Is it enough if you just enjoy it?

Photography

It was the height of the tech boom. 1999. A close friend of mine, maybe the person I care more for than anyone I know, had hit it big. He’s a modest man, not given to self-aggrandisement. But he had had a tough childhood, he had married the woman of his dreams relatively late in life and he had had made a son of whom he was justly proud, even though the making had come rather late.

So for the first time, he had said ‘What the heck!. I’m going to get a beautiful place, the better to see the wife and child grow’. And because the wife, at her not-so-tender age had expressed an interest in the piano, something very close to my friend’s heart, why, he went out and got her the very best he could afford, to be installed in the place of honor in his splendid, new estate in America’s most hallowed zip code. Not only was this piano imported directly from Germany but it came replete with the maker’s signature, no less.

I will never forget the look of sheer delight on his face the day it arrived. ‘Thomas’ he called excitedly, ‘You have got to see this thing’. Now while my friend was endowed with something akin to perfect pitch, he couldn’t play a note if you paid him. But he knew the instrument of his choice was capable of great things. Indeed, the sound was beyond compare. My friend had invited a classical pianist to put the instrument through its paces and some four of Chopin’s Nocturnes later you new that heaven was close indeed.

For a while there after that magical evening I lost track of him and his wife, the pianist in the making. He survived the fallout in the markets in 2000, moved on to better things and took the wife with him. Then we happened to bump into one another again and wiled away a pleasant evening over a couple of bottles of Napa’s finest with the food prepared just so.

“She cannot play to save her life”, he said, once well into his cups. “Come now”, I responded, “let’s not be so cruel. After all, you cannot fault the effort she puts into the thing”. For try she did. Twice weekly lessons, endless practice, scores by the….well…score. If effort correlated with results, the woman would have surpassed Horowitz. Sadly, she was proof of just one more example that you cannot put in what God leaves out, and that fateful evening, my friend had realized the truth of the matter, cruel as it may be. His piano was nothing more than a piece of beautiful furniture. It was a Leica in a glass case. There to be admired, but if the aesthetic senses of the world were to be saved, never to be used.

So is it enough if you just enjoy it? Does it matter that you have spent the earth and accomplished nothing except, maybe, a blip on the manufacturer’s bottom line. Do you grin and bear it and say, well, I tried?

The economic reality, of course, is that without consumers like my friend there would be no economy. Ferrari owners who cannot drive. Steinway owners who cannot play. And Leica owners who cannot take a photograph. But it is not fair to denigrate these folks. They are, after all, a source of cheap supply of the world’s finest equipment to those of us who dare not, or cannot, buy it new.

An exchange of shared values

Photography

The UPS driver was getting used to the routine.

Every Friday there was a delivery to the estate from B&H in New York. Place your order for film or paper or printing inks on a Sunday and the following Friday, as sure as the Government wants your money every April 15th, UPS arrives at your door with the supplies.

A First Class Business selling First Class Products delivered by a First Class Business.

Now this little haven in the undiscovered central coast of California, has much to recommend it. Beautiful landscape, vineyards as far as the eye can see (not least the few acres of Zinfandel we pride ourselves on, affording isolation from all and sundry, and looking gorgeous in the process) and fine, honest Americans.

So we got to chatting, every Friday, our UPS man and I. There’s something about UPS that encourages that sort of relationship. FedEx doesn’t have it. Too harried, no time for civilized discourse. The grandly named United States Post Office obviously does not. Are you going to trust someone who takes your tax dollars? But no one refers to the UPS man. It’s always our UPS man.

So after a few months of this routine, and after copious quantities of Portra, Gold and Epson paper and inks had been delivered, it was natural to graduate to first name terms. I’m Marty. Hi, I’m Thomas.

And thus it went for a few more months. Ice is hard to break and these UPS chaps have it in their veins in abundance. As is well known, every one wants a UPS man of their own.

Then, the other day, Marty opens up with “I’m giving a concert at Castoro this Sunday at 3 p.m.”

Let me start by saying that Castoro makes the second best zinfandel on the Central Coast. Needless to add, Chateau Winston, named after my son, a.k.a. the family abode, is superior. Both reside in that small area of paradise known as the Templeton Gap, west of Highway 101 and south of Highway 46. The world’s best Zinfandel grapes make their home there.

Before I could ask ‘What do you play’ Martin Paris proferred a CD with a picture of him on the cover, acoustic guitar and all. Without thinking, after profuse thanks, I offered that I was a photographer and could I please inscribe a copy of my book for you? The thought of commerce did not remotely enter my head. After all, it hardly needs saying that playing classical instruments or taking art photographs are two of the least commercial enterprises on this God’s earth. So we made an exchange. Marty’s Spanish guitar playing, all of his own compositions, is simply wonderful. His generosity of spirit and basic sense of American decency unsurpassed. My book of picture is….well, you be the judge.

So we exchanged good wishes. Marty signed his CD “Thomas – All My Best” and I reciprocated with “For Martin – with thanks for the beauty you have brought us”.

This little episode, seemingly insignificant in the grand panoply of life, brings us back to the central beliefs of these essays. Show your work and you will be rewarded. The rewards may be psychic rather than financial, but they are deep and lasting.

Publish a book. Now. Have something to exchange.

The vines doing their thing on the estate, framed by a cottonwood.

Anonymous writes

Hall of Shame, Photography

Now and then Anonymous soils these pages with his Comments. Or detritus, more accurately.

He is always Anonymous.

After all, would you want anyone to know that your grammar is that of the mean streets, and your mental capacity somewhere around Second Grade?

No problem. Clean up of Anonymous’s leavings takes as long as is required to hit the ‘Delete Comment’ button and life goes on unsullied by life’s losers.

However, now and then, old Anonymous writes something so completely inane, that his nonsense rises out of the field of tragedy and migrates to the truly hilarious. Here, for your amusement, are some of Anonymous’s best:

On my piece about Cartier-Bresson: “All his pictures were posed anyway”.

On Film is Dead (Anonymous had lots of foul mouthed company on this one – the truth hurts): “All digital photographs look alike, anyway, which is why I use film”. “Just because you have gone all digital, don’t expect real photographers to”.

On Make Mine Monochorome: “Yes, color is hard, which is why I use black and white”.

On Losing my (large format) Virginity, where I refer to my Harris Tweed cap and Tartan tripod bag, both purchased when I was one of Her Majesty’s loyal subjects some 30 years ago: “Harris Tweed cap and Scottish tartan tripod bag. You Americans make me laugh”.

On Throw away your lens cap and case: “Unlike you, I keep a lens cap on my pristine Leica at all times to avoid having the sun burn a hole in the shutter”. Guess how many great photographs this one takes.

On Rot which debunks all the silliness about Art poseurs using plastic cameras: “If you weren’t such a bigot you would get a Lomo, a fine (sic) made Russian camera and take some really good pictures”.

On Leicas – this one is a real Dusie: “Would it be to (sic – notice the grade school grammar) bold to speculate that you have never owned a Leica yourself. (sic) If you had you would understand the quality of the camera. There is no mistaking a picture taken with a Leica lens vs. any other brand.” And more from this child: “As to your point about AUTO FOCUS??? (sic) Why would anyone ever, want to use auto focus for any type of professional photograph. (sic). Since you used a car analogy once before perhaps the one I use will sink in. Compare a manual car to a stick shift (huge difference there!). They both will run, however, the stick shift will always go faster when the driver knows how to operate it.” What a pleasure it was to hit the ‘Add to Spam list’ button on that one. Phew!

All happily deleted, their authors added to the permanent spam list. This list not only forever bans these folks from posting here it also bans them from soiling other lists using like spam software as the database of spammers is shared. Neat, huh?

So, Mr. (and Ms.) Anonymous, keep ’em coming and we will be pleased to add you to our list, allowing all and sundry to join us in a good laugh. But think twice first as you may just be excluded from many other blogs. On second thoughts, just hit the ‘send’ button and do us all a favor.

Stop wasting Time – Part I

Photography

You need some woodworking done in your home. Two laborers show up bidding to do the work. One brings with him only hand tools. Not a motor or power source in sight, save his well developed biceps. The other comes with an assistant and every power tool known to man. Both come recommended, so you know the quality of the work is not an issue.

Which do you choose? The romantic aspects of the craftsman with the brawny arms notwithstanding, you obviously choose the man with the power tools and the assistant. He will be faster, his work more dimensionally accurate and less of your precious time will be taken up with the sawing and hammering that ensues. Plus it will cost you less.

In that example the value of your time is irrelevant as you are not doing the work in either scenario.

Now translate the problem to one of making photographic prints. You pride yourself on traditional darkroom techniques, you set up your darkroom, prepare the quickly aging chemicals and potter about in the dark, shading here and burning there, never quite sure how it will turn out, the while praying that little Johnny will not come into your miserable, smelly work area and destroy yet another box of printing paper.. You are automatically constrained to monochrome, of course, because it is beyond any rational person’s effort to home process color prints using traditional chemical means. So right there you have excluded 99% of your audience. When all is done and the print fixed, you pray it will look something like what you want when the light is switched on (you did put the unexposed paper away first, didn’t you?) and luckily, even if it does, your are still faced with the task of washing the prints in an attempt to render them permanent, drying, glazing, and on and on. You have retained the artisan with the hand tools.

You and the artisan have failed to notice one key thing about life. Technology has moved on. Both of you have unconsciously placed a very low value on your time.

The power tool photographic worker, meanwhile, having established a well rehearsed routine, has used Photoshop or whatever his application of choice is, done what dodging and burning is needed, removed dust spots (he only needs to do this once, ever, while the artisan must do it on every print) and spooled out twenty print jobs to his computer and left it to print while getting on with other more important things. Like taking more photographs.

The power tool worker’s level of retouching and corrections is infinitely superior and his prints are all identical. Exactly, you say, see, they are all identical. No two of my prints are ever alike. Obviously not. Your are technically incapable of making identical prints as your technology is inept. Making prints that look different is nothing more or less than a statement of your incompetence and refusal to recognize that times have changed. And they have changed for the better.

You tell yourself that none of that makes any sense, of course, as your traditional darkroom print is so much better. Of course, it is impossible for you to make that statement, as you have never mastered the modern technology of the computer print, but it makes you feel self satisfied and happy. Your time, in other words, is worth very little.

The reality is that not only is your print not better than the ink jet worker’s, you produce one for every twenty or thirty his modern machinery outputs. His artistic output is thus many times yours, his chances of acceptance and success commensurately greater. Worst of all for you, the artisan, is that the consumer cares not how the print was made. He just cares about the result. Unless you are showing your work to those sad souls who collect equipment and cannot take a picture to save their lives (why would you waste your time doing that?), believe me, no one will ever ask you what camera you used or – I mean how comical – inquire whether this is a chemical or ink jet print!

You already have a computer or you would not be reading this. Supremely competent ink jet printers are available for under $100. Photoshop Elements retails for a similar amount unless it happens to come free with your printer.

Then, when you become supremely successful, the resulting tripling of your time for photography certainly enhancing your prospects greatly, you can delegate all printing to some poor toad who does this for a living and get rid of the printing drudgery for once and all.

Quality Time with Ansel

Photographers

It must have been back in 1999 when good fortune caught me staying at The Inn on Spanish Bay just up the road from the links at Pebble Beach. Few places offer more breathtaking vistas and opportunities for relaxation. When you next stay there, I greatly recommend the squid special, black ink and all, and that bagpiper chap playing at sunset, praying a gust of wind will not disclose all.

Anyway, as is the wont of ladies in overpriced neighborhoods, my better half went shopping (ouch!) while I strolled the few yards from the front door of the Inn to the grandly named Weston Gallery. A very sincere young man, schooled in the world of sales, immediately buttonholed me and asked my interest. I did not have the heart to disabuse him of his evident belief that Ansel Adams should replace at least one, maybe two, members of the Holy Trinity, so rather than saying ‘Anything But Adams’ I ventured that I rather enjoyed American landscape photography of the west. Noblesse oblige, and all that.

Well, drat, it didn’t work. I was marched over to the Adams Collection, the salesman doubtless eyeing my less than pristine Levi Button Fly Shrink to Fit Jeans, and wrongly concluding that I was another in a long string of Silicon Valley venture capitalists off for a day or two to blow some serious coin. Sadly not the case. Yes, it must have been 1999, for memory suggests that 2000 was not the happiest in history for Silicon Valley, and I was feeling pretty happy at the time, pre-ticker shock.

Now, I first began to smell a rat, nay a giant size capybara, when this smug twit pulls on a pair of cotton gloves, proffering a matched set to me. Now I know that parting photography collectors, excuse me, investors, from their hard-earned dough requires something akin to surgical precision, but I was a tad confused as to what the devil I was to do with these gloves.

Kind of when a friend asked me to belt up in his racing Cobra. I looked at the darned belts with confusion, having seen nothing like them before. “Standard Simpson racing belts” he intoned with the bored air of one who has seen it all before. Do I knot these things together or what? I remember thinking. Only when he made a dive for my crotch – a troubling moment indeed as I never suspected he was one of Those – did I realize these things come up through the legs and buckle together from all directions over the very part my old mum used to afford me sustenance through before I first saw this wonderful world.

Anyway, being offered those cotton gloves caused that same momentary look of fear to cross my face. Was I going to be asked into a dimly lit back room next? Mercifully, El Twit donned his by way of example so I dutifully followed suit, making nary a complaint that my fingers were about two inches too long for what was offered. Discretion, in this case, was surely the better part of valor. I think I sort of pulled it off by affecting an air of insouciance while struggling in a manly way with the wretched gloves.

So there we are, The Twit and I, standing in the Weston Gallery, cotton gloves and all, when he starts pulling prints from a drawer. Each, you should know, was some 5”x7”, matted with acres of white and separated from its neighbor with a sheet of something. Acid Free, I was immediately assured Oh! says I. No hallucinogens in this joint, even when it comes to the price tag. Bother!

Now much as I would die happy never seeing one of these again, there they all were. Half Dome, the fake Moonlight Hernandez (you know, the one taken in broad daylight with poor old AA spending hours dodging and burning in his darkroom, but forgetting to get rid of the shadows cast by the gravestones in the bright sun), the one of Bridal Veil Falls, the absurdly over-filtered Monolith, and many others I shudder to recall. You would think the purifying qualities of monochrome would at least filter out the worst lapses of taste, but Adams managed to hurdle that barrier with supreme ease. Can you say Monochrome and Garish in one sentence? Because, believe me, seeing these ‘originals’ made me realize he had accomplished something his books only hinted at. Loud Monochrome. How so poor a collection of over-manipulated fakes could manage to fit in one drawer boggles the mind, but El Twitto was saving his best, his killer sales line, for last.

“And here Sir is our finest masterpiece from the Ansel Collection”. Needless to say, it was yet another print of Half Dome. But wait a minute, how do I break it to this chap short in grey matter that the print was yellowed and faded? Now I liked the look – at least half the garishness had almost disappeared. “Seems a bit different from the one you showed me earlier”, I offered. “Yes, Sir” responds the sycophantic nonentity, “this print was made by Mr. Adams himself, no less”.

“Oh”, says I, “How do you know?”. Well, that was a bit like calling the Queen German. It may be true, but it is not said in polite company.

“Sir, please”, he intoned, wrist held just so, “It’s our job at the Weston Gallery to know”.

Well, in true civilized manner, I quickly steered the conversation to the weather and isn’t it really lovely here and where would you recommend for dinner?

Sadly, he wasn’t buying it. “Well, sir, what do you think of the Ansel print?” A familiarity available only to those who have never met the famed subject of their dreams. “At $15,000 we think it very attractively priced for an investor like yourself who obviously appreciates fine art.” And to think I could get the really garish one for a mere five large.

Now you must understand that this Weston Gallery is not a place to admit to color lightly. White walls, El Twitteroony all in white, white flowers even. When you see that much white you know sticker shock cannot be far behind. Nonetheless, the vivid shade of green I had just acquired contrasted quite nicely with the foul yellow of this appalling print held in Twitterino’s becottoned manglers.


Home of The Twit

So I quickly pulled out that old line which is a curse to salesmen everywhere. “Oh! it’s really quite special, I agree, but let me check with the wife and get back to you”. The power of agency. Always blame someone else. I would love to, but…. Look, I Really love it, but the old ball-and-chain, you know. Got to check with the little lady. Can’t rob the grocery money. So I leg it out of there, shedding cotton gloves right and left and quite possibly setting a new World and Olympic record for the 100 metres.

Why, oh! why, do fully half of all art photographers want to imitate something so bad? Have they not the courage to recognize poor darkroom work and worse photography when they see it? Or is it just the comfort of hordes? Don’t rock the boat and no one will notice. The way to fix art photography? Ban all cameras from Yosemite.

Look, if you love Adams’s work well and good. Ask yourself why and don’t expect everyone else to.