Action Packed Weekend

Friday night was under the lights once again. This time all the way to the outskirts of San Angelo, Texas, to photograph the Aubrey football game in the colder and damper than last week stadium in Clyde, Texas. Thank goodness Clyde had LED lighting in their stadium, and I still get good results even though the push is to 3200. I’ve been pushing a long time …

Aubrey high school sports football action photography.
My rules for sports are simple, and violated here in the interest of peak action. The rule: Hands. Ball Face. Two-out-of-three worked this time.

Two more couches made the grade this past weekend, and it was like a community thing — just two blocks apart. Denton seems to have “couch hatches” where they just come up from nowhere, and then they’re gone. I am two couches away from my “First 50 Couches” project being complete, with as much as whimper as a bang.

I will be adding to my Denton Stock Photography this week as well. The images are from the Denton Farmer’s Market and the most recent UNT Homecoming Parade. Funny about that parade; it looked like the last homecoming parade – almost exactly – and that must have been more than a decade ago. Strange how some things never appear to change, isn’t it? The same can be said for photography, but much more concisely: IT’S ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE. That may be hard for today’s youngsters to believe, but it’s true.

I can imagine someone has even taken it on themselves to spend two years of their valuable lives chasing down couches on streets somewhere other than here in Denton. I can imagine it, but I have never seen it, but because I have never seen it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done. Take that to heart.

Irons in the FIRE

Hey fans of photography! I saw a bumper sticker today. It said: Film is not dead. Really? I must have missed the notice. Film is IS dead. To say FILM IS NOT DEAD, is a lot like saying, “anything my parents believe is wrong.” Grow the fuck up.

Go ahead and make your living as a so called “artist, ” that shoots film. Get back to me when you’re living on the streets of Denton under an overpass, and I will come out and photograph you with my digital camera. Feel Free To Think.

Yes, film has a different, and barely distinct, set of technical values – late in the second decade of the 21st. Century. But will the typical viewer be able to distinguish between what I do digitally (assuming we print), and what you do on film? Well, they may notice you are showing your work on the inside of the open trunk of your ’63 Chevy, but otherwise? Hell no.

We live in a world where the still image decision makers have no clue, no education and no real interest in quality – that is at least the decision makers I know best. The downward spiral of mediocrity continues at an increasing pace …

For example. How many two year projects have you seen from the streets of little old Denton, Texas … Three year, five year? None. I am about five couches away from printing my book and accompanying images, “Couch Art; Denton Street Photography Volume I,” in 2020. Will there be copycats? Will the minions of maven-hood from local University of North Texas or Texas Women’s University’s photography perk up? Oh, hell no. We live in the era of, “If I didn’t do it, it didn’t happen,” and that is that. Thankfully, I don’t have to pander to the newly, and perpetually “educated.”

No, I have to pander to a completely different set of standards and principles. More about that later though …

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