2012 - The year in compression - Part 1

The year has absolutely flown by and a blog update is long past due! Good blogging intentions lost out to day jobs, studio and commercial deadlines, family, and travel.  No excuses, just fact. But, where exactly did the time go?

Truth be told I can’t remember what the heck we had going on at the start of 2012, other than a continuation of projects from 2011.  Lori had begun constructing the set for the Subway image the later part of 2011.  It was a large set, necessary to include details like the striped wall covering –shiny/matte striped aluminum. Lori painstakingly layed out, taped off, and then used sandpaper to create the matte stripes.  The seats were carved foam, coated in spackle, then painted. Aluminum rod acted as center poles and was bent to become handrails.

Lori has long been fascinated by the walking sand dunes of Namibia. That is what led to us dragging  300lbs of sand up to our apartment. How much did we actually use to create the sand filled interior of the subway car? A wee fraction. But you never know. If we’d just picked up a little bit of sand initially, we would inevitably had to go buy more.  It was entirely a fluke that Hurricane Sandy hit in late October, just a few weeks after the scene was completed.  All told we worked on Subway for about a year, off and on.

Part of the “off” time was the opportunity to work with our Four Story Treehouse buddies  (Joe and Vincent) again on a short video for the new BBC America series, Coppers.  This was the first original programming by the American wing of BBC and the idea was to create a video that would bring viewers up to speed historically with what was happening in the Five Points area of New York City in the 1860’s. It was decided to focus on the draft riot and its’ effect on the country, highlighting the anger it created between the different classes and ethnic groups.

With little time to do research and build the sets, about 1-1/2 months, we got to work. We planned some specific camera shots, knowing basically what would be needed to tell the story. Lori and I have also learned that there is a lot of improvisation on set, and do our best to offer a variety of possibilities. You can check out the finished product on the Four Story Treehouse website - www.fourstorytreehouse.com .

Sustainable Sushi

See the video now. http://vimeo.com/36994466

This past fall we were invited to be a part of an exciting and memorable project. Our new good friend, Joe Sabia, was putting together a team to create a video about sustainable sushi. Inspired by a conversation with chef Kristof0r Lofgren of Bamboo Sushi in Portland, Oregon(theU.S.’s first certified sustainable sushi restaurant), he wanted to help Kristofer’s efforts to spread the message about the need for better commercial fishing practices. Joe has a background in television and video, and is a passionate and skillful storyteller. His talents seemed like the perfect fit for Kristofer’s message.

From the beginning Joe imagined this “story of sushi” to be told using models, and luckily for us, word of mouth and some internet searching led him to Lori’s website. He liked the possibility of using the models to create another world and appreciated the detailed nature of Lori’s photographs. The whole idea of making miniature sets for somebody else to work with was intriguing as well as scary. We had never worked with other artists like this, but it is a great cause and also seemed like the end result could be something pretty special. The project would definitely push us out of our comfort zone and interrupt our usual studio production, but it would also be a good opportunity to move our skills to the next level, both in terms of what we could physically produce and also what we could offer a client commercially in the future. (Always afraid the “art” might dry up, we are perpetually trying to nurture our other options.)

Ideas were discussed and a general storyline was hammered out. We then drew out a storyboard (first time for everything) to further refine the narrative and provide a shot sequence. It was decided that Lori and I would build 5-7 sets, each illustrating a step along the sushi path – from the fishing boat all the way to the restaurant table. The specifics were left up to us. So, we retreated to our respective corners to get to work. Knowing that the ‘detail work’ would fall to me, I started reading up on the world of sushi fishing and commercial fish markets. Lori started making lists and sourcing materials to begin building the structures we would need. Thank God for the internet!

Now, the beauty of making dioramas for Lori’s photographs is that she knows exactly what viewpoint she wants to have from the outset. All the elements of the scene are then made with that viewpoint in mind. Backs of structures are often unpainted or unfinished because we know that the camera will never see it. But, building dioramas for someone else to film, not knowing what crazy angle they may want to shoot or what close-up they may take, was quite nerve wracking and made us (me) overbuild the scenes even more than usual. One of my biggest fears, was them wanting to film a particular shot and not being able to do so because what I had made was not detailed enough or somehow incomplete or incorrect. For example: I made numerous fish of various species, but I tried to make sure that they would be from the same part of the ocean (mostly- I got really tired near the end). That the type of  fishing boat we depicted, and the method of catching fish, were in line with the type of fish and by-catch I sculpted. That the tables and storage containers were appropriate for the type of market. It got a little crazy at times with Lori saying “What does it matter if the blah blah blah blah?” and me answering “That’s not how it really would be, that doesn’t really yada yada yada” and then some strained silence for a while. But we managed…

And we kept working. We knew we had about four months to get these eight dioramas made. (Thankfully the deadline got extended!) Some were very direct and contained. Others were sprawling and involved a lot of smaller elements. We would email in-progress images to keep Joe in the loop. By now a director of photography/cameraman was also on board, Vincent Peone. He visited the studio with Joe and had a lot of great ideas for how to shoot the scenes. We met a couple times during production of the dioramas, and each meeting left us feeling even more excited about the project. This was Lori and my first big commercial job and we really wanted it to go well. Previous jobs were much more short term, a couple weeks at best. This job was proving to be a real test of our stamina, both mental and physical.

One amazing sidebar to all of this work was an excursion to Montauk to get a close look at commercial fishing. Through chef Kristofer, we were able to meet Michael Dimmock, who is head of an awesome company, Sea to Table. They work with fisherman to get their catch into the hands of chefs in the most direct way possible. Because of their efforts fishermen get a fair price, and chefs and restaurants get insanely fresh seafood (it usually arrives the next morning) to prepare for their customers. It’s a beautiful thing. Michael gave us the insiders tour where we got to see boats up close, watch fish being processed and packaged for quick shipping, and just witness a completely different way of life. It was fantastic!

Back in the studio, shooting day approached. By now the dioramas were taking over the majority of the available space, with elements stretching into four different rooms of the apartment. Joe and Vincent came for a final pre-shoot visit and we took them through each set. Most of the discussion was about transitions from scene to scene, lighting possibilities, special effects, and figures to populate the scenes. Figures, argh! We had been able to find scale model figures to work on the fishing boat(s) and in the market scenes. We had not prepared for populating the restaurant scenes. Lori and I make no secret that figures are not our strong suit. My attempts at sculpting them have been arguably passable. Knowing that we couldn’t make the little people, the only option was to find them. Thankfully, Lori is a tenacious shopper and she quickly located resin figures of the correct scale that we could make work. By ‘make work’ I mean saw off the legs of about half of them and modify to make them seated rather than standing, grind away unwanted elements, and repaint. But they did work, and they really made the scenes. We were as ready as we were gonna be.

We thought we were as ready as we could be. It was 9 am on a Saturday. Lori and I made finishing touches on the dioramas while the guys got set up. It is just a whole different world. And so much stuff! Fancy camera, lighting systems, dolly set up- we had just enough room, and no more. Hard traveling cases and extra gear filled the kitchen and bedroom. The back half of the living room/studio became the main shooting area. That area was dominated by the “ocean expanse” complete with boat shaped cut-out so we could switch out the two different fishing vessels –one using traditional fishing methods, the second using sustainable methods. All of the shots requiring this set were done first. It took all available personnel and some innovative problem solving to create many of the visual effects. Vincent truly transformed the sets with creative lighting and energizing camera shots.Working on this smaller scale was a new and long awaited experience, and his enthusiasm really shows.

Because setting up the equipment was so involved it was decided to keep the camera in place and move the sets for shooting. Once the boat was removed, the “ocean” became the perfect table to host the other scenes. The dock scenes were filmed next, followed by the two different restaurant scenes, and then the trawling net. Throughout all this, Joe kept a watchful eye on the script and worked out the time required for each shot with Vincent. Lori and I both felt like we didn’t want to watch the raw footage. We preferred to be surprised by the final edit.

By early evening we had exhausted our initial filming area and had to move all the camera equipment and lights to shoot the final models. This market area consisted of three separate models side by side representing different aspects of the commercial fish market experience, from very large, high volume market to a smaller, more intimate space at the end. We wanted each model to be distinct as the camera panned across the interiors. Style of architecture, color, and lighting were crucial in achieving the differences in the spaces. These three models had taken the most time to build due to the amount of detail. And so many fish! Yikes!

Creating movement within the scenes was as important as effects done with the camera. We took advantage of every opportunity, whether it was a rocking boat, drifting clouds, or rolling mist on the water (cue the fog machine). Some are more obvious (check out the hefty rod leading the fish through the trawling net), others a bit more subtle (well placed fishing line opening the hatch or a hand just out of frame pushing a forklift). It was about as low tech as you could get, but so much fun! But I think it was  in the same spirit as the models themselves. A little bit wonky, but it still made sense.

We finally wrapped around 11 that night. It had been an incredibly long day and everyone was beat, but also very pleased with the raw footage. Lori and I were so glad our part of this project was complete. Now the others could work their magic. It would feel strange to go back to the artwork and leave the sushi project behind. It had dominated our studio lives (and regular lives) for such a long time. We couldn’t wait to see the final video!

Burn Time

I don’t know about you but it is so easy to get caught up in your day to day routine and let it take over. There have been truly lovely days that have passed me by all because I didn’t want to give up a little time from whatever I was doing-painting walls of a scene, casting, whatever. It always seems like a good idea at the time to keep plugging away but then I am a little mad at myself later for staying cooped up.

 So I was thrilled when we needed to take some work outside this past weekend! The current scene needed some major distress to give it the proper look. Distress that can only come from an actual flame. Being the curmudgeon I am, I wouldn’t let Lori use the torch in the back room to get the necessary effects. Call me crazy. Years ago the apartment behind us had a fire and it freaked us out to watch the firemen battle it. Even thought the fire wasn’t huge, the damage was huge. Not just from actual fire, but from the firemen doing their jobs –break out the windows, ripping out parts of wall, and soaking everything with water. Something like that would be devastating to us because we would lose years and years of accumulated scenes and props. So, naturally I was opposed to the idea of doing this in our apartment. Luckily, we have some wonderful friends, Joni and Eric (also photographers-see the side bar for Joni’s work), with a house on Long Island. They came to our rescue with an invite to come out for the weekend to work on this scene.  Perfect.  Wine and freshly iced cake in hand, we loaded June (our trusty vehicle) and made the trip.

The weather was wonderful. The temperature and humidity had broken and we were treated to a picture perfect weekend. Behind their property is a little gravel drive, which was ideal. We ran some tests to see what would give the appropriate look and set to work.  Turns out that worn out collodion (used in traditional wet plate photography) works better than contact cement as an accelerant.  Must be the ether, or could it be the grain alcohol. Hmm? It is often pretty tedious when it gets to the distressing portion of the scenes. It can take hours to apply multiple layers of paint and glaze. Not so with fire. It was a nice change to have the results be so immediate. No, we didn’t just set the whole thing ablaze. We’re too much of control freaks for that. It was actually a lot of careful application of the torch to get the right density of color and texture. More like painting with fire.

All went smoothly except for one minor event. Lori was brushing some fresh collodion onto a portion of wall that we had previously torched. Apparently there was enough heat still there to catch fire. Fire went up the brush, over the hand (goodbye knuckle hair!) and into the small container of collodion she was holding. That all got dropped into the gravel where we watched it burn a little bit before smothering it with a heavy piece of canvas. Lori is fine, not even any redness later, but it was a little too exciting.

So now we have the pieces back home in Brooklyn and have to catch up the rest of the scene so we can start to assemble it. We’re pretty hopeful that the results will be what we want in the end. It’s a little too soon to tell, but so far so good. Stay tuned.

Buffalo

“Inspiring curiosity through exploration”, this is the mission statement of the Buffalo Museum of Science. On a recent trip to Buffalo, NY we had the good fortune to visit and were floored by the quality of the exhibits. Housed in a beautiful building on the edge of a Frederick Olmstead designed park, it’s collections feature the Western New York State and Greater Niagara Regions. It is awesome! Now, one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever heard about Lori’s photographs and the models that precede them is they look to be crafted with love. That would definitely apply to the dioramas and displays featured at this museum. I’m not sure when they were created but they did have a lovely handcrafted feel about them. The dioramas were in small-ish rooms, divided into different regions. The cases were against the walls with a flat roof that allowed for larger animals to be displayed. All of the cases were of a dark wood with brass hardware. Simple and beautiful.

I think the fact that the museum has a regional slant is to it’s benefit. It allows them to really focus on a few things and emphasize the design and craftsmanship of each diorama. I really enjoyed the play of scale and unusual contexts they set up. The skeleton of a mouse sitting on a vertebrae of a dinosaur, hysterical! The “tree condo” is a floor to ceiling display showcasing all it’s inhabitants from bugs at the roots to owls at the top of the tree. One of my favorites was the nocturnal diorama featured everything that ever gave me the creeps at night. Ok, maybe not the moth.

It is really hard for me not to gush over these things. The care that was taken with every aspect was amazing. The backgrounds were painted very well. The animals and scenery were dynamic and thoughtful. Many of the animal poses were things I hadn’t seen before. I mean, who doesn’t want to see a snake snatching a frog mid jump. A passel (group) of oppossums teetering on a skinny branch. Close inspection of the dioramas rewarded the viewer with great little details that might otherwise go unnoticed. One very large display showed four very small fish as they swam beneath some floating plants. Beautifully backlit, it was an exercise in silhouettes. But, if you looked closely among the plants you saw another dozen different varieties of fish and animals.

I admit, I’m a little tired of all the interactive displays you see in so many museums. To me it just means it will be broken soon, and for a long time. I loved the simplicity and straightforward design of these things. They also had a lot of humor. Accompanying each diorama was an information panel giving you more detail about what you were seeing. They were so funny! These simple, but very well executed, line drawings/cartoons added a whole new dimension to each piece.

So if you can’t tell by now I’m a huge fan of this place. I highly recommend it. If you are ever in Buffalo, give it a chance.

Commercial Photography

A few weeks ago I received an email from the art director of Wired magazine, inquiring if I would be interested in a quick editorial illustration. I was recommended to her from a fellow diorama artist Thomas Doyle. Thanks Thomas! I owe you one. The project was a photograph to accompany an article on the end of the Harry Potter franchise. The last Harry Potter movie arrives in theaters this July 15. I jumped at the opportunity after hearing what kind of image they were looking for, a miniature funeral scene atop of one of the books, or the stack of books. When I read this description, I immediately had a picture in my mind of how I wanted it to look. But this doesn’t mean my idea matches their idea. So after consulting with Kathleen, she sat down and started making sketches. I went to work on procuring the needed art materials, because there is always something I don’t have ready to go in the studio. Sketches are great because it helps nail down what I’m able to do in the studio, and the magazine gets an idea of what I can deliver. Alice Cho, the art director was fantastic in expressing what they were looking for, yes to the creepy tree, no to the coffin idea, yes to the grave dug out of the book, no to the tombstones. It’s taken me several years to figure out what questions to ask. The single most important thing is to not get too married to your original ideas because they will change throughout the process. I’m being hired to give them a certain look, the “Lori Nix” look. I’m not being hired to create high art.

After we got the green light we headed off to Barnes and Noble in search of hardback Harry Potter books. We then took a ruler and eyed how large the creepy tree should be, and also what scale figures would work best standing around the grave. I started immediately making the tree form out of wire, lots and lots of twisting wire. After two days of wire twisting, the tree was ready to hand off to Kathleen. We knew how we wanted the bark to look, twisted and old. The perfect material is called Magic Sculpt, a two-part epoxy clay that hardens in three hours. The beauty of this stuff is that it’s non-toxic and easy to work with. Thank you Complete Sculptor. The next day I went off to the day job and Kathleen began to carefully put on the epoxy. It’s a slow process and not to be rushed. Three days later the tree is done, hardened and ready to paint. Let me just say right now how happy I am the magazine wasn’t looking for leaves on their trees.

Next come the figures. We’re not very good at sculpting people without them looking really cartoony. What we can do is modify an already static one. Unfortunately we chose an odd scale of figure for the scene, bigger than O scale 1:45, smaller than G scale 1:22.5. We like an in between scale at 1:32. Unfortunately, not many figures come in this size, but the ones we find can be modified to our needs. I’m just thankful the local railroad hobby shop has a great selection of figures. Thank you Red Caboose.

Now it’s time to create the grave in the book. With this project I treated myself to a new Bosch jigsaw, the perfect tool for the job. It emotionally hurt me to cut into the book, but after a few quick runs of the jigsaw, a nice rectangular hole was left. I took the loose pages and punched out leaf shapes to create a literary dirt pile next to the grave. Kathleen worked the figures over with super matte paint, giving one of the figures a Gryffindor scarf. Kathleen’s part of the process is finished, now it’s up to me to create the sky, model the lighting and start photographing.

This project was quick from start to finish. Friday I was emailed about the job. Sketches created over the weekend to arrive at Wired electronically on Monday morning. Received the thumbs up Monday afternoon and immediately started sourcing materials. Wire, epoxy and figures were picked up on Tuesday. Kathleen works on the tree for the next four days. Yes it takes that long. Sunday evening all parts have dried and we begin to set up the scene. I shoot late into the night, experimenting with light, fog machine, camera angle and more light. I get to bed around 1:30am but toss and turn all night because I don’t feel like I’ve achieved the best shot just yet. Monday morning I send Kathleen off to her day job and I go about rearranging the lights and background and start fresh. I like what I’m seeing so I send jpegs to Wired. The only thing that’s saving me is I’m on New York time and Wired is on California time. The four-hour time difference is keeping me from freaking out. I wait for Alice to say yes or no to the finals. She replies with a request to make one simple change. I’m on it and within two hours I have a final image uploading to California.

I enjoy commercial work. It always challenges me in unexpected ways. For a small time, I get to live outside of my head and inside someone else’s and create images that I would never create for myself. I also use these opportunities to work with new materials and experiment with new approaches. The secret to this success was asking the right questions, being flexible, and keeping the outcome on a realistic timetable. Short deadlines can really release the creative flow. And I honestly thrive under deadlines.

Serendipity

I was asked by the New York Foundation of the Arts to participate on an expert panel for their “Artist as Entrepreneur Boot Camp”. The panelists included Lenny Pickett, the musical director of Saturday Night Live, Andy Hunter, Founding Editor of Electric Literature, Dave Shroeder, Musical Director at New York University and Mark Golden, founder and CEO of Golden Artist Colors. We were asked to speak about our entrepreneurial skills  as well as how we got to where we are now. The audience consisted of about 60 artists from a variety of backgrounds including painters, musicians, dancers, playwrights, actors and writers. The goal for the participants was to learn how we the panelists make a business out of what we love to do, and hopefully help them create goals for themselves.  

As each of us spoke and answered questions, several phrases kept repeating themselves, such as serendipity, say yes, and be nice. So how does one go about creating serendipity for themselves? The definition is  “the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident, or better yet, when someone finds something that they weren’t expecting to find. This happens when you pretty much say yes to every opportunity or favor asked of you. You never know when something will turn into something greater. I’ll give you a couple of examples which pretty much describes my professional trajectory. Back when I was still wet behind the ears and fresh out of graduate school, I applied to a group show at a non-profit art space several miles away from Columbus, Ohio. The exhibition was reviewed by the local art magazine and one of my images was published to illustrate the show. The local art magazine like my work and asked if I would like to submit an image to use on the cover. I definitely said yes. This magazine was picked up by an artist who lived in Georgia, but was obsessed with his home state of Ohio. He liked my work and sent it to his friend in Houston, Texas who happened to work at a gallery. She then sent it to her friend who was opening a gallery and was looking for artists to show in his new space. By submitting to a small arts space in small Ohio, my work traveled to Texas and landed me in my first serious commercial art gallery. From here my exhibition record had grown over the years and now I’m exhibiting at commercial galleries across the United States. What’s my secret? That I tried to participate and I said yes along the way.

Serendipity comes to those who try. You can’t hide in your darkroom or your basement or garage and expect to be “discovered”. It doesn’t happen this way any more, nor did it happen like this very often in the past. Sometimes when you try, your payoff doesn’t come right away, but rather further on down the road. This is why you need to be nice from the get go, and not fake nice, but sincerely nice. Here is story number two about serendipity. Trying to get my career off the ground, I’ve participated in several portfolio review events in cities such as Portland, OR and Houston, Texas and even in my own city of New York. My first portfolio review event took place in Portland, Oregon and it was called Photo Americas (now Photo Lucida). Again I was still pretty wet behind the ears. I sat a goal for myself not to have great expectations but to get my work before professional eyes and try to create a little buzz behind my name. This was in  2001. It was a whirlwind of new faces and new names. I met quite a few photographer there that I’m still friends with and in contact regularly. Several of the reviewers included Barbara Tannenbaum for the Akron Museum of Arts, Gail Gibson from G. Gibson Gallery in Seattle, Diane Barber from DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas, and Amy Gillman from MOCA Cleveland. From this first portfolio review I’ve become friends with Barbara, I’ve had an exhibition at DiverseWorks and I’m represented by Gail’s gallery. This past year, nine long years later, I receive an email from Amy Gilman, who in no longer with MOCA Cleveland but now at the Toledo Museum of Art. She remembered my work all these years and has curated me into a five person show around the theme of Small Worlds. Nine years later and serendipity is still at work.

I hope the participants in the NYFA Boot Camp got as much out of the panel as I did. I enjoyed hearing the other panelists tell their stories, as well as answering audience questions. Just remember, you gotta participate, you gotta try, you should be nice and you should say yes. You just never know where the path will take you.

Otherworldly

It’s been a crazy week. I’ve had the great fortune to be included in a brand new show at the Museum of Art and Design here in New York. It’s called Otherworldly, and includes a wide range of artists who use models/dioramas in some capacity for their work. Some have the model as the final piece of art, others are like me and the model is a means to an end, either a photograph or painting. Others have taken it in totally different directions including a hologram and a zoetrope! For me it’s a big step to show the diorama along with the final photograph and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. (Generally, once I’m satisfied with the final image I dismantle the scene to make way for the next one.) So much of the final image is about lighting; it just doesn’t translate the same if you are looking at the original model. Often I have to pump the lights 15-20 times to get the right density. Just doesn’t happen in real life. Same thing when I have to use the fog machine to create atmosphere- just not the same! Before now, the only place you could see one of the dioramas was in my studio. But the fact that this was a museum show, and in a way an educational experience, made the difference for me.

All that being said, it’s pretty cool. Kathleen and I installed the work last Friday. Two sets, Beauty Shop and Violin Repair Shop, were chosen by the show’s curator David McFadden. It was lucky for me that they were manageable in size and recently completed. I don’t know how I could have stored them for any real length of time. Space in the studio is at a premium. Beauty Shop was completed earlier in the year and we had time to glue down all the different elements so installation was just a matter of pinning the ceiling in place. Violin Repair Shop was a different story. It’s the most recently finished piece so there was no time to give it the same attention. Plus, we try to reuse what we can and there’s a lot of nice, detailed pieces in that scene. The chair, tables, lights, shelves, and tools all have potential for future scenes. Gluing them down would negate that potential. Even if that stuff just ends up being background filler for another diorama it’s worth it. Trying to simulate years and years of accumulated ‘stuff’ can be very difficult. Having a stash to access helps.

In the end, Violin Shop got lodged in the doorway of the apartment as we were trying to take it to the car. We had to cut it down on one side to release it from the door jam. It took a couple of hours to install, and that’s even with us being somewhat organized. When originally packing it up, Kathleen labeled all the tiny boxes with their even tinier contents, just like if you were moving to a new house. I unpacked the boxes and she placed the items in the scene. We had to keep going around the corner to look at the photograph to get things placed correctly. Even then we realized we left crucial elements at home so we had to go back on Saturday to finish up. And by elements I mean freakin’ stand up basses that are right up front in the scene. Figures right?

One of the nicest parts to all this was talking with a security guard who was overseeing the installation. She said that she would be guarding my work for the duration of the show and that I should not worry about its’ safety. She was very interested in all of the artwork being installed, but told us that she especially liked Violin Shop. She even asked questions about it so that she could talk to visitors about the piece. We showed her some of the carved elements and she was happy to get a closer look. It was a really nice conversation.

I love the midwest.

I love the Midwest landscape. The endless fields, the flatness, and its overwhelming sky, all have a special fondness with me. Like Lori, it’s the place where I grew up and I still feel its pull and how it has marked me for life. When it rains I think about how the farmers will be happy. Throughout the summer I try to remember at what stage the different crops should be at, or what would be growing in the garden. (When is the corn knee high?) And this is twenty-plus years after moving off the farm. Those feelings just won’t go away, but the details have grown fuzzy, and that really bothers me. See, I never dreamed I’d end up living in a big city. It was the farthest thing from my mind. But, starting with college, I gradually began a migration to the east until I somehow ended up in Brooklyn. It took a long time to make peace with my new surroundings, and if asked how I like living in New York, I’ll grudgingly say it’s ok. But, I don’t think I’ll ever allow myself to like it, and will never love it no matter how well I adapt to the urban life. I guess it makes me feel disloyal to my roots.

We had occasion to drive through the Midwest this past week and I found it very comforting. It’s like I could finally stretch and take a full breath of fresh air after months of swallowing the grit and grime of New York City. Distance was no longer measured by city blocks, but by country miles and small towns. Riding in the car my head was on a swivel, trying to take in every detail. I’ll try to soak up as much of the sights and sounds as I can, knowing it will be a while before I return. Lori and I are quite fortunate in that our Brooklyn apartment sits alongside the park, so I can still watch the seasons change and smell the freshness of the trees as they give off their oxygen at night. But for now, I’ll keep enjoying the soft breeze, the sound of the birds, and the scent of honeysuckle.

More Sky

Work has begun on the next diorama. (Can’t give out many details, Lori is very superstitious about talking about scenes in progress). But the division of labor is in place. She is plotting out, cutting, sanding, assembling (with a little swearing for good measure) the bones of the piece. Progress is always slow-ish at this stage because hard decisions are still being made: scale, where will the line of focus be, how high will the camera be, and how will light get into the final scene. The lighting issue is pretty key because that is what really transforms this small diorama into what appears to be (hopefully) a real space. And it’s much easier to figure that out now than after all the details are glued in place. The other tricky issue is how much floor and ceiling is needed. It is always more than you think, as it needs to extend towards the camera several feet beyond where the rest of the detailing ends. Additions almost always happen and random patches of blue on the walls and ceiling of the studio prove that figuring out how much sky/background is needed is also difficult. But once these issues are decided, there will be a brief window of time where in the space of a day, the basic structure will all come together. That is a very good day!

While Lori works on that, I’m working on detail elements. For this scene that means some lighting fixtures and wall decorations. These things are the slow-pokes and have to be started early so when Lori is ready to place them, they are complete. This scene will have some paintings, so that is where I’m at. Theme and composition are left up to me, within certain parameters of course. We try to personalize these elements, using photos of friends and family, or objects that have some meaning to us. As far as portraits go, if it ends up looking human I’m pretty happy. Getting any sort of likeness to the original subject would just be icing on the cake. I’ll confess that one painting I’m attempting is a trompe l’oeil still life. (The term is French for ‘deceive the eye’ and uses realistic painting to create the illusion that objects appear to be 3-D). My painting will have items related to my grandfather. So, we’ll see how it goes. I’m still in the planning stage. My painting background is limited (in college I did the minimum to get by) but it has improved over time. As long as I have reference, I generally do ok. And if it stinks, I’ll try something else, no one has to see it. I take comfort in the fact that in the final photo, it probably won’t be much larger than a stamp. And it may be in shadow. Or be covered with a wash of paint or dirt. A lot of trouble for such a small thing? You bet. But this is how we roll.

Studio Life

In the world of model building, time moves slow…..very slow. It takes anywhere from a month (when we have our shit together) to fifteen months (when we get sidelined by other projects, usually commercial projects) to finish a scene. Therefore Kathleen and I will be posting weekly instead of daily. Not much happens in the day to day except a little gluing, a little painting, and lots of attention to two needy cats. When a scene moves along at a quick pace, it’s usually because I know exactly what I want in terms of the color palette, the layout of the scene, the details. Our quickest scene was called “Vacuum Showroom” and we did it in a month. It also helped that a deadline was looming. The hardest part for me is deciding exactly what I want. Too many times there are too many options. I’m kind of a deer in the headlines when confronted by more than three choices.  

I usually find inspiration on the subway commute to my day job in Manhattan, and it usually happens when the subway emerges from the depths of Brooklyn and climbs uphill over the Manhattan Bridge. Something about the darkness to bright light hits me in the head and opens my mind. I get a literal brainstorm. I immediately transcribe my idea to my phone, then send Kathleen a text message with a great, new, astounding, earth shattering idea. Even though she doesn’t reply, I know she is sighing heavily. If I still like the idea a week later, and still like it two years down the road, then I know it’s worth building. I start the research process either with Google, or better yet, books (remember those?). The absolute hardest part of the diorama process is figuring out the color palette. Sometimes I know this the minute I see it in my head, but most often I’m that deer in the headlights again, trying to figure out if the scene should be predominately green, blue or brown. Too many options! And it’s especially difficult when doing research, I see a space that I love, but when it comes to making it in miniature, I can’t seem to shake what I’ve already seen, and I can’t break free of that impression. I really hate this. Therefore it’s best for me to conduct research from afar, again through Google or through books.

The current diorama Kathleen and I are working on I have been mulling around in my head for five years. It’s gone through several revisions, and now we’re finally bringing it to life. We work to each other’s strengths. I come up with the big idea and the color palette. Over breakfast, we drag out the sketchbook and start drawing out the physical space, the position of the camera, and make a list of details we want to fill out the scene. I go home and start fabricating the walls floor, ceiling and architectural details. I set the scale. Kathleen gets the lucky task of fabricating all the nitpicky details that I don’t have the patience to do. She’s pretty darn fearless in this department. I ask for a mastodon, and within a couple of days she had gone and carved me a mastodon out of foam.

Introductions

Welcome to My 8x10 Life, a journal about my life as a working photographer in Brooklyn, NY. The About and Bio sections of my website take care of the big questions of Who Am I? and Why Do I Make the Work I Make?, but I am often asked about the little things that go into my work: inspiration, research, and just the daily life of making things. The point of this blog is to flesh out some of these smaller details, hopefully without killing the magic.

Why this title? It makes sense to me for a couple of reasons. First off, I make my photographs with a traditional 8x10 camera. While a large number of photographers are moving to the digital realm, I continue to cling to this method. I love film! I love the look of it, the level of detail it provides, and the overall physicality of the process. It’s solid. It’s also in keeping with my method of working in that I do not alter my images once the final negative is created. I don’t use Photoshop or otherwise digitally enhance the images. Old school all the way. More on that in the future…

Secondly, the way I’ve chosen to work is incredibly time consuming. My photographs begin life as small dioramas (tabletop-ish and larger) that my partner Kathleen and I build in our living room. Our daily life consists of tiny tools and model supplies, glue, wire and paint. Some elements are purchased, but the majority is scratch built. It’s labor and time intensive, and after almost twelve years, it’s just what we do. But we really like it! Even if we are not actively working on a scene, it is never far from our minds, and eventually finds it’s way into whatever we are doing. Living where I work (or is it working where I live) just invites further integration.