photography
Independence
Unnamed pals preparing to light up the sky at a discreet location.
This year it means something personal. This past year has included a great many changes for your humble narrator. Changes he is grateful for. Changes he had consciously and patiently been waiting for and working towards. These included trading a life he had reluctantly planned for the one that was waiting for him, all along. This is a lesson that has reinforced a notion to always follow his instincts and believe, especially in the face of adversity. As a result, this new-found independence has afforded him many new experiences, uncovered new talents, and new pals. Gifts like these make the gratitude a small price to pay, he’d say.
So, with that in mind, regardless of what the word, or the holiday, meant or means to you in your corner of the world this year, Happy Independence Day. Please enjoy that photo up there that your host took of two of his new pals celebrating the way they enjoy most in a place they love best. Sums it up rather nicely. Click it for a better view. Cheers.
Third Coast
It wasn’t long ago I was living and working in Chicago, which is why it’s seemingly appropriate that life would lead me back through here to initiate several new facets of my life. Such a beautiful city, especially from atop the waves of Lake Michigan. The approaching winter’s light is gloriously fitting this afternoon:
Bar Harbor
Your's truly hanging out in Bar Harbor yesterday
View Larger Map
Here are some interesting facts about Bar Harbor:
Settled 1763
Incorporated February 23, 1796
- Total 70.4 sq mi (182.4 km2)
- Land 42.2 sq mi (109.3 km2)
- Water 28.2 sq mi (73.1 km2)
Charlie Parr
Charlie Parr in Minneapolis this morning
Amidst such a perfect backdrop for his sound, the morning flew by listening to him sing and play his National down there along the river while we did our three-camera shoot. He has a new album out soon, too, so keep an eye peeled for it.
I’ll be sure to post the final edit here but, meanwhile, please enjoy this clip taken in ’09 while Charlie played Cheap Wine at the Victoria Pub in Birmingham, UK:
pixelier: antes y dispues
Bergey made some things that inspired me to start tinkering with stills digitally and call it pixeliering, which is a meager attempt at adding an element of painting to digital images:
Click on that first image right there to see before and after examples larger and more in charger:
This is cool and I like the way the digital mixes together with the analog. These are very time consuming to make so I only have a few of them to show but this is one of my favorites, so far:
Ken Burns on filmmaking
If you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or a feature film I could tell you the steps to take to do that, but every working documentary filmmaker I know has gotten there through their own unique path. There is no career path.
10secondfilms.org
Some think content will keep getting longer and longer until movies are 3 and 4 hours long. That’s fine. OK with us. We also like the idea of not spending 3 or 4 hours to get something out of it.
Like music, there is a time and place for a long song and a short one. We like them both. We do listen to waaay more short songs than long ones, though. This is the reason we love still images more than films. If our house was on fire and we had to save still images or films, we would have to save the stills. We know. Sounds surprising! We work in motion but, like most of our favorite filmmakers, we think in stills. Moments. In a moment, a still image can change our lives. Films take a little longer.
Which is one reason we created and curate 10secondfilms.org. In 10 moments, a film can pack quite a wallop. Some maybe not so much, but are still worthy as friendly exercises in media literacy.
Howard Rheingold called this site “genius, funny, and yes, friendly expression of participation media literacy” via his Twitter account.
Gever Tulley also commented on it using the most appropriate phrase ever: “oddly compelling” – also via Twitter.
Compliments coming from fellas like these make us feel pretty darn swell, to say the least. Thank you, Gever and Howard. You both have our most humble admiration and deepest respect.
This is all just to say that we believe the experience of producing media should be a friendly one for all ages, especially as technology can still be an obstacle to the creative process for many of us. As an exercise in media and visual literacies, the 10-second format is vital. It minimizes the need for complex tools. These moments as movies are gratifying and occasionally inspire larger, more ambitious projects.
Make a 10 second film with any device that captures motion pictures.
No editing — One take — 10 seconds maximum length — Sound is optional.
Have a 10 second film you like?
We’d love to hear about it and perhaps even feature it on the site – click here to tell us more.
Meanwhile, thanks for reading and — keep playing.
Senegal 2010
The Senegalese are among the friendliest people in the world. Given the challenges they face as a people, this is magnified ten-fold when considering the grace with which they shared their homes and hearts with us this past week. Below is a rather large sampling of still images from our week-long visit to work with Habitat for Humanity outside of Dakar. We are grateful to the people there for their kindness and generosity and are very happy we could make a contribution to their community.
Paris Plages
I just cannot stop watching clips shot with the Canon 5d Mark II, simply for the obvious reason – a still camera shot this motion footage:
Paris Plages from Alta Media Productions on Vimeo.
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Nice bubble
Some friends and I debated over whether this is real or photoshopped. The consensus is that if this was photoshopped, then that would be even more of a feat.
The whimsical nature of this is great – even if it took the fella a few tries to nail it.
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Danny Wilcox Frazier
I give thanks to the gods for Danny Wilcox Frazier.
Responsible for chronicling the Midwestern way of life in multiple mediums, he is true to the cause of his homeland and to the powers that live here, unknown to those on the coasts who dare not venture out of their safely *cool* havens for parts much more obscure and full of possibilities, much like the places and oral histories captured in Danny’s latest, beautiful film, Driftless.
Danny, lately I am raising my glass to you and your work.
Cheers.
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Area Man Writes Blog
LITTLE CANADA, MNâ€â€Local resident Steve Bachman, the self-styled “Bachster†of Internet obscurity, has announced plans to publish a blog. Family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and checkout clerks are bracing themselves for the expected onslaught of hintsâ€â€subtle and not-so-subtleâ€â€of the “you ought to check out my blog†variety.
Bachman believes that his catchy graphical hook, a black-and-white bust of J.S. Bach wearing crudely hand-drawn pink-tinted sunglasses, will set his blog apart from the crowd. “It’s been a big hit with my test audience,†he says, “many of whom have expressed the opinion that it’s a very cool and subtle way to brand the Bachster name.†He does admit, however, that a few of his readers have misidentified the image. The names Benjamin Franklin, Horace Rumpole, and “Ben Stein in a wig†have come up.
When asked if readers can expect a lot of self-revelatory writing, reflection, and evidence of personal growth on his blog, he says, “No, but I do expect to skewer everyone I know quite unmercifully.â€Â
Check out BachBlog if you likey : )
Keep up the great work, Steve – and remember, there are far worse ways to spend time.
For example, we could be stone-cold-Hollywood pimps defending our territory against would-be-take-our-hoes-ways-from-us-neighboring-pimps.
yeah.
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Adaptive Technology :: Evolved
Doctors laugh at me when they ask me ideally what do i want to do about my knee problem and i tell them how i’d like them to just lop it off and gimme a rad prosthetic.
if there are any doctors out there who’d like to help a fella get his quality of life back by hooking him up with something akin to this would you email queue [ - at - ] thinfilmsproductions dot com, please?
i don’t wanna be the fastest runner on my block or break any records other than the furthest walk i’ve had in months.
there’s no doubt this new technology is fascinating but, as we all know, every new solution brings with it a new set of dilemmas.
Whatever. You are my total fucking hero! THANKS, OSCAR!
click here to learn more about Oscar.
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Growing up with Newsweek
Newsweek loves to feature articles about Autism.
People love to buy Newsweek and read articles about Autism.
If the following cliche’ is true [about Autism] then most of the world is Autistic only they don’t know it yet:
Work is play and play is work
Sound like anyone in YOUR neighborhood?
When was the last time you didn’t schedule something? when was the last time you did something “spontaneously” and it was fun? when was the last time you played, really played without having to work at it?
if we’re not careful about our obsession with time management and commitment to “careers” we may all be in for more and more future generations of Rain Men and Rain Women who are engineered to think fun is being at the office until sunrise and work is going to the park [ugh] again.
how weird is this “are you a workaholic” quiz on Forbes.com?
WHAT IF [humor me here for a moment] it’s unhealthy lifestyles like ours that generation after generation give rise to abominations such as Autism?
Did you know that Autism does not exist in Native cultures, such as Native American, Native Alaskan, Aboriginal, etc? Not a single trace exists in these cultures. Well, maybe if they continue to participate in our culture long enough they will, too!
WHAT IF, collectively, we are killing off our collective consciousness [ie imagination] by exercising mostly only those “muscles” that work and watch tv or some such other unimaginative recreation? at what age does imaginative play stop? what was it 20 years ago? 50?
PLEASE. DON’T JUST SIT THERE READING NEWSWEEK.
THINK ABOUT IT.
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Images of Alaska
The University of Washington has a great collection of images up that portray the early days in Alaska.
Check them out here if you likey!
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welcome to the neighborhood
some stills from around and about in our new neighborhood.
click on the image or click here,
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Nikon’s SmallWorld Gallery
We no longer live in the days when people thought “if it’s smaller than us, then it can’t be smarter than us.”
Perhaps, that’s why i find myself returning to peruse images in this gallery. The colors, the shapes and most definitely the life behind things in the SmallWorld.
You can check it out for yourself here.
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