We’re off this evening to begin a journey out west, spending a week or so exploring parts of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada, mostly Utah, and seeing if my camera works at noon. Perhaps I will be able to write a line or two from the wilderness, because I know how much the A-listers miss me when I don’t post.
see yaz.
I’ve been thinking about light.
Occupational hazard, I suppose, but with preparation for this year’s Annual Photography and Rental Car Abuse Adventure well underway, and having had a good immersion in my recent output, the subject of light has been occupying my thoughts lately.
It’s the quality of light that concerns me, and the notion that well, that the light should maybe, just maybe, match the subject. I know, it’s a radical thought that could conceivably get me drummed out of the guild, but try to hang with me for a few. I promise not to name you should the Committee on Unphotographic Activities come calling.
For instance, one of the subjects slated for exploration on the upcoming trek is a ghost town, maybe more than one, largely growing out of my probably unhealthy reverence for Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Which really has nothing at all to do with light, but it has everything to do with ghost towns and all the other stuff we leave behind when we go, and further; it has to do with time and weather and erosion and that the things we build for ourselves only serve to end up as metaphors.
But, you know, pretty metaphors, if photographed in the golden hour.
And there it is. What if you choose to photograph a subject in light that more closely matches that subject, and ignore the irony of bathing a ruin in light approved by the state tourism board? What of a falling building photographed in the harsh light of the midday sun that’s beating and breaking down the materials and through that show what most likely contributed greatly to the current condition?
The idea being to produce a photograph that accurately reflects that someone once said, “You know, the climate here is for shit. Let’s get outta here.” Or maybe, some guy and his mail-order bride built this place, had seven kids and they all died when cholera swept through here like a malevolent wind, and this corral is all that’s left, and it’s slowly being eaten by the desert.
Is this possible? Does this result in Photographs, or do you just come all the way home with nothing different from the snaps of the casual cameraphone user who couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed early enough?
Worse yet, do you end up with photographs that have to be explained?
I don’t know. Am I contemplating the possibility of, well, art..?
I’m as guilty as anyone of having certain expectations when it comes to viewing photographs, and further admit to being somewhat of a Light Snob, in that I sometimes refuse to even get a camera out of the bag if I don’t like the light, so I’ve produced a body of work that, in general, doesn’t do a whole lot to distinguish itself from the work of the rest of the Barn At Sunset crowd.
Believe me, I’m not saying I’d pass up a stunning shot. I imagine I’ll crank through a few frames of serious eye-candy. I’ll be based around Moab, so yeah, there are a few nice shots to be had. I’ll bring back my limit, I’d reckon.
I must, because if I went through with this and only sought the harsh and heavy, and it didn’t work, I’d return with nothing.
Well, nothing beside remains.
So the other day I went to retrieve The Boy from school. I entered the office where I have to sign him out, and there is a little girl sitting on the bench next to the sign-out sheet. She says Hi and I return her greeting and then I hear this familiar voice behind me that says Hi Dad.
I turn around to see The Boy perched on a chair in front of the afterschool director’s desk. This is never a good sign.
-Are you busted? I already know the answer.
-Yes.
-What did you do?
-I, uh, accidentally…
-ahem, says the director.
-Well, not really accidentally, but I sort of crashed into Clinton and he sort of crashed into the window–
-oh, Lord…
The director spoke up: We have stopped the bleeding.
-You pushed Clinton through the window?
I could imagine Clinton impaled on some huge shard of glass. Bloody and traumatized. Hospital bills and apologies to Clinton’s folks. Awkwardness at Scout meetings.
-He didn’t go through the window, Dad. Just hit his elbow on something sharp.
-But still…
-He may need stitches, added the director.
All the way home I’m at the top of my Dad Game: Blah blah blah, you had been asked to stop, blah blah, could have killed him, blah blah blah, stupid decision, blah blah, I walked to school in snow, blah blah, Peter Frampton killed rock and roll, blah blah blah, consequences of our actions, blah blah, monumental stupidity,and so on.
He was properly cowed, contrite. I was seething.
Then that night, I was watching My Name Is Earl, and when Earl and Randy were shooting bolts from a crossbow straight up in the air I was laughing hysterically, because I remember that time DG and I spent an afternoon when we were about The Boy’s age climbing up on the roof of his house with his bow and one arrow, the one that didn’t have a tip on it, and we’d pull the string back, both of us, as far as we could, and we’d launch that arrow into the neighborhood, just in random directions, and we’d watch until we couldn’t see it, and then we’d go looking for it.
This was how bright we were.
It was years before I realized that what we were doing was Really. Fucking. Stupid.
But, you know, we didn’t kill anyone. So, um, it was funny.
And then of course a bolt came back down and hit Earl, and I thought this was even funnier, because it brought home how really lucky we had been, and reminded me of other adventures we’d had, and how they’d frequently led to somebody bleeding or some neighbor on the phone to the police, and man oh man, boys will be boys, won’t they? Hahahahaha.
And when I stopped to catch my breath, I heard this familiar voice: What’s so funny, Dad?
Agree to produce a DVD before the weekend is done. This, despite an encompassing ignorance of the process.
Hubris, people. It’s a tragic flaw. Read your Greeks.
Discover regular slide show program outputs only in pdf. That would be the pdf that has no capacity to carry with it the necessary soul-stirring music.
Research slide show software that will carry soul-stirring music. Suffer sticker shock. Recover. Begin suffering unfamiliarity with new slide show software. Discover directions written by the Jargon Consortium.
Output copies of likely included photographs. Download likely soul-stirring music (easy, Gromit; it’s just for family). Begin listening to the same eight seconds of music infinite number of times, attempting to mark transitions with great impact.
Start actively loathing all photographs. Question ancestry of musicians.
Listen intently as wife describes Saturday evening activities that include presence of Other People. People who would love to see a slide show of recent trip, a different trip from the one already being compiled.
Consider divorce.
Attempt to build two slide shows at once. Overload processor. Watch as little spinning rainbow ball spins endlessly. Inform wife the second slide show is a no go. Receive abuse.
Take time away from computer to entertain Other People. Enjoy the evening and ignore the little voice that keeps reminding you of lost time. Usher them out, late, and return to the task.
Spend several hours marking audio tracks, matching crescendos with properly impressive (or as impressive as I get) photographs, smaller passages with quieter images, and what have you. Reach point, long after the witching hour, of being either satisfied with the production or giving up on it ever being any good. Flip a coin.
Instruct software to compile show. Wait.
Receive message that audio in its present form cannot be used. Watch as marked tracks are discarded.
Realize that project is no farther along after half of the time allotted than it was when it started.
Consider returning to life of hard drinking.
Engage in harsh self-recrimination. Crawl upstairs to fall down. It’s 4:30 a.m.
When faced with a time-critical task that includes unfamiliarity with technical aspects of said task, I’ve found over the years that it is always better to approach the task having had very little sleep. This makes the task much easier, don’t you think?
Perform music-format hack to bring necessary soul-stirring music back into, um, play. Spend several hours listening to/marking transitions and staring at the same photos.
Ponder stealing new photos off Flickr.
Watch show twenty or thirty times to make certain the whole thing is going to suck more than anything has ever sucked. More than a Milli Vanilli reunion tour.
Begin compiling show. Fire up PlayStation3. Shoot some terrorists. Check progress of compilation obsessively. Note that Time Left is measured in light years. Wonder whatever happened to that bottle of Abuela rum we had. Shoot some more terrorists.
Watch, paralyzed, as compiler chokes on show. After most of it is done.
Four times.
Apologize to God for past transgressions.
Decide, with no real evidence, that show is too long.
Edit show. Redo transitions.
Attempt to re-compile. Google methods of voluntary euthanasia.
Add photos back to show, just because. Change transitions again.
Finally divine issue.
Chair-dance with reckless abandon when compile finishes.
Insert blank DVD. Watch as computer spits blank DVD back out at me. Repeat five, six times.
Determine computer has no DVD drive.
Frighten neighbors by laughing quite bitterly in the backyard.
Cobble together half-assed network of computer, external drive and laptop with DVD drive. Attempt to transfer software to laptop for local compile when show refuses to transfer intact.
Compile show again. Note that Demo version of software was used, demo version that placed text reading MADE BY DEMO VERSION OF SOFTWARE in center of every single slide.
Find that bottle of Abuela. Set it on the desk. Just in case.
Lose hour. Not sure where it went, just notice it’s gone. Also, find keyboard impressions in my forehead.
Poke around on computers, hoping solution will shoot off a flare.
Construct elaborate flow that involves original computer, external drive and laptop with DVD drive, so original computer drives the software located on the external drive to draw photos in a local folder but add in music on original computer, pile them all into show on external drive, convert to correct format and then write the whole thing to the DVD using the laptop’s DVD drive that I had to fool into thinking all this was happening locally.
Hear wife stumbling around upstairs, looking for coffee. Realize I have to be at work in an hour.
Take shower while DVD writes.
Hand DVD to wife.
Go to work.
Refuse to ever watch DVD.
