A long time ago I mentioned my friend Steve Guttenberg. Not that one. Steve is a freelance writer and artist and likes to hook up extremely expensive audio and video equipment in his apartment and relax to aural nirvana. He has been feeding my vinyl craze. And my TFK craze. Recently he got an absurdly expensive turntable, the googlifonic kind with a moonrock needle. He played it for me. It went to eleven standing still. I in turn have been setting him up with photoshop techniques and he has gone a very long way in two years. He photographs, and then, well, I’m not sure. This comes out…
Dancers
The part I haven’t told you is that Steve really can’t see that well. He is legally blind. A birth defect left him with impaired vision, but as a child he used to stare at the sun wide eyed because the colour effects that he was seeing were irresistible. The resulting scars on his retina made things worse. But that didn’t stop Steve from eventually becoming a movie projectionist in New York in the Eighties. Did I mention that when you meet Steve, he will tell you a story. And then another. Possibly a third. All fascinating. You see, you want a paranoid projectionist! Focus! Steve brought binoculars into the booth to see better. So he was constantly on the lookout for blurry images. It makes sense if you let it.
Montauk #3
Digital cameras for Steve are like bionic eyes. He can see things very close up. Like a computer monitor from about 3 inches. And also an LCD on the back of a camera. Viewfinders are useless to him, ah, but on a preview you can magnify your picture…10x or more. All of a sudden, distant details are visible. Steve literally takes pictures to see what things look like. Which is by definition, is what a photographer does. And very Winograndian.
The Corner
We are up to 30% of my TFK pledge. More contributors to come.
That’s a good story. And I like those pictures.