Sand and Shell #2

When you go to the coast and walk along the beach, it doesn’t take long to realize that there is a whole world of subject matter right at your feet, and it’s constantly changing.

Here’s another shell in the sand taken at Driftwood Beach State Park on the Oregon coast.

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I’d better be careful. This Saturday morning thing might get to be a regular and expected feature on this blog. Anyway…

Though the version of this blog that you’re seeing now has only been around since January, I’ve been blogging about photography since March of 2007. I’ve experimented with various looks and titles and hosting platforms and what-not, and finally settled on this self-hosted beast called photomontana.net. Though I’ll no doubt continue to experiment with other sites and other ideas, this one is pretty well set the way I want it. It’s kind of my home base now.

One of the titles I played with before was ‘a camera, a laptop, and a life’. That’s been my dream — nay, not dream so much, but goal — for some time now. Finding a way to support myself with photography, using a camera and computer, has been my mission for the last year or two. It’s becoming increasingly urgent since I lost my job in June and am quickly burning through my meager cash reserve. No simple task when, like me, you’re not inclined to go the professional photography route. I know it’s possible, in fact likely, that I’ll have to do a few things I don’t particularly want to do to keep this thing going. I’m prepared for that. Nothing is perfect.

I work on the old desktop computer I’m sitting at right now for the most part, but I have a laptop that I use occasionally when I’m not here at home. I set it up, along with a camera, on the desk in the bedroom my daughter uses when she’s here with me as a visual prop for myself. Along with that, I’ve burned a question into my little brain — if that’s all I owned, if that camera and computer were my only earthly possessions, and my only means of survival was to support myself with them, how would I go about it? How would I make a living with a camera and a laptop?

I’ve had no great lightning flashes of insight yet. In the meantime I’ll keep doing what I’m doing here, improving on it the best I can, and trying out different ideas. I’ll probably play with different ideas for sites, though I don’t want to spread myself too thin, to see what might have possibilities and what won’t. That’s how you find out. Some things might work well and others might fail miserably. If that’s the case I’ll cheerfully admit it and move on.

Some of you may be aspiring to the same sort of life, so in the spirit of play I’ll leave you with that same question this morning. Pitch in with your two cents if you’re so inclined. If all you had were a camera and a laptop and had to support yourself with them, how would you do it? It might prove to be an interesting exercise, it might be a total waste of time, but go ahead and have at it.

Cheers,
pj

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pond abstract #5

It’s been awhile since I’ve added to my series of abstract photographs from the duck pond across the street. Here’s the fifth one in an ongoing series.

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I just have a few short notes I’ll pass along this morning from here in my little corner of the blogosphere.

First off, I’ve made a couple of minor changes of my own. I’ve been blogging for a little over four years now, and have been involved with a handful of various sites, some now defunct. When I started, I adopted the screen name pj finn and have been using it ever since. Anonymity was never an issue, I just liked the sound of it better than my given name, Paul Johnson. To put it mildly it’s a common name. I think at least half the people on this planet known at least one Paul Johnson. When I first started in photography, and started contacting others with my work, the conversation would generally start with “no, I’m not that Paul Johnson”. So I decided to become pj finn when I started doing this, which is fine, only now that I’m doing so much of my everyday activity online, and have so many accounts, both under my real name and my screen name, I’m starting to confuse myself. Besides, I believe in honesty in my work and my photography, and have been growing increasingly uneasy working under an assumed name. It’s not a big lie, but rather than continue sitting here and wondering if I should drop the pen name, I’ll just do it and be done.

So, for what it’s worth, I’ve started blogging under my own given name with a small difference, My name is still as common as dirt, so I’ll just use my first initial rather than my first name, and keep it lower-case as I am wont to do. From here on out I’m p johnson, and the name pj finn is no more. I will still post as pj though, as they are my initials.  All clear?

I’ve pointed out before here that I started a sister site to this one a couple of months ago that’s about working with simple equipment, in my case a garage sale special that cost two bucks. I set in up on a dormant free blogger domain I had to try it out and to see if it was something I wanted to continue doing. It is, I think it has a lot of possibilities for me, so I moved it over to this hosting account, onto another domain I had sitting around collecting dust. It’s still in it’s infancy, and hasn’t really grown legs yet, but the idea appeals to me and I think it’s a blog I can have a great time doing. Stop on by and take a look, it’s right here, and let me know what you think.

*      *      *

Okay, enough about me. One of the pleasures of blogging is to discover a new site and be able to give it a shout out, to be able to say ‘hey, check this guy out’. That’s what I’ll take a moment to do here.

Eric Leslie started a photography blog about a month ago, and I stumbled onto it yesterday.  He does some very good work, but rather than rattle on about him I’ll send you over there to let his work speak for itself,  so ‘hey, check this guy out’.

*      *      *

On a similar note, Derrick over at my sight picture put up a piece about post processing, manipulating photos in Photoshop, and gives his take on it all.  I’d recommend heading over there and giving him a hand opening up that can of worms.

And that’s all for now folks…

Cheers,

pj

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rock abstract #2

pj

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My recent trip showed me a few things about myself. Or rather, it reaffirmed a few things I already know. For one thing, I’m not a very prolific photographer. I was gone a little over two weeks and came home with maybe ten or twelve photos that I like enough to use on my blogs, and maybe two or three I consider worthy of making prints of. I’m fine with that, it’s the way I work, but it points out another thing. I make a lousy pro. I’m simply not wired for it.

I’ve subtitled this blog ‘carving out a life as an artist’. That’s the way I need to work, and that’s the approach I need to put my energies into now. Why wait? I’m fast approaching 60 years old. Too damn fast — if I could find a speed control on this thing called life, I’d turn it down several notches right now. I don’t have time to waste on things I don’t want to do. I did the professional thing back in the 80′s and early 90′s, but flat out quit. It’s one of those things I don’t want to do.

I don’t look at photography solely as a way to make a living, but rather as a way to live a life. It’s about being alive and awake and aware, and about giving visual form to that awareness. It’s about slowing down, recognizing those visual moments that stop you in your tracks, working with them, and making the strongest images you can from them. Now and then I succeed, and if I can turn that into a living so much the better.

I don’t see photography being about equipment either. Though I do shoot digitally these days, some of my favorite moments come with the simplest camera I own in hand. There are times when I’m tempted to put the digital stuff on the shelf and just work with that one simple, basic little film camera. I could do everything I want to do with it, and never outlive the possibilities. It’s an interesting thought, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

I could ramble on here all day, but I won’t. Maybe I’ll dig into some of these thoughts in more depth in future posts. If any of you have any thoughts or ideas or observations or insights, they’d be most welcome. Let’s consider this something of an open thread.

I’ve noticed over the past few months that the readership on this blog has been steadily climbing. To those of you who come by here, I want you to know that I greatly appreciate it. It’s nice to know you’re not working in a total vacuum. Hopefully, when I visit your sites, I can offer even half the encouragement you bring me. Stick around, and let’s see where this journey takes this contrary old photographer. It may prove to be an interesting ride. Bumpy at times, but interesting.

Cheers,
pj

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cannery wall

My daughter and I spent a good part of a day in Newport, Oregon, a small fishing town on the coast.

Part of the town is set aside as a tourist and historical area. Here you can eat fresh seafood, which we did, buy many of the touristy things people do when they’re traveling, which we also did, and catch a few glimpses of a working fishing town. Several of the canneries and fish processing plants are located in this part of Newport, and many of the walls are painted with murals like this one. Interesting place.

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Pizza Orgasmica -- San Francisco

I saw this pizza place in downtown San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. One can’t help but wonder if the food lives up to it’s name.

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I’m back home in Montana again. I got back here Friday afternoon, and thought to post a few brief impressions of what I saw over the past couple of weeks.

The Oregon coast is magnificent. The power of the ocean is overwhelming at first, as is the beauty of it’s meeting with the land. It’s a place I could explore further. Maybe I will.

San Francisco isn’t bad, for a town. Actually I really like it — I just don’t ever want to try to park a car there again. It’s a fascinating city and there’s so much there to get to know. Besides, my stepson lives there. I’ll go again, but next time I’ll leave my car behind and parachute in or something.

To those of you who live around LA I’ll just say, with all due respect, you can have it. I enjoyed being able to see the world my daughter lives in now, but hey — I’m from Montana. Those freeways and traffic are a little much. LA County alone has about ten times the population of the whole state of Montana, and they’re all in their damn cars. We drive here too, but we’re not all driving in the same place at the same time. My hair is a lot grayer than it was just a couple of weeks ago. Once I got through it all and hit I-15 heading north I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Until I hit the desert.

I’ve never been in such brutal heat as that around Barstow and Baker. I was almost afraid to get out of the car because I thought I might sink right through the pavement. The desert is a harsh, starkly beautiful place, no doubt about it. It’s also a good reminder that nature isn’t necessarily gentle and forgiving. Places like that can kill you.

I pulled over in Las Vegas for the night hoping for a little respite, but it wasn’t much different. Just busier. I got a room, went over to New York, New York for a couple of hours, had a good meal, blew about ten bucks on the machines, and called it good. I have one piece of short simple advice to anyone contemplating driving through the Mojave Desert in the summertime. Don’t do it. Go around. Not only can you avoid the worst of the heat that way, you can also avoid Vegas.

In typical pj fashion, I hit the Salt Lake City area just in time for the afternoon commute. Miles and miles of cars, many lanes of them crammed almost bumper to bumper, from Provo to Ogden. It took over two hours to get through it. I eventually escaped out the north end of it, and am firmly convinced that you couldn’t drag me to a big city with a tractor right about now.

Finally, yesterday morning, I climbed up out of Idaho over Monida Pass and saw the big, beautiful Welcome to Montana sign. I almost pulled over and got out to kiss the ground. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, but due to time and a limited budget I wasn’t able to explore as much as I would have liked.  Being able to finish my daughter’s visit with a road trip, and to be able to spend some time in both of my kid’s worlds was great. But, like I said, I’m from Montana and I’m glad to be back here. This is my place. This is my home.

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