Patterns of Light n' Dark

Published in Photo Life, eh?

The January 2012 Cover of Photo Life

Why in the heck did I put this image in my blog? I sure-as-shootin’ didn’t take this image.

Because I am featured in one of the articles, that’s why! I am in  the “Post Production Experimewnt’ the pull-out on the cover talks about. In what seems like forever ago, a gent named Reuben Krabbe found my blog and like my work. He suggested that he, I and a few other photogs embark on an experiment: we each submit an image to the group, and then each participant process each of the submitted  images without any instructions from the others, and we compare the results. I was game, and I submitted this image:

Port Townsend, WA, May 2010, 5D

I shot this when I was walking around with Ray Ketcham, was happy with it, and thought I’d love to see what others did with it. Then the experiment got a little complicated, because Reuben sold the idea to PhotoLife magazine, a Canadian publication. While this sounded great (who-hoo, published!), there were a couple caveats: first, I couldn’t talk about it or the process of working on the images on my blog (I was assured that there would be an interview with the images when published — true, but instead of talking about each image, it was all too brief) and, second it took what was gonna be a quick-turnaround sorta thing and dragged it on for 18 months. Sigh. Sorta took the immediacy out of it for me, and I never got to discuss the process with the other photographers, alas.

And, of course, very few of my readers actually LIVE in Canada, so it wasn’t like, say Paul or Earl or Ken was gonna find the mag on their racks and have a shock when they saw my name, eh?

Here the spread with my image and the others looked like:

But I thought I’d publish the original images here, what I did with them, what I was thinking about, etc. This is what I thought the interview would be like, so you guys get it instead!

My interpretation of my image:

My image interpreted by me

When I was working on this, the biggest issue for me was whether I keep the girl in the upper left-hand corner (I always knew it would go b&w, even when I shot it). I cropped it then; today I wouldn’t have. My reason was to just get one strong diagonal line from the kid’s face to the two clambering in the background and not muddy it. That’s what I thought then, anyway. Two of the others cropped it, two of the others kept the young girl (as you can see). All moved it to b&w but some toned it. I wish I’d shot it with Tri-X, though. One of my all-time best street images, however. IMHO, of course (grin).

On to the others’ images. This was the fascinating part for me, and I *discovered* that when I SEE an image in the street, I subconsciously have a way I’d like it to be processed (it turns out). And, so even when I can’t remember that vision, it most likely always guides me. I know this because when confronted with each of these images, I found my creative process to be more ‘fumbling around’ than I am used to (except for one image, called out below). That was the big insight, and quite an insight it was, too.

Reuben Krabbe

Reuben Krabbe

This whole thing was Reuben’s idea, so I wanted to start with his image. This was a very, very hard image for me to work with, and I remember trying a bunch of different approaches. The dark trees, the stark biker, and the image is a style that I’ve never attempted. I worked a couple of hours, and threw out many false starts. So I ended up with this:

My final interpretation

Cropped it square, and just tried to push the image further with the intent I believed Reuben was aiming for. A little grunge, and I thought b&w added to that approach. I never thought I captured a direction that delivered the promise of the image. I thought this was my lamest attempt when I sent the batch off.

Kelsey Goodwin

Kelsey Goodwin

This image really inspired me, and this was the quickest workflow to find a look I liked. Here’s what I ended with:

My final

The image setup was very surreal to me, so I pushed that direction. I really worked to get the wings to pop, and the skin tones to be alien looking. And I wanted the water to look not so much like water but, perhaps, something else. I liked it, but the author chose a different interpretation as her favorite. Interestingly, she thought people were going to remove the underwear in post.

Robyn Jamison

Robyn's original

I thought when I saw this that it had to be part of an art project. So I went with that and spent a lot of time moving in that direction,. I felt is was dream-like, which the photographer talked about in her write-up, but perhaps I went too far, as she, too, preferred a different image.

My interpretation

I loved the quality of light in my version. This was my favorite image to work on.

Markus Hartel

Markus Hartel

First off, a disclaimer. I’ve followed Markus’ work for a while, he’s a NYC street photog with a very clear style, and I love his work. I also bought a couple used lenses off him when he was selling off his Canon gear to finance his M9. This was a kind of impediment to me because I couldn’t get his style out of my head when I worked on the image. Here’s my take:

My final

I like the image quite a bit, and felt the choices Markus had made when he captured it were so strong that all I could do was deliver what he had set out, hopefully emphasizing the circles. Markus preferred a color interpretation, however, which, if you saw his work, surprised me a bit.

Overall

I really enjoyed this project, and I felt Reuben did a great job of choosing photographers who worked differently so we all stretch our muscles. I might guess that Markus’ and my images might have been hard to work with, because we look for content to be in the image when we frame it, rather than later. Maybe one of the photogs will log in here and comment.

Interestingly, the photographer who really liked my interpretation was Reuben, whose image I thought I did the weakest work on. Go figure.

3 years, 3 months, 3 days

I normally don’t make posts about my personal life. Sometimes, but not very often. It is a photo blog, after all, and while I have been advised to add more personal observations so as to incrase the emotional connection with my readers (and, in fact, told other bloggers that their own personal take on life was part of why I read their blog) I tend to avoid those topics. Don’t really know why, but there you have it. Today, for this post, that changes. This post is about as personal as I can get.

After my wife Peg had moved back from Mesa, AZ to our home in Pittsburgh, our two cats had remained with me (someone needed to take care of me, right?) Peg was alone in our house, so she chose to rescue a dog who needed a home to keep her company. We rescue all our animal companions, so this seemed like a great idea for the doggy and for Peg. That’s where today’s story begins, but when we opened up our home to Omega we received much more than companionship. We received a great, great gift.

To find our new companion, Peg looked on Craigslist. There she found a listing for a black lab named Omega who, at that point, was living with his family in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. If you check out the link, you’ll discover that the Hill, as it is known, is famous for many things. August Wilson came from the Hill; Lena Horne came from the Hill, Hill Street Blues was based on the Hill. But one thing it is unfortunately infamous for is, well, being a bit of a rough-n-tumble place to live. As we were later to discover, coming from the Hill, Omega had led an adventurous life before we met him.

His then-current family was, as best as we could tell, his third family. He had been handed around and bounced around a bit, and this reflected what life was like for many of his neighbors on the Hill. But his then-current mom certainly loved him, that was clear. She was determined to find a good home for Omega. You see, she was moving to NYC and had two dogs, Omega being only one of the two but he was the larger. And his mom couldn’t take Omega with her to NYC.

Peg contacted this lady and went to visit Omega in his neighborhood. He had the run of the neighborhood near his house,  but that came with a price. He had been hit by a car at one point, and he had a bum hip. That didn’t stop him, ’cause, see, he just adapted. His then-mom had created a block-long organic garden for her neighborhood, and Omega both guarded and kept order in that place. Kept it organized. That day, Peg met Omega and his little brother (Peeps) in the garden. But Peeps seemed far more interested in Peg than Omega was. He couldn’t seem to care less that day who had come to see him. Omega was, after all, at work, guarding the property. But, as we were to discover, his aloof response was just a defense mechanism. Peg, of course, loved Omega on the spot.

Peg interviewed with the lady, Peg outlined why she’d make a great home for Omega, and the lady told Peg she’d let her know. Days went by without hearing back from the lady but Peg was certain that Omega would come to live with us, so she called the lady back. Good thing she did, because it turns out that Omega’s mom had given Omega to a different family at first because that family had other dogs (we just had cats living with me in Mesa). Omega had lasted one day in that home and, apparently, stayed by the door all night, so that lady thought something was wrong with him. She then brought him back to the neighborhood and just let him go and then drove off. She called Omega’s mom to let her know Omega had been returned, but Omega’s mom was in NYC at that time, so his then-mom quickly drove back to Pittsburgh to make sure Omega was ok. But, Omega was fine (he knew his neighborhood pretty well, after all). So when Peg called her back, asking about Omega, we were actually his mom’s second choice, but clearly the best choice. His mom brought him to our house, and that’s how he came to live with us.

Well, it turns out the reason why Omega had spent the night by the door at that other lady’s house was that Omega, see, considered himself a worker, and workers don’t get anything for free. He had watched over the HIll garden at night, he had guarded his home, etc. So he was used to working for his keep, as it were. And remember he had bounced from home to home when younger.  So when he got to our home, he was careful. He wouldn’t sleep in the bedroom, he kept watch at the top of the stairs, and, generally, did what was expected of him. He adapted to us, probably his fourth family.

It took a while for Peg to get Omega to relax a little bit, but finally he did. We kept telling him that he didn’t have to work with us, that he had come to us to retire and live the good life. Omega would talk about how living with us was ‘ok’ ’cause he got ‘two square meals a day’ which was, for him, very good. His old-mom told us that before he had come to her, that he had sometimes been mistreated, left in a basement for 24 hours or more at a time. We knew he appreciated being with us. Two squares and the occasional cookie, of course.

We knew he wanted to roam, was used to roaming. In fact right after he came to live with us he took off down the hill from our house and inspected the neighborhood a bit. This shocked Peg, as our previous dog had been a stay-at-home, never really wanting to be anywhere but with us. Omega was very comfortable being on his own, but after that first incident, we kept him on a leash, which I know bothered him. But we didn’t want him to get hurt wandering. But, as was his way, he never complained. He adapted.

I cannot over-state how well-behaved Omega was. He never soiled the house, never ate food off the table, never chewed up anything. Never chased the cats (after I came home from Mesa). All he did was watch the house, watch over Peg, comfort us when we were sad, and generally take care of us. He spoiled us for all other dogs, forever.

Not only did Omega not complain, but for quite a while after he came to live with us he didn’t say much. He’d bark, of course, when people came onto his property; he bark if anyone came too close to our car (he rode with Peg everywhere). But he didn’t say much when not on the job. Finally he relaxed, and he began to talk a lot.

See, it turned out that underneath his reserved exterior, he was a mush. He’d tell us when he wanted a bally rub; he’d tell us when he needed to go out; he’d tell us when he wanted to be fed, when he wanted to go for a ride, when he needed some loving, and when he thought we were being foolish (which he thought quite a lot, it seems). After a time, he became quite vocal about any number of things. This was one of his best qualities, as we always knew what he thought about everything, pretty much.

Two of the things he was particularly insistent about were: cookies and rides. Every night, a couple hours after dinner, he stand in the middle of the living room and bark. Not a ‘woof-woof-woof’ bark, but just one bark: “Woof!” And he’d stand there and wait until Peg or I got up and went to get him his cookie. After he ate it, he’d lie down and go about his business. Rides were another matter, however.

All he really wanted was to be with us. So, when he’d figure out that Peg and I were headed towards the garage (and, believe me, he always knew) he’d make a dash for the pantry door and press his nose up against the door jam. There was no way you could open the door without letting him into the pantry and then into the garage. If we didn’t want him to go with us, we’d tell him to back away from the door so we could go into the garage. Whenever this happened, he’d move to the front windows so he could watch us pull out of the driveway. He’d be mad, then, but by the time we’d return, he’d forgive us. Always.

One of his favorite places to go was a park near our house that had a stream. We’d go there, and he’d wade out into the stream and just lay down in the cool running water. He was very, very happy there.

One of his ‘best’ qualities was his grace. It might seem odd to you to hear me talk about a dog’s grace, but Omega had grace in spades. Except when he thought his home or his family were threatened, nothing seemed to bother him. He had lived a life of adapting to what came his way, and this skill, plus his seeming emotional distance, were part of his survival toolkit.

He also exuded peace. When he met new people, invariably their first description of him would be ‘what a peaceful dog.’ Peg is a healer by profession, and when she would interact with clients, Omega would sit with them, and everyone could the peace and tranquility he brought to the room. With Omega, this was a tangible quality he carried with him every moment.

We knew he remembered his old life on the Hill. He missed his brother Peeps, because whenever he saw a dog that was about his brother’s size, he paid extra special attention, looking to see if it was him. Of course, it never was. The only other thing Omega carried from his old neighborhood was a particular frustration and attention to lanky scruffy guys wearing ski caps. If such an individual came even remotely close to our car, Omega would not put up with that at all. I never saw Omega more angry than at the approach of a scruffy guy wearing a ski cap.

We never knew how old Omega was. His mom had told us six, but eventually we determined that wasn’t accurate. When he came to us, he was probably 8, 9 or 10. We didn’t care, all we knew was what a wonderful member of the family he was. We were hoping he was younger only because it would give us more time with him.

Omega began to develop arthritis in the hip that had been hit by the car, and started having trouble walking. But, as always, he adapted. Last fall, we rescued a chocolate lab to keep him company, a little sister, whom he tolerated (“stupid girl”) but he adapted. About a year ago he had a spell when he couldn’t get up off his rug, but we assumed (as did our vet) that it was just a bad flair-up of the arthritis. It probably was more than that, because over the last six months his walking got worse and worse. But he adapted.

Last week he suffered another bad bout with his legs, and this time it was just too much.

Omega lived in our house for 3 years, 3 months and 3 days. He took care of Peg, me, his sister Fiona, and Rocky and Smokey Joe, our two cats. We all loved him very, very much. I was honored to be with him, honored to take care of him, and humbled by the fact he let me put a collar and leash on him to walk him every morning. We’re all aimless without him. I don’t know if we can adapt to his loss without him to show us how.