I made a few good images. Not this one, the one you see above. Nope, that’s just filler. Something I do to keep the instinct and reactions going. Something to keep the eyes moving and the finger pointing and pressing. Training, if you will. Photo-fitness is what I call it. Just in case something interesting breaks out. I’ll be ready. Will you?
This is a place I’ve trodden for over twenty-five years. Believe it or not, it looks basically the same as it did when I first saw it, all those years ago. Today is the 4th of July and the rain is coming down with meaning. In fact, the last two days have been soggy to say the least, biblical rain for someone from New Mexico where we measure rains like this in years not days. But I love these days because it makes it easy to stay inside and get done what I need to get done.
Back to my photography. I made some good images, some good bird images to narrow things down.
There was little effort on my part. A friend put me in position, I stepped from the car with the right kit and got it done. Boom, boom, boom. I knew when I made the images they would most likely end up in whatever publication I produce at the end of this birding adventure. And let me say this, these images were good for me but probably not for someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to feathered subject matter.
My FIRST thought upon lowering the camera from my eye? Get these online as fast as possible? Share, share, share? Nope. Just the opposite. My first thought was “These go in the vault.” “These need to be studied, edited and placed in the right order at the right time. Maximum impact. These images are one piece of an enormous puzzle that is only beginning to take shape.
I’m not going to share these new images. Not yet.
Why? Because I know you. I know you and I know your friends and your family and your lifestyle. I may not know all the details, and I’m lumping all of you together, which I know isn’t fair, but just for the sake of this post I’m going to do it anyway. You will get bored. You will look for the next best thing, or heck, the next thing regardless of whether or not it’s good. That’s the pattern of modern culture. What’s next? Oh, good birding images, great, now what? Like a seal honking for another mullet. More, more, more. Sorry, no me gusta. (Photos: Remler)
There is a guy on Twitter, a birding guy. He’s creating some of the most striking images and motion clips of birds I’ve ever seen. His work is astoundingly good. Seems like a cool guy too. When I found him I must have spent a good ten minutes looking at clips and stills. On one hand, this dude was fuel to the fire. “You have much work to do Mr. Milnor.” And then I left. I did go back, not on purpose, but there he was again. I was on a Blurb Twitter mission of sorts, but there he was, and once again, I abandoned my mission and took in some top notch bird work.
And then I went back again, but this time it didn’t stick. Remember, this work is some of the most astounding work I’ve seen but my brain just said “Seen it.” Done, gone, only to be forgotten and replaced by Supreme Court lunacy, political rants, weather reports, NEW CAMERA PARTS, family crisis, dinner menus, the Tour de France, Wimbledon, my Peru workshop, a potential Blurb trip to France, my Lebanon workshop, replacing the ink in my fountain pen, mapping today’s thirty-mile ride on the Salsa, dreaming about fried clams, scratching my leg, sending horrible texts to my sister, jumping out and scaring my wife, practicing my hook kick, wondering why I can’t dance, and wondering if I should grow my hair out. I have a lot of important shit going on people.
This is why you don’t share in real-time. Think about it this way. Let’s say YOU made these images, and then you went home and made prints on your Fuji Instax printer, something I think you SHOULD be doing. Then you drove over to the local river. Very carefully you walked to the water line and sat down on your favorite, flat stone. Then you tossed those Instax prints as far up river as your weak, little arm would allow. (I’m assuming most of you don’t train to throw Instax prints.) And then you watched as the current took your beloved images and swept them downstream in a matter of seconds. GONE baby gone. That is sharing in real-time, and by the way, that real, digital river is so wide you can’t seen the opposite shoreline, and the current is running about 150mph.
If you have work of intent and greater purpose then don’t even think about sharing in real time. You are destroying your own castle. Just try something. Wait. Just wait. Wait for a day, a full day. My guess, you might forget about the entire thing, especially if you are a shoot and share type. There will be endless fodder in the pipeline. You can’t keep up. Nobody can. Want a chicken fajita? Ya, I’ll bet you do. See, there you go, forgot all about your masterpiece right? Cheese, lettuce, cilantro, peppers, onion, hmmmmm, so good. What were we talking about?
Now, think about this. You buy my book, or I buy yours, not knowing entirely what lives inside. The entire inside is a mystery, a surprise. The book arrives and after putting your pants on you rush to the door. You PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN and you unwrap the beast. Most likely, being right-handed, means you open the book from THE BACK. Yes, true story. You open from the back but I’ve taken this into consideration by designing the back matter to match the front matter. All is well. You are MINE. I have you because with each turn of the page you are seeing something you have never seen before. Not once. And the images are just one aspect of the newness. How the copy balances with the imagery. The typeface sings. The design takes you on a story arc and now the rest of the world fades away. Your spouse yells from the other room, “Does my ass look fat in these pants?” but you don’t even hear it because you are MINE.
All you have to do is wait. Don’t pull that content trigger. Click on that safety and remain calm. The pipeline will be there when you return. Until then, just chillax and determine how you can make your work count, really count. There is the now and there is the lasting. Be in that second camp my friends.
Comments 16
Well, your wife shot a nice picture. Good use of DOF and yes, do as you thought you might: let your hair grow long. There’s enough time for short, military styles when you are old and the hairs have all said adios, amigo, you blew it when you had us. I can give you about thirty years and I don’t feel old: I feel a bit tired, and in a waiting room to somewhere or for something. Maybe for the hair to come back?
I know about this stuff. I blame barbers who used to singe the scalp making us teens look like we had a Tony Curtis head. The sons of bitches would rub stuff into our hair and bring tears to our eyes with their overheated blowers, and then at the end of it, offer us “something for the weekend, sir?” We could only just manage to pay for the haircut, never mind plan erotic weekends. That’s the kind of society most of us probably experienced that gave rise to the European idea of what the American Dream might be: everybody owning a ‘59 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, having a swimming pool in the garden and dating Sandra Dee. I have to admit to being a bit more sophisticated: I was already obsessed with Bardot. Yeah, a part of that version of the dream worked out.
Do as I have done: avoid social media like the plague. There are – were – a couple of spots on the Internet worth daily visiting and contributing to: one continued but lost its way when the founder died; another still exists but only as a memorial to the memory of its late founder, and a third just grew too introverted to remain interesting. Photography, as everybody should know, isn’t the same as just content. If somebody’s going to run a photographic blog, then they need to have some interesting shots to show. Apart from your blog, the only places I still go are photographers’ websites, usually those of the same four or five pros, some of those already dead and done with the business. You have to find something that really makes you feel that you can’t get enough of it. That’s a tough order. Sure, it’s a one-way street, you can only look, but what were you gonna say to those people anyway?
Author
The old pros are aging out. For sure. Not really being replaced anymore. Mostly content producers running things now. I don’t really follow photography much anymore. There is great work being done but I find most of it in the art world.
The river analogy is absolutely perfect. I have a Canon Selphy, an Instax Wide, and a river out the back of my house so I’m going to give it a go.
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Tie a small waterproof piece of paper and pencil to it…..see who writes back.
Interesting double exposures. But they confuse my eyes so much that I almost wonder if they are actually triple exposures.
On another note, there’s something peculiar going on with the commenting on your site. I’ve been reading people’s blogs using the WordPress reader and have replied to a few people in the last half hour but it really dislikes yours. Won’t even let me see the comments. It only works if I actually go to shifter.media like I am now.
The inconsistency / unreliability of comments sections across the board is so frustrating. They’re like printers – the never work.
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That sucks.
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Ha, some of them are triples…and quadruples. Not sure about the commenting aspect. Will ask my web friend.
The river analogy …..
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Yes sir. Flowing.
Just experienced this in real time. Was at a coffee shop Saturday and my ipad bricked, not fixable so had to order replacement which only came Thursday. Images in my camera with nowhere to go, not even uploading available. Had no desire Thursday to post them, not even to my blog, or even blog about a possible new zine issue. When the zine gets done, people will get it in the mail without warning, not even a hint of its coming.
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I think once we step out of the race, give it even a short time, there is less desire to return to the chaos.
Well, I manage to access this site without any problem, but then I do so by having saved it in my “ Favourites” space, and so it becomes a direct connection between my iPad and Dan’s setup, with no middleman… or at least, that’s how I see it, but I have always found this Internet world anything but intuitive, so this theory could be ill-informed crap.
The iPhone’s no better: my kids send me items/links they think might interest me, and sometimes, when I try to enlarge the thing so that I can read it, I end up making a WhatsApp call by mistake. I still have no idea how that happens to me. It results in them calling me back to check I’m not in some sort of emergency… they’d be better off leaving me out of their loop! Especially so as most of the stuff goes right over my head or otherwise fails to engage. 🙁 Curmudgeon; who, me?
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Texting is killing us all. I’ve been sitting on a porch on and off over the past few days. I would say 80% of drivers coming by are on their phone.
Paris…..now there is an idea…! November romanticism and all that…
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I like Paris in the cold.