MARTY
This is Marty's tenth year back in the classroom, after taking a nine year hiatus to stay home with our kids. This year she returned to peak form. She would have gotten there sooner, but the covid-disruption set everyone's plans back. She is a marvel in the classroom and is someone who connects with young people far better than most. I see this every time we go to a school event in the w...

below are a few more pictures from aleo's first four rolls of film.

his first shot was discussed here yesterday.


dad's famous breakfast scrumble


anthony and dad's morning chess game


arcadia!!!


impressive, tight focus on the scope, the real story of the picture, which is throwing a curious reflection.


pretty brave to try a jump-shot on your first outing--i thought it turned out quite well for a first cut at the technique.


now that is just dang cool for a timer-shot.


old country men at the old country store


spooky anthony, and according to anthony, visual evidence that i am a black man.


if you study this one, you can spot the photog in the window.

aleo recently asked me about getting a camera, like a real one. i think something at school spawned this conversation. i told him if he was serious he should learn how to shoot for real. by this i meant manually, where he controlled all of the settings himself (eg. shot speed, aperture, focus). the closest thing to an electronic aid would be the light meter which is nothing more than a bar the mov ...

LIFE magazine recently asked the question "is this the happiest photo ever made?" (link). the suggesting winning image was taken by one Alfred Eisenstaedt, picture below.



given a daily ritual i have of looking at another photo, my answer of no came quick as my preference quickly turns to the below photo, Burst of Joy taken by Slava "Sal" Veder, on March 17, 1973 and is captioned, "Lt. Col. Robert Stirm, is greeted by his family, returning home after more than five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam." (fuller back story).



upon digging further i was glad (and affirmed) to see time's more exhaustive list included my Burst of Joy choice as part of their fuller list of 20 timeless, joyful photos.

this recent post by dan martin stands as one of my favorite-ever facebook posts. granted, i've only ever read seventeen facebook post. still, it's one of the best i've seen. beautiful and thoughtful work dan. kudos.

another semi-related story to the everyman deals in the buildup to the contest. in discussing the early motivation to get art, i mentioned going to an art fair and buying some photos for my newly purchased (and bare) home. during the transaction i struck up a conversation with the photog's wife who also served as his manager. she mentioned the newly forming web and their need to get her husband's work online but confessed they were having problems with it. having recently gotten into the game i gave her my sympathy admitting there was a lot of mystery to in using this new medium well, especially in the arts. but i waved my arm towards their wall of photography and said their task was simpler than most as the biggest thing they had to do was stay out of the way of her husband's amazing photography and let the art wash over the user. she conceded to the sense of the approach but gave the oft-used 'easier said than done' in reply. looking over the man's stunning work hanging on the temporary panels of his booth, various treatments for porting the images to the web came to mind. i asked her if she would be interested in an exchange—a web design for some prints (the prints were quite pricey for a fellow who just bought his first home). i added if they didn't like my suggestions they wouldn't owe anything in return. if they did, i would let them determine the quantity and size of prints they felt fair in exchange. she smilingly agreed.

as is the way with true inspiration in a matter of days i had produced a site design i thought would suit them well. i packaged up several screen shots and emailed them to the woman. as is the case whenever you share your artistic creations i sat back and awaited their reaction. none came. not after a day. not after three days. not after two weeks. i obviously took the silence as a solid rejection of my work and will say it injured my confidence in the craft and vigor for the trade more than i'd like to admit. i tried to push the failure out of my mind but the taunting notion routinely skipped through the forefront of my awareness like a teasing classmate.

then on a bored weekend night months later—i said it maimed me to embarrassing degrees—i pulled up the photog's site to try to see what they could like in their present design that my work did not improve upon. after the page loaded i stared at not the faltering design i had looked to replace, but the design i had sent them, albeit a clumsy implementation of it. i stared at the page using my design for several minutes trying to make sense of what i was seeing. i scrolled to the footer and about pages looking for a mention of credit. i found none.

Anger took the Rejection that had been moping around my brain by the collar and threw her out the front door with a flailing kick in the ass. the few times Recognition's bright face dared to knock on the door to celebrate the acceptance of our design Anger turned her away with a rough push in the shoulder.

i talked to marty about what happened. she told me to call them and say that its a sad world when one creative steals the work of another creative and especially after one supported the other by buying their work. i silently listened to marty's prudent advice but instead said things like, "nah, it doesn't really matter" or "if you have to say those words to an adult they won't matter". so i did nothing. well, that's not entirely true. every month or two i'd pull the website up and look at my design and feel the anxiety of emotions that sputtered and flared.

then the email campaign began. every few months i'd receive an email from this photographer announcing his latest prints and inviting me to see them on his newly designed website. to add to it, they even modeled the email campaign using my design. after the third email, i sent a polite request to be removed from their list and the following email exchanges took place. the two things i learned from this ordeal are:

1. every time i get myself worked up over something, it is almost always for naught in the end.
2. when marty is kind enough to offer advice, i should be sensible enough to use it because it is, also, almost always spot-on counsel.

in honor of the everyman release, i'm devoting the week to everyman related matters (that add to details missed in the everyman story told a few months back). today i'm sharing two of the most noteworthy bits of history:

1. the original photograph
i can put hands on every single image ever entered into the photo contest, but miserably, i have lost the image that began it all—the image from chris mcgrath's coffee table taken of his brother in law taking a giant bite from a plum. the only remnant i have from what i sometimes call "the original entry" that sparked it all is from the 1st everyman where i used the image in the masthead.



2. the kottke explosion
then there was the post heard around the web. every time i the tell the story i obviously mention how simple and unadorned the mention that brought the everyman to the world was. jason kottke's wonderful brevity allows me to repeat it, verbatim, in each re-telling. what that pithy three-word link did for the everyman speaks to the power and potential of the world wide web which can still surprise when we see it flex its muscles in ways we weren't expecting.

i somehow forgot to mention one of my favorite everyman moments. in 2011 i was contacted by a company looking to obtain rights for one of the from the attic entries. i sent the inquiry on to the original entrant and a few months later saw the image used in a chevy add during the 2011 world series. it's the image at the 40 second mark and was the 2008's 3rd place from the attic winner. never before was the mission of the everyman, to get images out there that otherwise weren't out there, ever more succintcly realized. pretty dang neat.



further, i've since found out it caused a bit of a stir as the commercial's creators were accused of lifting the concept from a website. Did Chevy Steal This Commercial Idea From a Popular Blog?. noting they used the everyman image in demostration.

alex got a fisher price digital camera for christmas. on christmas day he took 231 pictures. since then it's been like living with a three foot tall paparazzi. it also makes me sensitive to how often i'm naked. and he could not be a worse height to be taking pictures of me naked.

historically, i've spent between 150 and 200 hours in the month of november producing my everyman photo contest. this year saw a 400% increase in submissions (to 8k) yet, through some custom-built web enhancements, i spent less than twenty hours end to end overseeing the 2007 affair. this is by no means a reflection on the mix because there is some really remarkable photos this year. although, based on the usual varied opinions of my judges, not many folks can agree on what those remarkable photos are. or, they don't often agree with me at least (proof of this can be found in the scorecards, i'm judge #1).

see who ultimately won and how they match up with your taste.

and make sure to check out this year's most discussed photo. it is noteworthy for two reasons. the first is that this is the first year (in seven) my great friend bookpimp hasn't won that acclaim. the second reason is, well, i think i'll let that part speak for itself (may not be suitable for work or those with good visual memories). and for those wondering what the title, the samsara, means, it is a buddhist term dealing with rebirth, some definitions citing it specifically as a rebirth from the earth.

i'm leaning in the corner of my morning shower and am extra foggy because of a long night with a sick anthony. i notice someone enter the room which in a single bathroom home is not all that uncommon. moments later a young falsetto voice behind me says, "hey dad, say cheese so i can take your picture." this part would not be so common.

i did say cheese. i did not smile. then i offered a little lecture about how taking pictures of naked people when they shower is considered, by some in society, to be an inconsiderate and rude gesture. they left and i figured i would throw the disposable camera away, never having it developed. later that day, my thirteen-year old niece who was staying the week with us came to me and said, "uncle troy. have you seen my camera? it's one of those green disposables."

suck.

my work often takes me into the infinite world of stock photography. anyone who has poured through the online stacks knows how the hours drift into the air while you look for that one image which meets the need. fortunately today's search engines do much to help you find that one perfect graphic. that is they are a great help except when they aren't.

the below page was the result of a search on the term 'statue'. the main image at the top seems spot on. it's the SIMILAR IMAGES at the base of the page which raised my brow. i can't say if i find their system's intuition to be highly flawed or impressively intuitive on knowing what my mind was really looking for. although, what the hell is up with the solitary pic of glasses?

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

I have for a long time been enamored with the photographic process both technically and conceptually. Technically for all the obvious reasons (and of course we're speaking fully manual here); lighting, color, composition, etc. To effectively graft onto paper an image that either accurately or deceptively captures a vision of whatever using this wondrous shutter-bound mechanism absolutely wrecks me...

A few people have asked me about the camera I'm using to take some of my more recent photos (i.e. Isabella). Well, I purchased a new camera about a month ago in anticipation of Rockefeller. After the 1000-photo-a-thon in Italy and the certain national geographic quantities I was about to consume, I decided to go digital.

Being a long-standing manual SLR purist, the decision to go to the dark side was not an easy one but basically came down to three points. For an amateur hack like myself who gets the money shot through basic persistence, the environmental ramifications of my habit are not sleight. Secondly, I am to immediate gratification as Stallone is to testosterone. And, lastly and hopefully most obviously I'm a computer dork. My only advice to any aspiring buyers is do your research and remember that a $100 camera is just that a $100 camera.