Category Archives: Photography

A Note Regarding Models

Posted by commart on

They really do move on.

As drive costs have come down and capacity gone up, I thought I would try to recover old shoots from DVDs (and then, one day, toss them).

Why DVDs?

As many my age know, the computer purchased for the ages some ages ago has been long gone or long crashed, and the optical disks, so carefully written to and labeled have indeed become a part of the record of what we did.

* * *

Model-photographer culture, which is what I’ve called the phenomenon that has been mixing guys with cameras (GWCs), sometime gals, with at least modestly exhibitionist ladies (and guys) since the earliest of digitally communicating days had seen boom days at http://www.models.com — I sure did a lot of wild stupid-clever writing around that venue — and http://www.modelmayhem.com (I think I need to reappear there).

Another favored term of mine from that era: “faux fashion photography”.

What was I thinking?

What was she (or he) thinking?

Should I caption these old pictures? — “Mother of Three, Westchester”?; “Copywriter, Los Angeles”?; “Actor and Comedian, San Francisco”?

I can see if I’m not careful writing here, I’m going to catch a bad case of Valley Voice (?).

* * *

Do you believe in magic?

Some of these cats are makin’ it!

Model, Ten Years Ago, October 26, 2003

I could not be more gratified!

Sooner or later, especially as I post from these (model-released) archives, someone’s going to recognize someone (or himself).

Should I get in touch?

* * *

And some are less easily found.

A common name within an ethnicity; few details, even about interests, left from the shoot: and they are gone, Out There.

Model, Ten Years Ago, May, 2003

If your screen is hot, you might see artifacts.

Although some work on the DVDs travels back to the Nikon D70 era, others persist elsewhere in 35mm transparency files: those may have been scanned on equipment primitive compared to the Coolscan 5000 ED, which is itself now a bit behind the age, but it will have to do for a while longer.

Perhaps I should dive right into those old slide files, choose a very select few per age or set, and see how they look 10, 20, or 30 (or 40) years after I sat or stood somewhere and pressed a shutter release.

In Inventory 3-25-13

Posted by commart on

I don’t know if I like defects.

I know I don’t like discovering them.

This afternoon’s story unfolded this way:

1. HP’s inks arrived about an hour ago, and, indeed, “Bertha” (infamous behemoth of a B9180 ink jet unit) needed her cyan; powered her up; fed her a full ink cartridge; deleted from the printer’s memory the two earlier jobs on which she stopped for want of her cyan; and started a simple, small job, i.e., the second snow snapshot from the latest post on the more personal blog.

2. Out of paper!  Where did I put the remainder of the Ink Press?  For a while, I couldn’t  find the box, so I rummaged out of the back of a closet a few damaged sheets of Epson Pearl, 11 x 17, and cut that down to 11 x 12, removing some bent corners . . . only to learn that Bertha’s instructions (software) didn’t seem to want me to load an odd-sized paper — and then: the missing package? on top of the printer . . . .

3. Loaded 11 x 14 and ran a print.  Not bad.  A little reddish for a near monotone piece.  So I ran another, an old leaf heavily back lit.

Leaf, Backlit, C&O Canal, Maryland, December 29, 2006

That above came out of the printer noticeably striped.

It made me wonder if I had looked hard enough at my latest prints.

I use a 5,000K CFL for editing (Lacie 320 monitor; Macbeth color charts and other guides; plus I’m “tuned down” about 10 percent or so, and somewhat compromised between ambient interior brightness and print impact — I need a slightly brighter edited “print” to get a good looking real space print for indoor display), but (reminder: I was talking about my office light source), I have it aimed at the ceiling for indirect and dim room lighting (the monitor is everything).

Well . . .

I reversed the CFL bulb (it’s in a workshop reflector), put on the “readers” (1.5x) and looked again.

What I found: light striping and perhaps, in the last few prints, what looks like magenta cartridge misalignment.

One has to really look, up close, magnified, to see this stuff.

Very light, or what I call “faint” artifacts may be ignored — the image impact is such that such have to be pointed out to be “seen”.

And some things may add charm the way a nub or two might a sweater.

Still, I’m not one to send out work with industrial-strength grooves in it.

For the moment, I have half a dozen prints — should they be called “seconds”? — set aside and unlisted.

Of the listed: fine for the wall, but . . . Bertha’s tiring me out.

I’m going to align Bertha’s print heads, run some proofs, and come to a decision about sending her on to my county’s recycling program.

Boutique printing — very limited edition, totally hands-on, also at the mercy of technology or involving some struggle between the artist and the unruliness of the machinery — is not high output lithography.  For some barely visible qualities, some “small shop” artifacts may add to charm.  Such become indicative of a period in a shop’s history.

On the other hand:

I WANT PERFECTION!

Enough said.

* * *

In the order signed:

Black Eyed Susans: 1 – 11×14 Ink Press Luster, 10-1/6 x 12-3/4

Black Eyed Susans:  1- 11×14 Ink Press Luster, 6-1/4×10

Three Susans: 1 – 11×14 Ink Press Luster, 13-11/16 x 9-5/8 slightest banding, invisible head-on

Mumma Farm Outbuilding 1- 11×14 Ink Press Luster 6-3/8 x 9-5/8

Peeling Paint, Mumma Farm Building (first of the three at URL location)- 2 – 11×14 Ink Press Luster, nominal 1/8-inch border, soft

Peeling Paint, Mumma Farm Building (first of the three at URL location) – 2 – 11×14 Ink Press Luster, 8-1/8 x 5-1/16 (soft)

Blue Treetops – 1 – 11 x 14 Ink Press Luster, off-centered 6 x 10-11/16, blurred and textured (very arty)

American Farm Girl: 1 – 11 x 14 Ink Press Luster, no border, slightly stripped, ink droplet, left side.

American Farm Girl: 7 – 11 x 14 Ink Press Luster, bordered 3/4-inch nominal, faint striping, high impact print; some borders smudged.

American Farm Girl: 1 – 11 x 14 Epson Glossy, bordered 3/4-inch nominal, faint striping, some borders smudged.