Adventures in Photography

Had a routine shoot in Woodacre today - just west of Fairfax in the country. Been out there many times - it's aptly named - acres of woods, dirt roads, muddy roads, no Peet's - pioneer living at its finest.

The directions I had told me to "go to the end of the paved road" after cruising through a short stretch of unpaved, un-maintained county road. I read the words "paved road" but in my rusted brain, I heard "dirt road."

I drove the short stretch of unpaved road - muddy and full of deep ruts and thick puddles from the recent rain - and when I got to the other side where the pavement picks up again, I turned to the right as the map indicated.

It was more dirt road, and my idiot brain said "go to the end of the dirt road." I've had to get to such locations before, so this wasn't new or strange.

But this dirt road... a muddy disaster waiting to happen, was almost less than one-lane wide and had a few downed branches here & there. I drove for a few minutes, seeing *nothing* up the hill and realized I couldn't be in the right place.

Found my map and sure enough, I'd driven right by the property when I turned onto the second dirt road. There aren't any curbs or curb numbers in those parts.

Thankfully, the XC-70 had no trouble going up or down the mud slide, gently rolling over & along the ruts sort-of like how you'd walk a horse down a steep hill. Fun!

Got back down the hill and turned onto what I thought was the long, paved driveway to the house - again, not seeing any house numbers anywhere, I followed the actual directions to "the end of the paved road." This was definitely a road and it was paved and it went up the hill to two houses.

I went all the way to the end where I found an old beater car parked on one side of the road and a 4WD truck on the other. There was an old cast iron tub perched in the brush beyond the truck and other discarded items & junk strewn around the driveway.

It's not uncommon to see trash ready to be hauled away when a house is going on the market... So I started up the steps to the front deck, which had a Beware of Dog sign posted at the bottom. When I got up to the deck (about four hundred steps, with a bee trying to stab me the whole way), it was littered with dozens of empty beer bottles, lawn chairs & more junk.

I thought... This doesn't seem right... I stood there for a few minutes, wondering where the agent was. And the dog. I almost knocked, but there were no signs of life inside. It wasn't quite 11 a.m. yet - way too early to be up after drinking that much beer.

From my sky-high vantage point I could see a cute little house down below... a house that looked ready for photographs, with cleaned up landscaping and new flowers on the deck. Sure enough, I'd gone one house too far on the little narrow road.

Good thing I got there early & the realtor had no idea I was standing on the neighbor's deck yelling her name.

(the wrong house, at the end of the road and about two miles straight up the hill to the right of the white truck)

(the right house - no junk, no beer bottles - quite lovely)

No Vomiting Required

The other day I went on my "go see," as it could be called, to do a walkthrough of a property and think about how I might want to shoot it, but it was really a go-see for them - to look at my book to decide if I'm right for the job.

I was not. And while it's never any fun to lose work, I have to say, it was a relief. I can probably blame it on my horrific gaffe of leaving the last few pages of a portfolio empty. Those of you with art backgrounds are likely gasping at my rookie mistake, but I did not go to art school and have had no training in such things.

That said, this was billed as an informal walkthrough to look at the property and decide what we wanted to shoot and discuss scheduling, time of day, etc. And meet the homeowner.

I brought a book of samples so the agents and the homeowner could see a range of work, but it was not intended to be a formal presentation. I filled most of the pages of a very nice album with work I thought represented the best I had to show. The remaining pages will be filled when I have more work to put in them, but for now they're going to stay empty.

After a pleasant tour of the property with one of the agents, we gathered around the dining room table and made small talk while looking through marketing packages for other properties - all of which were full of terrible photos printed on crappy paper.

The homeowner, some "famous" artist and art-directing marketing dude, was telling a zany, HI-larious story about being at a party where he made a beeline for the host's bookshelf that had "sex books" on it, as he described them, to find out which books had the pages stuck together. Klassy.

He continued in some graphic detail about how those pages could become stuck together. Perhaps that was his way of reassuring us that *he* understood how that could happen, though I don't think the rest of us needed the explanation.

After our short trip back to 7th grade, the agents looked through my book and they all had very nice things to say about my work. Then an agent slid the book over to the homeowner and asked him if he wanted to take a look. He absent-mindedly replied “What? Sure…” and commenced flipping through the pages.

He flipped through all the photos and when he got to the empty pages, he looked up and asked me, “Is this yours?” Like I brought someone else’s book or he wasn’t just asked moments ago if he wanted to see MY work. I replied, Yes, it is, and staring right through me he said, with the gravity of a doctor delivering very bad news, “Don’t ever do this. Don’t ever leave blank pages in the book. Either fill them up or rip them out.”

He then smiled weakly and said he just wanted to help me out, to which I enthusiastically said, “Oh definitely – thank you very much!” What a nice way to be helped by someone who, just moments ago, explained to everyone how jacking off into a book might make the pages stick together.

I mean, it's nice to get input and I would love to have my work critiqued by a professional, but it just seemed out of place. Not only that, but if he's such a brilliant artist, can he not see that those empty pages represent future potential yet to be fulfilled? Was he confused when he turned the page and there were no more pretty pictures? He needs the back cover of the book to tell him the show's over?

I think I dodged a bullet by losing that project. Lord knows how many colossal blunders I'd have made while shooting that job, with him bivouacked in my colon the entire time to tell me about every single one. Thank you, Universe.

Widows & Rattlesnakes

Yesterday I photographed a little country estate in Kenwood, and to prep a particular shot I began to move a garden hose off the driveway into the hedges. As I moved the hose the agent casually called to me from across the yard, "Watch out for rattlesnakes."

I sprang away from the hose and asked "Are you shitting me?" and she said No, that rattlers like to hang out around water and will sometimes curl up in the hose. Damn - good to know. I need a special training class with this sort of information.

Later, while photographing the pool, I opened up two patio umbrellas, carefully watching the ground all around the pool for snake-like shapes, feeling very under-dressed in regular, non-Kevlar pants and shoes. A Kevlar jumpsuit, really, is what I should have handy.

I finished the shoot and went to close up the umbrellas. While closing the second one, I noticed what appeared to be a large-ish black widow hanging out in the folds of the fabric.

Alrighty - that's enough umbrella time. I grabbed my shit and ran off that patio, high-stepping over a well-manicured lawn with a horrendous case of the heebie jeebies. What might be waiting for me in my car, a scorpion? A wasps' nest?

We may not have beautiful, wide open country vistas out of every window or a Chanel-like pool in the backyard, but at least I don't have to worry about grabbing a rattle snake when I water the plants, and I think that's wonderful.

Wear The Hat

Like a dumbass, yesterday I decided not to wear the hat I'd brought with me while hiking through wooded areas of northern California. I didn't think we'd be out there for almost 3 hours!

I realized last night that my eyes were sunburned when I couldn't stop blinking in an effort to alleviate the mild burning sensation. It was so mild, I just thought my eyes were dry, but then I realized what happened.

My right eye feels like it has sand in it, but the left one, behind the camera most of the day, feels OK today. Man, if it's not one thing...

While hiking through the property we found this - check out the tusks!

Shooting With the Police

While photographing a home in Sonoma yesterday, we heard a helicopter pass by directly overhead. Then it circled over again... then again... and again... then it was even closer, circling, circling, circling...

We tried to ignore what sounded like a mini-Vietnam and keep shooting, but it was too loud and right up in our airspace. Even the hyper puppy stopped attacking the hose to watch it circle above her yard.

Wondering what the heck might be going on, we went outside to talk with the neighbors. They didn't have the scoop, but the homeowner knew who to call in the sheriff's office. She made the call and asked what was going on. The sheriff's office said she couldn't share that information. Then the homeowner asked if we should lock the doors.

When I heard her ask that question I thought, Jebus, is some crazed criminal going to come busting through the house looking for a place to hide? If so, I suppose I'd get the exclusive photos of the crime in progress. That could be cool.

But then the sheriff told her we didn't have to lock ourselves in and that they were looking for a burglary suspect. As Jeff said when I told him about it, I should have told the agent that this didn't seem to be a good time and offer to come back later, say in a few years.

We quickly finished up the shoot while the homeowner, trying to make it sound like a casual event, said "Oh it happens all the time..." but then realized that didn't sound too appealing from a marketing perspective, so then it became, "You'll love living here! At least one exciting police chase every day!"