Project Progression, another view

  

Over on Photo Expressions Gordon McGregor writes about starting projects:

Starting projects seems to be easy. Ideas are dime a dozen, always popping up, ready to pursued. But I find the starting bit easy. It is the follow-through that often saps my will. Even if the pictures are good it can become a struggle to keep turning up, time and again. I know from experience that each time I do, I’ll see something new or exciting and get carried away. I’ll find that productive, flowing place where the good pictures come from. But showing up can be such a battle.

I don’t know of an escape from this problem. I suffer from the same follow-through issues that Gordon does.

I only know of one small cheat, and it has to do with the way my projects seem to get started. From reading Gordon’s post, I get the feeling that he comes up with the idea for the project first, and then goes out to execute on the task of making the photos. I know a lot of photographers who work that way. I’ve read books (the one by David Hurn comes to mind) which advocate for this plan.

It’s a good plan, I suppose, if you’re the sort of person for whom that sort of plan works. And, it turns out, I am not one of those people.

My projects seem to be more like the particles that spurt out of a particle collision. I’m busy banging the particles together on one project, busily making photographs and examining them with the fervent intensity of a particle physicist looking at tracks in his cloud chamber (or, if you like, sensor array of the Large Hadron Collider). Like the physicist, I’m looking for clues to how things are what they are. In the end, so much of our figuring things out seems to amount to banging things together and watching the sparks, and it doesn’t much seem to matter whether you’re watching particle collisions in the LHC, making photographs, or writing a play.

Anyway, the way it works (at least used to work, in part) if you’re a particle physicist is that you’d be running an experiment, and you’d be looking at all these particle trails in the cloud chamber, and you’re constantly searching for the kind of event you need for your current experiment. At the same time, though, you start to notice patterns in the other events. And before you know it, you’re designing an experiment to figure out what’s happening with this pattern you noticed.

And that’s the way it is for me with photography. I’m busily working away, head down, on some project. At the same time, every time something catches my eye, I make a photograph of it. Why not? Disk space is cheap. I’l make photos directly related to the project, photos tangentially related to the project, and photos that are utterly unrelated to the current project. It’s all ok with me.

And then, when I process those not related photos, I start to see patterns emerging. It can take a long time, and it’s often a big help to show a lot of your work to others. It’s a really big help if you’re in the habit of showing the confusing photos you make to others. But over time, the patterns emerge, and I start to see a relationship I wasn’t quite aware of among the photos I’ve made. I can pull all those weakly related photos together, and suddenly I have a project. Actually, what’s happened is that I had a project before, I just hadn’t consciously realized it, nor had I articulated it to myself.

But once I recognize that project among the photos I’ve already made, I start consciously looking for more photos. I’ll start going to the places where those photos are likely to be lurking. And that that point, I’m pretty much in the same boat as Gordon.

I just think it’s interesting that the roadblock seems to be the same, but the approach path seems to be different. It falls into that broad category I call “Things that make me say ‘hmmmm’”.

Some SoFoBoMo questions answered

After making the announcement that SoFoBoMo registration was open, I got an email from Mark Alfson. I suspect his questions (and my answers) are of general interest to a bunch of folks, so I asked Mark if I could post his questions and my answers here on the blog. Mark graciously agreed.

Herewith, questions with answers:

Just a bit of background first; might help with formulating answers for you.

I am a rank amateur at photography. While I have owned a camera of some sort since I was in high school, I never took it as a serious hobby. My photography endeavors were simply meant to record moments in my life and really nothing more. I purchased my first dSLR in December 2007 mostly because I was dissatisfied with the overall performance of point-n-shoot cameras, especially in regard to shutter lag, which made shooting pics of the cats and dogs rather frustrating (seeing how they tend to never sit still if they’re awake).

I’m very much enjoying my foray into photography, but have not gotten involved in using photo editing software for anything more than corrections, tweaking, minor adjustments, etc. I own Photoshop Elements 6.0, but have rarely touched it. I confess it intimidates me. It seems to have so much potential, but it’s almost like it’s too much and this is particularly odd for me as I’m fairly computer literate (built my own PC) and very software friendly. As an aside, I am not familiar in any way with things like web design, HTML, Java or publishing-type software.

SoFoBoMo appears to be an interesting challenge, but I’m not certain I am at a point whereby I would have a serious chance of making anything of merit. Between my very amateur status as a photographer and my complete lack of knowledge about Elements or publishing I’m concerned I won’t be able to complete the book portion of the project.

Ok, you haven’t actually asked, but let me point out that there’s no threshold of merit for SoFoBoMo. That is, if it has 35 photos and it looks like a book, that’s good enough. They don’t have to be great photos. It doesn’t have to be a great book. It just has to be done in the time window. That’s it.

So you don’t need to stress about quality at all.

1) After having looked over the various 2008 books I came away with the impression that a strong theme is important. Yet I don’t know that I can commit to a strong theme. One idea I had, which I felt was general enough to help me, but not so general that it didn’t appear theme-like, is something I called 500-yards. Every picture had to be taken within 500-yards of my home. Or 500-feet. I’m flexible. Would this sort of theme be too generalized for the spirit of SoFoBoMo?

Ok, good question. If you look at the completed books, you’ll see a lot of books with a theme. There’s no *requirement* that there be a theme at all. None.

So my points would be that a) themes are often something that emerges AFTER the photos are made, and b) having some sort of ‘plan’ even if it falls short of a rigid theme is probably a help in getting a book done. That is, you might find a ‘theme’ to be a structural help to finishing but it’s not a requirement, and you don’t need to have the theme figured out in advance.

2) On the SoFoBoMo website there is mentioned some software for creating a pdf file/book from Photoshop. Are we talking about Photoshop Elements? If not, what sort of options would I have to creating my book such that it could be seen online? The only software I currently own that I may be able to use is Microsoft Publisher, which I’ve only used a few times at a very basic level. I’m also loath to purchase any new software at this time because I’m: (a) unemployed and would like to spend my photography money on other purposes, and (b) I’m in the process of possibly going Mac and don’t want to purchase new and possible pricey software for my Wintel platform and then find myself in the Mac world 6-months from now.

There are a whole host of tools available for creating PDFs on the Windows platform. On a Mac, it’s built right in, so there’s no problem there. I used Adobe InDesign, which is pricey but was something I wanted to learn. Other people used free software (especially Scribus). But you have quite a bit of time to figure out how to generate a PDF, so you are almost certainly ok. Lots of people last year were operating under financial constraints, so I would suggest that you might go back and read their blogs and contact them for advice.

3) I noted that many of the books were viewable online at a site named Issuu. Is this site simply made for viewing such books (via whatever application they are created) or can one use the site to actually create the book? I think I would like to actually have my book (assuming it was finished) published via something like blurb.com, but I don’t know if that site offers an option to create an online viewable version, etc.? What are my options for getting the image online for viewing purposes?

Issuu is just a convenient way to host a PDF so that people can view it, nothing more. We’re currently planning on doing an end run around this problem by allowing people to upload the PDF to the SoFoBoMo.org website and not have to deal with Issuu.

I may have more questions based upon your answers, but these are the major ones that will help me decide whether or not I think I should undertake this challenge. Of course, if you think that this sort of project is really geared more towards folks who are knowledgeable and comfortable with more advanced photo editing software as well as publishing type software, then please feel free to say so. I won’t be offended if the challenge is beyond my current abilities and that I might set my goals lower.

One of the more or less explicit goals of SoFoBoMo is that it’s sort of self-adjusting to the skill level of the person who tries it. That is, a complete novice can generate 35 photos, lay them out in some publishing or word processing software, generate the PDF, and be successful. At the same time (literally, during the same period of one month) a highly accomplished photographer can make hundreds or thousands of photos, edit them down to a reasonable set, sequence them, write accompanying text, lay it out in a professional publishing program, generate the PDF, and be successful. They won’t have tackled the same challenges – but that’s ok. Their books probably won’t be at the same quality level – again, that’s just fine. The point is that both of them tackled new challenges appropriate to where they are in photography and publishing, and thus both of them come out satisfied. And then perhaps next year, they’ll both do it again, tackling new challenges that were out of reach the first year.

Dynamic Range

Over on Mike Johnston’s The Online Photographer, Mike weighs in with an excellent explanation and discussion on dynamic range.

Go read the whole thing. Maybe twice.

SoFoBoMo 2009 goes live

Bernie Sumption and I threw the switch just a few hours ago, and the new site is now live. The site has changed hosts, and the DNS changes may still be propogating, so if it doesn’t seem to be there, please be patient. It should be fine in just a bit.

The registration page is at http://www.sofobomo.org/2009/register/

Go, now, and register! Tell your friends! Tell your neighbors!

Then take a look around. You can enter the details of your planned book. You can put a pin in the map, so that other SoFoBoMo’ers will see all the places we have participants. You can enter your blog, so that people can find your blog and follow your progress.

And if you find problems, by all means send me some mail.

Most important, though – go register. The earlier the usual suspects register, the more fully populated the whole thing will seem as the news spreads, and that will encourage other people who might be teetering to go ahead and sign up.

Adams

A strange thing happened to me today. I saw a big thundercloud move down over Half Dome, and it was so big and clear and brilliant that it made me see many things that were drifting around inside me.

-Ansel Adams

Love and Need

In my post In Praise of Obscurity, I argued that it was OK to not pursue promoting your photography in search of recognition or financial return.

In response, Lisa Call responded:

“It’s just that perhaps for some of us it makes more sense to pursue contentment than fame or fortune”

I don’t think contentment is necessarily incompatible with fame and fortune. I don’t view it as an either/or proposition with my art.

And, of course, Lisa is right. Go, and read Lisa’s blog, which is on the list of blogs I read regularly because Lisa is an example of someone who is, with great vigor and success, pursuing artmaking with an eye toward integrating that artmaking and earning a living. I can think of no one who has done more and worked harder to align everything in her life with her goal to be a productive, financially successful artist.

So, let me explain my thoughts a little more completely and clearly.

I’m a big believer in trying to align what you do for a living with what brings contentment into your life. For many, many years, I earned a living doing the things I would have done even if there had been no one willing to pay me. During that period, there were two things in my life: my family, and my work. My job was, for a rather startlingly long time, one of the most richly rewarding and satisfying things I’ve ever done – and I made a fair amount of money at it, too.

And as a result, I very much agree with this little snip of Robert Frost, which I surely have quoted before:

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right–agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

(Two Tramps in Mud Time)

But being a poem, this has only room for one part of the story. It is possible to be BOTH a computer programmer and a photographer, or a group manager and a photographer, or a lumberjack and a photographer, or whatever. We can love more than one thing in our lives, which is good because if that had not been the case I’d have had a very hard time integrating loving my family with earning a living.

And where that happens, it sometimes makes sense to pick the more financially rewarding thing to pursue in order to earn a living, and leave the other things free of the constraints that earning a living imposes. In fact, in some cases, someone can be free of the need to earn a living at all – they’re retired, say, or supported by someone else.

That doesn’t make the things we do without regard for financial return (or recognition, or whatever external reward there might be) less important. Work can be work in the sense I’m driving at, here, without being ‘work for pay’. We can pursue things seriously without the prospect of fame or fortune. I’m one heck of a believer in capitalism, but I do not suffer from the delusion that something is only worth doing if you can make money by doing it.

And so my point, here, is this: sometimes it makes sense to integrate your art making and your money earning activity. As Lisa points out, contentment is not incompatible with fame and fortune. I’d go further, actually, and claim that it’s rare to achieve fame and fortune doing something you don’t find internally rewarding.

At the same time, I’d also claim that fame and fortune are not the same as contentment, and that pursuing fame and fortune will not necessarily lead you to contentment.

Upgrade Progress

So today, after puttering away at the upgrade process on the Mac Pro an hour here, and hour there, I finally got it all working. The solution, for those who actually care, was to go through the various upgrade paths offered for Mac OS X 10.5, taking slightly different paths each time, until I got to a path that worked. This required wiping the main hard disk and starting over from scratch several times, which is why it was done in dribs and drabs, an hour or so at a time. Each time I got some part started, I’d go outside, enjoy the nice weather, and play with the dog.

In the end the path that worked consisted of doing a clean install on the drive, using the ‘migrate’ feature at the end of the install to move all the apps and files (but NOT system settings, etc.) and then use software update to update EVERYTHING POSSIBLE. Then I ran the HP installer, added the printer, and it all worked. There was a moment of fear when I ran Photoshop and it went through the registration, but to my utter amazement the registration WORKED.

Whew. The whole thing felt a lot like cleanup after a big storm. Well, except I got to play with the dog a lot. I highly recommend enlisting the help of a dog in defusing the stress induced by such an upgrade. Without Kodak’s help, I’d be a basket case.