Very few people openly admit being supporters of the Photo Meme Hall of Shame. Hell, WE don't even admit it, but one member of this tiny cabal of people braver than we, is Jarrett Gorin. He was an early supporter and continues to offer helpful suggestions and sometimes even steer this ship. One of his helpful suggestion was that if we are going to link to him, we could at LEAST spell his name correctly. We are efforting that. It's NOT easy.
His photos and text figure prominently in the photoblogging community and he graces us here, in our little forum The
People's Court Photo Meme Hall of Shame. After reading his interview,
go to his photoblog using your Official Photo Meme Hall of Shame IP Anonymizers and when he doesn't see the traffic, he'll know it's you.
1. Who are you and why are you doing this to us?
Who Am I:
A 35 year old (36 this June) real estate developer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. Husband to the beautiful and intelligent Nichol, stepfather of 8.5 year old Spencer, and father of 3.5 year old Tristan. I started to do photography as part of my work, which involves presentations to Planning Commissions, Architectural Review Boards, etc. While shooting photographs to use in PowerPoint presentations, I realized that photography was fun in-and-of-itself. So I decided to take some adult-education classes on foundational photographic techniques in order to do a better job shooting photos for work, and to learn for my own entertainment. One day my boss gave me the paperback book "The Art of Seeing" from the Kodak Workshop Series. He had found it while cleaning out his garage the past weekend. This book, from the early 1990's shows many examples of photographs created from ordinary scenes and subjects, and attempts to teach you to "see" the world differently. I thought this was extremely cool, and I started to look at things differently as well, and then I began to photograph them. That is how I started to do "artistic" photography.
Why Am I Doing This To You:
I started a photoblog in the fall of 2005 to display my non-work photographic efforts and get feedback. The guy who helped me set up my photoblog, Greg Lawler (author of the Zinkwazi photoblog), participated in a small, mostly local theme challenge here in the Santa Barbara area, and invited me to participate. That was the first time I ever heard of a meme. After a few weeks, I discovered other memes, so I began entering some of those too. Occasionally, a very interesting theme would inspire me to go out and make an image that I otherwise would never have thought about. Mostly, I entered memes because it was a good way to get exposure to a wide audience. So I guess the main reason why I originally entered, and continue to enter memes is shameless self-promotion.
2. What did you have for breakfast?
A bowl of Cheerios. Some blackberries. Then, a little later, a twenty ounce drip coffee at Starbucks.3. Do you know Kerrin?
No.
4. What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?
I
have done all of my "serious" photographic work with Nikon digital SLRs. I love their durability and ease-of-use in the field. Right now I use a Nikon D2X. Before that, I used a D2H. Most of the time I shoot with the 17-55mm f/2.8 DX Nikkor lens. I also use the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR Nikkor a lot. I'd estimate about 85% of my images were made with one of these two lenses. They are heavy, but that is because they are full of very nice Nikon glass which produces fantastic, beautifully saturated, and contrasty images. I have also been using the 60mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens (they call their "Macro" lenses "Micro") a lot the past few months. It is a great lens, and also relatively inexpensive.
5. What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?
I am a "closet" computer nerd, and I guess I spend enough time messing around with computer systems (i.e. "improving" them) that this could be referred to as a "hobby". The computer I am using right now is one that I built from scratch.6. Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?
Several of my photos have been added to "the Collection" at FILE (www.filemagazine.com). I have had a bunch of images featured on WeeklyShot. I was also recently invited to contribute to ONEXPOSURE (www.onexposure.net) a very slick web project by some guys in Sweden. For the most part, my images on display at these sites are the same images that are on my photoblog. You should check them out anyway though (the sites, not just my images) because you will discover some excellent photographers who you may have never seen or heard of before, especially at FILE.I also have a public display of ten prints hanging from May 7th through June 25th at Starbucks on the corner of State Street and De La Guerra in downtown Santa Barbara. They get about 600 visitors a day on weekdays and 800-1000 visitors a day on weekends, so I am pretty excited to have the opportunity to exhibit at this location.
I don't have any side projects.7. What is the best photo that you missed?
A bunch of backlit human figures (they were farm workers) standing in the middle of a sea of pure green row crops. The crops were running perpendicular to my line of sight, so you could only see the top 2/3rds of each person, and the people were silhouetted perfectly and casting shadows onto the green field in front of them, with a huge green expanse extending behind them and on both sides too. I was viewing this from on top of a freeway overpass adjacent to the field at an elevation of about 45 feet above it. With my telephoto lens, I would have been able to capture the silhouetted figures and their shadows with a huge green color-field all the way around them within the frame. I didn't take the shot, because I was driving on the freeway when I saw it. I had my camera gear with me, but I had to get home, and I thought to myself "It's OK, they will be out here again so you will have another chance". Well, they haven't been....at least not set up for an epic shot like that. So the moral of this story is if you have a) a few minutes to spare; b) your photographic equipment; and, c) a place to pull over, then STOP and TAKE THE SHOT.
8. Tell us your worst habit.
Habits that don't affect anyone else by definition are not as bad as the ones that do. In that category, it would have to be my habit with the laundry. I frequently leave my clothes from the previous day either carefully draped over the end post at the foot of the bed, or carefully draped over the edge of the hamper, instead of IN the hamper. This seems like a minor infraction to me, but it clearly irritates the crap out of my lovely wife. Yet I still continue to do it. It would be so easy to simply put the previously worn clothes IN the hamper. Many days, I make a conscious effort to fight this habit, and I correctly execute clothing-into-hamper placement. But inevitably, one or two days a week, I will enter my bedroom and find it to be in good order, with the exception of my clothes placed conspicuously in the middle of the floor, or other times, lovingly deposited into my sink in the bathroom. Either case serves as potent reminder to me that this habit is causing my wife unnecessary grief.9. Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from raiload tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.)
I haven't donated any organs or anything like that. I still need all of mine.I "rescued" a lost dog about a week ago. I took Emma, our yellow Labrador retriever out for a final walk for the day at around 1:00 AM and encountered a small, friendly dog walking around unattended in the community orchard behind our house. It had a collar on, but it was too dark to read it. So I picked up the dog and carried him (the gender became evident when I picked him up) back to our house. When I got home, I learned that the tag on this dog's collar was just a registration tag and didn't have his owner's number on it. While I was upstairs attempting to reach someone relevant using the phone number on the registration tag, this friendly dog decided to take a piss in at least two separate locations on the Persian rug in our family room. Ten minutes later, I found his owners way down the street looking for him, and I reunited them. I then went home and attempted to clean up the piss before going to sleep. Does that count as a good deed?10. If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.
I would most likely be an attorney, probably specializing in environmental or land-use law. Or possibly an I.T. professional. Or, the other thing I have always wanted to do is pilot private or commercial jets.
11. What are you wearing?
It is 12:40 A.M. I am wearing cotton pajama pants with a drawstring waist, and an old, very comfortable T-shirt.Thank you, Mr Gorin-Images.And now, to paraphrase Mr Gorin Images, we'll stop with the touchy feely interview crap (for a couple of days, anyway) and get back to our original mission: SHAMING YOU DAFT GITS because you are ALL DAFT GITS!
