Practice makes perfect. This is a statement that at its foundation, is based on a lie. There is no perfection, at least when it comes to human pursuits. Try as we might, we never quite reach perfection. Sometimes we miss the bull’s-eye by a fraction of an inch, sometimes we missed the target completely. Yet, we strive. We reach for the golden ring, even though it is ultimately just out of touch.
I’ve been thinking about the idea of practice quite a bit lately. This blog is part of the weekly practice of mine. Recently I started a daily writing practice, which I begin every day with. Filling one small page with whatever is on the top of my head at that particular moment. I find it helps to have the ritual, regardless of the results. Making art, shooting photographs, performing improv, these all demand constant practice. With constant practice, comes nearly constant struggle, constant frustration, constant shortcomings. Sometimes things end up feeling like a complete failure. But even these moments are critical, and end up being valuable.
Another adage is that we learn from our mistakes. And this might not always be true, but if we’re lucky, we do sometimes learn lessons from our mistakes. That’s why practice is so critical. Especially when it’s a daily practice.Because sometimes, the right thought… the right word… the right photograph… presents itself through this practice. But more often than not, I am faced with what I call a “near miss.” And sometimes a complete swing and a miss.
Which brings to mind the idea of batting practice. This is a reference to baseball, but I’m sure it applies to other sports, and other pursuits in general. If we think about the best hitters in the history of baseball, their batting average is somewhere between .300 and .400. This basically means that even the greatest players did not get a hit six or seven times out of every 10 times they stepped up to the plate. And these are the best of the best. You could be a professional baseball player and maybe bat around .250 and be considered a pretty good player. Meaning you’re only getting on base one out of every four times at bat. For us mere mortals, our batting average, I’m sure, is even lower. And you can apply this to any pursuit; professional, amateur, hobby, art.
As you know I shoot a lot of film. I know it’s been said generally that if you have one winning frame per roll of film, one keeper, you’re doing pretty well as a photographer. One out of 36 frames. That’s not a very good batting average. Now think about the luxury of shooting digital, and having no real limit on the number of pictures you can take. The ability to delete immediately the photos that you consider failures. I think it’s really important, to keep the bad pictures, to keep the failures. To fight against your low batting average. To scrape and struggle and work hard to try to improve your batting average, a few percentage points at a time. Some games you may strike out every time you step up to the plate. Sometimes you may hit a home run. But every time at the plate is part of playing the game.
As a footnote to this post, I find it ironic that my first attempt at writing this entry was a complete failure on my part. I inadvertently forgot to save my first draft as I was typing, and lost everything I had written. A swing and a miss.
Flaunt The Imperfections
Entry # 2020:43
Issue #5 is out now
I’m excited to share my newest self-published project with the world. I created my zine series “Flaunt The Imperfections” a few years ago, when I dove deeply back into film photography. I wanted an outlet for the work I created using my old cameras, all shot on film, showing the grain, contrast and the roughness that I love so much about non-digital image-making. I also wanted to make a strong commitment to the rejection of perfection. I had (and continue to have) a gnawing disdain for the flawlessness of a digitally captured and manipulated photograph. The use of film in old cameras allows for the introduction of happenstance, surprise, and yes, shortcomings and what some might deem as “failure.” The denial of these challenges can so easily be done when you can simply “delete” an image from your camera. Instead, I found these were attributes to exploit, and even celebrate.
The current issue of my zine is a radical step for me creatively. As many of us have felt through the past year…or four years… or even more… I have been afraid, insecure, worried, and angry about the state of the world, and the state of the union. The pandemic has of course weighed heavy on my mind, but so too have other pressing political and environmental issues. The world literally has been on fire. My artistic output has reflected this upheaval. And as I wandered through the remaining “burn scar” in the Rio Grande bosque earlier this summer, I had an abrupt realization that this damage I was witnessing could be reflected in my photography. I somehow decided that the subject matter, nature in general, and the forest and trees in particular, would be a platform for me to explore an intentional destruction and degradation of the film negatives I was creating. I started slowly, experimenting with different film stocks and sources of flame and heat. Then I went further, scraping, piercing, sanding, and then, finally stepping on the strips of film. The metaphors are obvious and need no further explanation.
As is my usual approach, I moved quickly to bring this body of work to publication. I had time to focus on the production (and destruction) of the work, and I worked on the final layout with little hesitation. As such, there are probably elements of the final piece that I might have changed or adjusted, but again, the purpose of this zine series is a celebration of imperfections. It’s all there on the page, like it or not.
I have started taking orders for the zine, and will ship in early November. I you’d like to order a copy, please click the link below. I am proud of this work, and hope to share it with as many of you as possible.
2020: 30 The (Not-So) Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck
an addendum to my weekly posts… with a nod to Mark Manson
Fog, light leaks, lens flare, scratches, dust, grain, etc. I love everything about this image.
I had an epiphany this morning. Or just a “kick in the eye.” I already had a thought rattling around in my brain that needed to surface. And it did. There’s a dude out there on the internet named Mark Manson, whose newsletter I subscribe to. He’s also written a book that I did read, but maybe not fully embrace. But then again, it must have sunken in, or validated something inside of me, hence this rambling post.
I don’t give a fuck. Right now anyway. Here’s the rub: I shot a roll of film over the past few days, and wanted to develop and scan it over the weekend. So yesterday, I loaded the film in my changing bag and stand processed the film in my kitchen sink. Unbeknownst to me, a sizable tear had developed in the sleeve of my changing bag. Long story short, the roll of film suffered from some serious fogging (I’ll let you digital natives google that.) My roll was far from pristine… lots of light leak damage along the frame edges. I think the fact that I stand developed the roll for 37 minutes on a hot day probably exacerbated the results. The grain was pronounced, too.
Guess what? I didn’t give a fuck and scanned the roll anyway. And I love every fucking frame on the roll. The smattering of lights and darks creeping into the frames, the rough edges of the film sprockets, a bit of dust here and there. I love it all. Why? Because it is a mess, it is imperfect. It is not a perfect digital image. It is not a fast swipe through on Instagram. Which brings me to another point. I get really aggravated when I hear film shooters complain about how long it takes to scan their film. I think it’s an integral part of the process. And though it might take an hour or so for me to scan an entire roll on my archaic Epson 3200 Photo, I don’t fucking care. I put my headphones on, crank the Spotify, and focus on the task at hand. One at a time, the scans pop up on a folder on my desktop, and I do a quick crop and levels adjustment, while the scanner continues its work on the next image.
Spend some time on your photos, for Frank’s sake! Even if they are are failures. Especially if they are failures. You’ll learn from the experience. You’ll slow the fuck down and study your images. Why did I shoot this? Is it any good? IT IS GOOD solely because you took the time to make that photograph. It might not get 100 likes on Instagram. It might not end up as print, or in a zine. But who fucking cares? It is a moment of your life that you invested in. It is evidence that you saw something and responded to it. And if it’s covered in dust, or fogged, or scratched, or out of focus, or just a lame, boring photo, it just doesn’t matter. No one else gives a fuck, why should you? Embrace it.
2020: 22 (Rejection)
Over the past few months, I’ve spent the majority of my time shooting film. I have described the appeal in other blog posts, but I have come to deeply appreciate the imperfections that film shooting accentuates. My journey through film has included a number of “hacks” that entail running 35mm film through medium format cameras, or shooting with an array of cheap, plastic cameras. Developing black and white film in my kitchen sink has allowed me a closed loop on my image production, and it has liberated me from the constraints of the “perfect” image.
Digital cameras have created so many opportunities for capturing images that in the past would have been impossible (or extremely challenging) to achieve with film. However, with all of the technological advances has come a plethora of similarity. Perfectly exposed, perfectly stopped action, perfect, perfect, perfect. Ultra fast shutter speeds and rapid frame-per-second rates have exacerbated the “spray and pray” approach to digital shooting. With all of this comes boring sameness. Social media has already made each image almost instantly disposable, and a scan through my Instagram feed reinforces the easy dismissal of what might even be an outstanding individual photograph. It all just gets lost in the deluge.
Maybe it’s the acceptance of living in a “new reality” (how I hate that term) that has pushed me further away from conventional thinking, or maybe I’ve watched too many YouTube videos of “influencers’ testing out lenses and cameras, or even different film stocks. It all merges into white noise of sameness, mediocrity, a general lack of originality. I have been embracing the crudeness of film shooting, the limits of sharpness, the beauty of film grain, the roughness of film sprocket holes, blasted out highlights and undetailed shadows. Image quality that reflects the world as it is right now. Turmoil and upheaval and unfairness, and bigotry, and violence, and selfishness… and death. Pain washes over all of us in time, as the maestro Robert Frank once said… fitting that it has crept into my image making. But this is not all doom and gloom thinking and creating, as I find the entire process to be cathartic, and ultimately, life affirming. I realize that I have my own way of seeing the world, and my own way of showing the world. And yes, sometimes that’s a dark vision, but sometimes there is a light in the darkness, and sometimes it just feels good to exorcise some ghosts that rattle in the depths of my mind.
I often quote Henri Cartier-Bresson’s statement that “sharpness is a bourgeois concept.” I am empowered to reject the expectation of clarity, sharpness, cleanliness and perfection. I have published a number of zines under the masthead “Flaunt The Imperfections” and it is in this spirit that my most recent work has evolved. Real life isn’t perfect… why should my art be any different?
2019: 44 (Flaunt The Imperfections: Issue #4)
Very excited to share a sneak peek at my next project. A collaboration with my friend and fellow Latent Image Collective photographer, Francesco di Marco. The next issue of my film-based zine; this time ALL instant photographs. More details and pre-sale information coming soon.