Italy

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Sunday March 23, 2020: Today has been an awful day. It was emotionally taxing in ways other days have not been in the last week. Some of the fears I have had are self made, but that is happening to a lot of us right now, especially amongst my small business brothers and sisters. I am putting this to words, here, now, so I can get that energy out and move on with my evening. Its likely that in 2-3 minutes I will break from writing this and continue with editing some work I need to deliver this evening.

Insert pause…

The distractions today have been one to many. The best part of my day, though, was the bike ride I had. 6+ miles in 30 minutes. It was a great ride, but my emotions were extra baggage that slowed me down. With a light breeze, the ride was daunghitng for the first 5 or so minutes. After that I opened up and took of. Switching between two bikes over the last couple of days, a road bike and a 27” hard tail mountain bike, I was able to shave off a minute on my time. I am maintaining daily exercise to keep my body in motion and my mind strong.

While sitting outside yesterday and reading for the first time in nearly two weeks I happened to look up and see a lonely plane moving through the clear blue sky. I started to think. From there I grabbed my iPhone, opened notes and began writing the start of this blog post. I had planned to have it post on Sunday, but dinner plans got in the way. So consider the above a prologue.

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A plane cuts through the clear blue skies.

I’m starting this blog post with an image that represents time and space. We are now faced with a new meaning of time. Quarantined. Limbo. Purgatory. We are stuck, most of us, unable to travel. Time for us now is a shifting concept. We must fill our days with whatever we can while trying to survive. Work, a period of time dedicated each day to being away from friends and family to earn an income is now being challenged. Time with our friends is being challenged. Time in social settings has come to an end, for most of us. Time as we move from space to space, proximity to proximity, is now being challenged. Time for us, now is a challenge. 

The skies are quiet. The trees are whispering, trying to make sense of what they are observing. The chatter between branches has shifted from the norm to a lack of understanding of what we are living with. High above the ground, people, nameless faces we do not know, are not gliding forward and backwards in time jaunting to destinations across all parts of the world. The world has suddenly gotten smaller. More constricting. Our worlds have become confined to boxes, dwellings, properties. Neighboring states have entered full lockdowns while others maintain monitored and controlled freedom with curfews. Are we really free anymore? It would see as if the answer to that is an obvious “no.” The idea that we exist in controlled freedom is a blanket statement to broaden the understanding of what we can and can not do and where we can and can not go.

There are no more degrees of separation. We as humans are all united sharing a common enemy. A few months ago we were still a few degrees away from each other. Social media has allowed us to connect with nearly anyone and everyone in the world at any given time. Even celebrities became accessible through social media, to a fine degree. Our world, as big as it was, became smaller the more connected we became to one another. Social media has allowed us to connect based on similar interest. However, we are all connected now by a single needle and thread. Every single one of us, interwoven together like some piece of fabric.

For as long as I have been traveling I have wanted to document life from the perspective of the individuals who reside, work, own, and live their lives in the places I visit. In short, I want to experience the places I am traveling to as if I live there. Often times I fall vastly short of this goal. One reason is that when I travel I do so with my wife. It is impossible for me to take as much time as I would like to away from sharing in the experiences together. I am fine with that and enjoy what we do together. We treat our trips as travel,  not vacations. Vacations to me are paid time off from a job. Vacations are reserved for those that need a break from their jobs and sometimes their families. I approach traveling, like many others, as a time for experience, growth, learning and occasional a real adventure. I am the first person to deviate away from the tourist traps and the cliches. If I am traveling somewhere new I will take a small amount of time to visit the most iconic spots and see what all the hype is about. More often then not I spend time prior to traveling searching for what most tourists are to lazy to see. That to me is where the best experiences will be had.

As a photographer I create stories by means of making photographs. As I wander from place to place I script stories that can be infused with the images, giving them words to make sense of what I see. I do this for me and for instances like this, where I show images and discuss them. When I do visit places tens of thousands of people see annually, I want to show it in ways others aren’t, which is almost impossible to do. When we create a style unique to us, it becomes easier to separate ourselves from the hordes of others. Even then, the all might camera phone still factors into people blissfully creating sub-par images and saturating the world with the same views, over and over again.

Traveling for me isn’t just getting in a car, driving to an airport, landing at some world class resort. No, thats a vacation, which I don’t do. Traveling to me is about experiencing other cultures. When I make photos of the places I am experiencing, it allows me to understand where I am, what I am eating, seeing, and what is going through my mind. I set a goal when I was very young as a photographer, make no regrets. If I see an image, however uncomfortable, I must make it. There have been a handful of times I have broken that rule. Regrettable, sure. Will I end my career over that, absolutely not. 

Time for me is changing. How I spend my time, what little time I give to others for compensation, what precious time I have with friends and family, what little time I have for myself, all changing. Time for traveling, well, that’s changing too. 

A fleeting moment in La Spezia, Italy. ‘Time is relative to age.’

Street photography is fun. When you have the ability to connect with people and document them in an urban setting, you’re capturing a fleeing moment. The proper term for that is the “decisive moment.” Coined by Henri Carte Bresson, an iconic photographer that documented moments that were fleeting and would other wise be overlooked unless rendered through his lens. The image shown above is the product of a missed opportunity. Behind me was a giant tent, part of a market that was closing as the day was waning. I tried to step back and capture the real image, the image that you can’t see.

The portrait of the 4 woman on the bench all seem close image age. To their left, camera right, out of frame, was a second bench. There was a gap of maybe 4 to 6 feet between the two benches. Sitting on the bench to my right were 4 girls, half the age of the women you see pictured here. The 4 girls were in near identical positions to that of the four women photographed here. I tried like hell to capture that image, but I could not. I My camera, a Fuji X-Pro2 was outfitted with a fixed 35mm lens. I made every attempt I could to produce the image, but not being able to get back far enough and not having a wider lens meant the image would never see the light of day beyond the words to describe its non existence.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the middle woman walking towards the bench quickly. I would have 1-2 seconds to capture her in the right spot, the middle of the group. What I didn’t see happening till afterwards was the man in the far left turning and walking away from the scene. 4 women stopped in time while two other people are walking through the same moment. A lot is happening in this image. Had I been able to capture the intended image, rendering the woman walking in the middle of the two benches would have been as powerful as it would have been beautiful. Ill let you figure out what the symbolic link would have been.

Mirrors in a park, La Spezia, Italy Looking at time from two different directions.

I was beyond enthralled with this park. These structures are beautiful. They give you a multiplicity of views and yield time in a multitude of spots and moments.

Man in a ponderable state. Monterosso al Mare, Cinque Terre, La Spezia, Italy

I stood for a few minutes watching, waiting, knowing the perfect moment would come. People are predictable. People will, when comfortable, let their guard down and act for you. To my left the waves crashed against the cliffs. To my right is a very large rock. It stands alone kissing the shore. Out of frame was his girlfriend, also, unaware of the lens. She stood looking into the distance. Her statuesque pose was boring. The action was in what he was doing, moving about as the water crashed on the shore and receded into the next round of waves. Time for this man was the measured by the lengths of the crashing waves. He gave me a moment of his time when I photographed him. In that instance, we shared time.

A couple takes a swim in the cove. Vernazza, Cinque Terre, La Spezia, Italy

I sat quietly observing the scene in front of me. The man slowly took off his clothes and entered the water. She swam back and forth for a few minutes teasing him to join her. Twice they looked over and observed the camera in their direction. They dismissed it each time looking away. No threat. No way of knowing they were the subjects. Slowly he walked closer to her. Once the rocks became to much of a hardship he sacumed and took to swimming towards her. The flirted with each other as the playfully swam around the rocks. Their time became my time.

Man stands in morning light. Grotta di Lord Byron, Porto Venere, La Spezia, Italy

The light was rising over the castle and pullulating the Grotta di Lord Byron. I stepped onto a slick rock, nearly loosing it and quickly regaining my footing. I noticed the light on his face from higher above, looking down on the scene. He was posing for a picture in front of the dramatic landscape. I only had a minute or so to get in a spot worthy of making an image. I had to capture a photo of him as the light consumed just his face. If I had my 70-200mm lens with me I would have posed him and captured a very dynamic image of him. I did not have that lens with me and once again found myself arrested to a camera with a fixed prime lens. While a 70-200 would have been fun for creatine some dynamic portraits, I am very pleased to have a wider image that weds him to landscape.

Waiting. Castello Doria, Porto Venere, La Spezia, Italy

Time is not patient. Time is bias. Time will take from you, give you nothing. Time will leave you. Time has no where to be, is everywhere, and nowhere. You do not own time. Time owns you. Time will take from you what you give it, everything. Time is everything.

To me an empty chair is as compelling. It is inviting, beckoning. I have probably said that same line a dozen times over. I see chairs posing all the time, waiting to be sat in. Chairs are a vessel for people to rest, work, exist in. When you are not sitting in a chair, time is not frozen, you’re just existing else where. Does that chair exist without you? Yes. But the chair has its own time, separate from you. The chair inhabits a space that isn’t relative to your time. There fore the chair does not exist until you exist in it, creating a continuity of time.

I meandered around the grounds of Castello Doria for a while. I weaved through the vines, along paths, up ancient steps, through narrow walk ways, into a vast room supported by altitudinous columns. The light entered this sturdy room from two spots, the window behind this chair and a skyscraping entrance. The room was airy for only having having one large entrance. As I turned around one of the columns I found the chair, greeting me, asking me to take a seat. I said no, made a portrait of it and carried on with seeking other images to collect.

An empty chair has no soul. They are vacant, empty, void of any presence. People occupy chairs giving them a purpose. Without being sat in a chair serves no other purpose. They sit in time, awaiting a time to be of service. An empty chair is sad.

Time has changed for you too. Time is not our friend. It is not our enemy. It is a resource that once surrendered we can not get back. There is no way to recover time. You don’t go to a store and buy more time. Clocks are devices that we use to measure how much time we are losing, how much time is passing. My camera, however, is a machine to record time, preserve time, distribute time.

My time is valuable and so is yours. We are faced with the dilemma of how to use the time we have. Can we continue on with our relationship with time? Yes, of course, but under a new policy with new guidelines. Be smart with your time. Be wise with your time and who you allow to have a portion of it. Find your value and command compensation for your time. It is the most precious resource that you loose a part of every day. Don’t dole out time as if it is indispensable. It is not.

Until we can travel again, it is my wish that you stay safe. Remain optimistic for a time when boarding plane isn’t a life or death risk. Together we will end this pandemic and return to scheduled lives.

Stay safe everyone.

Travel Photography: France, Some Film, and Mistakes

It has been nearly a year since I have posted on here. In that time a lot has happened. A lot is happening. I am not going to share my most significant images of 2019 in this post. I will not be writing about the best shoots I had last year, yet. I have plans for that, but at the moment I am going to start writing here as a daily practice to decompress and reduce the stress we are all facing. I have a goal. I want to take your attention away from what we are all in fear of.

Each post, or story, that I am going to share will be visual based. I will give you insight into the images, the shoots, or the travels. I worked with some great people in the last year. I traveled to new places and made some images that I am excited to share. Initially as I began this post I started with a proverbial quote, “I don’t know where to begin.” Which, is also an oxymoron if that is the intro to your post. I hit the delete key and looked at the blank page for all of 30 seconds before I started with what you’re now reading.

France and one of the biggest mistakes of my career: The first full day of exploring Nice France I kept with me two cameras, a Holga 120 film camera and a Sony a6300 to record any video. After making some great images that would never see the light of day I went to change the roll of film. As I pulled the back of the camera open I noticed the film was lose on its spool. Even though it had been exposed and wound, it was lose. My heart sank and I was irritated. I had with me about 20 rolls of film I planned to capture our trip on. With me I had a Hasseblad 500cm, a far cry from the Pentax 67 kit that I rented. Welp I said to my wife, looks like I am not going get anything with this thing. I threw it back into the bag. Once back to the room I would swap it out for my 500cm.

I rented a Pentax 67 kit with a few awesome lens. A wide angle, a telephoto, a 50mm, a 90 mm and a 75mm. Sounds like one of the most bad ass kits you could think to travel with, right??? Aside from the weight of it, it was a beauty. I am not one to complain about the weight of a camera but this thing was going to be some serious weight to trek around Europe. I really didn’t care that this camera was going to create a back problem, the photos rendered on Portrait 400 were going to be so worth it. So I thought.

Literally 24 hrs before flying the unimaginable happened. The camera’s mirror locked. I was taking out a roll of film that I shot in Joshua Tree a few days earlier. I forgot to take it out after the shoot and as I was prepping the camera and packing my gear I went to remove it. I am not sure how the mirror locked up but it did. Nothing I could do would unjam it. I spent hours searching my camera store and a few other stores for batteries. After swapping them out with a fresh one, it was locked up for good. I was pissed. I spent well over $300 for month long rental and I now had a giant paper weight. I had just purchased a TON of film and was amped up. In my mind, knowing where I was traveling to, Nice, France and the Cinque Terre Region of Italy, I already had images framed and being developed. Those images would never comet to see the light of day, just like the photos from my Holga.

Getting back to our room I swapped out the Holga for the Hasselblad. I was excited to put this baby to work on foreign soil. There was something incredibly satisfactory about looking down the lens of such a remarkable camera in such a beautiful region. Square format, Portra 400, France, sounds like a great time with a camera, right? Wrong. After spending about an hour making photo I finished the roll. Somehow I managed to roll the film incorrectly into the back. Ive done that serval times, usually while loading in a pinch. Also, I don’t use the camera daily, soooo muscle memory..Yet again another set of images that would never see the light of day. I was on a roll. Strike 3. I was out. Needless-to-say I was pissed. I decided right then and there, standing in Old Town in Nice, France I was done with film for this trip. This was the third strike.

Fuji X-Pro 2. That was the camera I decided was going to be my back up. I left home my Canon 6d Mark ii and allllll my lenses. I had with me, as my digital savior, my favorite travel camera. It is the perfect camera for traveling. The only issue, as if you werne’t really expecting another one, right?, I only had one lens, a 35mm. No big deal, right? Well it was sort of a big deal because I was going to be in an area with dramatic landscapes. You don’t want to be standing on the Italian coast holding a 50mm lens in your hands trying to film large landscapes. Really, you don’t. So when you hear, “gear doesn’t matter,” it really does. There are the right tools for the right jobs, just like there are there are the right cameras and the right lenses for specific types of images you intend to make. I would go on to spend 7 beautiful days with my Fuji over my shoulders and in my hands. At times it would be tossed into my bag as I recorded video using my A6300.

The following images are unified not by their physical location, but through the compositional traits they share. Each image fits perfectly next to the next and previous photo. They demonstrate my ability to see, what gauges my interest, and how I can tie images together to form a visual narrative. When I travel I do not just aimlessly point my camera in a direction and hope something magical befalls my lens. I see, I search, I compose through the lens just as much as I am orienting myself in a new place. This type of work satisfies my need to travel and create. Traveling for me is validates the existence of the places in the world I do not yet know exist. Photography for me is a way of communicating my vision, saying this is where I was and what I saw when I was there.. Each photo below is a window, a doorway, a walk way, a space that holds its own composition, the view on the other side. I love architecture and when I can I like to capture images of buildings and architectural features that represent the styles and periods of history of places I am traveling through.

I did mention above that during this trip I did make the biggest mistake of my camera. I will be explaining that in more detail of a few more posts about this trip. For now, enjoy these photos. Cheers and stay happy.