The Dakota Creek Project

We're Moving!

Announcing Our New . . .

We're not sure what to call it. Compendium seems the best term, but a bit over the top. Amalgam — too dental. Blog — too, well, bloggish. Corpus — creepy. Assemblage, collation, accumulation, gathering — oh, heck with it.

How about — Where We Put Lots of Miscellaneous Stuff We Think You Will Be Interested In.

Essentially, we are doing a bit of E-C-R-S, which stands for Eliminate, Combine, Rearrange, and Simplify.

The idea is simply this: we are combining all the multifarious email and web communications we have with LensWork readers into one compendium. Rather than having separate . . .

• Podcast
• Tech Blog
• Ask Brooks Blog
• Weekly News & Info Emails
• Alumni News emails
• Twice weekly Alumni Spotlights
• Vision of the Heart blog
• Alumni Spotlight
• Podcast email announcements

. . . we are combining all of this into one, new project called LensWork Daily. This combined whatever has the advantages of:

• Giving our readers a single location for everything
• Much easier for us to create and post
• Design consistency
• Category tagging so you can see only a filtered subset of posts that interest you
• Cross-fertilization of our various reading groups
• Automatic RSS feeds to email, browsers or other aggregators (and we'll be providing tutorials for those of you who are not familiar with this)
  • You can receive new posts in your email
  • You can monitor new posts using your browser's RSS tracking
  • Or you can bookmark the main web page http://daily.lenswork.com and stop by whenever you want to catch up.

And most importantly, because LensWork Daily uses a post/comment format, you can add your thoughts to the discussion via comment posting and share ideas with the community at large.

http://daily.lenswork.com

We call it LensWork Daily because we have so much content to share that it works out we actually do something everyday  — well, at least Monday through Friday. Because these things have been scattered in a number of different areas, we know some of you haven't been aware of all the content we publish. Now, with this unified approach, you'll be able to more easily keep up with all there is to see.

So, this blog is being terminated and all its previous and future content can now be found at http://daily.lenswork.com. Pop over there and reset your bookmarks, RSS feeds, and take a look at our new combined, amalgamated, unified whatever-we-should-call-it!

Enjoy!

Brooks Jensen
Editor, LensWork Publishing

P.S. By the way, our regular website (www.lenswork.com) is still where you can go to learn all about the various products we sell, subscription information, etc.

And www.lensworkonline.com, our new membership website with content galore, is where you will find downloadable publications, full-content video workshops, the podcast archives going all the back to podcast #0001, epub and Kindle ebooks, audio and video interviews with photographers, iPad and Android editions of both LensWork and LensWork Extended, and lots more.

Layouts and playing around

As I've worked more and more with folios and PDFs, I've become aware of the importance of layout and design. The days of simply plopping an image in the middle of a piece of mat board are long gone — at least for me.

So, I'm constantly on the lookout for ideas and often find inspiration for layouts in the oddest places. When I was doing some research on the potential Petals of Power idea, I came across this web page in Wikipedia. Go look at it and scroll down to the section with all the math formulas. What an interesting background for a layout!

Rather than plain white . . .

(click images to open a larger versions in a new tab)

. . . my first experiment, just to get the idea of how it might look, went something like this, using the text from the Wikipedia page as a light gray background . . .

I like this. I could use this. But why not continue experimenting? Part of the process is to explore, stretch, play, imagine — even to go way out into the truly goofy and then come back to what works. I continued.

The next iteration includes a light brown background behind the background text, a drop shadow to lift the image off the background, and a keyline around the image — like this . . .

  

You get the idea. Playing around with layouts — even simple ones like these — dramatically change the project for the better. I have no idea yet what the final layout will be, but I am enjoying the process of playing around with it.

At last, an idea

The name of the ship just ready to launch is the Legacy — a powerful vessel whose purpose is to push heavy barges with finesse and incredible power. I was over in the shipyard a few days ago photographing its now completed exterior prior to its launch on October 4th.

I've been photographing this ship since it was a pile of pieces.

Walking up to the now-finished ship, I was naturally drawn to its massive props. I began thinking what a marvelous bit of engineering is a propeller.

Power. Pushing against the fluidity of water. These delicate flower-like shapes made of perfectly balanced bronze.

And with that, a working title popped into my head — Petals of Power. I have lots of images of propellers, both on and off the ships. At last, a first potential point of focus that can be worked into a project. I'll be working on it this weekend. I have no idea if the working title will stick, but it at least has me moving in a defined direction.

Guilt is a Powerful Force

When I started this blog, I proposed that it would be a candid and inside look at one person's creative process. Perhaps I should have said that I warned you . . .

One of the universally unacknowledged parts of any creative process is the guilt that accompanies it. In my case, I have a defined guilt that it's been seven weeks or so since I was in the shipyard photographing, longer since I worked on any of the images, and about six weeks since I blogged about it here. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

In my youth, I was wracked by it. I've learned to slough it off. It contributes nothing, improves nothing, and in my case doesn't even motivate me. Any work on my art projects that is motivated by guilt is tainted. You may quote me on that.

Pauses are, well, maybe not inevitable, but certainly not uncommon. Sometimes they are fully justified. We had a staff meeting the other day and recapped that we've completed 28 major projects in the last 14 months — a complete redesign of our website, our PDF Workshop, the Folios Workshop, the Finding an Audience workshop, my 3-week trip to Asia, six Uchiwa-e folios, we brought LensWork Extended production in-house, launched LensWork Extended Digital Delivery, published six folios of alumni work, and, of course, published 7 issues of LensWork and 7 issues of LensWork Extended. Oh, yeah, and I started three new blogs and this one, too. Make that 32 projects in 14 months.

Yet, I can still feel a twinge of guilt that I've not moved forward on the shipyard project? As I say, guilt is a powerful force — not necessarily a good one.

I guess the lesson here — if there is a lesson here — is that pauses do occur in the creative process. We need to learn to deal with them, manage them, manage our guilt about them, and realize that all this is normal. Just as there are rhythms to the seasons, there are rhythms to our creative life. The key is to allow the rhythms to cycle and not use them as an excuse for procrastination and sloth. Guilt can be a weapon against procrastination and sloth, but a waste of time when institutionalized as a way of life.

Fortunately, things are slowing down just a bit in our production schedule. The light is looking particularly seductive on the shipyard as I look our out kitchen window. The steel is starting to call to me once again. I can feel the cycle changing and I am looking forward to it.

B/W or color?

I vacillate as to whether this project should be b/w or color. My current conviction seems totally dependent on the latest images and how they look best. Generally speaking, I've never reacted positively to a project of mixed presentation, but this might be a first — unless I ultimately decide I can mix b/w and color in the same project.

For example, here is an image from my last session in the yard that seems as if it definitely needs to be in color.

With my usual warm-tone b/w treatment, it just doesn't seem as alive.

Then there are images like this one made just a few minutes earlier . . .

. . . which don't work at all in color . . .

My strategy at this point is to make this decision for each image individually, that is to say, to make a decision how best to finish an image whichever looks best for that image. Again, I'll simply postpone any decisions about the final presentations until I'm deeper into the project.

More than one at a time

This blog is, of course, about this one project as it unfolds. It is important to note, however, that this is not a reflection of how I actually work. I always have more than one project going at a time. They overlap. As far as I can remember, I've always worked this way.

For example, I've just returned from a week of photographing in North Dakota — a completely different project. Here are a couple of images from the week.

Why is this important to note here in this blog?

• There was a time when this multi-project approach was cumbersome: I found it difficult to switch vision — and even technique — from project to project. My mind tends to be bull-doggish and to lock on to the exclusion of all else. But, a number of years ago I learned about the Gestalt idea of "lock-on, lock-out" and realized this is actually normal human psychology. With this knowledge, I realized it would require a specific plan of action and purposeful mind to switch comfortably from one mind-set to another as needed for each project.
• For example, in the shipyard, I am photographing with a monopod, loosely, composing on the fly, working quickly, concentrating on visual patterns and graphics, using longish lenses and fast shutter speeds. In the North Dakota project, I'm using a tripod, often using time exposures and a cable release, mostly using wide-angle lenses, composing carefully, thinking about multimedia and text as I photograph. It is a definite switch from one mindset to the other.
• To accommodate this flip, I've developed a routine that's worth mentioning: I spend a few minutes visualizing the process before I jump in — an idea I ripped off from the sports world. Think of gymnasts with their eyes closed, visualizing their routine in their mind's eye. I do the same kind of thing, whether I'm picking up the camera to photograph, or picking up the mouse to start doing computer work. It helps me prepare and allows me to more smoothly shift gears. Sounds silly, but it works.
• There is a leap-frog sort of approach to these overlapping projects. One project may be at the beginning phases, another in the middle, and yet another in the post-production marketing phase. I've needed to learn to be comfortable with this, too.
• Then there is project organization. The challenge of keeping everything moving and discrete means that I've needed to learn an organizational pattern that I can repeat with ease and flexibility. By using the same organizational tools for all my projects, I can more easily flip from one project to another because working them is a similar activity. (I'll say more about this in a future post.)
• There are gaps. Since I was in North Dakota for a week, I didn't photograph the shipyard at all for the last 10 days or so. I used to feel guilty about this; I used to worry about the fits and starts. Then, Maureen pointed out to me the simple idea that all good cooks know: Sometimes you need to let things simmer for a while for the full flavors to come out. Works in photography, too. While one thing simmers, you work feverishly on something else. When you come back to the well-simmered, it often is vastly improved by the inattention.

Fumbling for structure

Having dispensed in the last few posts with a few preliminaries that set the scene more concretely, I come to the part of the story where the fuzzy nature of the project itself becomes manifest. Said plainly, I have no idea what this project is, just yet.

Not to worry; I've been here before. In every project I've ever done — even outside my photographic life — there is a phase in the beginning where not even a sketch exists to outline the project. Instead, there is only impulse. I am drawn to photograph in the shipyard because it fascinates me; the people fascinate me, their skill, talent, strength, knowledge — they are an amazing and hard-working bunch of folks. The structures fascinate me; the sheer weight of these ships is mind-boggling, the precision of joining curved pieces of steel and having them meet with a tolerance of less than 1/32nd of an inch, the graceful lines and curves designed for efficient movement through water, the power of the engines to move such mass with delicacy — they are feats of engineering that are a wonder to contemplate — and to photograph.

So, I do, without much thought as to why and for what eventual purpose. I have faith that it will become clear as the project reveals itself to me. I feel as though I am just beginning, yet there are 17 folders of images in my Lightroom database, comprising some 8,476* exposures to date. I may not know what the project is, but I do know it is gaining momentum.

So far, I've made what I consider to be the "easy" photographs. I've stayed on terra firma, photographing the outer hulls, not venturing into the ships. There is plenty of natural light, and it's easy to walk completely around them and find new compositions every few feet.

Because I only get over to the shipyard a time or two a month, the potential images are always different as the construction changes the ship's shapes and forms. As I say, so far it's easy, so why not just go with it. I'll sort it out later — or at least it's easy at this point to have faith that I will. For now — some 18 months into it — I'm just allowing myself to photograph whatever catches my eye, and for the project to gain speed at its natural rate. I'm sort of just along for the ride.

*BTW, I use bracketing for these exposures, plus and minus as well as the "correct" exposure. So, roughly speaking, these 8,476 exposures represent something in the neighborhood of 2,800 unique compositions.

A word about equipment

For the first 30 years of my photographic life, I shot view cameras. In those thirty years, I never made a photograph without a tripod. Ever. I knew this was going to be a hassle in the shipyard where the comings and going of heavy equipment make photographic mobility a decided plus.

I did something for this project I'd never done before — I purchased a camera specifically for use in the shipyard. I knew I wanted to shoot digital. I knew I wanted a variety of lenses. I knew I wanted an articulating LCD screen. A bit of research revealed not many choices with everything I wanted, save one specific model — the new (at that time) Panasonic G1 micro 4/3 camera. I bought one to test. I was very pleased with the images, the lenses, the operation. That it was small and lightweight was a bonus. That it was reasonably inexpensive allowed me to purchase two of them, providing a backup and less lens swapping over in the dusty shipyard.

I have three lenses I'm using (so far) in this project: the Lumix G Vario 14-45mm; the Lumix G Vario 45-200mm; and the Lumix G Vario 7-14mm. Here is one from the latter, shot at 11mm.

Here is one at 45mm with the 14-45mm . . .

And one with the 45-200mm at 166mm . . .

I'm yet to find myself wishing I had anything else.

The biggest surprise as far as equipment was concerned was the discovery of the first practical and useable monopod — the Manfrotto 685B. I've blogged about it here.

In the couple dozen sessions in the shipyard to date, I've carried the following as a sort of standard kit:

• Two Panasonic G1 bodies
• The three lenses mentioned above
• The monopod
• Extra batteries
• Polarizer
• Cokin graduated neutral density filter
• Extra jacket, just in case it gets cold or rains

That's it. KISS.

Missed it, damn

Like many of you I'm sure, time to photograph is precious. Life has a way of demanding time from us other than the pursuit of our art. Damn.

Day before yesterday, I saw from the kitchen window that they'd painted the new Candies vessel with a primer coat. I was so glad I'd been over to the yard the previous Friday to capture a few more images with writing on the hull as the welders made notes to themselves. The primer covered it, of course.

The primer paint was in two colors with a line of demarcation defined by both tape and some thin plastic sheets that prevented overspray. Lovely, I thought. Too busy tonight, but tomorrow I need to go photographic it. Next day at lunch I glanced over at the ship and saw, to my disappointment, that they'd not only removed the plastic that morning, but had already painted the over primer with glossy black. I missed it. He who hesitates …

Tonight I'll be there for sure to get some images while the new black paint is spotless. I noticed the angle of the sun is perfect at about 8pm to 8:45pm — love these long days right after the solstice!

I'm particularly drawn to images where I can see the human hand evidenced in the process — writing on the metal seems to manifest that with particularly poignancy. Here are a couple from earlier sessions, before the paint brings an entirely new sculptural feel to the shapes.

Numbers

In the last post, I mentioned the exposure number of a couple of images. I should explain.

I've learned over the years that organization is worth its weight in silver. Nothing is as frustrating in a project than not being able to find the negative you are looking for. Trust me on this one. So, after the first couple of sessions, when I realized this was going to be a substantial project — a long-term one — I decided to start on an organized foot. Numbering the digital files sequentially has been an essential component to keeping track of everything.

And then there is Adobe Lightroom. It is the basis for everything, so far. Each session if archived in a folder specifically for Dakota Creek images only, by month. Makes it easy to archive and organize.

On import from the digital card, I keyword every image by subject so I can also find them that way. I never realized in my film days how challenging it could be to simply keep organized — primarily because I never realized a project could involve thousands of exposures. It can and this project is proof.

No doubt, Lightroom will be one of the recurring themes in this blog.