I’ve been taking photographs steadily these last few months, but also disheartened by the fact that most of them are just typical portraits. I love to explore the human figure (not necessarily nude. I’m not against it, I just think I would rather attract viewers without sex) in especially low lights. The big hindrance is just not having the extra hands to help me light the subjects. I can do it alone, but that takes a few extra minutes…minutes I’m not willing to make the subject wait. I don’t like to be a slow. It’s not how I enjoy working. It’s important to take your time and examine your work, and if I’m supposed to do it sometime…it should be with still photography. But, I just seem to have a habit of thinking of it as an INDY 500 Pit Crew. Get in, do the job, get out! I am a Cinematographer as well and I think the fact that when shooting films, I typically have a tight work schedule. The anxiety of filmmaking seems to transfer to my still photography.

When I took up still photography, it was so I could learn the ins-and-outs of film. There really is no better way to learn to understand your lens. I don’t touch Photoshop. I may adjust the black a little here and there, but I don’t do anything more then that. I believe you should try to make your camera do most of the work.

Outside of my lack of diverse photography, I have two new films out. I’ve been shooting on 16mm and 8mm lately. Just finished a film called Tinkermen, a short about a crusty scientist who watches the nightmares of machines. We have it floating the festival circuit. I hope it goes somewhere. I didn’t direct Tinkermen. I just acted as Director of Photography. Tinkermen is defiantly not my typical style of film. It’s very abstract. Not experimental, (thank god) but it’s not very straight forward. Also I’m still working on Eye Candy. It’s been a difficult film to accomplish. It has a lot of kinks in it. It initially cost too much already on principal photography. It would be too costly for reshoots. So, with that we are trying to compromise the film so that it still makes sense. Its been a slow process. Plus I’m not a big fan of Apple Computers and we ended up editing the project on Final Cut Pro. Its all the rage with filmmakers and the like, but it has been like pulling teeth re-learning where everything is at and how to do the simple tasks I could do on other PC programs. I’m not saying that one tool is better then the other. I’ve always said its how you edit your film, not what you edit your film on. Although, I’ve found Apples to be pretty much like alien technology. HA! Well, with all this frustration can come a sense of accomplishment. So I won’t let this stupid computer deter me!

With all this it sounds like a pretty grumpy post…but, I’m in a pretty good mood.