Shooting Shows

I don't mean this to sound like I'm being a "show off" I just want to share the experience.

I was recollecting some old images for a website I'm setting up (and you could go and set one up yourself ) to put my work out there, beyond a blog. I remembered I had a lot of photographs from concerts, so I started arranging photographs for a gallery precisely for concert photographs.

Flipping through the hundreds of lackluster images, and finding the few good ones in between, I remembered the stress of shooting concerts.

They're fun. They're exciting. They're nauseating. Here's a few tips and truths.

You get on average 3 songs to photograph, the first three of the set, which amounts to roughly 10 minutes. And get good ones. You don't get to chimp around and see if what you got was good, so it's really of the moment, you have to arrange your frame well, be focused on the viewfinder and while you're not looking keep your eyes open on the stage for any photo-worthy moments about to happen. It's good to research the band to know if they do anything special. For example, had I known the bassist from Underoath rocketed snot in between songs, I might have been more ready for when it almost hit me. Kyo, singer of Japanese Metal band Dir en Grey, loves punching himself and scratching himself up mid-concert; hardly a pretty scene, but definitely a photogenic one.

Then there's the other guys. If it's a small show you'll get a few 5 photographers. In a big amphitheater you'll get a good 15 -- without counting the videographers with their mastodon cameras. And the audience 3 feet behind you. The security guards watching you. The space, or "pit," is super narrow so you'll get elbowed and you'll trip and you'll get sweat on you and your lens.

The tip is to be polite to everyone, and to try to be as inexistent as possible. Then you could really focus on what you're photographing and get as many moments as possible. You have to be alert. It's no war, but it gets pretty rowdy in a metal show (or even pop-rock shows, like when I photographed Cute is What We Aim For).

The other issue is the light. My first concert was photographing Slipknot as my main stage to cover. It was a show of smoke and flashing lights and fire. You had to be ready when the light went from dark to about 4 stops higher. And then all the fuzzy photographs in between. And the noisy photographs. And the blurry photographs. And the 10 minutes.

I heard from an old photographer, Saul Weinstein, that you don't make the frame follow the action, you wait till the action comes into the frame. I learned much later you just aim the frame around the people and just make small arrangements. Otherwise you'll get blur or awkward compositions.

It's good to have fast cards, too. You don't want to have a slow card with your Nikon D80 so that every 3 photographs it has to load and lag a bit (i missed a very personal photograph with the singer from Papa Roach because of this).

And also, keep professional. One thing that was constantly driven into my head by my editor is to never seem like your enjoying the show. You're a photojournalist, and you're supposed to be unbiased (I had to remind myself when Underoath played one of their very good songs and I found myself singing along!).

Oh and yes. Try to make friends with the other photographers. I got a few good tips once while shooting with a Nikon D40 with a broken lens, and tape from a nice (and rather handsome) photographer from Spinner (at least I think it was spinner). The show went a lot smoother after that and he gave me a few tips which I'm sharing with you now.

So yeah. Just a little something to keep in mind.

Guyland

A bit delayed, yes, but I went to see Michael Kimmel talking about "Sex in Guyland: Bingeing, Porn & Hooking up." Guyland, as he calls it, is the extended adolescent phase that all of society falls under. He creates a norm, the social environment created by the middle-class white male from 16 to late 20's, through which he compares and creates marginal social environments in which everyone else exists.

He had a strong feminist aspect, but it was more of an idea of "inequality" in Guyland and the homosocial bond among men that excludes, and as a result, objectifies women as a form of revenge for the seeking of equality the feminist movement actively sought. He noted that men felt invaded because of this, and that this invasion created a stronger brethren among men, characterized by self-policing among men for the fight of who's the manliest, to put it simply. While that characteristic has been around since perhaps the Persians, it's more aggressive and more avaricious now, because of the idea of betrayal.

Interesting. Not as inspirational as I thought it would be, but his notes on porn and our consumerism of porn (which outgrosses that of McDonald's) were definitely eye opening. I'm always open for a new social issue to explore.

Came across something funny...

From Dogging.

From The Park.

While browsing blogs the other day I came across a post about Steven Meisel's Dogging photo shoot he did originally for Vogue Italia's January 09 issue, but was rejected because it was too much (which is saying something since Meisel has been shooting every cover for the magazine since 1988, and still is shooting as his newest published book "Steven Meisel's '317 & Counting" suggests). The same shoot ended up in the hands of V magazine's Winter 2008 Issue.

But as I came across them I remembered Kohei Yoshiyuki's The Park which Stefan showed us in class while learning flash photography. Meisel's photographs are obviously a reference to Yoshiyuki's work. The soft light in the photographs the crowded frames, the odd sense of voyeurism. Call me crazy if you don't think so.

I thought it was excellent. And also, who knew how long V magazine has been available online...and why didn't you tell me?!

-Sam

Buried

Alex (my muse) always tells me that she likes to go places where other people have never been. I agree. But I also always want to know what it is that draws people in to the frequently visited places (the ones that catch my attention anyway).

Today I went to one of them.

During the earlier 20th Century Rochester had a subway system that ran along the Eerie canal (there were pictures of it posted on the 2nd floor of Gannet earlier on this academic year) alleviate traffic in the city above. It got big during world war II but then died down right after due to the heavy commercialization of cars. (just giving a little history but you can read more about it here)

It's torn down and abandoned - a little bit of a thrill for some, but to me was just another one of those things about Rochester. It's such a victim of technology. It brought about great things but, once science started modernizing things more and more, Rochester was left behind. I think it's a very interesting place, and I think there's a lot of potential in this city. Of course the real trick is how to get it back. There's all these illustrations pasted on the windows of the city saying things like "the way it was" in terms of fashion, city life and executive life. I think it has such a great culture of its own, and it's very hidden and frankly, fading a bit.

In any case, we (me and some friends) walked through the whole route. Very interesting. Very dusty. I might die soon (kidding...).

Here are some pictures from the day (and yes I should totally be working on my book, but god knows when we'll have another sunny Saturday in Rochester?)

Thank You Zoe Whittal

I bought a friend of mine an anthology of Queer Girl writings called "Baby, remember my name." We stopped talking, and the book ended up in my house. I read a short essay which I have turned around (and reread) probably about once a month.

"Homo Marriage Redux" is a short piece by Zoe Whittal. Not very clear what it's on, but it's a stream of consciousness with her heroine as the tour guide. She talks about the muse. The inspiration. The editor. Almost like an internal dialog between her, her adventurous self reflected as the girl that's "three hopscotch steps ahead."

In any case there's a line in the piece in which she says that "reporters have you down on Rolodex as Lesbian comma Artist" always asking her what she thinks should be done about gay marriage. She later states in passing, that among other things to do about it, Religion and Politics should go sit in the coatroom and think about the mistakes they've made (the piece climaxes around a marriage-like setting).

This became so visual for the first time within my head; a short film played behind my eyelids, reminiscent of Steven Klein and Vinoodh & Inez's work during the 90's for the Balenciaga ad campaigns with the graphic writings. The headless bodies of Religion and Politics sitting sullen and embarrassed, bold text over their heads in fluoro colored arguments and apologies.]

I tried to materialize it (even though I should have been studying!). Give the idea some form. This came out of it.

Hardly flawless. But I remembered a time where things i would do, once ago, were so distant from what i wanted to see in a photograph I made or had thought up. Perhaps my ideas are becoming more and more concrete. Here's to hoping.

Hello!

If you want some links for inspiration or research for your portraits, here are a couple. I figured I'd share the goods. You might spend hours on this so beware.

Oooooh Classy! Check out some of these guys:

Irving Penn

Diane Arbus

Richard Avedon

Yousuf Karsh

Christer Stroemholm

Edward Weston

Robert Doisneau

+ a few contemporaries.

And then the Art+Commerce site.

Oooooh Stylish!

Check out:

Walter Pfeiffer

Carter Smith

Guy Bourdin

Solve Sundsbo

Nick Knight

and hte M/M Paris portfolio features works by Vinoodh Matadin & Inez Van Lamsweerde. I enjoy them :)

And all the other ones!

Hope it helps!

My mother wants me to call her everyday

More of my mother.

In le studio

Had to do some shots for a publication back home (with the help of Hana, thank you :D ). It was all a bit frustrating since I was pressed for time, to say the least. I always have a strange feeling in the studio - you have the ability to control everything but you don't always have the words, or the clarity to explain it all and for it to come out how you wanted.

But I'm not trying to whine! In any case, this was a shot to satisfy some nerve before I started. I ended up liking it. Not a whole lot, but I liked it.

It's Chris, my friend.

Mother

This is a portrait of my mother and myself on New Years day, at my aunt's house. She wanted a picture of us together. I thought it'd be cute to take it in front of a mirror, once I spotted it on the living room. I told her to look at the reflection of the lens of the camera so we didn't look strange. It didn't work. She became preoccupied with how we looked on the live view display on the back of the camera. I told her to not do it in the following shots, but this one still ended up being my favorite of 5.

She said also in the middle of shooting it: "you twitch your mouth just like your father."

My father:

The family portrait (no, not the Pink song)

Meet my two sisters and my mother. This is one of a few other portraits they asked for. The way people who see you have a camera ask you for a picture. Not just a picture, a good picture.

You suddenly might be inclined to explain to them just what a good picture means to you versus what it means to them. But then you realize what they want. They want to look pretty or good or handsome or cool. Positively. Most of the time you comply with only the bother of knowing that they'd like to see the picture right after you take it (oh! the digital age). But if it's someone you dislike, isn't it a bit funny to take a picture of them? I was going to do something like this once. Take pictures of people I had some tension with. I only have the remains of pictures I may have snapped at some point of them.

But the point I'm brushing is that even those who you dislike, and ask you for a picture with which you comply, you know just how to please in terms of the photograph. You might be gritting your teeth, but you know just how to get them off your back. With that good image of them.

Even children know it. The smile, the little pose. Kids posing like kids do. It's all very formulaic, and yet, there's different results every time. A reason why that snapshot of somebody could always be the same, and at the same time so dramatically different than all the other ones.

Nobody wants to be stolen away into a permanent thing in a bad light (yes I suppose it's a pun, enjoy.) There's a sort of standard portrait.

But does it mean it's not reality? Hardly.

It's more truthful than any portrait that might be taken with reality being forced into it, because when we as photographers try to fabricate as specific reality, we fabricate our reality more strongly than our subjects do. When our subjects tell us to show you their fantasy, we often get more insight into their realities. Which is a vague one, granted, and a general one as well, but you can eventually notice it.

The nervous twitch in my mother's lip. The high-cheek-lots-of-teeth-ARE-YOU-GETTING-THIS? smile of my sister Giannina (to the right) and the look-at-my-hair-look-at-my-hair-look-at-my-hair-look-at-my-hair-okay-look-at-me face of my sister Natalia.

So is the family portrait ever misleading? It could be, but it "always tells a secret" (Arbus).

Family Portraits?

http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/essays/diegotime/time.html

http://www.artnet.com/artist/11072/sally-mann.html

AND a whole lot more. It's a fun thing to Google :P

Contact

what can be said?

Just stealing slices of those in my life.

Closure...sort of.

For Saturday, December 26, 2009:

I ran into that weird photographer's dilemma of making something look beautiful when it's all but. Like a grave for example. How strange is it to photograph a grave and make it look beautiful? My grandmother's grave.

I'll tell you the whole experience.

My grandmother has been buried 2 months now. I got into my cousin's car where we were listening to Eminem's music, which felt so offbeat for me, but I guess since most of my family has done the mourning already, I was alone in feeling that way. I was the only dressed all in black.

We bought crappy flowers on the side of the road, and drove into this complex, which turns out was the burial ground. This was the beginning of my anger.

I couldn't get away from the feeling of how disconnected the burial ground is. The very idea of burying somebody who's dead is of honor - the cemetery was almost political and bureaucratic (the only reason why my grandmother's grave is 1 hour away from my house is because it's the only cemetery my WHOLE family could afford). The thought of buying a lot, a space and a casket all from deathdealers felt so angering. At the risk of sounding like a lost rebel, I couldn't stop thinking how impossible it is to escape the silly political world of human civilization, even in our death. (This of course prompted a very strange idea for a new project on graves...more on this later.) The place was so organized. The lots were labeled. It just seemed all a bit strange, like almost too civilized. I kept thinking that maybe once upon a time, cemeteries seemed more dignified than any of this. It was the angry mourning that was doing the talking in my head.

So we get to the grave waiting for my family. We had no vase for the flowers, and so my aunt felt it was totally appropriate to walk over 10 feet and steal a vase from some other woman's grave. I was pissed off.

Then we all sat around the grave, my grandfather was already there. He has apparently been avoiding the whole topic, only talking to certain people about it, and being very quiet overall. They were married over 60 years. He left and sat in the car to sleep while the rest of my aunts showed up for a moment of silence, prayer and reminiscing about my grandmother's life.

I obviously had my camera. My own very strange way of mourning (and while standing in cemetery my mother asked me to take a picture of her with some sunglasses on - I refused, apparently she didn't understand.)

So I started snapping pictures, observing the surroundings, a huge mound of dirt and garbage placed right behind the grave. The squares of fabricated grass were still discernible on the bulging ground. The gravestone, barely a foot tall, could only be read if you got really close. The word "Dignity" was cheaply engraved inside an oval. The stolen pot resting behind it. The whole thing seemed a bit ironic and like bad satire.

I only took a few photographs. It didn't feel right, but it was a bit necessary.

We all left to go have coffee - at Starbucks. All 13 of us. Like a caravan of mourners from a William Faulkner novel gone 21st century. I couldn't be angry for too long, it was kind of surreal. Maybe I was just being a bit childish. Maybe. Who knows? Is there really a correct way of mourning anyway?

It was a very emotionally diverse day. The mall in the morning, buying shoes for my boyfriend. My cousin was starting to panic because of how crowded the place was, so we left after he vomited. Inglourious Basterds in the afternoon. My grandmother's grave. Being stolen away from it all by my friend and hanging out with my other friends at night.

All epitomizing how emotionally demanding the last two weeks were. I slept deeply that night.