I was talking to Lester about what I’m doing with the video stuff, and he told me that this video had gotten something like 14,000 views. Did I know that?

Nope. I had no idea. I had tossed these videos up just quickly and without going back to see if anyone was watching them; and so now that I plan on doing a bunch of videos I took a look at what was going on. The WTC One-Photo video has gotten 18,000 views. (Not funny). There were a lot of easy Ken Burns effects when I was using Elements… but I don’t see them in Premiere Pro 4.0 (on the mac) though they can all be done by hand, i.e. just with the motion placement key frame stuff.

Anyway – if you haven’t seen this one, which is meant to take the most boring thing in the world and make something of it, i.e. can you make a video of paint drying that gets some sort of crowd reaction…? And as I said – when I first picked up the movie software a week ago – I have to be careful with this stuff in terms of eating up time, and driving away my photo audience, as much as I enjoy it.

I wanted to go through the whole process with the Canon 500D and Adobe Premiere 4, and see what would come of it. The idea of this first experiment was just to learn the technical ropes. It was shot with the 30mm Sigma, and the camera was, as far as I could tell, setting the ASA it wanted, which moved all over the place. There is a lag after you take a shot before it goes back to capturing the movie. Whether this is true with the next Canon model, and whether there is any way of closing that gap, I don’t know. Not the worst thing in the world. The “freeze frames” which are a bit longer are actual digital cr2 files that I’ve run through Lightroom.

What else… Although I played with sound a lot, the main thing which is to do some explaining with voice over – that’s the one thing I haven’t tried yet. I need to find what happened to the good microphone I had a few years ago. I think it’s buried in the loft. The camera itself doesn’t have a jack for a mike, though that doesn’t matter unless I were doing a street interview. The actual narration would be done with Premiere.

If you want 30 frames per second, then you shoot at 720p. (720 is the height). At 1080, it drops down to 20 fps. I haven’t tried that.

The other thing to keep in mind is that this was actually something of a real test in that I didn’t have any plans that Sunday. There was an early walk to the bagel store (I shot enough footage just there to do five minutes); and then a walk to the Met; and then I took a cab to the Apple store. Anyway – the next version will have voice-over. After that, I’ll start to figure out if I can actually walk around in movie mode, without killing my chance of taking a good shot. I say that because there are all sorts of things that I don’t understand about controlling settings for the “still shot” when the camera is in movie mode.

I’ve got the basics down and I’m moving ahead now in Premiere.  The one thing I can tell you, is that making movies (editing anyway) is time-consuming.  And it got me to thinking why there were so many photo blog: that’s right, it’s quick to take, edit and post an image, right a few words about it, and voila – there’s your post.

But to make a movie… true it took a few days to get underway, but I’ve been into it for at least a day-and-a-half and I have less than a minute of edited footage, with maybe 20 cuts, dissolves, credits, mixes of soundtracks etc.  In other words, I threw the whole kitchen sink at it in the first minute just to see if I could do whatever I knew I’d need to do later.

Adobe Premiere doesn’t need to convert the files; which is nice, it takes them right as I see them in Lightroom; yes, Lightroom is happy to show you videos; and basically the whole movie is a sort of day in the life of… though it’s not really a full day; but it starts on a Sunday morning with me walking to the bagel place… into the bagel place… and eventually over to the met, and then to the Apple store… shooting all the time with the 500d… and then showing the shot.

You can see the futzing I do with the camera before the shot… the preparation… the wait, if there is a wait… etc. and the film might be interesting to other photographers.

I can tell you this: it will be about four minutes, five tops.  I don’t have time to do anything longer than that from the footage which was haphazard… i.e. really the shots are just the way I would have taken any shots… which means that there may be one good one, not great, but good, and bunch that stink.

But what I’d like to do to finish it off, is a voice over.  That scares me the most.  I don’t like my voice, and I know I’m going to be self-conscious about what I say… and how I say it.

Reminds me of that documentary about Henry Miller.  He was in his 80’s and after having read and been inspired by him, I heard him talk for the first time.  He had this heavy Brooklyn accent.  And he sounded like – I don’t know – Ralph Kramden from the Honeymooners (also from Brooklyn) but not an educated man.  But that was his voice.

I feel the same way about myself.  My writing doesn’t have an accent.  But my voice does.  Oh well.  Maybe I’ll have it done in a day or so.

Another sidepoint.  If I had the money, I’d buy the 550D and have it modified to do infrared.  Can you imagine an entire movie photographed in infrared?  I wonder if that’s ever been done before?  I doubt it.  Although maybe for reconnaissance.

So far, my first reactions to Final Cut Express – although it seems to have the same functionality as Adobe Premiere – I mean they all have to do the same stuff to make a movie; Final Cut has been much harder to get into.

When I made those films a few years back – the interview with my father about the war; the printer linked to the New World Symphony… I don’t think they had anything more complex than what I’m doing now – but the inputs files were smaller, that’s all.

Final Cut has crashed once so far (this morning) when I was working on a title for the first time.  I mean, both systems use key points – little diamonds and green lines to raise and lower various things like opacity, color whatever – but I had more trouble doing the titles in Final Cut.  Even forgetting about the crash, it’s hard to think of any other program that’s crashed on the Mac… oh yeah, an old version of Fireworks regularly crashes, usually as it’s shutting down.

But anyway, to get back to final cut, I understand the hierarchy… project -> sequence -> clip -> actual file and some bins thrown in which are just folders…

It isn’t obvious to me how I would see what clips are in what sequence…

And why you need to render the titles… gads… I don’t like that…  If I put a title clip above a normal clip and then do a fade in / out superimposed it wants to render it.  And really, I am working on a high-end mac.  Anyway… I will continue with it, but I have an older version of Premiere and expect to jump into that at the same time – just for comparisons.  I had no idea this would take so long to just do a very simple shoot, i.e. no more than 5 minutes.  True, lots of stuff fading in and out and over lapping and being repeated in the cutting, but still… some very simple things are driving me crazy…

>>> And so I jumped back into Adobe Premiere and was able to import all the files without any conversions, or rendering or problems.  I just hit a button that looked at the file and told me what properties it had; then I picked a sequence with those properties; and that was it.  Maybe two minutes to do, as opposed to never really getting it right in Final Cut Express.

Then I just dragged the clips into the timeline… quickly created a title and some subtitles… and did more in a half hour in Premiere… okay… time for a cigar… <<<<

One of the most annoying things is when you are looking for information on a problem, and google takes you back to your own blog.  That either means that you’ve become incredibly popular, or you’re looking at an issue that not too many people are concerned about.

But yes, these searches for ways to get rendered movies into Final Cut Express have brought me to some zany conclusions, and some workable solutions, and frankly, and although I have a pretty serious film making background – digital film making (if that’s what it’s called) is new to me; and seems more complex.

What I can say for sure is that I can convert Canon 500D files at 720i (30 frames per second) for Final Cut Express without any hitches, except, that there is just this tiniest of borders (black) in the movie.  My sizing is not right yet.

But how I’m doing it, I’m actually using something that I had called Adobe Media Conversion (which comes with the creative suites) and works nicely to prepare the files for Final Cut in a batch process.

And you can also do the same thing in a free program called MPEG_ClickStream, though it is not as fancy in terms of interface, and there’s less documentation.

I can choose whether I want my audio to be stereo or mono, i.e. give me one or two audio tracks, though since this is really all ambient sound so far, I can’t see a big thing about stereo – though I haven’t looked into that deeply yet.

The 500D has three movie modes: 1080p (1080 x 1920) at 20 frames per second, using what is called the H.264 Codec.  This is the compressor that does the job of deciding on how to go from input to output.

The second mode (what I’m using now) is 720p (720 x ? ) at 30 f/p/s (which really does look nice) using same Codec

And you can do the old 640 x 480 at 30 fps also.

There are a lot of sides to this story, and one of them is that I haven’t experimented properly with the sizes that I’m shooting at.  In other words, I’m shooting at the highest resolution, but I’m still coming up with 720p during the conversion.  That may simply be that the conversion wants to go at 29.9 and so it is cutting things down… you see what I mean.. hopefully.  There’s a day left, or maybe the rest will fall into place tonight.

I’ve had my nap.  And I am refreshed, and ready for the last leg of this journey.

What footage am I using? Who else – but Buddy of course.  And I’ll tell you why.  He’s handy.  Do you think I’m going to change settings and go down stairs and come up and try this one; and then tweak something and go downstairs and — no that’s what cats were made for.

And nothing is easy, is it.

I’m getting a not-rendered message when I put one of my 500d files into the timeline.

(P.S. I’m exhausted at this point from going through a lot of this).

1) Yes, I can render the file in FCE so that it can be used in the timeline, but it is a PITA and time-consuming

2) I have a feeling that FC Express doesn’t have all the presets that the Pro Edition has.  At any rate, you can also run the Canon 500D file through QuickTime (latest version) and get something that looks very close: HD720P30 WITH H.264 Codec… but not everything is the same (yet) and this file still gives an un-rendered message in the timeline.  If you have to render, or transform all your files for Final Cut – that is not too pretty; although the interface and functionality – just what I want.  It seems as if it’s not quite up to dealing with the codex that the Canon digital slrs are spitting out.

There may be an update to Final Cut (have to look for that).

And then there are various transformation programs, like MPEG STREAMCLIP which will do conversions that Final Cut will work with.  I downloaded Streamclip, but haven’t tried it yet.

I believe you can also import the iMovie files.

Blah, blah, blah.

And of course when you ask a guy in the Apple store whether Final Cut works with the 500D movies; of course they say that it should.  Yes.  it should.  But none of these things are simple.  Two worlds being brought together, and not yet talking the same language.

My predication, I’ll get it to work.  A quick look around the web for Canon 500d movies and Final Cut render message, brought lots of back and forth stuff.  Tips, tricks, and whatnot.  None have worked so far.

Let’s just say that I ran out of cigars after a day and a half of this; but my package from N.C. with Gold Macanudos will be here tomorrow.

Tricky business, huh.

Good night, and good luck.

Infrared Film, with IR flash.

Okay.  I spent enough time with iMovies (current version) to know that it won’t work for what I want to do and is just too annoying.

I then tested Adobe Premiere Elements Version 7 and Version 8 under Windows 7 / Parallels

Both had issues.  One of the weirdest things was that the caps lock key was always backwards under Parallels.  It’s quite possible that Premiere 8 was working, but the movies were broken up into what looked like a jigsaw puzzle; though that may have been part of the trial version.  I don’t know.

And so, that only leaves one program, Final Cut Express which I’m going to start looking at prices for now.  It has the normal timeline that these sorts of products usually use; and seems like it is very close to Premiere Elements in terms of how it’s organized.  So at least, for now I can cross that off my list.  I want to work on this stuff over the weekend, so I may just hop down to the Apple store and buy Final Cut Express; unless I see a really substantially lower price somewhere else.

* * * IMPORTANT * * *

One thing I’m not sure about… is whether Final Cut 4.01 will natively import movie files from the Canon 500d / 550d and how this business works going forward.  One thing I can say for iMovie is that it easily recognized and read the movie files from the 500D, whereas I’ve been reading many threads with people having issues with Canon 500d / 550d and Final Cut.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll slog along some more in iMovie.  The other option running around is to get the older version of iMovie – but then I’m sure it won’t natively read the newer DSLR movies; but there are programs to do conversions.

I couldn’t finish the last order (poor guy) because I ran out of a particular size of mat and just ordered it by two day from DickBlick.  So I really do have a clear weekend before me for the first time in a long time.

* * * IMPORTANT II * * *

The easiest way to deal with the mov files generated by various dslrs, if you are on a mac, is simply to import them into iMovie, and then import the iMovie files that you want into Final Cut Express (FCE) to do the real editing work.  Yep.  That’s what I’ll do.

* * * IMPORTANT III * * *

Here’s a question for you infrared movie buffs.  Have any of you tried to make video movies with a dslr that has been modded for infrared?  In theory, it should work; i.e. you could do movie sequences in infrared mode.  I’ll be there’s not much of that going around.  (Thanks for stirring up that idea… my videographer friend.)  Are you folks still called videographers.

Here’s the first preview at dpreview.

Although it may not exactly look like good news, with so much stuff being added and the 0X line sort of becoming more consumer-enthusiast-whatever-centric they have added the one thing I have been wanting on the Canon dSLR line and that is the articulated, or lets just call it the swivel LCD.

But they also dumbed down the 60D so that it is more Rebel-like.  Okay.  My thought is that when the 600D comes out, they’ll stick the swivel screen on it, and that will be a fine thing; not to mention a bunch of movie improvements that are on the 7D.

Man – is it ever complicated.

I mean, it’s like studying the evolutionary chart looking for the missing link.  Or at least it will seem like that when the technology teams come back to try and figure out why Canon took the steps they took.  How do they do it?  Who are they interviewing?  Who’s running the place?

I’m serious.  I’m just jotting this down before I forget my initial impressions.  Why don’t they let me design the next camera.  I’d have no more than three lines, and no hybrids or branching off.  The top-of-the-line pro camera.  I would call it TOL I, II, III as far as they want to go with it.

The MOL camera.  This is for the serious photographer who would like to buy the TOL but can’t justify it.  But it doesn’t have the little icons and other nitwit stuff on it that the next group either wants, or say they want.

The CON camera.  This is the consumer camera.  It is not a bad camera.  It is also loaded with features.  But the interface is aimed at people who need help with their shooting; and it doesn’t have some of the features of the TOL (top of the line) or MOL (middle of the line) cameras.  And yes, it is chock full of icons.  It loves to pop up the flash when it’s not needed, by default.  It has RAW capability but not by default.  Don’t want to confuse anyone, etc.

You, as head of the company, will put the latest, and greatest features in the higher end camera, and they will simply trickle down in six months.  Right now, it’s odd, but quite often the lower line of cameras have features that go up the evolutionary tree.

Anyway – that’s it for now.  Take a look.  I’m waiting for the swivel screen to trickle down to the Rebel-class camera without messing it up too much.

I read an article in Mac World which tore iMovie (the recent version) apart – complaining about most of the stuff that I had found annoying, including what the guy called “the live mouse.”

True.  So true.  I had never seen a mouse that you couldn’t turn off and that was constantly doing things you didn’t want it to do.

Anyway, just for the heck of it, I realized I had Adobe Premiere 7, and Parallels for the mac (which was pre-installed) so I thought – what the heck, let’s install Premiere and see how it works under Parallels.

A couple of strange things during installation: the numeric keyboard wasn’t recognized when I was putting in the serial numbers, so I had to use the numbers from the keyboard proper.  No big deal.

And of course, Premiere 7, is old already – I bought it in ‘09, so it wanted to patch itself during installation, which went okay.  And then it wanted to get the most recent PC version of the Quicktime  but here was what was very surprising: yes, I immediately remembered how to use it, and created a new project and went to import media, and guess what – none of the internal mac drives showed up.  I guess that makes sense since they were all formatted with Mac whatever… though I thought that the PC could read that format… and the only files that showed up were the system drive, and all the USB external drives (also formatted with mac whatever, as far as I could remember).

That was about as far as I got – as I am now falling asleep sitting at the wheel; and I have the feeling that I’ll end up picking up Final Cut Express.  There are going to be too many issues with Premiere running in Parallel.  Maybe I’m just tired and there’s a quick fix to the file issue.  Although I also have to say that Premiere also didn’t know anything about the movie files created by the Canon 500d, or the CR2 still images.

Who knows – might have the same issue with Final Cut Express – would have to check that out first for sure.

G’night.

* * *

Picked up Final Cut Express today at the Apple store.  First time I was in there to buy something.  Jam-packed.  I filmmed going up and down the steps.  FCE works just as it is supposed to.  It had no problem reading the movie (mov) files from the Canon 500D.  Now it’s up to me to relearn a bunch of stuff, that is very similar, somethings almost exactly the same, as what I knew with Adobe Premiere.  Most interesting thing was the card readers that they had attached to their iPhones, so that I didn’t have to stand on line; though the guy almost sold me the upgrade instead of the full version and the first woman I talked to sent me to stand on the long line – though I ended up finding the faster way around the whole thing.

So, in short – I have the tools I need to do some of the first simple film ideas… p.o.v. shooting as a street photog.  I believe this will show more clearly how it is done than anything I can write about it.  Now when I returned to the house, I discovered that I also had a copy of Adobe Premiere for the Mac that had come with my upgrade to the mac suite.  Not the latest though.  But I’m going to spend a few days with Final Cut since that is being upgraded at reasonable prices, and I think it’s the type of program which needs upgrades as new cameras come out.

If anyone wants to recommend a good book on Final Cut Express, especially for the DSLR – let me know.

* * *

I woke up this morning all set to really blast into the day and get the last three orders matted and packaged today.  Then I could have the next few days to work on a few other projects that are floating around.  One I’ll just call project x for now; another one is a small film I’m trying to make in iMovie about street shooting; and when I say small, I should say short.  But it involves learning some clunky things in iMovie, after I had been used to Adobe Premiere.

Only problem with Premiere which I was using on a PC was that it would crash all the time.

iMovie doesn’t crash, but there are a few very basic things that I can’t figure out.  I was almost thinking of buying one of those books: iMovie for morons.

Then there’s the idea I have (after a very quick sale yesterday) of keeping popular prints in stock and letting people know that these can be shipped or picked up quickly in given sizes.

And then I also wanted to try and set up pages that would show how prints could be arranged together.  People seem to need the most help with that.

Then there are tasks that involve the Helen Levitt documentary… just getting together some images to send to the editor for the demo reel…

And wouldn’t it really be nice to brush up the Zazzle store?  That’s died badly since I stopped adding things to it.  It’s always like that since new things will pop up at the top of various categories, and if you aren’t constantly working and updating your material – you sink – or at least I sink to the bottom.  I had the same experience with my eBay store.

Looks like another project having to do with shooting stills for a New York play is on the horizon.  I did stills for the authors last New York play a few years ago and he said they were the best images anyone has ever taken of his work; and now he’s opening a new play, a bigger venue then the last, off-broadway though you’d know the name of the theater if you were into the New York play scene.

Then there are just a ton of errands that have built up over the last few months.  And I begin to worry about money again as Buddy is going to be on this medication for a fairly long time for his thyroid, and then there will be blood tests again.  In other words, results of last blood work are good, and vet wants to keep Buddy on the thyroid medication.  I don’t know how much it costs because I’m afraid to open the bill from the vet.

But I ran out of steam in the afternoon after getting two orders out; and matting the third order (which goes out tomorrow).  It seems like there were also a bunch of phone calls and emails with questions about possible buys… or phonesters (I know there’s no word like that but I like it) – phonesters that were promising to get me to the top of Google for phrases that I was already at the top for… or that if I had thought of I could have done myself… In fact, the phrase, “black and white photography for sale” was suggested by the phonester, and after getting off the phone with her I added that phrase to a few key places in the store…  such as the description meta tag, and the home page title…  good idea I think…  and she said she liked my photographs very much.  So there’s a fair trade.  Art for tips.

Yes – alot of the todo list is related to money.  However, if money weren’t an issue I would still do the following: film on street shooting from p.o.v. of photographer; still shoot of the off-broadway play; stuff for the Levitt film… maybe it’s not all related to money.  Half of one and half of the other or however the phrase is supposed to go.

One thing to remember from this post: phonester (definition: person who uses a phone to sell you something, usually from a boiler room).

The ethics of photography place us in odd positions that we just didn’t find ourselves in ten years ago.  As photographers, we have the ability to easily cross the line between documenting what we saw at the time, and strengthening the theme of what we saw.

I’m not even talking about the most obvious uses of post-processing where you take someone’s head and stick it on a body to show that so-and-so was at a certain rally.  In other words, the easiest issues to deal with are when post-processing is used propaganda.  That territory has been well-covered.  The ends justify the means (for example).  And you can read Plato’s thoughts about such things.

But what interests me is the ability to start with a legitimate fine-art idea.  In this case, there are three objects that seem related: the Aphrodite of Melos (sans arms), the prosthetic leg, and maybe – the religious figure next to the Aphrodite of Melos.  The beautiful statue that is missing limbs; the piece of equipment to replace a leg; and the idea of prayer.  Those ideas are floating around in the image.

But they will probably be lost on the viewer because these items are physically far away from each other.

So what if you decide, as the photographer / artist to cross the line, and re-arrange the important objects so that they still look realistic, but are closer to each other?

Is it still a photograph?  In the old days, photographers used as many tricks as they could dream up.  The main one may have been adding clouds to a cloudless sky.  But here you are making an editorial statement.  You can still be subtle about it.  No need to throw it in the viewers face, but make the connection that you see more visible.  Would you do it?  Is it simply a new form of art, processed photograph?

The same questions were (maybe still are) asked about the inkjet print.  But as time goes on, customers don’t seem to care anymore.  A beautiful image, is impressive, no matter what technique was used.

And over time, I guess that a new form of media called ALTERED PHOTOGRAPHY will arise.  Maybe it has already – I haven’t googled it. But the idea is that if you call it what it is, that seems to be okay, but it is an odd mixture.  As a viewer, you have to wonder what the photographer has changed.  And at what point is the photograph considered altered?  Today, just about every photograph is altered to some degree.

You could say that anything that could have been done in the darkoom is okay, i.e. unaltered.  As someone who worked for a few decades in the darkroom, even that is pretty tricky, because you could cut contrast masks for a particular negative, but would you really do it.  I didn’t have the time or patience.  Now I can do the same trick with a few clicks.

Well… let me do a bit of work on this shot and I’ll just call it ALTERED PHOTOGRAPH.  Same for the crummy iPhone picture of Buddy (the cat).  ALTERED PHOTOGRAPH.

Put another way – we are living through a time when traditional photographic techniques are merging with painting techniques and painting technique is merging with computer renditions.  That, to me, is actually a good thing to be enjoyed.  How many artists get to live through such fantastic transitions?  My own experiments with HDR, for example, lead me to try and use it to make more naturalistic images with a wide tonal range.  It’s up to the artist to decide what tools they want to use and how much they want to say about their creations.

MAN WITH TWO PHOTOGRAPHS

MAN WITH TWO PHOTOGRAPHS (Altered Media)

The UPS guy showed up this morning with a flat envelope.  I couldn’t figure out what it was, I have so many things going back and forth with UPS and Fedex and so I just opened it up and there was a coupon for a woman’s hair product.  Now why would someone spend the money to UPS me a woman’s coupon?  It’s true, that there’s one bunch that believes I’m a dermatologist, and I continuously get dermatology magazines, or offers to test dermatology products.  But I can’t ever remember one coming by UPS.

I look at the sender, but it’s sort of rubbed out.  You know that blue copy and I can only make out a few letters.  But it definitely says Unit 3B.  While that “Unit” rings a bell I toss the UPS envelope in the garbage and as I flip it I remember where that “Unit” was from.  I pull the UPS envelope back out and feel around in it for other stuff, and sure enough, stuck to the side is a piece of cardboard which I pull out and of course it’s the ticket for John Prine  I ordered a few days ago.

In short, I’ve been scrambling to make some progress on the todo list, and yes, I got through the 14 prints for Australia which went out today, each with a little Certificate of Authenticity signed dated and with the title scribbled on.  And with the overseas Custom papers signed (they want about six copies) and each ticked off saying that I am not a relative of the person I’m signing it to; along with scripting: beckerman / owner / aug. 24 2010 and I did come up with a nice system though it won’t work much longer.

If I am lucky enough to have an empty box of the print size, then I’m really in business because I put down one print, which fits perfectly, and is cushioned (Epson gives you cushioning around the paper) and then I slice off a sheet of glasine (sp?)  paper from a roll and place that ontop of the print… repeat until all 14 prints are separated nicely.  Then cardboard cut to the right size. Into the original Epson box.  And for the final touch, I take two fedex cardboard pieces that are meant to be turned into triangle tubes and cut them around the Epson box.  In other words, the final box can be dropped on any corner from about five feet without damaging the prints.

So that goes out.  And now I’m waiting for the vet to revisit Buddy (the cat).  That will be a terrible ordeal for him.  I’ve been through it a few times.  But they need bloodwork to follow up on the thyroid pills he’s been on for about ten days.

(CLICK IMAGE TO SEE FULL SIZE FROM IPHONE: from the iPhone, un-retouched)

I also finished some work for another project that’s on the horizon… and now I need to put together a bunch of images for the first of the two documentary films about street photography that are coming out.  And yes, I’ll put up a link to a clip from the first film soon.

And then tomorrow will be printing again.

I’m not looking for advice.  I’m not even complaining.  File this under: just the facts.  Because frankly, I can’t even write about half the personal stuff that’s been going on.  Maybe personal stuff is the wrong word.  But you know unless you write an anonymous blog, it’s nearly impossible to really write truthfully.  I sort of miss the days when I’d take out one of my paper journals – I used to write on those bound ledgers that accountants use – and write without feeling that anyone else is going to read it unless I want them to.

Of course the problem with writing an anonymous blog, is that even if you can do that (technically I guess it can be done, though not that easily); anyone that knows you, your friends, or family, might stumble upon it, even if you change everyone’s names, and then you are a dead duck.  What I mean by that is that the episodes and things the characters do are so specific – I doubt if they’ve ever been done before.  Any single story, and a few just flashed through my mind, that would be read by the person involved, would get me into big trouble.  Wow.  I wonder what that says about my life.  That it’s mostly a lie?

The older I get, the more it seems as if my own life, and those of the people I know are mostly lies.  Isn’t that a terrible thing to realize.  Friends lie to friends.  Or at least don’t tell important things.  Sisters lie to sisters.  It’s all a big circle of lies, the purpose of which is to protect ourselves from each other..

Wow.  That is a scary thing to realize.

Anyway – the original point was – that I was out of it to the point of almost throwing away the John Prine ticket; and after a bit of writing, I also come to the conclusion that most of my relationships are built on either lies, or at least keeping a fair amount of information private.  File that part under the phrase: nobody really knows anyone else.

Apres tout — here’s a retouched b&w version from the iPhone.

Yes.  A whole post for John Prine.  I have followed him since his first album which came out while I was a student at SUNY Buffalo.  Singer / songwriter.  Country-ish story teller.  One of the greatest songwriters of my lifetime.  Songs often written in the “voice” of someone else, i.e. “I am an old woman, named after my mother, my old man is another, child that’s grown old.” Angel from Montgomery (a song which has been covered by tons of performers).

The songs range from downright hysterical (Dear Abby) to woeful tales of loneliness and sorrow.  Unlike Dylan (the other great in my book), his songs are usually stories that can be understood – not always from the first listening, but eventually they dawn on you.

Yes – he had throat cancer (heavy cigarette smoker) but I’ve seen and heard him since then and he’s still okay as a performer.

My list of favorite musicians is thin.  Like a iceberg, if you were to look by artists’ name, you would only see a few, but if you were to look beneath the surface, you’d find, that just as I’ve done with writers that I like, I have everything I can put my hands on for these artists: Randy Newman, John Prine, (to some extent Dylan, but his recorded output is really for collectors), Tom Waits, and it’s hard to think of anyone else that I am still that gung-ho about.

Definitely a similarity.  They are story tellers that often use literary devices.  Every once in a while, they will have a song that hits mainstream, but as great a writer as Randy Newman is, I’ve been to concerts at small venues in New York that he couldn’t sell out.  And Governors Island isn’t exactly Madison Square Garden, though I’m sure Prine has played there before.  But they made it.  Randy Newman has had a couple of top hits, like I Love L.A.  but his real mark on pop culture is probably the soundtrack for The Natural.  Yes, that’s his score, and one of the great ones of recent years (no wonder – he comes from a line of Hollywood orchestrator (all uncles) such as Alfred Newman, and Lionel Newman. Other Newman scores include:  the music for A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Pleasantville, Ragtime, Seabiscuit, Toy Story.

Anyway – that’s one aspect of my own character – the idea of finding a few artists and having long-standing, deep relationships with their work, that I can trace back to the idea of serialization that began, in my own case, with the Hardy Boys and continued into the realm of the Russian novelists, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, and so on.

At least with Dostoyevsky – there’s always more.  With Gogol, you will find yourself re-reading his books, or finding a book written by another Russian about him.  I suppose that affinity for Russian 19th century work can be traced back to my own Russian ancestry.

Anyway – there you have it.  John Prine. Sept. 10th. Governor’s Island.  I’m informed that photography is permitted, and I will be one of those nuts that will be waiting ahead of time to try and get a good seat.

Boy on Bike: HIE Infrared with Leica M3 / Tonemapped Single Image / Lightroom Adjustments

Interesting, mood-wise if you were to hang this on the wall next to the previous post of woman with water bottle. It’s that sort of contrast that you don’t (at least I don’t) get to make in the blog format; or any format unless everyone had a a large monitor.

Pretty much how I felt today after getting up at 5 and packaging through the afternoon for about the fourth day in a row. And frankly, I think this is the first shot I’ve taken in a few weeks (not including the non-photo iPhone-Fire pictures).

Don’t worry. Not complaining. Just telling it like it is, though I did have a chance to have a smoke with Matt. Everything else that I’ve got to do falls under the heading of publicity, or self-promotion. It was funny, because while I was sitting with Matt smoking our Upmann cigars, I saw the UPS guy with a package. I wasn’t expecting anything but I asked him who it was for and it was for me.

Looked at the address and still couldn’t figure out what was inside. But then I remembered a while back I had sold a skating rink image for greeting cards… and sure enough that’s what was in the box. In other words, I can’t even keep up with these little projects where I’m selling images for cards, and calendars. Well, they’re having a House marathon on – and that my plan for the night.

Sorry for the boring post, but the image is pretty good; one-for-one.