Getting ready for Montreal

We're off to Canada for the weekend. A COLD weekend no doubt. Looking at -13c; which means packing the hat, gloves and unfashionable coat. But it should be good, the city is supposed to be swinging, the people French, the food good and the entertainment on tap and within walking distance.

Trying to get out all of my pics before I leave and finding that they're much improved in the post-process (a skill that I'm lacking but learning... I could grow to like this

Itches to scratch

Looking at my pictures I've kinda confirmed that my niche is portraits. Now that might just be because they're easy, technically. Or it might be because I love faces. I'm not really sure which. And I'm not going to try to work it out. From here out I'll take what I take and see what happens. But I have an itch now. I want to shoot more. And then more. And then some more. I'm greedy for models. Hungry for venues. And I have a million images in my head. Busy months ahead, I hope.

Dearth of posts

There haven't been too many posts on here recently. I apologize for that. Kinda. You see the thing is that I started this blog in an attempt to keep people up to date with my health and treatment through the cancer thing. It was a selfish move, I was kinda sick of repeating 'no news' to everyone who called and e-mailed, so the blog was a noticeboard.

Over time though it changed. First it became a place to explore how I was feeling first about treatment and then about life. It forced me to put down the facts of what was happening and in doing so lay myself open to the feelings that those facts brought up. I had a couple of rules. Be honest. If you have to self censor don't post. And write for yourself rather than for an imagined audience (other than Dakota Fanning's agent)

Which brings me to the reason that I haven't posted recently. You see I posted a blog that someone didn't like. It wasn't offensive. It didn't libel anyone. It didn't use images of them that weren't already posted. It just told the truth, as I saw it (you can only do that) about a relationship. And then when challenged about it, I took it down. Completely violating every rule I had about this blog and rendering it invalid as a history of my thoughts at the time. I made the stupid mistake of appeasing someone rather than staying true to the reason for doing this. And in doing so I robbed it of integrity, just tearing its heart out.

All of which sounds quite lofty. It is after all not a blog of much consequence. It's rarely deep. It's often empty headed. Too often it's just fluff in the ether. But that just means that I should fight harder to keep the personal stuff in there. And I will. Or I'll give this up. But no more deleting the posts that people don't like. Especially when they're the ones that are most true.

Who knew?

Your place or mine?
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

I posted this on Flickr yesterday. It's still a little clean looking and I intend to yellow it ip a little but I liked the idea of somebody modeling urinals and besides it's where the poor girl had to change. So not a great image but it has attracted some interesting groups... "girls using urinals" seems to be a whole area of the web that has hitherto escaped me. And I can't say that I'm sorry.

It seems that when it comes to pictures and the internet the really money is in the margins. The narrower your niche the more the people are willing to pay. Not that I'm being paid.

Which brings me to the question I was asked. "Why pay for gas to get to an event, then pay an entry - just to take pics that you're not going to sell or publish?"

The answer is two-fold. The easy one is that I want to get better at this photography thing. And the best way to do that is to take more pictures. So I'll do whatever I need to be out there taking pictures.

That of course begs the question - "but why do you want to take pictures?" - which is altogether more complicated. I guess that the easiest anyswer is that it's the quickest way to get what I have in my head into the world. Not that I ever had this shot in my head. It was an improvisation. And that's what I like. Just having to think. To be responsible for an idea from beginning to end. To have to sell the idea to a model (who is also working for free) and then adjust as they bring their thoughts and experiences to bear on it.

I loved this weekend. Two of my models had no experience. So we made it informal. We laughed some. I moved them around. We tried things. Two were experienced - so we got the shots fast then just relaxed and had some fun. One was up for something new but caught in what she usually does, so we started big and dialled back.

But other stuff happened too. The hotel had no electric sockets on any of the floors we used. So I lost my lights. My flash lost its feet so I couldn't mount it on a tripod. The areas with good natural light were booked by people who'd used paypal - so I was either flooded or in the dark.

But we coped. We got some shots. We left feeling more creative than the people we passed on the street and in the knowledge that the world now had more art in it - even if it was bad art.

My weekend looked like this...

(lots) more to come... but first I have 1000 shots to convert from RAW (or ARW as Sony insist on calling it)