A woman's smile

I'm not a good portrait photographer. I don't have the innate interpersonal rapport with people to make them conformtable enought to photograph. I'm uncomfortable around people, so photographing them makes me more uncomfortable. But I love portraits of people, but especially women when they smile.

I'm better photographing people at some distance, probably because it's my comfort distance and space, and maybe a fear of invading their privacy. And while I love viewing professional portraits, I love the informal or casual image more, such as this one by Doug Berryhill.

The simply joy of a woman's smile. And you can find many more photographs of them at Photo.net's photographer's gallery. It seems there is almost a clear distinction with many where they do the studio portraits or the street portraits, rarely overlapping, and I wonder if it's a choice or talent, the ability to control or the talent to capture without it.

For example compare this one of a beautiful model and Gypsy. Totally different and both terrific to make you look for awhile wondering. And even in a studio setting, you can capture the essence of her smile or herself. As they say, a smile goes a long way, but a photograph can capture the whole and present the beauty of it.

In the end, I enjoy viewing photographs of women's faces, and especially with the whole facial expression of a woman's smile. You could ask for more in life, but this is hard to beat to lift the spirit and cheer the soul. And while I'll struggle trying to do this, I'll admire those who can and the women who smile at the world and life.

Mental Excercises

While I wrote about taking mental respites from photography, I also do mental exercises to get back into life and my photography. Not just pick up the camera when I go places and takes some photos, but putting myself back into focusing and challenging myself to do good photography. And when I get home, I download the images and let them sit for a day or so.

You see, I've learned never review your images immediately. I'm not a good judge of images so soon. I can notice some one I really like, but overall, I need some distance between the time I took them and the time I review them. This way I've cleared my mind of why I took them, and while I look at some with a "WTF" expression, I often find some that are far better than I first realized.

And so where does this lead? Well, take the example of my toaster. It's been on my list of things to photograph, mostly to document it and to see how I can do. Being an ordinary photographer who photographs what I see, it's hard for me to imagine seeing a photograph. Also, I either see the big picture or the small details. I miss the stuff in between.

It's how each of us mentally work and think. I write the same way, great at abstracts and specific detail stuff, but problems with the intermediate stuff. And I'm a bad organizer. My thesis Chairman was great at these and taught me to do these with my thesis. But I haven't figured it out with my photography, so I try to find simple things to challenge myself to learn. And badly most of the time.

So, the toaster is the test. But after the first images I decided I need to relearn lighting, or better learn lighting, techniques. So, that's what I'm doing while I work on setting the makeshift studio, formerly the dining room, for some photo experiments. And that's one way I get mentally back into photography, exploring an idea, which leads to another, and some work. And that leads to more photography.

It's the spiral effect. Either you're spiraling up or down, and if down, first you have to stop to level off into a neutral mode before you can even start the upward spiral from where you're at in your downward spiral. For me, though, sometimes I have to spiral down in a free fall so far until I find the bottom to stop the momentum of going down. The bottom stops anything and everything.

And when I get there, I can reestablish my view of the world and myself. And surprisingly, going up is simply a step forward. It's the idea it's easier to see where you're at and turn around when you're standing still than running forward. And I can simply go forward in a new direction. I don't look back, only ahead. And the light in the world and my photography.

And on the list after the toaster are other projects, to get the cameras out into the world doing what I love to do, photography the ordinary in the way I see it. Nothing fancy or even all that great, just mine. And that's all life can ask of anyone, do what you can where you are with what you have.

Mental Respites

You know the old saying, "Something is better than nothing."? And you know that some people like to insert the word "always" after "is" to enforce the idea that nothing is never good for you? Well, I like to insert the word "sometimes" at the beginning of the sentence to mean that often nothing is good for you.

Why? Because sometimes nothing or doing nothing clears the mind of the past with all the stress and tension you created. It frees the mind to be open to the whole array of ideas. And sometimes it's just a good thing to let your mind be still and open, or in some cases, empty of the present. We do this in our sleep and naps, let the mind self-medicate.

And that's what I do occasionally with my photography. I hate myself about not doing photography after awhile, but sometimes I have to let it go, do something else, and know eventually it sneaks back into my psyche to continue with it. Every good professional or commercial photographer would rail against this philosophy, but then they have the consistent passion and drive to do it. I don't.

And I know I have tried, and all I get is angry with myself, my work and the world about why I continue. It's part of the can't explain part of ourselves we don't understand enough and can't fix enough to get over. I only get through. And pick up the camera again to continue. Sometimes I have to keep saying, "It's about just doing and forget the results. Think about what you're doing, focus, and just take a lot of photos. Something will happen and spark, or respark, the passion."

And I know in time it does. After nearly 40 years of doing this, you'd think I'd find a way to resolve it. But maybe it's just one of those things about ourselves we can't. We're simply blind to our own being. And try as we can and do, we can't find a way to see what's happening, let alone get over it. This always seems to fly in the face of what people seem to advocate, "Just get over it."

Or as the Nike ad says, "Just do it." And we can look at all the successes who have, and forget the orders of magnitude who tried and didn't. It's in our national psyche, but it's not reality. Reality is that 99+% of those who try only get part way there. And photography isn't much different. It's about the many who are ordinary, the some who are good and the few who are great. And the reality is striving while keeping that in mind.

It doesn't mean we should quit. It's about the journey, and as long as we travel the road and try our best when we can, the rest is what is, and nothing more. And if we, like me, take respites occasionally, so be it. It keeps me sane and from wanting to leave the road altogether.

NPR - Reluctant Reader

I hate reading. Ok, that said, I've read a lot, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here with an understanding of our world and writing about it. I wouldn't have earned a Master Degree in Geography without the research and writing the thesis, ok, on a very boring topic (great bedtime reading and easier than a sleeping pill). But that's just the half of it.

My Mom was a prolific reader, but almost all of it dime novels. She did read enough at work to become a senior adjuster with a major insurance company, which including reading a lot about the law and other really more boring stuff those companies and the legal system requires. I've always respected her for that, but she always resorted to dime novels.

My Dad only read at work. We never saw him read at home. I don't know why, but I suspect he really didn't like reading, and only did enough to get by in life. He rose to be a Lieutant Colonel in the US Air Force, so he wasn't stupid. He liked talking with people and doing things, albeit he couldn't make anything, a talent he handed down to my brother and I.

My siblings, my older brother Greg and older sister Kris, were similar to Dad. We read enough to get by, and if anyone read more, it was Kris. Greg was similar to Dad, he read enough to get by in life, and having a BA in Accounting, being a CPA and eventually a CEO, he had to read a lot of related stuff. But he didn't read outside of work.

I, on the other hand, hated reading in school but read occasionally for myself. I'm a learn by doing person. I like doing something, learning as I go, and then read when I have a question or a problem. Then I stop, read and roll on. I've learned almost everything I do that way, and partly why I make a lot of mistakes, but it's who I am, and try as I must, I don't read beyond what I need to know or learn.

But I will read when the passion strikes. I've read the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, and other writers. I sit down and read, and read, until I've read everything they've written. And I read what I can find on a subject because it interests me. I have a small library on large format photography which I read every book before buying a camera and lenses.

For my Master Degree thesis, I read tons of materials. You have to, but my best talent was research. I'm able to sit down in libraries and scours shelves of references and bibliographies for material, find that material and read it. For my first, failed, thesis I had found, sometimes bought, every book and article published up to that time. I have a file cabinet full of copies of these materials I included in the bibliography.

And for my photography and Website, I've struck a balance. I buy reference books, read enough to start and then do things to read when I'm stuck. It's why my Website isn't fancy, yet, because I don't want to learn javascript or fancier Web design. I know I will, when the passion strikes. Or not, if it doesn't. I learn what I can do simply and easily. It works for me.

I also read 3-5 newspapers 3-5 times per week. But read is a dubious word. I sit down with a sandwich and chips and start with page one. It would be better if I said I peruse the newspapers, looking for interesting news or stuff, and then read it. And then continue. I often just read the first few paragraphs of articles to get the idea and to see if it's interesting. Since you can't learn everything about an issue from an article, I don't see the reason to try and understand all of it, only the highlights.

Is this so bad? Not really. I listened to an interview with Nancy Pearl, Chief Librarian for the City of Seattle, who said she only finishes one in twelve books she starts. She said the other eleven don't interest her enough to read past the first chapter if that. So, it's ok not to read every book you pick up, and not to finish every book you start reading. It's about being in our world of words, where knowledge and understanding lives alongside life. So read what works for you.

JMO - Why ENDA may not work

I was reading that Senator Kennedy plans to re-introduce the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the 2008 session of Congress, but without the inclusion of protection for transgender or transsexual people, normal referred to as "gender identity", different from cross-dressers, transvestites, drag queens and female illusionists/impersonators. If you don't know the difference, look it up, and while many in the transcommunity indentify as both sides, most don't.

But that's not my point. I want to say that while I applaud the efforts to include protections for people for their sexual orientation, which by the way also includes heterosexuals - we all have some type of sexual identity or orietation, but has been recognized as homosexuals or bisexuals, I deplore those same people for excluding transpeople simply because it's politically expedient being an election year.

And Congress knows President Bush will veto any new ENDA, even for LGB people, so why go ahead with something so divisive in the LGBT community unless they want to mainstream homosexuals and discriminate against transpeople. They know the transcommunity can not now or will not for years get their protection in ENDA on their own, even with a Democratic Congress and President. That's the reality of world today, it doesn't sell to the public.

But that's not my point. I believe ENDA with LGB inclusion won't work because it ignores the reality of the workplace. It's not all that hard to fire someone for being gay or lesbian and disguise it as job performance, management reorganization, and other reasons which are not only legal but supported by senior management. And if the employee wants to sue, so be it, because they also know that takes years and money, something many employees don't have.

I remember a case of a woman who hassled another woman for years, especially after my friend, the latter woman, won a promotion over the other woman (both applied). The woman who lost waged a two-year campaign to undermine my friend's work and her job performance. Everyone filed complaints against the woman who was hassling our friend, but she had connections to a their boss (she taught him when he started for the organization).

Finally my friend filed a grievance with her (their) boss, not realizing the depth of the friendship between the woman who was hassling her and their boss. He rejected it and blamed each as spate between women. She then filed the grievance with our boss, who agreed with her senior manager. She then decided to get a lawyer and file a complaint (there is a difference in the rules between a grievance and a complaint) with the regional Human Resources office.

After an investigation they concluded the woman who was hassling my friend was 99% to blame and my friend 1% for some minor comments she made. Our boss decided to disregard the report and forced both women into arbitration. My friend rejected this, partly on the advice of her lawyer, friends (like me), and the regional HR employee representative. But our boss said it was arbitration or resignation.

If you don't know, the reason you don't use arbitration is that the arbitrator automatically assume both parties are equally to blame for the problem and reasons the issue can't be resolved. This was wrong and the regional HR office said as much, but they couldn't override our boss' decision to force it. So my friend refused and filed a lawsuit based on the investigation. This forced another investigation.

The second more thorough investigation found the woman who hassled my friend 99% to blame, but added that their boss was at fault for not resolving the matter quickly and fairly, meaning supporting his friend (other woman) against the evidence. They also found our boss at fault for trying to cover up the whole problem and not forcing appropriate discipline for the hassling woman.

So what happened? Senior (headquarters) management, not wanting this to go to court or become public, offered my friend a buyout to resign and a promise if she re-entered government service, she would given a good recommendation. She wanted to leave for school anyway and didn't want to stay in such a workplace environment - she could only transfter out of state if she stayed.

The woman who hassled her stayed with the organization, got the job she wanted, and to no one's surprise failed miserably with many complaints against her authoritarian management. She was eventually transferred back to her old job and told she'll be there until she retires. All because she got a new boss with whom didn't have a history and political connections. And my friend got her education and is currently working for government again.

The whole story, and there are more, showed me about crossing management and employees with connections. A few years later I had a similar experience where I was threatened by my boss if I went outside the office over a violation of regulations. I did report the problem and his threat, and it pretty much set in place a series of confrontations with management over years and buried my career in the organization.

I don't regret my decisions, I wasn't interested in political correctness. I was angry with the insolence of management toward employees, and always spoke for them at management staff meetings. Eventually, I got some bosses who began to see the truth and light, as they say, and learned to listen, but it was too late for my career. And partly why I took an early retirement.

And my point is that ENDA is some respects is window dressing. I still support an all-inclusive ENDA, because without the law discrimination against transpeople would and could be blatant and obvious, leaving the employee no way to get retribution or compensation. It's about protecting everyone from management's abuses.

If you think I'm being dismissive about it, I can tell you from my years in management, it happens for similar reasons other than sexual identity or orientation. I have supported employees with grievances against managers who clearly violated the regulations, and even the law, and were not only defended but supported by management, and in every case the employee lost.

In the end, it's about being right for all, not just being right for politicial expediency. That's discrimination, something they condemn and then condone.