I have about seven prints to mat - and I've done all the tinkering with the site that I'm going to do for a while - and then - gasp - I'm going to starting shooting again. It's true that I don't really like this season much. I didn't get half the stuff done that I was supposed to: didn't send cards out; didn't get calendars made; didn't get any books published; didn't do much shooting; but like a kid who's got his new pencils for the new school term - I'm ready again to start anew and begin the usual backsliding.
What I did do is figure out how to sell more prints than last year and how to pick up a little extra money with ads and whatnot.
My only new year's resolution is to get a freakin' photography book published - even if I have to rob the local bank to do it. But no Lulu.com for me. At least that's been ruled out. I think I'm going to take a trip to China and meet with the local printers who work in the shadow of the great wall. Or maybe visit Milan where they do some mighty-fine printing.
Oh - but one thing I am going to do - I'm going to send a small Bronx photograph - to everyone I know who was born in the Bronx. No profit in that - just the act of giving. So, if you once in lived in the Bronx - and I know you - I'm going to get something to you for the holidays.
11/26/2005
11/25/2005
Another Gathering
Last year the turkey caught on fire.
This year - it wasn't ready in time - so the lasagna was pulled out first and me and a couple of teenagers were devouring it while the traditionalists waited and waited for the turkey.
Dad takes a small piece and complains about how he doesn't like spaghetti sauce or cheese and my sister is trying to get him to wait for the turkey.
Finally same arrives and a lot of us were stuffed already. After the pre-teens analyze the latest Harry Potter movie - seems they didn't like it but I couldn't understand half of what they were talking about. The teens and younger kids retire to the bedroom where they attached some Atari game box to the t.v. and play a game about hijacking trucks. Lots of violence and bad language.
The old folks came into the room but the kids wouldn't let them touch the game controls and the sound was turned down so they couldn't hear all the bad words. I got to play for about 30 seconds and drove my truck over a cliff into some water. I drowned.
In the living room - there were a lot of single 50-ish women talking about good places to go dancing and whatever happened to the Candy Stripe lounge that they frequented in the 80's.
The old folks couldn't get into that either. (Neither could I).
I had been instructed before hand to try and keep my big mouth shut and let the old folks control the conversation and not to bring up politics (which always leads to arguments). Fine with me. But it backfired when the talk was dominated by the ladies and their dance down memory lane and I was told afterwards that I should have brought up politics because those arguments are the highlight of any get-together. Oh well. Next time.
So my birthday is Dec. 1st - and every Thanksgiving I tell dad I don't want to celebrate it at Thanksgiving and sure enough there I am again with everyone surprising me with a cake and candle and me yelling, "God, how many times do I have to tell you - I don't want to do this at Thanksgiving."
One candle in the cake. I go to grab it to take it out and blow on it - and get into a control struggle with dad who wants me to blow it out while it's still in the cake. I make a grab for it again and a chocolate strawberry falls off, rolls under the table - and the dog goes for it. The dog isn't much bigger than the chocolate strawberry.
Chocolate (so they tell me) is poison for this breed of dog - so now there's a mad scramble under the table to get the chocolate strawberry from the dog with people surrounding the poor mutt and someone knocks over the coffee pot on the new white rug.
Oh the horror. Quick - use baking soda. No, use soda water. The women all advance their own secret formulas but the stain is spreading.
Why'd you knock off the chocolate strawberry?
Sorry.
Then someone starts singing: how old are you now? How old are you now?
"I'm 54," I say.
"No you're not," my middle sister says. She must be calculating her own age.
"I think I know how old I am. Do you wanna see my driver's license!"
Someone in the backroom must have hit the volume control because some very dirty words are filtering from the game into the living room. Horrified parents rush in to see what's going on and discover the obscenity filled game and want to know where this came from. In the confusion, they hit some other button and now all the bad politically unmentionable words are booming through the house.
I'm still thinking about how it feels to be 54. 6 years from 60. No way around that.
My uncle Hy was dead already at my age and had accomplished so much more.
Dad is wandering around looking for the check he was going to give me for my birthday. He can't find it. He's worried that he may have dropped it in the elevator because he was signing it as he came up. So out he goes to search the elevator. His eighty-year old companion is searching her pocketbook, either for her glasses or for the envelope.
And then it happens - the final coup de grace. Dad's companion asks me how I like the poster she brought back from somewhere as a gift. (I had passed it on to my sister for her house). Somehow, I know, by the way she was asking - that I had passed it on to Jean.
Now Jean is too cagey to have said anything - but her teenage daughter - she might have said something about the poster.
I excuse myself to go back to the other room where the hijacking game has been confiscated and ask my niece if she mentioned anything about the poster to anyone. She tells me that she might have mentioned the Van Gogh Bedroom print to someone dad's companion and sticks the iPod pods back in her ears.
Good God. Now what.
"I heard that you gave it to your sister," my father's companion is saying behind me. First time I've seen her move all night - and she's quick and silent as a cat and wearing magnifying glasses on her eyes.
"Well - I - "
Here eyes are huge.
"We brought it all the way back from Milan, you know. Especially for you. Your father picked it out. "
Meanwhile, dad comes back - unable to find the missing check. But he has a hat with him. Someone left their hat in the elevator.
The women are scrubbing the rug.
The kids are crying in the other room about the confiscation of the game.
I'm searching for an explanation for why I gave the poster away. Finally: "I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but I had that poster already. That's why I gave it to my sister."
"Really," she says suspiciously. She'd love to see the poster next time she visits me, so I'm going to have to get to the Museum of Art and get another one. I hope it says printed in Milan on the back.
As people are leaving - I'm invited to play anagrams. There are two anagram sets in the house. One is the actual real anagrams game (impossible to find these days); and the other one is just a bottle filled with scrabble tiles. The realanagrams set belongs to my sister's mother-in-law. I haven't mentioned her yet but she is not an old lady to trifle with (former high-school principal).
I say, "Let's play with the real set." My sister says, "what real set?"
I say, "You know - the actual set - we played with it the other day."
Her mother-in-law says: "You have a real anagrams set? Where did you find it? Took me years to find one. Finally found an old one on eBay."
Well, apparently my sister - who is giving me signs to shut up - stole it from her mother-in-laws house.
"Don't you remember, you loaned it to us a while back," she stammers.
Mother-in-law doesn't remember and starts in on a story about how difficult it was to find that set. They don't make them anymore.
Sister continues with her fable: "Remember, we were playing at your house and you said I could borrow it for a while?"
The dog begins to cough. He's been licking whatever they've been pouring on the coffee stain and it's making him puke. He almost pukes on the anonymous hat, but misses.
So that pretty much wraps things up as we take care of the dog; and a big fat guy in a florid bathrobe comes to the front door - somehow he's heard that my father found his hat. I don't know how he found out - my father must have involved the doorman at some point - but he takes his hat sticks it on his head and as he wanders away I notice some specks of dog-puke on it.
This year - it wasn't ready in time - so the lasagna was pulled out first and me and a couple of teenagers were devouring it while the traditionalists waited and waited for the turkey.
Dad takes a small piece and complains about how he doesn't like spaghetti sauce or cheese and my sister is trying to get him to wait for the turkey.
Finally same arrives and a lot of us were stuffed already. After the pre-teens analyze the latest Harry Potter movie - seems they didn't like it but I couldn't understand half of what they were talking about. The teens and younger kids retire to the bedroom where they attached some Atari game box to the t.v. and play a game about hijacking trucks. Lots of violence and bad language.
The old folks came into the room but the kids wouldn't let them touch the game controls and the sound was turned down so they couldn't hear all the bad words. I got to play for about 30 seconds and drove my truck over a cliff into some water. I drowned.
In the living room - there were a lot of single 50-ish women talking about good places to go dancing and whatever happened to the Candy Stripe lounge that they frequented in the 80's.
The old folks couldn't get into that either. (Neither could I).
I had been instructed before hand to try and keep my big mouth shut and let the old folks control the conversation and not to bring up politics (which always leads to arguments). Fine with me. But it backfired when the talk was dominated by the ladies and their dance down memory lane and I was told afterwards that I should have brought up politics because those arguments are the highlight of any get-together. Oh well. Next time.
So my birthday is Dec. 1st - and every Thanksgiving I tell dad I don't want to celebrate it at Thanksgiving and sure enough there I am again with everyone surprising me with a cake and candle and me yelling, "God, how many times do I have to tell you - I don't want to do this at Thanksgiving."
One candle in the cake. I go to grab it to take it out and blow on it - and get into a control struggle with dad who wants me to blow it out while it's still in the cake. I make a grab for it again and a chocolate strawberry falls off, rolls under the table - and the dog goes for it. The dog isn't much bigger than the chocolate strawberry.
Chocolate (so they tell me) is poison for this breed of dog - so now there's a mad scramble under the table to get the chocolate strawberry from the dog with people surrounding the poor mutt and someone knocks over the coffee pot on the new white rug.
Oh the horror. Quick - use baking soda. No, use soda water. The women all advance their own secret formulas but the stain is spreading.
Why'd you knock off the chocolate strawberry?
Sorry.
Then someone starts singing: how old are you now? How old are you now?
"I'm 54," I say.
"No you're not," my middle sister says. She must be calculating her own age.
"I think I know how old I am. Do you wanna see my driver's license!"
Someone in the backroom must have hit the volume control because some very dirty words are filtering from the game into the living room. Horrified parents rush in to see what's going on and discover the obscenity filled game and want to know where this came from. In the confusion, they hit some other button and now all the bad politically unmentionable words are booming through the house.
I'm still thinking about how it feels to be 54. 6 years from 60. No way around that.
My uncle Hy was dead already at my age and had accomplished so much more.
Dad is wandering around looking for the check he was going to give me for my birthday. He can't find it. He's worried that he may have dropped it in the elevator because he was signing it as he came up. So out he goes to search the elevator. His eighty-year old companion is searching her pocketbook, either for her glasses or for the envelope.
And then it happens - the final coup de grace. Dad's companion asks me how I like the poster she brought back from somewhere as a gift. (I had passed it on to my sister for her house). Somehow, I know, by the way she was asking - that I had passed it on to Jean.
Now Jean is too cagey to have said anything - but her teenage daughter - she might have said something about the poster.
I excuse myself to go back to the other room where the hijacking game has been confiscated and ask my niece if she mentioned anything about the poster to anyone. She tells me that she might have mentioned the Van Gogh Bedroom print to someone dad's companion and sticks the iPod pods back in her ears.
Good God. Now what.
"I heard that you gave it to your sister," my father's companion is saying behind me. First time I've seen her move all night - and she's quick and silent as a cat and wearing magnifying glasses on her eyes.
"Well - I - "
Here eyes are huge.
"We brought it all the way back from Milan, you know. Especially for you. Your father picked it out. "
Meanwhile, dad comes back - unable to find the missing check. But he has a hat with him. Someone left their hat in the elevator.
The women are scrubbing the rug.
The kids are crying in the other room about the confiscation of the game.
I'm searching for an explanation for why I gave the poster away. Finally: "I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but I had that poster already. That's why I gave it to my sister."
"Really," she says suspiciously. She'd love to see the poster next time she visits me, so I'm going to have to get to the Museum of Art and get another one. I hope it says printed in Milan on the back.
As people are leaving - I'm invited to play anagrams. There are two anagram sets in the house. One is the actual real anagrams game (impossible to find these days); and the other one is just a bottle filled with scrabble tiles. The realanagrams set belongs to my sister's mother-in-law. I haven't mentioned her yet but she is not an old lady to trifle with (former high-school principal).
I say, "Let's play with the real set." My sister says, "what real set?"
I say, "You know - the actual set - we played with it the other day."
Her mother-in-law says: "You have a real anagrams set? Where did you find it? Took me years to find one. Finally found an old one on eBay."
Well, apparently my sister - who is giving me signs to shut up - stole it from her mother-in-laws house.
"Don't you remember, you loaned it to us a while back," she stammers.
Mother-in-law doesn't remember and starts in on a story about how difficult it was to find that set. They don't make them anymore.
Sister continues with her fable: "Remember, we were playing at your house and you said I could borrow it for a while?"
The dog begins to cough. He's been licking whatever they've been pouring on the coffee stain and it's making him puke. He almost pukes on the anonymous hat, but misses.
So that pretty much wraps things up as we take care of the dog; and a big fat guy in a florid bathrobe comes to the front door - somehow he's heard that my father found his hat. I don't know how he found out - my father must have involved the doorman at some point - but he takes his hat sticks it on his head and as he wanders away I notice some specks of dog-puke on it.
11/24/2005
Dead Books
It's pretty obvious that the next step in the never-ending (seemingly) quest to monetize the site (I picked up that word in a late-night info-mercial for accordian players) is to redo my Amazon book listings which are so out-of-date that half the stuff on my photo book page is out-of-print. I think the last time I updated that page (which I won't even tell you where it is) was in 1945. I guess in all the excitement about the end of the war - I just plumb forgot.
Anyway - it goes along the same lines as vendors that I use, i.e. I'll only list books that sit at my side constantly - and are covered with spilt soda and cigarette ash. Well, don't think I have the latest edition of any of these Photoshop books - they come out with a new one every time the product changes.
But I could do a bird's eye shot of my desk and surrounding area and you'll see 'em scattered around. The cat likes to sleep with his head on the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers book and gets p.o.'d when I need to look something up in it.
Anyway - I'm re-doing the Photography Book pages with comments about what I found useful. Page One has to be Ansel's page. Then I'm going on to my favorite photographer's autobiographies.
Anyway - it goes along the same lines as vendors that I use, i.e. I'll only list books that sit at my side constantly - and are covered with spilt soda and cigarette ash. Well, don't think I have the latest edition of any of these Photoshop books - they come out with a new one every time the product changes.
But I could do a bird's eye shot of my desk and surrounding area and you'll see 'em scattered around. The cat likes to sleep with his head on the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers book and gets p.o.'d when I need to look something up in it.
Anyway - I'm re-doing the Photography Book pages with comments about what I found useful. Page One has to be Ansel's page. Then I'm going on to my favorite photographer's autobiographies.
11/23/2005
Happy Thanksgiving
To Sister's House We Go
My sister usually does Thanksgiving at her house. It all began when she sent an e-mail to family that read:
"We're thinking Thanksgiving meal at 3pm. As well, do we have your blessing to shift the menu from the traditional turkey and trimmings to Lasagna and vegetable side dishes (to avoid the bird flu/and also spice things up a bit)"
I wrote back that the bird flu thing was silly but that I would just as soon have lasagna as turkey so whatever she wanted to do was fine with me.
Other replies:
Aunt Janet: I think that turkey is the traditional thanksgiving food. Of course, dear, you can do what you want to but I think your father enjoys carving the turkey.
Dad: Could you make the lasagna with turkey? I'm not supposed to eat red meat.
My other sister: Bird flu? We don't have no bird flu here. We don't need no stinkin' bird flu.
Uncle Frank: Sorry, but I don't like Italian food. I want turkey.
Frank's Son Larry: I think it's a good safety precaution re: the whole bird flu thing. And I don't think you should use meat in the lasagna since I'm a veggie. Could you make a veggie lasagna with tofu?
Frank's Daughter, Suze: It sounds like the carving of the turkey is the big thing. Maybe you should give your dad the electric carving knife and let him have at it.
I'm bringing a flak jacket for the moment that dad pulls out the electric carving knife to cut the lasagna.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.
p.s. The photo above was taken in the Bronx Botanical Gardens when I was doing my Bronx thing.
p.p.s. Trying to think of other subjects for articles. Do you think that an explanation of how to read an MTF lens chart - or are all those charts faked anyway?. Do you think it would drive a reader nuts to read such a thing like flying too close to the sun?
SELLING PHOTOGRAPHS ON THE WEB
There may be some useful information in here:
SELLING PHOTOGRAPHS ON THE WEB. I've tried to put down what I've learned so far.
SELLING PHOTOGRAPHS ON THE WEB. I've tried to put down what I've learned so far.
11/22/2005
Busy
I don't even remember if I wrote anything today. It's been very busy. I started this morning with something like 25 prints to do (mostly 5 x 7's but a few larger prints as well). Several e-mails asking where my Christmas cards were like I had last year. Nice experiment but way too much work. I might make a couple of holiday cards for family - but that's it.
A couple of things struck me as ironic today:
- I like and have always liked smaller prints. But it didn't dawn on me to sell them until I was 6 years into this. Well, okay - it dawned on me - but it was impractical in the darkroom. Way too labor intensive to sell prints in various sizes. I had enough trouble just getting them done in one size. So the smaller prints are the result of: experimentation, worry about finance, and having a printer that can reliably do the job.
- Also with all my research into Print on Demand (POD) through Lulu.com I realized that that was what I have been doing since chucking the chemical darkroom. The inks in the printer are even CMYK-ish.
Do you know that the lead weight for the column of the old enlarger is still sitting downstairs as a door stop? It's this big lead weight with a hook on it and I pass by it every day. Sometimes I might say something to it as I pass through the vestibule: How ya doin' down there big weight. Glad some part of you is still useful.
A couple of things struck me as ironic today:
- I like and have always liked smaller prints. But it didn't dawn on me to sell them until I was 6 years into this. Well, okay - it dawned on me - but it was impractical in the darkroom. Way too labor intensive to sell prints in various sizes. I had enough trouble just getting them done in one size. So the smaller prints are the result of: experimentation, worry about finance, and having a printer that can reliably do the job.
- Also with all my research into Print on Demand (POD) through Lulu.com I realized that that was what I have been doing since chucking the chemical darkroom. The inks in the printer are even CMYK-ish.
Do you know that the lead weight for the column of the old enlarger is still sitting downstairs as a door stop? It's this big lead weight with a hook on it and I pass by it every day. Sometimes I might say something to it as I pass through the vestibule: How ya doin' down there big weight. Glad some part of you is still useful.
11/21/2005
RNC Protest, Union Square
I'm beginning to make a gallery of protest coverage. This was at the RNC, entrance to Union Square. It really was getting a little scary at this point because the police were determined to clear this entrance to the park so that they could make arrests and the demonstrators were on the steps shouting back at them. As I remember it, the police backed off and came in through another entrance and made a few arrests.
Arrest #1
More Packaging Tedium
I know there are at least five photographers out there who might find this post interesting, so this is for you:
The one thing that impressed me about Lulu.com was what the calendars and books were shipped in. Sort of this flat, folding mailer where various corners folded in such a way that the thing was absolutely sturdy, and yet lightweight. Perfect for the 8 x 10 mats. And so, I recycled 'em for a couple of 8 x 10 sized orders.
And then I went hunting them down. What were these mysterious flat cartons? I think I found them (in white - even more classy) - at BrassPack.com under Variable Depth Mailers. I believe these are the same thing, but I'm not sure. The Lulu.com mailers seem to have two extra pieces of cardboard.
I ordered fifty of them. So there you go - I might have gotten something useful from Ms. Lulu.com.
The one thing that impressed me about Lulu.com was what the calendars and books were shipped in. Sort of this flat, folding mailer where various corners folded in such a way that the thing was absolutely sturdy, and yet lightweight. Perfect for the 8 x 10 mats. And so, I recycled 'em for a couple of 8 x 10 sized orders.
And then I went hunting them down. What were these mysterious flat cartons? I think I found them (in white - even more classy) - at BrassPack.com under Variable Depth Mailers. I believe these are the same thing, but I'm not sure. The Lulu.com mailers seem to have two extra pieces of cardboard.
I ordered fifty of them. So there you go - I might have gotten something useful from Ms. Lulu.com.
Creating Galleries with iView Media Pro
I finished the last page of this technical article on how to create a Paypal Shopping Cart through iView Media Pro. I'm thinking that the last page is going to be confusing. I don't know. Maybe it is.
Here's the link if you're interested in this sort of thing:
iView Media Pro Web Galleries and Paypal
If you have any ideas about how it can be made clearer (esp. the last page) let me know.
Here's the link if you're interested in this sort of thing:
iView Media Pro Web Galleries and Paypal
If you have any ideas about how it can be made clearer (esp. the last page) let me know.
11/20/2005
Personal Surveillance
If you have nothing to hide, and would like to volunteer to help your country - this is the latest in advanced personal security. It should be noted that the current beta version is for outdoor use only.
Warning: Do not use this system during lightning storms.
11/19/2005
The Making of One Inkjet Print
I don't know if this sort of thing is useful or not - whether I've left out some critical ingrediant - but for what it's worth, I put together a couple of pages about The Making of One Inkjet Print .
How Ansel did this for (how many did he do 25 - 40?) I don't know. It is time consuming to try and show.
I can tell you this - it took longer to write about than to actually do. If you have any suggestions, would be glad to hear 'em. (P.S. I didn't spell-check it because I think it's time for a nap now.)
How Ansel did this for (how many did he do 25 - 40?) I don't know. It is time consuming to try and show.
I can tell you this - it took longer to write about than to actually do. If you have any suggestions, would be glad to hear 'em. (P.S. I didn't spell-check it because I think it's time for a nap now.)
11/18/2005
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