18 down... only 1,141 to go

I'm not usually a fan of the holidays. It's such a crush of events to be at and people to give gifts to that the people I care about seem to get lost in the shuffle. Well maybe they don't get completely lost, but I always feel like I just baaaaaaarely got the presents in time and I just baaaaaaarely arrived at the party on time. I don't mind buying presents and being at parties, but there are just so damn many of them to get all at once. It's hard to make it personal some times.

I'm not a religious man, so I'm not even complaining about the commercialization of the holiday or the un-Christmas-ing of Christmas. Frankly I don't care. Holidays are what you make of them, so if it doesn't feel right to you, it's probably more your problem than any outside force.

This is the time of year I just try to find a little peace- in every sense that you can imagine. Literal quiet... inner clarity... a moment to take stock... a desire for no war... catching up with people I care about in a more than passing in the halls kind of way. All of those things. And a little Billy time.

This year I think I managed to find all of those things at one time or another this month. That's petty good. I usually like to take the time to accomplish a few things and this year I managed to do a little better job than usual. I'm not talking about chores or cleaning or anything like that. But I mean a chance to work on some creative things that have been gnawing at me for the better part of the year or even longer. They are important to me because they make me feel alive. They usually have something to do with my art.

Yes... this entry does have something to do with photography after all.

I finished my website that I began two and a half years ago. I managed to get the postcard assembly line up and running again after a poor showing of only four postcards this year. I began the years long process of actually scanning every one of my negatives. Even if they had been previously scanned. My software and hardware has improved to the point that even though hundred of negatives have already been scanned, they are showing their technological flaws. When I first began scanning negatives, a lot of the images were never quite as good as if I had make traditional darkroom prints. But since most of them were for the web, there were adequate.

Now that my darkroom has been largely replaced by computers and electronic printers and scanners, those early scans are showing their flaws a little more than I'm comfortable with. So what does this mean?

18 down... only 1,141 to go. Actually it's a little more than that even. That's how many rolls of film I have exposed in the last 15 years or so. Rolls of film that I have decided to re-scan. More than 1,000. It works out to more than 20,000 images if I try to rough out the exact number by guessing how many 12 exposure rolls of medium format and how many 35 exposure rolls of 35mm I've gone through. In fact, 20,000 is probably a low number. It could easily be 30,000, especially if you take into account the thousands of images I've made with my digital cameras in the last few years.

It's quite a body of work.

And it's remarkable how much of it has never been seen, by me or the kind public that seem to enjoy my exhibitions. It's been time to give the work the attention it deserves for a long time. Maybe I've been waiting for the technology to catch up as much as trying to find time here and there to tackle such a herculean task as properly archiving it all. And during this little holiday crunch I managed to find the convergence of technology and time that I've been searching for.

And as always, when I make time for my art, I find wonderful surprises that make my day. This time has been no different. Besides discovering images I never appreciated before, I have found support and recognition from those kind enough to enjoy my art. On the December postcard I asked that anyone who wished to continue receiving my monthly art offerings to please send an email to me and let me know they still want to be on the list. Costs alone in producing the postcards require that I not waste postage, ink and paper. So I simply wanted to make sure I was not mailing cards to people long gone from addresses I had for them.

The early response has been just wonderful and inspiring. Some people have been collecting them since the beginning, causing me to write back to one person that I hoped my work would become famous enough that she could retire on the sale of the "complete Billy Sheahan postcard collection" at Sotheby's sometime in the not too distant future. I wonder what a complete set of postmarked Helmut Newton postcards would sell for these days... not that he sent out postcards or anything.

So I'm feeling a little nostalgic. Here's the first postcard that started it all. If you've got it, hopefully it will be worth something someday. And maybe it already is. Depends on what your definition of worth is...



The first Billy Sheahan Photography monthly postcard from 1999.

Scanning 2001

The thing I've been enjoying most about holiday time year is the chance to spend a little quality time with my film negatives. I've been shooting a lot of digital lately, but I still have a huge catalog of negatives, something in the neighborhood of 20,000 images and many of them have not been properly inventoried yet. I've examined all of them on the contact sheets, but until they're properly scanned or printed, I can't really appreciate what I've got.

So I've been spending a lot of time back in 2001 this week. I did a shoot in a large indoor swimming pool back then and only now have I pulled out the negs to give them the examination they deserve. I think I've actually only printed one image from that shoot in all the time since then, so it's time to shine a light on the rest of them. Here's a nice one. There are a lot of nice ones from this shoot.



And here's another of my friend Jillian Ann. I've been going through our old negatives as well from 2001. Lots of really great images from our work then as well. It's hard to make a bad photograph of her.



Peace on earth...

Nothing like a deadline....

I'm enjoying the last few days of a vacation this weekend. Since I'm not doing any real traveling, that means I've spent the last week looking a list of projects I've wanted to accomplish. And true to form, I spent the first few days of my time off relaxing and having fun.... which is as it should be really. But I'm grinning now, thinking of the amount of non-relaxing that I've been doing in the last 48 hours. It's all been pleasant mind you, but it's definitely work, pleasant though it may be. My poor computers are being multi-tasked to their limits (thank you oh multitasking OS X!) with scanning and DVD burning and photoshopping and postcard designing and printing and website updating. It does feel like a well oiled machine around here finally. I have managed to get to the surface of my desk... something I haven't seen in months. That alone feels good.

I was having a hard time trying to figure out what image I wanted to use this month for the monthly postcard... of which I have only managed to get four out this year. The image that I use is never random. I really try to choose an image that has something to do with how I'm feeling or something I've been thinking about that month. Lately, I have been thinking a great deal about France. Nothing very specific, just being interested in French politics in the news, thinking about taking a trip there, studying French artists and things like that. But I think it was the film I saw this week, "A Very Long Engagement" that pushed me over the edge. A great film set in a great country.

Now that I had the kind of image I wanted to use, the trick was selecting the exact frame. Of all the places I've traveled in the last fifteen years, I have made the fewest photographs in France. Not for any other reason than I didn't have a great deal of time there. So little in fact that I shot only one roll of film on a Sunday morning in Paris in mid-September. That was over ten years ago. I'm sure I've examined that roll of film a hundred times or more. I suspected that when I looked at it again this week I would focus in on the same two or three images that I felt were the highlights of the roll. But this time, instead of simply looking through a loupe and tiny images on a contact sheet, I decided to do high resolutions scans of the whole roll. It's a time consuming process that takes the better part of a day.

What I found was remarkable. My scanning equipment and software has really improved over the years and it was like I was looking at the group of 35 photographs for the first time. I had certainly only made large prints of two or three of the negatives and so the other images had really not been inspected beyond looking through the loupe. This time I found another handful of new images I'm really happy with and they now complete with and perhaps even surpass the images I had originally selected as "keepers" ten years ago.

That's one of the things I love about going back over old negatives that I haven't examined in years. Perhaps my perspective changes over time. I'm sure it does. I wouldn't necessarily expect it to change what I find appealing about my work when I'm editing images. However, it's been happening ever since I've been shooting, so I really shouldn't be surprised. Yet, It makes me smile every time when I am. This month's postcard features one of those new surprises. I hope you enjoy it.



Here's the postcard that will be going out in a day or two.

A Very Long Engagement.... very good

I had the chance to attend an advanced screening last night of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's new film called "A Very Long Engagement." Well, it's really called "Un long dimanche de fiançailles," and if you haven't already guessed, it's a French film. I found it to be nearly as amazing as another of his films, "Amelie." This new one also stars Audrey Tautou, pretty much cementing her as my favorite French actress. The look of "Engagement" is simply stunning. The projectionist at the Landmark Century was having a hard time keeping the print in focus for some reason, but even as the sharpness came and went, I found myself really moved by he visuals as well as the story.



This is definitely a film to see on the big screen to appreciate the photography.

And speaking of photography, the film put me in a French mood and so I have selected an image from my subliminal Eiffel Tower series. I call it that because I was trying to figure out a way to photograph this well documented subject. How do you photograph something that's been documented so much. I began shooting it from a distance, letting it creep into the frame as I got closer. It was a fun game.

Inspiring talk with Jillian Ann

Jillian Ann is one of two people on this planet that when I have contact with her... of any kind... I walk away inspired. I'll talk more about the other, Melissa Muñiz, another time. This time I'm going to talk about Jillian. I know of no one who has spends as much time creating as she does breathing. Surely one doesn't happen without the other.


This is from a contact sheet of photographs I made of her a while back. I know the copyright is a little premature, but I'm gearing up for the new year. So there.

I caught her online last night. Sometimes I call her and we talk one the phone and sometimes we just iChat. I was in a particularly positive mood and I noticed she had just uploaded some new music she's working on for the world to check out.

MySpace... Jillian Ann

They're still rough, so it's interesting to see how they're born and how they grow up to be on her CDs. She's never afraid to show something that isn't finished yet... isn't perfect. Perhaps because she realizes few of us are.

We started talking about how we both liked to take what was positive in our lives and spread it into the areas that might be a little less the way we want it. There is nothing better than working from a place that has good feelings in it. It makes it easier to deal with the things you might want to complain about. Not always easy, especially this time of year when the crush of the holiday can wear down even the most optimistic.

I guess the bottom line is for me is that the more good you put out there, the more good you feel. Chances are, good comes back to you to, although that's not the reason you should do it!

Check out Jillian's world. But be warned, her world is big and you'll have to sample it in many sittings. But it's worth it. If you want to get a quick sense of who she is, check out her video page and click on the video called "Train Station Interview." She rarely travels without her video camera, always documenting, and an unseen girl on the train platform asked her what she was shooting. Most people would have said, "nothing," or made something up or ignored the girl's question, but Jillian ends up turning a simple question into an interview. The unknown interviewer continues to ask questions, and Jillian... she is amazing... answers them all... honestly.

Jillian Ann Video

And once you've had a taste, you can start from the beginning. Hold on tight. It's quite a journey.

never lonely when I am alone... Jillian Ann

FINALLY!!! a blog that works!

I love, love, love to write.

If you've stumbled onto this blog, you'll notice that it's very inconsistent when it comes to how often I write here. The problem has been that even though I consider myself to be extremely computer and technology savvy, this blog thing has been a little difficult to get off the ground. There has always been some part of the software that didn't integrate with my website or something like that, so it was much harder to write things and keep it current.

But now finally, after many false starts, I think I have found a great combination of software that works the way *I* want it to instead of trying to conform to what it wants from me. I just can't write like that. Plus I can write from any computer I happen to be in front of not just "my blogging computer."

Okay, it's way too late and even though I'm taking a week off from editing, I do have to head downtown tomorrow morning and sign off on an editing project that is wrapping up. But I'll leave you with a recent image that makes me happy these days. Trisha is a model I've never worked with before, and last May, we finally arranged our schedules to have our first shoot. It's always a little tricky working with someone I've never worked with before, because it takes me a while to "learn" my subject. Sometimes it takes several shoots before I feel like I know just how to photograph someone. But I think we made some good images.

I recently talked to Trisha about the shoot and she says she wasn't at her best, but I think maybe it made for a interesting dynamic because I was really comfortable pretty early on. I think we made some images that weren't really typical for her, but that's what makes them great for me. I really welcome the opportunity to discover something new about someone who has been as photographed as much as she has been. That's one of best things about being a photographer - the inspiration and the discovery.

A new blog... more words... hopefully some inspiration

After several years of trying to figure out a way to really put a blog on my site that I can use and update easily, I think I may be on to something. We'll see how this goes. This will be the first test to see if I have everything programmed properly.