By Their Death

Posted on Posted in A Symbol Life, minimum daily requirement, on photographers, the fora

The RIP of others. Two three today. There are few weeks that pass without a death of the world of meanings.

When younger, I didn’t note the passings of most of my field. Maybe because I was raised on independence. Perhaps because by 22 I’d knew the smell of cordite, skin, blood. Whatever mixture makes real actions, until the past decade, death was final as well as paper.

burial camps: you honor yourself in the way you honor them. The self you never had they are yourself they took the path you never took a live the life that you read about 

the thing they share: they work in black.

George Tice: [‘Bard of New Jersey’ With a Camera, Dies at 86] I knew of his work without following his life. His is work that meanders into or across my ready understanding. It can add. Maybe it will, although I doubt it since my work, world of workers is quite full. My ideas run over.

The others: two from the camp of others, those whose images didn’t cross over my middle or current table. They would have held me as a young imagination, just not for long. They took similar paths, maybe, but they certainly have similar followers. Often death is the marker of similarities.

Too often death marks our life with our absences, lacks, short falls. Reviewing a life provides stimulus to consider ours. Who do we live among. What is your relationship with photography. Do you have a constructive, nurturing system?

How much is enough?

Equipment Poor

Posted on Posted in Getting Stuff, overnight notes, the Lab, Valley Hi

Do we need equipment/ does machine make the print? Is it the wand or the wizard {the setup)

How much equipment, supplies do you have that you don’t use, haven’t used in, what, a year, five, more? When you die, how many dumpsters will be filled. Did you buy it to brag or build.

I heard the phrase, “equipment poor” from a salesman suggesting that I wait before buying the new enlarger I wanted. His advice, which I took, was based upon his knowing that a new professional studio had bought too much equipment, more than their income warranted. They would fold; with that closure would come a darkroom, studio, as well as office.

The photographer didn’t have money, he had equipment. In silicon speak, he didn’t have runway… other years: his burn was too high. Tech Money loves to talk macho, military. They wear the fantasy. Role playing is the hallmark of the empty page.

Most startups across all fields fail for similar reasons. Hope isn’t knowledge. Skill isn’t profitable. Neither Hope nor Skill are unique factors. They are basics, like eyebrows.

My labs grew by bits. They grew with used equipment and new clients. Rarely did I sell equipment, although I did sell clients.

The equipment bought new would be lenses. During the 90s collapse, labs would give equipment away rather than paying salvage to dismantle and haul it.