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Changing Light

July 21, 2021

Lightograph

I subscribe to the Rangefinder blog site (a partner of WPPI) and this week they focused on a new technique called a Lightograph, a patent pending technique developed by Jeremy Cowart. Similar to a Cinemograph, a Lightograph is a moving photograph. But….and this is an important distinction, instead of the subject moving, the light moves!

Jeremy Cowart is a photographer that I admire immensely. For one thing, he’s a neighbor. He, his wife and their 4 kids live in Franklin, TN (just across the state line from my home state of Alabama). But aside from the fact that he’s a fellow Southerner, Jeremy is also the founder of Help-Portrait–a program that enables photographers, make-up artists, and hairstylists the opportunity to collaborate on a mission of giving people who otherwise couldn’t afford photography, a chance to capture a moment, a memory and a whole lot more. For one day a year, photographic teams participating in Help Portrait find people in need, take their portraits, print their portraits and deliver them–free of charge. Every time I read the stories of people who have been the benefactors of Help Portrait, I get a bit teary eyed. We all know the power of a photograph in changing the world. In Help Portrait, it also changes personal lives.

But, as usual, I digress. The purpose of this posting was to talk about lightographs. I have been intrigued, in the past, about cinemographs and have played around with the technique. But I had never even considered the possibility of a moving photo where the subject remains stable and only the light changes. Cowart says the format allows a single graphic to tell more than one story. “It forever changes what’s possible in portraiture,” Cowart wrote in a Facebook post. “After all, humans are multidimensional. We are heroes, but we are also villains. We love, and we lose. We grieve, and we hope. We may stall, but we are never idle. Our breath and blood wave through our bodies like the ocean. For the first time, this incredibly complex symphony of the human experience can be reflected back to us in photographic form, composed with light and captured in a Lightograph.”

I got excited when I saw my first lightograph and decided I would give it a shot. This video is my first (feeble and amateurish, I know, I know ?? ) attempt at a lightograph.

If you would like to see some REALLY GOOD lightographs, then check out lightograph.com . You can also rent a tutorial by Jeremy Cowart on The Art of Lightoraphy that is available on the website. While, granted, my attempt at a lightograph would benefit greatly from his tutelage, I thought the rental price for the tutorial was a bit steep. But I do think the concept is a novel one and provides a new source of inspiration for photographers like me.

Gaslighting

July 17, 2021

“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.” Stephen D. Levitt, Think Like A Freak

Gaslighting is a term that has received a lot of mileage lately in media. The term originated in the psychological literature in the late 1960s and, while it was used only sporadically in political culture, it really achieved trending status in the mainstream and social media with the 2016 political election. I think it is a term that is widely misunderstood and, as a consequence, is often used inappropriately. So what does gaslighting mean?

The term first achieved popular usage with a 1944 film starring Ingrid Bergman (I just LOVE Ingrid Bergman!) and Charles Boyer. I remember seeing the film when I was around 11 or 12. My dad was an early to bed guy. My mom loved staying up later and watching old movies on television. I have never been a good sleeper and so, in the summertime, my mom would allow me to stay up with her “if I stayed quiet and didn’t bother her.” So, my mom and I watched a lot of old black and white movies on TV. (That may be one of the reasons I love monochrome photographic images to this day!)

And sometimes, while the rest of the household was asleep, my mom would sometimes make a deal with me. Even though she was already in her nightgown, she would drive me—barefoot, ragged blue jean shorts, t-shirt—to the Dairy Queen drive-in 10 minutes from our home, right before closing time. I would jump out of the car and head to the order window. ‘Two Banana Splits!’ And then Mom would drive us back home and we would eat our banana splits while watching a movie from the 40s or the 50s. But I digress, as usual.

The movie I’m referring to, in a very twisted round about manner, is termed appropriately Gaslight. The film has that wonderful noir quality of the old black and white films. In the film, the husband deliberately dims the lights in the home and when his wife questions why the light is changing, he denies that they are. His purpose is to have her doubt her sanity so that he might commit her to a mental institution.

So, the term achieved pop culture usage to refer to the manipulation to deny reality to a person on the receiving end of the gaslighting. So, how does someone deny reality to another? Actually, pretty easily and effectively—by presenting false information to them in order to make them doubt their own memories, judgments or perceptions. The term was quickly borrowed by psychologists as a tool to easily communicate a concept to their patients.

Most often, the manipulation is a conscious and deliberate attempt by one individual over another individual. It is not necessarily intentional or malicious, however. The person doing the gaslighting may be unconsciously avoiding reality themselves and therefore subverting any attempts by others presenting reality. Gaslighting is a cognitive strategy for regulation and co-regulation and it works. It is a way for an individual to control the moment, stop the conflict, ease some anxiety and feel in charge, a way to deflect responsibility. Common phrases used by gaslighters? You’re just imagining things, you’re overreacting, it never happened, you don’t remember things clearly, there you go again. The phrases may differ but the end result is the same—to negate your perspective, insisting that you are wrong or telling you your emotional reaction is dysfunctional.

Some of the more famous examples of gaslighting as a tool for manipulation was the slogan used by Joseph Stalin (and commandeered in the book 1984) of 2 + 2 = 5.

Stalin used it to refer to the escalation of the Russian economy under his leadership. Winston Smith, in 1984, finally concedes under great pressure that yes, 2 + 2 = 5 to illustrate the point that sometimes the benefit of embracing the lie outweighs the sacrifice required to cling to the truth. Since then, the term 2 + 2 = 5 has come to represent the absurdity of political falsehoods and lying propaganda.

Amanda Carpenter refers to the concept in her book, Gaslighting America, when she refers to the falsehood tsunami that America experienced with the Trump White House.

In 2018, Donald Trump gave an outstanding example of the concept of gaslighting—denying the reality that others experienced in order to exert control—when he stated in a public speech that, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what is happening.”

Another example of gaslighting in the pop media was Chico Marx in the film, Duck Soup, when he spoke the line, “Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” That eventually became, in pop culture use, a line used successfully by Richard Pryor in his Live on the Sunset Strip comedy routine when he tells the audience that his wife caught him with his mistress so he asks her, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

So, what is the best recourse if you suspect that you are being gaslit? The caution to watch what they do and not what they say in the epigraph above is by Dr. Levitt, a Harvard and MIT trained economist who achieved popular celebrity as the originator of the Freakonomics movement. In his latest book, Think Like A Freak (which I highly recommend!), Levitt recommends the attitude we need to cultivate in order to best handle the tricks and the problems that the world throws at us. Basically, he argues that we should think like a child, free ourselves from expectations and be prepared for simple explanations. We should watch what they do and not what they say.

Rachel Maddow has also proscribed this course for journalists who were trying to adequately cover the Trump administration and the deluge of conflicting lies, distortions of reality, and contradictions that emanated from the White House. In 2019, she cautioned all journalists to “watch what they do, not what they say.“

Watch what they do, not what they say.

New York City Blackout of 1977

July 13, 2021

**“There’s a crack in everything–that’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen**

Forty-one years ago today, Gotham City (just kidding—New York City) suffered a massive and prolonged power outage. The weather at the time was very similar to today’s weather in Huntsville—hot, steamy, like walking around in a dog’s mouth.

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” Marilyn Monroe

The event began with a lightning strike at 8:37 pm at Buchanan South–a substation on the Hudson River–that incapacitated the facility. A second lightning strike quickly followed, affecting the nuclear plant at Indian Point. Twenty minutes later, a third lightning strike knocked out the Sprain Brook substation in Yonkers. Consolidated Edison attempted to manually offload a segment of customers but the procedure failed and ‘Big Allis’, the biggest generator in the ConEd system, shutdown from overload.

**“It is among the most basic human truths: Every one of us, some day, will be brought to our knees. Joe Kennedy III**

New York City was already a powder keg. The city had been going through a severe financial crisis that required a bailout from the State of New York in mid 1975. Severe restrictions on the city were enacted, including a wage freeze, a major layoff, a subway fare hike, and the institution of tuition at the City University of New York.

“He didn’t believe in God anymore and yet….he still wished that God would help him.” E. Lockhart

In addition, the city was being terrorized by a mass killer, Son of Sam. The random murders of 6 people and wounding of 7 others had begun in December 1975. The assaults were brutal and violent. The killer left notes at the bodies of victims filled with bizarre threats and intimations of future violence which just further alarmed the city’s inhabitants.

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” Joan Didion

The brutal heat wave was probably the fuse to the bomb that exploded the night of July 13th. The city experienced waves of fires and massive looting. LaGuardia and Kennedy airports were closed down for about 8 hours, stranding passengers at two of the busiest airports in the nation. Automobile tunnels were closed, stranding thousands of commuters and an equal number of New Yorkers had to be evacuated from the subway system. The largest mass arrest in city history—approximately 4000—overwhelmed the judicial and law enforcement systems.

Life hurts for everyone, and I think we all have to decide how we’re going to handle the darkness.

Gradually, power was restored, beginning at 7 am on July 14th. Television stations however remained off the air until July 15th.

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” John F. Kennedy

New Yorkers have a reputation for taking it all in stride. In previous blackouts, the city’s inhabitants had taken a c’est la vie attitude, printing t-shirts sold weeks later on the city’s streets, asking “Where were you…during the blackout?” Following the northeast blackout of 1965, the R&B group the Ad Libs released a song entitled “New York in the Dark” that included the lines, “the people they were frantic, although they didn’t panic, they kept on singing songs, until the lights came on again.”

**Even when our death is imminent, we carry the image of ourselves moving forward, alive, into the** future.

The blackout of 1977 was entirely different. New Yorkers who lived through the event refer to themselves as survivors and talk about the profound fear and stress they experienced.

As I’ve always said, history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Climate change is already creating events that mimic the chaos and loss of control New York experienced during the great blackout of 1977. Stay alert!

“The caged bird sings for freedom but also to make the most of what she has.” Chris Orwig

No Words

July 9, 2021

Ghost Fireflies

July 5, 2021

Okay, this photo is just to get your attention {smile} Once again, apologies for letting such a long time go between postings. In June, I took an entire semester’s course in one month at UAH. It was intense! We met every day for several hours. The class was in creative nonfiction writing–a genre that encompassed more than I ever imagined. But, sadly, everything else in my life took a backseat in June. So, my blog was on graduate school hiatus except for one brief trip to see synchronized fireflies.

The life span of synchronized fireflies (actually— bioluminescent beetles) is one to two years from larva to adult. The adult lifespan, however, is only about two weeks. It is during this time interval that the ‘lightning bugs’ mate and, as part of the mating ritual, congregate in just a few geographic areas in the United States. The adult males hover at tree level and communicate to the females on the ground by light flashes in their abdomen. As more adult male fireflies congregate, they synchronize their light patterns. The distinct flashing pattern of the fireflies—5-8 bursts of light in a short time interval, followed by approximately 5 seconds of darkness—is nearly impossible to film or photograph. Because there are few visual records, it requires actual immersion in the event to appreciate it. It was to see this synchronized light show, only occurring for 10 – 14 days annually, that I traveled to Gatlinburg.

The geographic area with the largest collection of synchronized fireflies is the Elkmont campground in the Great Smokies National Park. Unfortunately, as the event has become better known, a tourist avalanche has resulted, with trampling of natural forest growth and flashlights wreaking havoc on the natural behavior of the migratory species. Consequently, park regulations were necessary to corral humans and protect the natural phenomenon. A lottery was implemented to restrict the number of visitors. Now, if you are lucky enough to obtain a pass from the lottery, you meet at the Elkmont campground and a shuttle bus will escort you (and hundreds of others) to a viewing site.

In my current misanthropic state of mind, I was not willing to choose close association with massive numbers of other human beings. So, I hired a Smoky Mountain hiking guide who was willing to escort a small group of us to a non-disclosed location that still promised the opportunity to view synchronized fireflies.

As the evening began, I didn’t know if my decision was a good one or not because I didn’t see very large numbers of synchronized fireflies. I did see something that I did not expect to see, though. I saw blue ghost fireflies and it was a unique, unexpected and memorable experience.

Blue ghost fireflies are another species of bioluminescent beetles that mate during the same time interval as synchronized fireflies. But their lighting pattern is very different. For one thing, instead of the green glow typical of synchronized fireflies, they emit an eerie blue glow. And instead of a flashing pattern, they glow for several seconds at a time. The males hover around 4 – 5 feet off the ground, tracing a light pattern for the wingless females on the ground. The females repeat the glow pattern so that the flying males can see them and mating can occur.

Why ‘ghost’ blue fireflies? Appalachian legend has it that the fireflies are the ‘ghosts’ of the confederate dead. Which makes sense because the geographic location of the blue fireflies in their very short adult mating ritual is a site where many confederate soldiers died.

Witnessing this phenomenon was magical. I was standing in deep forest with only a few other humans around, several of whom were personal friends. Everyone was aware of not interrupting the experience with light or sound so the air was hushed and deeply, deeply dark. I felt as though I was in the outer space I knew only through video and visual representations. My body was as lost as my mind was. When I moved my arms or walked about, I had no visual reflexes to let me know where I was in the space I was occupying. And all around me, from my knees to my shoulders, were will o’ wisps of light that resembled stars in the night sky—a moment there, then gone and replaced by another close by. It was as though I was swimming through outer space and the stars were all around me.

It was an unforgettable experience.

The Lightroom Ecosystem

May 5, 2021

One of the things that I have always appreciated about Adobe is their commitment to development and innovation in their product line. It’s a smart and profitable business strategy. They have been around for almost 40 years. Adobe Illustrator was their first commercial product and Photoshop was introduced about 10 years later. I started using Photoshop almost 15 years ago and have seen significant, almost annual, improvements in the product. I have also been an Apple user for about the same period of time and 10 years ago when Apple introduced Aperture—a software that offered organizational structure to my growing catalogue of images, I eagerly embraced it. It offered something that Photoshop did not provide—the ability to create a hierarchical structure and organization of my images based on my own preferences coupled with the ability to export my images in a variety of different formats. Adobe must have seen the writing on the wall and rushed to develop a competitive program—Lightroom—that improved on their current photoshop adjunct, Bridge. I became a beta tester for that product and over the next 2 years watched as Apple’s Aperture lost commercial favor and Lightroom succeeded, primarily because Adobe listened to their photographer users and continually strove to produce a product that met their needs.

A few years ago, Adobe did what I considered, at the time, a serious misstep. I think now that perhaps they were prescient. They introduced a whole bevy of products designed to be in constant contact with the internet—a space that Adobe fancifully called the ‘creative cloud’. Lightroom Mobile was designed to be used on mobile devices—iPads, iPhones. Then, they introduced a variation of Lightroom mobile that could be used on a desktop or laptop. They called it Lightroom Creative Cloud (LRCC). This introduced a torrent of confusion that persists to this day over the two Lightroom named products—Lightroom Creative Cloud (identical to LR mobile—just the desktop version of it) and Lightroom Classic.

Adobe, true to form, has been devoting a great deal of development and improvement in their mobile applications and Lightroom Creative Cloud has developed more capability over the past few years. Enough so that it prompted me to seriously look at my workflow to see if there were options available to me that I was not currently utilizing. When Adobe first introduced Lightroom mobile several years ago, it seemed like a skinny down version of Lightroom with few of the features that I needed. The only advantage to Lightroom mobile was that it allowed you to look at photos on your portable devices (an iPhone or an iPad). But you really couldn’t do much to them. If offered little in the way of organization, limited file types for import and export, and limited editing capabilities. I just didn’t see an advantage to it. I was wedded to Lightroom Classic.

But, the last time I decided to reexamine Adobe’s ecosystem, I discovered the HUGE advantage of creative cloud libraries. Currently, I have almost 20 gb of files stored on creative cloud—textures, brushes, sky photos—which came in really handy this past year when Adobe announced the sky replacement feature in Photoshop! I was ready to go because of all the sky photos I had already uploaded to the cloud—but that’s a topic for a future blog posting. Keep in mind that Adobe gives everyone who has a basic photography subscription 20 gb of cloud space. These files are available to me whether I’m using Lightroom Classic, Lightroom Creative Cloud, or Lightroom Mobile. They are available to me even if I’m using another creative software, such as Procreate or Corel Painter. HUGE advantage and I only discovered it when I started seriously looking at the ‘creative cloud’.

I know that I use my cell phone now for image making almost as much as my ‘real’ camera. I’d like to be able to bring those images into my workflow with as little effort as I do with the camera card import from my real camera. My cell phone photos are managed by Apple photos. I can export them to my desktop and then import them into my Lightroom catalogue but that is a clunky way to do that. Why couldn’t I take advantage of Lightroom Creative Cloud and have a more seamless coordination?

Turns out I can. Lightroom Mobile can automatically import photos from your cell phone or ipad and funnel them straight to the creative cloud. In fact, that is Lightroom Mobile/Creative Cloud’s chief advantage—it is an umbilical cord forever tied to the placenta of the creative cloud. Keep in mind that the application is called Lightroom mobile on iPads and iPhones but Lightroom Creative Cloud on laptops and desktops. But the program functions identically and collaboratively by utilizing Adobe’s creative cloud. And if you look closely at the preferences settings in both Lightroom Mobile and Lightroom Creative Cloud, it gives you the option of how much space you are willing to allot on your device to ‘smart previews’ of your images. But the raw, digital negatives themselves are immediately uploaded to the creative cloud by both applications.

And Lightroom Classic now has the ability to automatically import those raw, digital negatives sent to the cloud from Lightroom Mobile/Creative cloud. Here’s the thing to remember: Lightroom Mobile/Creative cloud is a bridge from the creative cloud to your device. Its job is to take your images, create a ‘smart preview’ available to all your devices while placing your original digital negative in the cloud. Lightroom Classic, on the other hand, will only communicate to the cloud if you tell it to do so. And if you tell it to send images to the cloud, it will only send ‘smart previews’ and hold on to your original digital negatives. And if you ask it to synchronize with Lightroom Creative Cloud, it gives you the option of downloading either a ‘smart preview’ or the original digital negative residing in the cloud. Confusing, isn’t it? Both programs are called Lightroom but are entirely different.

Lightroom Classic is tied to your computer, Lightroom Mobile/Creative Cloud is tied to the internet. Lightroom Classic utilizes the raw digital negative, Lightroom Mobile/Creative Cloud primarily utilizes a ‘smart preview’.

This diagram is one that really illustrated the difference for me and I find myself referring to it frequently. It’s not my creation, however. It was developed by Jared Platt, a professional photographer and educator who really clarified the Lightroom ecosystem for me.

I can see a real advantage to using Lightroom CC when I am traveling. I can import from my camera card and from my phone to Lightroom CC and those images (the actually digital files) will be uploaded to the cloud (one copy saved), and a copy of the image retained on my camera card or phone (second copy saved) and a third copy from the automatic download of Lightroom CC to my Lightroom Classic catalogue back at home. My personal mantra while traveling is to always have at least 3 copies of every image I shoot. This addition to my workflow is a very easy way to achieve that goal. In addition, I always have to think about the possibility of something critical happening to my laptop or to my camera cards when I’m on the road (lost, stolen, broken) but the process allows one copy of my images to be safely maintained in the cloud and one copy waiting on my Lightroom Classic catalogue on my home computer (assuming I’ve left it on and downloading from the cloud). How cool is that!

So, why not just commit to using Lightroom Creative Cloud? Why even bother with using both Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic? Although Adobe continues to invest development into Lightroom CC, at this point in time it still does not offer everything that I want or need (keywording, more varied options of import and export). More importantly, I am a CONTROL FREAK! I want the more complex, hierarchical structure of Lightroom Classic that mimics my hard drive and is based on my decisions of how I want to structure my catalogue and access my images. I want to be in control of my catalogue backup—who, what, when, and where. The organizational structure of Lightroom Mobile/Creative Cloud is greatly simplified by Adobe in order to be very user friendly (and it is!). But it is Adobe’s design (not my own) and is dependent on what they refer to as Adobe Sensei—a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence that will assist you in finding whatever image you might be searching for. Yeah, right? As far as I’m concerned, that is a technology that is in its infancy and I will wait a bit longer before I depend on it.

But I do see myself utilizing Lightroom CC as a useful adjunct in my workflow from this point on.

Diana Davidson

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