Close Meditations of a Visual Kind

Lots of odd thoughts flitting through my mind off and on. Some apparently are important enough to remember, because this morning first up and onto the PC world I made notes. All things related to photography, and maybe rather boring here. Maybe not, though and anyway, since this is a blog by a photographer, even nattering on about what are essentially the mechanics of working on projects constitutes a photo blog.

Which, quick summary, to myself is that I'm bogged down somehow.

Working on last weekend's session during the week. The first part of almost any post-production on digital work is to add whatever cataloging information is helpful and make backups, not necessarily in that order. Film is similar, catalog info needs to be recorded. Film is both a somewhat less and somewhat more fragile storage media. Done properly there is not degradation in the image. Done improperly and there will be. Some of the adverse conditions here where I live in North Central Baja Jorja include the heat and humidity. Negatives are stored indoors, and in mostly climate controlled locations.

Last weekend, the work is digital. Right now, there are three copies on different hard drives, two being USB and one the internal on Laptop. Still needed are DVD copies. There are sufficient photos that those copies will require two DVD's to back up all photos. One copy goes into the file cabinet with the contract/consent forms as record of the sessions and the other goes into a longer-term safe storage. These copies do not count the disks that need to go to the participants; those are separate. So one of my plans for this weekend is to get the DVD copies for files done, and commence working up the proofs for the participants. This isn't why I'm feeling 'bogged down', however. That process is mostly on track and time.

It's the concepts in my head which aren't being rendered in recorded media that make me feel bogged down.

Take for instance the small collection of CRT monitors over there in Studio. Some are monitors we've used, and they got old and replaced by newer yet didn't get disposed of. Some are monitors that former tenants of the building now known as Studio 318 left behind when they moved out. Those may or may not be functional, I've not tried them. At least one is recently 'retired' by the purchase of the new large screen LCD monitors Herself and I are using. That bit about LCD monitors, that provides part of the rub here because the newer flat monitors pretty well killed any resale value for old CRT's. I'll need to take them to the electronics recycling area of the County Dump.

On the other hand, a CRT monitor is a classic image representing 'computers and computing'. And I've an idea to play on that classic image, mildly inspired by bits out of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Working through that concept builds up certain needs: What is the viewpoint of the Viewer seeing the final product? Where does the camera need to be in relation to the object to provide that viewpoint? Slowed me down a bit based on the original concept of the monitors situated on the studio blocks which will provide the basic image to build. Need to be looking 'up' at those monitors. Not quite enough height to do that with the blocks. Means I need to rebuild the base for this.

Except not really; yesterday evening while parboiling myself it occurred to me there are sufficient items on hand to achieve desired angle and lighting without further expense. Though that bit about rebuilding the base, that still applies to some extent just not to limit starting on this project.

Thing is, on this, that feeling of being overwhelmed, bogged down was sitting on me until last weekend. And the query that came along leading to last weekend, while based on discussions back around New Years, came in ... oh, not much more than a week before the session. Getting something moving again, simply by actually doing some work, is good. So for that, Thanks Doozer & Nonwo! Now, just keep it moving Madshutterbug.

This whole process of posting my Pic'o'Day in the evening, after getting home and because we've now got better network access, is providing interesting food for self-analysis. I've known for a long time that my personal best creative time is fairly 'early' after rising from sleep. Posting the pictures in the morning, using connections at work, rode on this particular energy wave and proved rather easy a habit to build.

Posting in the evening, after the workday, after the commute home, is working in my 'lower energy' phase. Still awake, still functional, and even able to work on art yet needing to prod myself a wee bit to do so. Much easier, say, to sit down on the settee and enjoy Houdini climbing up next to me for some together time. Which isn't made any easier to defer by Houdini sending me those messages that it is indeed time for just that.

Persevering through that, and either finishing up the processing and upload for a photograph that day or even finding one already in the on-line portfolio and posting that, that feeds into a concept about art that many people miss. Seeing the final product many people assume they couldn't do that, there is so much creativity there, it's not in them. What they don't see is the (potential hundreds to thousands) hours of work, of labour which is embodied in that final product.

This is another lesson from my first art teacher. Dad pointed out that yes, sculpture is a very interesting thing to view. As with Michelangelo (one of his favoured sculptors to study) he would often see the subject which was in the wood he chose to carve, and likewise sometimes be looking for the section of wood which lent itself to a vision he nurtured in his mind. And once finding that proper piece, regardless of the medium, next came a good deal of plain hard work chipping away stone, cutting away wood, simply to get to the roughed shape which then needed more hard work to smooth out and finish.

And often that fine work would need to wait for a time, for the artist to rest and recover from the tough physical labour. Which didn't mean that work was over; that merely meant that other work, not quite so demanding, needed to fill those hours.