The Deschutes Street Fare

Wow, I might as well just call this blog Beer and Photography.  Most of my work these days seems to revolve around beer in one form or another: events, products, process.  It’s a tough burden to carry.

Let’s get right to the point of this conversation: as a photographer, should you separate work from fun?  The answer to that is going to be different for everyone.  The question is really about balance and finding the right combination of work and play.  At the extremes of the spectrum are places like total objectivity and complete immersion.  For photography, total objectivity is like shooting fish behind glass where where people and activities become examined specimens.  On the other hand, complete immersion can become a scary place if you forget to say, shoot the event because you’re so caught up in the action yourself.

It all boils down to understanding your subject.  In this case, the subject was the Deschutes Street Fare.  On the surface, an event is just an event.  It doesn’t get interesting and unique until you break it down into it’s components: food, music, beer.  But the devil is in the details, and we want to get much more granular by asking questions about these broader categories.  For music, these questions are important to me: who is playing the music, both individually and as a group?  How are they interacting with or affecting the audience?  How are they interacting with each other?  What piece are they in the bigger picture of the whole event?  Answering these questions with photos can make it much easier to figure out how to cover an event.

As a self-titled connoisseur of food, beer, and music, asking these questions and being immersed in an event event like this comes naturally.  With a connection already in place, it’s easy to fall into the rhythm of the event and seek out all of the aspects you want to cover.  This is the perfect scenario for me as a photographer.  It makes my job easier and hopefully I can translate my enthusiasm into great photography.

But what if you are not attached to an event?  Most of us can’t absolutely love every single assignment, but if you can still break it down into a series of questions that need to be answered, you can still get great shots of the next Guinea Pig Olympics for your client.  Is the event more about the owners or the animals?  How are the animals treated?  How can the competition versus comradery be measured?  Is there nothing more savage than a Guinea Pig owner and can you capture their essence?  Coming up with these questions and answering them with your camera can lead you through the whole event.

In the end, I was once again guided by the Ten percent Rule: I shot around 1000 photos, was happy with about 100, and really liked 10.  It’s still a low rate of return, but ultimately I’m happy with it.   You have to take some chances to get truly great shots, and with those chances there are a lot of mistakes.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

Let’s face it, dogs won’t always do what you want them to.   In fact, when you need them to do something specific, at the right time, they usually do the opposite.   It doesn’t matter that your dog is calm, obedient, and reliable around the house when no one else is around.   Introduce other people or dogs into the mix and the rules can go right out the window.

But that’s precisely what makes dogs fun to photograph.   Well, as long as you haven’t put yourself in a situation that requires a dog to be costumed and sitting still in front of the family Christmas tree.  Don’t ever say yes to that.  Ever.  The spontaneity of a dog can be a wonderful thing to capture.   They may not always do what you want, but they sure will do things you could never get a human to do: run laps around the yard, play endlessly with a companion, bite and scratch for fun. And during all of that, be completely unselfconscious. Actually, I do know a few humans who do that, but this is not the place to name names.

Not having control over the environment or the subjects is a great way to push yourself as a photographer. When you can’t control any of the elements of a shoot, thinking on your feet and taking chances is all you have to capture the moment. Those uncontained moments are usually the ones with the most energy and emotion.

Mixing Beer and Photography Again

Wow, the first post of the new year and it already almost March! A lot of times, blogging and being really busy are inversely proportional and that’s the case for me. I try to strike a balance and post regularly, but when it comes down to paying bills, blogging is lower on my list of priorities.

Beer, however, seems to stay at the top of that list. So, mixing beer and photography is never a stretch for me. In mid February, I was sent to Eugene and Corvallis on a beer journey by: Travel Lane County, Visit Corvallis, and Travel Oregon.  My job: hang out with brewers and drink beer.  Sure, when you boil it down, it sounds like a breeze.  In reality, while fun, it’s also a lot of work.  Try this experiment at home: stand in a cramped space, surround yourself with giant metal tanks, turn the temperature down to 50 degrees, turn off the lights, take notes, take photos, hold and drink a beer, and change lenses.  You find strange places to hold things in these situations.

On the trip, I did six breweries over two days. Whew! I came back with over 10 GB of photographs. On Saturday, I hit Hop Valley Brewing, Ninkasi Brewing, and Oakshire Brewing. On Sunday, it was Oregon Trail Brewery, Flat Tail Brewing, and Block 15 Brewing.  I used this trip as an opportunity to rent a lens and I ended up with a Canon 35mm f/1.4 L.  Hot damn!  Great focal length for cramped spaces, and a wide aperture for all of the low light situations.  I shot with this lens for 95% of my trip, making it a good candidate to replace my ailing, if not broken 50mm f/1.4.  The price points for these lenses differ greatly, so I need to start replenishing my photography gear fund if I’m going to be able to add a $1400 lens to my bag of tricks…

I’ll be writing several articles on the trip at my other site: portlandbeer.org.  If you want to read about the details, you can start here.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

The ReBuilding Center

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to volunteer at The ReBuilding Center in North Portland.  I spent about 4 hours at the center–one hour learning about what they do, and 3 hours sorting reclaimed moulding (different sizes, painted/unpainted, newly delivered, etc).  It was a simple volunteer experience, for a great cause:

“The ReBuilding Center, a project of Our United Villages, is a vibrant resource working to strengthen the environmental, economic, and social fabric of local communities. Founded by volunteers in 1998, The ReBuilding Center carries the region’s largest volume of used building and remodeling materials. It provides resources that make home repairs affordable to everyone, with the goal of promoting the reuse of salvaged and reclaimed materials. Three hundred visitors come to The ReBuilding Center every day to browse the ever-changing inventory that includes sinks, tubs, tile, lumber, doors, windows, trim and much more.”

With so many types of materials available in large open spaces, I thought it would be great to document their location through photography.  While I found the shots I wanted, I also found the spirit of commitment, responsibility, and excitement in the people who work there and contribute to building a better community in Portland.  Please visit their website as well as their North Portland location, and contribute to the causes that affect our community in positive ways.

Hours:  Mon – Sat 9 – 6;  Sun 10 – 5
Phone:  503-331-1877
3625 N. Mississippi Ave.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Dog Log

I was trying to come up with a clever story for these photos. Every time I tried, it seemed that the plain old truth would do more justice here.

The story is pretty simple: we moved to a new house and there were some logs piled up against the fence in the backyard. Our dog Otto won’t fetch. He won’t play ball. But for some reason, our insane dog will pick up an entire log and run laps around the back yard. Over and over and over. He can barely lift it, and sometimes it drags him to the ground, but he won’t stop once he gains some momentum.

The great thing about dogs is that they’re usually pretty cute and they don’t mind if you follow them all over the place with a camera. They don’t always listen, so it may take some chasing, but five minutes in the yard can yield some fun photos.

Crater Lake

My other brother and a friend of the family were in Portland for the Brewfest.  They came out from South Carolina to drink beer, take photos, and explore Portland, Seattle, and Central Oregon.  We headed out to Bend last week and decided to take a trip to Crater Lake.  I’ve camped there several times before and it never gets any less amazing.

We left Bend in the morning and made it to the North end of Crater Lake by 8:30am.  We trekked down the trail to the water and watched a few people jump into the lake.  In fact, all four of us were armed with various Canon Digital SLRs and were nicknamed the “Paparazzi” by those watching us take photos of the jumpers.  Between the four of us, we probably took 50 shots per jump–except the first time, when after all of the shutters stopped clicking, we heard a beep coming from my brother’s camera.  A beep that comes from accidentally setting it to timer mode instead of multi-shot.

After making fun of him for a bit, we headed back up to the car and took a trip around Rim Drive.  We popped out along the way to take shots from different areas of the lake.  My Canon 10-22mm lens was very popular on the trip (and borrowed quite a bit), as you could fit most of the lake in the frame in a single shot.  It’s great for this kind of large area, but you have to be careful and not loose the scale of the lake–which can be very easy without any reference object in the shot: trees, buildings, people.

2009 Oregon Brewers Festival

Oregon Craft Beer Month is almost over–and it ends with a bang: the Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF).  This year, I attended three events surrounding the festival: the Oregon Brewer’s Guild Dinner, the OBF Media Preview, and the OBF itself–all while draggin my camera and bag around.

The Brewer’s Guild Dinner was great.  There are a limited number of seats sold so it’s never over crowded, there are about 25 beers on tap that aren’t available at the OBF, there are beer celebrities galore, and the food is delicious.  All of this makes my job fun.  I get to walk around, drink great beer, and take photos.  For events like this, I usually use my Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens to get shots of the crowd interactions without being intrusive.  If someone knows you’re shooting, they always behave differently.  For events like this, you want to capture spontaneous action and it’s much easier with a long lens.

The next day was the Media Preview.  We tried about 16 different beers that spanned styles from Raspberry Wheats to Stouts.  The pace wasn’t that quick, but juggling my camera, lenses, a notebook (and pen), and a beer slowed me down a bit and the beers seemed to come one right after another.  Not that big of a deal when your job for the day is drinking beer!

After that, it was the OBF itself.  We got there around noon, the lines were short, the beer was great, and we got our fill before it became too hot.  Attendance and beer consumption records were broken again this year and it was over before I knew it.

Photographing 52 Beers in a Year

I don’t think anyone would be surprised that I enjoy beer.   It’s fun to sample, write about, and photograph.  Exactly 44 weeks ago, I joined the 52 Beers group on Flickr.   I don’t write reviews or document my beer intake in any way, but I took this on as a challenge to force myself to come up with new ways at looking at beer by photographing one new beer each week for a year.  To accomplish this, I had to ask myself a few questions: What makes a beer unique?  What makes a bottle or a label stand out?  What does beer mean to me?  What have I gotten myself into?

Taking photographs for fun and taking photographs professionally are two different monsters.  As much as I love photography, it doesn’t mean I want to have a camera in my hand around the clock.  It’s pretty heavy.  Plus, motivation does not strike all day, every day.   If I don’t have any appointments scheduled for the day, it’s fairly easy to watch a DVD, take a nap, and then spend the rest of the afternoon wondering where my day went.  I can admit that. Evidently,  not just to myself,  but to anyone reading this.  I think a lot of people are like me in that respect,  so it’s important to set up challenges and exercises where I can be held accountable.

Well, I’m almost a full year into the project and what did I learn?  Well, I love beer.  I think that was already a fact though, so it doesn’t count.   First, I don’t have an expensive studio with unlimited lighting.  So, some were shot outside, some under random generic lamps, and others under a speedlight.  But lighting, although imperative, was secondary to me for this project.  The overriding element was composition.  Show the beer?  Show the head?  Show the bottle?  Show the glass?  Show the growler?

• Widmer Brothers Brewing, Brrr:  I got a sample bottle in the mail, but things didn’t come together until I bough a six pack off the shelves.  What typifies “Brrr” more than huddling together?
• Full Sail Brewing, Old Boardhead: Simple label, complex beer.  I happened to be drinking it when I got a phone call.  When I got back to the beer, late afternoon light had come through the window and lit the beer through the glass.  It was nice, but a flashlight exaggerated the effect and created the shot I wanted: a complex tasting beer that was also complex visually.
• Laughing Dog, Alpha Dog Imperial IPA: The analog TTV treatment seemed to work with the bottle design and the glass of beer in the background.  I didn’t think about it while I was shooting it, but the lpha Dog is definitely gaurding the beer in the background.  Sometimes, things just come together.
• Liefman’s Goudenband:  I decided a dyptych would be the best option to show the label from the front as well as the twisted tissue presentation layer.  It’s very unique packaging, and very important ot feature it.
• Lagunitas’ Hop Stoopid: Not everything has to be planned.  I was playing dominos, drinking Hop Stoopid, and my camera was nearby.  End of story.

The Fourth of July

With my tripod out on loan, I went outside with my monopod and a fast f1.4 lens on the fourth of July to explore the street fireworks in my neighborhood.  I was also equipped with high hopes, but those were quickly dashed by a few test shots that had me steadying my monopod for around 10 seconds to get an exposure.  Needless to say, it didn’t work.  All was not lost though–at least I know better for next year.

Last year, I went outside and took a few shots of the Vancouver fireworks as well as some neighbors down the street.  I cursed my location.  I cursed the cables in the sky.  I cursed my shadow–twice.  But I pressed on, and I’m really happy with the results.  Now, I won’t be winning any awards for these–or selling any prints for that matter–but the photos are special to me.  Attempts to beautify the photos or set up the perfect composition failed, but it did so elegantly.

Capturing perfect fireworks was not my intention (nor was it even a possibility shooting from my front yard).  I didn’t really have any intentions.  What I ended up with is a capture of my neighborhood during a distinct event–a good sense of personal time and place.

But why black and white, especially for fireworks?  Well, I wanted to make sure that the fireworks weren’t too overpowering in the shot.  I wasn’t in a good enough spot to make the fireworks the focus of the shot.  The black and white conversion decentralized the focus and makes the eye wander, searching the photograph.  Trying to push the viewer in this direction, allows for more exploration of the photograph, and inevitably more questions about my intentions.

It’s often important to have a clear theme and intention, and the viewer can appreciate and concentrate on the details of your work.  With more personal photos such as these, it was more important to capture a moment in time.  Forcing viewers to ask questions like “Why was this shot in black and white?” will hopefully allow them to consider my intentions and get closer to the truth of the photo.  And the truth is different for every viewer, every interpretation.  So the longer you can hold someone’s attention, the closer they’ll get to their own truth.

Or, that’s just a long-winded, made-up, pompous, way to describe an arbitrary set of photos.  I guess it just comes down to the simple fact that I like the photos.  Sometimes the simplest, least “artistic” shots are my favorites.

Happy Belated Father’s Day

My brother.  What can I say?  We’ve got history.  We’ve got a future.  We’ve got the same mother–I think.  No blood tests have been performed, but the rumors are very strong.

If things never changed, I wouldn’t get sentimental.  I wouldn’t miss my “go drink a beer at the nod of the head” brother.  I wouldn’t miss my “roommate” brother.  I wouldn’t miss my “doctorate at the age of ten” brother (you’re welcome).  And I surely wouldn’t miss my “I answer my phone” brother (seriously dude, pick up your damn phone).

Things change.  I changed.  My brother changed.  I complained a little–and still complain now and then.  When I do, it’s because I’ve lost a bit of power over him.  The influence that I squandered has been replaced by other obligations.  Unfortunately, those obligations don’t revolve around me.  Fortunately for him though, those obligations don’t revolve around me.

The set to the right include three different interactions between my brother Neil and his daughter Lily: protection, compassion, confusion, vigilance, understanding, love, commitment, not understanding, fear, playfulness, and exhaustion–all within a few hours of the same day.  They may not be the most glamorous captures, but they are a moment in time, from eyes that he doesn’t have time look through.  Oh, and the compression of these images is horrible, make sure to click on the images and check out  larger sizes.

Unfortunately, my brother is just my brother.  It’s still strange to think of him as a father as well.  Because of this, the only thought I had this Father’s Day was of my dad.  While he deserves a pat on the back, he’s in the easy phase: he can shrug and say “I’m not responsible anymore”.  But it’s my brother, as a new father, who needs the most help and well wishes at the beginning of this journey.

I’m sorry I missed it. Happy Belated Father’s Day.  You’re doing just fine.