Pete Geniella San Francisco Photographer

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This is inspiring to me.

Christopher Irion, an advertising photographer with a studio around the corner from my place, has a portable photobooth thinger that can be set up pretty much anywhere. Kinda like Clay Enos’ Streetstudio, but If you ask a fella like me, Irion’s work has a striking intimacy and purpose.
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…that ran on the front page of this morning’s New York Times. It’s by Mark Wilson from Getty Images. Check it out here.

Recently, NPR’s “Living on Earth” used my “Dogpatch Smokestack” photo to accompany their piece about a Carbon Tax program in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can listen to the radio piece here.

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I shot photos at that there ‘lympic Torch Parade/Protest yesterday. It was a weird getting duped along with tens of thousands of other people.

As I often do while shooting at these kinds of fluid events, I listened to my police scanner and it was clear that in the hour or so leading up to the parade, the police were surprised and overwhelmed by the size of the crowd by the ballpark, as well as a good sized march heading south on the Embarcadero towards the ballpark in the direct path of the parade route.

It was lame that they flipped the script because thousands of people including busloads of school children and families were there to see the torch and got cheated. But I understand. This was a public event with kids and families and old people, not a Anti-War March down Market where the participants know what they were getting into and are ostensibly prepared to get arrested or at least whacked on the head.

I shot photos of the Torch coming through Chico in ‘96 and it was very memorable and made me feel proud to be an American. Practically the only people that saw the Torch yesterday were cops and media and the seagulls in the Marina.

Yesterday felt like yet another indication that American society is becoming more closed. What’s the point of having a “public” event and then so flippantly disregard the public? I know I am saying contradictory things, but it aint a black and white world we live in. It’s disconcerting how corporations don’t give an ess about consumers and our government is just as contemptuous of regular folk like you and I.

Here’s a flickr set of some of my selects from yesterday.

As always, click on the image to viewer super largerest

After our glorious morning visit to the Grand Canyon, Tar and I high-tailed it to Hoover Dam. It’s yet another truly spectacular engineering achievement from the 1930s, which was built ahead of schedule and under budget. As a contrast, they are building and arch bridge across the canyon to bypass the winding two lane highway over the dam. The bridge was set to open this year, but the project has been pushed to like 2011 with tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns.

To fully experience the Hoover Dam, we listened to “Highwayman” by The Highwaymen as we drove across. Here, Tar is a dam builder, umm, across a river deep and wide, where steel and water did collide.

We took a tour of the power plant, which was really impressive. That room is the length of two football fields and flooring is all hand laid terrazzo marble. The scale of the Hoover Dam is remarkable, but I was surprised by the high level of craftsmanship in such an industrial setting.

Y’all know what’s 30 minutes from the Hoover Dam? Vegas!

So we were feeling kinda haggard, and we spent a good part of the night just trying to find a good casino to chill at. Even though it was close to midnight and I knew they weren’t running, I wanted to see the gondolas at the Venitian. Next to the canal, there was an oxygen bar, something I’ve always wanted to try. So we strapped on the canulas and got nice back rubs, aromatherapy blasts and scalp massages. I felt like at least $900 after that.

After wandering the strip we ended up back at the Flamingo where we were staying. Decided to hit the roulette table for a bit before calling it a night. Following the maxim “always bet on red, bro” I hit on red 14 and walked away like the big timer I am, $100 richer. That’s right baby, the Bellagio buffet is on me tonight

Some landscapes from our 10 hour drive from Las Vegas to San Francisco

California is so beautiful.

Our San Francisco welcoming committee

The movers showed up Saturday and it’s been a long few days unpacking all 5000 lbs of our crap. Anybody want to buy a really nice sectional couch? Seriously, let me know.

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After our night at The Shady Dell, we headed north to Flagstaff. Phoenix is a real bummer these days with unmitigated sprawl and gross brown air. I swear the area has quadrupled in size since i was there in the early 2000s while on various tours. It’s pretty gross now, and like the FW/D metroplex, every chain store and casual dining experience has set up shop in the area. The corporate marginalization of American culture. Sigh.

Flagstaff is pretty bad-butt though. Sitting at like 7000 feet with San Francisco Mountains looming over the city, Tar and were feeling the altitude and were pretty tired. We really had to man-up to go get dinner at Mountain Oasis, But I am sure glad we did. Tar’s pineapple tofu salad was like blaaaoww and my Cantonese pasta as all boooyah. After eating mediocre food for the past few days it was nice to get some fresh tasting fiber and protein in our bellies.

The next day we got up pretty early and headed west on I-40/Old Route 66 to the Grand Canyon.

Wow.

That’s all I can say.

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Sunday was certainly a contender for “Most Memorable Day of The Trip.” We made our way across New Mexico (taking care to speed through the nexus of misfortune and bad luck that is Las Cruces, NM) and down into the very southern-most part of Arizona.

I’ll admit to feeling a twinge of anxiety as we left the comfort of the interstate for a rough and weathered and mostly empty two lane that ran along side an abandoned rail line. Highway 80 cuts south into Arizona, kisses the Mexico border in Douglas and then heads north towards Tuscon.

It’s a wild, barren land down there, and it was exciting to peer into Mexico. I could tell we were getting near the border by all the “Watch for Animals” signs and all the white pickups of La Migra hidden in the brush. “I can’t imagine” is a phrase that I keep thinking on this trip, and in this case I can’t imagine sneaking across this hard, cruel land where every plant is thorny and sharp and the rain and the sun are deadly.

Our destination for the evening was The Shady Dell in Bisbee, AZ. More on that in a sec…We rolled into Bisbee before check in time, so we decided to go past Bisbee to Tombstone. Tombstone, site of the infamous shootout at the OK Corral was um, OK. I guess spending time in the Stockyards in Fort Worth has desensitized me to the novelty of Wild West tourist attractions.

We wandered around a bit…didn’t want to pay $$ to see the OK Corral…I didn’t buy an embroidered western shirt I should have bought…and ended up at a saloon, where we had an ice cold beverage and some chips and salsa. The salsa, I believe, was made in New York City. Get a rope.

So the Shady Dell is a really cool place to spend the night. Instead of rooms guests stay in trailers from the mid 20th century; there are a few Airstreams, a Chris Craft yacht, an tiki-themed bus. We stayed in a 1950 Spartan-”ette”. Tar and I felt like little kids on a camp-out in a super fort, especially because our particular trailer was outfitted with two kid-szied twin beds instead of a full-sized bed.

I wish our schedule wasn’t as fixed as it is; The Shady Dell is a relaxing place. Part of it is being out in the middle of the desert…our cell phones didn’t work and there weren’t no internets…The Spartenette had a selection of books including a 50’s pulp novel that Tar read while I worked on Thoreau’s Walden. Charlie Parker played on the the mock-vintage radio, and if we weren’t so tired at day’s end, we could have watched a couple of vintage horror films of the refurbed vintage TV.

A place like The Shady Dell has real potential to go overboard on the retro-nostalgia-George Lucas-PT Cruiser-Diner-Letterman’s Jacket-sock hop tip, but they managed to keep their pants on and delivery a pleasant, authentic experience.

All of our fellow guests seemed to be feeling the friendly vibe and if we hadn’t have gone to dinner in Old Bisbee, I am sure we would have made some new friends.

A bit of disclosure, as much as we enjoyed our stay in the the Spartanette, there were some downsides. The trailer is almost 60 years old so there was a bit of a mildewey smell. And trying to be an eco-warrior, I didn’t turn on the heater so’s to save energy. I woke up in the middle of the night and the thermometer read 44 degrees. Once I got the heater going the trailer warmed up right quick.

Bisbee’s main claim to fame is the turquoise mine that used to go off there. You know your town is in trouble if the empty pit mine is a main attraction. Fortunately, Old Bisbee is so darn neat.

The tiny town has some of the oldest buildings in the area, and the streets wind up and down the tight valley walls. Most of the streets are one way. I got the impression getting around even such a small area is difficult enough that most folks just walk. In the evening the streets were full of happy folks wandering from the handful of restaurants to the handful of saloons.There’s a cool mellow arto hippy vibe, and the health food co-op had lots of yummy veg treats.

I’ve spent most of my recent days in the heart of the unchecked sprawl of the FW/D Metroplex or the urban density of San Francisco, I’ve forgotten just how truly vast and empty so much of the United States is. We’ve been putting in some long days in the car; umm, I can’t imagine riding a horse across this expanse. How many miles a day can you do on a horse, anyway?

Tar is driving, and we just entered New Mexico. Goodbye, Texas, you’ve been good to us. I am kind of sad right now. Here are some photos from yesterday. Not my best work, but we are having fun and sometimes life is about living it, not documenting it.

PS–we just passed like ten Cow-shwitzes in a row. The smell is overwhelming and disgusting. Come on folks, eat less beef, please.

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That’s right, I am nerding it up and doing some live posting from somewhere’s west of Fort Worth. I’ve been admittedly coy about our big news, but Tar got a killer job offer back in San Francisco so we are heading back to the Golden State. That should explain the infrequent posts. It’s kinda hard to document the Big Move when I am taping up boxes and spending hours on hold with AT&T.

Our itinerary takes us to El Paso, TX tonight, the Shady Dell Trailer Park in Bisbee, AZ on Sunday night…Flagstaff, AZ on Monday…Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Vegas on Tuesday. I’ll try to post from the road as my phone’s bluetooth connection permits.

Democracy in action. I hope they have something like this on election night in November. If you are looking at this tonight, just watch the map for a few minutes.

Read

Hey kids, only a few more days to take me up on my offer to make your holiday season easy….

Some more about “Capturing the moment.”

David Allen Harvey is a Magnum photographer; you may have seen his “Hip Hop Planet” photos in a recent National Geographic. He has a really interesting blog where he discusses his assingments and travels…not so much from a technical standpoint but more of a philosophical or emotional description of his work. Recently he offered up an contest on his blog. He listed 7 well known photographers and asked his readers to guess which always carry a camera and which don’t.

While it was interesting to see who does and who doesn’t, I really enjoyed Harvey’s take on camera/no-camera, because, well, he said exactly how I feel about it:

“i always have my camera with me…but, i do not always photograph everything around me all the time…like you, there are no pictures for me unless i am ready to make them…i need to be in the mood….or moved…and no matter what i do or how hard i try, i cannot “capture life”…i wish i could…but it slips by anyway…frustrating….the camera does not help…but sometimes i like to think that it will..that “recording” will somehow preserve the moment…stop this “freight train” or slow it down…a futile attempt …what it does do however, is allow me to savor a situation just a bit more than i would have otherwise…because when i am shooting, no matter how casually, i do “enter” the scene on a deeper level than if i am just standing there with my hands in my pockets….i notice more, feel more, become more….

the resulting picture may only be a reference… but as i sometimes go through the countless cardboard boxes i have stacked around of un-catalogued pictures, what a joy it is to discover some random snapshots of some “unimportant” event that just brings a smile to my face and simply brings back a memory that i might otherwise have forgotten…and if an old song from “yesterday” happens to play at the same moment as i am doing my archival rummaging, then i feel “the power” of remembering and living as in no other way…”

I always carry a camera with me. And a photo like this is why.

Every single moment in time is unique. That’s the real power of photography, capturing a moment that has never existed before nor will ever exist again. The shadow of the power line tower, at this very moment, is perfectly centered on the face of the office builing. Twenty-four hours later, the shadow shifted a few feet to the left. Heck ten minutes later, the light was gone.

If you see an interesting visual moment, capture it. Don’t think it will be there tommorrow. The light *will* change. The weather *will* be different. There *will* be a white service van parked right in the middle of your shot. There’s no stopping the ebb and flow of life, you can only hope to capture fleeting moments of beauty or emotion.

When I was a photojournalism student, I carried a full kit of gear around in case World War III broke out in front of me. Since then, I learned there’s something to whole “simplicity” thing. Carrying the full rig meant, along with shoulder pain, when it was time to make an image, I’d have to unpack my bag, swap a lens,etc.

After a while, my bag moved from the passenger’s seat to the trunk, and the moments slipped away. After years of body aches and missed oppurtunities, I generally leave the PJ rig at home but I always carry a point & shoot. When I was shooting film, my P&S was an Olympus Stylus Epic. Today, I carry a Panasonic LX2.

My LX2 resides in my jacket pocket or in my man-purse Chrome messenger bag. When I come across a moment like above, it’s easy as pulling the camera out, snapping a couple of frames and moving on with my day.

A note about the colours and tones of this image, or any of my images–This is pretty close to reality. Certainly, the optical characteristics of my camera sprinkle some faerie dust into an image, and my mild post processing “special sauce” helps with the contrast, etc, and I gently inject my sense of style and vision into an image…But I always strive to be truthful with my images and have them represent the moment as my mind’s eye remembers it. Anything I do can be done in a darkroom.

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So my very good friend Mister Cliff Greenwood has a new album out, for which I shot the album art. The album is rad, buy it here right now. If you need some enticing, go to Cliff’s myspace page and listen to some of the acoustic countryfied punk jams.

You may remember the cover photo of the Bay Bridge from an earlier post of mine. The good news for you is that you can buy a print of that there image right here.

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Last night I joined Team West and Clear at opening night of Ricki Derek’s Scat Jazz Lounge at 4th and Main in Downtown Fort Worth. We had a great time, and I am really excited about the photos I shot, so you get to see them all. Also, check out Steve’s West and Clear write-up and the “live” podcast we recorded.

Click on any of the images to view larger or to view in a slideshow-ey sequence.

Ahh, The Holidays.

Nothing like holiday crooning on the radio as you sit in stop and go on the freeway off-ramp in front of the Mega Mall. And if you manage to slog through the traffic, it’s warfare in lot 32Y for the closest parking spot, which happens to be 10 football fields away from the Mega Mall entrance. Cheeks rosey from the parking lot death march in the brisk winter air, your feet a swellin’, you join a few thousand of your closest friends in an epic gladiator style battle for cheap crap from China.

Well, I am here to deliver you from December agony. For the next two weeks, I am offering a limited series of prints at affordable prices suitable for framing and staring at for hours on end and gift giving. Place the order online, prints end up at your front door.

Simple.

Easy.

Instead slam-dancing in the consumer mosh pit, I will make it so you can kick your feet up, read a book by the fire, pet the cat, and sip a Hot Toddy.

Click the ad below to peruse the selection.

You can thank me later.

Cheers,

peteg at petegeniella dot com

• Photo inspiration
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• Brian Ulrich: Photography 2.0 – Brightcove
  I just watched this, and Ulrich gives a really interesting presentation. You’ll notice that I link to his site on my sidebar. Ulrich shoots candids of the retail world
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Yestderday, I talked about how I enjoy working with digital black & white. While I don’t miss heavy metals saturating my liver and my fingers smelling like fixer, I have always favored the way film grain looks, especially in Black and White photos. Now there are approximately 101 ways to achieve a film-grain look in photoshop, and the technique I am about to outline is but one. I can’t say it’s the best, but it’s been working for me so far.

As you read this, you’ll note I am coy about the particulars. A good chef never gives away his entire recipe. Part of the fun of photography is figuring out what works for you and your vision. I suggest using this guide as a starting point for experimentation until you find something you like. Here’s how it works:

Here’s a close up, for reference, of the image before grain is added:

Set the layer mode to overlay, the layer opacity to 50%. You can adjust opacity to taste.

And here’s the same area after the “grain” is added:

You can click on the images below to java-magically see a larger image. It’s a subtle effect, but the idea is to enhance your photography, not show off an effect.

Here’s the before:

And the after: