Hello friends. It has been a while since I last posted here, but not because I have forgotten about my favorite online hub. I am still in Antarctica. Today is our last full day in the region. Tonight we aim north for the Drake Passage hoping we have a bit of luck with the Gods of wind and swell. It has been an incredible week, beyond what I imagined. I am fortunate because I am not competitive and don’t set expectations on a trip like this. Many of our idiosyncracies and competitive notions have become real “things” these days, but I don’t get involved in such trivial, odd little expenditures. I just let things happen and try to react as best as possible. This trip is a reminder of how out of shape I am regarding photography. Photography is like fencing, with much dancing around followed by minutes of fear or elation. Photography is a skill and my skill level is low. This trip has motivated me to never allow what skill I have to lose its edge of sharpness, ever again.
Comments 15
Wow that went deep….
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It’s an odd place. Not something I can sum up quickly. And there is an element of “not sure how much I want to share.” Anyone caught posting to IG from this place should be detained. Stupid little selfie takes are, yes, dumb, but posting images of what we saw will trivialize and incentivize people to do stupid things. It’s already happening.
Sounds like an amazing trip! Looking forward to the next dispatch!
This post is inspiring and depressing at the same time. If *you* feel as if you have to practice a lot harder to keep sharp, then I ….I …. well, I should post this, grab a camera and get outside and do some photo fitness of my own. And bon voyage — excited to see more of your travels!
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I can’t say it any other way. If you aren’t shooting on a daily basis you just can’t get to a top level of photography. It doesn’t work that way. And I am nowhere near a top level anymore. boo hoo…
Another poor guy with actinic keratosis! Ever since one of my docs told me that skin has memory, I know to blame the olive oil treatment of my youth that was supposed to protect from burn, and lead to rapid tanning. For me, it did exactly that, with almost no redness period between the deathly white and the tan. That was then. It didn’t help that between the ages of eight and sixteen I lived in India. It didn’t help, either, that, decades later, we spent a lot of time out on boats here in the Med. The reflections from the sea hit you from all directions. Stop going out on rivers and lakes, too. Leave the boat at home.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t stopped at keratosis – that gets temporarily fixed with burst from the liquid nitrogen can: it has also led to three ops for basal carcinoma: my ear lobe; the side of my nose, and just under my cheekbone. All the medical folks tell me to stay out of the sunshine. Really? I live in friggin’ Spain! But yeah, altitude means stronger radiation, so be careful in your New Mexico – even if it’s too late to prevent anything, there’s no need to give el sol more ammunition. There used to be a lot of newspaper discourse about the vulnerability of pilots and cabin staff to radiation…
I’m not sure I agree with the need for practice; photography has always struck me as akin to riding a bicycle: once you can, well, you always can. In fact, I tend to think that it’s a skill that grows of its own accord, depending on how interested one is in photography. (Of course, I am assuming a degree of competence has already been reached in whichever genre of photography one is doing.) I think that the internet has made it almost impossible for anyone committed to any part of photography to lose touch with his genre, even if actual shooting has become a thing of the past. I see no reason why, today, even after years of retirement, I wouldn’t be able to pick up where I left off if a client were to come along and finance a gig. If anything, I think that so much more visibility now exists in all genres, that one would find an even wider source of inspiration from which to draw. Yes, I certainly do believe in inspiration: for me, it came, mostly, from the people I was photographing, and when for one reason or another I found myself with a subject who left me cold, I could always fall back on nothing more than technique and save the day that way. In the end, some clients don’t even care, possibly because they can’t tell the difference between inspired work and a technical exercise. But then, that’s how much of life works.
Enjoy your trip. Oh, I noticed the declarations of love for the Zf and the deafening silence surrounding the Fuji 100v: is she yesterday’s girl? 😉
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I am MR. Hat, Buff, and Sunscreen now….which is no guarantee. As for practice, it’s real. I don’t know a single doc photographer who can just turn it on. None of the folks I assisted for could do it. They needed to shoot themselves into shape. Sure, you can make okay images without practice but if you want great images you better be putting the time in. Why do you think NG used to have 18 month assignments with a break in the middle to present one tray? Even after six months of shooting they would sometimes shut a project down.
To me, photography is like muscle building: you can lose it, but if you get seriously back into it, it grows back faster because of muscle memory.
I’m also working on getting back into shape, photographing corporate events gave me very bad habits that I’d like to get rid of.
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Yes, events are a revenue source but they promote habits that might not be helpful anywhere else.
Dan.
Ah, NG. That demands a predisposition to faith, something of which I have a serious deficit. I have strong doubts about all such institutions, and even the fabled Conde Nast is no exception: I believe I have seen one or two pretty naked emperors grace their pages too, but as you yourself are inclined to say, I’m just one guy with one opinion. That’s not, of course, to say that NG or Conde didn’t ever produce great stuff: indeed, for many of us, one or the other school was where we learned all we think we know.
However, there’s a problem: the older one gets, the more clearly one sees through the fog of hype. That’s partly the reason why it’s difficult for some old pros to hold their tongue in this modern world: we really have seen it all, and much of it is best forgotten.
It is increasingly difficult for travel/adventure-orientated productions to keep relevant: the world has shrunk to such a degree that almost anyone can (and a helluva lot of Europeans do) go anywhere on Earth, politics permitting, and I think that because of that there are few surprises left. The printed magazine is turning into its own epitaph. There are some excellent internationally produced tv documentaries available here in Spain – Channel 2 runs them all the time – and I have to admit it, I am stunned by how little I knew and still know about peninsular Spain. My doorstep is so rich in variety that it would take a new lifetime for me to scratch the surface of it. I truly regret having overlooked it until it has become too late, much as I feel about hill climbing, of which this island offers so much now beyond my physical ability to experience.
You know, I am often surprised to discover just how much real, human truth lies in the blues. Those old guys certainly knew a thing or two that I guess today’s more educated and soi-disant sophisticates probably never will. When you break it all down, take out the fake gold and the silly toys, relax and just allow the Jones next door to get on with it and do as they will, life boils down to a few very powerful basic needs and desires. No, I don’t suggest the monastic life, but I do believe most of us need to look inside and ask ourselves why we care so much about so many pointless things. It has turned us into a society of mindless consumers, wearing ourselves out chasing a state of absolute satisfaction that exists, as Omar Khayyám wrote, neither here nor there.
I realised, later, probably why we disagree about starting up again from scratch: you are thinking in terms of a “story”, a documentary approach to making new pictures where I am not: all my new startup requires is making good single images, which is a very different and less arduous mental exercise.
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I don’t shoot singles. Never have unless you count my newspaper days when that was on the table certain days. Always photo-essay. Hence the pull to books.
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Well, a few things. One, I can’t put NG and Conde in the same sentence. Two very different entities, both with their issues, but if you consider their contributions over the years, well, they don’t compare. Just think of the exploration that was funded by the NG Society. Heck, there were three fellows on the ship who won grants to do research. Conde would have tried to turn the trip into a fashion shoot. Also, I don’t agree with the few surprises. We witnessed something that the crew had never seen before, and they had done over 200 trips to Antarctica. I think danger is allowing the shows and social media to trick you into thinking the world is a small place, or everything has been seen. It hasn’t. I too feel the need to stay home and investigate my own state. I love this place, have seen quite a lot of it, but there is SO much more I haven’t seen. But when I get a chance like Antarctica, I take it. Try to learn from it, make some of my own decisions based on personal history as opposed to a film or story from someone else.
Dan,
Good new year start😉
Lets talk when you are back to NM.
glad you are in the most beautiful place in the world….
We have books to make👍🏻
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Yes, we do.