i like to tell stories

one i never finished setting up, the other never got used because the subject quit his job i was photographing him for the day after i shot him.

i shot a little project in LA recently, it’s one of the few times i made images with a real goal or thought in mind before making anything later out of it all.

i am not sure it worked, as my thoughts swirling around it all are shifting, either way, it will be something for someone someday.

my fear of flying is still growing stronger.

a friend emailed me these today. i don’t know if its really worth me paying $2500 on top of what i pay a month already for this view, but either way, its a nice view.

today, 9/26/07 is the 2nd anniversary of the very first time i ever shot clays.

yes, this is an absurd thing to realize, but nonetheless entertaining, to at least me. so….

almost everytime i go shoot somewhere, i take a clay home. then i started writing where it was from on it. then my score. then how many clays i shot or shells i shot. then, if in competition, my score, my placing, my $ won and how many punches i got. (punches are points earned to move up from one class to another).

i have 95 clays on my shelf. i have a jar of maybe 4-8 i had in the very beginning, that i knocked over, so the chips are in the jar. so maybe 99-103 days of shooting, although a couple could be from different places the same day, so safe bet, 95 days of shooting, not counting the 2-3 times i forgot to get a clay at all.

10,472 clays since i started writing the amount of shells or clays i shoot. probably 14,000 or so total is a safe reserved guess of all time.

3,750 of these targets were in competition. 1700 in 2006. 2050 so far in 2007.

in 2006, i went from beginner, D class, to E class, an official demotion by NSCA.

in 2007, i went from E class to C class in 2 months.
12 punches total, including one punch already of the 6 needed for B class.

i have 3 trophies, 1 first place, and 2 for 3rd place.

i have won $692.00

i have shot at 21 clubs and taken my picture at 19 in:

new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, delaware, maryland, texas, florida and california.

got to shoot in the LA area finally, two places, Moore N Moore Clays and Triple B Clays Shotgun Park, you should go to both, and they are both just miles from central LA, nice.

watch here : jonathan mark and dan, LA GUNS

went to LA for a long weekend and basically just looked around and saw old friends. i would be hard pressed to find a single moment that wasn’t perfect, even the random spot i found to sleep in my car for a bit was beautiful. the ups and downs of the trip itself all synced out. the desire to return to nyc was nonexistent, yet i still did.

i mailed my friend mark a check just after he and his wife moved to LA for some $ i owed him. i use to try and always mail a picture with everything i did, even email, now this of course never holds up, but i wish it did, this may make me try harder again, as i remember putting the check in an envelope and forgetting a picture, so i tore it open, shot a polaroid of myself, and put the yet to be processed polaroid in the new envelope and mailing it, then forgot the whole thing.

i later heard it was the first thing on their wall in LA, well, i am proud to report it’s still there and i finally got to see how my polaorid turned out, 2 years later.

3 of the 4 photographers i know in the above photo read too many photo blogs, one i dont think reads any.

the past few months, i have read too many, between RSS and OCD, i no longer think it’s an interesting exercise or learning experience, i honestly cannot say too much positive thought or action has come out of it all (reading others, not making my own, i still see benefit somehwere within the process). constantly reading others seems to feed the bad side of photographer bragging, bitching, who is doing what obsessing and general one-upmanship. not that any of this means anything, as my fascination with it all seems endless.

in reading all the usual suspect blogs, seeing how it seems it all really revolves around two or three main blogs anyway, random stuff really gets stuck in my head. in seeing this over the last few months, when i started again in june, i made a conscious effort to try to not bitch or brag, just state the facts about photography jobs and photographers with facts as i experience them or with praise or not at all. i generally feel i do well, mostly….

except HERE broening/saunders with comments, the best comparing us to Urkell and Skreetch

and

except HERE seige/jimmyrainbow

it seems lost in the bubble of my dark little cave, the boredom and jealousy gets the best of me and i unleash blah blah on those undeserving, more successful and silly enough to encourage comments.

going to at least try and stick to simple stories and pictures here however still (starting again now), as there are plenty of other places to read photog on photog revolving door conversations…. not that i wont still be reading those of course…

in an effort to attract new clients and move forward, been reaching out to reps and pe’s again in anyway i can get attention (again or still, depending on the month as this obviously should never stop). this is of course a daunting and seemingly frivolous effort, but nonetheless needed and desired and kinda oddly joyful while quite painful. this has led to an interesting 24h in that it has been made painfully obvoius from different sources informing me that dan winters and chris buck are the only two photographers worthy of work. now i respect and admire both of these guys obviously, as yes, they are quite amazing.

still, in the past 24h, 2 different sources unknow to each other referenced me to dan as example and 2 different sources did the same with chris, go to any lecture or event or siminar or ask for feedback, these are the yards sticks of photography, nothing else will do, to anyone in a position of power over photographers put on the spot to to offer up their thoughts on what they want in a photographer, it is chris and dan, deservedly so but really, just those 2….. ?

wow, this is such a news flash, thank you person in position of power over photographers.

so with the hundreds of magazines, hundreds of ad jobs, hundreds of design jobs, at the end of the day, if dan or chris are busy, maybe you’ll get call, i may not after this post, but maybe you will….. now i am spoiled in that my first job ever wasn’t through a rep or because i knew someone, all the rest have been, but not my first and not one since. this is our business, sure, you must work a camera decent enough and not be completely incompetent, but the key is know someone or have a rep that knows someone, this is a golden ticket to new work and cleints…. or be fortunate enough to be dan or chris.

(altho i do know a photographer or two that seem to get a check in the mail each time they fart, or so it seems, they are under the radar, but their bank accounts aren’t, they just have that nack for falling ass backwards into random cash for what they already did, maybe your lucky to be like this as the amounts are astonishing and often make me laugh out loud when i hear the stories, ideally i want to be the combo, dan or chris talent AND the ability to fart cash).

example one

example 2, now i honestly appreciate the response i got from this person below, i would agree with parts of this and this came from a person with a level of experience that i respect as i was after all asking this rep of stature to give me some thoughts on my work, they were kind enough to do so:

“No problem, Jonathan.

The critique I have about your work is that there is nothing overall that differentiates it from the hundreds of other editorial portrait shooters out there.

One of my favorite portraitists is Dan Winters, who you may be aware of. His work not only has a strong signature look to it, but he consistently captures the essence of his subjects in a conceptual way through what he does with props, environmental elements and poses that is fresh, smart and unexpected.

We already have a number of good solutions for clients looking for portraits, so it would be tough to add you anyway. We also concentrate on advertising clients, so the strong editorial leaning of your work makes it less applicable in that arena.

I hope that this helps.”

my only immediate unspoken thought on this really when i first read it, “odd, this person doesn’t represent dan winters. why not an example of one of yours and why you represent them?”

spent a few hours friday and monday dealing with nyc permit office and then the park service to get permission to shoot in madison square park today. needless to say, it didnt really work out, one office said its up to the other and that other never responded and has no official phone number i can find. i could of gone under the radar, but i usually get caught and it all became too much. so we shot in the office, i got an image i think the client will like (it isn’t either of these).

me & my parents.

i wish i made something everyday.

you know its going to be a big day when you start seeing gun carts behind trucks on the nj turnpike going 90 mph just past dawn on a saturday.

m & m, nj. zone 2 championship preliminary event & 20g competition.

i shot a 77 for 6th of 24 in C class.

disaster, i never have it when it counts. i started off terribly. not just the course, but the whole day, which is a shame, i decided to do this last minute and was excited. the friday morning before the saturday event rolled around, i forced myself up early after only 3 hours of sleep so i could sleep friday night. it didn’t work. i never fell asleep. i would end up on course with only the 3 hours of sleep i got over 24h ago, 48 or so hours on 3h sleep does make for good competitions.

so i left as soon as hertz opened and hit the road. arrived, shot warm up clays, and hit the course. all the early stations were packed, i skipped ahead and shot poorly on some tough stations. then my gun misfired. then my gun misfired again a few targets later. then, my gun misfired yet again, any more would count as lost targets, i got so scared the gun wouldn’t fire, i didnt even think about the targets. then i just stopped. i knew the problem was big with the gun, but seeing how i couldn’t afford this comp in the first place, the idea of gun repair hurt my brain. i stopped shooting and went to the gunsmith on site, $110 later, i shot another 25 practice, then went back to the course. i picked it up, i was finally awake and ready, but by this point, had dropped so many targets, i was no longer in the running, fuck…..

i rocked the 20g, it was so fun, everything finally felt right and i dropped the cost and gun failures and honestly felt the best i had in a tounament in forever. i started off out of order again by chance. i ran the first 3 stations, i hit the first 25 targets without a miss, dropped one, then hit the next 10. i was trying to not think about my score or the next target, one at a time, but i fell apart, dropping a total 7 targets in my last two stations for a 42 of 50, 6th place of 12, fuck….

i slowly packed up and left even though the last thing i wanted to do was leave, i could of kept competing, but $ and common sense got me and i hit the turnpike. i got about 2 exits north and pulled over and fell asleep with the car running at some nasty rest stop, about 40 min later i woke up sweating. got out and fell asleep on top of a picnic table. an hour later, kids playing woke me up. i got back in the car, parked it in the shade of a tree and slept about an hour only to be awoken by my drool soaking through my shirt.

i drove home and was up about another 12h till sometime after dawn sunday.

i have never experienced a feeling quite like giving away something i made that is important to me. it’s arguably one of the best feelings i have ever felt. often making me feel that rush of blood leaving ones body or making me simply cry a little with joy. it makes me feel like myself, whatever that is.

too put all my best into something tangible, be it a photograph, a letter, a journal or even just a story. all those things i suffered through to make it, the looking, the searching, the moments, the joy, the pain, the expense, the whatever that is the residue of my experience in a complete state, here for me to give away as a simple honest expression of my love, hate or respect for that recipient.

i have made journals that took years and countless hours that i gave away and i have made simple little things that only took moments, the moment is the same for me….. here, this is for you.

i often send or leave them behind for the receiver. not so much for the surprise, it’s not their reaction that is even important to me and is not what i wanted. my reasons are more selfish. i gave this to you for me, for how it makes me feel to put my best down, give it to you and walk away.

that’s will, he helped me on a shoot today. it was a good day, i got to meet an editor i haven’t met before, even though i have shot for him some 7 years. i also got to meet 2 ladies i also shoot for there on staff in the photo dept as it was a shoot of a writer at the mag itself. wild company, if i ever work in an office everyday, this is maybe the first i have ever been to that seemed pleasant in a sea of brain dulling creativity killing environments that seem to dominate every place i have to go make suit pictures…

it was also odd today as when we rolled up and i was unloading gear, will leaned close and said, ‘jodie foster is standing right behind you.’ i turned and sure enough, there she was getting into a big ol black suv’s backseast. gosh, she’s purdy. i remember seeing her for the first time in candleshoe (1977) and thinking, gosh, she’s purdy. 30 years ain’t got nothing.

Hamburg, Germany, 26 March 2006. With only 8 of the 16 exits opened, the task for this evacuation certification was to get 853 passengers and 20 crew out of the plane within 90 seconds. This all happened in darkness, with only cabin emergency lights switched on. The footage is from night vision cameras. The crew and passengers did not know which exits would be blocked.

The regulations say that:

– 35% must be aged over 50,
– a minimum 40% must be female,
– 15% female and over 50.

Airbus A380. 873 people in 77 seconds.

i cannot stop thinking of you lately, the last time i heard from you was terrifying, it’s like i never knew you or you weren’t actually ever real, i cannot tell the difference anymore.

the room you grew up in, in indiana, a long time ago.

see – ATLANTIC CITY may 2005

if you read this much, you’ll know just what i suffer to do what i do, in living where i do.

more proof, took months to get LL to fix a small hole where mice came in. the guy showed and decided it best to replace the entire wall. turns out the hole i thought was small in fact had a larger hole behind it. turns out the larger hole wasn’t a hole at all, but a badly covered fireplace.

i had no idea there was a fireplace inches from my feet for the past 9.5 years.

watch APARTMENTHELL video

same wall.