you think this shit is easy?!@?

yesterday i was listening to a favorite photo-related podcast of mine by brooks jensen of lenswork magazine, and he started to talk about the selection process his staff goes through when choosing portfolios to feature in his publication. he mentioned how some portfolios are put in the reject pile because of lack of execution, or not being a strong enough set, lack of focus….quite a few different common reasons for a portfolio to be rejected.

then he started talking more on subject matter, and saying how they receive portfolios that were obviously shot at photo seminars, those are mostly set aside due to lack of originality…..and then he said he often receives portfolios with abandoned objects or buildings as the subject matter.

and these are usually rejected.

……..

WHY is this subject matter rejected? not because of lack of focus, execution, originality…. no, mr jensen mostly rejects portfolios of abandoned subject matter because he feels this is an “easy” subject to shoot.

what the hell is up with that? easy?? in what way? i dont see how shooting abandoned buildings is any easier than a portfolio i remember his publication lending space to in the past, which was simply prints of clouds. clouds. in the sky. just aim the camera and shoot. damn, that was easy. but apparently since “permission” was probably not needed to gain access to an abandoned subject, then this was obviously something easy to shoot.

yes, its easy slinking around in unstable buildings filled with rust and asbestos, tiptoeing so as not to alert security patrolling directly outside. its easy diving behind machinery at big steel because the patrolling pickup is racing around the corner on its rounds.

and then its easy hiding in a blast furnace for 45 minutes in the dead of summer waiting out swarming security outside, banging and hollering in an attempt to flush you out.

its easy climbing rusty chainlink fences, crawling through partially collapsed basements in twenty degree weather, its easy getting up in the middle of the night to predawn a location because security is so tight it cannot be attempted during daylight hours.

its so easy.

rocky point psychiatric

so on sunday i finally came out of anti-exploration hibernation and joined a couple new friends on a field trip to a semi-local semi-active psychiatric facility. it felt good to be out again, even though the moderate chilliness was irritating my still-recovering-from-bronchitis lungs.

i had never been to this facility before and while i had not heard the most exciting things about it, it was still definitely on my list of places to cross off. i had heard the tunnels were a bitch to navigate though, and once inside i understood why. they went on forever. we only did 2 or 3 buildings that day, but it took forever to travel between each one. behind a locked door in the basement lay stacks of specimen jars from past patient autopsies, tons of paperwork, and boxes of slides of tissue samples. by far the coolest part of the trip.

the medical clinic building was somewhat of a let down…i was hoping for equipment, beds, ANYTHING….but it was completely cleaned out. completely. i was surprised they even left the paint on the walls. geez. i was informed by the rest of the group, who had been to this facility before, that the rest of the buildings were like this as well. bummer.

back in the dark tunnels. walking, walking, walking. up the stairs. into the auditorium. now this was pretty cool. i always enjoy auditoriums/gyms. i dont know why, it probably has to do with their sheer size. the wooden gymnasium floor had buckled under rough weathering, and large bubbles like waves rose in several places. projectors were left in the booth upstairs and rows of seating lay caked with dust.

then the part i wasnt expecting. time to go to the bowling alley. only there is no conventional way to the bowling alley. no, we have to climb down pipes in an access closet behind the womens bathroom. a 12 foot drop. my height issues were definitely NOT a help in this situation.

but we emerged and it was definitely worth the effort. bowling shoes. everywhere. tons and tons of bowling shoes. and bowling balls. pins still at the end of each lane. they left everything, down to donated trophies im assuming were awarded to patients during tournaments. as i was popping off frame after frame it occurred to me that i was basically taking the same damn shots every other person on the internet who has shots of this alley has already taken, but what can you do i guess. the reason why everyone has taken those shots is because they are good shots. i tried to vary things a little, but i was a little rushed because the rest of the group was ready to leave.

good to be back in the swing of things.

complete set of photos at http://www.designedbreakdown.com/photo/rock_psychiatric/galleries/2008-01-27/

…well that’s kind of fun.

So the other day I log onto Google Analytics, just because I think it’s fun to keep track of the small amount of hits my personal website gets, where people are coming to me from, etc…..

and I’m greeted by this.

So what the hell happened here??

Usually my website gets 10, 15 hits a day. Nothing exciting. I haven’t updated it in about 2 months, and it’s not like it’s heavily advertised anywhere. It’s just a personal place for me to keep my work in a semi-public corner. But on January 17th, 190 people visited my website. What’s up with that madness??

So I click around, and find out that somebody added me to their Stumbleupon links. And that led 190 people to my website. In one day.

I’m not really sure why it dropped off again after that one day, I don’t really understand how Stumbleupon works. But hey, that’s awesome. 190 hits in one day Yay.

stir crazy

my lack of photographic expeditions lately is making me cagey. there are so many excuses for this. its been too cold to explore. ive been sick for about 3 weeks. nobody is available or wants to go out with me. im back to freelancing which eats up weekend time.money has definitely been an issue. but im bored. BORED. and there are places i want to see. i feel like im wasting time by not going anywhere.

i still have never explored baltimore. theres so much down there. theres a power plant in philly i want to see. i want to get into the ever elusive kirkbride at greystone. willard up in rochester, thats definitely on the top of my list, or at least close. oh god, i dont know. im envious of people who have been doing this for years upon years and have lists of locations theyve visited miles long. norwich. i want to go back to norwich.

theres other places. i just cant think of them right now. or at least the ones im thinking of arent on the very top of my list. but i still want to go see them too. central islip, back to the worcester clock tower one last time before its gone, the new milford water works, i wanna see whats out in pittsburgh. rockland, ive never been there. never been to marlboro either. just to say i have. essex hospital. back to the essex jail annex. which will resume demolition in march actually. aaaah. i feel like theres too many places i want to see and too many things holding me back.

the worst criticism ever.

One thing I have always been wary of as an artist is criticism. I hate it. Dread it. Avoid it. I think that’s part of the reason why it took me so long to create a web page for my photography, put any photos up on myspace, hang photos up in my apartment, etc etc. I am afraid of people looking at my work and brushing it off as garbage. I admit it. I am overly sensitive, DEFINITELY overcritical of myself, and the slightest agreeance from another person is all I need to tip the scales and say SEE I TOLD YOU I SUCKED, BUT YOU TRIED TO REMAIN POSITIVE AND SAY NO I DON’T SUCK, BUT SOMEBODY ELSE THINKS I SUCK, SO NOT ONLY DO I SUCK BUT I WAS WRONG ABOUT NOT SUCKING. Basically as you can see it is a very delicate balance.

I am like anyone else. I have off days. Things are on my mind. I’m just not feeling a location. I can’t find my groove. I am hungover (which, sadly, happens more times than I care to admit, since I do my exploring and partying both in the same 2-day off span, haha). I am human, I am certainly far from being a professional at this, and it definitely happens.

When I look back on my years of published photos in the newspaper industry, hours upon hours of class critiques, gallery shows, and countless other ways of my photographs being displayed, there have definitely been those who did not care for my work, and that’s ok, because it’s my work; it’s something I did from my own heart to make myself happy. Others don’t have the emotional attachment I may feel towards each frame I take, because they were not standing there behind the lens. But no one comment in particular stands out to me……except for one.

It had been a long day. My friend and I approached this location with a bit of trepidation, as our guide who knew the buildings inside and out had been unable to make it last minute due to a miscommunication. Great, I thought. Well my friend has been on a total of about 3 explorations up to this point. And I have been here once before, but that was long ago, and before a massive fire. And even then, the collapse was extremely hard to navigate and climb through in order to traverse from photo op to photo op. She’s going to be looking to me to lead us. We had a great deal of trouble entering the Kirkbride. Once inside, we were in an area I was not familiar with at all. And we had not been inside for more than twenty minutes when I went to place down my tripod and camera on the ground and walk into the room when a sickening THUD filled the air.

Fuck.

My heavy 17-55 2.8 lens mounted on a cheap tripod had finally commited suicide. In placing the rig down, I was slightly hasty and did not sit it square down on all three legs. The unit had been leaning slightly forward when I placed it down, and the weight of the lens was enough to tip the rig and bring the entire thing crashing down. Square on my prized lens.

I wanted to vomit.

When I picked the rig up, there were no cracks in the glass of the lens, and I was so relieved….that was until I went to operate the zoom ring and realized the entire thing had jamed at the 40mm position.

Shit.

Now not only did I have to shoot the entire rest of the day with a lens jammed at 40mm, which was extremely hard to do and I often could not go as wide as I wanted/needed to in order to fit things into the frame, I was also extremely worried about the possibilities of lens repair. Not only was I broke, but I didn’t even know IF it was repairable. The general rule of thumb is if the glass is ok, then anything else can be fixed on a lens. But to what cost?? This was a $1200 lens.

So off I went for the rest of the day, dejected, distracted, stressing, not so focused on what I was doing. I got home that evening and went through my photos and my poor day showed through my frames.

Subjects were not clear. Things were chopped off. Some shots were just disorganized far away “snapshots,” like this one of the kitchen, where I asked myself what was I thinking when I took this picture?? Because I can’t figure out exactly what made me want to snap this photo in the first place. Of course there were a few frames I was happy with. But most showed a lackluster effort.

Then I made what I would look back on as a grand mistake. I decided to show others my errors and less than stellar set of photos. I knew they weren’t the greatest, but in this particular forum I had seen far, far worse. And so I posted “Riverside Redux.”

The following morning while at work I logged on to uer.ca as I normally do and went to the photography section. Hm, a couple replies. Click.

“don’t take this the wrong way but these are by far the worst images ive ever seen of such a beautiful location. “

my heart sank.

That was, by far, the most hurtful thing a person had ever said to me about my photography. Ever. And of course I got angry and shot back with a couple snide remarks of my own, but I only did because I was so insulted. The worst images she had ever seen from this location!!! What a HORRIBLE thing to say!! Were they THAT bad?? Was I that horrible of a photographer?!? That one sentence basically ruined the next two days for me, and I walked around with a storm cloud over my head.

Granted I am sensitive. I take things to heart. And I guess other explorers know this, and also felt this girl (and a couple others who jumped on the bandwagon soon after) were acting out of line simply because they felt like picking on someone. Because I received quite a few emails from others telling me not to pay attention to her snide remark, that she was just making stupid comments for the sake of being a jerk. But it didn’t matter. It still cut like a knife. And it still does, months later.

I’m not always going to take the best pictures. This is not my profession. I do it for fun. But my work is still something that is highly personal to me, and when people attack it, it feels like a personal attack towards me. I know it’s not. But it still feels like one.

the queen of excuses

I have twelve rolls of film sitting in my basement just waiting for their first exposure to the enlarger. TWELVE rolls. That’s not even counting the 2-3 I have on my desk and in my camera bag waiting to be developed. Bottom line is, I am majorly behind in developing and printing my black and white work. Looking at it as a whole, it is extremely daunting. 15 rolls of film!!! How did this happen! When I look at my pages of negatives, I see things from months ago that I remember wiping the sweat from my forehead while shooting. On Saturday when I went out on a trip, I wore 6 layers of clothing because it was so cold out. So to say I am a little behind is the understatement of the century. I have excuses. Tons of them. I am the queen of excuses. I’m tired, I have a headache (a very valid one since I almost always do), my pets need attention, I have to clean, this show is on TV, I have errands to run, it’s too cold on the basement this time of year (actually it DOES get rather chilly down there)……I could go on forever. But the point is, I am a professional at demotivating myself. It’s horrible. I don’t know what happened. I used to love going in the darkroom. I would be in there one or two nights a week for 3 hours at a time. The last six months or so though, my interest in standing in the dark down there has shrank. The ease of digital is becoming more and more appealing to me, which makes me shudder. This is just a temporary thing, I say to myself, I will go back to my more organic methods of photomaking. But the problem is, I am tired after a full day of work. The last time I feel like doing is standing in a cold dark basement watching a stopwatch while dipping paper in trays. With digital, I can lay on my bed and pet my pet rat with one hand, other on my mouse in photoshop editing photos. Laziness is getting to me. I think part of the problem is I have let things pile up so far. I don’t even know where to begin. Fifteen rolls of film. It’s out of control. I’m going to begin setting smaller goals for myself, i.e. make prints of roll 201 by Friday, etc. in order to try and “chip away” at this massive goal of getting caught up. Otherwise I will forever come up with excuses as to why I “can’t work on this today” and my photography will end up just like my (failed) exercise routine: dead in the water.