I’m afraid of my camera.

I realize that sounds kind of silly but it’s true. I’m afraid of it because sometimes I feel like it’s a better photographer than I am. When I had my 30D, it wasn’t uncommon for me to bump up against situations where the physical ability of the camera to take a particular shot held me back. It just wasn’t going to happen because of lack of light or lack of video capture mode, etc. Those situations are much fewer and far between now. Which makes me nervous that when I go out and shoot and don’t come back with anything good, it’s my fault not the camera’s.

I realize I’m still “new” to photography and I’m constantly learning how to shoot in different situations, with different equipment, and different lighting. But the realization that I’m now the one holding back my photography is kind of jarring.

I’m also getting tired of “amateur” photographers. Which sounds a little weird since I am always encouraging people to take more photos, so maybe I should qualify that. I’m getting tired of the “amateur” photography Flickr promotes. I’m not a conspiracy theorist so I don’t think it is a kabal of people controlling Flickr, but rather an ethos somewhat akin to the hardcore Lomography crowd. There are a lot of great photographers who are on Flickr and get only a handful of views and comments. Then there are lots of people who take mediocre to decent  photographs but promote an image and lifestyle as a pro and then sit around cross promoting each other to get “Explored” on Flickr.

Lisa Bettany who is a blogger/photographer/geek/Canadian from Vancouver, BC wrote on her blog recently about how to get your images “Explored” on Flickr. While it’s all true and good advice, I think it also points to a lot of what annoys me about the Flickr community. Bokeh is the word used to describe the artistic rendering of out of focus points of light. When most people start talking about “bokeh” they don’t really know what they are talking about. They have some thought in mind that good pictures have “good” bokeh so they start running around tagging every photo with a blurred background as having good bokeh. Lisa also mentions having “Hot Chicks” in your photos helps. I’ve seen some very technically mediocre photos get hundreds of views because the subject is physically attractive.

To be honest and fair, part of me is frustrated because I’m jealous. I get frustrated when I see photos that have hundreds of “favs” or comments when I know I’ve taken similar, better photos. But that’s also one of the things that has kept me from being more involved there. Flickr spends so much time promoting this rebellious self taught style of photography that ethics and philosophy gets thrown by the wayside. Flickr is about becoming web famous. I want a photographic community that isn’t about self promotion but rather about challenging photographers to think about what they do, why they do it, and how they can do it better. I see people like Chase Jarvis, Dane Saunders, and David Hobby pursuing paths like this and it makes me much more excited about my future in photography.

I take photos because I want to tell stories. I take photos because I believe God has given me a gift. I take photos because something inside me compels me to do it. And when I see people who use photography for self promotion, and they succeed at it, it frustrates me to no end. When “old time” photographers complain about how digital has killed the art of photography, I think they miscast a little bit of their frustration. It’s not digital photography (which has in fact opened the door and made it easier for real professionals to do fantastic and amazing things with the medium) that has ruined things, its the people who have started using photography as the means to an end. They are the Perez Hilton’s of the art world.

So this is a little bit of a rambling post that wanders all over the place and is pretty cynical. But I needed to vent a little tonight. Anyway, this is the part where you tell me why I’m wrong. So, what are your thoughts?

Honestly, I haven’t forgotten about my blog. I’ve just had the worst writers block for weeks now. Every time I sit down and try to write, I can’t think of anything interesting to say. I’ve been having much better luck on twitter (follow me!), flickr, and tumblr (jonassink.tumblr.com). Hopefully one of these days I’ll get back in the swing of things…

. . .though not in a good way today. As I post this there is a 300+ acre fire burning in the community of Bonny Doon about 5 miles from Mount Hermon. The sad part is that people are going to lose their homes and this the weather is not good for fighting fires. It is hot, dry, and windy today.

If there is anything at all good to come out of it though, I got the chance to take some pictures early on in the fire from where the crews were staging. You can see them over on my flickr site. Today I had the day off of work but I was headed over there to chat with a few people since I was bored of hanging out at my house. While standing in front of the APC, Dan Dawson walks up to me and points to the sky and says, “smoke, where’s your camera?!” So I run home while he grabs his and we drive up Felton-Empire Grade to the Bonny Doon Volunteer Fire Department and hop out. At this point, smoke is rising high into the air and it is black and there is a lot of it. We spent about an hour there taking pictures of the planes overhead and the fire crews as they assembled and headed out. In some ways, this was my first taste of photographing a real news event. It’s pretty exhilarating. Being that it was my first though, I didn’t push my luck too much. If I wanted a closer shot, I pulled out my telephoto rather than moving in closer to the “action.” I also realized that it would help A LOT to know more about who is who and how the fire crews are organized. Anyway, I’ve got more photos to organize and edit so I think I’m going to wrap up and head back home. I’ve got some dust flecks I need to clone stamp out and a few over exposed images I need to tweak.

You can see additional shots from Dan on his flickr here.

I just set up an account over at Tumblr. It’s technically another blog and I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with it just yet, but it will be different from what I post here. I’ve always seen my WordPress blog as more of the clearinghouse for any big ideas I get in my head that I need to work out or any photos I really want to highlight from a special event (such as the red carpet shoot last night). My flickr is then obviously my photos, and twitter has become my “hey look at me!” outlet to let anyone interested (or even those who aren’t) what I’m up to at any given moment during the day. Right now I’m leaning toward using Tumblr as the place where I will collect random webpages, photos, thoughts, quotes, and other things from throughout the day that I come across. Their mobile update system seems to work pretty well at least for text (I have to give photos a try at some point to see if it is any easier than flickr). Anyway, follow the link and head over to Tumblr to check it out. If you like what you see, leave a comment here.

esoterica eclectica

I’ve got the first 50 pics up on flickr.  I have 311 total to upload which is about 10% of the 3000 or so that I took.  That puts me right about where I thought I would be.  I still have a few to go through so the 311 number may grow a little but it will be right around there.  I’ve got a few pics to edit in Gimp before they are completely finished and I’m running everything through neat image (which only handles batches of 50 photos at a time) so it might be Tuesday or Wednesday before I’ve got them all up there but they’ll be there for sure by mid-week.  Hope you enjoy!

If you are within shouting distance you probably already know that I have XP installed on my EEE now.  It took three tries and a reluctant trip to Circuit City for an external DVD drive but I finally did it.  I have to say, I am more impressed now with the EEE’s performance than when it was running Linux.  This thing continues to defy my expectations for what it is capable of.  I started doing a little photo editing of some pics I took today and I was able, without too much pain, to take the .CR2 raw files off of my CF card, transfer them to the USB HDD, export them to JPEG using Picasa2, tweak them in Gimp, and upload them to Flickr.  Obviously this isn’t the greatest platform for photo editing but it is very usable and workable.  Besides, it’s not like I have plans for anything better to do while spending 17 hours on a plane flying back from Africa.

So I’ve had a great week! I got good news on two fronts. First off, I’m moving into a new house starting this weekend. Mount Hermon has a two bedroom unit that I am going to share with one of the other guys on staff that is way, way nicer than the last two places I’ve been. It actually has carpet! The best things about it though are the kitchen, living space, and washer/dryer. I won’t have to go to the laundry mat any more which makes me very happy. We will also have both a dining room and a living room so I can finally start having bigger get togethers and movie nights. I want to have one of our reg staff meetings there too so I can cook breakfast for everyone. Anyway, maybe tomorrow I can take some pics and throw them up on flickr. The power isn’t on there yet so that is the only real reason I haven’t started moving in there yet.

The other big news I have is from Vintage Faith. I’m in talks right now to become the leader of the photo team, something that came as a little bit of a surprise, but a very welcome one. I’ve been interested for a few weeks now in seeing what form the photo team would take when things started back up this fall and now I get to make the decisions! My hope is to have a two meeting system that gives opportunities both for advanced shooters to be more involved and for real newbies to have fun and learn. I want to have two meetings a month (every two weeks) where one meeting is more of a true meeting for discussing documenting of church events, planning for shows in the coffeehouse, encouraging each other in our craft, and brainstorming different projects to work on. The other meeting would be more of a photo walk where we go to a pre-determined site and shoot for an afternoon. I already have a few sites in mind but I want to talk with people too to see if there aren’t some great sites I haven’t thought of. Potentially the coolest site to go to would be Fort Ord down by Monterey but I think it might be illegal to just walk around the grounds there so I have to look into that one more. If nothing else though, there are plenty of fun sites around Santa Cruz that will work just fine. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to post some more thoughts on that in the coming days but for now I’ve gotta wrap up and get going. Later!

I’ve just made these last two posts with Windows Live Writer and I must say that I’m quite impressed.  It gives you a better feel and more powerful controls over your blog than the web based tools.  I like the way it syncs so well with WordPress also.  Anyway, I wanted to post up my newest entry into the Photo Friday contest.  This is from last summer when we were at the Walker Guest House on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.  Hope you enjoy it!

Underwater Dreamscape

Originally uploaded by Jonathan Assink

I’ve been holding off from blogging for several days while waiting for this to become my first 100 view Flickr picture. While rather modest compared to many others on Flickr, I’m still excited about it! I took the picture at the Monterey Bay Aquarium when my brother was down here and used it as my entry for the Photo Friday competition.

Tree in a field

Originally uploaded by Jonathan Assink

After Peter at Mount Hermon mentioned a couple of different places to check out as inspiration for doing more photography I have jumped on the contests over at Photo Friday. This is my third submission so far. This is the first “non current” picture I have posted also. For the first two submissions I picked photos from during the week of the competition. I think my submission for “Dream” is actually one of my favorites. Anyway, take a look at my flickr if you haven’t recently ’cause I added a whole ton of pics from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Later!