A few pieces of my mind...

Ok, so I've written a rebuttal to Shutterbug's comments (déjà vu all over again), but rather than argue, I'll concede to a certain degree (ever protecting my manly ego) and start spilling a little of what's been on my mind lately...

Ok, so Miller Brewing Co. had that bullshit "Man Law" ad campaign which I initially found pretty clever until they had that whole "Don't fruit the beer" campaign. Now, I realize it was a direct attack on competitors Corona (lime wedge) and Blue Moon (orange slice), but it wasn't 'Don't lime the beer', or 'Don't orange the beer." They deliberately used the word 'fruit'... imparting a sissy homosexual context to drinking any beer other than their testosterone-icon-endorsed studly manly skunk-pee American beer. But I shrugged it off as a silly caricature of, and nose-thumbing at, traditional masculinity. I still found it actually quite entertaining.

Then there's the mildly amusing and more current Miller High Life ad campaign, featuring an African American Miller beer truck driver with that stereotypically strong and folksy 'black attitude' personality that us white folks find so appealing. On a radio spot featuring that particular actor as a radio talk show host, and callers asking "Am I living the high life?" and then describing their social situations, one mentions the fruit/beer thing again, to which the host has a strongly negative reaction.

That irked me a little as an endorsement of homophobia from the "common" man , but I just shrugged it off as a cross-over of the two ad campaigns.

Then they introduce Miller Chill... flavored with LIME. Miller Brewing Company, champion of the anti-gay war cry 'Don't fruit the beer' FRUITED THE BEER. Hypocritical manipulating bastards! I swore a staunch and solemn boycott of any Miller Brewing Co. products from that point onward, activist hippie that I am, so help me God!

I don't make a whole lot of money. I drink cheap domestic chicken-piss beer out of financial obligation and medicinal effect. The cheapest beers around here in 16-oz can six-pack format are Milwaukee's Best Ice (The Beast) and Steel Reserve. I drink a lot of both, but mostly Milwaukee's Beast Ice, and have done so for quite a while. The other night I took a closer look at my Milwaukee's Best can...

... Miller Brewing Company.

So much for my boycott. I tried a Miller Chill. It was ok.

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Yes... lather, rinse, repeat. But I'm not the only one with a cyclic nature and redundant themes. It's the rhythm of my life, and of everybody elses' too.

Dark Haired Girl and Photography are the only things in my life right now between my two jobs and school. I don't have time for ice hockey, and this record-hot summer has made skating and street hockey impossible. I post photos because that is what is on my mind, almost exclusively. They aren't sawdust, but rather windows into my life. The vast preoccupation of my thoughts revolves around projects: who I'll get to model by the due date in a couple of days, what locations I'll shoot, props, lighting schemes, time of day for optimal light direction, etc.

Ok, here's a little bit of what's been swirling around between my ears. I've been having fitful sleep lately because of the pressures of this quarter, and of the impending quarter next which will be not only the toughest, but also my last, and the one which determines whether I have a graduate-worthy portfolio or not. I know full well I'll pass portfolio. I'm a quality shooter, and I've built up a subtle reputation at school for being a smarter-than-your-average-bear photographer. I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to stand out from the crowd, but not to do so in a 'different just to be weird' way, but rather more of a 'thinking outside the box' way. I honestly have a lot of trouble thinking outside the box. I'm given examples and the project requirements, and then tend to follow suit.

I'm also worried about hitting the ground running once I have some paper behind my name. That worry is lessening of late, as I am slowly building up satisfied customers here and there. Only one repeat customer yet, but many voiced intents to do so. In the mean time, I'm faced with the dilemma of just how aggressively to pursue work. My main bread source is my day jobs, and they already interfere enough with school project work. My boss is only happy to give me infrequent time off (usually saturdays, traditionally a big no-no to request off in the restaurant biz) to shoot jobs, but I can't take on much photography and keep my job simultaneously. See what I'm getting at? To drum up more jobs would require taking a gamble and quitting the day job, and I can't afford to lose that bet a second time. (remember Chipotle?)

So, yeah, that's what's eating Gilbert Grape right now. Thanks for listening. :-)

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The commercial and portrait classes at school usually post their final submissions for display on the walls to be judged. For each class's gallery there are a couple of achievement ribbons and a few excellence ribbons, and then one Best of Show ribbon. Of all the times my work has been up over the last year and a half, I've never earned any ribbons. Our portrait 1 class last quarter went up on the wall this quarter. The prints were judged.

My print of a very pregnant Liz won Best of Show. :-)

Pardon me while I gloat just a little.

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Ok, so I have been doing something else on the side. Mom and Chuck are avid golfers, so I've been with them to the driving range a few times. I found a crappy driver at the thrift store for $1.28 a month or two ago, and have really been hooked on going to the driving range lately. It's become a twice-a-week habit, and after mom passing her golf lessons onto me, I've become downright wicked with that driver. 200 yard marker, baby!

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Never mind that I have to stand aiming 45 degrees to the left to hit the marker because I shank the ball every time.

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the shenanigans never cease....

You know what? People that use the word 'postmodern' piss me off.

And so do photographers that pose a hot nude model on a rock in the woods and give the piece a gag-me-with-a-spoon title like "Flesh and Stone" or some crap like that.

Guaranteed gag-free photos of my first outdoor portrait project on my DeviantART gallery.

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Anyway, I just underwent somewhat of an equipment upgrade. Yep. I gots me some picture-editin' tools. After getting paid for a big job, I bought a Wacom tablet, which lets you control the cursor with a pen-like pressure sensitive stylus on a flat 4x5 tablet. Basically, it lets you sketch in photoshop as you would on a paper. The joke at school is that trying to edit with a mouse is like trying to draw with a brick. Immediately I was sketching in little retouching subtleties in photoshop that I never thought to do with the mouse.

Then I bought a monitor calibrator so that the colors on my screen are 100% true. Kinda important in this line of work... and now my screen colors are all nice and purdy.

Last, I bought some flash accessories: A reflective umbrella, strobe reflector, and remote radio flash trigger. Like a kid at Christmas I attached my new flash gear to my monolight, stuck the radio transmitter on my camera, and took some test shots in Dark Haired Girl's living room:



... upon which the transmitter promptly died. They're sending me another one, though. Very good customer service, Fotodiox. They've got fantastically low prices, and you get what you pay for (I'm not expecting Speedotron, Profoto, or Pocket Wizard quality here), but their sales department is an absolute joy to work with. I mean that, I'm not being a smart-ass.

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So this quarter is Portrait 2, which is all outdoor location and available light shooting. No studios allowed! (Yay!) So my next project is Environmental Portraits, which include much of the surrounding areas, not just head-and-shoulder or 3/4 length shots. There's this gorgeous field of wildflowers that I drive by here in town, so I asked Angela to meet me after work at the coffee shop across the street from it for some test shots:




Ok, so the flowers look more dense as you're zipping past at 35 mph. And I forgot to account for the industrial schmutz in the background. I'd spent the earlier afternoon tromping around scouting locations, and found a few. One is this cool waterfall and pool that I know of. I went there only to find that in the midst of this drought, it was bone-dry. To my advantage, though, it revealed this neat wall of layered sedimentary bedrock. I did come across some interesting graffiti, though, and caught this little detail that for some reason appealed to me:



Maybe it's because it looks vaguely like something from South Park. Who knows...

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Later on, a future project this quarter is window lighting, so I asked Ruben (Zen Master and all-around swell guy) to pose for some practice shots while spending a lovely afternoon off at my favorite watering hole:



I can see that being a potential location...