Gathering of the Clans

6FPS V1#6

Welcome to the new issue of 6FPS. As I write this it's Thanksgiving in the U.S., and for some people that means gathering with the clan for food and probably football. For others, it's a break from the routine, a nice meal with the ones your cherish, and perhaps a chance to madly try to catch up on all of the things on your backlogged todo list...

One of the things Laurie and I decided on long ago was that Thanksgiving was our holiday. We don't travel to visit our families, we stay home and together and celebrate it ourselves. I have always felt that while the extended family gatherings are important, it's also important for a family group to start building their own traditions as well, because some day those other traditions might not be there. In my case, having lost Susan earlier this year, I am now the last surviving member of my clan, so that's something I am trying to wrap my head around and see in the bigger context of my life moving forward.

When mom passed away, the family gathering for Christmas dispersed, Since we were the distant part of the family that meant we had to uproot every year, get the cats and bird into the kennel, get the car loaded, get to LA, live in a hotel for most of a week, and this all involves time and chaos and money and vacation days and work chaos and... And, of course, it was made clear to me more than once that attendance wasn't optional, because family.

To be honest, I wasn't unhappy about ending this tradition. There's an entire essay in here about traditions that become burdens, but I'll save that for another time, other than to suggest if you are part of a regular gathering of the clans, to ponder whether that gathering is as enjoyable for everyone as it is for you. That's a question, I've found, that isn't asked often enough.

We've finally had our first rain of the season, which is great, and it's cleared the air of the smoke that's been blanketing the bay area and much of the state, and helping control and put out the fires that have been raving the state. For a first rain of the season, it's late: according to a local meteorologist we went 232 days between storms of half an inch of rain or more. That's one reason the fire season is extending and the intensity and destruction of the fires is growing, since the dry brush is around to be burned longer, and gets ever more parched and kindling-like.

Traditionally Laurie and I head to Merced NWR on Black Friday, but the weather forecasts are clear it'll be raining, so instead we're having dinner, wine and hockey with a friend, and we'll head out to Merced Saturday or perhaps Sunday depending on when it all clears out. This is a nice way to just avoid all of the traffic and chaos the hype over that day has created.

I hope you all who are celebrating it had a great Thanksgiving, and enjoy the long weekend. Now, of course, we see Christmas staring us in the face, but I've already made good strides in my shopping, and I'm really looking forward to it this year. It will be, of course, just me, and Laurie, and a tree that'll go up in the next few days, and a couple of cats I am sure are going to go into destructo mode as soon as that happens. Wish me luck.

And so, without further delay then, on with the show! And thank you for being part of this.

This issue brought to you almost live, from a secret lair deep within a secret volcano in the bowels of Silicon Valley...

What's New?

Here is what I've written since the last issue:

  • Visiting the Central Valley Refuges: Merced Area Refuges

  • Visiting the Central Valley Refuges: Lodi Area Refuges

  • Visiting the Central Valley Refuges: Colusa NWR and Sacramento NWR

  • Bird Photography on the Fly

  • Black and White Photography

That series on the Central Valley refuges is something I've been working on for a while, on and off, and I'm thrilled it's finally out there for people to use to set up their own trips, and it's a bit of writing I'm quite proud of. Hope you enjoy

Should we share our favorite places? (Things Photographic)

The question of whether we should be sharing location data in our photos is a continuing and growing controversy. Unfortunately we're seeing more and more problems, from crowds to litter to vandalism to simply destroying locations through overuse to fistfights over prime locations, and there seems no way to control this.

I mentioned this in the last couple of issues, including the growing problems at Bixby bridge in Big Sur where the crowds are impacting local residents and trashing the area with litter and tramping down the plants by not being willing to stay on trails, or even in the "in bounds" areas.

Larry Niven actually considered this problem long ago in a 1973 story called Flash Crowd. He considered what would happen if instant, trivial teleportation was invented, and the story looks at the problem of people seeing something of interest on TV and deciding on the spur of the moment and hit the teleport box, and the impact on the other side of 50,000 people basically piling into a location. This was in really the philosophical father of flash mobs that were the thing on the Internet for a while. What we have here is similar, but it's a slower mob that destroys a location over time rather than instantly. Overall, though, he really has some interesting insights into what we're seeing happen today.

I've always been someone who has wanted to help people find the areas I find special, but at the same time, I want them to find their own shots. If you check the GPS data for, say Merced NWR, they all more or less center on the parking lot and main observation platform. I've occasionally gotten complaints about that from people who want me to tell them where a specific viewpoint or tree is, and my answer is always "show up, look around and find your own shot, or buy my print of my shot". That doesn't go over well with the trophy shot collectors, but I don't care.

I'm finding myself wondering if being this "generic" about a location is a good thing, but if one of my goals is to help promote the refuges and help people understand their value and beauty and get them visiting, that's in direct conflict with the idea of not disclosing their locations. My take right now: Places that advertise themselves as open for visitors I'll continue to include GPS data pointing at a location to help people find them to visit, but I won't be tagging them to let you find a specific shot.

I'm wondering if that's good enough given the potential for problems. A number of photographers I respect greatly stopped even doing that, and I sympathize with that view.

It's something I need to think about, and it's a conversation I'd love to have with others struggling with this trade off between encouraging people to learn about places they love with the risk of ruining those places by calling attention to them for those that end up being willing to destroy them, if it means getting their shot.

In the last few weeks there have been some good pieces discussing this problem, and I recommend them to you to read and ponder. The Kevin Alexander piece is fascinating. It may not seem to be photography related, but in fact, I think it is, because it's a different facet of this "trophy collecting" mentality. As he makes clear in the piece, the fact that his promotion of the restaurant wasn't the main factor that killed it -- it simply made low-level conflicts that already existed no longer tolerable. That, if we translate it back into things like the Bixby Bridge crowds, is the exact problem of loving something to death: the people who are going there don't care about over-capacity, or protecting sensitive habitat, or even necessarily cleaning up their trash. They care about being able to say they got the shot (or the hamburger), and if that screws it up for others later, it doesn't matter, because they got it and they won't be back anyway.

And I don't know how you solve that problem, but it's a problem I think we have to take seriously and try to understand what we can to to protect places we love from people who have no interest in them other than their trophy value.

Additional reading:

Photo Friday

 

A bit of a change for me, but I was asked to put together a poster for Susan's services as I'm the owner of the family photo archives now. I rather like how it came out, and this was a 30x40 print on foamboard that we had near the entrance along with a table of other images from her partner.

One Thing: everyday photography, every day

I've found a podcast I want to recommend: Everyday Photography, (Every Day)! it is a series  of short (about 15 minute) conversations between a serious photographer and someone who calls herself an enthusiastic picture taker. It's not a gear podcast. it's not really a "how to" podcast. It's more a discussion of the philosophy of being a photographer, kind of a "why do I?", and it covers a wide range of topics. 

I've started with episode one and I'm working my way through. None of them have been skippable to me. I love the chemstry between the two and having this teacher/student relationship allows kinds of discussions I don't think are possible between two "peer" hosts, and I find that a great structure. I strongly recommend if you listen to nothing else, to listen to the two episodes about why printing images matter, and the one where he declares the rule of thirds bull---t. 

You aren't going to agree with all they say, but the point is to get you to think about it. He's very careful to keep things on the "here's what I do and why I do it" and never stray into "here's how you should....". But I think it's a great podcast for making you think about how you do things and maybe get some clarity on things you're doing more or less by autopilot that deserve a but more thoughtfulness. 

For Your Consideration

  • Birds and Birding

  • Photography

    • Finding Shadows: Robin Mayoff has a nice blog post about to Sean Tucker's video Embrace Your Shadows. I had watched it earlier today and was blown away by the discussion. If you haven't discovered him, Sean Tucker's YouTube Channel is highly recommended, it's much more about the philosophy of being a photographer than it is about the nuts and bolts aspects of photographer. Always thought provoking.

    • Colby Brown does a fascinating talk about being a visual storyteller and how he tries to bring emotional impact into his images.

    • Peter West Carey is doing a 40 day series on essays on different photography experiments, things to try to help you better understand and improve your own photography. Aimed at the newer photography, this is a great and interesting series.

    • Do owe nature more truth in photography? Alexander S. Kunz asks a difficult and trouble question about landscape photography. Are we lying to the people who view our photos and setting unrealistic expectations about the real thing?

  • Apple and Technology

    • Computational Photography And Photographic Manipulation: This piece by photography and scientist Bryan Jones is a great examination of an aspect of photography that I think is going to be front and center in discussions over the next few years, and probably will have us figuring out how to define "what is a photograph?" again.

  • Other Interesting Stuff

About 6FPS and Chuq

6FPS (Six Frames Per Second) is a newsletter of interesting things and commentary from Chuq Von Rospach (6fsp@chuqui.com).

Coming out about every two weeks, I will place in your inbox a few things I hope will inform and delight you. There is too much mediocre, forgettable stuff attacking your eyeballs every day you're online; this is my little way to help you cut through the noise to some interesting things you might otherwise not find.

See you in a couple of weeks


And with that, I'll see you in a couple of weeks with the next issue. I'd love feedback on this, what you like, what you want more of, what you want less of. And if you have something interesting you think I might want to talk about, please pass it along.

Until then, take care, and have fun.

Chuq

Copyright © 2018 Chuq Von Rospach, All rights reserved.