The Value of Listening...and some really cool plumbing tips

I'm always stressing to my students and students in the program how important the simple skill of listening is.  We talk about a lot of business, utilize (and praise) the support of ASMP and try to cast our students out with a solid understanding of the business tools needed to find and retain a client.

I recently had an experience that taught the lesson better then anything that could be or has ever been said in a classroom.  To understand fully you need to know that my wife and I have a rather small house in the western suburbs of Chicago, if you have been out you know what I mean.  Alongside Kate and I, are our two boys, 10 and 12 so the real estate of the single bathroom is at a premium.  My poor wife, surrounded by her three boys (even the 2 cats and hamster are boys) the shower is often her only escape.

For about a year now the pressure has been on a steady decline until recently when it barely had the pressure for the faucet to convert itself from tub filler, to a shower.  So like anybody who doesn't want to attempt a re-pipe or other fix I started calling around to get an idea of what a fix would involve.  And don't get me wrong, I do a lot around the house but the thought of water spewing in from all angles is enough of a visual for me to call a professional.

Call number one: a ten-minute inspection and a three thousand dollar estimate (of course they won't know for sure until they 'get inside.'  Get inside what?  The pipes??? Are you really going to get inside, I thought you already said they all need to go???

Call number two yielded a similar 10-minute once over, although this one did at least turn the water on to check the pressure.  This was $950.00 for a partial re-pipe after taping on the pipe like a damn Pipe Whisperer to determine that the original 90+ year old pipes are full of 'gunk.'  I gotta say, I'm no plumber but the pipe whisperer bit (and the look on his face while he waited for the pipe to air it's secrets) was both too odd and too much for me.

While at a little league game, (our city and our oldest) are big into baseball, another parent told me her cousin-in-law is a plumber who lives a block or two over.  A couple messages back and forth and I was answering a very thorough battery of questions, the conversation ended with me texting him a couple detailed images of fittings, faucets and other plumbing 'stuff'. He explained I may need new inserts on the faucet, with the pictures he would be able to bring the right one.

I really like where this is heading already...

NEOCON 2013

If you are attending Neocon, stop by the Harrington booth on the seventh floor and write on our walls!

Brookfield derailment

a few shots from todays train derailment in Brookfield.

BNSF employee inspecting the broken caliper that caused the derailment 

 broken caliper that caused the derailment

 tanker car with derailment

The Anatomy of Inspiration...or how a giant yellow tube can inspire.

Anyone who knows me knows I've been building and shooting pinholes and custom cameras for quite some time.  You might also know that I have been involved with the people at Lenox Laser since winning the grand prize in their first ever pinhole competition in 2001 with a recovered type 55 shot of the Great Hall in Chicago Union Station.  That image was made with a homemade super wide-angle 4x5 camera with a Lenox pinhole.  Unfortunately that camera was dissembled and the parts used elsewhere when Polaroid Type 55 hit $100.00 a box!

But none of that really matters because I want to share how the Lenox Hi-Contrast DSLR cap came to be.  Around this time last year my friend Greg Solyar called me to see if I wanted to come and be the Keynote speaker at the Industrial Institute of Optics first  annual Pinhole Seminar in 2012.  I was honored to be asked and started preparing my presentation as soon as I got off the phone.  My talk explored how alternative forms of photography have found their way into mainstream editorial and advertising photography.  It can be viewed by clicking here if you are interested; mom watched my entire talk (all five videos) and thought they were nifty!

In preparation of the seminar, owner Joe d’Entremont and optical engineer Greg Solyar sent me the latest version of the Lenox lens cap to play with which like all of their products, is beautifully built and at the core is fitted with the very best of pinholes available.  So I set out to create a set of samples to share with the audience. 

Using a pinhole with a digital camera creates a uniquely different and look and feel than you would get shooting on a 4x5 and 8x10.  For a long time I've thought that 4x5 is the ideal format for pinhole photography largely due to its sharpness and natural fall-off on wider cameras creating a natural vignette you can almost touch and feel.  With manufactures producing less and less sheet film, professional labs waning and Fuji's pending 20% price increase hanging on is really only prolonging its demise.  Before you email a nasty-gram, I know there will always be a film shooting sec that may or may not outlive me, but the practically of shooting film is just no longer there at least for most of us.

So enter,  the completely ADD friendly lens cap pinhole.  The idea nothing new, I tried this on my first digital camera but quickly returned the parts to wherever I absconded them from once I saw the painful results.  The image overflowed with digital noise because of the early digitals cameras poor (or I like the word anemic here) ability to handle long exposures.  Coupled with its small APS sized sensor, you were left with a blurry nondescript image that did not look or feel unique in any particular way. 

This changed as todays cameras have amazing high ISO abilities and full frame sensors.  In fact the most current of Canons offerings looks too good with their superior noise suppression at high ISOs and longer exposures.  In fact, the low light ability and grain structure of the older 5d MKII complement the look of the pinhole perfectly making it my ideal choice for digital pinhole photography.

So how did the cap improve and what's this talk about the yellow pipe of inspiration?  Below is the picture that changed everything.  I was out shooting with the Lenox cap while the kids were across the way playing Gaga Ball.  I photographed various stuff in the park including the newly installed yellow piping protection layer on the outfield wall.  On a bright sunny day, I thought it should be nice and bright, a perfect subject for some dramatic images.  

It wasn’t until I printed some of the shots that I really noticed the dramatic increase in sharpness, as the pipe got right up to the camera.  Hmmmm, that's particular, it's as if I had the lens board too far away from the film plane or had focused right to the front of the camera.  

A simple solution would be to bring the lens closer to the film, play with a lens on your camera and you will see what I’m talking about.  Easy with a normal lens but a bit more challenging with a pinhole cap.

So after a glass of wine and a bit of drill pressing and super gluing, I had a completely functioning prototype that looked like the one to the right.

Here is how the much more polished (and now available) high-end Lenox version looks.  

Looking at the calendar you can still have one delivered before Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day on the 28th of April. 

Participate with a high-end Lenox cap or a Quaker oatmeal box like the one my dad built with me so many years ago but get out and enjoy some timeless lo-fi photography. When you complete your masterpiece share your work on the WWPD website here.    

Over spring break we took the very long way to St. Louis via Peer Marquette Illinois.  We had a great time at the lodge, ate ourselves silly, zip-lined and explored the area.  Here are some vacation pics shot with the new Canon 24-70 f/2.8 II.  I was really skeptical of its over 2K price tag, so look for a full review shortly.  Here is a sneak peek of some of the images, enjoy!

the Alton Bridge

The Melvin Price Lock and Dam also in Alton

I've always thought Matt Siber's Floating Logos project is cool, so here is my 'reverse-Siber' as found in a gas station along the way.

In the Ring

This past Sunday, I backed up the ring photographer at the New Traditions Riding Academy Spring Horse Show. In addition to having a great time and making some fun images, my son earned his first Blue Ribbon, go John!

i Wonder...

Hostess and Wonder Bread delivery trucks awaiting liquidation after bankruptcy filings.

Reversing the negative

Some inverted shots of fine art photographer Richard Misrach's negative images at this years SPE.

A negative (but quite positive actually) Misrach can been seen at the podium in the lower left corner.

SPE Day 1, a couple of Martins and a Richard

Martin Parr getting ready for his keynote

Martin Parr front and center

Richard Kelly

'I'm creating fiction out of reality'

'The thing that I miss about Britain when I'm away is a cup of tea and a bit of irony'

Martin Parr

Bridges, well viaducts actually...

 

Finally shot the 55 to 355 exchange I've been wanting to shoot for awhile, still lovin' the 6D!

revisiting the Sunny 16 rule

Thought that I would share a document that I just finished up that goes into detail about 
Basic Daylight Exposure (BDE) or as most know it, the Sunny 16 rule.  It is complete with 
charts, graphs and very cool old Kodak data sheet art like this one below.  

click here to read the four-page document

Enjoy!

Dirk

Happy Holidays...

...from the suburbs.

with only minutes to spare...

...before the apocalypse, I got in a couple test shots with my new Canon 6D. 

Under Watch

Here is an image I made while in St. Louis for an ongoing project about the abundance of security cameras creating reams of data of our mundane daily lives.

Remembering the Twinkie

In between worrying about the Blue Man Group's pending adaptation after losing the Twinkie (click here and go to 2:04) and screening my favorite Twinkie product placement, I remembered that a little while back the twin yellow snack cakes made their way to my macro lens and ringlite for my ongoing project Fast Foods. 

While at the time, for whatever reason, I didn't feel like the shot was as strong as the others, I would be remiss if it weren't included in the project now with all the press the little rubbery snacks are commanding.