THE SELTZER KING

Based on the long lost novel of Victor Hugo - Le Roi de Seltzer - this is the saga of Henri Mer and his single-minded quest to bottle seltzer in 19th century France. The movie was directed by the Canadian-born director Victor Hugo (no relation to the novelist) . This indy production features several exciting scenes where Henri is wounded by exploding bottles while he follows his dream of portable sparkling water. It stars Thomas Hanks (no relation to Tom Hanks) as the shlepper, and Madonna as his long suffering mother - Marie. Limited release.

Restaurant, Chinatown

Opus Innova Albums

I ordered two Opus Innova Albums, (smooth cotton high white) from ShadesOfPaper.com

There are profiles for the paper. $50 a book for 20 double-sided hinged sheets with a printable letter size (A4) area. I found profiles for Photo Black ink as well and templates showing margins etc.

So, in theory, I should be able to make an impressive fine art book for $50 plus ink and labor. What I'd do with such a book - I don't know yet - but I've wanted to do this for a long time and doing a duotone hardcover is just way too expensive. Believe me - I've checked.

Self-made books

My first portfolio ever is finished. I did it all in InDesign, which for something simple like a portfolio is pretty quick to use.

But after the papers were slipped into their holders in the album - I got more ambitious. I have these books in me - and it is so expensive to produce a short offset run of good quality - it just seemed crazy that you couldn't produce a good quality inkjet-based book.

I don't mean where you ftp your photos and someone else does the printing - probably in 4-color, but a process where I can assemble my own hardcover inkjet book with say 40 photographs.

And these do exist - with different methods for the binding. In general, they seem too expensive to do in any sort of real quantity - but for gifts or maybe for a few special people - it can be done.

Light Impressions, for example - has a hard cover, post-bound system where you print on hinged paper (luster or matte) which can then be assembled with a nice cover, and if you want translucent interleaving tissue. To do an 8 x 8 inch book with 25 photographs is going to cost something like $50 for the sheets + $25 for the cover. So you're in the $75 range, not to mention the paper you'll botch for one reason or another.

Inexpensive hinged paper is the easiest way to approach this. But I've yet to find it. I'm tempted to hole punch and crimp my own.

Then I came across an adhesive based system where you use your own letter-sized paper, by DigifilmLabs and so I ordered one. I ordered one where I'd use my own paper and now the cost is down to $25 without counting the cost of paper.

Lyson even has something called Stone Hinge books - but I couldn't find much about them - such as pricing on their site.

So there you have it. I really am in publishing mode right now and one way or another I'm determined to get a high quality book done - even if I have to do the whole thing myself.

Oh - and this page (InkJetArt.com) is the best resource I've found so far on the various ways of going about this stuff.

* * *

Innova makes the Opus Presentation Album and I think this is just what I'm looking for.

duotone posters

Can anyone recommend a print house for doing high quality duotone posters?

Madonna, Escalator

From escalator, Metropolitan Museum

Just as a note, I've begun to use PhotoKit from Pixel Genius for all my color conversion (this was a digital shot). It uses non-destructive layers; has a tremendous amount of burn / dodge features; i.e. with PowerRetouche changes are made to the background layer; yes you can create a copy of the background and work on that but you can't see what Retouche is doing then. Photokit is a set that in some ways overlaps the functionality of Retouche - but it never touches the background layer so you can always do things like add layer masks or change opacity of the Photokit layer.

The image was shot raw - the red / orange was pumped up, and then:

Selling 2002, 6 train

Passenger, 6 Train

It's odd, but street photography seems to be hardest thing to sell. I say odd because it is also the most difficult to do well. If you are lucky enough to capture an evocative moment - there's a good chance that the lighting, or the framing won't be perfect. But more importantly - odds are that it will be of a specific human being. And a stranger at that. Not even a celeb. Why should the celeb be so much more interesting than the stranger? Answer - because we have already invested them with our own hopes and dreams. They are - essentially - already an abstract entity. Ready-made icons.

How can we read all of this into a complete stranger? Someone who is flesh and blood and is taking the subway - just like we are. How can that stranger become iconic and allow us to clothe them with our own feelings? They are just so specific.

One thing I've noticed is that the stranger, or strangers in street photography become more iconic if they are abstracted in some way.

By this I mean other elements such as fog, mist, halos, clusters of meaning make the image palatable. Is this an heretical street photography theory?

Blurred or abstract street shots become enigmatic - and at the same time closer to traditional ideas of beauty.

To counter-act specificness - the street photographer wants to juxtapose several ideas in the same frame. Mystery - which is to say, non-specifness increases as the forms counteract each other and bring an ambiguity to the frame.

With all that being said - I am drifting back to the dream of the street.

Memorial on 5th

Memorial Day Definition: a three-day holiday. A time of sales. Original meaning forgotten. Dwindling connections to the past. 50% off. Arms and legs off. Honey, spray some OFF on my arms, the mosquitos are murder this year. Unofficial start of summer. Hamburgers on the grill. Red poppies on lapels. Broken hearts. Busted lives. Heroes and villians. Telegrams from the War Dept. Loss of loved ones. Zero percent financing on selected vehicles. Zero percent left of my ancestor. My shell-shocked uncle. Those who never returned. Buy one get one free. Nothing is free.

Aquarium

#1



#2

Children's Zoo, Central Park. You can stick your head in these things to get closer to the fish, but they're so dirty you can't see anything. Did a lot of shooting here, wide open, slow shutter and Tri-x -with the Leica M3. So the problems I was having with IR film must be related to the cloth shutter on the M3. Phew.

My father

convinced me to enter a couple of photo contests. I started off with the Spider Black and White Awards ($35 per entry). I submitted Crossing Brooklyn Bridge under the People section. I've always had a dislike for art contests in general. I don't expect to win anything - so I can't see any disappointment in store - but there's something about the idea of these contests that seems obnoxious. I haven't analyzed the feeling but it has something to do with the inability of anyone to quantify art. But I'll play the game and enter a couple to please my father who has been pestering me about this for about ten years.

When I told him that I had been receiving e-mail offers for years about entering contests he said that he almost hung up the phone on me - he was that upset.

My portfolios arrived from Light Impressions so now there's one more project to finish up. I've been too busy to even open the box and see what they look like.

Infrared is going on the back burner for a while. I have a hankering to shoot straight photography again with ye olde tri-x.

Sales have been downright dismal - but I have about five irons in the fire (whatever that means) and maybe one of them will ignite. I'm always curious about where these idioms come from: irons in the fire.

Very busy

with a bunch of photo projects that I can't talk about yet.