"Every Picture Tells a Story":

Over the past six months or so I’ve been reconnecting with my love of photography. It’s been an exhilarating time, learning different techniques, practicing composition, and shooting, shooting, shooting. In order to develop my own style, one of the things I’ve been doing is to study the work of past and current masters, and what I’ve come to realize is that the images that resonate the most strongly with me are those that tell a story. With that in mind, I’d like to tell you the story of one of my recent photos.

One of the belated birthday presents Jason got this past weekend was a whole Potato Head family: a mom, a dad, and two kids. My aunt's friend Linda had a lot of fun showing him the ropes. Jason actually already knows all about Mr. Potato Head, but he was polite enough not to mention it.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/125, ISO 400. Post processing in Aperture 3 was relatively light: auto WB adjustment, a little bit of curves, and a light vignette.

Thoughts for improvement: I don't know, I'm pretty happy with it. I like the way Jason is framed by Linda's arm and body, and I think it's a decent capture. What do you think?

"It's nice to be called Mommy, don't you think?"

"Uh..."

"OK, whatever. Har har. Isn't it nice to have someone call you Daddy?"

"Well, yeah, it's nice, but it's also really weird. And in a lot of ways I kind of think it always will be."

"Yeah."

One of our main reasons for the trip home this past weekend was because some of Juliette's Canadian cousins were coming to visit her parents in Big Sur. Since they were in town, we decided to take the opportunity to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has the distinction of not only being my personal favorite aquarium but also the best place I ever worked.

This photo was taken next to the tide pool exhibit, over which a big artificial wave crashes every couple of minutes. I was lucky enough to have the camera up to my eye just as one hit, and caught not only Jason's reaction to the wave, but also everyone else's reaction to him. Moments like this are just wonderful for me, both as a photographer and as a parent.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 18-55mm DX lens, in aperture priority mode. Focal length 18mm, aperture f/3.5, shutter 1/125 sec, ISO 1400. Post-processing in Aperture 3 was fairly simple for this one: I applied the Daylight WB preset, then used a curve to recover the highlights and give a slight bump to midtones and increase contrast. Then I applied a medium-high burn (0.6) to everything but Jason's face.

Thoughts for improvement: There are a lot of technical things wrong with this image. Juliette's mom's face poking in on the left and her cousin's face cut off on the right are both awkward, compositionally, as is the fact that her other cousin's face is blocked by her mom's face. This image also really stretched the limits of my camera, as the relatively high ISO setting (a result of my auto ISO configuration) left a lot of digital noise throughout. And then there's a difference in both lighting and sharpness between Jason's face and Juliette's mom's, which is kind of jarring to look at. So, technically, this is a very imperfect image. In terms of storytelling and capture, though, I think it's right on the money. Sometimes what's important about a picture isn't the technique or even the artistic elements, but rather what story it's telling. I'm sure this would be a better picture if I'd nailed the technique and composition in addition to the storytelling side, but as it is, I'm still pretty happy with it.

I started this blog over eight years ago, but until Jason was born my writing was sporadic at best. There are a lot of reasons that I got serious about writing regularly at that point. I wanted to have a record of this time in my son's life, of course, so that I'd be able to look back later and more easily remember what life was like. It was also right around then that I started thinking about actively pursuing writing as a second career. I've talked about both of those before, I think. What I may not have mentioned, though, is that I also wanted Jason to have a way to know me, know who I am and how I think.

You see, I realized a while back that although I spent my entire young life around my parents, and although I have come to know them as an adult, there's a lot about their lives that I don't know. I know some facts—dates and places of birth, for example, and the names of their high schools. I've even heard a few stories from their youths and young adulthood. But I have only the barest impressions of what their lives were like before I was born. In fact, I can't even really say that I know much about what was going on with them before I graduated from college nine years ago. When I was a child, I wasn't aware enough to see or understand what was going on around me, and when I was a teenager I was, like most teenagers, too self-absorbed to care.

As I finally took steps into real adulthood, I came to know my parents for who they are now. I think I can say that I know who they are and what's going on with them as well as I do anyone who doesn't live in my house. But there are still big gaps from before that I wonder about, and even though I've mentioned this to my mom, I haven't ever really sat down with them and asked them my questions. Somehow, the idea of interviewing my parents, as though I were going to write their biographies, just seems too awkward.

I don't know if Jason will feel the same way. Maybe he'll know me well enough, or maybe he'll never think about it. But I know that I want him to know me, and if he feels the same way, I don't want awkwardness to be an obstacle for him. I missed my chance with my grandfathers, and I find myself wondering about their lives all the time.

I haven't previously done much writing here about my past, so I hope that those of you who read this blog now will bear with me from time to time as I share a few anecdotes. Hopefully the stories will be interesting enough to be worth your while, but if not, please just keep in mind that I'm really writing those for a very small audience, one that won't even be able to read these words for some time to come.

Considering that Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors and that The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most studied pieces of American literature, you'd think I'd have long since read it. Maybe even more than once. I never took any specific courses in American lit, though, and in my personal reading I just never got around to it. Until just now, that is.

The first thing I was struck with—as I am always struck by Steinbeck's stories—was how deeply concerned with land the man was. Every one of his stories I can recall reading has begun with a description of a place. But "description of a place" doesn't really do it justice, because for Steinbeck, the places where his stories occur are characters unto themselves, and his descriptions are like songs, full of life. I sometimes wonder if a modern author could get away with openings like this, nearly devoid of action or hooks. I suspect they could, if they were writers of the same caliber as Steinbeck.

That's a big if, of course. And sometimes I wonder whether people really appreciate how skilled the man was. He's obviously hailed as a great and important writer, and his stories are read in classrooms from elementary school through university. But how many people actually look at his work for what it is?

Take a book like The Grapes of Wrath for example. It's a fairly simple story, told in straightforward language that makes it quite easy to read. Structurally speaking, there's nothing particularly surprising about the plot—the descriptions of the conditions that the migrant workers had to endure must surely have been shocking to readers of the day, but even at that, an attentive reader would have been able to guess the course of the narrative well before the last page. The morality is clear, even strident. The scenes border on the melodramatic.

All that apparent simplicity belies the subtlety and skill in Steinbeck's writing, though. Take another look, and you see themes developed and woven into the structure of the story, adding depth if you care to find it. And, of course, the characters themselves are so richly realized that you can't help but feel like part of the Joad family, yourself. And something about the way the book cuts back and forth between scenes and descriptive interludes brings it all home in a profound way, even though each individual portion might seem to be beating the reader over the head with message and melodrama. It's a masterpiece.

For me, one of the trickiest parts was in remembering exactly when it was taking place. Given the Joads' humble background and folksy speech, it's easy to picture them as belonging to the age of horse and buggy, possibly even as far back as the Civil War era. Yet Steinbeck wrote the novel in the mid-to-late 1930's, and he set the story contemporaneously. Consider, then, that by the time of the events depicted in The Grapes of Wrath, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong had already been recording for over a decade. Benny Goodman was already the King of Swing. Hitler had already come to power in Germany. James Cagney, Mae West, Clark Gable, Walt Disney, and the Marx Brothers were all already household names. If anything, the abject poverty of the migrants is even more striking in that context.

The Grapes of Wrath was acclaimed a "great work" by the Nobel Prize committee, and has been both praised and damned by critics and readers for over 60 years. You may not have the same reaction to it that I did, but whether you're already familiar with it or whether it's new to you, I'd say that there's enough there to make it worth your while.

Started: 2010-08-18 | Finished: 2010-09-01

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This is what I'm thinking about right now:

• A porterhouse steak, medium rare with a perfectly seared crust on the outside
• A California burrito from Roberto's
• Two scoops of Rocky Road ice cream
• My old favorite sandwich from Rinaldi's: pastrami, melted mozzarella, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and pepperoncini on a freshly baked soft roll
• Falafel
• A steaming bowl of kakuni ramen from Tajima
• A Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, with barbecue pork filling
• Sesame balls
• Chashu bao
• Spam musubi
• Funnel cake
• Pretty much every cholesterol-laden food that I'm not supposed to be eating.

I had plans to write something insightful tonight, but clearly that's out the window.

We traveled home to visit family this weekend, and on Saturday we had a little get-together at my aunt's house. Jason was delighted to find that several people had brought belated birthday gifts for him, among them a "Superhero Starter Kit" that included a bright red cape. We couldn't get him to take it off for the whole rest of the afternoon.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2.8, shutter 1/1600, ISO 400. Post-processing in Aperture 3: first, I applied the Daylight white balance preset. The shot was taken in the middle of a very bright day, though in the shade. I was trying to get the exposure right for his face, but I missed a bit, so he was a little dark, while the highlights were very bright. So I bumped exposure (+1) and recovery (+1.5), then used a curve to further recover the highlights and boost the midtones. I did a strong burn (0.6) around the outside, then a lighter burn (0.2) to just the shadows over his face and chest. Then I applied a very light dodge (0.05) to his eyes. Finally, I desaturated the reds (-15.0) and brushed that in just over the cape.

Thoughts for improvement: The main thing is to get the exposure right the first time. The focus is a little soft throughout, so I probably should have stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6, which would have been no problem since I had a very fast shutter. I should also have remembered to re-set the ISO back to 200 after I came outside, instead of leaving it at 400 from when I was indoors. Despite the fact that all that stuff meant I had to do a lot more work in post, though, I still think this may be one of the best portraits I've taken of him, at least in terms of matching the styles of the portrait & lifestyle pros that I've been studying.

"See that woman over there?"

"Yeah."

"The book she's reading—I've read it. And it was really good."

"Oh."

"Do you ever... No, you probably don't."

"What don't I ever?"

"Um, do you ever see someone reading a book that you really loved and get a little jealous of them that they're getting to read it for the first time and you never will again?"

"No."

"Yeah, see, that's what I thought."

* * *

"Daddy, I missed you!"

"You did? Wow, what a nice thing to say to me, Jason. Thank you."

"I have a poop!"

"Oh. OK, well that's nice, too."

This guy was one of the volunteers at the Celebrate Dance festival last weekend. When we first got to the stage area, I noticed him walking around with a donations box. Later, he sat down to watch the performances near where Juliette, Jason, and I were sitting, and the reflections in his sunglasses caught my eye.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 55-200mm VR DX lens, in aperture priority exposure mode. Focal length 200mm, aperture f/5.6, shutter 1/320 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3. My goal with the processing was to isolate the subject from the background, add a little more texture and pop, and make the reflection stand out. First, I used the Daylight white balance preset, then I reduced the saturation (0.81) and vibrancy (-0.1). I then used a curve to darken the shadows just a touch and bump up the midtones and highlights, also bringing in the white point a little. I then applied a reasonably heavy burn (0.6) to the background, then a medium dodge (0.4) to the highlights on the subject, and a light burn (0.1) to the shadows on the subject. To make the sunglasses pop a little more, I used the Intensify Contrast brush just on the lenses, with a relatively light setting (0.3). Finally, I added a little bit of edge sharpening.

Thoughts for improvement: I wish his elbow weren't cut off, but other than that I'm pretty happy with this one.