Cold and dark. Silent. No wind. No anything because this is the middle of the blackness of space. Nothingness so vast. Time has no meaning.

But, improbably, impossibly, things happen. Existence jostles with nonexistence, and things happen and happen out of control and faster and harder and hotter. Heat so hot very existence becomes an explosion. Purity. Primal energy is released in violence and in physics. Photons by the billions and billions are ripped from their bonds and loosed into the vastness of space. Straight and true they speed across vast distances, defining space and time through their very existence.

But, before they even get started, after going only ninety three million miles, some of these photons run into a snag. One by one by one, these photons start getting picked off by molecules of air, ice, water vapor — an atmosphere.

From the trillions of packets of energy that were fused in the fires of creation, only a statistically insignificant sliver of these photons miraculously survive, and so they now take on a collective name: Sunlight.

Down from the sky, dodging through the curvature of the stratosphere, tinted by pollution and diffraction, this sunlight filters down, down, down. Packets of photons bound together as rays of light fall.

Faster than a blink of an eye, the rays narrowly miss a cloud, skirt a tree, sideswipe the concrete of an office building, and hits the chrome headlight case on a lovingly restored nineteen-fifty-one Ford pickup in the parking lot of a BART station outside of Oakland. The chrome has a high albedo — a measure of reflectivity — so the rays of light are not done. After millions of miles, there are still three yards left to go. The rays hit a disc of optical glass, passing through almost untouched. Almost, but their path is adjusted in a very precise way, once, twice. A third and forth time. Four glass elements of a Tessar lens gather the rays and direct them in an orderly manner towards the end, but in a twist of fate, most of these crucial rays don’t even make it the final seventy-five millimeters. Most of them impact the leaves of a shutter and become important in the end only for their absence. The leaf shutter disappears for a fraction of a second and a handful of light rays, from millions of miles away make it through to a divine and glorious chamber of otherwise pure darkness not unlike the space where they were born.

At last, a chosen ray of light comes to its final resting place: A thin bed of pristine silver. But, the energy from that distant explosion does not go silently. The improbable ray agitates that silver on the emulsion just barely enough, minutely, practically imperceptible but undeniably enough to permanently transform that thinnest of sheets. All life is change, and so these changes are recorded on photographic film. These rays of light align and record an image, a truth, giving meaning to all time and space.

I am here. I am a photographer. I capture light that will never be duplicated even in an infinite universe.

It’s a grey Thursday afternoon. I sit at my computer and check the stats. The latest photos I’ve posted on the internet have gotten no love. No comments, mo likes, no faves. I’ve used all my social marketing tricks to draw attention to them, but in my heart I know that my photos aren’t relevant to most people out there. The realization is sobering and sometimes depressing. Like most people, I crave recognition for my efforts. I want to know that I’m affecting the world. I want reinforcement, because it feels good to be noticed. I know, because I’ve had it. I’ve gotten my million views, I’ve been on the front page. I’ve been noticed and had my moments of fame. But, they’ve been fleeting. And, has it changed me? Has it made life easier? Has it sent any more brilliant light coming down from the sun? The sun laughs at all this.

I take pictures to testify of Emerson’s “particular ray.” My vision is particular indeed. It is imperfect, and it is evolving. WIth every click of the shutter, I learn something. With every roll of film I develop, there are lessons, surprises, secrets, and memories. With every jpeg, there is the record of explosion and creation from the depths of darkness. Yes, fame can feel nice, but it doesn’t sustain. It flickers like all life flickers. Even if no one else sees my work from now until the end of time, I testify. If those I respect ignore or forget me, I testify! Because for me, this activity is bigger than views or retweets. And, I keep that and mind and I keep shooting. For me.

I nearly made a hilarious mistake.

A few nights ago I went to see Leroy Powell at Harvelle’s — a very dark little bar. The only camera I wanted in that situation was the Leica M2 with the fast f/1.4 lens. But it had a roll of ASA100 film that wasn’t usable for a dark bar. So I rewound the film, making note of how many exposures were left. I popped in a roll of Arista Premium 400 that I pushed to 1600.

Today I put the old roll of ASA100 film for a day of daylight shooting. I loaded the film and started to click-advance to the point I had stopped. But, I didn’t have the lens cap on! I just caught myself after advancing past the leader. Whew!

Recently, I did a series of publicity photos for local musician Seven Saturdays (a.k.a. Jonathan Haskell). We hiked up to an idyllic mystical patch of forest in Griffith Park where the light was swirly.

It was a fun shoot. Jonathan, like many people, wasn’t a fan of getting photographed. I kept the energy up with a lot of positive feedback. I’d contantly tell him when things were working, and when I liked what I was seeing. We chimped different shots together on the camera’s LCD and discussed what he was looking for. I threw out processing ideas while we were shooting, telling him my ideas for a “cold palette” which would match his intricate music which I found lovely and lonely at the same time. This constant communication kept us engaged and really helped the process. Jonathan said he was a big fan of “accidents” which I thought boded well for me. My whole life is an accident.

I brought two lenses for the Canon 5D: the 24-105 f/4L because of it’s amazing sharpness. I also brought the 50mm 1.4 to be able to take advantage of a really narrow depth-of-field. I also brought a speedlight and an umbrella and a voice-activated lightstand (a.k.a. Molly, the band manager I triggered it with Calumet LiteLinks with wireless RF. I switched back and forth between lenses a couple times. Then I brought out a Mamiya C-330 medium-format film TLR with a 65mm f/3.5. I hooked up the LiteLinks to the Mamiya as I have in the past, but I couldn’t get the Mamiya to trigger the LiteLink. I’m not sure why, I think the jack just needed to be held down. So I ended up just shooting one roll of Tri-X just for another look.

When I did my processing, I worked to get that cold palette for some of the shots, but we also did a lot of experimenting with a sunflare which really needed something a bit warmer. I ended up presenting him with three different series: A cold series, a b&w (film) series, and a warm series.

I felt there were twenty-two candidates for keepers. I shared those candidates with seven friends, just to get some feedback. I asked each of them to pick a least favorite, just to make sure that there wasn’t a clear loser that definitely should be jettisoned. Interestingly, of the seven people, none of them picked the same least-favorite. I decided that was a good sign that nothing was obviously terrible. I ended up presenting all twenty-two candidates to the client. He ended up wanting to use eleven of them, which I felt was a good encouraging number.

In addition to my favorite picture above, here is another example of the cold series:

I shot twelve frames of Tri-X and got four candidates. Really a great ratio. Here are a couple:

And then here a couple from the warm series. And by warm, I meant warm compared to the cold series. It’s definitely still a bit stark, but the forest really glows in those. After spending some time with these, I’ve recently decided not in love with the palette, but I do like how the light looks very alive. Not every decision we make is perfect. The very last photo wasn’t chosen by the client, but artistically I think it’s very strong. So, here it is:

This is commentary on: For Annie Leibovitz, a Fuzzy Financial Picture – NYTimes.com.

I’m ashamed to admit that for many years, I dismissed the name Annie Liebovitz as fluff celeb photography. This was before I got into photography myself. To be sure, she does some really flamboyant work for Vanity Fair, but she is a very, very, very good eye. (Duh)

Now comes word that she is in a spot of bother with her finances, a twenty-four million line of credit is due in a month. And, yes the worst contingent is in play: She put her negatives up as collateral.

The New York Times article is very lacking on particulars — nobody can seem to say why she owes so much money. She owns a few homes, and travels. That’s about it.But, who knows.

One key rumor though is that the love of her life Susan Sontag had left her a large inheritance, which was taxed like crazy because they were unable to marry.  If true, that’s a tragic twist of affairs. But, with a larger perspective one can’t feel too much sympathy with someone not managing that much money in  smarter manner.

Should she lose rights to her own work? Yes, she absolutely should if that’s the agreement she signed in order to spend twenty-four million dollars on whatever it is she spent it on. Talented people deserve to make a living off their work — but our society is too lopsided, awarding the top few percent an outsized piece of the pie. The celebrity worship that she profited from is a big part of why we produce so little of real value.

I stop short of saying she contributed to celebrity worship. Her work is worth whatever someone wishes to pay for it. She takes wonderful images of notable people, and I am in awe of her talent.  But, I do believe she benefits from an aspect of society that does not advance humanity.  And, had she perhaps lived a little more within her means, she’d not risk the loss of her creative work. This tragedy is, unfortunately, of her own making. Live by the dollar, lose by it as well.

Access Hollywood listed their Top Ten Most Iconic Annie Leibovitz Photos. One of those, and one that wowed me was her portrait of Queen Elizabeth.

Here she is shooting Keith Richards for Louis Vuitton earlier this year:

I’m very curious about the basics of photographic studio lighting. Strobist is God, as we all know. But, when he dropped the post a few weeks ago “A Walk Around the Monobloc, Pt. 1” I felt like he was holding back some of the fruit of knowledge. He told us about a monobloc, but I wanted to take a step back. What’s a monobloc? Are there different types of that sort of strobe? What about the “heads” I see on Craigslist all the time? How do they fit? I had a ton of questions I tried to get across in a comment on his blog, but I suffered a communication failure. I struggled to ask a good question.

Since then, I’ve wanted to research studio lights more, but I am really lazy didn’t know where to start. Happily, I just came across a post on Photo.net that hit the spot. It filled in all the starter gaps that I was missing from Strobie’s post.

Photo.net: An intro to studio lighting equipment

There’s a lot of great info here, but this is the bit I needed to know:

There are 2 basic types of studio flash -
Generator (England) also known as Pack & Head (USA) flash basically consists of a box that sits on the floor (or, with professional units too heavy to lift, sits on wheels) and
Monoblock (England) or Monolight (USA). Generator/Pack and head lights contain all their ‘works’ in the box, and a high-voltage cable connects the box to the actual flash head.

Got that? It’s easy, when you know the answer.

And, now please enjoy Metallica – “Hit the Lights”

In my quest to develop a craft, I went to the Bootleg Theater in Silver Lake on Friday to photograph the band LoveLikeFire. It was yet another venue I’d never been to and didn’t know what to expect for lights. What I saw when I got there were just some dim overhead bulbs. So indie rock!

This time I brought the 50mm f/1.4 and the 70-200 f/2.8L with some image-stabilizing action. I knew no matter what happened with the “fitty”, I’d get something with the “moneymaker.”

Also on the bill was a local band called All Wrong and the Plans Change, featuring a real stunner on lead vox. The color on those shots was so bad, but they converted to monochrome fairly nicely. Cheat! (See below)

When LoveLikeFire came on, I really tried to pay attention to technical detail and get some sharp shots, which I did. The above shot was with the 50mm at f/1.8 and 1/160 sec. Whats interesting is that most of my sharp shots came after I switched back linking auto-focus to the shutter instead of the back button. (You can read about the benefits of back-button focus here.) The literature even suggests back-button focus is better for moving subjects. So, my success in switching to shutter seems counter intuitive to me, but perhaps using the shutter button brings the moment of shutter-release closer chronologically to the moment of focus, by a few milliseconds at least. I much prefer back-button focus, but it might actually be too slow for subjects moving front-to-back? I will keep experimenting.

I was getting sharp shots, but nothing very dramatic. The dull overhead bulbs added nothing. A week after complaining about the static red and blue lights at Spaceland, I would have killed for something so interesting.

Then with two songs left in LoveLikeFire’s set, I broke out a speedlight, put it on a bracket and slapped a Lumiquest Softbox III on it. I know it looked ridiculous, but I wanted to see what sort of results it brought. I had some trouble getting the flash to fire. Maybe the TTL cord I used (off-brand) is dodgy? When it did fire, the light was enough to illuminate the subject, but again pretty boring for a rock concert.

This shot is with the softboxed speedlight. The bracket pushed the strobe away from the axis enough that there is nice definition on her chin. But there’s not a lot of drama.

I’ll continue to practice. Having an accomplice to stand off to the side with a gelled flash to light the background would be rad, but likely impractical. Asking the band if I could place a light in back might work. Would I ever get the balls to do that?

Oh yeah, and here the gorgeous singer from All Wrong:

Local hipsters Castledoor met Brooklyn rockers Hopewell at Spaceland on June 8th. I was there shooting for LAist.com. Jeremy Oberstein was there to write about it. See the feature just posted over at LAist.com.

Hopewell, Castledoor @ Spaceland, 6/07/09 on LAist.com

I had major troubles with the lighting. I’m not at all happy with the lack of truly sharp frames from this show. I carried with me the 50mm f/1.4, the 85mm f/1.8 and the 15mm fisheye. I left the 24-105 f/4L at home. I learned more lessons — but I’ve also found more confusions. I tried to use the ST-E2 IR transmitter without a flash, trying to get help from the auto-focus assist beam it has. Results were mixed. I got things close to being in focus, but it was very slow. There is a beat pause after you press the focus button to when the beam goes out. This is not great when people are moving around. Still, I took plenty of frames when the singer was at the mic, and still I found a lack of sharpness. Was it the extreme aperture of my lenses? I tend to think so, but I have good examples of sharp focus from at least f/1.6 with that 50mm before. So what was the issue? When Hopewell was on the stage, they asked to turn the lights down. Damn them! So there was one white light off to the side that I had to work with. I should have gotten some sharply focused frames, but it feels like I didn’t. Was it camera shake? I used to think 1/160th of a second was the slowest I could go. Now I think 1/200 is the absolute slowest I should go. When Castledoor was on the stage, the lights were just red and blue the whole time. I am sure the red makes it hard for a red autofocus beam to operate.

Should I go with my own flash? Probably. I try to avoid it, but maybe I could try it for a few shots. We’ll see. If I shoot Spaceland again, I will definitely bring a flash on a bracket or something.

And, I’ll buy a 16-35 f/2.8L. Maybe.

Hopewell on Myspace
Castledoor on Myspace

P.s. I was extra disappointed with my photographic results, when I discovered that Castledoor’s keyboardist is a stunning photographer in her own right. I should at least take better pictures than the band!