Bumping Against the Paradigm

I've been making a BUY page on the website the past couple days and remembered a long forgotten project.

Those of you in the studio still life area know what I talking about.  This notion of creativity in commercial photography is a bit convoluted.  Very rarely is one allowed complete control of anything, it normally is a long drawn out affair of agency meetings, presentation to clients, often focus groups are used even before the job walks into the studio.  Once the job begins, it's a day long effort of almost imperceptible movement toward the final photograph.  You'll shoot a shot and everybody rushes to the monitor to study it and make a judgement on what should be done next...move the glass an 1/8" to the right, rotate the cheese counterclockwise a quarter of an inch, increase the fill another third of a stop.

This can go on all day.

Often tweezers are used.

Folds of a napkin are picked at ad infinitum.

Grains of rice are moved individually.

The business of studio still life photography is a group effort and more often than not done through consensus of the group.  It's not some artist photographer that shoots what he or she wants, slaps it on the desk of the art director along with the invoice and walks out.

Until recently I shot the catalogs for a major flower and plant nursery that is located south of San Francisco in the small fishing town of Half Moon Bay.  (An aside.  Read the fascinating account of 100 ft. Wednesday here.  The day of 100 ft waves in Half Moon Bay).   It was mind numbing work really.  Day after day of shooting flowers and plants.  Sure, they were drop dead gorgeous world class best damn flowers in the whole nursery, and I love beautiful things as much as the next person but still...mind numbing in it's repetitive nature.  Went on for weeks at a time.

One year at the beginning of the catalog I wanted to do a project to fight the man so to speak.  I got up each day before dawn to make the drive down the coast and shoot something for myself before the catalog shoot began.  I actively shot against all the rules.
I shot all on polaroid, never metered anything, would purposely overexpose or underexpose by many stops, I placed the focus to force the viewer places they didn't want to go. Uncomfortable framing, weird subject matter. I would see, shoot, pull the polaroid, place the polaroid in a pocket and walk away.  The polaroids would be processing for hours sometimes instead of the 90 seconds that Polaroid said to do.

There was no second guessing and no fussing.  And the most beautiful thing about polaroid is it is the finished art work...and they're not sharp, and the colors are muted mushy muddy cool.

Later in the day I would gather everybody in the studio around as I opened the polaroids.  I'd pick one out, cut a mat and put it on the wall.  By the end of the shoot I had some 70 expressive tiny little jewels.

MU

The very last thing I do before letting a courier bag out of my hands is burn my brand into the top.

MU

It’s a process.  I clean up the shop first, I ready the bag and where the brand will be, start the fire and heat up the U, make sure there’s some music going on, pick up the U with a piece of leather wrapped around the end of the hot metal.  And without mind the U is pushed into the leather, picked up, moved over and pushed down again, the U is flipped upside down, moved over and pushed down for the final time.

I do the branding at the end to make the searing of the leather the final act. Once you place the hot U on the leather you are committed, there’s no turning back, there’s no fixing, there’s nothing to hide behind anymore.  Different amount of heat and time and pressure create their own indelible signatures. Each is unique, each is never perfect. 

Like all things made by hand the branding shows the strengths and the weaknesses of the maker.  The personality is revealed.  Where is attention placed, where is it not?  Is uniformity a virtue or a failing?  Which mistakes are fixed, which are allowed?  Is the idea more important or the execution of that idea?  One focused strike at the center or tiny blows from the perimeter inward?

The MU is Me. 

I burn it in and walk away from it.

By happenstance I came upon this as I was writing the blog entry.  Beautiful

Nothing=Something

One of the wineries I shoot for is located in Paso Robles, I live in San Francisco.  I love the drive to and from Paso….down 101, through San Jose, dropping down into the Salinas Valley.  From there it’s a straight shot on the valley floor flanked by two mountain ranges. Stunning really and if I were a good writer I’d go into a beautiful piece of prose right now about the history, the climate, topography etc. of that area.

I’d say the names of the towns like Gonzales, Soledad, King City (it’s not really a city). I’d talk about the farms and farm workers…..and rows and rows and rows of different crops.  I’d point out the billboard that has a picture of Martin Luther King on it with the tagline “Martin Luther King was a Republican”

Instead read Steinbeck.

I’m always intrigued by what lies off the road.  The historical markers, the little towns, the road that winds off into the distance.

One trip back to SF I decide to take the exit to San Ardo.  Don’t know one iota about San Ardo.

I take the exit, drive across the Salinas River into San Ardo.  I see an old guy standing near what appears to be an old gas station.  I drive to the end of town and turn around.  I haven’t seen another human so I drive back and pull into the old gas station and get out.  I try the door. It’s locked.  I’m sort of trying to see inside but there’s a lot of things on the window that blocks the view.

Someone is ambling across the street coming towards me.

It’s the old guy.

He reaches me finally and says “Whatcha looking for?”

I say, “I don’t know”

He says “Well, I’m not going to open up for you then”

“I don’t know what you got. I can’t see inside”

“What do you want?”

We’re at an impasse here so I say “Do you have water for sale?”

“Yep”

And he fishes into his pocket for the keys and in we go.

Old inside, of course; he’s got a pretty random assortment of stuff. What’s startlingly though is running around all four walls are shelves and shelves of baseball hats.  Hundreds and hundreds of them and each different.

So I do what I do best.  I ask questions.

815 hats if I remember but there are a couple thousand in storage

It all started innocently like all these things do by someone giving him a baseball hat and him putting it on a shelf.  And someone gives another, and another and so on.
One of the hats was given by a famous SF 49’er..a football player.

But I’ve done it.  He’s talking and it appears like he likes to talk and we’re going to be there awhile.

I steer the conversation to one wall of the store/old gas station/hat museum/place.  There’s a counter with maybe seven or so stools.  What’s that I want to know.  He’s says it’s a bar but it’s not open right now..only when people start to get off work does he open it. And no, he won’t open if for me right now.

We finally get done talking.  I didn’t get any water, I purchased fruit juice instead.

After I tell Annie my story of San Ardo she remarks “Once again Paul, you go looking for nothing and you find something”

I’ve logged the San Ardo Old Gas Station Store Hat Museum Bar into the memory bank.  Gotta have a drink here somehow.

My daughter finishes school in Santa Barbara and I drive down to collect her and her things. Load up in my car and load up her car and start to drive back.

I time things so we are driving by San Ardo around quitting time.  I make sure that Taylor follows me when I exit the highway.

Drive right up to it.  Two trucks sit outside.

We walk in.  The hat guy is behind the bar.  Two old guys are sitting there as well.

We sit down and I say “We’d like a couple beers”

The hat guy starts in again.

“I don’t sell beer here”

I look at the man next to me.  He’s got a Coors Light in his hand, the man at the end has a Coors Light too.

I point and say “Ok, give me what they have then”

“Is she old enough to drink”?

“Sure is, she’s my daughter”

I don’t drink Coors Light but I'm thinking that’s all he’s got so I don’t push it and take what he’s giving.

We start in on our beers and I tell him how we’re driving back home etc etc.

The man sitting next to me pulls out his wallet…now this is right out the blue mind you and takes out a laminated card and hands it to me.

“This is who I am”

I take it but can’t read it because I didn’t bring in my glasses from the car.  The hat guy who we now know is named Marcel gives me his 1970’s style huge pair of glasses.

The card says he’s a Native American and belongs to the Salinan Tribe.

John’s his name but no he doesn’t have a casino.

The man at end of the bar is Happy.  He’s 88, Marcel and John are younger.  We know this because they’re teasing Happy that he’s the oldest of the bunch.

Happy says it’s time for him to go and climbs down.  From his stool to the door is maybe twenty feet. Happy starts to walk…well, walk is not the right word.  I don’t think we have a word in the English language for this but he is moving across the floor an inch, maybe 2 inches at a time.  I swear it takes him five minutes to go 20 feet.

He reaches the door and I’m afraid he won’t be strong enough to open it and I’m twitching trying to decide if I should get up and help him.  But no, a man doesn’t do that to another man unless you know for sure he needs help.

He makes it out and eventually I see the door open to a truck and he climbs in somehow and drives off.

I ask Marcel about San Ardo….ok, I’ve done it.

He disappears and comes back with boxes of newspaper clippings, flags from the war, medals, and lord knows what else in them..

He’s a talker like I said………..

And once again I go look for nothing and find something.

Courier Bags

Late 2008 I’m starting to think about how to concisely carry some sketch books as I travel through Ecuador. I also wanted to be able to put a Leica M in with the books.

As a kid I did quite a bit of leather work making this and that with my guide through it being the OG Al Stohlman.  So I measured up the largest sketchbook I wanted to pack with me in Ecuador and made a bag to fit it, a couple other sketchbooks, Micron pens of course and the Leica.  I didn’t want a big bag, but a right sized bag.

I used a technique of soaking the leather in water and bending it into the shape I wanted.  When it dries it keeps that shape pretty well. 

For a fastening system I again turned back to my childhood.  Probably my most favorite book of all time is Ellsworth Jaeger’s “Wildwood Wisdom”.  This was a book that came to me through the mail as I belonged to a outdoor book club as a kid.  I have read, re-read and re-read Wildwood Wisdom countless times.  Written in 1945, it’s a collection of how the Native Americans and early frontier people did things..made birchbark boiling containers, anti-snow blindness goggles, tanning a deer skin, preserving fish over a smoky fire and thousands of other similar things.

I remembered one page devoted to leather buttons so I pull down my book and look it up..it turned out to be the perfect way to keep the bag closed.

The bag has been with me ever since….being field tested so to speak.  It’s flopped around in the back of pickups bouncing over crappy roads in Ecuador, used as a pillow in Portugal, a lunch sack in Spain. And last month...crazy wind blown hikes in the Conemarra in Ireland. It’s been with me on trips on Bart over to Berkeley and back, to bars in San Francisco, to Pho restaurants in the Mission.  It’s been rained on, sat on and spilled on and just now it’s getting a real nice patina.  There’s a history in it’s softness and sheen….it’s my history.

And as I went about my way, I would get stopped by people….they want to know where I got the bag and when I told them I had made it, they would have a look of dejection as they knew they couldn’t run to their local bespoke store and buy one for themselves.

But one time I was going to meet my daughter for lunch in the Mission District.  I bike over there and start to lock up my bike…there’s a couple guys standing outside of a newfashioned barber shop. One of them says that I need a haircut (this is right before leaving for Ireland).  I laugh and tell them my "I’m going to Ireland for a haircut" routine.  He spots my bag and asks where I got the bag…but this time he’s not satisfied with my answer of it’s a one of kind thing ….he begs me to make him one…just like the one I had slung over my shoulder….begs me.  Says he’s a barber at this shop and bring it him when I get it done.

And so I start to think about maybe making the bags for a wider audience.  My way, one at a time, each a bit different…a curve here sharper, a bigger there fastener.  I want my fingerprints all over each of them.

I am calling them Courier Bags…for taking your stuff around the world with you.  Not everything, just the important stuff.

See the new ones here  Paul Kirchner Studios

Google says there's an Al Stohlman museum