THE ANTI-BLOG

IRREVERENT AND WONDERFULLY IRRELIVANT

"The bride was so pretty, she smiled all day long.  She wore a white dress. Her parents showed up as well.  The groom wore a nice black tuxedo, I think it was rented." There are so many wedding photography websites that seem to tell generic stories with generic photos that we feel it's time to speak up.  Welcome to the the Anti-Blog.  I do have something different to say.  First of all, if you want to hear my political rants, come on over.  Just becauseI'm good at wedding photography doesn't mean we know what the hell I am  talking about when it comes to politics.  Also I  won't bore you with pictures of my kids, stories about other photographers I  had lunch with, and meaningless stories of places I've been and things I've done  that try to make me sound more significant. 

If you know what I do most of the time, this is my day.  I wake up, take my dogs for a 3 mile walk.  Have breakfast, reply to e-mails and return phone calls.  By the afternoon I am working on albums.  I work all the time.  I may spend an hour or two watching TV or hanging out with the kids. My wife Lecia and I work on albums and projects all the time.  We could cut corners and maybe have more free time to go hang out with other hip photographers.  But, I would rather have outstanding albums for our clients.   This is how many of our clients find out about us, by having an enthusiastic client show their albums off at work, at school, at church. Read the RAVES section and see for yourself!   So, sorry if we don't have pictures of us having lunch with people you've never heard of before.  If it makes you feel any better next time we got to our favorite Thai restaurant I will take a picture with the waitress and tell you that she is Vera Wang and that she is consulting with me about a new line of dresses.  

We also aren't going to drown you with an endless supply of photos.  Short stories stories and a few photos so you know what we've been up to.  The rest of this is crap I just made up.

 

Povaratzi ban

It was a showdown on the beach in Malibu recently, on one side, the Povaratzi's waiting to get a shot of Mathew McCanahey while surfing, on the other side a small army of surfers who felt that Matt should be left to surf in peace.  As I watched expensive gear get thrown into the ocean on the one hand I cringed at the thought of good camera gear being destroyed, but on the other,  I just loved the anarcy!

The public lives of the celebrities has now ventured to their private lives.  It's sad to see the meltdown of Brittney Spears but do we really need a day by day update?   Things have actually gotten much worse for celebrities because the field of pavaratzi has expanded due to cheap digital cameras, low pay, and the public's growing appitite for trash.   Often the plan is to try and really anger the celbrity because a few seconds of them freaking out on camera is worth big money.  

It's taken me a while, but I finally get it.  I had a wedding where the maid of honor's BF was a very famous person, as in , a very, very famous sports celeberity.  So, in a nutshell, I simply said "Wow, there he is."   And then I went back to following the couple around.  He spent a lot of time outside and trying not to be the center of attention, and I kinda felt sorry for him to some extent.  Here's a guy who can't walk in and order a Double Double at In & Out Burger and sit and eat it in peace.   What good is fame if you can't go surfing, nor hang out with your friends at a bar?  What if your day was set to avoid  autograph hounds and pavaratzis, how annoying would that be?

The Malibu city council was going to take up the issue of Povaratzis and come up with city ordinances.  Yeah, I can tell you right away I don't like the sound of this.  Why?  Becauase they won't be able to ban one aspect of the shooting public so most likely they will have some come up with some anti professoinal photographer law that will effect all prfessional photographers, ones like me who have nothing to do with hounding celeberities.  

What I really think would do the trick would be to enforce an anti-harrasment law.  This would effect people getting harrased online by words, and being followed around by people with cameras.    It doesn't matter if a person is a professional photographer or not.   For example, Snoop Dogg has been known to hang out in parks close to my home  with his kids.  He should have the right to tell gawkers with cameras (even cell phone cameras) to leave him alone.  If a person doesn't comply he should have the right to call the cops and have this person cited.   

It's gotten to the point now where fame and success is almost not even worth it.    When you are on stage, the cameras should be on you.  When you go home, you should enjoy your right to personal freedom.  I am ready for a new ammendment to the constitution.  The right to punch out some photographer who is annoying the hell out of you!  How do you solve the problem of the Pavartzi?  Let them get beaten up and have their gear ruined and perhaps it may not be worth the $30 a night they get paid to  hang out in front of the Viper Room. 

 

Apple and Nikon introduce new products to a jaded market.

Technology has been one of my interests, and I don't have to buy something, nor want to buy something to be interested in it.   Case and point is the Iphone.  I am interested in the IPhone because it has forced the phone industry to raise the bar.

When the new Iphone was introduced thre was such a buzz about it that it sold by momentum.  Clearly it wasn't perfect, but their was demand for it.   Apple seemed to have a following of very loyal users.  What they did with the Ipod, which was to offer a total plan, from the hardware, to the ITunes software and firmware to the perfect intergration of the Itunes store helped make it a legend.  The expectations were that it would do the same thing for the cell phone industry.  It had a proprietary touch screen which made web surfing very easy.   The keyless design made it unique looking, attractive, but for a lot of people, it lacked funtionality.  Another thing Apple didn't really think about was that the cell phone industry was a huge market, they were up against other, much larger, and better funded organizations.  When the second generation of the Iphone was introduced, it was preceeded by rumours and numerous expectations.   The second phone was clearly an improvement over the first, but the expectations based on hype of the loyal Apple crowd and expectations created with other competitive phones gave it a luke warm reception.  It's not out yet and there are so many negative articles.   It's almost like people expect a $1000 to be given away for free, combined with lower rates from AT&T.   This phone is an improvement, but there are so many people who feel let down that  their vocal disapointment is  killing it's pre-release buzz.  Will the phone pick up momentum after it's release?  Stay tuned.

Nikon is a company I am familiar with.  I've been a fan of their cameras since high school.  They made some wonderful film cameras.  When the transition to digital occured, it was very rough for Nikon.  They had a fierce competitor, Canon.  Canon had it's own line of film cameras and unlike Nikon was part of a much larger consumer electronics company.  They made photocopiers for example.   So, the electronics for digital was something that Canon could excel at.  They were vertically integrated and for years Canon just ate Nikon's lunch when it came to digital photography.  There were a lot of loyal Nikon shooters who dumped their gear on E-Bay and started over again with Canon gear.    I was a hold out for many years. Just the same I was expecting to read one day that Nikon was aquired by Sony or some other larger, well funded consumer electronics company.   Then Nikon came up with a pro body known as the D2X, and the bleeding stopped.   They came up with newer bodies such as the D200 and the reviews were very positive.   Then, wouldn't you know it? A new camera body, the D3 caught the pros off guard.  The tables were starting to turn and some pros started switching from Canon to Nkon. 

So, with the things that Nikon was doing right, they did something very strange.  Every year there is a photo convention in Vegas not such much for photographers but retailers,  PMA (Photo Marketing Associatiion).   They have conventions in March in Vegas. PMA is the place the manufactures introduce new models and gadgets.  And then every other year a larger and more grand convention in Germany known as Photokina is held at the end of September.  This is a much larger and more prestigous convention.   It's much more prestigous to introduce products at this convention.

With big convention coming up, Nikon introduces a new camera body, the D700 in a press release on July 1st.  A lot of loyal Nikon photographers are just hearing about it right now, and our reaction is "Really, that's great."  But after more thinking there are a lot of questions.  Most importnatly, why now?   The timing is very odd.   It's going to be a great camera, but for me I am wondering if there is concern that Canon has something up it's sleeves that Nikon heard about and had to do a first strike.  And there are also rumors that Nikon and Sony are working on something amazing that may get introduced at Photokina, making the D700 anouncement underwhelming and forgotten.   No matter what happens the announcement is strange, the naming convention is strange, and for all those photographers who dropped $5000 on a new digital D3 body only to find out that the same sensor is showing up on a lower end digital body for a couple of thousand dollars less, it's at best frustrating.  But, this is what technology is all about.

The D700 body at face value will be a great, great asset to the Nkon line.  If it doesn't get overshadowed by a newer product introduction from Nikon or a comparable cameras from Canon, it should be the camera of the year.   However, I am looking at the product and the way it was introduced and I am thinking as I look at my tea leaves "Hmm, something big is about to happen. Something is up, I wonder what it is."  Just like Apple, the reaction from my fellow Nikon zelots is "Wow, cool, neat camera. BTw,what's going on with Nikon?  What are they up to?"

The bottom line is that I am not going to be buying a D700, and I am certainly not buying an IPhone.  Just the same, these are both great products that are being met with a more questions than praise..   It's getting harder to create buzz for technological gadets and as a society we may be getting more jaded and harder to impress.  This stuff is coming out much faster now, and the only thing that seems to come out faster is hype and expectations.  

I am thinking that blogs and chat boards are killing the marketing efforts of these corporations.  It works in their favor when a new product goes viral and chat boards and blogs are filled with people giving great feedback on a new product.  Apple introduced the Iphone behind glass at a convention, and there a 45 minute line to get a look at it.   Now all the articles I see are "The new Iphone doesn't have these features."  They almost sound like scorned lovers.  Nikon is in a different boat.  A poorly calculated step could cause them to end up with warehouses of cameras that aren't selling.   What's worse is that with this recession there aren't as many people who can come up with between $3000 to $5000 for a new body.    This may be the key to the underwhelming reception from both companies, a poor economy.  The thing that concerns me is that if these products don't move like they need to, it could effect future development of newer technolgoies.   Apple could pull out of the phone market.  Nikon can slow down new camera development to every few years, or worse, get sold off to another comapany.   Either way, failure for either of these companies hurts the overall development of technology

 

 

Steve from OG to OT. 

I used to joke and say I was O.G. (Old and Grey) but you know, that just doesn't cut it anymore.  Half the time I have to explain to my fellow white people the other meaning of O.G.  (Original Gangsta).  The interesting thing about life is that we need to have acronyms to show success.   MBA, PHD, MD, RN, RX ect.  In the photography industry we have our own acronyms that I've seen a few guys "earned" that they put on their business cards.  I've been in this industry for over a decade, and I can't tell you what the codes mean.  Perhaps if I was a bit more impressed with their photography I would find out.  In the meantime, I don't have a cool acronym after my name. 

The other day on the radio I heard an acronym I could live with, OT.  I love it because it sounds very close to OG so I may get some street credibility with this title.  Yeah, Yeah, OT in the house!

OT stands for Operating Thetan. It comes from the Church of Scientology.    Nope, i don't have anything to do with the Church of Scientology, I just love this name Operating Thetan. Operating  Thetans are one level above Clear. And though I read the definition five times, I still don't get it!  So maybe I'm not an Operating Thetan.  I'm not an operating thetan, nor am I clear, in fact I think I'm dazed and bewildered a lot of the time. Therefore, I am am going to merge OG with OT and call myself "Original Thetan."

So, what does an Original Thetan do?  I have to REPRESENT Southern California in case aliens show one day like Hollywood has been warning us about for the past 50 years.    Don't worry I got the whole setup like the end of Close Encounters of The Third Kind (It's an 80's Spielberg movie) so I will be able to communicate with them, but it would be A LOT easier if we could just send text messages.  I'll show them a good time,  take em to Disneyland, get em drunk in Tijuana, have good Sushi in Hollywood.  Things will be fine. That is, of course if they are nice aliens.  If they are mean aliens I will have to break out my gat and pop a cap in their a$$.  Actually if things get too rough I will have give a shout out to Wil Smith,  because I saw this documentary about him and the President of The United States defeating an infestation of terrorist aliens. I think the documentary was called "Independence Day." 

 

 

Articles

Mark Daily one year later is the story of the tragic death in Iraq of one of our most favorite 2005 grooms.  Though we go out of our way to make this website non-political, Mark wrote something while stationed in Iraq of why he joined the Army.   What he said was read on the floor of the senate, and has be written about in magazines and on blogs by notable journalists.  The bottom of the article is  a repost directly from his website.  It's haunting, beautiful and poetic.  By the time you read this you will understand that he was an extraordinary individual.

News:  There is a hot link to the News section down below, which is on nearly every page.   If anything new and exciting pops up, well let you know in this section first.   Mostly it will be used to point out new features of this site, and other stuff you should check out.