The Serial Box

Don't Forget Haiti...

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:41:00 -0500

Since the day after the earthquake, I have struggled with whether or not I could/should go to Haiti. As the images began to pour in, my overwhelming desire was to go and to go immediately. But then different stories started to trickle in, stories of people just showing up without purpose and I began to feel uneasy. I read of photographers stuck at the airport having no idea where to go. I heard of photographers taking photographs without any outlet. And it seems to me that without an outlet the photographs of suffering are just fodder for a portfolio…and that is an unjustified transaction. Two things happened in quick succession that really put my plans on hold. First, reports surfaced about severe water shortages and then the following morning, Damon Winter’s photograph of a few Haitians reaching for a stream of water coming from a bucket on the back of a relief truck ran on the front page of the New York Times. To me that was a perfect example of the power of well timed journalism. It was powerful, it was compelling, and it told the story of people desperate for the most basic of things… I know that I donated as a result of that one image. I decided then and there that I would not continue to try and go to Haiti. There were already people working hard with resources, experience, backing, and (mega) outlets ready to publish the images. The best thing to do was to stay out of the way.

Now as a media professional, I believe that this urge to see and to show is only natural. It’s how I make sense of the world and ultimately, I believe that my role is to help play a small part in creating the context through which others (who won’t be able to go) process these things… However, I feel like I know enough about how things work to know that you can’t force something like that. Also, I realized that I am not a breaking news kind of storyteller. I am more intrigued and inspired by the process stories, by the small stories, by the rebuilding… Those kind of stories take time and they take a different skill set than breaking news. So I donated, I waited, I watched.

Nearly 4 months later, I got a phone call from a friend who was travelling to Haiti with the purpose of telling stories of community development and rebuilding. He wanted to focus on the small organizations that weren’t large enough to capture national attention, but were doing really compelling, significant work…who are helping to rebuild a country brick by brick. I had the great privilege of traveling with Troy Livesay and Robbie Seay as well as photographer Steven Bush. Steven and I were tasked with covering a lot of moving pieces. We interviewed families while standing on the rubble of broken houses, we sat with new mothers standing on new (artificial) limbs. We watched wounds being dressed and heard stories of picking up the pieces. I am excited to share the stories that we came across. Stories of loss and pain and fear. Stories of hope and peace and love. Stories of the lost being found, stories of starting small. We will work to put them together as honestly as possible.

You know, I’ve heard it said that the best way to tell a big nuanced story is to tell a very, very tiny piece of it. The mystery seems to be that in the small things we see an emerging picture…not that each small piece is somehow representative of the whole, but rather each small piece hints at a larger framework. It can be counter intuitive, it can feel too simple, but ultimately we are creatures of small circles, of limited interactions and we just aren’t able to comprehend the gravity of large scale disaster.

In a way, large scale tragedy attracts the attention of media outlets across the globe because it makes for “good tv”, but the reason the media crews leave is because the tragedy (even at this scale) is really just made up of normal people trying to live normal lives. But I believe, paradoxically perhaps, that the NORMAL is what you and I end up connecting with…a dad who is trying to find work and food for his family. Not necessarily a flattened cathedral…

Don’t Forget Haiti: Tent City from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

At one point, while standing on a hillside and surveying to my left and to my right, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t standing on a hillside. I was standing on ten stories of rubble, smashed and piled into an enormous mound. A mound that had claimed the lives of many, a mound that represented the permanently altered lives of a neighborhood, a town. This mound was seismic change, catastrophic change, and yet, as I looked back to my right, a young boy carrying a school bag strolled by weaving his way through the cut paths in the rubble. He was walking on the new “sidewalks” made from thousands of feet following the pair in front of them. He had a sno-cone in his hand and a book back slung over his shoulder. This was his new walk home from school. Catastrophe and normalcy pressed right up against each other. I followed the young man as he walked home, as he made his way through what was left of his neighborhood and I wondered what I was walking over, wondered how possible it would be to “move on.” Then he turned the corner, out of my view, and into his house…

Dont Forget Haiti: Sidewalks from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

These stories will live on dontforgethaiti.com. Check there soon to meet more of these incredible Haitian people who are just like you and me…more people who are having to rebuild an entire city brick by brick. The hope is to connect you with these people and the organizations who are standing along side them.

Take for instance, the couple below. The man was working on his roof when the earthquake struck. It detached from his house and he somehow managed to ride it like a wildly pitching skateboard down the broadside of the hill his house stood on. It came to rest and he was largely unhurt. Problem was, his grandson had been inside the mound of concrete that moments before had been his house. He spent the next several hours digging his grandson out of the rubble. He had severe injuries, broken bones and deep lacerations. We met the boy at a clinic and sat with him as they changed his cast and cleaned his scars. We stood with the couple on the pile of concrete and rebar that was all that was left of their house as he told us about the other children that he lost that day. These are the stories we will work to tell. Why? Because, quite simply, if we live in a world in which my computer can come from China and my clothes can come from India and my apple can come from New Zealand…if my everyday life is impacted by all corners of the globe, then shouldn’t it follow that “neighbor” is an ever expanding definition? If we are global consumers, then can’t we also be global producers, investors, givers…

(Photo by Steven Bush)

(Photos by my iPhone)

(Another image by Steven Bush)

Sometimes I wonder if “getting involved” really starts with just “getting to know someone.” Maybe the rest of it just flows from the “knowing.”

I’m not sure.

Either way, don’t forget Haiti.

Beyond the Still

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:35:00 -0500

I’ve been itching to enter Canon and Vimeo’s Beyond the Still film contest for months now. After I watched my friends Scott Brignac and Cody Bess collaborate on the second chapter, make the top 5, and have a blast, I knew that I had to do it. Now, I have never written/directed/shot/edited anything narrative before and I thought that this contest provided a great opportunity to try it out. I have been following the contest pretty closely and have voted for each chapter. I had been arm-chair quarterbacking from the sidelines and knew it was time to jump in and make a film. I promise you, my only goal was finishing. I wanted to try something new, make something that I could be proud of, and turn it in by deadline. I knew that anything beyond that was largely out of my control. To make the top 5 is a huge honor. There were some really, really strong pieces this round. I am interested to see what happens to the story from here and who the vimeo community will pick as the winner. If you feel that my piece is the direction you’d like to see the story go, please take a moment and vote! (just click the header above).

The “telephone” nature of the competition, I believe, is both the biggest strength (incredibly inviting for first time filmmakers) and its biggest challenge (good luck trying to tonally/stylistically make anything connect). Trying to logically (and interestingly) follow four other narrative pieces is quite tricky…you don’t want to simply follow the structure, but rather, want to insert your own ideas into the framework and to hopefully nudge it in a different direction. The trick is finding the balance. You want to pay respect to the winning chapters and to the fact that viewers are naturally going to be interested in what happens to the Cabbie at this point. Producing something that was a sharp divergence from the story and completely outside of the cabbie/bear/key/warehouse paradigm seemed to be disingenuous. So I decided to operate within the arc presented by the first four winners, albeit, with a bit of a different tone. I decided to thicken up the Cabbie and daughter characters…asking questions about why we should be rooting for them, why we are following them in the first place… The action that is taking place in the “present” of this story was pretty set at this point. Kidnapped daughter, weird beachcomber guy, “go to this address”, creepy warehouse, etc. I kept coming back to this thought that these kind of mystical/strange/sinister things don’t happen in a vacuum. Mystical begets mystical, sinister begets sinister. Choices tend to cascade exponentially. My idea was to explore what happened long before this particular few days/nights. What was the Cabbie engaged in, regardless of the reasons, that would have put him on a path to intersect with these bizarre characters/circumstances?

Given that I had never written a screenplay before, my friend Dan Steele was my first phone call when i started thinking seriously about entering. I have known Dan since theater days in college and have always appreciated his writing (of course), but more than that, I knew that he would be a perfect person to bounce ideas around with. We would spend hours on the phone throwing out “what if…” questions, following the rabbit trails where they would lead. We discussed motivations and new characters and how to make this story move forward. Yet, we also began to try and fill in the structure with more emotional subtext. “Raising the stakes” as my theater professors would say. We quickly dismantled the first few ideas, realizing that that is where most people would stop (in a rush to start shooting) and we really spent a lot of time trying to think of ways to thicken the story and provide the filmmakers of the next chapter with plenty of fresh alley ways to explore.

First goal: map out the structure of the entire story (including our ideas), as it existed.

THE CABBIE (CH. 1 - CH. 5)

After we would talk Dan would go and format it all into an actual screenplay and send me drafts at night. Pretty soon we had a script:

Now, to this point any video work I have done has been mostly documentary/promotional pieces and mostly for musicians and labels. I have been overseas quite a bit shooting and telling stories of the work of NGOs, however this is an entirely different animal. I’d like to think that I am not unfamiliar with the theory of assembling a project like this. I have been engineering records for years now and to make music you start with the structure (writing), assemble your team and begin to layer part on part until it begins to take shape. Then you convene, make sure everything is heading into the right direction, then begin to fill in the holes and strengthen the weak spots…a guitar line here, a different fill there…then you take all of your pieces and edit them together to present a cohesive final product. Narrative filmmaking seems to occupy a similar space as making music, albeit with many more moving pieces…

Friends were called, gear was borrowed, the script was printed out and away we went. My friend Andrew brought a jib down for the cemetery scene. I didn’t want to use a slider and I knew that I didn’t want to light heavily. I shot most of it natural light, mostly on sticks. Anything that moved was shot with a Glidecam2000. All in all, it took a few days of shooting here and there, a few days of pickups after I started editing, and a few days of editing.

A couple of photos from production:

I have a new respect for the difficulty of filmmaking, of continuity in non-linear shooting, and for how many people it takes to even pull off something small. I have learned an immense amount of information in just a few days of self-directed shooting. I am excited to try new pieces, to shoot, to direct, to edit, to create…i have always said that I view myself primarily as a storyteller and I am thrilled with the process of constructing narrative film. I might be hooked…

Miracle from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

Airplane Quiet

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:06:38 -0500

Now I have been flying pretty regularly on airplanes since I was a little kid. My parents are divorced so all of the major holidays usually meant a couple of trips on an airplane. I have never been uncomfortable or uneasy on planes. But last fall, on a flight home from a shoot in Chicago, the plane I was flying in was struck by lightning as we were in the steepest part of our ascent. I mean, a canon-blast, blinding flash that filled the cabin, violent shudder, sinking feeling, screaming, this-is-it-i-am-going-to-die moment. After the strike, the pilot immediately began to level off…but between the ascent and leveling off just felt like falling. It was sheer panic on the plane. There was screaming, wailing, profanity in bizarre combinations. It was one of those strange, surreal moments. It was a really tense hour as we circled Chicago (in the lightning!) while the pilot ran diagnostics to see if we were going to be able to land. The flight attendants were working their way up and down the aisles passing out as much free alcohol as was wanted (needed). There were quite a few people drinking. As we began our descent back into the same airport we left from, the pilot came over the intercom just a few too many times to assure us “everything is going to be ok and yes, the landing gear is down, we had visual confirmation from the tower.” As we came down, we were instructed to “assume the crash position” and i just ingnored the instructions. If we were going to crash, I at least wanted to be looking out the window. (I always have to watch the nurse give me the shot). The runway was lined with emergency vehicles. Let’s just say, that really isn’t that comforting… We landed smoothly and had to exit the plane, wait for three hours, and get on a different plane to take off in the same storm. Nothing like getting back on the horse, right? All that to say, I have spent quite a bit of time on airplanes the last several months and I have noticed, quite to my disappointment, that I get extremely uncomfortable during take-off and landing. I grip the arm rests a little too tight, I get a bit squeemish, I tap my foot. I have never been scared, but now I find myself needing some distraction and interestingly enough, I find that “photo-brain” is active enough to take my mind off of any take-off induced jitters. I just go ahead and disregard the “if it has a switch, put it away” lines and shoot with whatever I have with me. Sometimes its just an iPhone, sometimes its the G10, sometimes its the mk2… Regardless of what I have, if I can focus on “seeing” what is happening outside of my window, I can start to relax.

A few images from the window, some iPhone, some G10:

In the Air from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

There are times now, as I am looking out the window, that I am struck by the significance of what we are doing. We are miles up in the air hurtling at nearly 700 feet per second. Even though air travel is relatively routine for us, the reality is that I am engaging in an activity that only the smallest fraction of humans have ever been able to do. I am seeing clouds in a way that almost no one has seen them. I am traveling faster than most human beings have ever traveled. I am seeing the earth from an incredibly rare vantage point. It is unbelievable how safe it all is, relative to the magnitude of what is accomplished. It isn’t that I didn’t know this before, it is just that I didn’t consider it that often. Once, my friend commented, as we were standing on the top of a mountain in Colorado, “you know, you don’t get to see something this beautiful without there being a corresponding risk, a danger, a struggle.” In other words, whether we acknowledge it or not, the stakes are pretty high when we get on those planes and flitz around the globe. If anything, my little incident has made me more thankful for the engineers and the pilots and the mechanics who work so hard to minimize the risk, but also, I find that I am also more acutely aware of the sheer beauty that I get to see out my window…

Now, I make sure that I call my short list of “i love you” people before I take off, then sit back and look at the clouds…

A Silent 2010

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:38:23 -0500

It has been quiet here on the blog this year. My last post was a wrap up of 2009 and here we are rounding second base in 2010. An entire half of a year later. I want to apologize for the silence. Not necessarily to you, the readers…I wouldn’t presume to believe that my lack of writing has in any way lessened your 2010. I mostly mean to publicly apologize for not making space for this small discipline. I really believe that small, repetitive, intentional disciplines are so important to weave into the fabric of our everyday lives. Not only for professional “creatives,” but for all of us. Something happens in the repetition. Things begin to come into focus, we have our “standing outside ourselves” moments (epiphany). For me, writing has always been that discipline and then sharing that to a small audience on a regular basis was an excellent grounding…in a way, a cementing of the practice. It is part of the “working harder in 2010” I mentioned in the previous post. You know, it’s interesting, this has been a pretty good year on the work front. I have been shooting a ton, learning a ton, trying new things… I have been out of the country a few times, recorded a couple of records, hosted concerts, shot a few terabytes of video. In fact, in many ways, this has been my most interesting year yet. Yet, for some reason, I just haven’t had much to say. I’ve been keeping my mouth shut, trying to figure out what is next…not just professionally, but personally and honestly, I feel that I’ve been a bit lost in the questions. All that to say, I’m going to be voicing some of those questions out loud, right here.

So in the spirit of change, I have updated the design of the blog, included a new header (designed by the talented zach mcnair), and even added the ability to comment. I am going to post a couple recap posts from projects from the first half of 2010 and then we’re off to the races. Looking forward to the repetition, to the conversation, to having you, my readers, back and active…

A bit of blog soundtrack to get us rolling…

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:32:41 -0500

A bit of blog soundtrack to get us rolling…

Paper Route - A Night in Review

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:10:00 -0600

In honor of all of the year-end retrospectives floating around, I thought that I would share a few images I made in New York this fall.

I was in town for a few meetings and happened to overlap with the Paper Route guys. They were playing a show at Webster Hall and I managed to make it over to hang out for the evening. It was great to catch up with the guys and hang out a bit in such a great city.

So, you might ask, why post this now? The Paper Route guys have been on two (!) tours since then, I have (still) five open, ongoing projects right now… We have all moved on. Well, the simple answer is that, as we all move into 2010 and start making our lists and plans, writing down our goals and posting about all the “exciting things coming this year,” I realized that I only have one (professional) goal. Only one thing on a list: To work even harder in 2010 than I did in 2009. I want to push farther, to be more creative, to be less fearful of progress. I can spend quite a bit of time pulling back those layers, but the simple truth is that all of my other “micro” goals stem from just this one. To work even harder this year than last. Part of doing that is being surrounded by friends and colleagues who embody this spirit. I am thankful to have these kinds of friends and colleagues in my every day life, in my inner and acquaintance circles. I am even thankful to have these kinds of friends and colleagues in my “only see each other a couple of times a year” circles. For me, that was what that one night in New York was…a reminder that these guys, some of my friends/colleagues who I only occasionally see, believe this as well. And not just believe it, but put it into practice. I know, but know that they are going to work harder this upcoming year than last and I am encouraged to do the same. So here’s to working hard in 2010, right?

So, all that to say, the images and and short piece are less important than the reminder that it provides. Either way, here are a few images from one night that looked light a lot of nights for these guys.

Take a look:

Paper Route - A Night in Review from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

Here are a few of the still images:

Best wishes as we all transition into 2010. I hope that we cross paths and can encourage each other to keep at it…

Thoughts? Comments? Send me an email: ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here.

Max's Postcards

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:45:00 -0600

I have been a big fan of Max Richter’s work for a while now and earlier this year, picked up his “24 Postcards in Full Color.” The music is fantastic. It has been on heavy rotation for me and in fact, this is a collection of short pieces that were intended for use as ringtones. I’ll just let him explain it himself:

Now I am not sure if you caught this specific line, but he says, “I’d expect people to find other ways to use the tracks…” Now, I know that I have mentioned before that one of the ways that I differentiate between good music and really great music is whether or not images play in my head while I listen… If I can see something while I am listening to a song, well, then, for me, it is destined to be a classic. Needless to say, I see entire short films play when I listen to Max Richter records. (Which is probably why he scores films as well).

Well this “…find other ways to use the tracks…” phrase really got me thinking. Why not make a short film to accompany each of the 24 tracks? Kind of like a little visual companion piece. It will be a great way to practice, to shoot a little, to self-impose some deadlines, and to make a little art in the process.

So, that is the plan. Make a piece to accompany each of the 24 “postcards.” I’ll cut the video so as to use the entire audio track, as is. Some might be abstract, some might be short scenes…whatever the song inspires. I will release roughly one per week. (Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on my work load). Keep me honest.

Now, I am not making any money from this and hopefully a couple of you are inspired to purchase a record of his. Either way, you can check out Max’s site here or just go to iTunes.

So, here we go. First postcard for the first song. (see below)

Postcard Number One

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:43:50 -0600

Postcard One from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

Remember, you can check out Max’s site here or just go toiTunes.

Feel free to email your comments to ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here.

The "Serial Box"

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:12:00 -0600

Over the past couple of years, I have been meeting with a handful of guys nearly every thursday morning for breakfast. We are all more or less involved in some aspect of media production and, not that infrequently, have each expressed a desire to have some kind of collective studio/production/work space… Well, last week, we finally made that happen. We kind of stumbled onto this great little space right in the middle of downtown, across from Minute Maid Park. We are really excited to see what kind of projects we can accomplish now that we are all able to have some dedicated production space and more importantly, now that we are able to all work in the same room…we are going to call it the Serial Box.

We will definitely be renting the space out from time to time (in fact, in the last week and a half since we moved in, it has been rented for video productions three times and twice for photo shoots). We definitely want the space to be a hub for some great media production and want other photographers and video producers to feel at home. We are pretty committed to the “I-don’t-really-have-full-budget-for-a-huge-studio-but-I-could-use-some-space” crowd. Because honestly, that is what we are using it for…

We already have a few music projects in the works that I’m excited to share (soon) and will have a full site with images and video and details shortly. Be looking for an invite to some kind of kick-off event/party.

All that to say, in the last 10 days, there have been probably 50-75 people in and out of the space and it hit me, near the end of one of the big video productions, that I should be doing Street|Portraits inside…I should make an image of every single person that comes through that door. Because, really, Street|Portraits is about exploring “place”…so if I set up at a random street corner or front porch or, in this case, a studio, it is all just a variation of the same question, “who will we find?” Of course, this was the tail-end of a bunch of people in and out, but hey, better late than never. Thus a small project was born. Let’s call it: StreetPortraits - SerialBox Edition. Why not.

So, here are a few images of some of the folks working in/passing through the newly minted, yet to be fully built out, SerialBox.

And a few behind-the-scenes photos made during the rentals:

What do you think? Send me an email at ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here.

Time for more blog soundtrack…just press play and keep...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:16:00 -0600

Time for more blog soundtrack…just press play and keep browsing…

If you like the music, you can find it here.

I spent some more time in New York a couple of weeks ago… I had planned on a formal, big...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:51:00 -0600

I spent some more time in New York a couple of weeks ago… I had planned on a formal, big lights, full on Street|Portraits set-up, but unfortunately things didn’t quite go according to plan… I wouldn’t say that it was a total and complete disaster because gear issues not withstanding, I did manage to get setup in SoHo to make a few images. During a normal Street|Portrait session I would say I generally average about a 5 to 1 rejection-acceptance rate when approaching people to make portraits. That day was seriously about 25-1. At a minimum. Actually, I don’t think that I have ever been rejected so much in my life (and there were some surprisingly hostile rejections thrown in there). It was kind of discouraging actually. To this point my Street|Portrait sessions have been pretty smooth sailing. Lots of interested and interesting people, lots of great interactions. I really learned quite a bit from this flop of a session. Better ways to approach, better ways to set-up, better ways to interact. Anyways, live and learn, right?

A few of my favorite images from the setup:

I brought the little G10 again and kept it slung over my shoulder for most of the trip. My favorite street photography images are ones made in transition. Images from planes, trains, street corners, sidewalks… Beyond that, I enjoy images that evoke a general feeling, a sense of place. These kinds of images work best when viewed in tandem, collected and lumped together. No one image has to be the greatest single photograph on the planet, but rather the hope is that each shot builds on the one before it, next to it, until you have a resonating, cohesive, emotive sense of place. If you have been to New York, I would hope the images help you recall the sights and the sounds and the smells you have stored in your memory of the place. Street photography works best when it sparks something already inside you.

So, in that context, here are a few images made in transition:

What do you think? Send me an email at ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here

I came across this RadioDiaries (one of my regular podcasts)...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:56:00 -0500

I came across this RadioDiaries (one of my regular podcasts) some time during last winter and, to date, it is probably the most beautiful story that I have heard on the radio. I really am not exaggerating. As the blurb mentions above, Thembi is a young woman, about my age, who has been living with HIV/AIDS in a poor, sprawling township in South Africa. I don’t need to say much more than that because Thembi does such a beautiful job of telling her own story.

Please trust me, this is quite possibly the best way to spend 23 of your minutes today.

Below is a link to the RadioDiaries podcast page in iTunes as well as the transcript of the story:

» English: Thembi’s AIDS Diary (23 minutes)

[PodCast]

Transcript of Thembi’s AIDS Diary

The response to Thembi’s story was overwhelming (it originally aired in 2006) and it led to her visiting the US and meeting with politicians (Obama, Bill Clinton), celebrities, doctors, and students all over the country. The stories from her tour are equally touching…

This, in my opinion, is the reason that we tell stories…

Check out the site dedicated to Thembi and her journey as well as the RadioDiaries site…

"Go Outside"

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:24:00 -0500

It seems that technology, perhaps more than anything, creates issues of scale… Global supply chains and communication networks and flight paths are causing our definitions of “neighbor” to flex to meet the reality of real-time, world-wide interactions. I can talk to someone across the world, instantly. Hell, I can get nearly anywhere on this planet in 24-48 hours. Anywhere. Not to mention the fact that this computer that I am typing on is built with components that were manufactured all over the globe. Notwithstanding all of the political and economic ramifications of this connectivity, there is something, on a very personal level, that is both extremely compelling and incredibly unsettling about the realities of this world and they way that community and communication are constantly undergoing some sort of redefinition.

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to spend some time with some friends up in the mountains in Colorado. This was a for real, carry-every-thing-on-your-back, hope-you-know-how-to-read-a-map, sleep in a tent, multi-mile per day hiking trip. We had a couple of guides and a map and some food. Well, one day we were out walking and it started to snow and then rain and then sleet. We were up walking along this ridge overlooking a large, snaking river. it was cold and it was wet and our rain jackets were, at best, merely taking the edge off. It got pretty intense and everyone scrambled for cover. I found an enormous fir tree on the ridge and ditched my pack and wedged myself up in the branches, pulling them around me for more shelter. The wind was whipping around us and everyone was just quiet as we looked out over the ridge…snow and sleet and rain moving silently in waves across the valley below. It was a stunning moment. Beautiful and still. I can tell you when you are wedged up in the lower branches of a thirty foot tall tree, when you are barely able to keep dry, when you are at the mercy of elemental things that are so far beyond your control that it is humorous…well, let’s just say your sense of scale begins to correct itself. You begin to recognize that perhaps you occupy a smaller space in this world than we occasionally believe when we are back in our managed, manicured, wired little worlds…

Basically it comes down to this: when technology makes it so that we can long before we know if we should, I believe it will be increasingly important to make time for ourselves to step back and reflect. Make space to correct the issues of scale, make time to engage in some kind of analog, local interactions… Interactions where our “neighbor” really is in fact, our neighbor.

I don’t know, maybe we should just make some time to go outside. There is something very right-feeling about spending time outdoors.

I don’t mean to sound like and old man, but I seem to be having versions of this “ambient awareness”/”information overload” conversation with lots of my friends right now…

So, that said, here is a short film and a few images about a long walk in the woods…

Go Outside… from Ryan Booth on Vimeo.

So here is to making some space, right where we are now. Maybe we could stop what we are doing and just go outside.

PS: I hesitated to bring my camera on this trip. So, I made a deal with myself that the very first time that I became obsessed with “missing a shot,” the first time that I disengaged with the people around me to make a photograph, that I would put the camera in my bag for the rest of the trip. Thankfully that never came close to happening.

What do you think? Send me an email at ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here

Westheimer Street Portraits

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:43:58 -0500

I haven’t finished writing my NYC Street|Portrait post (it is coming!), but in the mean time, I must say, it was nice to be back shooting some portraits in Houston. It was a quick set up and an even speedier turn around this evening, so I wanted to go ahead and get them up on the blog.

My friend Cody and I wrapped up an editorial shoot for a small magazine here in Houston and decided to go ahead and set up a Street|Portrait session with the little daylight we had left. We picked a section of Westheimer that actually attracts some foot traffic and, after getting permission from a clothing store owner, set up shop in the side alley of the store, right off the main drag. Cody and I were joking around that as the project progresses, we are going to become very very good little salesmen. When I get home, tired from a session, it is almost always as a result of having to convince people to stop to get a portrait made. Making that initial contact and pitching the “project” to strangers can be intimidating. I am always attempting to refine my approach…trying to find the best way to engage people to put them at ease (it is a strange proposition we are making) and to get them to open up.

Anyways, here is a rather typical Houston street corner on a late afternoon October day:

And here is my Street|Portraits partner in crime and occasional test subject:

Until next time, send me an email: ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here

Do me a favor? Press play and then read the following NYC post....

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:14:32 -0500

Do me a favor? Press play and then read the following NYC post. It seems to fit.

(If you like the music, it is the Cinematic Orchestra, fyi…)

I spent some time in New York this week and was reminded, as I always am when in the city, how...

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:36:00 -0500

I spent some time in New York this week and was reminded, as I always am when in the city, how palpable the energy is… I love the speed with which everything moves, the way that people carry themselves. It is incredibly stimulating. I can only imagine the space one would need to carve out to find some quiet when it all becomes over-stimulating.

It was a whirlwind trip (as it always seems to be) with a couple of meetings and a couple of meet-ups with other photographers. I want to expand the Street|Portrait project into other cities, and so, with the little “down time” that I had, I spent some time in Bryant Park. I knew that it was the tail-end of Fashion Week and figured that it would be a good place to make some portraits. I saw models and makeup artists, suits and designers eating lunch, journalists waiting at the exits of the tents. It was a great place to try and make some images. Now, let’s just be honest here, if I thought it was even remotely intimidating to setup in Houston and ask strangers to stop to get a portrait made, then let’s just say, stopping a New Yorker and asking to make a portrait is a new level for me. I didn’t have any setup with me, but fortunately the light in Bryant Park was beautiful, even in the middle of the day. I shot natural light, no backdrop, with nothing but my mk2 and a 500c/m.

So, here are some loosely styled Street|Portraits made in Bryant Park:

You know, for the Street|Portraits, I generally like to remove the context the environment provides (that is why I shoot on a neutral backdrop), but for this little setup, I was glad that I didn’t have that option. The images feel like New York to me. I am heading back to the city next week for a few days and I am planning on a more formal, lengthier setup…

I obviously had my “big” cameras on this trip, but I don’t like having them out as I move around town. Mostly because I don’t want to look like a tourist. In fact my #1 travel goal - seriously - is to get asked for directions by someone. I want to carry myself with confidence enough that I am confused for someone who lives there…whether in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Bangkok, wherever… So, in New York, occasionally, I “confidently” walk onto what turns out to be the wrong train. Oh well. Get off at the next stop and head back the other way. I know it is stupid, but I find it helps me to really experience a place. There is always an element of serendipity when you go exploring. For me, most of those moments happen in transit. Anyways, for the “walking around” images, I carry a little taped up G10. It makes great images and it is small, but serious looking. In other words, depending on how you carry/use it, it doesn’t scream “tourist!”

A few, slightly abstract, “street” images:

What do you think? Send me an email: ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here.

Street|Portraits in the park...

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:58:00 -0500

To this point, I have been setting up for these StreetPortrait sessions in pretty high traffic, high activity intersections. People are going somewhere. It seems that the real skill is trying to convince someone to take the time (no matter how little) to have a portrait made. Interestingly, it tends to exclude the “busy” people. So I thought that I would change it up. For this quick setup, I decided to try out one of the large city parks here in Houston. I wanted to find a place where people are already lingering…excercising, walking, sitting by the large fountain systems, reading a book, lounging in the grass… I wanted to find out if I could have conversations that extended beyond the forty-five seconds it takes to make an image.

So, this StreetPortraits vol. comes from about a half-hour in Hermann Park on a lazy, late-summer evening here in Houston. I was of course glad that Cody came out to shoot as well…

First things first: Roll out the cart, setup the (small) backdrop, put up the light, shoot a test:

Now obviously the left image is natural light, the right is strobe… Personally, I was really digging the natural light, but it was getting late and we were already chasing the light. Every few minutes was another stop gone and in a pinch, I went for consistency… So we fine tuned the strobe and off we went.

Some images:

Now, I know that I have talked about the why of this project, but it struck me again how strongly I feel about giving subjects a copy of the images that I make. Giving someone a good portrait can be such a healing act. More importantly, though, it acknowledges our partnership in the process. For these moments, I am not just “Taking Pictures.” We both GIVE, we both RECEIVE. Now, I don’t want to have an overly developed sense of importance when it comes to photography. I don’t necessarily believe that photography, in and of itself, can really do that much. People surely can, though, and I do believe that we, through our interactions, are responsible for putting legs on the big ideas: peace, hope, love, home. But again, rarely is it the big, sexy, “significant” stuff that helps us feel connected. The clearest pictures are painted through the small, intentional actions, repeated over and over. So for me, with this project, the small action is simply passing along a copy of the image. I hand out cards with an email address to my subjects/neighbors(!) so that they can contact me if they want to. I would say that nearly seventy-five percent of the people that I photograph end up contacting me for images. Of those that ask, I would say a third of them have emailed me after receiving the images to tell me:

1. how surprised they are to have actually received them

2. how much they enjoy them

It’s a small thing, but it is something.

Now, if all of this Street|Portrait stuff sounds interesting to you, then head over and check out my friend Jeremy’s idea: Help-Portrait. It is going to be quite an event this December and it could be a great way for you to get involved with some GIVE AND TAKE photography.

What do you think? Email me at ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here

(This is a little Post-Script post from Street|Portraits Vol....

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:57:00 -0500

(This is a little Post-Script post from Street|Portraits Vol. 7)

In honor of my new favorite StreetPortraits subject, I am dedicating an entire post to my new friend OTIS and including every single image that I shot of him. Why? Because he asked me to… He said, “if you post these, can you make sure to post all of them?”

Otis came over to our setup out of curiosity. He was on his way home from school and walks through the park every Wednesday. Now Otis was a little shy, a touch softspoken, and seemingly a little hesitant about the whole portrait thing. That is until he got in front of the camera…

Now, I have to stop and say, the average StreetPortrait subject needs a little coaxing, a little help to get over the lights, and that (occasionally overwhelming) “everyone is looking at me” feeling that wells up when they step in front of the camera. Well, I think that Otis might have been practicing for just such a moment. Every single time I fired the shutter he gave me a new pose. New “eyes” as he later said. I brought an audio recorder to this session and just left a shotgun mic pointed at the backdrop. It isn’t the greatest audio, but half way through you can hear Otis exclaim, “whew…TOP MODEL.” After we finished shooting he told me that he was just doing what they do on Top Model. You can hear my surprise…honestly the whole thing was, well, unexpected. We walked out of the way a bit so that Cody could shoot and Otis and I talked for a bit longer.

I don’t think that I have really seen anything like that before…someone giving so much of themselves to a photograph made by a total stranger.

Some images:

I just hoped he would email me so that I could give him copies.

Sure enough:

If you are reading this, Otis, know this: those America’s Next Top Models haven’t got anything on you.

Gear Geek-out

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:28:28 -0500

Ok, a brief gear geek-out. When I am heading out and I think that I might need/want photo gear, or I am heading out on a street/night type of shoot, I will bring the following:

Next, how to transport it. I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it matters. You don’t want to be limited by either a lack or glut of equipment, nor do you want to be worried that if it gets stolen out of your car, you are going to be ruined. It is part of envisioning and executing a successful plan. So, for that, I want to briefly further digress into a bag geek-out:

I currently own three photography bags:

PELICAN 1510 (perfect for traveling in less than ideal conditions and for the abuse it can take)

THINKTANK Airport Addicted (perfect for airplane overhead compartments and ease of transport)

LOWEPRO PhotoRunner (totally non-descriptive and holds a ton relative to its size)

I am obsessed with transporting as much gear as I can get away with carrying… I love to pack and repack my gear to find those perfect combinations for gigs. I have rearranged the dividers in all of my bags so many times it just isn’t funny. Seriously, I have a problem. When I was in Cambodia with VII, Gary Knight kept saying that his ultimate goal in packing is to be able to carry, at all times, everything that he has brought with him. Clothes, cameras, everything. I keep that in the back of my mind on every shoot :)

I will always pack my PhotoRunner into one of the other bags to bring with me because, once you get on location, you often (amazingly) find that you don’t need as much gear as you actually brought. It is a great little “bare essentials” kind of bag and makes for a perfect incognito walking around solution. I still intend on popping the “lowepro” off of the bag just because that is the only indication that a camera is contained within and, especially on the street, I don’t really care to advertise that fact.

All that to say, every piece of that gear listed above fits into this LOWEPRO PhotoRunner. It is a wonderfully small, over the shoulder, on the fly, fanny-pack sized bag:

Now, I know that this isn’t a polished story. Well,...

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:56:00 -0500

Now, I know that this isn’t a polished story. Well, actually it isn’t much of a story at all. Really, it is just a minute of interaction that I had with my new friend…

I had been out jogging as the sun was going down and the light was soupy and amber hued when this guy passed me on his bike. All of the CDs wedged in his spokes seemed to be firing the fading light off in every direction. It was like two giant kaleidoscopes spinning down the street. It was mesmerizing. He was a traveling light show. I just had to talk to him. I didn’t have my camera or an audio recorder, but I did have my iPhone with me. I know that we can get caught up in all of the fancy tools that we can use to tell stories, but really, they shouldn’t get in the way of what they enable us to do. And that is, quite simply, to talk to people. I caught up with him and asked him about his bike, recorded it in VoiceMemo, then snapped a photo as we talked for a few more minutes “off the record.” Then as we turned to go our separate ways, Al said to me, (of course I had already stopped the recording!) “You know, just cause something does a job, that don’t mean it can’t be beautiful, too.”

The entire interaction was no more than five minutes, but it made my day.

I was reminded of what I so often forget: there are interesting people, doing interesting things, all around us, every day…if we would only stop and talk to each other…

what do you think? send me an email at ryanwrites[at]gmail[dot]com or just click here