20 Weeks, 500 miles, 2 weeks to go…

Reflections if any on a third marathon training cycle?

As research for a recent shoot I watched “Rudy”, the story of one incredibly obsessed man’s efforts to play football for Notre Dame. And when I say obsessed you can think possibly delusional. He claws his way towards one goal, to dress for a game so that his dad can see he really is playing for ND, that it’s not just a made up story, a pipe dream. His assessment is that all of his hard work will be for not if this doesn’t happen. He cannot see the forest for the trees. Several people around him, those that are on the far side of their dreams, remind him that it is not for nothing that he is also getting a first class education, and is not toiling away like his brothers in a steel mill. We are all about the goals, the distance travelled to get there is inconsequential.

What I remember about the training is not the task at hand, but the small rewards along the way, the weather, the people I see regularly and give a small wave too, the kind one farmer gives to another as they pass in pickup trucks, the kind that says, “yup.” I remember the feeling in my legs and body after a long run, a kind of weary relaxation where nothing is particularly urgent and I am just perambulating home. I remember only once this year, running in a light rain, for it was so dry. I saw “the express”, the man who put the bug in me, and we both remarked about how it was so great to have the park to ourselves that day, mostly.

I remember chasing bunnies and getting passed, blown into the weeds, it is pretty amazing to get passed like you are standing still. You look at the turnover and the high leg kick and the relentless pace, you match it for a while just to see, and then you are reminded that you are 44 and not 24…That said, I am faster this year, you do change, it just takes a long time to adapt. It is the whole body that is required to run fast, and those changes accumulate slowly in the 40+, more likely injury is what is accumulating.

On that note, I did sustain an injury this year, same exact one as last year, achilles, this time on the left side not the right. And I had tried so hard to avoid that-I trained gently, I stretched. But 20 weeks is really a long time, and just like last year, after about 12, a sudden training effect surge, then the feeling of being able to go infinitely fast, leading to going to fast, too hard, too soon, and then there you are-injured. If you are reading this looking for advice, I’d say ice is your friend, even if you are not injured, and compression socks are also very good, and finally rest is what fixes it. You can take a whole week off or more even in the cycle, it does not affect the whole, in fact, your body rewards you for the rest by coming back quicker than if you try to train through it. That was my mistake last year. To be afraid to take time off. Two weeks out of twenty, plus whatever base mileage you have before that, you are not going to miss.

My “goal” such as it is for the marathon this year, and I have put a lot of thought into this, is simply completion. You have to give the distance respect, and anything can happen on a given sunday. If you recall I was a little bent out of shape last year at the end, it was kind of grim there. Bargaining. Compromising other parts of my body in compensating for what was hurting. Probably not atypical. What I think is different this year is that there are all sorts of little things that I did differently, preparations, running the course, consistency in pacing, and also just the experience of last year- I think I will know how to handle myself better. My goal is always to run the “perfect” race, the race I could run on a given day. It probably won’t be that, but the obvious mistakes, like last year, going out way too hot, I think I can avoid.

Some other satisfactions: I am in the first wave this year- “locally competitive men’s start”–ha! that is funny. (There is still professional and sub-elite ahead of that…) Downside is that we are on the lowerdeck of the Verrazano Bridge- the advice is to stay near the center to avoid the “gifts” coming from above. Dunno about that, I didn’t see anyone last year heave or pee over the edge…

Also, couple of people I know have begun running this year, and have come to me for advice. I am always happy to “pay it forward.” Whatever the distance or goal, the reward is great.

found yesterday on a stoop in Park Slope. Not too coincidental-there are literally hundreds of books on stoops in Park Slope for the taking…

An actual back of the envelope lighting diagram. An un-actual polaroid.

I had tested all this out, with lights in front., but we got to the condo and there was nuthin- no space at all, no way to put the seamless illumination in front of the seamless, so we punted, and put it behind the seamless. The big box is actually the hallway we setup in, all white, about 12 feet deep. I figured if I could blast all 1600ws through the paper I could get something in front- which turned out to be 5.6 at 200 ISO. This accomplished a couple things, one was to soften the edges of the subject next to all that massive overexposure. In the past I have seen digital do nasty things to fine edges like hair when silo’d in front of 255,255,255. 5.6 keeps things softer.

Next we setup a small softlighter on a c stand arm in front-this was going to be the “second” setup, in other words, shoot backlight for some of the session and then add the front light for a different look. We went with f11 on the front light, which gave me almost pure white on the background with the backlight on. Something like 245, 245, 245. If you wanted a third look you could then kill the backlight and end up with middle grey on the backdrop. Ann was about 2 feet in front of the paper.

OK, WHAT STROBIST DOESN’T TELL YOU (well he’s been saying it more lately…)

So if I had brought three speedlights I would have been really stuck. NO way to blow two speedlights through the paper. Even 1600ws was barely enough. And we were boxed in with the location, literally. So the whole backlight ethereal idea goes out the door. As it was, I had two broncolor heads and a third Q-Flash in the front light. So what isn’t ideal about that? No modeling light. You can’t see your subject, and you can’t see what the light is doing. Sure, you can test it and set it, but when you are actually shooting, you don’t know. And critically, the front light has to be just right, not too high not too low. In a tight head portrait there is nothing but small moves, and every move looks different. It was great on my assistant, but not so good on her.  So I 86′d that setup as we were shooting, and just went with the backlight.

So I can’t stress this enough-you can’t shoot what you can’t see. Another thing I like to do is put the camera on a tripod and use the live view to focus and compose, standing next to the camera, so I can see in 3D and in “2D” simultaneously. Like using a 4×5- there is something liberating about not looking through that 35mm viewfinder tunnel. But I didn’t do that, the hallway was only 4 feet wide, and the tripod was going to be a timewaster to move around. But in retrospect, perhaps useful. See I didn’t expect a long shoot, but actually there was no time pressure once we got started, and having some process to stumble through with the tripod might have been useful, useful to break the constant practiced media smile I was getting. Whatever works.

So what does this tell you? Well, really great work requires preparation and support. There is a lot of cost cutting going on, downsizing of gear, all this information out there about how to get good results without employing a truckload of lighting. I am here to tell you it is mostly bunk. You may think you can hang out at ISO 800 and f2.8 with a few speedlights and get what you want, and sometimes you have to, but the difference, what you see in really good work is different by an order of magnitude. You do need gobs of light, small apertures, fast recycles, bright modeling lights, some space, some preparation, and good crew. I had only a few of those things going for me. And some luck.

In a couple weeks I’ll have another back of the envelope to share where I made a crucial rookie mistake but learned something I didn’t know in the end. For now, lets just say for want of a stand…

Get yourself to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, preferably on a weekday when it is not busy and enjoy Patrick Dougherty’s “Natural History.”

article here.

Jonathan and Danielle Leder of Jacques Magazine-

the NYT story does not mention two influences I think are important- one being Peter Gowland- we didn’t talk about this but you can’t think about pinup photography and not include his name-a complete original, he invented his own cameras even, and another “original” is Italian designer, artist, racecar driver and photographer Carlo Mollino, who made thousands of polaroids of nude and erotic figures, there is a book if you can find it-sure to be expensive, Jonathan had it also.

Fanny Pereire is the art consultant on the new “Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps” from Oliver Stone. I photographed her at Sonnabend Gallery recently with a piece by Clifford Ross entitled, “Hurricane LI”- (not Long Island, roman numerals 60), for NYT.

*Update- my mom emails me that LI is 51 not 60, which would be LX. Nice to know your mom’s got your back…*

Went to “bat” for Todd Selby…

Jumped around the Plaza Hotel with Betsey Johnson,

Found out “What Girls Want”

and spent some time up in the clouds with Nadia and Myriah (right).

more to follow.

WhiteHouse Custom color is doing the printing, short runs of 25, 50, 100, etc. Makes it real easy to send out quick hits. About the only paper I like from them is their Art Recycled.

Had the good fortune to shoot for Time 100 recently- a really wonderful guy Matt Berg, who has developed a text messaging system to track children’s health that is being used in Africa-ChildCount+.

Got an email back from him saying he was really happy with the picture and felt it reflected who he is, which is interesting- you spend a couple hours with someone and try to put that into a picture. From experience I know that the way I see someone in their picture is often very different from how they see themselves. Nice when the two dovetail.

Another view;