Hook, Line and Sinker

[Steven L. Gotz]

I have bought into this photography thing hook, line and sinker. Can you believe this?

I went out and bought a new laptop that would fit into my new camera bag. How sick is that?

The bag maker said that it could hold a laptop with a 15.3" screen. Unfortunately laptops have 15.6" screens. Even the 14" screens would not fit because the pocket, while wide enough, is not deep enough.

Oh well, now I have Windows 8 to play with, and a touch screen to boot. So I guess I need to try writing touch apps since the Adobe software for that comes with the Creative Cloud.

[the_wine_snob]

Steven,

I have a 17" laptop bag, sitting totally unused (my laptop is more of a portable workstation, so I do not travel with it). I would be glad to send it to you, if you do not mind having a bag, that will likely need a strip, or two of foam (probably picked up from the scraps at any upolstery shop).

Just drop me an e-mail with the shipping info and it's yours.

Good luck,

Hunt

[able123]

hehe.. Steve, that's really cool !  It's been fun seeing your photos posted too, and hearing about what you're doing. Thanks for doing that for everyone to look at etc.

[able123]

I'm gonna buy another one of those plastic carrying cases with wheels..they are cheap...about $26.00. And do more or less what you're doing, Steve. You know, get stuff sorted into bags and so on so I can get out and shoot when my camera arrives. I'll take out all the 6x7 mamiya stuff from current bags, put that into plastic thing with bubble wrap etc, and use the bags for new camera stuff. Some of those camera bags were waaay expensive ! Padded, waterproof, and so on. Have dividers with velcro tabs so you can sorta arrange things ( bodies, lenses, meters, filters, etc ). Pretty cool.

Not hard cases like real pro stuff for shipping etc.. just soft cases.

Oddly enough I now feel less enthusiastic than I did when I ordered the camera. I don't know why. I think it's fear maybe ? Or maybe it's the learning curve thing.. my first digital camera capable of shooting halfway decent motion.. and I don't know how to use it yet. Oh well, maybe I'll get past that and love it when it gets here.

[Steven L. Gotz]

LOL.

I think I must not have communicated the actual problem very well.

I bought a new camera bag. The Think-Tank Sling-o-Matic 30. I like the bag so much that I was willing to base a laptop purchase on what would fit into the bag in order to take it on an airplane. I don't want to carry a camera bag and a PC bag. I want the PC to fit into the camera bag.

This is a really, really cool bag. But can you imagine what the sales guy must have thought? This idiot is buying a PC to fit a bag, not a bag to fit the PC? Really?

This is not my camera bag, just the same model, but mine is packed a lot like this - or will be when I buy some external flashes. There is room for my camera with my 100-300 lens on it, with the lens hood on in the shooting position, plus my 45mm Macro and my 14-140. I also have room for my cables and power cords, filters, cleaning papers, Rocket Blower, you name it, And a pocket for my new laptop that spent last night automatically downloading and installing the entire Creative Cloud. The laptop is a too weak to oreally edit video, but I can do some preliminary cutting. It has plenty of power to use Photoshop the way I use it.

[the_wine_snob]

Ah, I doubt that it was you not communicating, but me not understanding.

Gottcha.

Hunt

[able123]

wow , cool bag !  At first I didn't get it...dimensions etc..but checked out the link and now I can visualize it...very nice !

The one I have now for the 6x7 main stuff cost me about 5x that amount.. and is maybe twice as much space ..it's got a ton of stuff in it...and then I have another smaller bag ( about half of your bag ) with just a body and lens in it...lens attached.

So I end up with at least those 2 bags for the basics of any shoot with the mamiya. Then I got other bags to bring other junk along ( film , etc ).

I have a feeling I'm gonna be able to put everything into the one bag I have that is the bigger of the two main ones. And the smaller bag I can put my meters and filters and stuff that has been sorta overcrowding the main bag. I'll get it figured out. Like you I also have the tripod stuff, lights etc..so that's another bunch of bags etc.

LOL.. the more I think about it the more I wanna just crawl into my bed and cover myself with blankets and turn off the world.  But instead I went to the store and got , YES YOU GUESSED IT....BEER !

Only this time I also bought a small bottle of Stoly....so look OUT !  Its not only BEER THIRTY ! IT IS ALSO STOLY THIRTY !  OMG !

[able123]

I know this doesn't apply to any of YOU guys...but to me it does sometimes...

I knew a professor of biology or some such thing at one point in my life...I didn't really like him much cause he was the father of one of my wives and had this overblown attitude about his importance etc. Our marriage was announced in the city newspaper in the society column, you know, that sorta 'importance'... which to a jerk like me is like pouring gasoline on the fire of my youth and angst etc.  Anyway, he said to me one day that " A tidy desk is a sign of a frightened mind ".

His desk was a freakin mess !

Anyway, I never forgot this gem of wisdom and sometimes apply it to how I organize my shooting situation... to have things neat is one thing...but to go crazy about it is really stupid.

hehe... even people I haven't liked much have helped me out ...odd as that seems...

[Steven L. Gotz]

If we are lucky, we can learn from anyone, and anything.

I used to carry a tripod everywhere because video needs stability. However, except for my little GorillaPod which fits in the camera bag, I can see myself walking all over the place, pulling out a camera, and just starting to shoot. As long as I pay attention to the level, stability if not going to be a problem except is really low light for long exposure shots.

So, leaving all the rest of the equipment in the trunk of the car means that I can wander farther and faster, chasing after that shot. You know the one. The one I want to print and frame. I don't have one of those yet.

[able123]

I really DONT know the shot you're chasing any more than you. In my case it was years of literally carrying a camera around shooting for myself ( for show ) and I got stuff like this

This was something to bring to MOMA. Get a show. Hand held street "straight" photography.. 10 sec exposure, in ABC land in the late 70's. You had to be there. Tri x at 200, blah blah blah...

Trust me, it aint worth this kind of dedication or whatever you wanna call it. Thank God I got into film work as a crew person and made some sorta living instead of killing myself doing shit like this much longer.

What is art to you and me are different things and that's normal. So enjoy yourself and keep what many have told me over the years in the forefront... " do it cause you love it ". Don't do it because you want satisfaction from anyone else. Do it cause you love it.

[able123]

I have to ( to justify my own stuff here ) say... that what you're looking at is a 'landscape' .. just the same as if you were in the county with a stream and trees and stuff like that.. the same exact thing.. that's what I was aiming at... you don't see it.. the similarity etc.. but you weren't there either... the silence and hissing steam and the movement of that..the heart of the lower east side during that time period... living there... the beauty of it or whatever ( the animal nature of it )... these were landscapes in the city... the point I was sorta making.

Thank gawd it's now more sophisticated and not scary like animals could live there.

honey badgers in the hallways.

ACK !

[Steven L. Gotz]

Sometimes the purpose of a photograph is just to take the shooter back to that time and place for a moment. Sometimes the purpose is to attempt to take other people to that time and place (harder to do) and sometimes it is just to get people off their butts and traveling to that spot, just hoping and praying that they get to see what you saw. I want to eventually take one of that last kind.

I di this for myself, but every once in a while, I would like to hear someone say "Wow! You shot that?" or even  "Where did you shoot that!"

For right now I will settle on taking a picture that I want to frame. Or, at a minimum, something that I keep pulling up on my screen just to look at it again.

I think that sometimes art is created. Sometimes just captured. My stuff will generally fall into the second category. However, now that I have fallen in love with the concept of long exposures, I may actually find myself creating a photograph instead of just shooting what I see. Sometimes I want to shoot what is in my mind's eye and not exactly what is in front of me. That is going to be a real stretch for me.

I have been severely disappointed in the rate at which I am learning to control my camera. Lately, I have just been sitting in the plaza in front of city hall and taking pictures of people. Just random people. Testing the abilities of my lenses at different apertures and different focal lengths. I need to find the sweet spots.

This whole photography thing started with one picture. And it just so happens that I going back to the scene of the crime next week. This time I will attempt to correct the minor flaws in the picture and get it just right. It could be the one. It could be the one I take to a professional to have it printed.  We'll see.

You would like it there Rod. They have happy hour a few times every day and there is a swim up bar. Even a tree on an island in the huge pool so you can stand in the shade to avoid sunburn. You don't even need to get up. Service people run around taking beer orders every few minutes. So, it will not only be Beer-Thirty, it will be Beer-Fifteen and Beer-Forty-Five almost every hour of every day. Except when drinking Margaritas instead, of course.

[able123]

wow, that sounds like a really cool place to hang out and shoot photos and relax etc.

As for taking time to learn all the camera functions and all that stuff , I think you're doing great especially doing it on your own more or less ( with your own research etc ). Some people go to school for it for years and even then it sometimes goes slowly...

I've never admitted this before but after about 3 years in photo classes it really took one subsitute "teacher" in one class to FINALLY get me to understand how F stop, shutter speed, film speed and some other stuff ( latitude etc for film stocks ) were all inter-related. I mean where it suddenly like made sense to me totally. I have no clue why it took so long. That substitute "teacher" ended up being a personal friend for a really long time and he was (at that time when he substituted ) the film technician at the college. So it took a film guy to make me understand still photo stuff like that. Anyway, kudos to gool Ol Bob for making sense of things for me.  He did it with the use of some illustratons on a blackboard but I have no clue what they were now...

Is one reason I like the cambridge photo place.. they usually illustrate things somehow..

[able123]

You're lucky cause if your family is willing to help out a little bit you can use them as models...get them to help you test stuff out...

Not for framing so much, but for 'testing' things... would be fun if I could do that but I don't have anyone near me to do that with.

Anyway, moving on... sometimes remembering photos that were cool in the past can help make new ones. Cause you remember the cool one, and then adjust to new situation and sorta test how it might work in the new situation...

In this case, Edward Steichen years ago did some cool photo of gloria swanson, and then in 'once upon a time in the west ' the photographer used that in a new situation ...and you got these two cool photo things...

Sometimes I make these sorta of connections in my head about stuff.. and file it away for maybe solving things later on... is kinda fun.

[Steven L. Gotz]

When I retire, I have plans to live close enough to a community college to enroll and take all sorts of liberal arts classes. Philosophy, Calculus, Art Appreciation, Latin, stuff like that. Maybe your community college has a photography class where you can brush up your skills, but more importantly, find models (other photographers).

[able123]

I know.. how cool is THAT ? ! I could have a schedule and do stuff.... instead of being freelance and not being able to do that... make schedules other than always keeping things open for " work " when I get called etc. I'm sorta moving into that realm of life now..

It's costing me some money ( buy camera , lights, etc ) so I can work... but I love it so after that I can start to sorta network like you suggest, with classes or stuff...you know.. have a schedule.

I might even be able to sorta " help " in terms of teaching, according to some contact out here in MN... like, shoot stuff and use students in the school as helpers and they get 'credit' for that, and learn stuff ? How cool is THAT ? !

I hope to gawd I am not an idiot if I do that... like don't pay attention to what they wanna do and where their heads are at about 'entertainment' products.. or tv commercials ..or whatever they are into.  I'm an idiot when it comes to knowing younger people and where they are at. I'm a stick in the mud in some ways.

but who knows, maybe I can do some cool stuff and not be too confusing about the tech aspects of the thing... and also the "story telling" part of it ?  I have no clue.. is all new to me.

[Steven L. Gotz]

Rod,

I thought you said you were retired. Working after retirement is, well, it is working. It isn't retirement. Not my view of retirement anyway. Which is why I can't retire now. I have to wait another few years, possibly eight years, before I can consider it. Unless the market climbs to soaring heights and I just say "the heck with it, I'm done." I'm only 60, so it is probably a good idea to wait until I qualify for Medicare and Social Security.

In any case, it couldn't hurt to get your labor cheap. You have the IMDB resume that could attract a number of younger people. Milk it for all it is worth. They might learn something from you as you are learning from them.

[able123]

Well, certainly retired now from grip work and proabably from any film work as a crew member of any kind. When I 'retired' from union stuff there is sorta an understanding that I won't do that anymore except for a certain number of hours per quarter..is complicated.

But what I mean by working is ' working on my own stuff '...

The past year has been crazy with back tax stuff, retirement stuff, a lot of nit picky little things that had to be ironed out before moving forward.

Anywho,  I should get camera tomorrow and can start learning how to use it and test some stuff... start shooting some stuff maybe soon...for documentary..

[able123]

I think I figured out why I suddenly feel less enthusiastic about getting digital camera stuff than when I ordered it etc. It's psychological. I got another plastic carrying case (w wheels ) to put the 6x7 mamiya stuff in today to make room in bags for new camera. Essentially I'm like 'really' moving from film to digital and it's like the end of a whole lifetime of working with film.I guess that's why I was so keen on staying with full chip and so on ( 35mm ). At least THAT part stays the same sorta. But putting away the film camera, storing it probably 'forever' is a real hurtful thing. Not just the $ invested , though that's part of it, but the format ( way bigger negative than 35mm ), knowledge of the film stocks, the whole film thing... it's like giving up a whole world of film for a new world of digital. I think that's the gist of why I'm feeling weird about this whole thing now.

I must be like one of the last people on earth going through this...???

OH well, at least I am moving forward and not giving up on photography etc. So that's good.

[able123]

Well, I finally did it.. put the mamiya stuff into the plastic BIN....

I had to pad it a little more than just using bubble wrap so I used my suit jacket and suit pants and some other clothing as added 'padding' so stuff doesn't rub on each other etc during transport. I put the film in last... that I bought about 6 months ago... instant stuff and 120, 220 stuff.

Bye !

But now I have TONS of room in camera bags for NEW stuff. YIPEE !

I'm probably feeling like when some person in the past finally had to sell Nelly the horse and buy a car ???

ps... edit:

I don't have nothin to wear to go to fancy places now...it's padding my camera museum stuff...so don't invite me out if ya gotta dress up !

I do have spurs and chaps though... if you need some cows herded the old fashioned way ...

[able123]

Just got package from B&H.... is sitting on couch. I'm gonna dig into it in a minute...

But first I thought I'd give everyone a heads up... cause guess what ??? YES ! ITS BEER THIRTY ! YIPEE !

So if I don't stumble around too much with a sharp instrument in my hand to open stuff I should be good to go soon with new camera ! HOW COOL IT THAT ?? !!!!

I'm also doing something I never did here in MN before.. ( been here a year ).  I'm playing MUSIC ! KINDA LOUD !

The beach boys !

yahooo !  surfer girl, rhonda ( my first love ), barbara ( really my first love cause she kissed me ! when I was 16 ). I sorta got married to every girl who liked me.

I have a major problem re: fishes in the sea. I figure if a fish likes me ITS THE ONE FOR ME !

This is why I don't think being a trout ranch manager would be a good fit for me at this point. I would sing to the fish " You are my fishy love ! " (  blind man ? ... mermaids ? )

Anyway, I'm gonna open the box now and get real. Sorta. Look out. I wrote this song for YOU !  ( surfer girl ! )

[able123]

this new tech stuff is cool but also scary for me. I guess my best thing is to just shut up.

[able123]

I seem to be talking to myself here.. is okay.. but I miss people...

Soo... I put 2 lenses on the nikon body and stuck a battery in it and eventually found a button I could push to take a picture..it made a clicking noise... really ! and then an image showed up on the back of the camera for a sec or two.. then went dark again.. I havnt found buttons that bring those images back yet..

I'm sorta just clicking things and pushing buttons and not really reading any instructions yet... which is okay cause ITS BEER THIRTY YIPEE !

I suppose at some point I'll have to put in a card and read some instructions... so I am not a total idiot for the rest of my life..

I could ask questions here like, " I got a nikon d800 and wanna shoot movies, so how can I do that and not have black bars on the top and bottom ??? "... but figure you had enough of that and would rather here about " how can chickens keep the movie business on budget ? "

BUC

[joe_bloe_premiere]

I could ask questions here like, " I got a nikon d800 and wanna shoot movies, so how can I do that and not have black bars on the top and bottom ??? ".

I dare you!

[joe_bloe_premiere]

Really... new toys are always fun!

You instinctively want to dink with them first,

thinking you have to be smarter than the device...

but eventually the manual helps.