Monday, December 26, 2011

Chase Jarvis, Lego Camera. . .

Here's a video from digitalrev.com featuring pro photographer Chase Jarvis and what he can do with a Lego Camera...

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Santa's Secret Letter. . .

Last night, my daughter Grace left a letter for Santa asking him to please send her a picture of Rudolph.  She has been in a heated debate with her five year old sister the past three weeks as to whether or not Rudolph is real. Well, this morning Santa put an end to all the debate... Here's a copy of what was waiting for Grace... We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!        ~ mat

Dear Grace,

Thank you so much for the letter and the cookies!  I know that you and your sisters were especially good this year and I hope you like all of the toys that I left.  As for your question, that’s a tough question to answer by words, so I’ve attached a picture that I took of Rudolph tonight before we left the North Pole.  Merry Christmas girls! 

Love,
Santa

P.S.  Next year tell mom and dad to leave me some hot cocoa with the cookies!

Friday, December 23, 2011

The Story of Christmas. . .

Here is an excellent remake of the Greatest Story Ever Told. . . .  I hope you enjoy it.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Return of ReinDog

Although I did not take this image, I had to post it here tonight.  My lovely wife took this shot of our dog Hondo the other day.  Every year she converts Hondo into one of Santa's reindeer, and every year Hondo has that silly look on his face that just seems to say, "Oh no, not again!"

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Just Another One of Those Daze?

This photo series “The Beauty of an Ugly Addiction” is Photographer Frieke Janssens’ response to nicotine addiction and new smoking laws. She asks, “does this ban treat adults like children who can’t willfully decide whether or not to partake in this horribly harmful habit? What is it about smoking, aside from the obvious addictive content, that draws people in? Is it its image from film noir? Is it the appeal of its performative consumption, that mannerism or pose that seems to imbue a smoker with a particular sort of character?”

Friday, December 9, 2011

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree. . .

Tonight we continued the family tradition of decorating the Christmas Tree. . .  the girls had a blast and as they danced and pranced around the room, I enjoyed my wife looking over at me, sharing a look of pure contentment. . .




Sunday, December 4, 2011

Which Photo A or B? Help me decide. . .

Alright readers, I'm turning to you for help.  I have recently taken two images (I won't tell you how I got them. . .) and I'm having trouble deciding which one to use.  I'm asking you to comment below on which image you prefer and why?  We'll discuss more of the image purpose in a later post. 

Image "A"

Image "B"

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Chryde and Mackelmore . . .

Here is a very inspiring video presented by photographer Chase Jarvis .  In this short film, Chase interviews two creative artists about how they "made it" in their industry.  I hope it will inspire all of you the same way it has driven me to continue to push through the "barriers" that seemingly block our success.  Enjoy.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Traditions are born . . .

Every year at Thanksgiving, every family has their traditions that they continue to pass on... in our family it's the creating of the antipasto. And as of last year, the wearing of the turkey hats!  I hope you have a Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving.  -mat

The day begins with the Lions game.

Grandpa tries to convince Gevi that Turkey's have four legs! 
Grace sample the antipasto.

The creation process.

Grandpa slices and dices...

Grandma teach the girls to roll the meats.

The Finished Product!
The Bird

Dinnertime...

The newest tradition.... Turkey Hats!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Vivian Maier, A Look Back. . .

Vivian Maier, Invisible Woman

Rescued in a fluke from the dustbin of history, an unknown street photographer makes a remarkable posthumous journey from obscurity to acclaim
 
 
In 2007 John Maloof, a self-described “third-generation flea-market seller,” spotted some vintage photos of Chicago in a commercial storage locker being auctioned off for nonpayment. An amateur historian, the 26-year-old thought some of them might be relevant to a book he was co-writing about the history of his Windy City neighborhood of Portage Park. He paid $400 for a box of more than 30,000 negatives, not a single one of which was appropriate for his book. But he did receive a consolation prize: He’d discovered a previously unknown artist who may rank among the top street photographers of the mid-20th century.

Though he knew little about photography, Maloof was charmed by the images he saw. In October 2009 he posted a link on the Flickr group Hardcore Street Photography pointing at the blog he’d started, asking its members what to do with the collection. Within 24 hours, Maloof had received 200 replies, a shocking number for a relatively obscure forum. The photos, it seemed, were quite good indeed. Good enough for superlatives to start being thrown around and for offers to start pouring in. This made sense. People had certainly seemed happy enough to buy when he’d offered individual negatives earlier on eBay.
Prior to posting, Maloof had begun to dig into the mystery of who this shooter might be. Eventually he’d ascertained that the photos had been taken by one Vivian Maier, a woman who worked most of her adult life as a professional nanny, mostly in the suburbs of Chicago’s North Shore. On her days and evenings off, Maier had secretly roamed the streets, shooting an estimated 100,000 photos from the early 1950s until the mid-1990s, many with a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex.
Her tale quickly gripped the blogosphere. “I was surprised at how viral the story became almost immediately,” Maloof has said. “It has been snowballing ever since it was noticed online.”
"I was surprised at how viral the story became almost immediately"
It’s said that Maier, a fiercely private individual, didn’t even like people to know her full name. Consequently, many of the details of her life are still surfacing. So far we know that Maier was born in New York City in 1926 to a French mother and Austrian father. Sometime after her birth she and her mother moved back to France, to Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur, the tiny village where her mother’s family was from. It’s possible the seeds of her photographic passion were sown at age 4, when she and her mother lived with the French-born, American-raised fin-de-siècle portrait photographer Jeanne J. Bertrand. Maier made two transatlantic round trips (once with her mother) before settling in New York City in 1951 when she was about 25. Audiotapes and personal accounts confirm that she spoke with a light French accent for the rest of her life.
About 1948 or 1949 Maier started photographing the people and buildings of Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur using a Kodak Brownie box camera. By 1952 she was coming into her own as a photographer; perhaps cosmopolitan New York City provided her with the spark of inspiration a small village couldn’t provide. By the mid-1950s, Maier’s signature style had fully emerged. As Maloof points out, Maier was a very refined and self-assured photographer: “Her rolls [of film] are not click, click, click. She wasn’t impulsive; she was careful with each shot. She rarely took three or four shots of the same person.” Based on the photographic record she left behind, her creative peak came between 1952, a year after she started shooting in Manhattan, and the mid-1970s, when she transitioned into 35mm color film.
She was employed by the Gensburgs, a wealthy Chicago family, for 17 years, becoming a second mother to the family’s three boys, John, Lane and Matthew (all now in their fifties). The brothers and their mother stayed in touch with Maier throughout her life, even assisting her with an apartment and a nursing home in her last years. When she died (in 2009 at the age of 83, just before Maloof discovered her identity), it was the Gensburgs who scattered her ashes in the North Shore woods where she had taken the brothers strawberry picking as youngsters.
There’s no evidence to suggest that Maier ever studied photography formally, though from her book collection (given to Maloof by the Gensburgs), it’s clear she was quite aware of other photographers’ work.
Though somewhat scant, the information we have on Maier’s history paints a picture of her as a complex, opinionated and independent woman, often described as a “free spirit” by those who knew her best. Most of all, she fiercely guarded her privacy, to the point where, despite her obviously consuming passion for lens­work, she shared her work with almost no one (though the Gensburgs did purchase some of her photos of their boys). Indeed, her legacy very nearly died with her. Instead, thanks to Maloof, her story is gaining momentum.
Following his initial purchase of the auction lot and the flurry of attention it garnered, Maloof has acquired, by his estimate, about 90 percent of Maier’s known work. Another collector, Jeffrey Goldstein, owns about 15,000 Maier negatives, which he procured well after Maloof began rebuilding Maier’s archive. There are also the approximately 100 negatives Maloof sold on eBay before he understood quite what he was selling. Eventually the noted photographer and critic Allen Sekula advised Maloof to stop selling the negatives.
Martin Fuchs, communications adviser for the Maloof collection, says, “It’s important to us that we do the right thing: establish Vivian Maier as the great photographer she was and get her work seen and known.” Since establishing her as a great photographer will also confer substantial financial reward to those who hold the keys to her work, it would be naïve to consider Maloof’s actions as those of a pure altruist. That said, he doesn’t appear to have found complete comfort in his position regarding the collection either, bristling at any intimation of self-interest. “I understand that people want to know if I’m trying to cash in on this woman’s work,” he says. “That’s not my mission. I’m not going to sell her out for money.”

Whatever his motivation, Maloof has been a relentless (if novice) advocate for Maier and her work. And fighting for institutional and academic recognition has not been easy. “I’ve contacted major institutions such as MoMA and Tate Modern,” he says. “They don’t consider the photos to be the artist’s vision if she didn’t print them.” Which points up the central conundrum of considering Maier alongside giants of her era such as Ruth Orkin, Berenice Abbott and Diane Arbus.
There’s no denying that our understanding of Maier is missing key curatorial and aesthetic pieces that are important to our understanding of photographic artists. We don’t know how she would have edited her work for display or how she would have chosen to print her photos. Nevertheless, the strength of the negatives is hard to deny. Colin Westerbeck, director of the University of California, Riverside California Museum of Photography and one of the country’s leading experts on street photography, has characterized Maier’s work as “not as powerful as that by Arbus,” but nonetheless “obsessive in a way that is similarly irresistible.” David W. Dunlap went further in The New York Times blog Lens, calling Maier “one of America’s more insightful street photographers.” For our part, we find a wry wit in Maier’s work that, when coupled with her technical artistry and compositional skill, makes for vastly enjoyable viewing.
In the absence of academic validation, Maier has been warmly received by the photo-loving public, at first online, and now in a variety of exhibitions: in Chicago, as well as England, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. Two exhibits arrive in December, one at New York City’s Howard Greenberg Gallery and the other at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles. Her work will also be available in book form with the arrival of Vivian Maier: Street Photographer (powerHouse Books), due in November.
Recognition of this kind goes a long way to legitimizing Maier’s body of work and quashing the criticisms of those who would dismiss her as a lucky amateur.
Howard Greenberg, a top photography dealer who also handles prints by Cartier-Bresson and Stieglitz, confesses, “My fascination with her story has only grown, as has my involvement with her photographs. It is such an unusual story with no resolution. At first her images are extremely well seen, quality photographs of life on the street, in New York City and Chicago. But as one looks at the body of work, she reveals her deeper interests. Then one tries to imagine who she was, what motivated her, her personality. It’s not every day that one becomes so involved and even obsessed with thinking about a particular photographer. It’s completely infectious.”
Limited-edition prints for both shows are being handled by master printmaker Steve Rifkin of Hank’s Photographic Services, who also produces prints for the Robert Mapplethorpe and James VanDerZee estates. “It is impossible to assume that Vivian Maier would have made prints like these,” Greenberg says, “but it is acceptable to think that she would approve because of their excellent quality.”
The good news for those intrigued by Maier’s beguiling mystery is that her archive has only barely been tapped. Maloof estimates he’s scanned a mere fraction of the more than 100,000 negatives he has. An additional 1,000 rolls of film still sit undeveloped on their spools, frozen moments in time waiting to be excavated, each one captured by a woman who never guessed the world might care to see itself through her lens.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The Art of Photography. . .

Here's one that will get your attention if you look at it long enough...  Props to the creator of this image... I found it both confusing and inspiring at the same time.  Enjoy!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Worth 1000 Words?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words; this Tuesday a picture was worth $4.3 million, making it the most expensive photograph in the world. The photo is 'Rhein II' (1999) by Andreas Gursky.

Gursky is known for his large, disorienting landscapes. At once majestic and alienating, they don't require a lot of explanation. This photo is meant to be stared at.


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Thanks for the Memories. . .

Fellow photographer Matthew Swarts posted this picture on the web today and I could resist placing it on my blog.   I have many fond memories of the Sesame Street gang and 42 yrs. ago today, the first episode aired.  Thanks for the memories Sesame Street!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

It's Finally Time to Pony Up . . .

Today we took the girls for their first horseback riding lesson.  I couldn't resist the photo opportunity...  Although Gev and Luci did not have a lesson today, they somehow always manage to get in the action.  I hope you enjoy the pics as much as I enjoyed capturing them.  Mommy being a "horse woman" was certainly in her glory...

The pre-ride grooming session.


Gev manages to sneak into the action.

The lovely Luci!

Grace took the first mount.

Mommy watching the action...

Nina is all smiles while riding Kenny.



Sunday, October 16, 2011

A walk to remember.....

Today we took the kids and the dog for a stroll through the neighborhood.  The crisp fall air lulled Marcello to sleep while the girls attempted to tame our neighbors chickens!  Here are some pics from our adventure...

Gev the "chicken whisperer."

A tall grass plant we discover on our walk...



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Happy Halloween. . .

I pulled this from the net and thought you all might get a laugh.... Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

What I learned from Steve Jobs. . .

 Here is a very interesting article I thought you, the reader, would enjoy....

 What I Learned From Steve Jobs

 

October 11, 2011


Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don’t want any lessons to be lost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top 12 lessons that I learned from Steve Jobs.
1. Experts are clueless
Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers and gurus—can’t “do” so they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. They can tell you how to sell something, but they cannot sell it themselves. They can tell you how to create great teams, but they only manage a secretary. For example, the experts told us that the two biggest shortcomings of Macintosh in the mid 1980s was the lack of a daisy-wheel printer driver and Lotus 1-2-3; another advice gem from the experts was to buy Compaq. Hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them.
2. Customers cannot tell you what they need
“Apple market research” is an oxymoron. The Apple focus group was the right hemisphere of Steve’s brain talking to the left one. If you ask customers what they want, they will tell you, “Better, faster and cheaper”—that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can only describe their desires in terms of what they are already using—around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all people said they wanted was better, faster and cheaper MS-DOS machines. The richest vein for tech startups is creating the product that you want to use—that’s what Steve and Woz did.
3. Jump to the next curve
Big wins happen when you go beyond better sameness. The best daisy-wheel printer companies were introducing new fonts in more sizes. Apple introduced the next curve: laser printing. Think of ice harvesters, ice factories and refrigerator companies. Ice 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Are you still harvesting ice during the winter from a frozen pond?
4. The biggest challenges beget best work.
I lived in fear that Steve would tell me that I, or my work, was garbage. In public. This fear was a big challenge. Competing with IBM and then Microsoft was a big challenge. Changing the world was a big challenge. I, and Apple employees before me and after me, did their best work because we had to do our best work to meet the big challenges.
5. Design counts
Steve drove people nuts with his design demands—some shades of black weren’t black enough. Mere mortals think that black is black, and that a trash can is a trash can. Steve was such a perfectionist—a perfectionist Beyond: Thunderdome—and low and behold he was right: some people care about design and many people at least sense it. Maybe not everyone, but the important ones.
6. You can’t go wrong with big graphics and big fonts
Take a look at Steve’s slides. The font is 60 points. There’s usually one big screenshot or graphic. Look at other tech speaker’s slides—even the ones who have seen Steve in action. The font is eight points, and there are no graphics. So many people say that Steve was the world’s greatest product introduction guy...don’t you wonder why more people don’t copy his style?
7. Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence
When Apple first shipped the iPhone there was no such thing as apps. Apps, Steve decreed, were a bad thing because you never know what they could be doing to your phone. Safari Web apps were the way to go until six months later when Steve decided, or someone convinced Steve, that apps were the way to go—but of course. Duh! Apple came a long way in a short time from Safari web apps to “there’s an app for that.”
8. “Value” is different from “price”
Woe unto you if you decide everything based on price. Even more woe unto you if you compete solely on price. Price is not all that matters—what is important, at least to some people, is value. And value takes into account training, support and the intrinsic joy of using the best tool that’s made. It’s pretty safe to say that no one buys Apple products because of their low price.
9. A players hire A+ players
Actually, Steve believed that A players hire A players—that is people who are as good as they are. I refined this slightly—my theory is that A players hire people even better than themselves. It’s clear, though, that B players hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players hire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called “the bozo explosion” to happen in your organization.
10. Real CEOs demo
Steve jobs could demo a pod, pad, phone and Mac two to three times a year with millions of people watching, why is it that many CEOs call upon their vice-president of engineering to do a product demo? Maybe it’s to show that there’s a team effort in play. Maybe. It’s more likely that the CEO doesn’t understand what his/her company is making well enough to explain it. How pathetic is that?
11. Real CEOs ship
For all his perfectionism, Steve could ship. Maybe the product wasn’t perfect every time, but it was almost always great enough to go. The lesson is that Steve wasn’t tinkering for the sake of tinkering—he had a goal: shipping and achieving worldwide domination of existing markets or creation of new markets. Apple is an engineering-centric company, not a research-centric one. Which would you rather be: Apple or Xerox PARC?
12. Marketing boils down to providing unique value
Think of a 2 x 2 matrix. The vertical axis measures how your product differs from the competition. The horizontal axis measures the value of your product. Bottom right: valuable but not unique— you’ll have to compete on price. Top left: unique but not valuable—you’ll own a market that doesn’t exist. Bottom left: not unique and not value—you’re a bozo. Top right: unique and valuable—this is where you make margin, money, and history. For example, the iPod was unique and valuable because it was the only way to legally, inexpensively, and easily download music from the six biggest record labels.
Bonus: Some things need to be believed to be seen
When you are jumping curves, defying/ignoring the experts, facing off against big challenges, obsessing about design and focusing on unique value, you will need to convince people to believe in what you are doing in order to see your efforts come to fruition. People needed to believe in Macintosh to see it become real. Ditto for iPod, iPhone and iPad. Not everyone will believe—that’s okay. But the starting point of changing the world is changing a few minds. This is the greatest lesson of all that I learned from Steve.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Birthdays to Remember. . .

Today we celebrated my wife's birthday with a small gathering at the lake house.  It was our last chance to snag a boat ride in the 2011 season.  My wife and I decided to take a quite ride by ourselves and it was the perfect way to spend the day together.  The sun glistened off the water and the cool lake air put me in a relaxed state that I haven't felt in a long time...  Of course with five kids, how relaxed can we get?  We finished the day with a family dinner and sang to my wife all four verses of Happy Birthday.  (Yes, you read it correctly.  My wife's family has four verses to happy birthday.  But that's another blog post...)  Happy Birthday Becca!  You are just as beautiful today as you were when we first met 16 years ago...  We are so blessed to have you in our lives... Love Always,

Daddy, Grace, Nina, Gev, Luci, Marcello, and all the critters....

The Party Started off with some Ale...

Gev masters the ring toss... a Sullivan party favorite.

The girls get ready for a boat ride with Grandpa and Grandma.

Becca and Joe decide to trade places for a while...

Mom soaking up some birthday memories.

Grandma christens the mari uccia.