ARCHIVE 10: November 2009

DAVID'S PERSONAL NEWS PAGE
and JOURNAL

Jan/Feb 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
 

In this Archive:

November 22, 2009 - L.A.:  Karsh, Penn, Chandler Portraits

Yesterday (Saturday) was a very full day spent looking at three collections of portraiture in L.A.  It was supposed to be an unofficial student trip and virtually the whole class said they wanted to go.  We voted on a day which seemed an unfortunate choice because it was a day that several of the top students could not go.  But I went -- stupidly as it turned out -- with the majority.  And in the end not only could some of the students who might have really profited from it not attend, many who needed to have been along never bothered.   From now on I'll make my decision on the needs of the really top students since it is clear from experiences over the years that the others will talk a good line but in the end blow it off as should be predictable by their dedication and efforts in other areas of their coursework.  They then can join or not as they deem best helps their photographic efforts.  As Hondo Lane often said... "A (person) ought to do what they think is best."

So it turned out that there were only 4 of us (including me) who went but it was a fascinating view of the work of photographers who spanned an incredible range of approaches.  We started at the LA Library to see a collection of the work of Yousuf Karsh. 

This was the show that most interested me since Karsh's work so completely and profoundly influenced my own portraiture over the years.  However I had only rarely seen actual prints and knew his work mostly through reproductions.  For me, to finally get to see what some of the iconic prints really looked like, especially since they were all very large, was a thrill.   

One could really see how his careful composition, sometimes openly violating normal guidelines, and his mastery of light, came together to produce stunning portraits revealing the character of his subjects.  But unlike, say, Avedon, he was never openly mean or disrespectful to his subjects and tried to present them in a way as to encourage the viewer to take a closer look and try to learn something about the personalities and character of these often famous people. Good as some of the book reproductions are, they were a pale reflection of these actual prints shot primarily on 8x10 film. 

From the Library we went over to the Getty Museum to see the Irving Penn exhibit call "Small Trades" on which Penn spent nearly 50 years doing a self-assigned project photographing tradesmen, especially those he felt were in a dying business.  Unlike Karsh, who used carefully chosen locations, lighting, and superlative printing to emphasize and reveal his subject's personality, Penn shot this huge collection all against nearly identical painted canvas backdrops.  He later used studio lighting to come close to duplicating the look of the very early work done in a natural light studio in London.  Consequently the shots all were nearly identical except for the individual and their work clothes. 

I always loved Penn's fashion and cover work.  In this collection, however, the technical side was really not particularly good.  Highlights were blown out and shadows often blocked up.  Billed by an overwrought copy writer as "psychological" portraits, they were, to me, no such thing since often the face was comprised mostly of blown out highlights.  They were often great and fascinating glimpses into the dress and accoutrements of workers of long ago.  And I learned what a "Trouncer" and a "Navvy" were. 

What was interesting was the side by side comparisons of silver gelatin and platinum/palladium prints made from the same negatives and duplicate internegatives.  The running narrative often seemed to reveal more what is supposed to be the tonal differences and improvement of the platinum process  as if to convince the reader/viewer that those differences were there for the viewing when, to my eye, they were not.  But in some other cases, the tonalities of the platinum process really stood out.  But no process can create detail where there was none captured.  Working in a studio environment eliminates all excuses out-of-control dynamic ranges.  Plus. shooting with medium format Tri-X is not a well calculated start to coax the maximum tonalities of the medium anyway and duplicate internegatives almost always build some contrast so the more typical differences seen when the photographer has shot specifically for the platinum process was not in evidence.

This was a massively educational exhibit but not one where you could see the incredibly creative work of a master photographer.  I felt that other than the stunning array of people illustrated it was interesting, but his fashion and cover work was far more appealing.   

From the Getty we once again crossed the city (you may have noted that our route was not particularly efficient) to the (Gene) Autry Heritage Center to see the work of Harry Chandler in a show called "Dreamers in Dreamland."  In this exhibit the photographer selected a wide range of people from all walks of life who, in his opinion, had made their personal dreams influence and impact the growth of the haven of dreamers, Los Angeles.  These subjects ranged from Aldous Huxley to Jim Morrison and from Howard Hughes to Gene Autry. 

Since many of his subjects had long ago passed away he took old photos, added color and composited them into locations that reflected the results of their dreams.  A really interesting concept but I had the feeling he got tired of it at some point because the quality of his compositing was quite spotty.  Some were seamlessly dropped into the environment of his choice but others looked more like cardboard cutouts.

Many of the photographs' explanatory narratives had quotes by the subjects and many were profound, revealing, or very funny.  One of my favorites came from Howard Hughes who said, "I am not a crazy deranged millionaire, Godammit,  I'm a billionaire."

November 13, 2009 - San Diego

My dear, dear friend Hadley loaned me a book to read: Sam Tanenhaus's "Death of Conservatism."  I know he did it to tweak me just as I had him read one of Thomas Sowell's books.  He had previously loaned me a book, "The Limits of Power" by Andrew Bacevich that I enjoyed (in fact could hardly put down) and at least partly agreed with... and we had a nice long discussion on it.

But this book was infuriating.  It was a good thing it was his book or I would have filled it with annotations.  But I did write a reaction to it that is now on my writing page.   George Washington, way back when, warned us sternly about the dangers of political parties and the partisanship and polarization they would bring that would eventually be destructive.  We didn't listen and now, in my opinion, we are seeing his warning come to fruition.  It took a bit longer than he anticipated but here it is slapping us in the face.  And this book represents, to me, the perfect example of it.  When you have no real issues to counter with, then you simply demonize or disparage the other side.  To this author bipartisanship is having the other side agree with you but it does not include having you agree with the other side.

I'm glad I read it because it provided insight into a mind set I would never have even imagined was out there.  And it does explain a lot of what I see going on these days. 

Nevertheless, I am saddened by that discovery.

November 8, 2009: San Diego - Shooting in the Studio

I'm forever complaining that I need to get to shoot more but this past week I actually got to do two portrait type shoots in the studio. 

I confess that as much as I love teaching, I am first, last, and always a photographer.  And, perhaps it is because I am some sort of control freak,  I dearly love shooting in the studio where I can create the image to look exactly as I wish.  So I was in hog heaven this week.

The first shot was a PR shot for a television reporter and student here at City who needed some new head shots for his book.  I shot this session as a demo for the portrait class last Tuesday.  Although I did mostly "straight" editing for the shots he needed,  I also decided to have some fun with the images and ended up with the shot here to the right having a look seen often in fashion and lifestyle advertising.  To be honest, I normally do not like all the "gimmick" shooting but I think I like this one better than the straight ones...

Then this afternoon, in a complete turn-around of styles and looks -- and certainly subjects, I got to shoot a head shot for a young aspiring teenage model brought to me by a friend of her father's.

I chose these shots from the two sessions to show here because of the similarities in them.  What?  Oh yes, the lighting style (Paramount/Butterfly) is the same on both but the tweaking of the lights and the use of light modifiers and additional lighting is very different. 

I chose this style for both and for the same reasons: for how it shaped their faces.  In his case, by feathering it slightly and adding a kicker it shows the squareness and angularity of his face but without losing details as I would have done with 3/4 or other more dramatic lighting.  It let me have a low-key feel with the detail of a high key shot. 

In her case it also was to show off the cheekbones and smoothness of her face shape and to highlight her young skin.  Here I wanted the high key look more commonly associated with the lighting style.  Diane C. Lopez did the make-up for her with a goal of making her natural youthful beauty come through.  It was one of the easiest shoots I've done in a long time. 

Yep, it was a fun week.  Now back to the curricula, integration, new building, grading fun and games.  And, oh yes, in there somewhere will be time to do some teaching.

November 7, 2001: San Diego - MOPA, Westerfield, and TV's Damage to Freedom

The "opening" at MOPA went as I expected.  Some of the faculty showed up.  A couple of students came and watched. My friend Berta, the President of the Academic Senate, came to see it; but none of the admin we invited showed up to support it and us.  There was a small sign about MOPA's efforts to connect with the local photo community -- a sign whose size reflects, in my opinion, their actual efforts (they never even bothered to mention us in their October or November newsletters which were the two months the show played)  -- but the two hours we were allowed to stand around in the bookstore came and went without neutrally and without incident.

I got a wild surprise in my email yesterday, a lady had read the piece on this site about David Westerfield.  Some of you may recall that he was convicted of the kidnapping-murder of a little girl about 7 years ago.  I was off that summer and so spent the time glued to the wall-to-wall, gavel-to-gavel coverage on local media and while they were all rushing to convict him even before the investigation, I remained unconvinced of their case and ultimately became solidly convinced that he probably did not do it, and certainly did not commit the kidnapping part that resulted in his death sentence.  My reasons and conclusions are contained in an essay on this site about the Westerfield case.   I could not say with certainty he did not do it, but I was reasonably convinced he did not and was absolutely convinced he was convicted on bogus evidence and horrid lawyering by his defense.

Given the lynch mob mentality that overtook the city I expected some real flak from it but to my surprise got lots of notes of support including from his brother.  The lady that wrote to me yesterday also had grave doubts about the case.  She wrote that she thought TV had convicted him and everyone went along.  And she made an interesting comment that she thought TV took away some freedoms.

That really caused me to think about it and in the end agreed with her. When I was a kid I was pretty good at math.  All the way into college and then I got my first calculator.  A Texas Instruments 4-frunction calculator for $54.00 mail order.  Within weeks I could not do the most basic arithmetic but came to rely totally on the calculator.  It had replaced my math-centric cognitive abilities.

I say that as a prelude to this.  Before television, all news and entertainment mediums were an adjunct to reality.  The supplemented and complemented it but were clearly apart from it, something outside of it.  But TV quickly became a replacement for reality for too many.  And because with that it took on the role of assuming the dumbest in us, presenting bottom lines of stories and issues, it also came to replace thinking.  The freedom it took away was the scariest of all… our ability to think for ourselves.

And now that ability is being used wholesale in the political arena and resulted in us getting into a situation where I think the core culture and fabric of this nation is being put in increasing risk by an unrelenting effort to restructure us in the model of European styled secular progressive social pseudo-democracy.  And I see an unbridled unrestrained ideology whose political filter turns all things traditionally American into something bad and to be destroyed being willing to trample any institution or individual that pushes back or does not go along in lockstep. 

I had already faced that in academia.  But that to me was the fantasy world of those who primarily had zero real world experience and I wrote it off as evidence that Arthur C. Clarke was correct when he wrote that Academia and the Intelligentsia were made up largely of those whose "education had surpassed their intellect."  They were, I thought, denizens of a world unto themselves, living on the fantasies of ideas in a vacuum that never once worked in the real world of which they were largely ignorant.  But I seriously underestimated the power of TV and the media to so thoroughly supplant reality and replace serious thinking with bumper sticker philosophies for those whose experiences told them clearly that reality was otherwise.  Much less that it could get them to vote contrary to the reality the knew to be true and in favor of one who, in the history of mankind and a nearly infinite amount of variation in governmental structure, had never once actually worked on its own unless it was on life-support from outside.

November 6, 2001: San Diego, MOPA, Union inanity

This November is starting off much better than last November, thank you very much!  And it is starting off with some new shooting, and a new venture.  The educational online video concept noted in the previous post is grabbed hold of me and concept planning is underway (in my spare time, of course) to deal with the two major elements: creation of the content and creation of the means of distribution.  it sometimes makes me tired just to think about it but also is incredibly exciting for me as well.

This afternoon I am going to the "opening"  of our faculty presentation at the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA) in Balboa Park.  We were asked to provide the first slideshow presentation of photo faculty work in the county.  There are almost 200 slides in the show with example work from nearly all of the faculty.  That will kick off some collaborative educational efforts between City College and MOPA that, if the school doesn't crumble under the budget chaos first, will provide some major benefits for our students.

That crisis continues unabated.  When I was a spook for Uncle Sam we were told that the best way to tell a convincing lie is to wrap it in the truth.  That is basic knowledge to politicians, lawyers, and union hacks in addition to spies as is evidenced by the spokesmouth for the union rattling on nearly daily in overtly political emails to the faculty droning on about how the nasty republicans refuse to raise taxes to pay for it. 

One time he actually came close to something factual: the prison budget has skyrocketed over the past few years while education has barely kept abreast of COLA increases (and has actually stopped even that).  That assertion is true.  But does he put ANY blame on the Correctional Officers Union which is the most powerful in the state for one of the most outlandish pay and pension plans in the galaxy?  Of course not, he blames the republicans for wanting to put more law breakers away and ignores the fact that if they suddenly wanted to cut back on prisons the union would howl about it.  And now, without even a hint of a suggestion that THEIR budget is out of line, he wants the citizens of the state to pony up more in taxes for education.

Well, he is part right again.  As you have heard me say a number of times here, I think education is the key to our future and needs support perhaps above many other things, certainly above prison guard benefits and pensions.  But that money has to come from somewhere.

An old friend of mine, who works part time for IRS wrote recently about a return he saw which had an enormous tax liability for staff and help and opined there must have been $millions in payroll to create that and how could anyone have that much money?  Oh, you mean other than work his tail off for it?  And if he is crushed with taxes and retires or moves, what happens to those employees living off of his salary?  With no more trough to feed at will they somehow regenerate the system that kept them employed and perhaps employ even more?  Get real.  How would they do that?  What sophistry of reasoning could lead to so idiotic a statement?  I'm sympathetic to the (sometimes) really homeless people on the corners with their signs, and sometimes give them some money even though I generally feel ripped off by it.  But they are not the ones to EVER hire people who are the backbone of the taxpayers that work keep this increasingly bloated government afloat. 

As I wrote before, with this new administration we are accelerating our slide down the slope to ending having a government of, by, and for the people into a situation where we have a people of, by, and for the government.

Robert Aubrey documented the inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness of humans and Alexander Maslow demonstrated that the sense of  "self actualization" was what drove us to grow and improve.  Those two are tied together and the tangible verification of our self actualizing efforts are carried in the acquisitiveness that is deep in our genes.  When you remove that motivation then the effort stops.  How many social experiments and countries dominated by the ideals of enforced leveling of acquisition have to fail before they get it.  Not a single example can be found of success and yet on they persist as if we only did it even to a GREATER degree then it would work.  They feel that since they cannot really bring the bottom up, the way to solve this is to bring the top down.

Our country found itself in a huge economic hole. It wasn't that we were unregulated as some claim or too regulated as others claim.  It was that we were unevenly regulated and with far too many loopholes.  Some were forced to play by the rules while others were actually pushed by the government to be stupid; in this case to give credit to un-creditworthy people in the interests of leveling the playing field and letting everyone get a home. What insanity in the name of blind ideology. Cowboys say that when you discover you are in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging.  Our leaders decided instead that the solution was bigger shovels and more diggers.  Pretty soon they will dig the very heart out of the country, the culture, and the people.  And this State is showing them the way to do it.  Well,  they did always said California was a leader in things.  In this case it is the Pied Piper leading the lemmings over the edge.  Except we are the lemmings.  And out brilliant union guy is doing all he can to hand out more shovels.

Unless they are stopped then the educational system will simply collapse and my venture will become all the more important.  But if that ideology wins the day then I'll probably have to move because as a generator of money my taxes will almost certainly skyrocket.

November 01, 2009: San Diego (Entered a day early)

I am SOOOOOOOOO glad to have October over and done with.  I can only hope it means November will be better, at least by comparison. I'm so glad I'm putting October in the archives and getting a jump start on November.  And yes, I am ignoring Halloween here.  It was a year ago right around Halloween that the most bizarre, unfortunate, sad, pointless episode in my life started into play culminating in the loss of two friendships and a psychotic episode that would be unbelievable in the most feverish soap opera imaginable.   

This end of month/beginning of month has at least started off with a personal bang.  As some of you know, the investment partners that provided the money to make our film, Moosie, were wanting to sell out.  Bob Holland, screenwriter and investor originally wanted to buy it but as the economy and his health  deteriorated that plan was put on the back burner and it was not long before he passed away.  The distributor, IFM, was willing to pay a small amount for it and so we started the process to sell to them. 

But my gut was completely opposed to it virtually from the first.  I honestly am not sure I could tell you why; it was a simple, clean deal and then all of the yearly tax hassles would be over especially for SunStone's (my production company) CFO who has continued to do yeoman's service to keep this current.  Perhaps it was because that sale would cut off forever the chance, slim as it is, to repay cast and crew for their prodigious efforts.  No one could have asked for a more dedicated and enthusiastic collection of talent.  But whatever the reason, after much agonizing over it and a lot of lost sleep I decided to do something outlandish... to buy it myself.  Oh well, I have history doing outlandish things. 

The picture has pretty much run its course so I do not expect it to do much more than repay my costs based on current contracts outstanding.  But if some miracle happened and the right people rented and saw it, perhaps at least some money would trickle in and I could start properly recognizing the cast and crew's efforts and contribution.

And that decision, since it means I will need to re-create or revive a business entity for tax purposes, means I might as well get serious about another project hanging fire: the creation of the web based lessons and tutorials that go beyond simply creating (free) content for my classes at City College and consider them as a product for sale on the web or at seminars and workshops.  I had been dragging my feet largely because of the business and tax issues as well as the available time issue.

But the coup de grace was the email from the District last week about the critical state of the budget and possible ramifications.  Earlier they were adamant there would be no layoffs or cutbacks; now they were going to try to avoid them. That phrase change spooked me a bit, I admit.  My history has been one of having the weirdest things drop out of the sky to blindside me.  I dearly hope this will not be one of them but this time, with a little warning, I want to do all I can to get ready.  And if the budget thing is resolved before we are all out on the street then perhaps this might make for some nice additional revenue as well as put some really good educational material out there. 

I've done a lot of instructional and training video and have even won awards for it.  But those were all made-to-order programming for various clients and I always wanted to create "canned" programming that could be working for me while I slept or, better yet, was out making photographs.  This might be just the ticket.  Lots of planning will be needed if it is to have a chance of success but the more I think about it the more excited I get. 

Of course all of this is as if I had any time for it... Oh well I have no other "life" anyway and this will keep me off of the streets and out of trouble.  At least I now know what I will be doing over the upcoming Holiday vacations...

Oh, I almost forgot, I also have created a new datasheet on White Balance for Digital Cameras and placed it in the Photo 143 section of my SDCC page.