Boon Vong | Journal

I was never the type of artist that had an amazing traditional sketchbook, the spiral bounded diary of sorts that you didn’t want people to see, but in actuality, you kind of did.  My books always had torn out pages, barely legible writing, and other poor attempts at witty sayings and bad poetry.  In browsing the archive to transfer it to my new modern ”sketchbook,”  I saw the cycle of things over the years.

The inside of my book, for those who would care to look…

…a satchel full of prints given out freely in the past…

…collaborations with eager minds today…

…just the same as the marks from the same pen passed around before…

…a stack of unsold/unwanted drawings in the past…

…a stack of unsold/unwanted drawings in the present…

…sketching away at the airport, hoping to be taken somewhere…

…sketching when mired at home, hoping for that job to call back…

…how can a person graduate college and still fail? easy…

…comic book ideas still rolling around today…

…recalling the sting of yesteryear…

…use to paint gouache and watercolor on the charcoal…

…now I color digitally on the screen…

…tried to boil down people to the essentials back then, with ink and color…

…same thing with the palette of pixels today… 

…back then used to be obsessed with negative    s   p   a   c   e…

…still am…

…never really had a real studio back then…

…it was just wherever I felt like doing stuff…

…back then muses were found everywhere, and met face to face…

…comments and instant messages were spoken aloud and in person…

…not the nonsense that things have become…

…was unihibited by the old technology, no matter how grainy it was…

…today we don’t realize how good we got it…

…interlaced, jittery, grainy, but I still used anything at hand…

…fireflies then didn’t care what cameras we used…

…and they still don’t…

…trying to stay with the curve is hard and expensive…

…but making money is not the top priority of why I buy…

…in the beginning the cameras we had were simple, but the potential was there…

 …to become the instruments of modern folk…

…in the early days, everything was novel and new, learning to attach humanness to circuits…

 …it’s still the same these days, ain’t nothing changed…

Notes:  Just some random gear talk.  Nowadays people enjoy talking about photography and photography related gear just as much as taking the pictures–or perhaps even more so…hopefully most of the shutter bugs out there drive their machines once in awhile.

The iPhone 4 camera seems to have something like a ~35mm equivalent f/22 lens.  Which in visual terms is your typical digital camera of convenience, everything sharp, and you have to pay extra special attention to converging lines and unwanted compositional elements due to the extreme depth of field.  Cameras like this one are the great equalizers. Almost anyone can create a good image with a large aperture lens and an SLR due to the knocking out of the background, but the point and shoot cameras remind me how hard it is to create a decent image with limited tools.

I do like the flares that I get when purposely shooting into a light source.  Here it makes sort of a flower pattern.

Having such a small sensor, the noise patterns and detail are a bit like watercolor.  Good for this image since it was sprinkling a bit.  I still wouldn’t really call it a “camera,” but it is a great imaging device that reminds me how far we’ve come from the floppy disc Sony’s we used to use.

It’s good for random compositions that I see and situations when carrying a big camera is not practical.

…or just random silliness.

The LED “flash” on the iPhone can also be used for light drawing/painting.  The light however is not like a real flash, so sadly my dreams of having the iPhone trigger an SB800 in SU-4 mode in a softbox isn’t going to work.  It actually can, but the light has to be right on the sensor of the flash, so that does us no good.  Here’s hoping someone can rig that IR universal remote attachment and application to support Channel 4, Group A.

Bad thing about shooting weddings in the summer is obviously the heat.  Another problem is that when you’re hanging out in the air conditioned venue, and then have to step outside for formals or the ceremony, the lenses always get fogged up.  These messups actually turned out interesting from an artistic/filmic perspective.  The top shot looks like an intentional software filter, but it was simply due to the fogging of the lens.  The third image has a nice pastel look, which is reminiscent of the actual Cokin filters I sometimes use. 

Speaking of messups, the next images I dug up are like the digital equivalents of light leaks on the last film frame, or ghost images or development mistakes in the lab.  With digital photography though, sometimes corrupt files don’t even let you open them and you pretty much have to trash the file.  Every once in a while, I do get some files that didn’t write to the memory card completely for whatever reason but still can be viewed.  It’s an interesting pattern/signal noise in the images, but goes to show that digital is by no means 100% reliable. 

A while back, I was browsing the junk clearance section at Ikea.  I found this semi transparent bag, that I think is for towels or pillows, and said to myself, that oddly enough, looks like a softbox.  Anything related to photography, companies will gouge you in price.  But this little bag cost me about $3.  It probably needs a back covering to focus the light more, but not too bad for a traveling bag of light.

Also been trying out the Lumiquest Softbox III.  It’s a simple softbox that is velcroed to a speedlight.  In first tests, the light is a bit too harsh, but the handholding ability of the setup is an advantage.

In the photo above, I shot the Lumiquest into the ceiling, further making that little light source into a softer one.  The bottom image is about standard for its light quality.

H.A.G.S!
(Have a Great Summer!)

Thanks to LAS for again organizing the Kid’s mini summer camp.  Also thanks to Wat Lao Buddhakhanti for allowing us the space to teach and play.

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Notes: Great job everyone!!  It’s never the camera, it’s always the person behind it.  I also learned a lot, and nice to be around people with an awareness of the issues in our community.  Any workshop out there can teach a person to use the gear, but bringing the images to life with personal stories defeats any arrows that can be shot your way in any silly critique or forum.

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Park Tavern / Piedmont Room | Atlanta, GA

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Thanks for letting me be a part of your weekend!! Credits: Hair: Brandan, MUA: Star, Model: Kenya, Model: Vitelle, Model: Eva, Photography: Misa, Support: Me.

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The best way to learn, is to teach.  Thanks for listening to my ramblings on photography!

Tech Notes: 24-105mm IS on the Canon, 70-200 VR on the Nikon, and infrared Sigma.  Great combo.  Maybe since I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIII so much, with its 3 person fighting structure, figuring out tools for the bag is like setting up your characters for a battle.  Cars and cameras are similar and oddly enough cameras are like RPG characters as well (yes, I’m a dork ).  Sometimes you need a multiple use setup for all situations, but also a heavy hitter dedicated combo.  In a serious work situation you’d want a wide to medium zoom as to be prepared for most things, but in the end a single prime will usually produce the images that I personally like and value.  If you have room for the odd third option, some would opt for a black and white film camera, or a Holga, or a Polaroid.

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