished, unused lab was to be our home for the next 3 1/2 weeks. The interesting thing about the lab is its name. It was named after the very project that is currently sinking into the mire, dying. There were big hopes, now, unused space. More than likely, this lab will remain unused, desolate, except for it being used as a way station for developers on their way to other destinations. Hopefully there will not be many more to follow!
Occupying about 1/4 of the lab sat our 4 desks. Two of us on the left, two on the right. Here is where we sit trying to put the pieces back together, sending out resumes, searching job boards, helping each other, comparing resumes, trading phone numbers of recruiters, offering practice technical interviews for each other, and trying to make light of the situation. Each of us with our own situations to consider. One, his wife pregnant and due around the middle of May. Another, having just moved his family here some 4 months ago to be closer to relatives. Me, having started a life here but wanting to go back home.
We also grasped for little nuggets of information, gossip, and anything that we could piece together to make sense of non-sense. Over the week, we constructed a plausible story based on what we ‘knew’. Certainly, this would not make a bit of difference, having that knowledge, but, sometimes you just want to know. This story was later confirmed by our soon-to-be-ex-manager.
Unfortunately, and I really hate to do this, this part of the narrative must remain vague for reasons that I’ll be able to explain later, if you’re still interested. Things are working out well, but things are still in the works. I’ve got slightly less than 2 weeks remaining, charging an overhead number while I continue to look for a job However, fret not dear reader, things are looking up again. Soon, I’m sure you’ll see a post titled something like, return to the 704! (Charlotte area code). If you can’t wait to find out what happens, e-mail me! paul at paullesterphoto dot com.
Yank: Part 1
This post was started on Wednesday, February 24, 2010.
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
An excerpt from The Tao Te Ching, chapter 15
Friday, February 19th was a normal Friday. Nothing unusual. The weather was clear, the sun was shining, there was even a slight breeze blowing. Special in its particular uniqueness, but nothing ‘memorable’. I went to work, as usual, had packed my things for the weekend in Charlotte. The next day, Saturday, February 20th was my birthday, big number 4-8. We had plans to go to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant.
During the work day, we had our normal amount of raucous banter. After all, I’m in a room full of guys, no women. There are 7 of us in there and the jokes fly back and forth, movie quotes, talking about each other, lots of fun. Sometime around 10 or 11, I received an e-mail saying:
Please report to the conference room next to my office at the North Rhett building at 4:00 PM. This is a MANDATORY meeting.
Great, another mandatory meeting. So, I gave a shout out: Hey, guys, did you get an e-mail about a mandatory meeting? The answer was no all around. i was the only one who’d gotten it. Curious. Another employee who was across the hall happened to hear what I said. He went back to his desk, checked his e-mail. He had one, too. A third employee then came in and found that he had one as well. We wondered out loud about what this could be about.
The projects had been having some money issues and they were shuffling people around to different charge numbers, etc. Nothing to worry about. Well, although I had sense of foreboding, I was able to calm myself and enjoy the rest of my day.
We arrived at the North Rhett building, or HQ, about 15 minutes early, walked into the conference room. The room was sparsely furnished, containing a whiteboard, one long conference table, and chairs to accommodate 10 people, or so. We sat down, talked amongst each other and, of course, wondered aloud what this was all about. We came to no conclusion. We were about to find out, though.
At 4:00 PM, our boss Marla, followed by her boss, Doug, entered the conference room. It’s funny what you remember, but I remember that the sun was shining through the louvered blinds at the left end of the table and making interesting patterns as it shown through an oscillating fan. I remember thinking that I wish I had my camera with me. Always the photographer, I guess.
Everyone was seated at the table, Doug, the division head to my right at the head of the table, Marla, directly across from me. For the rest, I’ll use aliases. To my left sat Bob, at the end of the table, James, his back to the louvered blinds, the sun still shining, unaffected by what was about to unfold, and directly across from me, slightly to the left, to Marla’s right, sat Don.
Marla looked at each of us, a grim look on her face, and announced that there was no more funding left and they had worked with the customer to cut 4 people and that our names were the ones that had come up in their decisions. I looked across the table at Don. He stared back blankly, gave a barely perceptible nod, then looked down. I looked left to James. No reaction. The dust motes danced on the sunbeams, unaffected. Bob was turning a bit crimson, holding back his emotions. Looking within, I felt unaffected at the moment, but that was soon to change. Marla continued, saying that we had all done great jobs and this wasn’t because of anything that we did. I remember thinking, yeah, nothing personal, just business; Corporate America in action.
We were told that we could stay with the company for a few weeks and try to find a job within the company and that she would offer us all of the help that she could. They asked if we had any more questions. Silence. The last thing that I remember Doug saying was, have a great weekend. Sure.
Again, I was unaffected as I walked out the door to the car; however, those emotional waves began to roll and land on the shores of my mind. Crashing, one after the other, stirring up thoughts. Why? What did I do wrong? How could this have been prevented? I’m so tired of changes, movement. What should I learn from this? I was on the other side of the blinds now, the sun continued to shine, unimpeded. Birds sang. The wind blew. Nothing changed there.
I called my wife to let her know that I was on the way and to let her know the news. I struggled to keep the emotion out of my voice, but she could hear it. She asked: Are you alright? I could give nothing but a pregnant pause, a croak, and finally was able to offer a few strained words: No. Not really. Can we talk later? I was deeply disappointed and hurt. I got on the road and headed back towards Charlotte. I listened to music, looked at the glorious sunlight, took in the pine trees, drove. I started feeling better.
The weekend turned out pretty good. I took the time to update my resume, meditate, enjoy dinner with my family, and realize that everything will work out as it should, not necessarily as I want. I decided not to tell Pedro or Tony until everything was resolved, thus the delay of this post.
On Monday, I sent out my resume to a recruiter in the Charlotte area that I’ve worked with before. He called me back right away and said: “Finally! You’re coming back. I’ve got so many jobs that I need to fill.” We talked for about 15 minutes. I was doing most of the listening as he told me about all of the positions that he had open. I heard the names of managers that I had worked for before and would like to work with again. On and on it went.
Throughout the day, I fielded various phone calls requesting more information. I was now submitted for at least 5 jobs and possibly 2 more …
Courage
Over the past few months I’ve been trying to catch up on my Star Trek watching when I’m not out shooting or practicing my guitar. Though I wouldn’t say that I’m a rabid Trekkie, I do like the series. Mainly I like it because they always had some social commentary. What I did not know, and found out this weekend while watching the pilot episode with commentary, was that the show almost didn’t make it because Gene Roddenberry, the creator, was too radical for his time. Star Trek came about in 1966 during a very tough time in America. We had just had a president assassinated a few years before and the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing.
When Mr. Roddenberry pitched his show to the network, it was immediately rejected because:
- He didn’t allow smoking on the show. Most movies and television shows were sponsored by tobacco companies at that time.
- He featured a multi-racial cast. He had Asians, African-Americans, Scottish, etc. The networks wanted an all-white cast. They sad that they would get lots of hate mail if he featured non-whites.
Well, the show finally got the nod, on a trial basis, and as it is said, the rest is history. To say that Gene Roddenberry was groundbreaking would be an understatement. Mr. Roddenberry even went so far as to break a huge cultural taboo when he showed Captain Kirk, a white man, kissing Lieutenant Uhura, a black woman on television in 1968! The first such display of its kind.
Even though the naysayers said that people would protest and demand that the show be taken off the air, the hate mail never came. Not one single piece of hate mail and it became an American Institution, birthing one flavor of Star Trek after another.
I was impressed with his courage and dedication to his vision. A lesson that we can all learn.
No Swamp Monsters
No Swamp Monsters!
Swamps get an undeserving reputation. As this sign says:
Many imagine that swamps are horrible and hostile, but by now you have seen otherwise!! Beidler Forest is a clean, healthy, and very pleasant place to visit, largely because it remains unaltered by human activities – it’s natural.
This morning I went to visit Francis Beidler Forest. An 11,000 acre, old growth forest and swamp land. I spent a couple of hours exploring the 1.75 mile boardwalk that is suspended above the swamp. I had only visited one swamp before, that was Congaree National Park near Columbia, SC, some 100 miles to the north. This particular swamp is located in what could be termed the middle of nowhere. After leaving the learning center and walking out onto the boardwalk, all that you can hear are your own footsteps, and if you listen closely enough, probably your heartbeat. No highway sounds. No automobiles. It is very quiet. Almost immediately you can hear the sounds of different birds, the rustle of leaves as squirrels scamper two and fro, the soft plunk of water as some turtle decides that sunning is finished for the day and plops back into the water. One could also plainly hear woodpeckers hammering away in search of a tasty morsel. Although it is a blackwater swamp, the water is remarkably clear, allowing you to see several feet below the surface. Everywhere, Cypress Knees stick above the water. We still don’t know what they are for. They defy our efforts to find out! Some suspect that they store starch, others speculate that they are for exchanging carbon dioxide and oxygen, still others think that they are for extra holding power in soft soil, yet no one really knows. Mysteries are good. There are all sorts of birds around. I saw cardinals, robins, Carolina Chickadees, and, pictured to the right a Downy Woodpecker. I stumbled onto this one on my way out. He flew across the boardwalk and landed on a tree right next to it. After some careful creeping, I was able to get close enough for a decent photograph. The weather is still too cold for the reptiles, so no alligators or snakes were around to be seen. It was a pretty cool outing. I started to take my film cameras with me, but in the end, just opted for convenience and maximum flexibility. I had the Tamron 18-270 mm mounted and it provided all of the flexibility that I needed. I did meet another photographer out there. He was shooting with a Canon 5D. It was his first trip there as well. He was stopping by on his way back home, somewhere in upstate South Carolina. This was a nice way to spend a few hours, get a little bit of exercise, indulge in quite a bit of silence and peace, and get a few photos to boot. Sure, I would have loved to get in here about 6:30 or 7:00 AM, but they don’t open until 9:00 AM and by that time, the light was kind of harsh, but so what!
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