Tell Me A Story • #5 - When to say, "Done!"

Runner • Lancaster Race Against Racism • 4/16

There're novels behind every face. 

Every artist understands the challenge of when to say, "There. That's finished! Now I can turn to another work." While we all know that a work is never finished. Nor is any one interpretation or conceptualization adequate. But the composer enters a last note, the poet a last word, and the novelist a last feeling. So do I. You? Do you know that anything ends sufficiently to write "Finis"! after a work? 

Anywayzzzzz.... You'll recall I wrestled with this man's image in late May. Then I had run into tech problems, which never did resolve themselves. But his story continued to haunt me... And then it occurred to me to think that he was best "penciled in". Uh-huh, that his story was difficult to capture and is best rendered in zillions of strokes. 

In this "Tell Me A Story" series, I'm interested in your thoughts/feelings re. this man's thoughts/feelings. Faces trigger us to wonder, then tell ourselves their story, right? So? If you found this as the illustration above a serious magazine's short story... What would it be about? Hmmmmm? 

Tell Me A Story • 4: Madonna

Race Against Racism runner(a)  • 4/30/17 • Lancaster, PA

Mysterious eyes. 

When color's surgically cut away, is there more or less identity... More or less story... More or fewer clues? I wonder: Do blind people understand others at a deeper or more shallow level? Is radio in anyway superior to video in communicating the depth of personalities? 

There's a resistance to digital post-processing, dismissing it as inauthentic. The word manipulation is the common verb that describes digital post work. I prefer augmentation, even revelation since manipulation sounds what? Dreary? Calculating? Callow? Shallow? Never mind that painters, for example, do nothing but manipulate... augment... reveal... the realities they imagine. Ditto poets, novelists, and composers. Can you imagine someone charging a symphonic composer of manipulation? Playwrights routinely manipulate the emotions of audiences, don't they? Is that a bad thing?

Yet somehow describing digital post processing as manipulation is dismissive, even insulting. But that's not my real point here. Those most likely to critique the idea of augmentative post processing argue that purity lies only in the image which comes out of the camera, right? Now I've written about pre-processing (lens choice, lighting constructs, filters, makeup, wardrobe, scenery, POV... and like that), and even what I guess you could call immediate processing involving the manipulation of panning, framing, and DOF. All of that manipulates what comes out of the camera. And that doesn't even begin to touch the things camera engineers have built in to manipulate sharpness, color and dynamic range, Etc. 

But none the less, purists who reject digital post processing as in-authentic have no memory of the wet darkroom where printmakers first selected among radically different developer chemistries/timings/heat, then chose between diffuser versus condenser enlargers, contrast/texture/pigment of papers/substrate, developer dynamics, hold-backs, burnings-in, solarizations, and on and on to create a one-of-a-kind final print, even in monotone. The opportunities to create one-off darkroom prints in color increased exponentially. The fact is that there never was a final print that was not processed heavily by at least the photographic artists and perhaps different darkroom technicians, and retouchers (both on the negatives and prints). 

Is all of this sounding defensive? Okay.... look at this:

Race Against Racism runner (b)  • 4/30/17 • Lancaster, PA

As I roamed the park next to my home here in Lancaster on the morning of this year's Race Against Racism run - I consciously looked for a series of faces to speak to you dramatically in monochrome.I could have set my Canon 7D to bleach away all color and make captures only in monochrome. Why do that? Why not allow all of the information possible to reveal narrative arcs? 

So first I processed this image above as a square (you'll note that this and the next images will all be square-cropped, since my Hasselblad days, that format's been a powerful challenge to me). And I processed it for the most haunting dynamic range and sculpting, adding a touch of glow to offset the overcast lighting of that morning. Then finally worked in monochrome to release the image at the start of this essay. 

But the geek-stuff all involves focusing powerful tools to carve out a narrative arc that allows the lady to tell her story. So, what is it? Once again, Tell Me A Story - THE story which you read from faces. I'm convinced that every street portrait needs to trigger at least  a short story - and perhaps a poem, novel, or epic. Hell, maybe even a sonata, if you won't accuse the composer of manipulating the notes - or the mysterious eyes :-)

Tell Me A Story • 3: Cryptic Moments

Philosophy Unbounded?

Shard-sharp

Lens glass

Slices life

Into

Cryptic

Moments.

Ambiguity: To the artist it's a window, to the craftsman it's a wall.

I try to make my pictures about something, y'know? I'm searching for images that resonate some thought and feeling. Anne Leibowitz once wrote, "A photographer hangs frames around pieces of life. In every direction I look, I'm framing." Works of art are about something, but where to find the answer to their questions? In the artist's mind? I don't think so. In fact when the creator supplies an unambiguous answer to that question we modify his title... We call him a commercial artist, right?  Which is a lot more craft than art.

And what about interior designers? Are they artists? Is decorative art - art? When we buy an image to coordinate with the couch, have we purchased art? Or does the art exist independent of, the couch? Should  a professional artist care? Uh-oh, when someone adds, professional to their title, that means they expect to augment their income from their work, right? So they are driven by some market's interest.

Which brings us back to the creator supplying an answer to a market's question. Of course there are situations where a market finds an artist's work which was created without an expectation to specifically answering someone else's question. But once again I've got this niggling question:
What is the difference between creativity and adaptability? Does the weight of survival inexorably shape the meaning of a professional artist's work toward answering some market's questions?

Art, they say in art school:Art lacks constraints - it is philosophy unbounded. And yet the product of art schools are artists who want to survive through their work. Which is one hell of a constraint, huh? No wonder we call 'em starving artists.

Oh, the picture up there is another in this year's Race Against Racism 2016. I'm enchanted by the beauty of this woman. Her face is a portraitist's dream and this slice of life is about... about... Well okay... What's the answer?

Geek Stuff: Another hand-held capture through my Canon 7D's EFS 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. It's razor sharp... perfect for slicing life into cryptic moments, huh? 

Tell Me A Story • 2: Suspending Disbelief

Runner in the April 30th, 2016 YWCA Race Against Racism

We live across the street from Lancaster's YWCA. Since the turn of the century the Y's held a Saturday April morning Race Against Racism attracting thousands of runners. Nice of them to flood the street out front and the park we adjoin with a sea of puzzling faces. And As I wrote in the last post... "A face ignites its own explanation: Which is a dramatic narrative." So wandering through the crowds with my long lens (Canon 70-300mm) lets me pluck out wondering, y'know? 

Take this young guy. Someone said he's a 16 or 17 year old high school student. Hmmmm.... He looks like a movie star, no? It's hard to pry out tales from young faces, particularly when they are way attractive. Still, although it looks like the young man's won a lot in the gene lottery, I'm guessing that those shoulders and arms took a bunch of discipline to pump, right? And his caramel skin and curly hair seem latin? About thirty feet from this guy sat a collection of food vendors where he could have grabbed candy, fries, pretzels, and pastries. Instead he chose that apple. 

Uh-huh, there's discipline there and add the 5 kilometer run he just finished the guy's got an athlete's instinct. Do we instinctively trust handsome or pretty faces? It's like attractive people have a unique muscle that works emotionally. But it also defends them like an armor... protects them from probing. Maybe that's why lead actors are so good-looking: so that we'll believe whatever character they'll pull on for a performance? 

Does beauty make it easier for an audience to suspend disbelief? Hmmmm.... 

Grabbed the shot hand-held with my Canon 7D at 160mm (perfect length for portraits, huh?), 1/1000 sec and a low noise 400 ISO. The morning was slightly overcast and still early enough for sweet light. 

Tell Me A Story

A face ignites its own explanation: Which is a dramatic narrative.   

Street portraits capture what? Maybe the first words, of the first sentence, of a story. They’re about portents. They’re like keyholes. We plug our imaginations into them to create a dramatic narrative. We expect a face to have more meaning than what it communicates. Its first jolt to our imaginations is processed by our emotions to hunt for collateral messages. We’re programmed to find order that creates meaning. A face ignites its own explanation: A dramatic narrative.

A face sliced from an infinite number of instants at 1/500^th of second is like an onion-skin-thin slice of tree. The texture and rings give up some knowledge of age and maybe species, perhaps gender… It gives back something about the tree’s experiences with physics, biology, and even how it leaned against nature’s propositions. But we’d need to see a lot more of the tree to release secrets of its coping mechanisms. It tells of the way life’s winds and weather whirled about its location. What stunting or enabling happened as it aged.

Street portraits trigger speculation. The best of them are purées of nuanced ingredients which fuel then steer the engine of wonder. And art without wonder is merely craft.

Who is this man? What a tantalizing hint he gives us both with his fleeting expression and with the way he’s allowed years to chisel his face. See how he’s chosen to permit and resist life’s propositions?

My take? Here’s a strong, alert guy… A skeptic but not a cynic… He knows there’s enough evidence to make decisions. Learned to cautiously seek it. And learned to learn from it. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. 

About a century ago, the now forgotten journalist and humorist Ambrose Bierce wrote, “Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum… I think I think, therefore I think I am.” And I think that the man I pictured up there, would think carefully about that joke… and smile.

On the last Saturday of April 2016  Lancaster’s YWCA held its annual Race Against Racism right outside of my home. For the past 16 years I’ve hunted among the many hundreds of runners and spectators who participate for these storybook faces. This year I gathered them through my Canon 7D’s EFS 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, then tried to decipher their stories. 

Bandolero

Don't hold
His look.
Blink.

We were both walking in Musser Park this morning at half past nine. My Lancaster city home's just off of the park. He was about 7m (22') away on this VERY bright morning. Which brings me to a thought. Unless we get up near dawn, or wait until just before sunset contrast is not our friend. Oh sure, we can wait for clouds or hope for overcast… But most of the time, particularly when traveling, we've got to take the light we get.

Before digital, I'd coped for decades with narrow range film which meant exposing for highlights or shadows knowing that one or the other would be detail-empty. Oh sure there were lots of soft films, and I found myself developing them for even more contrast. Add in polycontrast papers… which were a big compromise with respect to quality, and then lots of burning and dodging and.. well… I still lived with compromise. Maybe that's a metaphor for life?

But look at this image. I was able to build it from a wide-range raw capture that gave me almost two stops of latitude on either side… Or five stops of detail to dig into. The blown highlights and dark shadows were my choice, not the film's.

Last evening I visited our camera shop, Coe Camera, here in the city. They've got a great used equipment department with cabinets filled with classic 35s like  Nikons, Leicas, and Canons. I hefted a terrific 4X5 Linhoff in a carry carry-all filled with a ton of stuff. Everything they take in looks as new and shiny as I remember it wooing me in the shops I used to visit to dream.

 Funny, I fondled a bunch of the things, hefted the (non-auto focusing) lenses and felt not a drop of nostalgic pang. I can remember lugging a Speed Graphic with its film packs and flash to cover sports and even now, the memories aren't good. 400 ASA Tri-X, even pushed to 1,200 still demanded a big flash gun for basketball and night football and hockey and accident coverage and.. and…

My shoulders hurt just thinking about it. And all of the hours that followed in the wet darkroom. Still, the Coe folks say there's a good market for the old cameras among kids who are nostalgic for film. It's easy to be nostalgic for something you've never experienced I imagine.

Out in front of the steps leading into our historic home there's a boot scraper. You know why that was built right into our brick sidewalk maybe a hundred and fifty years back? I'm not nostalgic for the hot summer days when on returning home… you needed that thing.

Nope, not nostalgic for film and its cameras and I'm totally happy about how we can crack into what a searing sun will do to contrast today. Hmmmm…. wonder where this is all going, eh?

Lancaster, PA… USA

Here's The Geek Stuff: Canon 7D w/Canon EF70-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM, 1/1000-f/11, Bokeh as captured through my lens cranked out to 300mm.  ISO800: Square cropped & processed in PS4 where I reset the dynamic range of a 9:30 AM capture under direct spring sun.

Converted color palette and grain structure with *Alien Skin Exposure 6* to Polaroid Time-Zero Film for its edgy hard contrast punch - inserted Holga light leak to "explain" main light.

Epiphany or Serendipity

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As you swirl your

Stew of meaning

With a spoon of craft...

Do you discover

That epiphany is

Serendipity?

Here's a runner preparing for Lancaster's Race Against Racism on a cool April morning. The thing about the Race Against Racism is that.... Nobody loses... Y'know what I'm saying'?

Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, PS4: Custom texture screen, Alien Skin: Exposure 4/Color Films - vintage/Autochrome

And this, even though it's before the next is Dump Part #2!

Now, are these related in any useful way? Is there a pattern? You tell me, okay? As usual, click on any image for a larger view.

1. Here's Samantha Grace. Did I post her before.... Too many images too few dendrites and neurons...

2. Another in the Aura series but I've forgotten which. Misty huh?

3. See... see how the floor mystically floats. I like this still life. You?

4. And here again is Katelyn Rose who is Samantha Grace's big sister. Nice moment?

5. And continuing with my portraits of Race Against Racism from this Spring... Handsome guy, right?

Okay... Here Comes a Dump Part 1, K?

Okay.... I'm way behind in my posting. Here're four that I've recently done that seem just about unrelated in any way... sigh...  As usual, click on any image for a larger view.

1. Here's a runner in this April's Race Against Racism.

2. Here's you-know-who...

3. Here's one of the grand nieces... Katelyn Rose flirting with her Daddy...

4. Here's a bearable moment... At the office...

There will be more... Gotta' catch up. Wheeeeee!

Triptych Against Racism

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I think this was the twelfth race against racism last Saturday. 3,300 runners entered. They close N. Lime Street in front of my home for registration and the starting line's the next block down. Someone said it's a 5K race. Since I never ran one of those things, and certainly don't know my Ks from my Ms... well.

The racers were determined. To run, and to make it clear that they were against racism. Odd thing though. It took a lot of looking among the 3,300 people to find runners whose race wasn't caucasian. And most seemed to have come in from the suburbs for the event. I didn't see any of my African-American or Hispanic city neighbors from around these blocks among the crowd. The male winners though were from Ghana.

There are four or five African guys every year who are running-gypsies, moving from prize-money-run to prize-money-run all around this country. Hard life, huh? No one asks them for their green cards. They just outdistance everyone else, collect the prize money and leave town... on to the next. Is there an irony there for the Race Against Racism idea? Not sure...

What do you think?

Above?

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Have you noticed that it's above that we look for inspiration? Why not down? After all we find water and food below. Down is what supports our every step. It's where we play with kids, sit, lie, and sex. What do we do up there anyway? And yet somehow it's assumed that the good stuff that nurtures the spirit is all overhead. What's up with that, huh?

Look down, you're a pessimist... but look up, wide-eyed and smile... Well that's where hope lies, huh? The problem with always looking up is, well, you could so easily step in something stinky.

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Once again a capture from Saturday morning's Race Against Racism. Once again taken through my laser sharp Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens into the Canon 7D. Now, let me ask, suppose I'd called this image, "Epiphany", or "Inspiration", or how about "Communion"? I think it'd have lost a lot of its power to the cliché, don't you? Nope, nope.... the light, color, and expression are story enough, huh?

Street Portrait

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Wandered through the crowd at Saturday's Race Against Racism gathering together in Musser Park, just next to my home. I had the feeling I was hunting in a herd... a flock... a field of opportunity. An American moment... Read in faces. Sweet.

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My new Canon 7D and almost exclusively my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. So? How do they work together? You tell me...

Windows

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How much of us sprays out through our eyes? How much of a story does a look tell? And whose story is it? Hers? Mine? How much fact? Fiction?

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Pretty morning. 3,000+ people gathered outside of my house for the annual Race Against Racism run through the city of Lancaster. I went out to gather feelings. It was colder than I'd thought and my light golf shirt and shorts couldn't ward off the shivers. It's not good to shake a telephoto lens ( Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens). BUT... oddly, the faces that fascinated me left their magic in the blur. In fact, the lens shake may have helped me in post processing to tightly focus upon what it was that magnetized my feelings out there in the field.

Or maybe I just like turning lemons into lemonade? Your call.... Here's the virgin image direct from my Canon 7D's flash card.

Poster #9

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The Race was miles long. She ran it... against racism. I'm guessing she's run that race throughout her life - actually as opposed to this morning when she ran it metaphorically.

Her exhaustion is so wonderfully mixed with a satisfaction... that brings the word 'dignity' to my mind. You know, I believe that all of our hopes may be minor, except to us, but some things matter because we choose to make them matter. And so this lady just ran for miles, and her satisfaction is what it meant to feel, "Everyone won..."

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Once again - here's the virgin image from my flash card. Again the image was captured with my mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens.




As with the others in this series I drew this image into a square template by replacing the contents of the smart filter in my template (where the text already existed as well.)
I simply moved the original about within the square frame to maximize the composition. In post the problem was to deal with the explosion of confusion. Which first required the AlienSkin Bokeh filter to deal with the depth of field. That easily allowed me to convincingly blur the background. I then created a series of adjustment filters to restructure the dynamic range. Of course this also allowed me to re-arrange the highlights and shadows along with the color range and vignetting. One again, I over balanced the lightig and effects so that I could once again turn to the AlienSkin SnapArt filter.

Once again I opted for the oil painting option to continue the style of this series. I adjusted the stroke length and depth, lighting, contrst, and color balance... particularly in micro areas throughout the plane. Settling on an image I saved the effect on a new higher level. then Masked away with various brushes each set at about 30 opacity so the effect cold be gently introduced. This allowed me to bring back skin texture and perspiration highlights particularly on her arms and on the right eye region as we look at the image.

I merged the layers, duplicated the result and pulled out the Topaz Adjustment filter. This llowed me to draw considerable texture and vivacity into the image. Of course I applied a mask to this layer as well... at full intensity, so I could selectively brush in dramatic elements at full, well... Topaz, so to speak.

Finally I used an adjustment layer to reduce and balance the saturation throughout the image and then after flattening those layers I duplicated this layer, ran it through the smart filter, fully masked it, then brushed in sharpness and texture in key areas, particularly around the eyes and hair.

Simple? Um, well no. But if you're looking for some filter which will create result like this at the click of a button... well Buddy, luck ain't with you :-)

The Race Is Over #6 & #7

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I sense by the traffic to this site that this Race Against Racism series may have imposed itself beyond your tolerance. Okay, so let me end it with a fireworks display.. K? Out of the six images that I haven't yet posted these two were always intended to be the final act. The blazing rockets. I love each of them. But then, I'm a sentimental mush-ball when it comes to image making. I just can't seem to reach in and pull out the dark stuff. Maybe there isn't any darkstuff? Hmmmm... gotta think on that since darkstuff seems to be what critics want artists to do, right?

Okay, I will think on how to make gritty statements about the human condition's inevitable overheating of the earth, inhumanity toward one another, tendencies toward senseless savageries, and of course its trigger for wars and ancient obsessions for revenge. Sigh...



But before I go off to do dat... Howzabout we ponder these last two images- the end of this posted series - together. Yeah, they're sweet enough to make your teeth fall out... so clamp them tightly together... hopefully in a smile? K?

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Tech stuff? As before the photos came first through my mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens onto the 40D's processor. I used Topaz, and the AlienSkin Bokeh + SnapArt filters to tease out the thematic style that held this series together. If you'll click on the word IMAGEFICTION in the masthead way up above, you should be able to scroll down and look at others in this series along with the virgin photographs that I pulled directly from my FlashCards. Questions about technical details for this series? Leave them in the comments, or like most people, drop me an email to the address you'll find in the column there on the upper right. Hope you've enjoyed this series as much as I have making it.

Poster #5

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Okay, sorry about that diversion... so now onto the latest race post....
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Kindness moves in the opposite direction of everything else. It is paid, granted, bestowed, lavished in return for what comes the other way. Think of it as an outer circle that keeps everything inside from tumbling out. It's not a gender thing, a racial thing, a liberal or conservative thing. No religious denomination holds a monopoly upon the stuff, nor any single idea. And why do we do it? That is one of those kinds of questions that is larger than the sum of its possible answers.

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And here ladies and gentlemen is the virgin photo pulled directly from my flash card. This guy glowed from the exhaustion and satisfaction of his run. Once again, this went through my mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens and then Topaz, Bokeh, and SnapArt tools. Each were carefully stroked in through masks after I'd worked upon the original image.

Poster #4

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Have you noticed that images come to us as sequels, even though we've never seen the original! This fella was Ethiopian, and the race's runner up. He came a long way to run a little farther that morning.

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here's the virgin image from my FlashCard. Once again the picture came through my big ole Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. But I teased the image up through both Bokeh and SnapArt from my AlienSkin arsenal. This series has been terrific fun for me. Is it good for you :-)

Poster #3

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Every culture adds to a city's mosaic - and each lives among the markings of past cultures. Cool thing is that environment evolves... you know: the streets, signs, walks, buildings, institutions... Hard things. But they change so much more slowly than the culture. Well except after catastrophes like war or nature. But I digress...

See the culture of the moment is aswirl with new ideas, feelings, colors, and sounds. Soft stuff. And those curl and wipe up against the hard things. Which is what makes cities so damned much fun where the soft mash up against the hard.

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And here's the virgin image pulled from the FlashCard (which you can click on).
Once again I'm playing with a bunch of neat stuff. First the mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens was perfect for wandering around Musser Park during the race. Then I brought the twin AlienSkin filters to bear Bokeh to cream up the ... well... bokeh, and then SnapArt for the painterly pop-ability. Once again they help give the Race Series a common style. Like it?

Poster #2

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Odd thing about red haired guys, there aren't many of us... especially in the movies and TV. And when we do show up, we're usually the sidekicks, or the other guy. In the movies, red headed guys rarely get the girl - as opposed to real life where we ALWAYS do. But I digress. See, here're two redheaded guys crossing the finish line simultaneously. Cool.

Against Racism... Poster #1

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Thousands come each year. They fill Musser Park and the streets around it. They run for prizes, they run for fun, they run to be together... Together... Yeah, it's the annual Race Against Racism, and it's about 'together'. Nobody loses... You know what I'm saying?

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First I turned to AlienSkin's Bokeh filter then, to create a powerful poster, once again AlienSkin's SnapArt, this time the impasto filter pulled out exactly what I needed to say. The morning broke cloudy so that light was wonderfully flat and my mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens was the work horse that day. But then again, it's a wildlife lens, right? Plus the image stabilization holds it steady as a surgeon's fingers.

For those of you who enjoy it.... Here's the virgin image direct from my flashcard (again, just click upon it for a larger image). When there are models like this, I guess I could have used a cellphone camera, huh?