CAOS Living Book: QR codes + database = book

Miki Johnson showed us this video at her Future of Photo Books lecture. See more about that on the APA SF Blog The thing I thought was most exciting is this project by Editoras Online from Brazil - the C.A.O.S. living book. I can imagine endless possibilities of tying print and search together. Maybe the QR code won't be the gateway but expect to see some technology shake out to provide a link between static and real-time media.

Watch this and you'll get it:

-Michael

Safari West

We just got back from an overnight trip to Africa. Well, actually we drove up to Santa Rosa to visit Safari West, a little bit of Africa right in Cali's wine country. Check them out here.

 

White Cockatoo

Dozer a 1-year-old Reticulated Giraffe born at Safari West

Dozer's goatee

 

Demoiselle Crane

Wild Conveyor Toaster and a herd of cheescake

Flamingos via flashlight cam. 

Zebra mom with newborn

Damara Zebra

Grant's Gazelle

Giraffe's eat constantly

 

 

Dozer working the crowd

Skeptical Reticulated Giraffe

Happy New Year from Winokur Photography

I love my clients, most are friends all are creative collaborators. Each year I pick something that I can brand and give to them. This year I chose the Sharan SQ35 pinhole camera which happens to be sold by my friend Doug’s company Noted. The Sharan camera is a cardboard kit with a pinhole lens that makes square images on 35mm film. Since the kits take about an hour to build I figured none of my clients would build them – so I assembled all 25 cameras, packaged them with film and decorated them with custom “Winokur Photography” stickers. In previous years I’ve given “private label” wine. Since this year’s gift was so much more labor intensive then the wine I had to keep the list quite tight. The cameras went to my current clients and some very special dream clients.

I figured no one would have film hanging around anymore, so each camera was given with a roll of film to get started. In a week or so I'll be emailing everyone who got the cameras and asking them to submit their pinhole camera photos for display on this blog. Of course there will be a top-secret, super special prize for the person who sends the best pinhole image.

The instruction on the SQ35 make Ikea's instructions seem stratight forward. Assembling the cameras got easier after the first few but the design has some quirks and I ended up going over every one of them a second time to make sure all their little parts were properly stuck together. If the Sharan folks read this, I have some free advice for improving the kit.

Twenty-five note cards and 25 sets of promo cards.

Recycling: I used the original Sharan box as part of my home-made packaging.

Say twenty-ten. New Year's note cards, with Kurt Herr's logo design.

The labels for the cameras were printed at Community Printers where our friend Ross helped me get everything tuned up. We didn’t want to spring for a die cut so I thought I’d be hand cutting each sticker. The Xacto cuts just weren’t pretty enough to satisfy my QC team so I went to Techshop and used their Helix laser etcher engraver for a high-tech, low volume die-cutting substitute.

The Winokur Photography labels on the cameras were printed in six flavors.Those hi-tech black rubber bands are a key to the workings of the SQ35 - they hold the back shut.

My assembly plant all cleaned up after the build, everything counted out and ready pack.

The post office took 16 days to send the boxes I ordered, last minute purchase from U-Line and one-day shipping saves the day. Of course, the day after the cameras shipped USPS shows up with 25 boxes. Notice the Burberryesque ribbon, that's how you know we're styling here at WP.

All present and accounted for, ready for the post office.

Collaboration

Several years ago my friend Nancy Dobbs Owen and I conspired to do a shoot with her jewelry. Nancy brought along make up artist Jackie Yost. Jackie and I have been working together ever since.
Just over a year ago I got a call out of the blue from Chrysta Giffen who wanted to talk about the photography business in San Francisco. She has been doing digital post, printing and compositing work for me ever since.
In a business where most people work alone, where projects range from requiring one or two people to scores of talented contributors - having a team is critical. Knowing who to call when there is a client is one part of the equation, having relationships with people who share your vision is also key to the constant effort of making new work. So, when I have an idea I know who to call; it works both ways.
At one point while we were working on some portraits for a pharmaceutical client Jackie told us about her interest in a creating beauty images with funky eyelashes. I put her and Chrysta together and we all started looking for talent. Chrysta found Laurie and Allison on the website Model Mayhem.

This is Laurie.

This is Allison.

My work is focused on a real authentic look, so these images a outside of what I would call my style. However I am a portrait photographer and I think there is plenty of space for the "beauty portrait" in the work I'm interested in. Plus my health clients are interested in skin care so I'm happy to have samples of work that are all about beautiful skin. Images that showcase the team it takes to make an image with the look of beyond perfect skin.

Family Portraits

My parents were here in SF visiting over Thanksgiving so I used some of my precious and aging supply of Type 55 to make some portraits of them. Being that they are my parents they are willing but not necessarily agreeable portrait subjects.
This was a happy Gowlandflex accident. My finger slipped while cocking the shutter. I was going to dump this but instead made a second exposure and processed it out. I caught my dad smiling and looking tough on one piece of film. He always wants to look super serious in photos.
I don't think my dad will like this picture but hopefully he won't be too mad that I posted it. I love shooting this close with the Gowlandflex. It's a challenge because the parallax adjustment on the camera can't compensate at this distance, so the composition is always a guess. Seeing how well the Rodenstock 150mm lens performs this close you know it's worth fussing a bit with the camera to make it work.
While I'm talking about my parents I should give them a little blog shout out. They are fantastic artists you can see their work here and here.
This last photo is also with the Gowlandflex but it's on Fuji 160s not Type 55. You can see why so many people loved the Type 55. It's just as sharp as you can imagine but with an incredible soft tonality and the Polaroid x-factor that is hard to match.

Night Fujiroids

I'm still having lots of fun taking the Fuji Instax camera to parties. Of course I could take a digital camera and that would be lots easier but digital is so 2008.


The Louis Vutton windows on Union Square with blogosphere star Miki Johnson.






Grab shot walking down the street on our way to Michael Garlington's opening at Gallery 291.


The Fujiroids burn out when you put to much light through the lens. This photo with the sun in the background looks like a UFO is landing in San Francisco. Of course we all know UFOs landed in S.F. years ago, otherwise how could you explain our Board of Supervisors.

This is guaranteed to ruin your day

Today's San Francisco Chronicle has a story on the very front page of their business section about hobbyists taking work from professional photographers. It's here if you can bare to read it. I guess the chronicle - which is near the top of the death watch list for major metro daily newspapers - got tired or writing about the fall of newspapers and decided to focus on the the economy of free and the future of still photographers.

"It'd be nice to get paid, but I don't really care," said the San Francisco resident. "What are they going to pay me, a hundred dollars? I'd rather get copies and show them to my friends."

The software engineer they interviewed had given his photo to 7x7 Magazine in exchange for a few copies of the magazine. 7x7 has never been a lucrative client but they have been a great display space for San Francisco photographers and they have financed some great portfolio development projects for photographers including Erik Almas.

With an entire issue filled with images they found on Flikr and plans for more such issues one has to wonder what value of the magazine is delivering. I would have to say it's value is about what they are paying for images $0. If they are just republishing work you can find yourself on Flikr then the publication isn't contributing much more then paper and ink. Free certainly has to be an enticing prospect for any publisher but I don't see the payoff f0r readers or advertisers. 7x7 is a style and lifestyle magazine. Their job is to be ahead of the public, finding trends and reporting on them in a beautiful way that also provides gorgeous display space for advertisers. How well can they do this by scouring Flikr for your old photos. It's not that there aren't lots of nice photos on Flikr its that I don't see how this strategy makes the magazine relevant.

Beijing Street series

A few months ago we had the time and opportunity to visit our cousin Andrey in Beijing. Since I don’t truly understand the concept of a vacation I arranged a ‘fixer’ so I could do a couple days of street portraiture while we were in town. Since my work is all about real people, any pictures I would make there would require a translator, one who understood the culture, languages, photography and production. That’s what a fixer does, more on this later.

It’s hard as an American not to have wildly inaccurate preconceptions about China, most of understand that they make our stuff, own our debt and have some challenges on the human rights front. All I can really report from our brief time in Beijing is, whatever you expect to find there you will be surprised. At this moment progress change in Beijing is, and has been, so fast that even the locals can’t find there way around. Seriously, some of the roads are so new the cabbies don’t know where they go.

The result of all the new building (they’ve had the best architects in the world working overtime) and the rapid cultural and economic development is a duality between new and old that seems present in every aspect of life. This uneasy and very rapid mix of the new into a very old place manifests itself physically in the streets and buildings, culturally in the art, politics and clothes and psychologically in the outlook of young and older generations

Heading to Beijing I knew my ability to make images in China would be limited, I was traveling light I had two days to shoot maybe a half day to scout and no special access. Given those limitations I feel that this shoot was a successful effort for two reasons. I know what I do and we’ve done this kind of street portrait project before. So my scope was narrow. I immediately found one thing about Beijing, the mix of old and new, to be interested in. So that was the assignment I gave myself: Real Beijingers showing elements of new and old China. Does it sound too simple? I think one of the biggest challenges photographers run into with their personal projects is they bite off more then they can shoot. If you assign yourself to photograph “Cultural Change in Neocapitalist China” you best have some time to commit. Finding something you can do well with the resources available is just as important as finding the ideal project.

The other critical element for this shoot was the ‘fixer’ Lin Jing. We really got lucky finding her. She was amazing. Her tireless energy and willingness to approach strangers on our behalf really made the shoot work. I ended up finding her through my old college friend Kay Chin Tay in Singapore who knew a guy named Tobie Openshaw who was in Beijing who knew Noah Weinzweig a Canadian ex-pat and producer extraordinaire who hired Lin Jing for us. If you need a Red camera in China, Noah is the guy to call. Noah also produced for Edward Burtynsky. When he told me this I was honestly a little skeptical. There are lots of people who will tell you about how they assisted for Nat. Geo or whatever. Well I just saw the documentary on Burtynsky, “Manufactured Landscapes” and there’s Noah translating, rallying people and loading 4x5 – he is the real deal.

Well the work is finally online here: winokurphotography.com I hope you will take a look. One last step for us, sending prints to everyone we photographed. As always a BIG big up to my crew on this project: Iana Simeonov, Lin Jing and Chrysta Geffin.

-Michael