"The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water"

Woof. So last Friday and women's rights in the U.S. huh? Growing up I'd never planned on becoming an active protester, but here we are. I'd also never imagined I'd be on this side of the fence considering my evangelical Christian upbringing, but again, here we are. Quoting one of the protest signs I saw yesterday at the Oklahoma state capitol building, "The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water."

Phones across the country melted just a bit more than normal as social media caught on fire following Friday's news of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There's plenty of extremely qualified and insightful writing out there on what's happening, so I'll let them handle the facts. The best I can do is let you in on what brings this nonsense home to me.

Before this weekend, I'd assumed I knew women in my life that've had first hand experience with abortion, but more than I expected came forward with their own stories. Friends of mine posted about their abortions and how they chose to end their pregnancies due to medical as well as personal reasons that certainly aren't any of my business.

My Christian faith is still important to me, but I know that our country is filled with people and faiths different than mine. As people of faith, why should we expect others to respect our beliefs when we don't respect theirs? I'd found it incredibly helpful seeing a social media post from U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about "beliefs are not facts."

"...beliefs are not facts. The belief that abortion is murder is a subjective one. Banning abortion violates the religious views of many. Judaism, Islam, and many other faiths and philosophies have widely ranging, different takes on the matter. Judaism, for example, not only condones abortion but insists upon it in for cases where a mother's life is at risk... So banning abortion raises real first amendment violation questions."

What's happening in right now is wrong. I'm struggling to express how I feel, but I'm upset. I'm frustrated. I'm angry and I'm sad.

“What’s happened is not about religion, or morality or unborn babies. It’s about politics.” - Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood (How Did Roe Fall?, New York Times)

There's been protests across the country since Friday. Oklahoma is frighteningly conservative, but there was a solid showing of protesters on the north lawn of the state capitol Sunday afternoon. I'd come to not expect much from Oklahoma City protests, but yesterday made me proud. I've not seen official numbers, but I'd heard someone estimate nearly 1,000 people showed up.

Anne and I took the boys to the event because we think it's important they see their parents as active and visible participants in standing up for what they believe. I remember going out with my mom when I was young during the Oklahoma teacher strikes back in 1990. Tiny Tanner was more stoked about being out of school for a few days and had no idea what those frustrated teachers where actually doing, but I remember it. Protesting doesn't seem practical, but the further into it I've gotten over the years the more I believe in it and see the strength of its long game. Knowing I'm not the only one frustrated with what's going on brings me hope. Showing up and being visible is important.

Developing Black & White Goodness

Freakin' black and white film photography has been good for soul lately. Not caring about the color temperature around me matching the film in my camera has been a nice change, plus I'm also diggin' the fact that a roll of Ilford HP5+ is nearly half what I was spending on Portra 400.

My first legit experiences behind a camera go back to high school me. Back then I spent most of my time in the band room and/or trying to keep up with my honors classes, but then there's that one photography class I took that ended up being the most related to what I do for a living. Not sure where I got the camera, but we shot our assignments on 35mm black and white (B&W) film that we later developed and printed in the school's darkroom.

The fact I really don't know if the images I'm trying to make will actually turn out or not is pretty great. My 1970's era Mamiya RB67 Pro-S smells like an old car and doesn't have a light meter. Sometimes I'll do test shots with my DSLR to dial in shutter and iris settings. Sometimes I'll lean into my handheld Sekonic light meter to do the thing, but then again shooting film is all for naught if you screw up the developing part. I've got a growing binder of color and B&W negatives I've shot since getting my film camera and can honestly say there's only a handful of images in there I'm proud of. In our world of instant gratification, forced patience is a good thing.

Back in May I was in New York to film an abortion rights protest and came home with five rolls of Ilford HP5+, some powdered Kodak D76 developer and fixer, plus a small bottle of concentrated Kodak liquid stop bath. I'd had a good experience with powdered C41 chemistry before and knew the powdered form would have a longer shelf life. Plus I didn't want to chance big bottles of liquid spilling out and destroying the other gear and actual livelihood packed away in my checked gear cases while in transit.

For my C41 film processing, I already had a Paterson developing tank, dark bag, and some other misc. bits. I keep my color chemicals in one liter dark amber glass bottles, but opted instead to get those accordion style plastic bottles for my B&W goodies. So far I'm more impressed with those plastic bottles seeing as how they're less likely shatter and they can squish down to keep out excess air (and oxidation) to help extend the chemistry's shelf life.

Most of the internet told me not to try and break up the dry chemistry batches into smaller quantities, but they're not the boss of me. A couple other rebels let me in on their secrets and I too broke up my gallon batches of D76 developer and fixer. Make sure you're prepping your chemistry in a well ventilated area so you're not losing a lung like this hero. Be smart too and wear rubber gloves, a mask, and avoid doing this nonsense in the same place where you prep food.

There's tons of B&W developing tutorials online. For some reason they all seem to not get along or agree like those nice hipster kids doing their thing with C41 color developing. I kinda mixed and matched what I could find considering the film stock and the chemistry combination I'm using.

DEVELOPING B&W FILM

ALL CHEMISTRY NEEDS TO BE AT SIMILAR TEMPS

PRE-SOAK
Agitate for :60
Dump out
Rinse
Dump out

DEVELOP (stock)
Agitate first :30
Invert 4x every :30 & tap out bubbles
Developer back to storage container for reuse

STOP BATH
Agitate for :60
Stop bath back to storage container for reuse

FIXER
Agitate first :30
Agitate & invert every :30 for 5 mins & tap out bubbles
Fixer back to storage container for reuse

RINSE
Rinse film for 5 mins with room temp water

DEVELOP TIMES (STOCK)

Ilford HP5+ & Kodak D76

ISO TIME TEMP
400 5:05 75° F
800 7:07 75° F
1600 9:29 75° F
 

The one thing most agreed on was using The Massive Dev Chart website to work out and match up developing times and temperatures. According to the website, you're supposed to process Ilford HP5+ at 68°F with your Kodak D76. But it's summertime here and during these months our house never gets below mid-70°s. Again, thank goodness for Massive Dev Chart because it's got a conversion option to help do what you need done. I'm using my developer at stock vs. diluting it – at least at this point. I'd shot a couple of my rolls at the box speed 400 ISO, then the others pushed to 1600 ISO. Again, Massive Dev Chart came in clutch with the help in developing.

Another thing I found out in doing my B&W goodness is that my scanner is jacked. I've got an Epson V600 that I've been using for a bit, but turns out I've also got the magenta line curse like a ton of other people on the internet. For the longest time I thought my film back was scratching my negatives. But no. It's thanks to supposedly dirty sensors that this dude on YouTube was able to fix. I did the thing and cleaned the sensors on my V600, but it didn't help like it did the other film bros lurking in the video's comment section. Looks like I'll have to reach out to Epson and work out warranty stuff.

Above the Lumpy Blue Water

This post was supposed to be about the May 14th Bans Off Our Bodies rally in New York City and the people I met in making this short edit. I meant to talk about how I approached the people I spoke with at the rally and instead of asking "Why are you here?", I asked about their signs and banners.

Instead we're collectively dealing with yet another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school.

I'm not even sure how to properly and respectfully mention what happened this past week in Uvalde, TX. We spent time with good friends a few days ago and talked about how this one felt different considering those kids were nearly the same age as ours. Even before this past week Saint Anne the Wife has talked about how every time she's in a new classroom setting one of the first things she does is instinctively look for the exits and figure out what she'd need to do to protect her students.

How are we supposed to keep up with the fire hose of bad we're living through? It's like the last few years has dunked our heads in one turd filled bucket after another in an endless row of sun baked porta potties. This far in we've learned to appreciate the time we have above the syrupy blue water knowing the next suffocating dunk will come soon enough.

We're living through history and at times it takes nearly all I have to just not collapse into a numb and helpless puddle. I'm not kidding about learning to appreciate the time we get in between those lumpy blue dunks.

I sincerely didn't know how to feel about being a guy at a rally supporting women's health, but knew that I was there to do what I could to support it. There's a shot in the edit of a guy holding a "Men for Choice" sign that I'd put right up there with me getting super excited about the new Kendrick Lamar album and this latest season of Atlanta. I appreciate these women and the other strong ones I know like my wife and my mom. As educators they spent (are spending) their professional lives raising up the next generation of leaders while I'm here polishing spreadsheets, writing words no one will read, and trying to make "art." More and more is being required of teachers on even thiner resources, and conservative politicians would rather arm teachers instead of consider gun control.

While the governor of my home state recently signed into law the nation's strictest abortion ban, I'm thankful for Oklahoma officials like Reps. Cyndi Munson and Trish Ranson for fighting back against these short sighted political grabs (even Rep. Mickey Dollens and his tounge-in-cheek proposal of mandatory vasectomies). Wasn't sure at first how to feel about Beto O'Rourke's crashing of Gov. Greg Abbott's Uvalde press conference, but I'm totally fine with him standing up with actual solutions to their "thoughts and prayers."

"What are we doing?" - Senator Chris Murphy

35 More Hours in NYC

Back in New York this past weekend for something like 35 hours. It's turned into an incredibly busy time here at the Herriott house, so why not include a somewhat last minute trip? On top of that, Elliot and Saint Anne the Wife got Covid right before I left town while Housefire Two and I are still testing negative. Did I also mention it's the last week of their school year?

On Saturday, May 14th, there were abortion rights demonstrations happening across the country. According to BuzzFeed News, there were something like 10,000+ protesters out doing their thing in New York City and marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. Considering the historical significance of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion and what's at stake, I thought it was important enough to be there with a camera and see things first hand. I'll be cutting a video from the event, but this fight isn't going away anytime soon.

Here's the actual journal entry I wrote the morning following the leak:

We're still reeling this AM following last night's leaked Supreme Court document laying out the overturning of Roe v. Wade... Neither Anne nor I are the same people we were in our younger days. Had this decision come in our late teens, early 20's, we'd be having a different conversation. I'm absolutely in favor of letting women decide what they do with their bodies. This is ridiculous. Again, the black and white lives we led have no doubt turned incredibly gray and we're better people because of it.

In the meantime, just know flights and hotels have gotten INCREDIBLY expensive the last few months. I'd gotten spoiled with $300 roundtrip flights from Oklahoma City to New York during the scary parts of the pandemic. Flights for this quick trip ended up costing $700+. I'd also found a groove with a $150/night Hilton in Long Island City that could've listed as my second address considering how often I was there. I 'bout puked when I saw those same rooms now going for $300-600/night. There's no way I was up to spend that kind of money, so crazy thanks to a DP buddy of mine, Jeremy McDaniel, for letting me crash at his place a couple nights.

Electrical Fires and Actually Working

I may or may not have had to deal with a small electrical fire this morning, so there's that. Late Saturday afternoon Oklahoma County was under a tornado warning and I'd unplugged my computer and server setup just incase things went absolutely south. It's storm season here and you grow up learning to pay attention to the weather. Luckily the storm petered out by the time it was close enough to us to have done any serious damage, but the power in our neighborhood went out for a few house.

This morning I started to plug everything back in for the start of the work week and had a legit cloud of white smoke rolling out from under my desk. A power adapter for an external hard drive had shorted out and the metal part you shove into the hard drive was getting crazy hot, vaporizing the plastic around it. Luckily it wasn't connected to a hard drive at the time and even luckily'er I was able to put out the small fire that'd started. So, technically – I'm assuming – that'd be (delayed) storm damage and not just me being an idiot for having too much plugged in.

The last couple months were focused on applying to grad school and various "adult/parent responsibilities." Now with that heavy lifting behind me for the most part, I've been able to get back to my rubber stamp doc.

The teaser has been updated after some previous notes I'd gotten plus I added a couple new sections. I still don't have a title for project, but that'll come soon enough. I've also connected with a few new people in the stamp world that I'm hoping can help add meat to the skeleton I've already got. And considering how my last name constantly gets butchered, I bought rubberstampdoc.com and rubberstampfilm.com to help make life easier. Those URLs just forward to the webpage I've been using for months.

More and more people have started asking about updates on the project, so I've also added an email list you can sign up for if that's your thing. No plans at this point to do a regular newsletter or anything, but I do know it's helpful to have an idea about a potential audience. I've been thinking too about possible distribution, film festivals, and all that vs. just putting the thing on YouTube and moving on. There's still quite a lot I'd like to do and people I want to interview.

So far the project has been self-funded with business profits and stock footage sales. At times too I've been able extend client related travel so I'm able to land additional interviews (NYC, San Francisco). I've kept production costs super lean by one-man-banding all things, but that becomes a liability soon enough. Ideally I'd be able to hire out audio (priority) and a cam op (secondary) so I can focus on the interviews. Once we get to full-on post-production I'd like to work with a colorist plus someone who knows what they're doing in terms of final delivery. There's also an aspect of animation and graphic design I'd want to incorporate, but I'm not there yet. There's all the things under the hood of a film that no one outside the industry talks about, but you absolutely recognize them if they're not there.

Oh, and I actually finally finished reading that Capital in the 21st Century book by Thomas Piketty. Seriously I've not read something that interesting in a long time. Thick and dense AF, but dang this amateur economist was glued and completely nerded out. St. Anne the Wife asked me to stop talking about it more than one occasion. I also finished Dave Grohl's The Storyteller this past weekend. In a former creative life I was actually a musician and learned to play thanks to listening to hours and hours of Nirvana. There was so much in his book that I related to with his time and experiences on the road. He seriously seems like such a nice guy. I've already started re-reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and I've got a couple other books waiting in the wings. Months ago I'd ordered the 11th Edition of the American Cinematographer Manual and it was finally delivered this past week. I'd also picked up the 4th edition of Directing the Documentary by Michael Rabiger at a used bookstore awhile ago.

DIY Film Developing

So back to this whole "shooting film" nonsense: I'm a fan. At this point it's more along the lines of having unprotected sex and just "hoping for the best." Sure, it's super exciting to do the thing, but the risk of incorrectly metering your light is incredible lower than a surprise family addition or a weird rash. There's also the the thing about not waiting nine months for your film to be processed. I could go on, but I'll just snip the analogy here and now.

Unfortunately Oklahoma City isn't teeming with photo shops and getting film developed isn't as easy as it would be in a larger market. Buddies of mine ship their film out to be processed, but they're better people than I am. Turns out in this situation I'd rather have the one marshmallow now instead of eating both later. The photo lab I'd stared using here in OKC to develop my film ran into some substantial delays and I started down the rabbit hole of developing my own color film at home. As a high school student twenty-something years ago, I'd taken a photography course and developed black and white film. We never did anything with color film, but it's the future now and I'd figured there'd be a YouTube tutorial or thirty that'd get me up to speed.

Thanks to the internet I put together a film processing kit plus the confidence to not blowup my house. Willem Verbeek's YouTube videos on developing were key in me actually gaining the confidence to try and pull it off, but Will Cobb's in-depth video was crazy helpful with the nuts and bolts of the process.

The worse part was waiting for the $200-300 in gear I'd ordered off Amazon to be delivered. There was a problem with the first round of plastic reels included in my Paterson kit being defective, but I was able to work out a hack while waiting for those to get replaced. I'll say too the amount of developing chemicals I'd ordered was twice as much as intended (got the two liter Unicolor kit instead of one liter) and the recommended bottles were smaller than I should've gotten (the four pack of 32oz dark amber glass bottles vs. an accordion style solid plastic bottle). Thankfully I can do basic math and use a calculator to split the chemicals in thirds to make the mismatched puzzle work.

It was nerve-racking getting used to spooling the film negatives by feel alone in a dark bag. Some of the tutorials I'd watched had dudes sacrificing an unused roll of film but I didn't want any part of that $12-15 of nonsense. I got somewhat comfortable with the spooling process after practicing in the light and then the dark bag with some previously developed negatives I already had. Those botched plastic reels – even with the hack – ended up creasing a few sections of my negatives and added some "character" to a few frames. Thankfully though most of the rolls I developed came out pretty well, especially considering how I'm just getting started. There was one roll I'd hoped to get more from that turned out a bit sour; pretty sure I'd botched the developing time on that one. Still, not bad in terms of the collateral damage I expected early on.

At this point I'm something like 6-8 rolls into developing my own film and it's much less daunting than expected. The startup costs weren't nothing, but considering how much money I was spending having someone else do it I'll end up ahead here pretty soon. I figure too the time I'm saving doing it myself will help with the learning curve of shooting on film.

I knew I'd not be getting the same results I'm used to from my digital cameras, but this is something else. This old film camera is making things interesting and I'm crazy impressed with the unpredictability and character of the images I'm getting. There's also this thing of the inherent mood and color that comes along with the film negative compared to digital. There's an annoying camera scratch on my negatives due to something scraping along the negatives in my film back. I've still not figured out what it is, but Photoshop fixes are working till I get the problem solved.

My old-school Mamyia RB67 doesn't have a built in light meter, so in order to figure out exposure I've been using a combination of a handheld light meter and my Canon DSLR. I'll do an initial light reading with my incident meter and then a test shot with my digital camera to help dial settings in. The Sekonic meter I currently have doesn't include a spot meter, so I'm sure I'll upgrade in time.

It's easy to get lost in trying to correct and grade the different images, especially if you're trying to match multiple shots. The time I'm spending scanning my negatives and dialing in the colors to look the way I'm wanting will only help my color correction and grading for paid work.

This dip into the world of film photography has been super interesting to me as a digital cinematographer. Watching how some of the film photographers I've been following expose their images has been refreshing compared to my near reflexive habits and digital workflows. It's wild seeing more and more images from film photographers that I'd normally consider overexposed compared to the dark and moody frames from my cinematography brethren.

Over time all this nonsense will work its way into how I make a living. Even this early on I'd feel much more comfortable approaching the idea of shooting motion film stock. I know St. Anne the Wife and I have had a couple different conversation about some of the money I've pumped into this thing. By no means is it crazy money, but surely it's a much more cost-effective mid-life crisis compared to the spandex clad buddies of mine and their deep dives into road racing.

Rubber Stamp Doc teaser

Early last week I finally put together a quick teaser for my untitled rubber stamp project. Good Lord I'm far from finished with the whole thing, but it's something to see parts of it coming to life.

It's to the point where I think it's detrimental trying to do the entire thing by myself. Having a project teaser at leasts gives me something to send out to those possibly interested: crew, producers, production companies, etc. There's still a pitch deck to put together and at least a rough budget to figure out so I have some kind of answer when asked what I think I need. Ideally I'd love to land an executive producer who's been down this road before so I'd have help asking the questions I don't know to ask. So far it's helped start some additional conversations and hopefully too it'll help add some legitimacy to the cold emails, text messages, and DMs I'm sending out.

I've done documentary work since I started behind a camera, but I think this project has legs enough to be seen by more than my immediate family and those 10-15 regulars on Vimeo.

There's plenty more interviews I'm wanting to do and topics to chase down. There's a few people I want to talk to here in the US plus Europe, Australia, and Japan. With what I have so far, I'm pretty sure I could put out a festival ready short or possible feature length film. Being ambitious, it's not out of the question to see it as a docuseries considering what I've learned so far.

To DC and Back

It's been about a month, so surely it's time for another update.

The Washington, D.C. trip came and went a few weeks ago. For the first time, I kinda got to "peak rubber stamp" considering how saturated the week was. Looking through my notebook those few days I landed something like 65 different stamps. Most were directly related to ones you could find at National Park sites, but that's totally fine considering it being the main reason I drove about 3,200 miles in seven days.

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There's also the new buddies I made out in eastern Tennessee. Picasso Gaglione and Darlene Domel let me spend most of the day at their place in Knoxville and talk rubber stamps till I ran out of hard drive space (and then some). They were both incredibly kind, interesting, and their creative worlds and experiences went way beyond the scope of my rubber stamp documentary.

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With all the stamp hunting between Oklahoma City and D.C., I'm pretty sure I found the best egg sandwich in the country at Fox In The Snow Cafe in Columbus, OH. I'd already had at least three coffees in about four hours, so I can't speak to their espresso offerings but damn that sandwich probably changed my life. There's something to be said too about A Dopo Sourdough Pizza in Knoxville, TN and how I'll be making my own pizza dough plus thanks to A Baked Joint in D.C. for reintroducing to Tabasco sauce. And thank goodness to the coffee shop owner at Redhawk Coffee in Pittsburg who kinda blew my mind with a quote about "cup stamping being the backbone of the hipster economy."

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For the actual National Park Travelers Club conference in DC, I'd not really had a plan going into it. All I knew was what I'd learned during my interview with Mike Brown back in June and some of the time I'd spent on their website. Ideally I'd have gone into the event as a producer with wireless video signal and headphones connected a dedicated camera op and production sound mixer/boom op. But, there I was like an idiot trying to do all the nonsense myself seeing as how I didn't have an additional $1k-1500/day to hire out a crew.

I'm pushing hard on this project to do what I can with what I have, so I was out there with my RED Weapon, a set of prime lenses, and some filtration/NDs. If I were to do it again, I'd have tried to spent the $1k to rent out a couple of the Angenieux EZ cinema zooms for the week and at least used a monopod vs. trying to keep the camera package as SUPER lean and unobtrusive as possible while filming the conference. I'd also planned to shoot some sit-down interviews with convention go-ers back in my hotel room, but that never panned out. This project is more a marathon than a sprint, so I'll probably be making some changes as I go.

I'm still hoping to make it overseas and meet up with some connections I've made (London, Melbourne, etc) plus get some of the Eki train stamps in Japan, but that's quite a bit of money I'll need to come up with to make that happen. Seeing as how I'm planning to pay for all this via my stock footage revenue, I did shoot quite a bit of skyline footage with my drone while I was out (Little Rock, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis) plus a handful of things with my RED. I'm also considering reaching out to some production companies and other connections I've made over the years to see if those could be options to help fund this nonsense.

Rip Van Winkle'd

Dang... I Rip Van Winkle'd this blog for a solid chunk of the summer. Last thing I remember was talking about a DIY case and then somehow slipped out this website. It's not like I've "not been doing the things." Freakin' far from it. That's probably what happened. That mysterious "work" came around and brought it's bill-paying elixir, only to have me fall asleep on trying to keep to healthy writing habits. Still got that 'ol Moleskine notebook habit going though. There's plenty in there from the last bit...

A quick recap on what's happened the last two months:

  • I've been back and forth to NYC twice now: once for work; another with fam (and more work).
  • There was that one day shoot at the Oklahoma State Capitol about a bounty (alive, preferably) on an Oklahoman Bigfoot. You'll notice I tried my best to dodge the news cameras.
  • Then there was a solid weeklong project with me cam op'ing on a network pilot shooting here in Oklahoma City; bulletproof vests and minivans were absolutely involved. Thank goodness for EasyRigs being stronger than 12 hour days and a full-kitted out Amira with cine zooms.
  • Finally another weeklong shoot full of 12+ hour days, but this time as a still photographer sweating my tail off in the heat on a feature shooting up in Guthrie, OK. I legit shot and had to cull through something like 10,000+ still images from the week.

With all that going, I've still kept at it with my rubber stamp doc. I'm three interviews deep at this point and sitting on about 1.4tb of footage. I'm actually heading out Tuesday for a cross-country trip to a rubber stamp convention in Washington, D.C. at the end of the week with the National Park Travelers Club. The drive should take about two days each way, so you'd better believe I'll be picking up some new stamps along the way. I've also super stoked about landing an interview with a guy out in Knoxville, TN, to talk about his world of rubber stamps and the mail art projects he's been part of over the years.

Shut it Down: Week Seven

In the world of small victories we finally landed a set of hair clippers. My mom shipped us the ones dad didn't want her using on him no matter how many YouTube tutorials she watched. Saint Anne the Wife and her varying levels of confidence gave the Herriott boys our quarantine cuts and honestly I can't tell you how good it felt to get a trim. That simple sense of normal is incredibly refreshing.

Here in our 700sq foot world we're mostly trying to keep our children from causing their parents an early death. As per usual Anne's running the show while I'm still trying to dodge parental responsibilities by filling up my journal and making pictures. Yesterday morning I sat down to write and within five minutes immediately had to deal with a seven-year-old's world-ending-meltdown and a two-year-old's potty break he didn't think I was qualified to assist. Thank goodness for afternoons when both Saint Anne the Wife and our second house fire tend to take naps while the first one is absorbed in God knows what in the other room.

How and what are we going to remember after all this nonsense? What are we doing with all the time we have while hiding from the outside? What's it like to live in New York City during a pandemic?

I'm pretty sure my personal journal entries and various still images using whatever distortion / distraction I could come up with that day will be my contribution to all this, but there are plenty of others here in the city making some killer art conveying what it's like to live through a pandemic here.

The “2 Lizards” videos have been “the most on-the-nose, accurate, what it feels like to be in New York City during this quarantine period” cultural product, said Rujeko Hockley, an assistant curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art... “They make me cry.” - The ‘2 Lizards’ of Instagram Are Coronavirus Art Stars

By all means go to Meriem Bennani's Instagram and watch the other episodes.

Another solid find this past week has been "Shelter in Place," a short film by Matthew Beck (@plasticlunch). I randomly got to meet the filmmaker on a subway platform a few weeks back. He was using his camera flash through a random piece of transparent plastic he'd found in the trash and asked my usual "getting anything good?" We quickly got to talking about shooting through different types of transparent goodies and the results we were getting, but both of us were bouncing between trains and didn't have much time to talk. It's these chance encounters you only get by living here in the city that I absolutely miss during this quarantine.

UPDATE: Beck's "Shelter in Place" got picked up by The New Yorker and they did a nice write up about it.

There was also several New York Times articles that just felt right. First up was the Gabrielle Hamilton feature "My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore?" Also, an opinion article "The Nude Selfie is Now High Art." Obviously there's a bit of NSFW involved so it's a "choose your own adventure" situation with that link.

Though the debate about art versus pornography has never been settled, a case can be made that quarantine nude selfies are art. Some of us finally have time to make art, and this is the art we are making...

Beyond our Wi-Fi, we don’t have much in the way of connection. Many of us are alone and live in small spaces. We lack the distractions we’re accustomed to and the routines we rely on. But some of the most famous self-portraiture resulted from a dearth of resources.

We are taking a risk at a time when we are not allowed to take risks, baring our bodies with no guaranteed reaction.

Can't speak to any nude selfies happening here at home during this time, but I'll shamelessly point to some of the nonsense I shot while home alone for a period a couple years back; Anne and the boys were visiting family in Louisiana for a few days. Good grief I miss having the space to setup gear and lights.

Can't say the images I'm shooting now are relevant and speaking to the current time, but I do appreciate the time and opportunities I have at the moment. This past week I had a stellar stoop find with a couple lens elements left on the sidewalk. I've been shooting through those two pieces of glass and for sure lean towards the plano convex one that's acting like a diopter. Both are just about the same diameter as my 24-70 lens so it doesn't always cover the image.