Wrighting

Ever Closer to Perfection

June 29th, 2009 § 0

Difficult to tell at this size, but

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getting pretty close to perfect. Yesterday I had most of the factors working in my favour, a steady stream of jets overhead, some puffy clouds, the right vector, victor.

Still not there though. He’s not centered on the pin, the cloud is a little too big in the frame, it feels heavy on the left. But he is “on” the pin, there is no overlap, no space. At least in the pixel realm of 400% enlargement, you cannot tell.

And a reminder that for a small tax deductible donation to Team For Kids, you can have a print from me. $50 gets you whatever you want from me. Smaller donations are also welcome. 18 weeks to the New York City Marathon…

NYCphotoWorks me over

June 24th, 2009 § 5

Couple weeks ago I got an email from NYCphotoWorks:

Greetings Photographer,

I’m writing to you today to tell you about a new Manhattan based
company, headed by photgrapher Marc Asnin, that is working for
photographers. NYCPhotoWorks is a company that is designed to help
photographers on all levels become better photographers, gain
professional insight and exposure, and eventually get work. We offer
services in many different aspects of professional photography, from
consultations on personal branding to meeting face
to face with the top editors in the magazine world, to workshops taught by
working professionals.

NYCPhotoWorks will be hosting Portfolio Reviews in the fall that are
certain to provide photographers with unprecedented opportunity and insight.

On October 22nd-24th, NYCPhotoWorks will be hosting a Portfolio Review
event at the newly renovated Sandbox Studios in lower Manhattan that will
bring together more than sixty of the top photo editors in the business.
Participating publications include Time, People, Stern, Vanity Fair, Conde
Nast, Details, Forbes, ESPN, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, National
Geographic Adventurer, Redbook, and many more. Photographers must apply
to be accepted into the event in order to ensure quality of work. If
accepted, the photographer will be given the chance to meet with 14 photo
editors 1-on-1 over two days, plus a third day of workshops taught by the
Directors of Photography for Conde Nast Traveler, People and Redbook.
This is an unprecedented opportunity for talented photographers to
personally show their work to top photo editors and build lasting
professional relationships.

In a world as competitive and dynamic as editorial photography it’s not
enough simply to drop off or mail in your portfolio. Meeting the editors
in person lays the foundation for a working professional relationship.
Don’t miss this chance to personally present your work to the top editors
of the magazine world. Spots fill on a first-come-first-serve basis and
you must submit your work prior to being accepted into the event.

For more information about NYCPhotoWorks please visit our website at
www.nycphotoworks.com

Thanks for your time and please feel free to contact me with any
questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

Is it me or do they go out of their way NOT to mention money?

So I apply and get taken to a very nice website with a lovely list of editors. Two weeks later, voila, I am accepted and get a login to register.

WHAMO!

$699-599-499-399-Just like iPods, one for every size…

I’ll do the math for you, that’s roughly $45 dollars a sitting.

Ok so you say, Robert…everyone knows it is pay to play…what is your problem? This is no different from paying for LeBook or a promo piece or portfolio pages.

Well, it is different. It is like the wheel has finally come around full circle. Really? Really?

It’s not like I am not already paying out of pocket to do editorial. You know my views on that. But now I really am paying out of pocket! Have we all forgotten folks that we used to drop portfolios off at magazines and have meetings and actually sit down in conference rooms and lobbies and show work to editors for free? This was how business was conducted, the editors need to meet you to get an idea of what you were like, they needed to see prints, they wanted to form a relationship so that you could work together. It was part of their job. Some even liked it! And if it went well, it was not some cherry pick one time assignment where because you shoot waterbuffalo on painted backdrops with a ringflash in your MFA portfolio they just knew it had to be you? But after that, via con dios…

So apart from the efficiency aspect of being able to deliver 200 (? I have no idea the size of this cattle call) culled photographers to 50 editors for example-because, we really are doing them a favour-the magazines, getting their editors all on site on two days for a blitzkreig portfolio review-they are going to come away with something don’t forget-I just don’t get it. Yes, it is highly efficient to be able to see 14 editors in two days, literally, something that would take weeks or months to do conventionally-now. But do you really have a portfolio that is suitable for Business Week, ESPN, Field and Stream, Popular Mechanics, NYTimes Style, Lucky, Prevention and Redbook? Does it make any sense? So right there, out of 32 publications represented, just how many are you really suited for? And if you respond, ‘all of them’, then I think your portfolio needs some cutting…

Sure you could spend $699 every quarter and do a very nice printed Z-fold of new work and blanket all your contacts and I know that might have zero results. But this is no different. Except for the fact that it is something that used to be free, and now, or going forward, probably will not be. File this under “blame commoditization…”

On a secondary rant, part of this has to do with the myth of “personal work.” I guess now that no one is working we all have time to do “personal work.” I’m doing it as fast as I can…have you noticed yet? Perhaps someone with a little more history in the business can corroborate this, but to my recollection, this little bit of slight of hand came up in the 90’s. It was a differentiation tactic. Pure marketing. It said, “you are not just a commercial photographer.” Well I ask you, for example, when Ad agencies are looking for a TV commercial director, and they are shopping reels, do they ask-”hey, where is the personal work? Lemme see his friends half naked at the beach?” Sounds ridiculous huh?

The situation is comparable to the rise and fall of indy cinema, first as outlier, eventually as profit center, with no investment-does this sound familiar-and now as undifferentiated from the rest.

To be “truthy” there is nothing wrong with hiring a photography to do what they do if all they do is shoot to assignment (brilliantly?). You see the perversity of the logic when in the last couple of years we have seen what I would term the “exploitation” of artists in the commercial realm, being hired to reproduce on assignment what they do for themselves. Can anyone put that logic right-side in? How is it any different from hiring an assignment photographer to reproduce what they do on assignment?

If anything, I trust the assignment photographer who has had to deal with more crises on location than the photographer hired to reproduce personal work, which by definition, is work made under the circumstances of the photographers choosing.

Can you imagine asking an Avedon, a Penn, a Meisel, etc, so, where is the personal work? Like the assignment is not good enough?

On Offer

June 22nd, 2009 § 1

screenshsot

Various from Flyover States.

I am not opposed to providing prints from other work. Yeah the demand is that great…

UPDATE!:

Let the love flow! I wonderful generous First Donation from my friend Emmet Malmstrom…thank you!

emm

It’s ON!

June 19th, 2009 § 1

Three things to remember, this link, this number: 361112 and this name: Wright.

Team For Kids is the charity “leg” of the New York Road Runners Foundation dedicated to bringing quality in-school educational programs to 75,000 kids in NYC, nationally, and internationally. There are many reasons why kids are not getting enough physical activity today, even before the recession, and TFK provides:

Training for teachers, coaches, field managers, and site coordinators
Incentives for children to maintain attendance, sportsmanship, and achieve running and personal improvement milestones
Entry fees and transportation for kids to compete in races and attend events with professional athletes
Resources to establish programs in areas of greatest need-

This is what is going to happen: Robert will run the New York City Marathon November 1 2009. 26.2 miles. Obviously this charity appeal is self-serving: I really want to run this race, in this city, this year. 2009 is the 40th Anniversary of the race, and is going to be something extraordinary. I have watched from the sidelines on 4th Avenue many years, as I am sure many of you have, watched them all go by, and thought, I would like to do that. This is going to be the year.

One person inspired me to try running (again) last year and it comes down to that simple act, to inspire something in someone else. You (my family, friends, coworkers, random strangers…) have all responded with admiration, amazement and encouragement. I have even tried to get one or two of you to go out and lace up a pair yourselves. Well now I am trying to inspire you to make a difference for someone else. Hit the TFK website link above, enter my New York City Marathon entry number “361112″ and last name “Wright” and make a TAX DEDUCTIBLE (yes!) donation to TFK.

Here is the deal: you can donate whatever amount you want. $26.20 is an obvious choice. But, for donations of $50 and above, I will make a print for you, you can select or I can choose, I will post some possibilities soon.

Now if someone wants to get a little outrageous, there are lots of options on the table. A portrait sitting with me, in studio or at your swank pad, the full kit, lights, backdrops, assistant, film or digital…Pet Photos are A-OK! Want me to snatch a lollipop away from your baby? Fine by me! Who needs jill-whatshername! Its all ON. Just give till it hurts:) Think about my pain running 40 miles a week folks…

So this is how we do it:

Go to this page and this is what you see:
picture-1

now enjoy feeling good.

50×50

June 4th, 2009 § 0

…Well…I did not get in to the NYC Marathon via the Lottery…where was that little puke “lil bit O’ luck when I needed him? Off working his combover for the NYS lottery I guess…

Soooo…the alternative is to wait until next year when I know I will get in because of the 9+1 entry system that I am 3 races away from completing. Or charities. The official NYC Marathon charity is Team For Kids-dedicated to alleviating childhood obesity by providing funds for access to physical education for those with little or no access.

I grew up with good schools, we had phys-ed, outdoors summer and winter! While I was not a jock by any stretch, I was a band geek, we had a great music program too, I do have a very detailed memory of wanting to die the first time we had to run four laps of the 400m oval. Plus our school had a long history of various all-school athletic challenges, one being the Harrier, I believe a 5k run through the streets. At least a great way to get out of class…

But I watched more than my share of TV, was addicted to Pepsi, and chocolate milk, but somehow managed to avoid what is called an epidemic now, childhood obesity. I believe genetics played the major role, but also our family eating habits were pretty conventional, meat and two veg as they say, and kids were allowed to go places on their own riding bikes, walking, running. I do not remember being strapped into anything resembling a car seat or stroller, perhaps I would not remember this anyway. It seems we shepherd our children everywhere now, from cars to strollers to buses. And just looking at my own lifestyle, the amount of time spent in front of a screen, I fear that our future is some version of Wall-E.

Sooo…floating a balloon here folks, I can register for RunForKids but I must commit to raising a minimum of 2500 smackeroos for them. Taking a page from Jen Bekman’s outrageously successful 20×200, I thought, why not do a print sale for RunForKids-50×50? I will produce a print (50 prints x 50$ea) and take donations via Paypal towards the charity. I’m not taking anything for the prints or the shipping costs, this is 100% charity. I have not done the research yet, perhaps RFK has it’s own payment system, however it gets done, ya’ll will get a print from me, have the pleasure of hearing me complain about training in the heat of August, and know that the money raised is going to make sure the ‘kids are alright.

Does this have legs?

A year running

June 1st, 2009 § 2

Thursday will be my anniversary of one year as “a runner.”

I’ve logged 1000 miles, 5 half marathons, a bunch of 10k’s and one full Marathon (and one toenail). Here are some recent images from the Brooklyn Half Marathon-thank you to Emmet for loaning me his GRD2-only a little gatorade on it…It was a big ol PB-(that’s runner speak for Personal BEST) time of 1:43:58-carving a FAT 7 minutes off my previous best! Also forgot to post two weeks back about a new 10K time of 48:04 in the wonderfully named Healthy Kidney 10k in Central Park. Can’t wait for the Feeling Great Gall Bladder and Kidney Stone 5 miler…passing that one is a real relief-yuk-yuk.

That’s the sports, in other news-this week is the scene of high drama-the New York City Marathon Lottery drawing is wednesday-they notify you thursday. About 5600 of 57000 people got in last year, 1 in 10. You will hear odd noises from office cubicles city wide guaranteed-the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat I am sure. Check this space Thursday, I’m not getting my hopes up, it was an outside chance this year, and I am guaranteed next year. Perhaps it is Philadelphia Freedom I will be hearing, not New York, New York?

So the question-Will Photography ever make a comeback on this blog…stay tuned…

Featured Comment:

Wayne’s world of running photos

Thanks for the compliments! I’ve developed a “slow down” method, also a sense of where in the stride there is the least motion. Very occasionally I’ll stop, but I feel like I’m cheating the run. I’m using the yashica t4, it’s old and the autofocus doesn’t always work, so I often look down at the counter (which is a half-broken LCD, so 9 and 4 are the same) to see if a shot was even taken. I started using the chrome because at I bought kodak 400 “elite chrome” on ebay to see what it was like, by elite they mean terrible, so part of running photos was to burn through the film.

I’ve considered getting a digital for these photos, but I think there would be much more draw to stop and see what the photo looks like and take a few more frames to ‘get it right’ - the lack of good digital p/s is something that extends beyond running - but I need one that has a screen off mode. The ricohs are probably the best option, but a fixed lens would be better.

Last year I ran the marathon and I did not bring the camera - I had a water bottle and and ipod, the camera seemed like having too much stuff and there was a sense that I wasn’t taking the marathon seriously if I was taking photos. I think I might bring it this year. I run a lot of the same areas the marathon takes place in San Francisco, like I said on your blog, it’s strange how adding all the other runners, the people on the sidelines (love that reference - the fusco marathon!!) and the race stuff (water stops, signs, etc) changes the place.

thanks again for the blog, besides the running angle, it’s one of the more interesting photo-related blogs I follow…
Wayne

Wow I like that shameless self plug at the end.

2009 New Jersey Marathon Race Report

May 5th, 2009 § 0

Just got back from an AWESOME run.

Well that is the twitter joke anyway.

Big news is that I have a black toenail to report. I’m not going to photograph it for you, I will save you the displeasure. But according to the literature it is a mark of going farther and faster than ever before.

So in my previous post I said I had three times in my head, the holy cow, the wow and the good for now. Well I was firmly into the get’er done category, clocking a rain-soaked 3:49:10. I did negative split, I ran the second half 4 minutes faster than the first. But if you take away a two and half minute wait for the potty at mile 6 and a very congested and slow start, it was pretty much even-steven first-second half.

After the very slow start (9:56, 9:09) I did manage to settle into my game plan which was to run 8:30’s for the half and then maybe 8:15’s for the 2nd half. Mile 6 was 11:09 because of the potty break. The splits sort of ping-pong between 8:15’s and 8:30’s all the way up to mile 17, and then I never break 8:30-ish from 18 on (8:33, 8:32, 8:34, 8:45, 8:56, 8:39, 8:37, 8:27!, 8:32-4:17). Make no mistake, I wanted to go faster…I would look at my watch and say ok legs, lets speeeeedup! and I would think I was going faster, but then I would check the watch a little while later and, nope, no faster! So I was like, “ok, this is it huh?” Mile 21, 22 and 23 were a negotiation, sailing into the wind, waiting for the turnaround, making sure I had something left so the finish was not grueling. And there were fewer people out on the course, although the volunteers were absolutely the best and I tried to thank many of them, what a long day for them, five or six hours in a steady rain. But then turning back with the wind, the last three miles were good, and watching the surf break on the beach for the last two mile sans headphones, listening to the waves was pretty good (awesome?). The last mile funneled into a gauntlet along the boardwalk and had more spectators, and then it was through the chute and trying to negotiate walking instead of running. It was over!

You really don’t get exactly what just happened. I think the course design with the two loops makes it difficult to enjoy the passage of distance. All of my long training runs were structured around loops early but an out and back finish, so that you have a sense of going “somewhere.” The scenery changes, you feel a progression, and getting closer to “home.” You really only got that on this course with the final turn for the finish, the long straight away along the seaside. The rest was turning turning turning. There was no sense of direction.

If you are reading this having googled NJ marathon, my recommendation is that this is a well organized medium sized marathon. It feels big without being big. The volunteers are first class, the setting is pretty good, and given good weather I bet spectacular crowd support. Do yourself a favour and pick up the bib BEFORE race day, it was pandemonium having to do that and check bags.

So, taking a couple weeks off to let things heal. The lessons come in two categories, one is training and race day management, the other is overall life lesson. In terms of training I now have a better idea what I need to do to prepare. You have to be very careful about the timing of when you peak. This is something of a mystery to me still. I almost think a week earlier might have been better. And whatever you can do to streamline race day is worthwhile: BIG shoutout to my friend Dave and Eileen who provided the pre-race pasta fest, overnight lodging and race day transportation in style in Dave’s orange Porsche Boxster-S. That’s what friends are for right? Impossible to do without.

In terms of life-lesson, I go back to an earlier post about goal setting. I didn’t start running to run a marathon. So having run one it is not the culmination of “something” necessarily. It is a byproduct of a disciplined practice. It kind of takes some of the fun out it, doesn’t it tho? I tend to see lots of things turned around though, a habit of mine. I’m not saying the event itself is not fun, it is. The rain certainly changed the character of the day into endurance however. Not pleasant to be thinking mainly about how to avoid hypothermia…the next one I run…next one…will be organized around fun I think. The enjoyment of actually being there. Now if I win the lottery and get into the New York Marathon then that changes a lot of things, that will be something of a goal, having watched so many over the years, to be in it will be very different. Sometime in June I will have the answer to that.

Long Distance

May 2nd, 2009 § 1

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I remember, and my parents remember all too well, there was an evening in my twenties, in winter, where I had gone on the train into Toronto. I think I ended up spending all my money at the bar, and this was before ATM’s, I had nothing to get home on, all the way. The best I could manage was the bus to the end of the line, which was Pickering (in Ontario), which left a long walk from the bus station home, at 1am, in winter. Google says it is four and half miles, but it was nothing you ever wanted to have to walk, even in summer.

In the end it was enjoyable, if somewhat frosty. I was underdressed certainly, and the wind was pretty strong. That might have been one of my first long distance sojourns. Not long after I began cycling seriously and remember a number of 80km excursions, and one attempt at cycling from Kingston ON, home to Ajax, about 235km. I made it about 120km in the dead of summer, and had to stop because I couldn’t breathe in the humidity. I was not really prepared for that kind of distance. My dad had to come and bail me out. On the return trip I had him drop me at the same point and I completed the distance back out of some need to cover that span. I would still like to do it some day.

Tomorrow I run my first marathon in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Thank you to all who have encouraged me along this path. You are on your own when you run but you are not alone.

In terms of results, they tell you to have three goals in mind. There is the shocked, amazed, couldn’t believe how fast it was time, the great time you had been planning on, and then the get’er done time where you didn’t at least blow up. So in terms of the great time, I think I can manage a 3:40 which for me would be a respectable time for a first marathon, including some hustle to get there. The course is flat so that is an advantage, and I have been training on lots of hills. Rain could alter the time either way, squishy toes might not like all the miles, but cooler means less work overall. Hard to say.

Anything under 3:40 and I will be flabbergasted. 3:45 is the get’er done territory. But there is beer at the end no matter what.

Don’t expect a race report Monday.

Of Marathons

April 20th, 2009 § 2

Maybe this will make sense at the end.

Some people set goals, some people attain goals, and some people have goals. I’m not sure I’m any one of those three.

That sounds terrible. And maybe I am forgetting or denying goals set in the past. For example a friend and I wanted to cycle down the west coast one summer. We did, more or less. It was not a goal, it was more like an ordeal, something you get yourself into and then have to negotiate to get out of. But you buy a plane ticket and basically you have to get there or not come home.

I don’t know that I ever set a goal of becoming a professional photographer. For starters, I did not know how you did that. All the compass points were in the form of book jackets and introductions, for example the Bill Allard book on his years becoming a National Geographic photographer. I got to thank him for that, by the way, last year, at a loft party at David Alan Harvey’s. He took the genuflecting well, considering. He allowed that that book had had a good response. Perhaps not what you want, it’s about the pictures isn’t it? Well, I like the pictures too. I think I forgot to say that.

I don’t know that I ever celebrated “becoming” a professional photographer. Does that still mean I am “emerging?” I have a copy of Joel Sternfeld’s “American Prospects, 1987, and on the back cover is a quote from Time magazine, it reads “Pictures that were once compelling oddities are now linked into an original meditation on the national life. It clinches the case for Sternfeld as an emerging American master.” (italics mine) I guess you can always be emerging, even when you get to be a master.

I do remember a job in the Bahamas sometime in 1999 or 2000 for W magazine where during a lunch hour break we were all in the pool and I was thinking to myself, “I should be really happy right now. Here I am.” Of course I wasn’t, I was beating myself up over the next picture or the last picture, or the next job or the last job, and feeling not secure about anything.

I don’t know that you get a triumphant moment in photography. THIS, HERE, IS THE ONE PHOTOGRAPH! FINALLY! the headline reads. I feel like Garrison Keillor, reading the News from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children, above average. I should know, having a Lutheran pastor in the family.

Photography is not something that submits itself easily to goal setting. That said though, I think it is easy to deny yourself a payoff. Think of the piles of prints you have in boxes in neat little rows somewhere in your studio. And some people don’t photograph for others, they just do it for themselves. But I think sometimes they are not being honest with themselves, don’t we all do it for recognition of one form or another?

Which brings me to Marathons. In order to run one you have to train, you have commit to four months of work and more beyond that just to be ready. In January I half decided that I was going to run the Vancouver Marathon coming May 3rd. I put the mileage on the calendar, numbers I had never seen before, and wondered if I could do it?

Well the training is over, nothing that I can do now will make much of a difference two weeks from now. I couldn’t afford the Vancouver travel, but beautiful New Jersey has a popular seaside marathon in Long Branch. It is not the perfect first marathon. But the perfect is the enemy of the good. What is the point of doing all the training, all four hundred miles, without some painful payoff?

I know some people live by goals, by to do lists, by achievements. When you look at it backwards though, it makes more sense to me. The fact that you can put something on the calendar four months away and break it down to the quotidian, as a way of getting it done. It might apply to photography too.

Google: Too big to Exist?

April 8th, 2009 § 2

So have we learned anything at all from this financial debacle? There are some entities that are too big to fail, ergo, too big to exist. I ask this question naively, but what if?

Google’s share price is currently 360 or so, down from it’s all time high of double that a couple years ago. I don’t know if this reflects a realistic market value for this company, whether speculation is to blame, or flying monkeys. What I do understand is that we have put a lot of faith in Google as reflected in this valuation, and as a result they get to operate with a lot of capital. So what are they doing with all that capital?

I think our understanding of the “internet” is to a large extent now Google’s representation of the internet, and the degree to which the two are entwined suggests to me a kind of transference. In that the internet is this nebulous, always-on, too large to consider interconnected web, a kind of entity, we have imbued Google with similar characteristics. But like the Wizard of Oz, Google is just a software company, or perhaps a technology company, since they never actually “ship” software, only endless beta’s.

And like the Human Genome Project, which may be selling you your own DNA cure for cancer some day, Google has undertaken a mass effort to catalogue “everything” in print. Right now there is a minor dustup over out-of-print titles that they in a sense “own” since they have done the grunt work of scanning them. But what if?

What if we let Google digest everything? What are the consequences of having “everything” available. And what are the consequences of having everything available easily, free, and controlled by one company?

What if Google goes out of business? What happens to all that information? What if they get too big?

This would have sounded silly if it were not a fact that we have seen and will see the demise of several Wall Street Investment banks, a number of very large commercial banks, and two thirds of the US auto industry. All within a year. Masters of the Universe no more.

So it is not silly to ask, what if?

And anyway, do we really want one company in control of that much published work?

(right now you can search all of New York Magazine’s back issues to 1997, conveniently when I started working for them, and you can see all the shitty pictures I took by searching my name…the blessing at the time was, “its only on the newsstand for a week!” OY!)

Despite their mantra to do no evil, Google has destroyed things simply by its existence. Online advertising is one thing that Google, with it’s adsense, has made ubiquitous, cheap, and irrelevant. Do you look at Google ads? Me neither. Yet their presence brings the value of other ads down, and makes them less effective. Adsense is the muzak of the internet. You hardly know it’s there. But it is one reason in my opinion that magazines and newspapers have not been able to generate sufficient revenue from their online ads. Please correct me, or point me to another analysis if this is way out. But I don’t think it’s that far off base.

So I ask, by cataloguing most of human written knowledge, could they destroy its value somehow? Is there a value in things not being explicit, easy to find, simple? How do our tools shape our thoughts?