Aw, Sh*t! - Get the shot

Should you strive to get it right in the camera? Yes, but moments matter more.

This picture is from my brother-in-law's wedding, about a year ago now. It was surely an example of Murphy's Law, because plenty want wrong.

I had been capturing fun on the dance floor when they announced the cake cutting. That's when my light stand went crashing to the ground, wrecking my off-camera flash.

I still don't know what went wrong, or why it tumbled. Did I mis-judge something?  I didn't really have time to figure it out, or to assess the damage.

When I shot the cake cutting, I did so with no flash to overpower the sunlight, which was coming in from all angles accept the front of my subjects. The only thing that worked as it should have, was my camera, which exposed for the sky. I knew something was wrong the moment I looked at the back of my camera

I restrained my internal profanity, understanding it was up to me to pull the photo out of the darkness it was in during post-processing. It was a stressful and slow process to bring the best thing I could out of what I had.

Is it grainy? Yep. Did I lose the sky in the edit? I sure did. Are the colors right? Nope, but better than they were. The camera thought everything should be GREEN. I disagreed.

This shot is now secretly one of my favorites. Maybe because it was a salvaged shot, maybe because it captures something fun and exciting. Either way, it all comes down to the moment. Get the shot.

Responding as a Creative

There's been a lot of talk about the actions of Richard Prince, who sold screen captures of other people's Instagram photos in the Frieze Art Fair in New York. Most of the screen grabs sold for $90,000 each. If you haven't heard about this, The Washington Post ran an article about it on May 25th.

Yes, this image is mine. And it's registered.

It becomes an important issue because of how the internet handles images. Its easy for one to save images from the web and use them as their own. If you're thinking that this only affects you if you use Instagram, you might be interested to know that Facebook owns Instagram.

When I first read this article, I wanted to rant about the importance of registering your work for copyright (that rant will happen, just not today). On copyright, I will say, everyone should do it, especially in today's digital climate. It will not always protect you, but not registering your images is a surefire way to damage any case you might have.

What inspired me to finally write this, is the response by the Suicide Girls, a community of "alternative pin-up" photographers and models. They created their own screen captures of their Instagram images, recreated the prints sold by Prince, using the same canvas, same dimensions and added a new comment, referring to their captures as "true art". However, these prints are selling for $90 each and the money goes to The Electronic Frontier Foundation. This is the way to handle an issue like this, because the legal arguments would start to be more about how "transformative" Prince's subtle modifications are, I think it's better not to make this one a legal issue. 

This example also shows a healthy way to respond to questionable actions online. It helps that the "fight fire with fire" vibe appeals to my more stubborn side. If you consider yourself a creative, or artist, or whatever term you identify as, you have at your disposal an immediate coping mechanism and a go-to mode of expression. If someone misuses your art, make more art. it's really a beautiful move. And something I need to act on more in my life. I have a few photographic projects I could probably make using my frustration as fuel. I need to get on that. 

Further reading/sources
The Washington Post
Distractify

Cohesive Vision

Say hello to my daughter. This was a very fun shot to make, though we had to wait for her to be in a good mood. Thankfully, that happens very often. The most interesting element to this image is that it was made using some tactics that I have used to make images of the guitars in my home. This image is going up in my den and it will go between the guitar shots I mentioned before.

In addition to the black background, I used a similar sharpening technique on the amplifier as I did on the bodies of the guitars. This look should tie everything together nicely. When I make an image, I always have an end goal for it and I try to use it in conjunction with something else. For instance, every shot in my den has the heavy sharpening applied. I'm looking forward to ordering the new print and getting it up on my wall. After this, there is only one other image I need to make to complete the set for the back wall of the den.