Maquinna's Poop du Jour

Bead Bouquet, 2005 

posted by Maquinna @ 2:13 p.m. 0 comments

Nauset Light Beach, 2003 

posted by Maquinna @ 1:40 p.m. 0 comments

The Shoot

Part of my job as a marketing director for an MBA program is to coordinate the creation of new marketing materials - and inevitably, that means bringing in real live photographers to do professional shots. There are a couple of guys I normally work with when I need photography, and as someone who plans to become a photographer herself in a year or so, I always value the chance to watch them work and see how they handle challenges and come up with the look we need.

This morning I spent four hours at this one guy's studio, where we were shooting a critical image - a cover shot for our next program viewbook. I get a few extra miles out of these shots by using them in different areas, like perhaps on a web page or a poster or ad, and part of the rationale there too is to create a uniform look between pieces of collateral, or electronic media, so that the viewer begins to identify the image with us.

I'm always amazed to watch Pat, the photographer, work, and even more so to see how many elements have to come together to make something like this happen. A lot of people think photography is just getting behind a camera and shooting a picture, but that's about 1% of it in a case like this. We spent the last two weeks planning this shot - trying to come up with a concept that would get our message out there, which isn't easy when the message is intangible. It's not like you're selling shampoo and you can just photograph a picture of the bottle or a model with suds in her hair. The graphic designer gets involved, to make sure that the composition will be right for the piece we're developing. Other people from the marketing department at the college get involved to make sure the shot fits the college's overall image. I have to hire a model - in this case, two models - and determine the right wardrobe for them. All this, and you still have to come up with something creative.

We began the day suspending large panels of plexiglass from the ceiling, and setting up a coloured backdrop behind them. We then set up laptops and projectors to project graphic elements onto the panels from behind. Booms, lights, take the backdrop down and put up a different colour...adjust the panel angles...re-edit the graphic collage on one panel so that it projects right to left instead of left to right...select wardrobe, test it, change it out, test it, change it out again...and we haven't even taken ONE photo yet!

Meanwhile, Pat's setting up his camera (which is worth about five times my car, minimum), tethering it to a computer and testing the lighting. One model is directed to make walking motions through the scene so that there will be some action blur. The other needs to hold very still and just look devastatingly confident - which he does (and I even get to touch him a lot under pretense of adjusting wardrobe and hair!).

We take some shots. We realize that the angles of the panels, or the camera in relation to them, still aren't right. We adjust that. We place filters on some lights. We readjust the angle of the backdrop. We re-adjust the projected graphics so lines don't appear to be skewering the model's head like a fat kebab. We take more shots. We keep working on the background model to get the walk-motion blur just right. We change out the front model's shirt. We take more shots. We mop the model's brow which has begun to get very shiny from the lights and is causing glare in the shots. We take more shots.

All the while, I'm thinking, this is what I'm going to be doing. And this is so much fun. I can't wait until I am setting up shots like this. Frankly, I think it's easier in a way than on-the-fly, more candid shooting. I can take more time with it. I can get it perfect...or I can at least try. Despite how much I realize I have to learn, I get more and more psyched about it and wish I could just chuck everything else and spend time practicing, shooting, getting better and better. I've always known that my life would be far more interesting when I was excited about my work. I just wish it hadn't taken so long to figure out what kind of work would give me that feeling!

posted by Maquinna @ 12:54 p.m. 1 comments

Dawn of the Dead

I hate getting sick. I'm not a particularly good patient. Usually if I'm feeling under the weather, I consider it a fine enough excuse to stay home from work, but little more. Our department head is one of these highly germ-phobic people that wipe down doorknobs with anti-bacterial babywipes, so he was at least glad I chose to stay away last week. What pissed me off even more was my complete physical inability to do anything other than moan and shiver on the couch for several days. This, during a spring heatwave that should have had me down on Cape Cod walking the dog to the beach in the morning. What a waste of beautiful weather.

So now I'm back at work, and of course no one does your work while you're away. The papers are starting to breed again. No loafing this week. I have a ton of copy to write. It's no wonder I've pretty much given up any thoughts of writing for a living. I already do, and it sucks. I suppose it would make a difference if I could write something I was interested in, but after a day of writing the same promo bullshit six different ways, I'm too burnt out to create anything remotely interesting on the page in my own time.

Hence, photography...

Which reminds me - I have a lot to catch up on there too! New photoshop module starts this week. I better do some review...

posted by Maquinna @ 11:37 a.m. 1 comments

Stumbling

I'm grumbling over a new learning curve in photography. I cannot yet figure out how to operate a speedlite effectively and it's getting in my way. Hyper-critical analysis of my latest photos shows a decided weakness I can directly attribute to this. I'm pretty sure I can still complete my project but it bothers me that I know I could be making better photographs if I could master this.

I have so much to learn!

posted by Maquinna @ 2:30 p.m. 1 comments

Torched, 2005 

posted by Maquinna @ 11:33 a.m. 0 comments

Art from the Flames

I'm currently working on a new photography project involving storytelling - essentially I have to use my photographs as a storytelling device. This is not unlike how a publication like National Geographic works, and I'm not restricted from using text and other means (like the method of presentation) to bring the story to life, as that magazine and others do. I'm taking the approach, however, that the photographs must drive the story, and any text I add to the piece will be secondary to them.

I decided to use the recently opened New Street GlassWorks in Worcester as my subject. I've spent a few evenings there shooting different glassmaking classes and glasswork in process. There were certainly some things I would like to have shot and didn't get the opportunity to - such as the glass sculptures of the center's director, Alex Bernstein - but I can see how I wouldn't have been able to do those real justice without a lot of time and a complete studio lighting set-up. This story was more photojournalistic in nature.

As time passed shooting different kinds of glassmaking, I realized that I was focusing ever more narrowly on one very specific story - the creation of a bowl by one of the artists in residence (Dan, Dan something...sorry buddy, I can't remember your last name at the moment!). I have a ridiculous number of pictures to edit to get down to the heart of this story, but I'm trusting in my editing team to help me there.

I thought I'd post one of the photos I really like, but I think is going to fall by the wayside because it is unrelated to the story that has emerged. This was the making of a glass ornament in a class taught by another artist (Jake Vincent). Watching this ornament literally blossom from a 5500 degree fahrenheit flame was truly amazing.

posted by Maquinna @ 11:14 a.m. 0 comments

The Perils of Being Oblivious to B.O. 

posted by Maquinna @ 1:55 p.m. 0 comments

Peee-ewwwww, Part Three

I was totally dreading coming into work this morning. I half expected to hear that my smelly co-worker had resigned, or worse, that I was about to face some kind of harassment suit and HR would be screaming at me on my voice mail.

Instead, I got this email from Miss Smelly, thanking me, and asking me for continued feedback! Go figure.

Years ago when I was still in Canada, a co-worker told me that I was blessed with the ability to tell someone to fuck off and make them feel good about it. I never thought I was actually any good at the art of diplomacy - I'm more inclined to shoot from the hip - but maybe I deliver bad news better than I thought.

Nah. Couldn't be.

posted by Maquinna @ 1:12 p.m. 0 comments

Proof that just because they're willing subjects, boyfriends don't make great photos when they insist on acting like dorks. 2005 

posted by Maquinna @ 3:38 p.m. 0 comments

Peee-ewwwww, Part 2

I did it. I told the girl she smells bad. It went about as well as I could imagine...I guess. I think we both feel really weird now. She did say she was really glad it was me who told her and not our boss, but she's wondering now why her boyfriend has never said anything.

Maybe he smells too?

posted by Maquinna @ 3:33 p.m. 0 comments

I stink? YOU stink.  

posted by Maquinna @ 3:09 p.m. 0 comments

Peee-ewwwww!

I take back everything I said about yesterday's committee meeting. I'd take that meeting ten times over before the one I'm going to have to do very soon.

We have a new co-worker who, it turns out, has a very objectionable body odour. It's not just once in awhile - it's everyday. From her appearance, I would also say that she doesn't bathe/shower regularly. Frequently her hair appears very unwashed. It didn't really seem like a problem during her interview, but here we are now and man alive, does she smell.

She's young, and not far out of college, and this is her first professional job. She's good at what she does, and she has a pleasant personality. I don't want to devastate her, and that's exactly what I'm afraid I'm going to do. I know how I'd feel if someone told me that basically, I smell bad. And yet, if I did (on a regular basis mind you, and not just after helping someone move into a third floor walk-up with no elevator in the middle of August)...I sure hope someone *would* tell me. Someone who I know was just trying to be helpful.

And that's where I come in. My director and I took a walk at lunch to discuss a few things, and this issue came up. I guess I'm not the only one who's noticed this problem (and frankly, I don't know how anyone could miss it). He was thinking he'd have to be the one to talk with her about it, and was looking for my thoughts on how to handle it. I told him I'd been thinking about it for awhile, and realized that if anyone was going to do this, it really should be me. She's already expressed some interest in my own personal sense of style - however misguided that is. This is going to be easier woman to woman, and less scary than coming from our director.

So now I'm about to figure out how to have the most difficult conversation ever with a co-worker. Any advice out there?

posted by Maquinna @ 12:53 p.m. 1 comments

Open Shutters, 2005 

posted by Maquinna @ 5:21 p.m. 0 comments

The Papal Conclave

Just returned from another excruciatingly tedious committee meeting. I serve on a policy and curriculum committee that is currently charged with developing a new curriculum for a proposed new program. Easy, huh? You get to build the thing from scratch...so, it should be like, anything you ever wanted, put it on the table. Let's see how we can make it happen. Open season. World's your oyster.

Of course, that's not how it works. The committee consists of:

a) Three faculty members: one who is new and got elected to the committee because no one else wanted to be on it, and he thought it was some kind of honour; one who can only think about how this will affect her one particular course and has no concept of what other courses make up an MBA program; and a guy who is so dead against the development of this new program that he spends the entire meeting bitching about it instead of offering any productive suggestions.

b) Two student members: one who is pissed that we're considering a program that might make the one she's completing obsolete, and one who barely speaks English and really has no idea what's going on.

c) My direct boss, who has just now decided we should probably meet every week instead of every other week to drive this thing off the cliff even faster.

d) Me, who mostly ducks while the bile shoots through the air and occasionally tries to corral everyone back to the job at hand while watching the grey hair on my boss cover ever greater real estate on his head.

One of the faculty members - the third, bitching one - has a distant relative from his hometown in Belgium who is a Roman Catholic cardinal and has been brought up as a possible successor for the papacy. This gave me an idea. I am going to lock all these people into a room with decreasing rations for a week and not let them out until I see the white smoke come out of the chimney - and a curriculum slid under the door.

I can't wait until my deskjob days are behind me. Can't you tell?

posted by Maquinna @ 5:04 p.m. 0 comments