Ron’s Photo World

"...played it til my fingers bled..."

01-26-2011

My fingers hurt like hell.

I signed up for Beginning Guitar at Sac City College this semester. I’ve never played a guitar before…never really tried my hand at any musical instrument in a serious way. None, that is, unless you count the time I plunked around on an old accordion when I was 7.

“I’m not musically inclined.” I’m not sure where that notion came from. I’m guessing I got embarrassed when I was a little kid when I tried to sing and someone laughed. Maybe it was the cute girl in class, maybe be it was my fourth grade teacher, “Sister Mary Eff Withyourmind”, hammering home the point with the edge of a ruler. So I grew up without an interest in making music, often a little envious of my peers who could play, and some played quite well. Garage bands in the neighborhood. Jazz bands in college. Me? I am just a music fan.

No interest, until now. Part of my interest in learning to play a guitar comes from the portability of the instrument. A guitar needs no accompaniment, no electricity. Just whip it out and play with it. It is also fun to learn something completely new to me. It’s good for this brain to make it do something unfamiliar. I do not know how to read music, I barely have rhythm. So it’s a challenge on many fronts. The instructor is very good. He’s obviously talented and doesn’t mind working with the students who, like me, have no clue what they’ve gotten themselves into.

First, I’m just learning to place my fingers on the strings in the right places and hoping for a clean strum – that’s all I want. The metal strings don’t have any give to them, so my fingertips are taking all the heat. It is almost like a mini-torture, the pain pushes against the determination, usually ending in a deadlock.

And until the callouses form, my fingers will hurt like hell.

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p.s. Today would have been my dad’s 87th birthday. If he were alive today, I wonder what new tricks he would be learning right now.

Don't follow the arrow...

01-20-2011

I don’t know if this qualifies as “irony” or not…but there is something funny about the placement of the sandwich board sign, considering the primary clientele of this store.

“Somebody” is lifting some of the merchandise, methinks.

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Hot out of the oven at Pizza Rock - 90 second cook time.

01-14-2011

In the last few days I’ve had the chance to take photos at a couple of restaurants in Sacramento. The basic rule of food photography? Eat first!

These photos were not the usual food-styled ad shots. These were taken of real food as it was moving from the kitchen to the tables of real customers. So there was not a lot of time to set up a bunch of lights, primp the food, use tweezers to rearrange the garnish, heat up one section with a small torch…etc.  It was run and gun food photography.

A trio of new nightlife establishments have opened in the downtown area in a section of town that has seen better days. These new venues are intended to bring the better days back to the area. One venue is a plush dance club, the other is a fancy bar with a massive overhead fish tank, and the third venue is Pizza Rock, open for lunch, dinner and late night. Pizza Rock has an imported wood burning oven that will bake a pizza in 90 seconds (photos above and below).

Master chef Tony Gemignani

Pizza Rock opened for business today and I was tasked with taking photos for a Sacramento Press article. When the doors opened at 11:30 for the lunch crowd, the restaurant filled quickly. As the food started rolling out, the aroma was intoxicating. I consider pizza one of my favorite foods – and this pizza looked amazing. That’s when I remembered I had not eaten a substantial meal before arriving to take photos. Bad idea. Well, as a professional I’m supposed to be able to work in spite of distractions, right? Um, yeah.  This was clearly going to be a battle. At one point the restaurant manager asked me if she could get me anything…something to eat, or a drink? I politely (and sadly) declined.

Pizza by the meter, on its way to some lucky customer's table.

So the challenge was to take some awesome food photos while everyone was scurrying around, serving customers, moving food out as fast as it was prepared, and stay out of the way of the serving staff at the same time. The pressure was on. And my stomach was grumbling quite loudly. With the exception of the portrait of Tony, all photos were taken with available light only, using a fairly wide aperture to let the shallow depth of field give me some focus control. I had to move in, shoot quickly and get out.  Since the photos were going to be used for editorial use, I wanted to keep some context in the food shots, so I included kitchen staff in the background. Story-telling, ya know.

I also took photos at the VIP party that happened a couple nights before. Same deal: get in, shoot, get out. The guests were not in any mood for someone fumbling around with a camera in their faces.

I snagged a quick shot of the man behind the new venues, standing in front of the new venues.

George Karpaty in front of his new venues.

One of my favorite images of the night was taken of the Pizza Rock kitchen staff, just before the party began.

Pizza Rock kitchen staff mug for a photo before the start of the VIP Party.

Speaking of favorites… I had a chance to take photos and write a restaurant review of Kupros Bistro. The food was great, the building is awesome, and the gelato is to die for. Pure and simple.

Vanilla and chocolate gelato at Kupros Bistro.

Since that assignment was a food review, the trick was to not eat before going. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

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A young patron takes a break at the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition at the SFMOMA.

01-05-2011

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is hosting an exhibition of the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004). The exhibition is very large – it fills the entire third floor of the museum. Yesterday was free admission day, so it was well-attended.

Cartier-Bresson is known as one of the early pioneers of modern photo-journalism. He would carry a small Leica camera with him on the streets and make candid photographs of everyday life. In order to be less obtrusive, he covered the shiny silver parts of the camera with black paint.  One of his books was titled, “The Decisive Moment,” a nod toward his commentary that the photographer must know intuitively when to click the camera.

I really enjoyed the exhibition – his early works are amazing when you consider that his images were made as early as the 1930′s. He captured common people doing common tasks and most images had a sense of activity. Many of the photographs were low contrast, with some blur, either from the subject movement or camera movement. Keep in mind he had to set everything manually and he did not have a little LCD screen to peek at to see how his photos looked. Think: “Pioneer”.

Coincidentally, the SFMOMA also had an exhibit called “Exposed” which illustrated the arena of surveillance, voyeuristic and street photography. The photo below is not meant to be voyeuristic, but it is an interesting perspective on human movement.

Looking up at the 5th floor catwalk over the atrium at the SFMOMA.

On the second floor of the museum was a large portrait display from a previous exhibition at the SFMOMA, called “The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now.” I asked Laura to stand in to replace one of the faces.

She's not mad - I asked her to avoid smiling to match the other faces.

SFMOMA’s exhibition of Cartier-Bresson’s works runs through January.

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01-01-2011

Welcome to 2011!

So everyone is posting their summaries of 2010 and predictions of 2011.

A far as 2010 goes, it was a great year. I was busier than before and the photo industry seems to be rebounding. Some of my long-term clients have re-surfaced and are interested in doing new work. And I’ve also been in contact with some potential new clients. Whether we establish a new working relationship or not, it is encouraging to see the level of activity increasing. This is a good sign for everyone, I hope.

Naturally, I am thankful for so many of the things we take for granted, like good health, loving family and a warm home.

My prediction for 2011 is … most predictions won’t come true. It’s better to just be present and notice what is happening, adapt to it and enjoy it. It’s all good. I don’t make new year’s resolutions. It seems silly to think about making improvements on only one day each year – why not make every day a self-improvement day?

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