The Book Designer.com has awarded the best non-fiction cover for July 2013 to Futon Daiko: A Japanese Festival. The site, run by Joel Friedlander, is a wonder source of information for independent publishers. More about the Book Designer and this award can be found at The Book Designer.
How do you separate luck and talent? Talent can get you good images, competent images. But those magic moments, where do they come from? Personally, I feel those pictures are given, rather than taken.
This image from Futon Daiko: A Japanese Festival is a result of many chance factors. The crowd was huge and pushed me back against a stone lantern; the force of the crowd split the lens hood on another camera in my bag. Needing some kind of support to make a long exposure—a tripod was not going to work—I clamped my camera on a steel I-beam supporting a branch of an 800-year-old camphor tree at arms length above my head. So far, so good. Just one problem. How do I frame the picture? I could not see through the viewfinder.
For those without a photography background, there is a technique or style known as shooting full frame. The photographer frames the image in the camera and does not recompose or crop later. I have used this style for my entire career—an unnerving way to work as there are no fixes later. So guessing the camera position, guessing the focus, guessing the exposure, here is the result, just as the camera saw it.
How much of this image is mine? How much luck? How much the good graces of the god Hachiman? I doubt the question can ever be answered. But I feel blessed to be there to take the picture, or maybe to receive it.
In March 2013, a storm surge was reaching land at Pemaquid Point in Maine. The storm was well out to sea. The skies were clear and periodic swells rushed into the cove just below the lighthouse. Click on the image for a larger view.
I have been meditating on memories and genealogy. I am from a generation that broke away from the extended family structure. Over time, I have inherited objects from my grandparents and great grandparents. I have heard stories about them. The few memories I have are fractured and distant. All of these people are now dead. What remains are these objects. This image is from this work in progress.
This is a small vise from my maternal grandfather, a boat builder from Nova Scotia, Canada. My memories of him are cursory: a short man, a quiet man, a stern man. I don’t remember talking much with him. I have one memory of playing with him when he used the handle of his walking stick to trip me up. We repeated this game for several minutes: him catching my ankle, and me falling and laughing.
