Stuff That Stuck

Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow. Music.

Life is my subject matter. Hey welcome to the street shots photography podcast this is antonio and this is ward and this is episode 222 for the end of 222 for the end of 2024 the end of 2020 god all right there's a there was a you know there was a show on in uh called room 222 yeah Karen Valentine. Do you remember what it was about? Do you remember what it was about?

It was either high school or first year. You know, Paper Chase was first year law. Paper Chase. But 222, I think, was high school. Was it high school? Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, I happen to, in order to keep with our, you know, standards of looking at area codes, there is no area code for 222. In fact, when I looked it up, it says 222, not in use, available for non-geographic assignment. But then I looked up further, and I found that 222 is part of what's called a one-ring scam, a phone scam.

Because, well, right now, 222 is the area code for the West African nation of Mauritania. Oh, okay. That's a country code. And there are robocalls. Is it a country code? Yeah, it's a country code. And there are robocalls that originate from there. And what happens is there's a scam. This is public service announcement for everybody. If you get a call that starts with 222 and area code, it's coming from Mauritania. And what they're trying to do is they call late at night.

The scam is they call late at night and they hang up when you answer the phone. And what they want to do is get you to call back. That's as far as I got into the reading of the scam. but the calling back is somehow the beginning of the scam. Okay. So the, but it's the one ring scam, two, two, two. So I don't think we'll be doing any scamming tonight, nor I don't know, have any information about Mauritania personally. So we'll just, but if you're listening in Mauritania, hi. Hi.

You know welcome welcome to the show you know join you know join the club got cameras and stuff like that right we we're all inclusive everybody every country can come and join us right okay it's all good we we yeah we like to have listeners from all over the world, yeah we should be a ham radio station too we could uh broadcast can we still do that is there still people who listen to ham radio i guess there has to be yeah yeah yeah all right so how was your you know we're recording this after

christmas so you know just a couple days so we yeah nice to the quiet family get together my daughter's daughter came from japan and four of us sat around and did the you know the christmas cracker thing with the whatever and i got a christmas cracker christmas cracker you're talking about the thing that little Oh, the thing that you pull apart and it explodes. Yeah, a popper thing, yeah. I got a compass. It looked nice. It doesn't really work. A compass? A compass, yeah.

You mean like that points to the north kind of thing? Well, it sort of points north. Somewhere between straight east and straight west. Northerly. It gets you there eventually. And my son, who's big into cards and fantasy games and all that kind of stuff, he got a tiny deck of cards. Tiny deck of cards. They're tiny and all those little- Those little teeny ones are like an inch? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you shuffle those? You can't. You can't bend them. He was complaining.

He was trying to come up with strategies on how to shuffle it. No, you just throw them on the ground and then you pick them up again,

is what I think. So you can play with little tiny- little chips like if you play poker it's like little tiny chips and on a little teeny green table it's a little tablets or something like a little tablets yeah yeah yeah you get little drinks like little little coasters and little drinks i'm just imagining i'm sorry i'm playing this out to its logical logical yeah exactly yeah right into yes we're right into oblivion on that one that's yeah okay well

it's all good what about you how's your holiday uh i my holiday is great i have my my girlfriend has visited me again she's and spent christmas here and we. Exchanged gifts and what did i get i cannot remember no she gave me a braska swag i think you sent us a picture i did i'm wearing i'm oh i did get some nebraska swag i've got But I think this hat, which looks like a Netflix hat. So when someone asked us, what is that? I was like, it's Netflix or the Cornhuskers

hat. It's got a black hat with a big red N on it. I did get a t-shirt. She gave me a big thing of pasta that's got six different really interesting pastas in it. So like a big hexagonal box that's got like six pounds of pasta. And the idea is that she's got one too. And so that we're going to like, try to create when she gets back and we'll create a recipe and then we'll each use that one bag and we'll try to do the same recipe.

And what else did I get? I got something, I got a couple, I can't even believe it. It's all in the other room. So I can't remember all of the stuff. You got a water bottle or a water thing that had the. Had some nebraska stuff on it i'm trying to think i don't know but that i don't think i got the water bottle okay maybe it was maybe those were stickers anyway and of course i gave her i gave her pens and ink okay because because because i'm so predictable because i'm into the way to go.

Yeah and um you know and i figured because she likes fountain pens and ink and stuff like that and i oh i know i got a i got each of us a coloring book but it was like a really fancy coloring book for for fountain pen inks and we figured we'd color them together it's very kind of you know nice stuff to do when we're at a distance so and we watched a couple we watched die hard because die hard is a christmas movie yeah you know and hans gruber falls off the you know once he once he

hits the pavement then you know that's the what the beginning of something it's the official start of christmas or so alan rickman oh did i just spoil it did it yes did i just spoil it for anybody who hasn't watched diehard i heard that was his first film but that was alan rickman's first movie i don't know yeah i don't know he was so good in that when that movie came out it came out in 1988 it was the first of its kind like you know there was never a film like that before where this,

you know, lone guy is like, you know, in the middle of a crazy situation.

And then now like, you know, it's, you know, it's a genre of films, which I remember what the next one was, something with Steven Seagal or something like that when he's on a battleship or something. Anyway, sorry, we're going off. I'm going off on this. But what we did tonight before we are recording, we actually went into the city to go look at the Rockefeller Center tree. New York City at this time of year is the most insane place you can be.

It is just, I can't believe the island isn't sinking because of the extra weight of all the people that are living. You go to these places and it's just packed. I mean, we knew it was going to be packed, but we went there and managed to squeeze a few pictures and it was just insanely crazy. And we ended up coming back to Brooklyn to this place called Junior's, which is Junior's Cheesecake and stuff like that. And we got, that's what we're having for dinner is not, we're not having cheesecake.

That's why the dessert. Dessert for dinner. Okay. Yeah. You're having dessert. But then we went to this area. if you're in this area in Brooklyn called Diker Heights and if you ever come to New York this is for everybody it was one of those it's not so unknown but I think because it's a little bit out of the way it's a little harder for people to get to but it's well worth it because this whole neighborhood down in southern Brooklyn.

Like it's like they all cooperate and they all cover their houses in the most insane, Christmas lights that you ever saw even like Scrooge if you went there you would fall in love with christmas there's like no way you can't like it's just insane the way people do their houses up so we just came back in from there and it was it was as brilliant and exciting as you can imagine and and she was very excited i haven't been there in a few years so it was really.

Exciting to see again and and it's not as crowded i mean it is crowded but it's not as crowded as going into the city but it offers a lot of really nice you know christmas light photographs and people's selfies in front of things it's it's a nice cheery thing and i think the people in the neighborhood do it not because they're they're not out to sell anything because it's really just a residential neighborhood so there's nobody there's no

stores or anything like that i think they really just do it a to show off but it becomes this just this thing this destination now so if you ever come into new york you know i think after thanksgiving is when they set the lights up you know go check out duiker heist in brooklyn it's well worth the trek for you to get there and you know and and look at what people do so i don't think i'll maybe i'll post some pictures in the show notes i'll try to remember to do that i've not

been so good with the show notes lately forgive me everybody so cool yeah but so you know here's our last show of 2024 we actually managed to do what we do two episodes a month right so we did 24 episodes yeah yeah i kind of wonder if we should do this as a season like should it should we start making seasons i don't know how you do that Because if we have a season, that means we'd have to have a break.

So we're going to go right into this in January. You don't necessarily have to have a break or you can just call it a season. That's true. Yeah. No. Well, we're about to go into 2024. But the first thing I want to acknowledge is that one of our listeners, Dan Sudberg, bought us a coffee. And yay. Yeah. Thanks, Dan. He's our... I can't, I can't talk anymore. He's the honorary, honorary producer for the show today.

He wrote a nice note. He said, appreciate the podcast, casual, comfortable, informative, interesting, and entertaining. So I have, I'm sorry, Dan, I haven't replied to you yet. It's been, you know, the holiday season, but I'm replying to you now. I'll get to you, but thank you so much for buying us a coffee. I really appreciate it. That's great. I like the kind of positive feedback. You'd be surprised how, what an impact it has on us when we get, when we get feedback from folks.

Cause you know, we do our recordings and we send them out on the, onto the internet and it's nice to actually have real human feedback to what we're doing. So yeah, it's great. And you know, I've come across a lot of people, some people have been taking my classes and I said, I listen to your podcast. I heard your voice sounds familiar. Like, you know, people like accidentally

listen to us like that. And so I, I still hear a lot of folks, you know, unofficially saying how much they like what we're doing here. So, you know, I don't know how we can improve it other than like, yes, we went through this whole year, I think, without interviewing anybody. Is that true? It's possible. I don't know. So forgive me for that. Yeah. I don't know. Well, let's say we did. And yeah, I know. I know. I know there's a lot of people who have, you know, I've asked and they

said, yeah, sure. No, we talked to Gino this year. I don't know if we did. We didn't talk to, oh, what's his name? Why am I spacing out on his name? Oh, we had Jeffrey on. Yeah. Excuse me. I'm sorry, Jeffrey. Yeah, we forgot. Yeah, it was this year. And from the UK, what's his name? Sean. Sean Tucker, yes. Was that this year? That was really this year, wasn't it? I think. No, or was it last year? It was last year. Because you went to see him this year. I went to see him this year, yeah.

Yeah, and he remembered us, and so that was good. But yeah, if anything, if things begin to settle down, maybe for me next year, because if anybody hasn't produced a podcast or anything like that, it is a lot of work.

You know and even even just we're doing this sort of casually and stuff like that and it still ends up being a lot of i mean i wouldn't say a lot of work but you know if we're arranging to have someone in the show you're three three hours two hours you're two hours behind me i'm here and you know if we go to especially for someone in like the uk or something like that we we generally have to do on a like early morning and stuff like that and you're working stiff you're

a working guy so Your days are different these days. So anyway, let's see what we can do. Maybe we can find some more people. I would like to talk to people because I find myself getting inspired by, you know, anybody, everybody we've talked to, I've gotten inspired by. So it was really great. We've got a list. We should dive back into it. Yeah. So no definitive promises. I'm not making any resolutions because those

are the kind of things that they fail all the time. But I would like to, let's see what we can do this year as stuff goes on.

But I thought maybe we could like sort of go over this year a little bit, like a little bit of a review and like, I don't know. You said like, we said stuff that stuck with us this year. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure how to, how, where to start. I'm thinking back by all of our episodes. I was going by the names of the episodes, trying to remember what we did. But I was, I don't know, anything initially pop in your head? I've been talking too long, so.

Yeah, I think I discovered more of a documentary, like in terms of my work, getting more comfortable with having a more documentary and not so much of a gotcha kind of style. Which is good. I think it's a maturing that's going on. Where I felt that the most was that stampede that I go to every year, I was actually in the party tent stopping people and asking them if I could take their picture. Which I'd never done before in the 40 plus years I've been going there.

Where do you think that came from? I mean, why this year? What was the... That's a good question.

Was it anything that was it anything well first of all i mean not to like say it has anything to do with the show but was there anything that we talked about that sort of like even we've been doing the show for together for at least a few years now more than a few years but uh was there anything that sort of accumulated in like our discussions that brought that out if our discussions and also the year before i had done taking those pictures of the my women friends right and my mother right and

so there was a oh can i and a kind of a formal thing like can i come and take your picture and i think maybe that just resonated with me through the year and then this year i'm well i have an opportunity a lot of these people i know why don't i just ask them or our families know each other or something yeah and and i treated the the the dance more like a combination of documentary and portraiture and it was good really yeah and i felt really good about the images i got out of that there's that

oh well that's good you want to do a back and forth kind of thing you you're next just tag you're it yes yeah i guess we could just sort of jump around because the you know i don't have i don't have that version of it although like i want to i want to bookmark what you're talking about because that idea of, you know.

I get a lot of students who come up to me in my street photography class and ask me, how do you deal with like going up to somebody and talking to her or photographing them on the street? And I said, well, you know, I solved that because I'm photographing candidly, so I don't do that.

That occasion where i would want to approach somebody or or you know pull them out of their their routine or whatever they're doing and and talk to them so that like i want to bookmark that is a thing to follow up on the one thing that popped in my mind when i thought about doing this.

Sort of going back was how much first of all that i had learned about the photographer trent park i had not known about him this year prior to this year and you know we did our little show you know walk in the park and that actually has had i think the most amount of listens to in in this whole year when i looked at the stats so i was interested about that like why why were why were so many more people downloading that episode and i'm not sure i i have no way we have no way to figure this stuff

out right there's there's no stats there's no there's no feedback that we're getting please send us feedback we're really curious about it but i'm really you know i was wondering about that but for my personal part of that was i mean maybe i had heard about him prior maybe you and i like you mentioned his book to me or something like that but it didn't quite yeah i've had minutes to midnight since since 2018 i've had that book or whenever it came out i had it for quite a while yeah

but i wouldn't i wouldn't have known like again i'm sure we've talked about it but for some reason it was this.

Year when i purchased the book monument from him from that from the new thing and i can't remember how how i found out about that whether it was you told me or something when i bought that when i bought that book and if we go back to that episode but i'm not going to play it but you know i i remember my the tactile experience i was having when i was looking through that book and the the whole the whole sort of story that he's telling with this thing and and then all of a sudden

like you know you know his name is popping up on my youtube playlist and stuff like that and so i'm watching videos about him and and. I end up buying, you know, a mint copy of minutes to midnight for a lot of money, by the way, you know, it was too late, but you know, no, I don't regret it. I don't regret it at all because, you know, there's something, I don't think I've picked up on a photographer so fast or maybe any artist.

That's not true. Maybe there's a few artists picked on, on someone so quickly, especially being looking through when I looked through monument for the first time.

And this experience that I've never had when I looked through a book before and to go from that to you know spending the most amount of money I've ever spent on a photo book because I've like I would say I've fallen in love with the guy but this work really speaks to me in some level that I don't quite still have words for yeah maybe I want it maybe I want to like revisit him sometime and we did try we did have an offer

from somebody to try to you know set up an interview with him And I think fingers crossed that I, but he, I've forgotten his name, but he's friends or knows Norell Trent's wife. Who's whose editor helps with creating the books. So, yeah. So, you know, if anybody's listening to this show and happens to have a, you know, you know, an in, an in with Trent Park, let us know. I'm, I know we didn't, I think it's very cool.

Sorry to take, you know, derail the conversation, but, yeah, I really am interested in your reaction because you have a very strong reaction to his work. And it's very unusual. So it's kind of otherworldly, literally and figuratively, especially with Monument. But there's something about it in Minutes to Midnight, too, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There's just some aura about it, about his books especially,

that is unusual and unique, authentic, special. That's all of those things. I mean, you know, not to judge a book by its title, but the titles of his books so far, but really like sent me into, into this, like, you know, minutes to midnight is such that just a title evokes something. And I don't know why. And monuments is such a simple, you know, it's a simple title for that. And I also got like some effect by it. I don't know. So it's the whole package too. You know.

We talked about this a bazillion times, but, you know, if you can, this, this idea of the photo book and how it can be itself, this work of art, like the, you know, photography doesn't have to be only seen on a screen or printed and hung on a wall.

Like the book is such is probably it may be one of the better ways to view photography i mean i don't know if we ever discussed that in terms of like what is you know what would be the best way to experience a photo like a photographer's work i mean well is it in a gallery you know to consume photography easily yeah yeah yeah yeah it's very personal experience because it's really just you and the photographer speaking to each other the

photographer speaking to you by looking through the book and also it's a thing you like to carry like you have a favorite book you know i have a favorite photo books you know it changes yeah every month you know what my favorite photo book is but it's a thing you get to carry around you have beside you and yeah you know it's it's it's an object so yeah and also you're the caretaker of it i mean i again i believe that.

Whatever books i have are going to outlast me because at some point you know they one hopes that they won't end up in the trash, but somehow they will continue on because we don't throw books away. Anyway, that's my one thing. I'll throw it back to you. Let's see. In terms of work, going back to work, because it's really all I think about, I'm either thinking about work or, by work I mean photographic output or planning.

So we'll get to planning next. But the work part is these little discovery with my phone in my hometown. I did those black and white images of what I called the thing itself, you know, the car and the shed, back of the high school and all that kind of stuff. This whole kind of very formal, simple compositions that.

Give me it's sort of the way i would want to like now anyway the way i would want to, photograph my hometown like sort of from now on just details like there's enough in the image for you to look it over it's not like oh it's just a thing and that's it sort of like if you if you want to look into the image more you see more detail and you're actually discovering things about that small town. And I found it really satisfying. And that just went on a lark.

I was visiting my mother for some other reason. They helped clean up her house or whatever. And I just went out in the warm weather and in the time where you would usually walk the dog, but the dog is not, you know, I'm not out with the dog, so I'll get to exercise some other way. And it was really, it was good and fun and satisfying.

So that was that was that's about it for that one i think so it just made me feel good okay so i throw it back to you my friend what what's another thing i think well i what's another thing well i do want to you know bring in the elephant in the room about ai and i wasn't sure if it was this year was it last year we talked about like oh next year is gonna be this and then and then And it turned out to be even more that, you know? And this year.

The thing that sparked this sort of memory or wanting to go back was I just got an email from Magnum, the photo agency Magnum. And it struck a tone that I want to sort of discuss a little bit. But let me just go into AI for a second. I mean, it's almost like the battle lines are drawing and the battle lines are shifting. And it's funny to call them battle lines. You know, there are people that we know, you and I know, who are fighting this, this, you know, this influx of AI imagery.

And the more I look at it, you know, and this year, the more I look at it, the more I'm convinced that, you know, photography as a, as a career is, is, is being whittled away very fast, I think, as well.

You know even i i in one of my photo journals i had printed some pictures that might have been not been mid-journey i think it was i think it was chat jbt made these images of rooms that are like empty rooms and i had like fed in some images from you know the the painter that i've sort of fallen in love with the vilheim hammershoy and and said create you know create a photorealistic image of this and it came out and it was i was of course i'm impressed i mean you know that's almost without you

know saying is that these images that are being spit out by some of these models are just perhaps indistinguishable especially if they're like they don't have people but even the ones with people are getting so much better but i actually printed out like six of these AI pictures and I put them in my photo journal and I said, I had to write about them. I just, it was, I don't remember what I wrote about it, but it was at the point that I, I.

Something I had to say something about it. Anyway, we're at the point now in December of 2024 where, you know, I don't know how many different places or things on the internet are able to make photorealistic imagery with AI and the hands are getting better and all this other nonsense. But the thing that caught me about this Magnum email that I just got literally this morning or I think it was this morning or yesterday was they used a word.

It i'm gonna i'm gonna read i'm gonna read a little bit of it if if you guys guys can indulge me for a second here so it was it came in this morning i said on november 14th 2024 magnum the magnum board of photographers issued the following statement concerning artificial intelligence and its position on synthetic images in the cooperative's 77 year old archive so i won't go into the whole thing i really just wanted to read that first paragraph it

just talks about what they're with you know they've joined as a cooperative they joined a group of individuals called writing with light and so i just won't read the whole thing but that word synthetic is what what sort of triggered me in something because that was the first time i saw that word in regards to ai imagery. And what i ended up thinking about what synthetic could mean in their context when they were when they were writing about it was that it carried less of an

emotional charge than the word fake. It was a very neutral word. Whereas fake sort of implies that you're lying in dishonesty. But synthetic is really just like, it's, it's almost a factual word. This, this image is synthetic, but it's, they're also kind of hedging their bets about like not trying to trigger. Yeah. Trigger anybody who, where, where AI imagery is, is being used in a responsible, useful way. Right.

So they're sort of leaving the door open for that. They are saying that they're not going to accept like in synthetic images in their archive, because it makes sense. Magnum is a photojournalistic agency and that ai imagery just goes against that and of course but they are kind of like saying you know they're not dismissing the the concept that ai imagery is here and it's going to be doing things so i thought that was just a very interesting.

It was that word synthetic that just triggered that off and i i because you know we're all sort of using we're now using well if you've been using photoshop for the past i i don't know how many years they've been using ai for most of the retouching tools right and they weren't calling it that i mean they weren't calling a gender of ai or something like that but like you know content aware remove is artificial intelligence sort of built in there so you know that is

in and that's responsible usage right you know i think because well the three rules that they came up with i think there's a very succinct and i think you want to read them or i can read them the rules they came up with so they're saying here in the statement of principles writing with light covers three crucial rules and this is what magnum is aligning themselves who they're aligning themselves but number one as recordings of visible journalistic photographs they must

be fair and accurate representations of what the photographer witnessed fair enough number two neither alterations to a photograph that mislead the public nor staging events while depicting them as spontaneous are acceptable in journalism that's a tenet that's always been there right nor should one publish a photorealistic synthetic image made by artificial intelligence and pretend it's an actual photograph i mean i don't think you

could cover that in any fewer words i think that was perfect wording. And then to go to your Photoshop point, number three is any deviations from these basic principles must be explained in a caption credit or appropriate icon. You know, a little thing that says the M on it says modified or whatever. Right, right. So I think, and I think these are great succinct rules for what can be, what should go into the archive.

Right. And it makes perfect sense. I mean, they're, you know, we're going to be, they're going to be coexisting with, with, we're all going to coexist with artificial intelligence imagery and video and whatever else is coming down the pipe. And it'll be really interesting to see where we're at next year at this time when we're sitting in these chairs. Me saying, what's the, what's the summary of this year? Artificial intelligence.

I mean, you know, I'm thinking that it's reached a certain point in its, you know, in its evolution. I mean, I think it's probably leveling off because again, with some certain, I mean, the next thing is video, but with certain imagery, you just can't tell. I know there's issues with hands and stuff like that, but I've seen some stuff where there's issues, but there's no issues with hands. And you just look at the picture and you're like, okay, that looks like, there you go.

There, there goes the modeling business. There goes the catering business. There goes the, you know, some part of photography business. It all gets eaten away slightly. And I don't know where that's going to leave us a year from now or where it's going to leave other photographers. I mean, you and I will still be doing our street photography and stuff.

And I would say we fall under as street photographers, if we want to categorize ourselves as that, we sort of fall into the sort of journalistic documentary kind of thing, you know, where we're sort of recording what's reality and stuff like that. It'll be really interesting to follow with this. But I, but I'm not sure I have the concerns anymore because just like anything I get really, you know, you can only hold those emotions so much in your life.

Like how much more can I get concerned about AI imagery? It's here, the genie's out of the bottle. And, you know, I want to say it's time to move on, but all I can do now is focus on the kind of photography I want to do. And yeah, I've been using the generative remove tools. I've tried, I've tried those generative, you know, here we go. Sirens. I've tried those, like the ones where you add stuff, the generative addition stuff.

And, you know, I played with it and it's like, okay, that's fun for like for 18 seconds. You know, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. But certainly, like, removing that telephone wire from the sky, you know, seems to do no harm or whatever. But I don't know. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I do want to acknowledge that AI is there. And now it's starting to leak into the cameras, especially with, you know, I mean, this is in Sony cameras.

Any camera that now has the ability to focus on subjects, right? You know, planes, trains, cars, helmets, that's all using AI. And there's, you know, actually, I'm curious about that.

I don't know if this is an issue, but like our, well, a place like Magnum or any of these agencies start to question about the artificial intelligence that's built to cameras where, I mean, I'm not, is this something you think where, you know, cameras are now doing the thinking for you in terms of like, okay, well, they're going to focus on this person or they're going to focus on that.

Or i mean i'm maybe i'm maybe that's a making a mountain out of a molehill or something like that i don't know is it the canon system that or is it the nikon system where you give it a catalog.

Of the heads of the athletes that you're going to photograph and it recognizes oh i don't know that oh yeah oh i've forgotten what system that is but you can put up to six that sounds like a cannon thing actually okay so i think yeah oh so okay this is all news to me and you can have it follow is it basketball volleyball and i've forgotten the third sport soccer so they're all related games where the camera will track the where the ball goes and it goes to another athlete

and then it does the the human recognition on that and it focuses on that athlete that happens that gets the ball. Wow. And they found it did work pretty well.

Jordan from the from petapixel they did a test at a basketball game okay it seemed to work they're kind of gently amazed by it it seemed to work well you know i imagine this time next year i mean as is they start to incorporate some of this stuff that are in smartphones into cameras i mean smartphones have the advantage because they're just essentially computers so they have a more processing power than a camera but i imagine that that that crossover will start to happen sooner

or later as we'll start getting more stuff packed into a camera so hearing i don't know why i don't know about this about the the um the athletes that you can feed in images into your into your camera but i wonder what that will what will that do because in that sense it's it's augmenting the photographer's skills or even maybe surpassing the skills and will an agency then start to judge photographers based on because then anybody who has that camera let's just say let's

let's play it out a little bit if you've got a camera that's automatically like you can feed in the entire basketball team into your camera do you need to be a professional to be able to shoot that no really i mean then the camera is doing all the work for you yeah you're set you just set up cameras in strategic locations around the court right right and so you no longer perhaps need to have that, you know, like a Walter Eos or, you know. Name any sports photographers doing this for years.

Will that be the case that those types of photographers will no longer be needed or desired because someone who walks in, I've got three of these Canon cameras and I can, I can capture both teams just by myself and whatnot.

And so anyway, uh, to be continued. Music.

I was talking before about my hometown and the next thing is and i've been dragging this on and i'm not leaving for another three months but okay planning that's going into my japan trip like i'm i'm really enjoying that and dreaming up ideas and looking at my japanese photo books and And kind of centering myself in that and getting the mindset for when I go over there, I think it's a worthy thing to do, even if my pictures don't turn out as good as I hope. It's just a thing that….

I really enjoy doing, thinking about it and planning for it. Is that something that built up for you over the year, though? Yeah, because I started thinking about it. When did you know you were going on the trip? I booked it, oh goodness, probably mid-summer. But I knew I was for sure going to go to Japan when my daughter got the job there. I'm like, now this is, I'm not, you know, I don't need an excuse not to go. Now I can, I can actually go and I can start planning for it.

That's where the seed, you know, got laid down and then, you know, talking with her about timing and all that kind of stuff. And then now I'm starting to think about, okay, what, what is it that I can do? What, what, you know, what subject matter, what time of day, what locales am I going to go to?

And then trying to be as methodic as i can in the way my idea of being methodic is not is it's not like racks and racks and notes it's sort of like little trigger words that came from chat gpt about how to think about things and you know come up with those four buckets of of. Whatever psych psychology of the images and then when i go out to shoot i'll pick two of them and try and work around that. And then it's just a matter of working with what I'm walking into.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So, yeah, that's big. I mean, you know, like I say, if things don't work out, fine. But it just seems like a very good way to use my time and energy and focus on this planning. Maybe it feels like, well, what you're doing when you're storyboarding a movie.

I don't know. maybe it's the same kind of flush of creativity even though nothing has come of it yet it's the the planning part and i understand why people are less like it's fine you know well yeah i mean almost less like a cinema verite movie where you're just sort of walking into this situation, with a jumbly camera and you're doing things here you're although that can be very planned out as well i don't mean to say that cinema verite is this you

know random thing but you know like i've When we talked about this before, if I go someplace, I have never thought about doing what you're doing, like in terms of like planning and like being methodical. And do you think that doesn't leave any room open for improvisation or do you think it does? Or is it like you think those are two different mindsets? No, you shoot whatever you're going to shoot. You're going to do the tourist stuff because you're there.

You're going to run into things that fall outside of your thought, outside of your thought. but what your plans are, and I will shoot those. Nothing will stop me from shooting those. It's just... You get rid of the feeling of i am here what am i do what am i gonna start shooting you know like i was in mexico it's sort of like what what is it that i'm here for you know like it was like you know i was not exactly freaked out i guess i was freaked out a little bit.

Like i i don't know i don't know where to start kind of feeling yeah right but but i guess what What I'm asking is like, I mean, I can also say we could point to like a jazz musician where you're, there is room for both reading the music and the song and then improvise. Yeah. Right. And so where the, the song is written out and it's space and you know, the, the notes that you have to play, but there's space for, you know, bringing in something totally new.

And what I'm imagining you're doing is that you're doing all this planning and stuff like that, but you can't necessarily stick to the script that you're doing. And so that you have, you think you will have room for, I guess this is a question, but you have room for improv. And I'm imagining you're going to say, yeah, because you have to have room for it, right? And also it's, it's our resting state anyway. Like when we're out there shooting, it is all improvisation.

So it's just, you know, we have, you know, the, the, the time when I'm the most focused is on the Stampede Midway. And that is, I have a very specific agenda in mind to shoot those images, but that's, that's like playing a lot of the same chords, right? Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. So this'll be, this'll be good because there'll be different times of day. I mean, really what I'm after is I want there to be something at the end of this, like a book or a zine or a folio. Yeah. Yeah.

And, and I'm, I'm there for less than two weeks. I thought it was there for more, but I'm just there for whatever it is, 11 days.

I want to make very good use of the time there so that I'm not, I will have enough interesting work that I'll be able to, you know do something with it if it means a second trip well there will be a second trip i'm you know i'm yeah but maybe there's a second volume or something but what it sounds like you don't want or what you would are working at is not leaving something like an open-ended like well i'm going to go there

photograph and then throw the pictures on lightroom and then okay well yeah that was fun and go on the next thing you've got this definite two weeks is a great amount of time i mean it you know maybe you could do i'm not saying you would do this but.

There's nothing wrong with say well if i was only going to be in this place for one day i would make as best use of it as possible and i would come out with a zine when i'm done if as long as i had the pictures and stuff yeah so okay that's okay well yeah to be continued when are you going again remind us when you're going end of march beginning of april end of march right so that's about the time when we're recording so

i have to find some guest hosts And I discovered yesterday that the expo, the World's Fair, is going to be in Osaka four days after I leave. Oh, well. Osaka sponsored the World's Fair in the 70s, 1974. Ah, okay. So they've got a venue and everything. So I'm going to see if I can get anywhere near the construction site. Because there's a giant wooden structure apparently they've built. So it'll be very near completion by the time I get there. Okay.

Just that, that's one thing. Like that's one thing I learned. I'm going to add it on my day trip or two days in Osaka. I will, I'll make a point of going there and seeing what's going on. Yeah. So I'm going to speak for everybody who's listening. You know, we're expecting a lot. Well, I keep talking about it. You better, you better. But I also say, even if nothing comes of it, I always say, I try and say that. Yeah, I know.

I don't know how can nothing come of it yeah i'd like to do that but what i'm trying to impart is not to try and impress you and to tell you something really cool is coming it's to let everybody know that i really like to do this planning and that if you're in my position i would encourage you to do the same and have fun thinking about what you're doing before you do it because you know as street photographers especially most of our work sucks because.

Don't tell no that's that's the dirty that's a dirty secret of street photography yeah everybody who's listening to this don't say that today we don't want to discourage people yeah but all right i want to go in with a mindset of and i was thinking about this the other day too not just planning what but as part of your mindset don't think about what you're not going a cover, think about what you can do and have that.

It's unintentionally positive, even though the subject matter I'll be shooting, I'm sure it'll be quite dark. There's, you know, come from a point of view of what you can do, what you can offer, as opposed to chewing your fingernails and being concerned about what you can't do when you're in that situation. And, and I think, you know, you and I have seen talk, talked with, with new photographers are like, I don't know what to do.

Like, you know, no one knows what they're going to do when they go out for their photo walk. Right. Right. You find, you make those discoveries and you go into it with a positive attitude. Like I'm going to cover, like, I have no idea what I'm going to cover and do the best I can. And then what comes out the other end, comes out the other end. You can't torpedo your hope with, with, you know, that negativity.

For this all of that because it's all about yeah it's all part of the exploring right and exploring.

If you have a map and you know where the map is it takes away a lot of the the you know the the pleasure and mystery of something you know and so i'm not saying that you shouldn't have a map but but if you know everything along the way then you might go into it with just anyway sorry i'm gonna actually the thought is wrong i know no but i'll kind of finish the thought and my idea was I'm not going there as a tourist. I'm not going there for a particular, oh my gosh, kind of discovery.

I'm looking at Google Street View. I want to know how long it's going to take me to walk from the train station to my daughter's house or where it's in Dottamburi. I'm going to be, you know, walk this street and then that street. I'm doing all that, but I'm not doing it.

I'm not going as a typical tourist. The point of me going there is to create content for a book for a folio right and so that that's the point of view i'm prepping for a kind of a mission actually as much as i am it's a vacation yes it's a vacation but it's doing it's working to create this product at the end it's a different it's a different priority.

Cool thank you for that all right i think might have time for a couple of more right so, in terms of time did you start off or did i start off you started off yeah yeah but i just i just finished my points on i don't know yeah i know i was like i want to see if i can make it even maybe maybe we just have room time for one more okay just to yeah maybe we'll do time for one more and we've done it even i just realized there's so much we've talked about this year And there's

so much that, that has influenced me.

I, this is not my thing yet, but I did notice over the year cause my, my Lightroom catalog is, is very low in the amount of pictures. And I'm not sure where that's coming from. There's been, I mean, you know, as everybody knows, the personal stuff that's been going on in my life that I've mentioned affects me, but I've been, you know, really trying to take my camera out and move. And I'm not sure that I can judge my year by like the amount of pictures I've

taken. And I don't know if that says I'm doing better this year or I'm doing worse or anything. I don't know if that's a metric worth, but I am noticing that I have been taking less pictures. I haven't had to add more hard drives to my, my archive bank, you know, not yet. I'm still been like shuffling stuff around. So, so that's interesting. And, you know, I did get the one new camera, which is not really a new camera.

It's the same old camera, just in a new body, you know, the, the X 100 V, but that came in later in the year so it doesn't didn't really play an issue that being said the sort of the last thing i'm going to go back to the photographers that that i've learned about this year first of all i mean i did say trent park i mean i knew a little bit about him before but with some of the. Jessica Lange, who I didn't even know was a photographer. Todd Heido, excuse me.

And Noggle. Noggle, I think that's how we decided. Am I pronouncing your name right? Brian Schutemann, we talked about, whose book I ended up buying. I don't know where it is now all of a sudden. I missed that boat. I said I was going to buy it. You missed that boat. It was the most beautiful book, you know? Yeah. And I'm going to wrap up this part of it. This is not somebody new, but Vivian Meyer.

So having gone to her show, the show of her work, I should say, at Fotografiska in the city that closed in September, that affected me deeply as well. But all these photographers, like, you know, first of all, just like putting a list together of like, who are the new photographers in my circles now that I'm thinking about? And there's a bazillion of them. I mean, you know, I went to that photo books, the book show at the ICP.

And if I was like, there was so much good work there. I mean, it's like, it's everywhere. So, you know, I mean, I'm not going to say this is a resolution or something like that, but I do want to spend some more time in the future, not necessarily next year specifically, but, you know, in the future, finding newer photographers. I've spent so much time with photographers we've known already for so long. It's really fun to find somebody new.

And you've pointed out a few of them to me. I'm very surprised at that. But anyway, I want to just go back to Vivian Myers work because the show to me was like, if you guys remember when I went to Irving Penn's show, you know, way back at the, when it was at the Met and it was a retrospective of his work. And he's a hero of mine, of course.

And to see Vivian's work sort of treated in the same way, even though she was not the same kind of photographer and to see it presented the way it was and to learn a little bit more about her and, and just sort of dive in into sort of the same kind of experience, I think, or similar experience that you had with, what's her name?

Deanne Arbus, right? Yeah. I'm walking through this thing, looking at her prints and feeling something in my body and in my psyche with her and something that she probably could not have ever anticipated in her life. I imagine. And, and to come out of that, like rearing to like, when I walked out of the show, I was like, my, my camera was in my hand and I'm like taking pictures of everybody on the street. Crappy shots, of course. But you know, Remember, most of your work sucks.

Most of my work sucks. But to have that kind of drive. And the things I learned about that. Oh, so the show was so impactful that I even changed my street photography class. Because when I was going through the show, I literally photographed every single one of her prints with my phone. And it's not because I want to print them or doing it like that. I wanted to show my future street photography classes this woman's work.

Because for a couple of reasons i mean first of all it's beautiful and it's very accessible right.

It i like to show it to students because when you look at it you can just say i can do work like that like you know pictures of hands and you know whatever she's doing people on the on the staten ion ferry like do modern versions of that but i just find it very accessible and very inspiring and so if i was going to say that one show i mean i didn't see a lot of shows this year but like one group of photographs really really inspired me it was that was that show and and

also to learn a little bit more about her in terms of like like you hear her voice in it but also that her her own choice this is i think the most important learning i've had of her her her choice of what her images are going to look like because they showed her prints i talked about this before compared to her overall frame her her choice of cropping sucks excuse me i'm sorry to say this vivian wherever you are in the universe but please you you your your conscious mind did not know what

it was doing your subconscious on the other hand knew exactly what it was doing because every single one of her frames was was gorgeous and to think that we could be running these reels in our head in a couple of different ways where one part of our inner brain. Self knows what we want. And then we get clouded by this conscious self that thinks, okay, well, I think I know better. Right. And, you know, we say, I'm going to do this, or I'm going to change that.

But somewhere in the back running in a silent reel is, is that, is that other quiet self that says, no, I know the frame, this is the frame, you know, trust me on this and stuff like that and you know maybe how to how to take those two and and bring them a little closer together.

Would be an interesting like experiment or how to even manage that so anyway her work i don't know i feel like if i if i had to pick one thing that would have affected me for the whole year i would have to say that show and like i said i did photograph all of her pictures and i redid my tooled my slideshow for my photography my street photography class i said if you guys didn't see the if you didn't see

the vivian meyer show here it is and i didn't show all the pictures But like I said, and I also said, I'm going to shut up and I'm going to play the show and you just look at the pictures. And I listened to the, to the, you know, the exclamations of, of the, of the, uh, students and some people, you know, you hear little sounds and stuff like that. And that, that feels really good.

And so anyway, that would have been my kind of my, my, my big takeaway from this year, I think, you know, is, is, is seeing that kind of work. And also like maybe trying to see if I can seek out more of that, because I realize how much like interacting or being with a photograph or a photographer in that manner is, is brings a bodily, you know. Experience to this, to this thing that we call photography, you know? So, yeah. So I think that might be it. I got to think one short one. One short one.

Okay. We'll make it real short. Rediscovering film photographer, because Vivian Meyer reminded me, she is the Roloflex. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a late 50s RolloCord, not as fancy as her Roloflex, but the glass is just as good, I think. And my son, I gave my son my, she came at 124, and he and I have gone out a couple of times in the summertime shooting color and black and white on our twin lens cameras and good bonding, father-son bonding experience.

And kind of the fun and of, of film photography, but without the chemicals, uh, we have a local lab scan them and I get the negatives and then I, we, we put them in Lightroom mobile and we have fun with it. So less, less toxicity. Less toxicity. Yes. And that dark in the palm of your hand, man, it is the best.

Yeah. Well, let's let, let's throw in, you know, I've been doing most of my processing on my phone these days on Lightroom because they keep putting extra features in Lightroom on the mobile device. That makes it much, much more fun to do that. You know, I don't know why it's like, it's so much nicer for me than sitting on a computer and doing it, but that's me. So. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like a doodling, you know? Yeah. It's improvisation. There's a bit of a jazz component to it too.

Hey, we do this, we do that. Check up the saturation. Oh, the horns are too bright. Let's back out. Yeah. I'll be interested to see what technological stuff comes out this year in terms of cameras and software and stuff like that. I mean, as one final notice of what was going on, the noise reduction software has gotten so insanely good in the past year.

If if you don't overdo it and make it look like it's artificial with artificial intelligence, it's done a real good job to almost knock out like you can almost like who cares about iso these days like yeah shoot at 12 000 who cares you just drop it in drop it into topaz you know photo ai and get rid of the noise and keep all the detail and you're good to go so it's you know, I didn't think that would be happening, but anyway, all right, I'm going to go. There's too many things.

It's, you know, I, I wrote, I printed out three pages of stuff that we could talk about and it was a whole year. I mean, we get a fit a whole year into an hour. So yeah. Yeah. Well, I think those are the ones that, that caught me the most. I mean, there's a lot of other stuff, but I think, I think, you know. The Trent Park and AI and, and the other stuff we're talking about, I think was, was really kind of hitting. And, and the last thing is like, you know, new cameras are coming out.

So, but I'll talk about them when I get it. So the next shiny, shiny thing. I turned into a gear review show. Yeah. I'm sure everybody listens to us. They'll say, you guys are so good at this. I'm going to pick up a lens and say, it's this lens is too heavy. It's got a thing that does this. And people are like, what are you guys? You're reviewing it here on a, on a podcast. Yeah.

Well, what are you going to do? we're doing a photography show on a podcast right so we're talking about images yeah and describing all right so let's uh let's wrap i think that's good so where where where are you found these days you can find me if i can find myself here first uh i found you so vero twitter and blue sky at w rosin photo oh you're on blue sky now i'm blue sky wait a minute wait a minute i haven't posted anything yet a lot of applause yeah start

posting so you're on blue sky is what yeah w rosin photo so new work i'll start posting there um okay instagram i'm at ward rosin fine art facebook you can find me at ward rosin photo my website which is still woefully inadequate but you know i have hopes for it is that rosin.ca and our unofficial sponsor is unofficial sponsor Ornice.photo. So, and I want to thank the people that are interested in that. I sell, um, I sell manual focus, um, seven artisans lenses and, uh, filters.

My neutral density filters. I've sold a few of those lately. So yeah, no, it's, uh, it's a fun thing. A nice little, little side hustle. What about you, Antonio? And you said people, you want to thank, well, you said you want to thank people. You would say, I cut you off. Oh, no, I just don't want to thank people for their interest and so on.

And now that the, in front of my Canadian customers, now that the postal strike is over, you can go ahead with your orders if that's what you were thinking. So, yeah. What about you, Antonio? Where can we find you? All right. Blue Sky at AM Rosario. Instagram, which is, you know, I dabble, AM Rosario Photo. My website is amrosario.com Facebook Rosario Photo you get where I'm going with this you sure like that name Rosario Rosario yeah.

Although subscribe to our Substack newsletter please I know you said you're going to do an article at some point but that's cool it'd be great for you to do something about what we're talking about but anyway, streetshots.substack.com we've been getting a lot of great referrals from Barry and X's Candid Frame But sign up there. It doesn't hurt to sign up. And I'm not spamming anybody yet.

So anyway, if you want to say greetings to us with your voice, leave us a voicemail at speakpipe.com slash streetshots. And if you would like to buy us a coffee like Dan Sudberg did, we really appreciate it, Dan. Thank you so much. You can buy us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com slash Antonio Rosario.

So thank you thank you for all that thank you for all your support and any any chump change you guys send our direction is really appreciated helps literally buy us a coffee i mean like i just drank one today so i'll chalk that up to uh it's what kept me awake for doing the show.

Not that i was bored or anything like that it's just like it's the end of the day and it's yeah been a long holiday thing but uh so uh ward you know i'm i probably won't talk to you right a few more days until uh new year so have a great new year's yeah you too my friend yeah and to everybody out there who um whatever holiday you're celebrating now uh please have a good one and you know we will see you next year uh we'll hopefully have more people i know a couple of some of our

some of our um uh gosh i'm spacing out our unusual um fellows and usual collective fellettes, collective yeah we might have a surprise guest on hopefully uh hopefully she'll agree to be on the show i'm dropping a hint oh that might be interesting it will be interesting all right okay so um everybody have a great new year and ward thank you for spending some of your evening with me tonight and i'm always happy to do it all right everybody have a good uh

holiday and see you next year and ciao good night. Music.