NONSPECIFIC LOCATION

There is nothing in this photo that suggests its location. Its nature is also ambiguous. I think it could be some creature on the sea floor. It is, in fact, a dahlia from Endless Summer Flower Farm in Maine. I haven't had time to shoot a thing locally since I got back and I really need to get out on the street.

Late post, too. We were out last night taking my granddaughter to a screening of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2, at the symphony hall with the orchestra playing the score. The kid loved it. Mrs. C and I hated it. It seemed, by turns, incoherent, obvious and tedious. Even the special effects weren't that great. Sort of a popular, contemporary Götterdämmerung that cops out with a happy ending. Then we had to get up at 6 to take Ellie to a dance recital. Okay, I'm an old grouch.

          

STL DPB HEADED FOR OUTER SPACE

Found outside Elmer's Barn that I mentioned on Tuesday. It's an ancient Chrysler Imperial that once reached for the stars but now exemplifies the law of entropy. I'd love to hear what kind of sound the occupants made. 

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - SOME PEOPLE HAVE IT ALL

My class at the Maine Media Workshops was wandering around the small harbor in Rockport looking for images. Our teacher, Harold Davis, and I ran into a pleasant couple, I'd guess in their 30s, who owned this big, tricked-out Harley. They were from Florida, where the man had sold a business (don't know what). They had an ocean-going yacht on which they were cruising up and down the Atlantic seaboard carrying the Harley for land excursions. (Don't have any idea how they got it on and off the boat.) La dolce vita, if you can find it.       

Flower? Horn?

Lots of classes from the Maine Media Workshops visit Elmer's Barn, a three level antique/junk/collectibles theme park close to Augusta, the state capital. There is a good video at https://youtu.be/8XeybrTPgAE that gives some of the flavor. It's the sort of place you cannot absorb on a single visit. I found this piece that looks like it could be an alien flower. Of course, it is a gramophone bell but I do not know why it is colored like this.        

LOBSTAH ROLLIN' OUTTA HERE

The quintessential coastal Maine lunch, a lobster roll. (In most of New England, "er" at the end of a word is what the rest of us hear as "ah," so it's lobstah.) A big wad of sweet and succulent lobster meat stuffed into something like a scaled down hot dog bun. Nowhere else on earth. It costs a wee bit more than a Big Mac but then it comes from another universe.

We worked hard this week and I'm tired. I can't say enough about our brilliant teacher, Harold Davis. His photography is on an astral plane I will never approach. And such wonderful fellow students in our small class. I'm ready to go home.        

STL DPB IN ACADIA

Acadia is the name used for a swath of the State of Maine from the Kenebec River and the town of Bath and then northeast from where I'm staying up into what are now the Canadian maritime provinces. The area was intensely disputed between the English and French in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The population is thin when you get much back from the coast. The region is marked by water, wood, rock and fishing. It is gorgeous at this time of year but the winters are hard. This is a little waterfall that flows into the harbor at Camden, just up the road from camera camp.

Today is our last day. There is a traditional Friday night lobster dinner and a spectacular AV show of the students' work from the week.      

STL DPB IS NOT IN IRELAND

Belfast, Maine, is twenty minutes up the coast from camera camp. It is surprisingly big for this area and it's hard to guess what supports it. There is a fishing port but it's not like the big trawlers are coming in and out. There is no university, no significant factories. Maybe a little lumber - Maine has more trees than anybody in their right mind would need. Our little class stopped there on our way to points farther north.

 

We worked pretty hard. My Apple Watch, if you can trust it, says that I had more than double my daily quota of exercise. I'm pooped but there are two more days to go.           

STL DPB IN THE CREEPY MAINE WOODS

The classes here at the Maine Media Workshops have a pattern. We review the students' work from the previous afternoon, go through a presentation and discussion with the teacher and, after lunch, go out driving around the small towns and forests of Maine looking for interesting places to make images. I found this doll at Elmer's Antiques close to Augusta, the state capital. We can be overwhalmed by the visual details but this cousin of Chucky  got my attention.

STL DPB IN SCHOOL - DAHLIAS

So here I am in photographers heaven, The Maine Media Workshops. From late spring to early fall they run week-long work-your-rear-off programs in every aspect of photography, video and cinema. I've been here five times and it's where I learned a lot of what craft I have. However, my last visit was 10 years ago.

This time I'm taking a course just in photographic composition with a renowned photographer, Harold Davis. Our first day's assignment was about circles and lines. We went to the remarkable Endless Summer Flower Farm, which had dahlias as far as the eye (or your lens) can see. I'm really out of my element - this isn't the kind of work I usually do. However, I think that pushing my limits will make me a better photographer.

A Photographer's Reflection: Then and Now

February 2000 - Pilgrims In The Ganges

December 2012 - 42nd Street, New York City

This week is one of City Daily Photo's new "festivals," officially called Navel Gazing. It's about our members introspections on their progress as photographers.

My wife and I had a film SLR camera years ago, a Yashica (remember that?). I played around with it, taking one terrible picture after another, no idea what I was doing.

The first consumer digital cameras came out in 1999 and I bought a good one for the time, a Sony DSC-D700, in anticipation of a trip to India and Nepal. It took 1.5 megapixel, 1344 X 1024 pixel images at 72 dpi, and I certainly used auto mode. A wonder then, a toy now. But it was so liberating to have no cost to push the button, to record everything that caught my eye. People liked the results. I was hooked.

Roll forward 13 years. I've had the benefit of some real training at the Maine Media Workshops. Fortune has been kind and I've been able to get professional-quality equipment. Now I use manual or semi-manual modes, know the difference between an f stop and my elbow, use a flash competently (I was so clueless until I took Bobbi Lane and Arlene Collins' courses in lighting and flash technique, such brilliant photographers and teachers) and know what to do in low light at high ISO on a camera that can handle it. And then there were the wonders of Photoshop. My skills are still limited but I know how to make a good photograph better.

The second picture is recent work, taken on an Olympus E-M5 (those little things are amazing). It pulls lots of that learning and experience together. Not that the first shot is bad. People told me I had a good eye. Now photography is my passion. I wish I could get rid of the stupid day job and become a real photographer.

See more photographic journeys from City Daily Photo members here.         

The Perils Of Photography School

.

As mentioned, some more stuff from Maine until I get new local material. Actually, these are photos others took of me last week.

I was disoriented at the beginning of the workshop. Days of sleep deficit and way too much new technical info to absorb. Our teaching assistant took the picture above on the central street of Camden, Maine, in imminent danger of being run over. Photographers better pay attention to more than their exposure or the f may stop then and there.

Below, me fascinated with a beer bottle. The beer brand was Andrew, my son's name, and it was made right there in Nobleboro, Maine. Below, a picture of me on the pier in the town of Belfast. It was taken by Pierre, a photographer from Montreal, who was out shooting at the same location. He took my picture, I took his.

The End of Camera Camp: Exhaustion

.

David Wells worked us harder than any other teacher I've had at my four previous visits to the Maine Media Workshops. I literally had no spare time, no opportunity to shoot the little fishing harbor in the morning fog, no space to edit my work for my own use, and absolutely, positively not enough time to sleep. Late one evening I was sitting at the desk in my room editing my work for the following morning's class when I glanced up at the mirror and saw my laptop's screen reflected in my glasses. My eyelids were heavy. As I mentioned, the following night I simply fell asleep in the chair over my work.

I am so glad I came.

But wait, there's more! I'm spending tonight at my brother and sister-in-law's house in the suburbs of Boston. He got his company's box seats to the Red Sox game tonight. Fenway Park, the oldest stadium in the major leagues! It's a temple for baseball fans and I would never have dreamed I'd get to go there. Pix on Sunday if I have time to edit something.

Many more photos from Maine to edit and upload. They will appear here and on Flickr in days to come.

Camera Camp Day 4

.

Late post today. I'm so tired I fell asleep at my desk last night doing my editing. These are some shots from yesterday afternoon at the Maine Lobster Festival. The last one is of four of my classmates at the moment they discovered I was sneaking up on them. Gotta wake up for the big Friday night party and show of students' work.

Camera Camp Day 3: The Maine Lobster Festival

.

OMG it's late. The optional morning shoot is at 7 AM and it's half past midnight as I write this. Not gonna make it. These are scenes from the Maine Lobster Festival in adjacent Rockland, ME, our assignment for Wednesday afternoon.

Camera Camp Day 1

.

Oh dear. it's after 11 PM / 23.00 Eastern time and I have to report for morning shoot at 6:30. So, just some of the day's catch from Belfast and Lincolnville, Maine. The picture of me was taaken by Pierre, a photographer from Montreal I met on the Belfast waterfront. That's him in the fourth shot. The top pic is classmate Collin. The man in the third picture lives in Maine but is actually from St. Louis.

For Brattcat, Or, It's Hard To Light Glass

.
Found in the same junk/antique store in Maine as last Wednesday's post. Glass is problematic. There is usually glare. Strobes spread light behind the translucent object that you may not light (or it may look really cool). I never did learn how to deal with it but sometimes the outcome was okay.
.

Head Shots

.

The Fourth of July parade and fireworks in Ridgewood, New Jersey, are not until today, a legal holiday in the US, so no shots of that. I won't have any fresh St. Louis material until the weekend. For a few days, then, we will pull up more Maine images or perhaps dig in the archives.

There was nothing scheduled last Friday afternoon. Three of us spent some time in the studio with our teaching assistant, Jason Esposito, working on lighting head shots. Above, your humble servant, taken by Kelley de Bettancourt. Below, Ted Lieverman, taken by me. At the bottom, Jason instructs Kelley on flash settings.

Home this afternoon.

.

Camera Camp, Day Four

.
Another long day. I'll need a rest when I get home. (Note to self: ha ha!). For our afternoon shoot, we went to an old school in the larger (meaning, big enough to have a WalMart) neighboring town of Rockland. It been converted into an arts center but still has great signs of wear. Interesting spaces.

I had no idea where to start. There was an auditorium with a black-box proscenium that looked interesting, but what to do with it? Then I found a costume closet above the stage. Okay! It still took me over an hour to work out the lighting with my limited set of equipment. This is what I came up with in the end.

Tonight is the big finale with a Maine lobster dinner and an amazing video show of all this week's classes' work. I'll post our bizarre class picture as soon as I get a copy. Down to New Jersey tomorrow to see all my family at my sister's house.

Camera Camp, Day Three

.

I'm writing this late Wednesday night and I'm out of gas. There is precious little free time here. Everyone in our class is supposed to have a project for the week, some theme we will use to try to improve out lighting skills. Mine is definition of shape and space with light. Some of us went to a junk/antique shop in Cooper's Mills, Maine, called Elmer's Barn. That's where I found this.

.

Camera Camp, Day Two

.

On the first morning, our teacher told us that she isn't doing her job right if her students don't make a lot of mistakes. Well, she is a gifted teacher. I grasp the individual concepts but integrating them is terribly complex. I shot a lot of junk today. Once in a great while, though, it all falls together, as in the model shot above. I could explain how we set up the lighting but, you know, you'd be better off if you came here yourself.

We did outdoor night work after dinner. Getting the lighting right for something like this is difficult, painstaking work. You start with some basic principles and then build and adjust for whatever time it takes. This shot took us about an hour and a half to set up and light to Arlene Collins' approximate satisfaction. I learned something, though. The shot was built with three (or was it four?) flashes and the car headlights.