PHISH!

This is old news, but is it March yet? I got tickets to two of the three nights at Hampton, VA and a possible press pass for the other night, its going to be fabulous.  Hotels are all booked so I'm sleeping in my vanagon (its got a bed) and then driving straight from Hampton to Rochester on Sunday to start Spring classes on Monday. I'll finally finally out if they are any good to see live.... 

I saw Trey last week in Burlington, the above is a cell phone picture, not bad at all for the giz one. 

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Photo drought- I'm still shooting plenty, just not enjoying my own work.  I got a spark yesterday though.  I finally went to visit the street that has been the object of my curiosity for the past two months.  Jarvis Street in Windsor, Vt.  I didn't know how to approach it, I had come up with many different ideas, none seemed that they would work so yesterday I just simply walked down there and talked to people. I should have done that months ago... 

Photo had to be deleted. 

People were much more welcoming than I imagined they would be, they let me photograph their kids. 

In between action shots

Moondancing

Hula hoop dancing at the annual Fall Moondance in Windsor, Vermont 

New Story

New story started today.  Roy Mitchell is from Jamaica, from May-November for the past 7 years he has moved to Plainfield , NH to work at Edgewater Farm so he can support his wife and 3 kids that are still in Jamaica. 

I'm not very fond of doing stories that just focus on one person but I think there is enough around this one person to make it an interesting subject to photograph.  This is not a "sob story" migrant worker story, it's a feel good migrant story. Roy is treated very well by his employers, he is paid fairly, he is here legally, he gets along well with his co-workers (who for the most part are college-age kids), and he really enjoys what he does. 

Practice

I have to shoot something everyday now. I started running and it has felt really good, my head feels clearer, I sleep better, and I have more energy throughout the day.  I wondered, if my body feels better after daily exercise what will my left eye do after exercise? How does a photographer practice though? We don't have scales and arpeggios to run through every day, there are no free-throws for us to shoot... it seems like everything in photography is just  performance- without practice-  then I read about Josef Koudelka's method.  Koudelka, my current favorite, shoots 3 rolls of film everyday just to keep his eye in constant use, he's not reporting, he's not trying to make tremendous pictures, he is just running through film everyday for the sake of working on composition.  Composition is the most important aspect of being a photographer in my opinion, everyone understands what emotion looks like and with enough practice and watching you can learn to freeze those emotional moments, but it takes a photographer, a visual architect, to notice (SEE) the visual harmony the world offers and with that harmony a subject's character and emotion can be emphasized. So composition/geometry- that's what I am practicing everyday. Shooting one frame and moving on to the next thing that grabs my attention for 30 minutes everyday in a different location everyday, not looking at the pictures until I get home and no thinking at all during the shooting, just fire here, fire there for 30 minutes or till the environment is exhausted, then dig deeper to find something missed. The goal is to know your lens (fixed focal length) like your own eye and hit the target every time, no cropping.  Shooting can a thrill when you attack it with the intensity of a coke-addict. 

Last Week

Three are from Mt. Washington and one of Balou the dog with Cold Cat.  

New room for me means a housemate leaves

There's another room available for rent, 20-24 year old girls that are painters, journalists, photographers, woodworkers, or teachers are welcome to apply.