Every Photo is a Gift That I'm Honored to Receive

When ever make a photograph that I'm pleased with, I always look at it as a gift.  It doesn't matter what type of photograph it is.  There's a million examples.  The sun aligned and the light was sweet on the field of lupine. The baby looked at the camera and smiled.  The fall colors were peaking on the ridge as the morning fog burned off.  The model looked up and let her soul shine through her eyes.  These are all gifts that I'm fortunate enough to have recognized and preserved with my camera.  I say thank you to the universe and feel filled with gratitude every time it happens.  Mother Nature, the person, the weather... whatever... has given me something precious.  As a photographer, I value what those photographs say and the feelings they inspire.

Nowhere is this idea more apparent to me than when I'm photographing sports.  The athletes are generous with their gifts of winning, accomplishment, strength, endurance, inspiration and so much more.  I always feel privileged to have these amazing people in front of my lens.  I try hard to capture everything they are in 1/1000th of a second.  

This past weekend I photographed the Granite State Snowshoe Championships.  I made a lot of photos that I'm really happy with but two series of images stand out to me.  In both frames, Nacho Hernando looked into my lens, showed me how he felt about his performance and gave me the chance to capture the story of the race.  The image on the left was made in the first 10 minutes of the race and Nacho was in the lead.  The photo on the right was about 35 minutes later and things had changed.  Jim Johnson, the race winner, had passed two minutes before and Nacho was now in second.  In both cases, whether he knew it or not, Nacho was giving me the photograph.  And like all the images I make, I'm thankful for that.

Veteran's Day Redux

This morning, I was thinking about a Veteran's Day post and reviewed some images that might be appropriate for today... American flags, a cemetery and some photos of Americana that sum up why I value the sacrifice that Veterans make for us everyday.  While I don't always agree with the politics of the situations our country is involved in, there is no doubt in my mind that people who serve in uniform are real-life super heroes.  We owe them so much.

Then I ran across a series of photos that I made five years ago while roaming through the California surf town of Ocean Beach.  I had an interaction with two homeless veterans that night that continues to be a profound experience for me.

I did a blog post at the time that included a black and white image of the men and a description of our encounter.  I'm re-posting this today because I think we need to remember gratitude should extend to not only the military folks who wear medals, but also those who wear scars from being a veteran... both physical and psychological.

The original post is below and I encourage you to read about my interaction with these vets.  I've also reworked two of the files as color images that I want to share today for the first time.  I hope these guys have made it through to the other side of whatever placed them in the situation they were in.

TECHNICAL NOTE:   
The original images were made with a Nikon D300 and 24mm f/2.8 lens.  It was dark, so I was shooting at ISO 3200 at 1/60th of a second and f/2.8.  There is quite a bit of noise in the original file. A black and white rendering made good use of that noise so that was what I used in the original post.  Five years later, technology has advanced and a much more acceptable color file is possible.  I used Lightroom 5 and the NIK suite to create the two color images.   While still showing signs of a photo made at an ISO higher than could produce optimal quality, I think they tell story better.

Here's the original post...

Monday, December 1, 2008

Don't Tread on Me

Wandering around Ocean Beach and soaking up the California vibe, I stepped back to get a picture of a couple of kids running through traffic wearing wetsuits and carrying surf boards. Then I realized I was about to step on something.  I quickly realized it was actually a someone.

“What are you taking pictures of? Take a picture of the homeless. Tell a story about the homeless”. “Dude, get a picture of the 13’s”. I made a picture and thought of my exit strategy from what might be a difficult situation.  Instead, I ended up in a 15 minute conversation and heard tales of six year hitches in the Navy and Marines with tours of duty in Afghanistan, Iraq and hurricane clean-ups.

Marine vet says “They used to want me when I was willing to go do their shit. Now they don’t want me around and don’t respect me. I used to make $3,600 a month plus hazardous duty pay and now they offer me $242 a month. Who can live on that? I eat out of dumpsters.”

Navy vet says “Dude, you slept in a dumpster last night. They shut me out of VA benefits and I paid into the GI bill. I’ve been this close to papa Bush and I should have did to him what he trained me to do."

“I’ll tell you what, Obama is going to change this shit. I used to hate hippies. I’d beat one up whenever I could, but they were right. They were right man.” Navy vet breaks open a cigarette to re-roll it into two. “Dude, take another picture.”

I walked away wondering if they had the number 13 tattooed on themselves to try to conjure up good fortune or as a black mark symbolizing their horrible lot in life. There's always more to the story... who knows what they have really been through.  Either way, I’m glad I didn’t accidentally step on one of them.   It seems like these guys have been stepped on enough.

One Morning in Our Nation's Capital

I left my hotel early and looking down New Jersey Avenue to my right, the dome of the US Capital building made the choice of which way to go pretty simple.  I headed off toward Capital Hill crossing streets easily as the morning commuters were yet to invade.  I made my way through a park, loosening up and picking up the pace.   Aside from other joggers, the police in the area were a noticeable presence.  I hadn't been to Washington in a couple of years and figured this was the new normal in town.

Soon I came to the Capital building and worked my way around to it's iconic steps.  I circled around the reflection pool before heading back to my hotel to get ready for work.  The light of the early day was beautiful and I made photographs with my iPhone along the way.

The time stamp on the first image shows 6:48 a.m.  Less than two hours later and just two miles away, there would be a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.  When I learned the news, I immediately thought of my children.  I then thought why do I ever leave them and my safe existence in quiet New Hampshire.  It was a weird feeling to be so close to such an evil and random thing.

I'm glad I made these images the morning of September 16th.  The Capital Building is an inspiring place.  Somehow, looking at them makes me feel better about my time in Washington.  The images make me feel that maybe our country has the strength and wisdom to sort out the problems we have.

Images made with iPhone, Hipstagram and/or Pano.

Carbonite is your Kryptonite... Stay away from it!

I like to try to keep this blog on a positive note, but sometimes a story must be told.  This is something you have to know or you'll blow $60 too.

In the spring, I decided I was way overdue implementing a good offsite backup solution for my photo archive.  After reading some positive things, decided to get a subscription to Carbonite.  Ironically, I signed up just about April 1st of 2013.  I had some fits and starts in getting the back-up running, but that was mostly my error.  For example, I didn't realize something that makes total sense... I needed to leave my computer on for the backup to work on the initial upload.  Therefore, at the start, my backup made very meager progress and I started leaving my computer on 24 hours a day.

Once I got that straightened out, I locked into what Carbonite considers normal upload speed... about 20 gigs per day.  I have a note on my desk that at 7:41am on May 11th, I had backed up 88.08 gb of data.  Another note shows 5/12/2013 at 1:43pm... 110.61 gigs.

I resigned myself to let it percolate and checked again on 6/6/2013... 229.83 gb of data had been backed up.  I once again forgot about the slow grind being done on my back up, but this week decided to check again.  On August 11, 2013, 295 gb of data has reached the safety of the beloved cloud hosted by our friends and protectors of data at Carbonite.  Huh?  It's getting slower.

When I emailed Carbonite support asking if this was normal, they politely told me that backups over 200 gb are adjusted to be slower than back ups under that threshold.  Now again, user error on my part.  Or buyer beware.  I didn't read the fine print and I didn't do enough math to calculate just how horrible this service is.  While I maybe unique in having over 500 gigs of photo files, I think most people I know now have music and photo archives in excess of 200gb.  At this rate, it will take a full year and I'll be up for renewal before my data is secure and backed up on their servers.

The reply from the folks at Carbonite basically said that's OK with them.  I don't know how that can be.  This is all just bad business.  If someone purchased a stove only to learn that it turned the heat down just as the burner hit the temperature and duration to boil a pot of water, we'd all agree that was a real problem.  Regardless of any fine print from the stove manufacturer, it's betraying the essence of what a stove is and what a stove should do.  It's not delivering on what any reasonable person would consider the purpose of the product.  This is analogous to Carbonite's service.  It's backs up stuff, but not in a way that is a solution for what most people need it to do.

Then they did something I really don't like... and I'm guessing you don't either... they referred me to their terms of service for justification of their performance and the fine print on throttled down back up speeds... as if to say "tough, sucker".  There are hundreds of ways to make people happy in the face of losing a customer.  A coupon code for next year's renewal probably would have made me feel like these people had any concern for me as a customer.  Seeing as my data will probably be backed up by then, it might even have saved me.  Out of curiosity, I followed the link they provided for their terms of service and the screen shot below is what I found.  Good stuff.

In the final email that they sent, they conceded to me with "You are absolutely right, we are not truly designed for use by customers with large video or photo data (archives).... please accept our deepest apologies for any misunderstanding regarding our product".  Take a look at www.carbonite.com and see if there is any attempt to portray their product as having that limitation.  And like I said... who doesn't have a large photo, video and/or music archive these days?

Now I realize this is just $60 and maybe this is all a little over the top.  But, I'm on a roll and I'll admit it's sort of fun to rant.  It's also months of time and months of leaving a computer on 24x7 and it's just plain deceptive.  I think it's what is so often wrong with businesses today... an approach to the customer filtered through policy and defying conventional wisdom.  They have little understanding or concern for how customers really use their product.

I'll keep the backup running on my machine through out this subscription year and commit to keeping my computer on 24x7 so it can continue the process.  Just for fun, I'll let you know what kind of progress it's making from time to time.  But to be crystal clear, I really don't recommend this service to anyone for anything.

The SmugMug Platform Upgrade First Look

Yesterday my website hosting company, SmugMug, announced a major platform upgrade that brought their website designs a big jump forward.  The look and feel is modern and engaging.  The user interface to customize the site is much, much easier.  In the past, you had to either know html and css programming or at least be a really good mimic of other people's code to enhance your site.  Now, the interface has a host of customization options built right in and the predefined templates are a big improvement too.

I started noodling with new options for website design and gallery layout and already I'm seeing some things that look really great.  I probably won't flip the site public for a while yet as I let my design decisions sink in, but I thought I'd share a little bit of what I'm seeing.

I love the new options available for gallery layout.  Particularly something called "landscape collage".  For example, here is my Events gallery today...

Pretty dull huh?  The text is small and hard to read and the previews aren't much to look at.  There is a lot of white space in this screen shot because the gallery doesn't stretch to fill the window.  You can have anything you want as long as it's in two columns!

And now for something completely different... here's my events gallery in configured using the New SmugMug options.

Pretty cool huh!??  Stay tuned.  I'll be tweaking the site over the next couple of days and will let you all know when the new look and feel goes live.  If you have any questions, give me a shout!

The Future is Unwritten and Amazing

I have vague recollections of living next to my Grandfather on Madison Avenue in Berlin, NH, but I was very young. When I was four years old, my family moved to 554 Second Avenue.  It seemed like a big house in my childhood mind with three bedrooms and a wrap around porch on the front.  The property had an extra lot to explore even though the neighborhood was thickly settled.  As I got older, adventure expanded into the woods up the street as the house was just four blocks from the steep climb up Mt. Forist.

All the bedrooms were on the second floor, along with a claw foot bath.  No shower.  My parents had the largest room, but it was still small by today's standards.  I shared a room with my brother who's 12 years older than me.  Looking back, I really don't know how that worked.  Richard didn't seem to be around much... at least in my memory.  What stands out are lots of records in the room that were classic early 70's.... Chicago, Three Dog Night, Elton John.  I was particularly fascinated by the cover of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy.  Who knows why.  It features a very cool photograph and maybe that's why I love photography so dearly.   Or, perhaps it's just that there were naked people on the cover.

My sister occupied the smallest room.  I mean small... a twin bed went from wall to wall on one side of the room.  The other side was usually chaos with an easel sticking up out of the mess featuring some half finished painting.  She spent a lot of time in her room.  In my memory, Laura was usually wearing a pair of overalls that were riddled with holes.  This, of course, was a source of constant complaints from my mother.

Like any family home, 554 Second Avenue dominates my childhood memory.  It's the scene of wave after wave of memories as I write this.  Amazing family times and bitter arguments.  Thoughts of Christmas past.  Wonderful cousins, uncles, aunts,  neighbors and friends all a gathering there.  Learning to catch a baseball bouncing off the porch roof and figuring out how to stand on skis in the back yard.  Blowout parties on the down low in high school.  It goes on and on...

When my mom passed away, it made sense for my sister to own the house and she lived there for many years before succumbing way to young to her own health problems last year.  The house has been for sale since.  On Monday, the house sold and the last name on the deed for 554 Second Avenue wasn't Viger for the first time over 40 years.

Cleaning the last things out of the house, I made this photo of the empty upstairs hallway.   

When I saw it, I immediately thought of a Nan Goldin quote I've always loved.

"I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough.
In fact, my pictures show me how much I've lost."

Those empty rooms tell the story of the loss of my parents and sister as well as the last connection to my home town.  

But it isn't all melancholy.  It can't be.  This is life.  There is constant change and, while memories can be bittersweet, they also are the foundation of our lives in the present.  They ground us and teach us what we need to know.  The future is unwritten and amazing.

And that brings me to another photograph I made at 554 Second Avenue last Monday.  My sons in my boyhood bedroom.  Brothers in a room once shared by brothers.

The photograph is black and white to spare you the overbearing shade of blue paint.  Who knew I'd be so blessed as to have such great kids.  The boys share a room just like I did in a home I'm lucky enough to call my own.  While photographs do show what I've lost, they also show how much I have and I'm grateful for that.  The future is unwritten and amazing indeed. 

Forget Me Not

Nobody has lived in my childhood home since my sister passed away last summer.  I checked on the house the week and my mother's Forget Me Not were in wild bloom.  Such a small flower but 1000's of blooms make an impressive display, especially when you spend 20 minutes on your stomach staring at them through a camera.  It was another moment in my life where a camera in my hand made an experience something more than it ever would have been with out it.

Those Two Questions

For anyone that is serious about trying to make compelling photographs, two questions are sure to get their blood pressure rising.

First, there's the tried and true...
      "That's been photoshopped right?"
Then the equally old standby...
      "Wow!  Great picture!  What kind of camera do you have?  You must have a great camera!"

I had these questions asked of me recently and happened across several references this week that are interesting on this topic so I thought I'd share some thoughts.

Some may wonder why these questions sit as backhanded compliments.  It's easy to think that the advancement of tools reduce photography to a lab experiment where if you follow the steps with the right technology, a pretty picture will result.  And to some degree that's true.  Digital technology has made it much much easier to get the technical aspects of photography right.  Cameras are increasingly better at capturing exposure and focus at the push of a button and software can do remarkable things to not only enhance photos but alter them.

And yet no matter what the tools, photography is still a creative endeavor.  Great tools can help make great photos but great photos can always be made by great photographers with any tool because in the end the image is about seeing something that others don't.  When the image was made, what is in the frame, what is left out, what lens is used, what's in focus and even what sort of software processing is applied are only a few of the creative decisions that make an image what it is.  These are not the result of the magic of technology.  They are the unique vision of the photographer and, when everything is really working, an expression of some feeling and experience they want to convey to the viewer.

So on to those references...

I thought this blog was particularly interesting.  I share part of it here, but I encourage you to take a look at the link provided.  Ansel Adams is arguably everyone's favorite photographer.  His approach to photography and that of his peers in what became known as the f/64 group featured sharp focus and a realistic image.  His work was done on large format view cameras long before digital technology.  And yet it has been widely written that Adams was an investor in new technology to enhance his photography.  He was a master printer and his iconic images are the result of manipulation... not in software, but in the darkroom.

Ansel Adams has a well known image of moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico.  The negative for the image was made in 1941.  There were many iterations of the print, but the image that we are familiar with was not made until 1949!  Earlier versions are far less dramatic with significantly less depth.  Eight years after making the image, Ansel Adams had developed his skill and vision and acquired the tools to manipulate light and tone to make an iconic print.  It was "darkroomed"

The blog offers Adams' answer to the question "Once the photograph is taken, is the development and printing a mechanical process?"  Here's his answer...
"No, it is not mechanical. Although there is a procedure, there is much judgment involved on the part of the artist. Ansel said that the negative for Moonrise was difficult to print. He tried many methods using different chemicals and times and papers. With the negative in the enlarger, he increased the light hitting certain areas (burning-in) which made the sky blacker and the clouds less bright so the moon would stand out more. With all these artistic adjustments, Adams said "it is safe to say that no two prints are precisely the same."

The next reference are a couple of quotes from Vincent Versace.  If you're not familiar with Versace's work, definitely take a look at his beautiful images.  Vincent is a digital imaging pioneer and has written several books on digital processing of photographs.  I've heard him speak a couple of times and it's a bit like a physics lecture.  He's a smart guy and he knows the technology.  But to be clear, his images are not outlandish manipulations of reality or abstracts.  He's creates amazing landscapes and portraits.  Truly an artist pursuing a vision.  I'm a lover of quotes and I thought Versace's comments on this topic were great and the perfect parting thoughts...

     "Photoshop is not a verb. It is a noun. It is the means to an end, not the end itself."

     "The belief is once you buy a camera you are photographer. SO that means if I buy a Cello...... I own a cello."

Are We Losing Our Memories?

Are we losing our memories?  I know I am, but that's because I just turned 47 and I don't remember things like I used to.  But that is not what I'm talking about here.  What I want you to know is that there is an amazing irony that is playing out right now and it's robbing us of our collective memory, our history.  Sounds scary doesn't it?  I don't mean to be dramatic, but it's true.  Hear me out.

When my sister passed, I inherited some boxes of old family photos.  I've really only scratched the surface of what's scattered loose in old Schlitz boxes, folios from long gone photography studios and the cracked pages of photo albums.  There are hundreds of images.  Photos of people I can identify and some that I can not.  It's a reflective thing to look through these images of days gone by made even more so by the loss of loved ones.

The legacy of family pictures made me think about the history that all photography captures.  I thought of my own children and the thousands of digital mages I've made of them in their short lives and wondered what will happen to those photographs.
 
I started poking around on the Internet and confirmed the obvious.  The number of photographs made has risen at a remarkable rate.  Four times as many photographs are taken today as just ten years ago.  That makes sense.  Instant gratification digital cameras, high quality cell phone cameras and a resurgence of DSLR use among consumers means a camera is always at the ready.

Social media is the home for most of these images.  In fact, the largest photo archive in history has been created in the form of facebook.  A truly amazing amount of imagery resides there. Last year, Facebook noted that 3,000 pictures were uploaded every second.  That's more than 250 million images every day totaling 100 PB (100,000,000 GB) of photos and videos online.  Instagram, barely two years into it's existence, estimates hosting over1 billion images from it's 40 million plus users.   Add to these numbers the many, many images sitting on people's digital cameras and cell phones that never make it off the devices and it seems like technology has brought us the ability to cherish these memories forever and the preservation of the story of our lives is more secure than ever.

Facebook is holding over 10,000 times the 14 million images curated at the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.  And there's the rub... while more images than ever are being created, will they be around?  While I wish Mark Zuckerberg much success and longevity, facebook could end up like many Internet companies... out of business next year.  Or at least irrelevant.  Think MySpace.  With the explosion of digital media housed on social networking sites are we just a bad day at the office away from losing our collective history?

If this isn't resonating for you, think about a practical example... Ken Burns' profound documentary "The Civil War".  We've all seen it and, except for the history majors and civil war re-enactment types in the group, it probably serves as the basis of our understanding of that period in our nation's history.  But where would Burns have been without the visual documentation that is the basis of the documentary?

I make this point not to spread gloom and doom.  And I'm no luddite... I'm fully on board with technology.  I don't shoot any film images anymore and my hundreds of CD's are  now on a hard drive.  I'm writing a call to action.  There are so many things we can do to hold on to the amazing documentation that the digital media explosion has created.  Join me in ensuring our visual legacy is protected.  Take a look at the list below and do at least three of these things this week.  The Ken Burns of the year 2063 will thank you.

1.  Don't be content to let your  photos sit on your cell phone.  Get them to a hard drive and print a few.  Even if you throw them that Schlitz box I was talking about.

2. Print an extra copy and give it to a relative or friend.  They'll feel great getting the image and think your swell for doing it.  

3. Understand that digital media isn't going away and figure out how you will archive it.  Back up your computer and make sure your photos are part of that back up.  Anticipate that the computer you're using today won't likely boot up someday.  File formats can change as technology grows.   Realize you'll need to migrate this archive as technology changes.  If you have photos online, then the same applies.  These services will change and disappear so be prepared to move your photos and have a back-up.

4. Make a book.  Sounds like a big deal, but it isn't.  It's easy and fun.  Five years ago I used a service called Blurb to make a hard cover book of photos of my son and called it "Boys' Life".  I have two sons now and"Boys' Life Five" rolled off the presses in 2012.  In hindsight, I'm so glad I started this tradition to preserve the best photos of my kids in a printed medium.  I know they will appreciate it long after I'm gone.  I can't  recommend doing this enough and I highly recommend Blurb.

5. Hire a photographer to make portraits of your family and buy prints from them.  It's a great way to support a local small business and you'll love the result.  Better yet, do this annually.  If you don't like the traditional portrait on a painted background, that's ok.  Maybe you hate how you look in photos. Don't let that stop you.  Photographers are there to make you look good and in portraits of all different styles that are natural and reflect your family as it is.

6. If you have a chance to contribute to a photo archive project, do so!  There are some great preservation projects out there.  For example, my hometown has a long legacy as a paper mill town and Plymouth State University has started an amazing archive of images called Beyond Brown Paper.  I've found pictures of both my grandfathers on this website.

My paternal grandfather Joe Viger is on the far right.

Joseph Urbain Ruel, my maternal grandfather.  I don't know why I know my grandfather Ruel's middle name.  But Urbain is so beautifully French Canadian, I had to include it.

The Antidote to All Bad Things

Whether it's tough financial times, death of a loved one, divorce or watching the news report a horrible tragedy like what happened in Newtown this week.  The solution is all the same.  Refocus and invest in the good things in our lives.  Love your kids.  It will make you feel better and it's something we can do now to make a difference in everyone's lives.  My kids show me this every day.











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