A couple of weeks ago I talked to my friend Brian about photographing his band Disappears in the studio while they worked on their new record. After deciding on a day and my window of time I got a train ticket, packed my gear, and last Wednesday I spent about five hours with them in the booth and control room in Sonic Youth’s studio (their drummer is Steve Shelly of Sonic Youth) in Hoboken, NJ. Although many would argue that the recording process is boring, I found it interesting to just be a fly on the wall while they worked. I love watching the process of really talented people create things.
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Book Project: Part 1
I’ve been taking photographs seriously since 1992. With the exception of school and a few group shows, I haven’t shown or really done much with a large percentage of them. Ever since my friend Jamie Tanner successfully got funding through Kickstarter for his graphic novel, I’ve been thinking about doing a book of my work. The idea of self publishing is really appealing to me, because it lets me be hands on, have complete control and, for better or worse, be part of every step. Plus, doing something on your own is very satisfying. Obviously the first step is to decide what my idea for the book is.
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This looks like the place
Yesterday I was out wandering around taking pictures. I hadn’t been down to the Jefferson Memorial in a long time so I made my way over, walking around the West side of the tidal basin. After spending a few minuets watching people and taking a few pictures I headed back around on the East side to complete the loop and head home. While walking I looked back across to the Jefferson Memorial and remembered that Henri Cartier-Bresson had taken a photo somewhere around here. It’s ridiculously nerdy, but I love it when people recreate or re-photograph scenes from well known photos. I wrote about one of my favorites in this post. Blake Andrews wrote about another one here. I did a quick search on my iPhone and found the picture. Walking along the path, I used the photo to try to find the same spot. Below is Cartier-Bresson’s photo and my quick iPhone shot of the scene. I took a couple more with my Leica to get as close to the same composition as possible. I think he shot mostly with a 50mm, but I had my 35mm yesterday so it’s probably not going to be exact. Also, it looks like he shot his in the morning while mine was in the afternoon. I’ll post one of those when I get my film back. Like I said…ridiculously nerdy.
Washington, DC, 1957, Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos
Washington, DC, 2011
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Fuck You Heros
GLEN E. FRIEDMAN’s FUCK YOU ALL show in San Francisco, with special guest Shepard Fairey from Burning Flags Press on Vimeo.
When I first got into photography I was inspired by two things. Punk rock and skateboarding. I quickly realized that the person who was taking some of my favorite photos of both was Glen E. Friedman. He’s one of my early influences and someone who I really respect. I had the chance to meet him once right before I moved to DC at a party after the opening of a show of his work at Govinda Gallery. I probably talked to him for like two min. and I doubt he would remember, but it was awesome. Later after I moved to DC and was working for Adamson Editions, we did a print of the photo that was on the cover of the Minor Threat “Salad Days” record. It was great to be able to work with one of my favorite photographers on one of my favorite photographs. When Ian MacKaye came by to pick up the original we scanned to make the print, it yielded this hilarious photo:
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New old stuff…now with video.
Water#1 from Bryan Whitson on Vimeo.
Not long after moving to DC following grad school, I started working on photos of the surfaces of water. They are not really about the place they were shot (which was mostly the tidal basin near the Jefferson Memorial) so much as simply the beauty of water and the way it looked totally different from one shot to another and one day or week to another. I worked on them on and off for a year or two, but put them on the back burner.
Recently I was thinking about them again and wondered if video might be an interesting way to start them back up again. I’ve been looking a the Nikon D7000 as a potential upgrade for my current DSLR so last weekend I rented one with a 24mm lens to test it out. I was particularly interested in the video capabilities, so I went down to the Tidal Basin and shot some footage of the water. Two birds with one stone. The above scene is from that little experiment. I also got to learn a little about Adobe After Effects, thanks to my co-worker and After Effects Jedi Yan Goldshmid, so I could tweak the color and exposure a bit. Below is a still image I shot at the same time. I still think there is somewhere to go with them as well.
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Mercians at the White House
My co-worked Allen Hopper and I are both the proud owners of Mercian frames. We finally got around to taking some photos of them down by the White House this afternoon. The pictures above are of both of them together and mine by itself. Check out Mercian Cycles in Derby, England. They are super nice and make great bikes.
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Emergency Surgery
Yesterday afternoon I was on my way home when I took the last frame on the roll of film in my M6. When I started to rewind the film I didn’t have the release lever pushed all the way over and as I turned the rewind knob, I pulled the film off of the spindle in the film cartridge. When I got home I grabbed an empty film canister and headed to a closet. I had to get under a blanket to be sure no light was getting through, and then pull the film out to my camera and roll it so I could put it in the canister. Hopefully I managed to keep the film from being exposed and the lab can still process this roll for me. There’s some stuff from our trip to Florida for Christmas that I don’t want to lose.
I haven’t done this for years. It’s a mistake that everyone make once in a while though. Frankly, I’m surprised that I haven’t done it a few other times in this past year that I went back to shooting predominantly film for my own work. As I was reloading a new roll I realized that there is probably a whole generation of photographers who have never and will never have this happen to them. It’s a little sad to me. But then I have very little experience using a view camera, and absolutely no experience exposing glass plates, tintypes or daguerreotypes so photographers from older generations could muse about the sadness in that I suppose.
In any case, happy new year.
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How to photograph your engagement
1.) Set up your camera on a tripod to take this charming photo for your Christmas card:
2.) Once the desired Christmas card photo is taken, ask to take one more of “just the two of us”
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My White Whale
I’ve used several cameras of different shape, size, format and practicality. Currently I shoot with a Leica M6, a Nikon D80 and a Canon G10. Each has it’s own use, strength and weakness in terms of the kind of work I do and my style of taking pictures. In a perfect world I would love to have just one camera that I can use for everything. It would need to be something that feels and operates like a rangefinder, is as fast and high quality as a DSLR, compact and easy to use as a digital point and shoot, with a fast lens. Such a camera is my white whale.
