Babymama

This was down the street from work.  The neighborhood is never boring.  Out of all the graffiti in the neighborhood, this one has the least amount of spelling or grammar mistakes.

One Year

We went up to Nevada City for a long weekend to get away. This was our first time up this way at this time of the year and I forgot about fall colors. When you spend your entire life on the coast of California, you don't see seasons, at least not like this. I can't wait to spend more time up in Nevada City and Jackson.

DeYoung Photo Gallery

They have moved the photo gallery to a new larger location and it is featuring a show with photos from the 1840's to the present.  Very interesting stuff and an excellent opportunity to see photo processes from the very beginning of photography to the present.

I took this photo of the palms outside of the DeYoung as we were leaving.  I was testing out the Nikon D90.  

Photographic Memory II

This is another of the old family photos.  This is my grandpa and dad test driving something they threw together out of parts laying around the farm.  This is around 74'.  

My grandpa crashed a P-51 in flight training in WWII and then was re-assigned to navigate on a B17.  His crew only flew one bombing run, which was over Germany.  He was one of three survivors.  He spent the rest of his life raising a family and working.  He worked on building bridges, dams and roads in the US, Australia and New Guinea.  

Photographic Memory

My uncle recently gave me a ton of old slides to scan so everyone in the family can have a copy. Some of these images are older than I am and they are still crisp and truly amazing.  I'll post some of my discoveries as I sort through and scan the stacks of slides.  Here is the first one from father's day in 1974.  This is my mom.  I was only 2 years old.  I don't remember the white fluffy dog at all but I do remember the bigger one.  That is my grandparent's dog, Ollie.  Alan Gelfand still had two years before inventing the "ollie" on his skateboard.

Jimmy's Old Car Picnic

This could be yours.  Bring your car to Jimmy's Old Car Picnic at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park this Sunday, October 12, and you might win this people's choice trophy!  The show is all day and is free for spectators and only $20 to park your car in the show with all the money going to help the developmentally disabled.  

Beethoven Portrait

I spend most of my time in the studio shooting objects.  It was nice to shoot a portrait for once. Beethoven bust by Frank Kozik.  

Product Photography

When it's art it's called still life, when it's commercial it's called product photography. 

Frcc The Peple!!!???

I was out walking the dog yesterday when I came across this.  I know what it's trying to tell me to do but all it's making me want to do is pay close attention to my son's education.  

Noise

This is my second post in a row without an image.  For what I wanted to be a "photoblog" I'm failing miserably.  I was just reading through the new PDN and I'm quite dismayed to say the least.  I thumbed through the whole issue and to be honest it was nothing but noise.  Nothing of substance, just noise, like you're not getting a signal on an old tv (new tv's have a nice calming blue screen).  Since when did photography become such a grey noise?  PDN is the industry magazine more or less and it covers many of the issues of the photo industry and it's many changes.  The current issue is "The editorial & photojournalism issue"(they like to have themed issues).  They flaunt such articles such as "The photojournalism market: a survival guide", "Editorial work that lands advertising jobs", "A day in the life: Online photo editors", etc.  I've been a part of the photography profession for 20 years in one form or another, I've followed all the major trends, I've even bought into a some of them now and again.  I've even fallen out of love with photography which had me flirting with the motion picture industry.  Sometimes I feel like photography is losing itself in the rush of technology.  Whatever happened to taking photos?  Does every job or assignment have to server to sole purpose or leading to the next job or assignment?  Where is the art?  Where is the message?  Has it all become an advertisement?  Are our images serving the sole purpose of advertising our abilities so that we can land the next big JOB?  What has happened to our art?  our vision?  Is it nothing but noise?

Convergence

This is the beginning of a discussion that I've been meaning to have for some time but I've been waiting till I felt the time was right.  I've been thinking about convergence alot for the past several years.  I've been following the discussions on several online forums, and listened to many talented people make some very good points for and against.  For those that are new to this and have no idea what I'm talking about, to put it in severely basic terms, Convergence is the joining of still photography and motion photography into a single or combined medium.  As the argument goes, in the future there will be no photographers and videographers, there will only be hybrid video-photographers creating both stills and motion photography simultaneously to be presented in a medium that has  yet to be defined or even created.  Being that I have been a still photographer for some 20 years and I've done many film/video projects as well as hold a BFA in Cinematography, I have some hopes and reservations regarding this convergence.  

Looking at the direction that the technology/hardware is going is a strong indication that convergence is not only coming but is already upon us though in it's earliest stages.  Most consumer devices (digital cameras, video cameras, cell phones etc.) already have still and motion capability to some degree, with some of them doing a very good job of both.  There are several companies developing and already marketing professional grade devices that give high quality still and motion photography with a few devices doing so simultaneously.  If this isn't a harbinger of things to come, I don't know what is.  Or is it?  

The interesting thing to me about the arguments about convergence is that they focus on the technology/hardware that already has been created, or is in development, or even speculation on future technology that again has yet to be defined that will be used to create and distribute these still/motion hybrid images.  The real question that people seem to be avoiding is the difference between how still and motion photography is produced.  In every professional still and motion photography shoot, with few exception, there involves some sort of artificial lighting or the manipulation of natural light.  The difference between the two is that most still photo shoots involve strobes (flash) and in all motion photo shoots they use hot lights (lights that are constantly on).  Because of this difference, motion shoots have higher budgets, bigger crews and take more time than the vast majority of still shoots.  To create high quality still and motion photography simultaneously, every shoot would have to be done to the scale of your typical motion photography shoot.  I doubt many still photographers are going to start hauling around the equipment and crew that would be necessary for this.  This is not to say that I don't think photographers will start producing still and motion images but you can't do both at the same time and achieve the same high quality for both, at least not without the budget of a motion picture/commercial/tv project.

Pandora's Box

Or more accurately, Jeremy's Suitcase.  

Los Angeles

I made a rare trip to Los Angeles for a wedding.  I went down a couple of days earlier to squeeze in a much needed four day weekend.  In that time I stopped by Billy Shire Fine Arts Gallery in Culver City to see the Shawn Barber show.  Shaw always puts together a solid collection of excellent work for his shows so you know that you will never be disappointed.  He delivered like he does every time.  His tattoo portraits have continued to evolve to include more of the environment around his subjects giving you a better feel for their personality and creating a more intimite portrait in the process.  He also included several large watercolor pieces that are equally amazing.  If you find yourself anywhere in southern california before this show goes down, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Chihuly at The DeYoung

I went and checked out the Chihuly show at The DeYoung in SF. This has been a contentious show because some criticize his art as too "commercial", personally I think of it as a guilty pleasure kind of like candy for the eyes. Definitely worth checking out.

Swimming

Yet another example of what I love about film vs. digital. I recently pulled my Nikonos off the shelf and discovered that there was still a roll of film in it. This was one of the images on that roll that was taken about 5 years ago.

Mazda 3

I rent cars fairly often, sometimes just for a day other times for the weekend or a week if I'm traveling somewhere. I've driven many different cars over the last 6 months of doing this. All of my friends know this and will ask me about what cars I've driven and what I thought of them. Some cars I have really enjoyed and others I hated more than words can say. It wasn't until the other day that it occurred to me that I should do the occasional car review. I want to keep it simple and get to the core of what I do or don't like about the car. I don't want to get into technical discussions of the car because all that information is readily available from too many other sources. That being said, here's my first car review.

Last thursday I picked up a car from the local Hertz a couple of blocks from my house. They were kind enough, as they usually are, to upgrade me for free. They gave me a 2008 Mazda 3 four door. This is your average four door white car with no bells or whistles. At first I didn't really care for this car, it was uncomfortable and my leg would fall asleep if driven for a long distance. After one trip to San Jose, I was about ready to return it but first I decided to play with the seat adjustments and maybe I could make it work. I was able to find a comfortable position although I had to put the seat much further back than I would normally sit and pretty much eliminated the legroom for the seat behind me. Once I got used to sitting so far back I found the car to be very comfortable which is a good thing because I ended up putting over 1000 miles on this car in one weekend.

Most cars these days have ample cupholders and compartments to stash just about everything you could possibly want or have nearby while driving. This car was no exception.

One thing I really liked about this car was the radio controls on the steering wheel. There are the two volume buttons and one button for mute which is a nice touch that I haven't seen on other cars yet. You can scroll through your presets using two buttons on the steering wheel but you can't search for stations from the steering wheel which sucks.

The suspension felt fairly stiff, almost as stiff as a BMW 325 that I recently drove. It drove very well and handled the winding mountain roads very well. It is as sure footed a car as you can get, and better than almost any other car that I've driven in this price range. The engine was surprisingly strong being only a four cylinder engine. It has allot of pickup when you need it but has exceptional mileage. On average it got 30mpg with a day of about evenly split highway driving and city driving. On one day of almost all freeway driving including driving in the Sierras it managed to squeeze out just over 35mpg. I was starting to like this car more and more.

Dreaming

This reminds me of what it was like waiting to get my driver's license. Sitting in the driver seat imagining how cool it'll be to finally be free to roam further than my skateboard or bicycle could take me. Driving is ultimate freedom to me.

Girls Underwear

Some people might be wondering what the photoshoot was from the other day. This is one of the images from that shoot. The others will hopefully never see the light of day. We'll see...

Illustration

It's always nice to have something that you are working hard at turn out how you want it to. I did this illustration from a photo I shot of a friend's car for their car club to use on a flyer for an upcoming event. Everyone should go and check out the Saints show at the Country Club Bowl in San Rafeal, CA. on August 9th. It's always a fun time.

Photo Shoot

I had to do a photoshoot today. interesting to say the least.

Artist Visit

Sometimes we have artists stop by, in this case we had a rather well known artist stop by to sign a few of his latest toys. These are some of his best ones yet.

Ocean Beach

I've been without a running car for several months now. I don't mind it because of the cost of gas, but the one thing I really miss is not being able to go to the beach as much as I would like to. Yesterday I took Jessie to the beach for the first time in months. She loves the beach more than anything. The surf at Kelly's Cove was really good. Makes me want to dust off the board and get back into it. The summer is already almost half over.

Stereo

I did this portrait for Anne's Feature in Juxtapoz a while ago and for fun I shot a few stereo images.

Smog Check

When you're always bitching about how this country treats all of us like children with all of the pointless laws about this and that, you come across this right in front of you and say to yourself, "I'm glad they have to get that smogged and fixed" because you know they would run like this forever if no one made them do otherwise. I'm actually enjoying my new bluetooth.

Pete's Truck

This is Pete's truck at Camp Roberts near Paso Robles the first year he took it down there. I had seen him park the truck here the evening before and thought it would be perfect in the early morning light so I got up early before anyone else and took a few shots of it.

Living the Life

Seattle

A couple of months ago I went to Seattle but I never got around to getting the film developed. This is one of the things that I really like about film as opposed to digital photography. I miss the sense of discovery that you have when you find an undeveloped roll(s) of film and you finally drop it off, not knowing what is on there, if anything at all. Most of the time it's nothing and you realize why you didn't ever drop it off in the first place and then other times you are richly rewarded as I was with this image from Seattle.

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz is one of my favorite places. I have so many great memories there, and this is by far one of the best.

Agfa Camera

With so much of photography going digital with all the bells and whistles, it's nice to slow down now and again and enjoy the simpler things. No batteries to drain, no memory cards to corrupt, no meter, no autofocus, no instant gratification and best of all no one cares to ask about your crappy little camera.

Fence

Is she behind the fence or in front of the fence? This made me think about point of view. How do we see the world around us? Do we see others as behind the fence or do we see ourselves as behind the fence or does it change depending on one's circumstances at this exact moment in their life?

Cat Spell

I walk by this several times a week on my way to work in hunters point.