get together

guys:

we should get together and chat, even if nothing huge has changed, say....tuesday. obviously not today..but in a week. i get home "tonight" but dont get back to bham until wednesday and the next day stephanie comes in town...so i vote either late in monday, or tuesday of next week. obviously these things are open to suggestion.

we leave soonish for the airport so i may be MIA for a while.

later

Alright boys. Here's what i've got so far direction for the identity and various design pieces. lots of ideas, nothing actual executed yet. click the image to view the full proposal. bring on the thoughts.

analogue

the why.

so after a brief chat with my friend jared last night i am reminded (remound, i still think the word should be) that despite enjoying what and how i shoot so very much, there is still a decided lack of direction (which has been around more or less my whole career thus far) which i think fits well within one word: why.

the why



not sure how to keep typing.

speaking of analogue...

speaking of analogue...i got this camera today for a whopping €2



so far so good...i've read a couple of things on it and it seems like a decent catch-all consumer camera...we'll see how it holds up to the hip shot. its a 40mm lens (as opposed to the 32mm of the Lomo and the 35mm of the Hexar) but if its decent at all its worth three dollars.


and speaking of "the current project", i figure i should maybe take a few mintues to reflect a bit on what this trip has been so far.

i'll try to keep this "technical"...ie about the work, about the process....but the way i do things it will inevitably being more than that. speaking of technical, i'll note im writing this on a keyboard that isnt american and with spell check that is looking for austrian-german, which is to say it doesnt work...for my purposes.

so i brought my Hexar (which was purchased for this trip because my lomo lca+ was broken) and my lomo (because it got back to me in time from the repair shop. i think its just a new one) and as mentioned i acquired the li'l agfa. the goal here was not only ease of travel (no way i wanted to shoot digital and fill up cards and edit myself with when and how i'd shoot due to space limitations, or worry about dust spots or lenses..or little things like charging) but also, and mainly, to keep myself in a comfort zone. i speak of comfort mostly to the lomo as the hexar was brand new to me, though i am very happy shooting 35mm focal length. i took mostly black and white film (recently having gotten the 50th anniversary edition of robert frank's The Americans (link)) though i made sure to bring color as well, and to that end the trip's photographs will be heavily slanted towards monochrome.

i made a conscious effort try to revert to my "previous" style (á la "dont think just shoot" (link)) and really just react to things instead of trying to shoot things on purpose...does that make sense? so much of my year has been shooting things on purpose (ie portraits, editoral, etc) and not random....clicks. its not exactly reportage but its more than just snaps. its a weird thing actually. using the lomo especially enables me to act on intuition. see it click it. the distance measuring has become so in my nature that i can shoot quickly and without having to line things up (which does more or less disregard composition as a main element, though intuit provides a good deal of it naturally...and more importantly it keeps stuff fresh...i think at least...by no allowing myself to interfere in what my mind sees (versus my brain trying to compose things according to whatever rules it likes to follow).

i've had some whiskey now and as sober as i am i am not sure how many times i've trod the same ground on this post so i'll move on.

fuck i use too many parentheses

so i've tried to be as natural as possible. this excluded the hexar more than i'd have liked. i may end up selling it on ebay but i dooo like it. this could yield a metric tonne of shit but i am hoping for 30 solid frames. thats all i want. a thing im scared of though is the idea that they will be touristy photographs instead of just good work that stands on its own. but what do you do. we went to major cities, on the whole, and saw typically cool things probably 40% of the time .granted we DID go to serbia + albania.

i'll be looking for random snaps of faces, laughs, walking, etc. i'll be looking for buildings, graffiti, bloody cuts of meat, litter, mullets, and more importantly, pictures of people taking pictures of people.

well i ran out of time before i intended to so im just going to stop typing.


/random

Thought we could...

use some pictures on this blog, especially if it is to reflect wherever this project is going.  This frame, and a number of others, represents a completed analogue process for me: roll, shoot, process, scan.  The light leaks are evidence of a lesson I learned along the way.  Or maybe two lessons.  Anyhow, here's to more pictures.

cheers/s.y.b.o.

Bruce Gilden

check this out...I especially like the part at the end about characters.  interesting perspective...

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=kkIWW6vwrvM

s.y.b.o.

The Process

Bob and I had lunch today and I asked some questions about the name, since, though I recommended analogue as an idea, the decision to adopt it as our (collective) name was made by Bob and Cary.

Bob mentioned that we might have to use analoguemedia as the website address since analog was taken (I can't get analogue.com to load...).  That got me thinking about other options, and the the name of this blog, The Analogue Process, came to mind.  I wondered if the process of how our stories come together might not become a big part of our online content.  When we were talking about having audio interviews or talks by the contributors, we sort of hit on this: how the story came to be, what steps were taken to obtain access, what interested the contributor, difficulties, etc.  Cary mentioned (below, I think) the NY Times photographers whose pictures ran in a slideshow format with audio of them explaining the shots.  Perhaps our online presence could focus on that, the how-it-came-to-be, the process, and the print, be it annual, semi-annual, or whatever, the "final" product--just the stories, pictures, etc.  People are interested in what happens behind the curtain, especially in art.  I think that leaves the contributors vulnerable to more criticism (since they will have to explain themselves in many way).  But it also forces them to think about their own work critically, discuss it with others to draw out latent meaning, and have a reason for what they have produced.

maybe there can be a balance between full disclosure and just showing the piece.

s.y.b.o.

The Importance of Local Content

The Photo Editor, www.aphotoeditor.com, had a recent post on how local newspapers need to focus on local content rather than running wire stories that readers can get elsewhere online (this is specifically regarding online newspaper websites, which the blog APE referenced said also needed to make the jump to web 2.0...see www.al.com as an example of a newspaper site that desperately needs changes).  Anyhow, I think the discussion about the importance of local support and community based on geography should be key to how we approach Analogue.

http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2008/09/patching-the-leaking-lifeboat.html

s.y.b.o.

so i am sitting in vienna at the table of garrett's brother and have been journaling about my trip so far and how id love to find a "goal" for how and what im photographing here and it brought me back to this project.

its so huge it intimidates me. i love the idea of creating a place for people to tell stories but i am very aware of others' failures in such endeavours but encouraged a little by the idea that the world is changing and media is chaning as rapidly as it is. i feel like its not a bad time to start something, if difficult.



okay so like two hours ago when i started this i had something to say. i am encouraged and discouraged at the same time.

the future of all of everything in all of life

notes to me: nyt online slideshow

[ed]


so i was thinking about how important it is for us to keep an eye out for what is "to come". ie the death of the newspaper, the continuing trend of the people who are going to succeed (new york times) really making a push to provide in depth and behind the scenes, etc, via online media. perfect example is this link:




it talks to a couple of photographers about their covering of both the DNC and RNC and their motivations and stuff. beyond just this content is and insight into what went on, their motivations, plans, and how they executed them....is the idea that this isnt a standard thing yet. that is, a big-pictured [full screen is an option], audio-commentary track that further engage the chronically degenerating attention span of the american and world audience. [immediacy has its consequences.]

just saying...i like the idea of being able to view the images and hear what they have to say.

rob i know we talked about this very fleetingly the other day in context of ABJP, but i think that just cements the idea of trying to embrace the next step. thats one of bryan's things (whether he knows it or not).

anyway...just ideas. just trying to milk every medium for all its worth.

word

I've been trying to think of the word(s) that mean "to see clearly."  any ideas?

(rob)