The Empty Space

Today I walked through the empty space one last time as a guest. Tomorrow I will walk through it again... and it will be mine. Everything is gone. The walls and floors and shelving... containing nothing. Nothing but possibilities.

For the next week I'll be living in two worlds. One that I have outgrown and one that I will grow into. The one I'm leaving I have fond memories of, even though it has been hard to stretch out here lately. Everything is just a little too small. But many great collaborations started here.

My photography world really started here. At least the serious one. Kristin, Jill, Marcia, Kat, Keyomi, Laura, Nikki, Suzanne, Melissa, Genevieve, Sue, Vicki, Rachael, Nikki, Shawn, Jill, Venessa, Jillian Ann, and Melissa. Pretty much all the studio work I have done in Chicago was done here. The names I have just listed were the generous people who took a leap into the darkness with me and trusted a guy who was really still figuring out the lighting and what clothing to put them in or not put them in. My work would be a series of empty frames without them. I owe them a great debt.

Over the years my cyc has moved from the west wall of my main space, to the east, back to the west, to the north and finally to the south wall. Once for six months I emptied my bedroom and made my studio in there and slept on the sofa in the living room. I photographed brave models on my balcony outside and never got arrested. Never did shoot on the roof, but that's because it was never very inspiring up there for some reason.

I learned my craft here. It is where I figured out what kind of photographer I wanted to be. I tried a lot of different things until I finally found my groove. Always experimenting... sometimes surprised... always exhilarated.

I think it was when Shawn and I were lying on our bellies, pouring over contact sheets of our first shoot together that I realized I had finally achieved what I had been trying to work out. The images looked like images I had imagined. They were inspired by the tremendous work of Herb Ritts. It wasn't that I was ripping him off, but that I felt that I had captured emotion and drama and beauty of a subject that I had seen so often in his work. I didn't dare tell anyone I thought I had made images as good as Mr. Ritts, they probably weren't, but it was the first time I really felt like I had made images that blew me away.

Certainly other images I had made with other subjects prior to the Shawn shoot were good and clearly loaded with potential, but from the standpoint of an entire shoot, that one was fairly ground breaking... at least that's what I felt at the time.

So while I'm happy to be moving to a space that will allow me to explore my art in a much larger way, I have to tip my hat to the old small... oh so small... space that really shaped my art for a decade.

I may be without computers and internet for a few days while I move my world across town. I can't wait to move and get settled. I'm very excited.

Here's an image of Shawn that I really find amazing to this day.

Pope Billy??? Love Your Neighbor

Yeah, I knew they wouldn't pick me. I guess I'm just a little too "love your neighbor" for that organization. Especially since I believe your neighbor includes everyone... even people you may not understand or agree with. You can't say love your neighbor and keep birth control out of third world countries until the people die of famine. You can't say love your neighbor and freak out when the two men next door want to get married. You can't say love your neighbor and insist that they believe everything you do.

I'm not a religious person. I guess I believe in trying to be a decent human to those around me and then letting the chips fall where they may. That's pretty much it. It bothers me when I see people who don't agree with me trying to limit what I can and can't do just because they don't think it's right. There's a lot of that going on now with our current administration. And it's not enough for them to be in power, but that they have to try to make sure they stay in power... forever. I have a big problem with that.

If you win an election, fine. As long as you didn't put false information out there in order to put your opponent at a disadvantage because the general public is too lazy to read past the headlines. And don't stack the deck in your favor by gerrymandering so the minority can never win again. That's immoral.

The group in power should always remember that they won't always be that way. Some day they'll be the minority and if they create a situation when the minority can never win an argument in Congress or in the Judiciary, they'll get a taste of their own medicine.

And speaking of the Judiciary. It's working- contrary to what the group in power thinks now. It's called checks and balances. Unfortunately the current administration and the majority in Congress don't understand that the three branches of government were designed so that no one of them, or two these days, could get too powerful. Congress, or the Legislative Branch is elected by the people. So is the Executive Branch, but he can veto anything that comes out of Congress. The Executive and Legislative branches nominate and confirm Judges. But the Judiciary, or more specifically the Supreme Court serves for life, so they aren't beholden to Congress or the President when they consider the constitutionality of what Congress and the President does. Checks and balances.

And consider the Fourth Estate. The media. They've been falling down on the job a lot lately. Not digging too deeply. They're supposed to be watching all three branches of government, but since the news providers are ultimately owned by corporations who rely on Congress to keep laws that affect them in their favor, they don't want to rock the boat. Frankly, they're not even in the boat anymore. They just repeat what they're told by whoever is in power, and well... that's not much of a watchdog.

So when the Executive and Legislative branches declare open season on the Judiciary because they're not falling in line, what kind of values are those two branches following? Remember checks and balances?

So back to Pope Billy. Love your neighbor. Even if they're gay or have a funny accent or choose to use modern science to plan their families so that children don't have to grow up in crushing poverty. You don't know everything and neither do I. Be a little curious though. Open your mind. Love your neighbor. You don't have to agree with them, but at least try to understand where they're coming from. Love your neighbor. Really. Seriously. Live and let live. Go in peace.

Photography discussion will resume next time.

12 Days Until My New Place

It's Sunday. In two weeks I'll be in my new space. Or at least in the process of moving there. I'm very excited. It's sort of like the calm before the storm now. The frenzy of decisions and faxes and paperwork has slowed to a trickle. But that's good. I could use a little break before I sign more checks than I have in my whole life.

But I'm excited. It's going to be great.

Speaking of Sundays, this is an image from one of my favorite Sundays back in 1999. I was in Amsterdam on my way to Prague and had the morning to explore the city. The sun was creeping over the beautiful rooftops and reflecting off the canals. It was a great morning. One I'll never forget.

Waiting for the Summer

Watching the mercury rise... Almost to the 70s... that is all.

Too Much Death?

In the last 24 hours, three people have casually mentioned to me that they have had very violent unpleasant vivid dreams the night before. That seems very unusual. I wonder how many other people have been experiencing this in the last few nights? And what does it mean?

I have a theory. I think it's the 24 hour news channels CONSTANT coverage of Terry Schaivo and the Pope. We have been deathed out. Our subconscious minds are acting out the relentless drumbeat of death that the news channels can't seem to get enough of.

Are the dreams a coincidence? Perhaps. It just seemed odd that so many people would tell me they have had dreams of that specific nature.

It's time to turn off the 24 hour news. Pick up a newspaper. Listen to NPR. Try to learn something instead of being fed someone's idea of what viewers won't be able to turn off. Really. It's important.

I usually try to make each blog entry photography related in some way. Either with something I'm thinking about visually or with some photographic project I'm working on. I don't have anything on my mind like that tonight. I'm a little exhausted and I think getting a good night's sleep is probably more important than going through my archives looking for a photograph that might apply to the subject of death...

Okay, so much for the sleep. A hasty search has revealed what could be considered an appropriately dark image. Perhaps. Or not. The model is a woman named Vicki I used to shoot a few years ago. Not sure what she's up to these days, but we did have a lot of fun during our collaborations. Does the gas mask symbolize death? Maybe. A nod to the bondage world. Maybe it's just like any other mask one might use to hide their identity. I have my own opinions, but since it's art, I guess it's up to the viewer to decide what it might mean.

The March/April Stereo Cop Out

I have to say, the last month and a half has been one of the busiest, most stressful, joyous, nerve wracking, lovely times of my whole life. So what if I didn't manage to get the March postcard out. I promised not to beat myself up about it. If I had gotten it out but missed faxing one of the dozens of faxes I have been scrambling to get out on time to the mortgage people and the real estate people, well, everyone would have gotten a March postcard, but I'd have felt really stupid for missing out on getting my new space.

Hey, I just finished watching Million Dollar Baby, so go ahead and re-read that last paragraph in the voice of Morgan Freeman. It sounds so good coming out of his mouth.

Wasn't that cool. I'd love to have Morgan Freeman read my blog every day to you nice people.

But back to the March/April stereo cop out. I'm putting two photographs on the March/April postcard to make up for the fact that there wasn't a March postcard. So why put two identical photographs on one postcard? Ah ha! They're not really identical, that's why! I recently purchased a1954 Kodak Stereo Camera (that's it's actual name - no model numbers back then) and I've done a little experimenting with it over the last few months. Back in February, I brought it to the wedding of my good friends Bob and Sue and took a few pictures just to experiment.

One the way home, it was raining and a little nasty, but the weather made everything look a little surreal and a little dreamy. So I continued to walk until I got to the south end of Lincoln Park. I've always wanted to shoot the path that starts just north of LaSalle and continues to the Lincoln Park Zoo Lagoon. It's really quite a nice little asymmetric row. And since the weather was fairly unpleasant, I had the park pretty much to myself.

I moved around at one end of the path, my shoes getting muddier with every exposure. The mud seemed to collect in the best places to shoot from that day, but since I was coming from the wedding instead of to the wedding, I figured I'd be okay.

The Kodak Stereo Camera uses standard 35mm film. The camera has two lenses on it about the same distance apart as your eyes. It exposes two frames at the same time on your roll of film. If you were to hold your processed negatives up to the light you would see the first image, which is the left eye image, and then count three images to the right, and that would be your right eye image. Kodak decided that rather than putting both images right next to each other on the film, they could squeeze three times as many pairs of stereo images on each roll of film. It was a good idea, but as a result, the images are square and a little smaller than a standard 35mm still frame.

The postcard sample on the blog may be a bit too small for you to try out the 3D on, but you can give it a try. Consider it a sneak preview while the real postcards continue to print out tonight. Just get up close to your computer screen, probably about a foot away for this small size and cross your eyes until you see three images and focus on the middle one. It takes a while to get it, and some people just can't do it. Don't feel bad. It took me about 20 minutes to get it the first time. And don't try it too long at first or you'll get a headache. Really, seriously, if you don't get it in the first minute, walk away and rest your eyes for a while or I won't be responsible for the pounding in your head for the rest of the day!

A rare photo of Billy

Just found this the other day. Taken on the Damen L stop one early Sunday morning for some publicity. I still like it even though the facial hair is a little out of date...


photograph © Clayton Miller

Jettisoning the Unnecessary

This weekend I begin packing up this place that has been my home and studio for the last decade and prepare to move to my new space. But before I begin packing, I'm planning on jettisoning the unnecessary. It's time to let go of some things that for some reason I've been clinging to. There's a file cabinet that is loyally holding everything I've felt was important enough to file since the 90s and I'm betting a lot of it is... unnecessary.

I'll be taking a break from my three year project of scanning every negative I have, since I'll be breaking down my workstations that I've spent so much time sitting in front of since November. It will be good to take a little break, but I look forward to continuing my journey into my own photography like I've never had before. It's been a lot of work, but it's been a joy as well.

Rather than posting an image today, I'm going to post a little movie of the work I did with Jillian Ann last month. I know this blog as been a lot about Jillian lately, but after any good shoot, there is a fair amount of time getting all of the work organized and that is what I have needed to do this month. So I'm living in that world. It's a good world.

This movie is what we in the editing business call a rough cut. The images have been scanned, but not much else. The negatives need to be touched up, not because Jillian needs any touching up, but because with negatives, especially ones that I really push to get the grain I'm looking for, they really get dirty. Even with careful handling negatives attract dirt and dust. So you'll be seeing a lot of that. But enough of the disclaimers. Enjoy. It's not often that I give my work movement. It's an experiment.

Note: You'll need Apple QuickTime to view this. It's free.

The music track on the movie is by Jillian Ann. It's called Movement in Slow Motion from her CD Music for the Masses from 2003. You can find it and more of her music at her website.

JillianAnnPiano-MPEG-4.mov

Coming Up For Air

Well tonight was the first night in a long time that I didn't have A) to work late, B) to scramble to put together either tax related or mortgage related paperwork C) to attend an industry related function. And man does it feel good. It's not to say I don't have a million things on my to do list. It's just that tonight, I have nothing due tomorrow that I haven't already prepared. What an unusually pleasant feeling.

So March came and went without a postcard mailing, and if I'm not careful, the same will happen for April. But I take solace in the fact that in a few short weeks, I'll be moving my incredibly overstuffed home/photo studio/editing bay to a wonderful new space that will for the first time in a long time afford me the space to create without having to rearrange rooms every time I switch gears. I can't wait.

All I have to do now is pack. Auuuuuugh.

But, in the now, I decided to go over some images I made with my dear good friend and muse, Melissa last February. I had was recently given a gift of enormous colorful wine glasses. Large enough to really get you hammered if you had more than a glass or two. The thing that intrigued me about them was the colors and the designs on them.

It's true I'm probably the only person who picks up a wine glass, closes one eye and holds it up to the light to see what it might look like to photograph through it. And that's just what Melissa and I did. Sadly, one of the glasses recently met it's demise while being washed, but I have three left... and lots of film!

Here's the inspiring Melissa...