I’m content with little victories. Timed excursions. On the clock. Attempting this every single day. The notebook, the camera, the bicycle, the running shoes. Get out and get it done. Photographically, this is essential. I’ve always felt that photography is a physical skill that requires constant training. This is especially true when real-time reality and humans are involved. If you want to hang with fellow humans while shining a light on their lives, you better be on your game. Most of us aren’t. It’s that simple. I know it when I start to lift the camera. I see images I should have made. If you see it, you missed it.
The images you see here were made over a fifteen-minute break in the middle of the day.
The location is a place I’ve been hundreds of times. It can be your best friend or a betrayal. This spot is less than five minutes from where I sit now. As I exited the van, I said, “Okay, dumbass, you have fifteen minutes.” “I need a water shot of some sort, and something else that will test your abilities with the camera and with your anticipation.” “Go.” Now, full disclosure, I had been listening to a Tesla playlist on Apple Music, which gives me a huge advantage because once that music enters my ears, I’m ready to rob a bank, while hook kicking the full lineup of tellers. Listen to “Comin’ Atchat Live” and tell me you aren’t shopping for ski masks. Hide and watch bitches. (Musical taste will vary, and note that during the time this music was being released, I had hair down to my shoulders and was mostly seen wearing sleeveless t-shirts and white high tops.)
The water shot was easy, requiring about as many brain cells as it takes to watch a bro podcast. Zoom, frame, hammer the button. And then I noticed a tern dive-bombing into the shallows. This has been a thorn in my side for weeks after I missed an osprey doing the same thing. Damnit, nature, how dare you curb my creativity? Where’s my elephant gun? (I’m listening to Paradise now.) The Tern, now this baby demanded a bit more. These are completely uncooperative creatures. I must have looked like I was doing an interpretive dance atop the seawall as I spun, parried, twisted, and jumped from block to block, attempting to nail this feathered foe. Two elderly folks sat in folding beach chairs nearby. The gentleman looked over and asked, “Son, are you okay?” “No,” I replied. “I can’t believe they cancelled Miami Vice,” I added. He said nothing then returned to his book.
Now, I had prepared my camera to make images like this. Two different autofocus options, one attached to the front button focus, the other to the rear. I have no idea how to describe this because I don’t know any of the terminology. I could be 3D-focused, or adaptive, or something else. The center focusing square is small, but when I jam on the rear button, it takes in the entire screen for anything bird-related. I don’t even know how I figured this out. It’s not important. Forget about this paragraph.
At the end of fifteen minutes, I had two frames. I only needed one. Winning. Why am I telling you this? Because you need to follow this same path. Who doesn’t have fifteen minutes? Put down the Xbox, clear the Taco Bell shavings from your belly button, and get your asses out there. Better yet, edit some spreads and print your work. This post is the third or fourth “photo/spread” I’ve done in recent weeks. What did I learn from this particular rodeo? Type. I suck at all things copy. Still, after all these years of thinking I knew something. Wrong. My designs suck, too, but design is another language. Type is too, but I feel like type is more approachable. I’m still trying to figure out photography for craps’ sake. This bugs the living shit out of me.
Also, I use BookWright to make these spreads. BookWright is an application that needs to work for the full spectrum of users. From the newbie to the established pro. It’s not perfect, no software is, but it’s a dream for quick sketches like these. I would prefer to use the Adobe InDesign plugin, but fewer people have access to this application, and my goal is to get as many people practicing this technique as possible. Printing is what separates the posers from the pros. The edit, the sequence, the design, the type, etc. Choosing materials, a trim size, a print run, and understanding marketing and audience building, REAL audience building, proves that printing is a masterclass.
PS: On a side note, I’ll be in New York City in mid-September, and it looks like I’ll be back in Paris in November. Come say hello, and I’ll let you wear my white high tops.
Comments 16
I completely forgot about that band and at first read I thought “what the heck is a Tesla(car company) playlist going to be?” I’ve been trying to figure out if I could realistically get out and make a single 4×5 exposure per day. I think it’s going to be more like 1 per week because the 1 per day processing side has me fearing a backlog and then batch processing which in some ways defeats the point of sheet film.
Does anyone out there have an older x100__ they will sell for less than a kidney???
Author
Getting out, getting a single frame done, that’s cool. I’ll bet you can find an X100. Try Photo Care in NYC. They tend to do a ton of Fuji.
White high tops! I’ll be up for that! Do you have dates for NYC?
Trying to take this advice. Finished my Japan book plus a black and white companion book.
I keep hearing your voice: get off your butt…
Author
Yes, I’ll be there for the New York Art Book Fair. September 11-14. I will most likely be gone by EOD on the 13th.
November, Paris.
Seems that time of the year could be interesting for a (photo) walk.
Author
Ha. Not sure there will be an official walk this year, but you can bet I’ll be out. And will be attending Paris Photo and the parallel fairs.
The more images I make, the more I see the ones I should’ve made. Drives me mad… and drives me forward.
I’m all booked for my next trip to vanishing Malta. You just reminded me I need a solid new pair of trail shoes, as I cover anywhere between 12 and 20km a day on foot. And a backpack too. My current one failed on all counts in the Maltese heat.
Ideally, I’d design my own… but then who’d make it for me? Bummer.
Any plans to visit Ireland in the foreseeable future?
Author
Malta sounds cool. And yes, the ones we miss are often the ones that drive us back out.
During my 9-5 years, I’d often park somewhere quiet on lunch breaks to read, write, or sketch. Those fifteen minute pockets of time add up, whether out photographing birdlife (by the way, beautiful images) or working through a Dostoevsky novel. Productive and soul-healing time can be carved out if we’re creative.
Author
You are spot on. Little victories.
Nice read!
I‘d be ready to say hello in Paris.
Author
Excellent! I’ll share more when I know.
What is the end goal of the spread making in the context of this article? Is it just to have a single spread or two and the muscle flexed or is it to build one spread at a time towards a book?
When you say print, again in the context of this article, are you just printing one spread on a sheet of paper or are you actually trying to print at blurb?
I like the direction you are trying to encourage us to go. Trying to understand it a little better before I adapt it to my own purposes.
Author
To get people thinking about print. That’s it. It’s taking whatever I’m able to make and using it to practice what it would look like in print. Sometimes I’ll print a single spread for the notebook, or even the image itself. But I’m always working on books. I normally have a few in the works. Zines and mags too. And I make a notebook after every trip.
What mattered here, what matters here, is the small print. Terns. Birds going extinct. All the rest is detritus, no offense, Dan. Love you!
Author
That’s fake text, but we did lose about forty percent of all birds in North America.