Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Hard Work Beats Talent—Matt Armstrong, automotive YouTuber
Photography takes…Talent, Hard Work and Luck—Ari Jaaksi, photographic YouTuber
My own parents never told me “Hard work never killed anybody,” probably because they knew better. After he returned home from fighting in WW2, my Dad was employed at the Bethlehem Steel plant in Baltimore in their Open Hearth furnace workplace. The place was a hell-like inferno that. on most days, often brought him home covered in burns but through all this the bosses expected him to keep on working. One day, a small explosive charge that’s supposed to open one of the furnaces allowing molten steel to pour into a huge bucket, failed to go off. As Second Helper he was sent to investigate, as he got near the charge it exploded, leaving him partially deaf in one ear but glad to be alive. Later he was forced into early retirement because of emphysema. No, he didn’t smoke; he just breathed the air in his workplace.
What’s with all this nostalgia? Back in the film days when I started getting serious about photography I wanted to be a fine art photography and shot uncropped, medium format images with my old Mamiya TLRs using black and white film that I processed and printed. I also considered myself to be a “good” photographer. During the 1970’s I was pushed (by circumstance) into becoming a professional photographer instead of a starving artist—I think it was the “starving“ part that did the pushing— but I still thought of myself as a good photographer. After moving to Colorado and setting up a studio with my wife, Mary, I still thought I was a good photographer, especially technically. But…
How Did I Make this image: This image was shot on film at the Denver Botanical Gardens during my “What was I thinking” film-shooting period and while it’s not great it’s not horrible, at least I don’t think so. The image was made with a Canon EOS Elan 7E and EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens. Even then this was an affordable way to shoot macro with a Canon EOS system camera. Later, before I could afford (and finally got) a EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro lens, I added a 2X converter to give myself better working distances. The exposure on Kodak color negative was unrecorded; the image digitized on Kodak Photo CD.
Flash Forward
Recently when I started diving into my collection of Photo CDs from this time, I was struck by something: Because you have to pay for each scan—it cost $6.75 per image in today’s dollars—I only scanned what I thought were my best images. What I discovered in looking back at the nineties was that most of these images were pretty lackluster, boring even. Technically adept perhaps but boring. It reminded me of what a former Shutterbug editor one said when he showed me one of his glamour portraits: “Look at how sharp her eyelashes are!” Yup, they were sharp but her eyes said, “the lights were on but nobody’s home.”
Without knowing it at the time, I was stuck in Phase Two of The Three Phases of Photographer’s Creative Life where…” the photographer’s level of enthusiasm is high but is somewhat diminished when reviewing their latest images only to discover that these new photographs are much worse than they expected.” That was me. Eventually and thankfully I moved to Phase Three—I don’t even know when that happened—but looking at many of these Photo CD images made me think, “why did I think they were any good?” Who knows?
Maybe I’ll look back at some of the images in some of my previous posts and wonder, “what was I thinking.” In fact. that’s already happening. When I look at some older blog posts even from a year or two ago, they show images I don’t love. What I do is update the text in the post and put in (what I think are) newer, better photographs. So maybe it’s a good thing? Or not?
PS: To get back to the beginning, I recently decided that I was going to go back to my roots and buy the cheapest Hasselblad film camera—Bargain or Ugly quality—that I can find from KEH, MPB or Used Photo Pro and maybe from Japan on eBay. To do that I’ll need to make a short, six-month loan, something I just did to pay for a new washing machine. As soon as I pay off the washer, I’m going to get that Hasselblad—unless another emergency household purchase gets in the way.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here. And if you do, thank so very much.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s available from Amazon for $21.50 with used copies starting at giveaway prices—starting around five bucks