Dialogic

Want to be the best photographer in your area? 

The secrets of great photography revealed. 

Also, Jake discusses his Santa Cruz Landmarks Photography project.

Enjoy! 

Thanks for listening.

Today, I want to talk to you about being a photographer in Santa Cruz, being a Santa Cruz photographer, why I love it what’s so great about it what I want to do with it. For one thing, it’s an incredibly beautiful place. I remember when I used to paint more than I photographed, and now I photograph more than I paint, it was always a little bit frustrating to me because there’s not as much of an appreciation for painting (although, that may have changed, and maybe it was just my painting), and I always felt that because it is such a beautiful place people have more of an admiration for the actual landscape than for someone who is painting, especially abstract painting. It’s kind of parochial, and by that I mean small-town vibish, in terms of the kind of art that people seem to like here. So illustration goes over well, basically you have to have some sort of demonstrable skill, but I always thought that.. you know, abstract art happened a long time ago. Duchamp’s great experiment with the readymade was over a hundred years ago, it was in 1917. And having a love for contemporary art, I always saw Picasso’s route as the way to go. You show early that you can paint realistically, and then you seize all of that freedom to do what you want to do with paint. But, you have to be in the right market for that. And maybe that has changed now, I think it’s an interesting question and an interesting time, but I still like the idea that art no matter what it is, should be free. There should be an element of freedom in that. So, there is no right way to do it, is what I’m saying. But this is a place that has so much physical beauty and, being a Santa Cruz photographer, you are so lucky, because you get to experience these amazing vistas, and you get to photograph people with these incredible back-drops and you get to know the landscape itself. That’s a part of your job: both photographing the landscape and scouting the landscape to see what would make a great background for a portrait. Just to give you some of my background, I did a BFA in painting at Lewis and Clark College from 94-99, I moved down to San Diego started working down there and got into a graduate program in Literature, but moved back to Santa Cruz and entered the PhD program in Literature, which I did from 2003/4 to 2010/11. It was a seven-year process and that was what they called normative time for a PhD completion in that program. What I got into the program writing about thinking about working on was how the digital age was changing our culture so that both image and text were going to be more equally important to culture than they ever had been before...

4/20 in Santa Cruz, the state of Santa Cruz cannabis, the benefits of automatic writing, and more!

What the heck is happening to Santa Cruz? This is the first part in an investigation into the state of Santa Cruz. It's also a question about how you know a place and a call to action inspiring you to think about and investigate the place you call home, wherever that is. 

A cathartic moment alone in the woods recalled for you.

It’s Monday morning here in Santa Cruz, getting close to the end of March, spring is here, the sun is out the grass is as green as it will ever be, the fields are full of mustard flowers, the people are enjoying being outside getting fresh air, the puddles are drying up it’s been a wet year and California is out of drought. So things are proceeding apace here in the Golden State as all around the country our common story unfolds and around the world we march closer towards whatever future we are building and every day that becomes clearer and less clear. It’s a big mystery the unfolding of history as we are in the midst of it. Not only is it a hugely complicated topic, the history of our contemporary time (what’s happening in Europe with Brexit, in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia, with Russia on the internet with troll farms in the Americas) all of these enormously powerful complicated things are happening in the midst of the most voluminous torrential outpouring of cultural production the world has ever known. We are both in a time when big things can happen quickly when global changes are already underfoot and we are more distracted than ever before. And yet at the same time we have more opportunity to communicate to come up with solutions to the problems we face to use our technology to our advantage than ever before. It seems like this is something that happens a lot in history and it just continues to intensify where there’s this paradox: it’s the best of times and the worst of times. Having all of the potential for it to go well and at the same time discovering these pitfalls these traps falling into these patterns failing to live up to our potential. There’s no getting around it: the human being is a flawed creature, an animal with many faults, but beautiful nonetheless. And maybe that’s part of the nature of the game: to accept our imperfections, to celebrate our flaws, but how we do that, why we do that when we do that what that means is something worth thinking about. So the topic of today’s podcast is: being candid, authenticity or TMI? Are you just being your real true self and helping other people to see behind the curtain so that they can relax a little bit and not worry as much about keeping up false appearances? Or are you somebody who is using this platform to seek attention in a way that isn’t really going to work for you in the way that you want because you’re really just asking for pity or sympathy by sharing the things that are too negative in your life? Now how do we go about thinking about this topic? This could be a recurring topic because it is relevant to all of our lives. There are lots of ways to do it. 

True News

It’s the middle of winter, approaching spring. We’ve been experiencing some significant weather, what they call an atmospheric river. Rainbows, green grass, clean air and lots of healthy people doing healthy things. We also have our own problems here in Santa Cruz, as I imagine exist everywhere. We’re only human and everyone has room for improvement. Everyone has a space they can grow into and some of us are out here doing that. Shoutout to everyone who is getting up early, getting some exercise, doing some writing and doing whatever it takes to get yourself into the right frame of mind to accomplish what you need to do.

Life is full and complicated, and it seems every day to keep getting more difficult, so maybe we can forgive ourselves for our mistakes and slips but perfection is an illusion that can rob us of the will to keep trying. Better to abandon the myth of perfection and focus on the concept of growth and improvement. Occupy yourself with doing what you gotta do to get better. Maybe you’re good enough, maybe you don’t need to improve, maybe you don’t have that drive to achieve. I’m not here to judge you. Hats off to you if you’re content with where you are. If you are striving to do better, however, I commend you too. For those of us out here trying to do our best to create a better future for our children there’s a different motivation. That’s what gets me up in the morning to do my pushups. My little girl. She’s so funny and full of personality and style and style tips.

Today, I want to talk about a few things, but also want to discuss what I don’t want to talk about. I don’t want to talk about current events. Let me explain why. It’s an interesting paradox. Why things are the way they are in a seemingly twisted loop like an infinity sign that has no beginning, no up nor down. While it seems like people aren’t that good at living in the moment, maybe that’s just me, and it appears as though people have a lot of fear about the future and regret about the past, the ever-elusive present moment is where we live but is also continually slipping away and is something that we have a hard time staying with. 

To really live in the moment is a great challenge, which is one of the reasons why people practice meditation. To try and calm the mind and focus the attention of consciousness to what’s happening right here right now. But at the same time, and here’s where the paradox comes into play, when we talk about the news (current events) there’s such a huge value placed on what’s happening right now that it creates an interesting and sometimes destructive pressure to be the first to break a story, to be the first to respond to a story, to be aware of what is happening right now. And of course, the consequences of that are: making hasty judgments, being victimized by click bait articles created solely to get you to pay attention even though there might not be any substantial reason and that is one of the ways we are being tricked and failing to see the broader perspective or to touch on the deeper points. 

That’s what I want to do. I want to keep things in perspective and to create a broader context of understanding that helps to make sense of the things that are happening, not just to be involved in what is happening today but to think about some of the longer historical trends that are leading up to the present moment and to try and predict where things are headed. I don’t have the ability to tell the future, but I think it’s worth thinking about history and looking at the lines of flight, the directions of change, the movements of movements in order to determine where to put your energy if you want to be an active part of this change and how to shape the next thing that emerges onto the field of historical being. That’s what I want to talk about today: how do we check ourselves from our reflexive reactions to what we come across in the news, and how is that changing,

Personal branding or building your reputation and name?

The secret to photography.

Timing is everything.

Today, I’m going to talk photography, as it is core to who I am and key to what I do. When people ask me what my podcast is about, I say it’s about photography, digital media, culture in the digital era, art and literature. It’s a form of questions, an inquiry. There’s a certain mysterious element to it as well, because it’s kind of unable to be forced. I feel like if I tried to come up with a strict theme for a talk I don’t think it would go that well, not that it IS going that well, but it would go less well. So instead, it’s: marketing, social media, multimedia, art and business and culture.

Maybe it would be good to develop a more formal framework? If I’m going to do 30 minutes a day should I break that down into segments? What would that look like? What kind of segments should I create?

Today, though, I’m going to be a little more focused because I want to talk photography. There are so many ways to talk about photography because it’s such a huge field. There are all of the categories of photography to consider and it helps to think about what each kind of photograph calls for. The basic thing that combines all segments of photography is that you have to get great photos. 

Whatever the purpose, whatever the format, you have to go out with your assignment and figure out how to bring back the best images. Whether you love it or hate it, people’s response is going to play into the mix, too and there are always trolls. That’s why being a photographer is kind of like waging psychological war because you’re going to deal with so many people trying to get into the field as well. But it helps to think about the categories. The more you know the better chance you stand. 

There’s photography you do for the public (journalism, art, marketing) but when you do marketing photography you’re doing stuff for the public on behalf of a client and this is a great way to make money if you can pull it off. When you get the chance to work with a business and they give you some idea of what they want, then you get to create a voice that matches the brand’s goals. It’s a lot of fun to help businesses to convert people into fans.

How do you make someone a fan? You have to be compelling to them in one way or another. They have to want to see what you’re going to do next.

Back to the categories. Each of the categories has different considerations, and lots of overlap. Like with landscape photography where you’re depicting a stretch of space and architectural photography where you’re showing a landscape with a home. It’s like a cross between landscape photography and portraiture, but it’s a portrait of a building.

When it comes to people, there’s a lot of categories, but there are also types. There’s candid photography and posed photography and those modes of representation can exist within each of the categories. For example, if you photograph an event where someone is talking and you get a great photo of them at the podium, that is a candid journalistic photo. However, if the speaker is not in a place to get a great shot and you approach them after the talk and ask them to get a photo then it is still a journalistic shot, but it’s of a posed variety.

Thinking about what category it is will help to make decisions about the equipment and technique to use in order to get the shot you want. We start with the constraints. What can’t be done? Many of those are obvious and eliminate the techniques that are inappropriate to the situation, but it’s a helpful orientation. The limitations of a situation or a category of photography help to determine what can be done and how.

So, I want to come up with a concept for a shoot right now. That way I can walk you through how I make my decisions.

We are in winter and we have all of these cool trees without leaves and you can see their structure. I came across a huge maple tree that cast a massive shadow across the street and I want to

New Year’s Eve in Santa Cruz, pushups done, drinking beer, doing podcast, listening to said podcast and writing about that very podcast. Thanks for listening, thank you for following along. Just gonna have a little fun with the whole thing if I can, if I may, if I must: oh yes all three of the above, because I’m a content creator and I’m creating a cloud of thought that I’m going to distill it later on at the time of writing. But, we’ll see, because life is an experiment, especially as an artist. That’s one of the most important things you can be: experimental. Scientists and artists are similar in a lot of ways. Art overlaps with lots of different fields: the politician, the decorator, the scientist, the clown. 

This age is radically different, though, due to the Internet. It’s as though our connectivity is so prolific that it is now entirely taken for granted. In the past, you could think about people in a more atomic way as little beings bouncing around and reacting to each other. The dream of the atomic family.

With the advance of digital culture, the wildernesses inside of us will recede further and further as more and more is available to see online. The habits of humans are very deep things. When you think about the fact of the unconscious being caused by the repression of thought and you look at an age where nothing really can’t be seen, there’s not much left that’s taboo, what does this mean for the unconscious? What does it mean for culture’s movement? Is there a tipping point, or is there a sweet spot of repression? Is there a way that it goes too far, but there’s also a way where there’s enough that is allowed without everything being open and free? Is there some level, some amount that suffices, have we reached the golden age of the allowable? The golden age of the allowable is the sweet spot of the permissable. More license would make us too decadent. Right now we’re still kinda lusty and hearty, on our way up fucking and drinking but we’re not decadent, creating strange games for people to play while we sit on couches and eat delicious food. 

Anyone and anything that has ever been or will be could be found out there in the world today. There’s so much going on. That’s why the little vignette is both the best and the worst medium for today. With all the storm of content that gets thrown at us every day it’s hard to stop and take on the commitment to read a 600 page literary novel. But you just have to get people hooked, and hence the vignette. I think that people should be camped out for three days ahead of time to get the first copies of your books and they will be wearing costumes of characters from your book. 

That’s why as an artist, it makes sense to adopt a spontaneous loose style where you can work and work and be super prolific but are creating tons of little things and can release them all. You want to create a compulsion to follow. You want people to be looking for what you’re going to do next. Anything short of people camped out for three nights will not do. You need to have a community of people fully one hundred percent fireworks behind the project. 

How do you create that, what will happen, how will you know it?

It will happen something like this: after llistening to someone like me for 6 months you’ll start your own business and you’ll take your projects to the next level. All you can ask of yourself is progress. But the other thing is when you are really on it with the stuff you’re creating that’s all you have time to think about. That’s what you’re most excited to see. How did the photos look? How do the clips go together? How did that description sound? How does the blog entry look? It’s all a matter of repetition. You get better at everything by doing it repeatedly and through using the equipment so much it’s like the camera is melded to your finger and then you have this confidence when you approach someone for a portrait that...