Notebook / Misc

Bruised Ego, Broken Ankle...

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Ankle X-Rays 5-2016 As it turns out I'm not quite as durable as I used to be. Rolled my ankle really hard the other night playing hockey and fractured my tibia and fibula. Basically my foot is floating around like a bobble head and it hurts like hell. I'm told it could have been much worse. Scheduled for surgery on Friday to put in a couple plates and pins. They wanted to do it Thursday but I told them I couldn't miss the last day of class and abandon my students like that. I hope they realize how dedicated I am... if you're reading this kids, I like really expensive bourbon.

Gwendolyn Jane & Ivy Lee

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Gwenolyn Jane Studio Session-001(Gwendolyn Jane, Digital Test.) Had the pleasure of working with two different models on Saturday... Gwen I'd worked with in the past, but I'd never shot with Ivy before, who's in town from Philly for a couple weeks. It was a long day, 5 hours straight through, my first double header. Think there will be some good shots in there... film scans to follow soon....

Gwen Studio Session-003(Gwendolyn Jane, Digital Test.)

Ivy Studio Session-016(Ivy Lee, Digital Test.)

Ivy Studio Session-026(Ivy Lee, Digital Test.)

I'm No Salesman...

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patreon-banner I'm no salesman, which is the understatement of the century for those who know me. I'm often reminded while trying to promote my work of the comedian Kyle Kinane and his pondering of the futility in his attempt to sell cake decorations by phone...

"If you ever want to feel like a toothless cog in the machine of humanity, try selling gourmet cake decorations over the phone... Hello, would like to buy any cake decorations today? No? I completely understand... "

I've always had a difficult time treating my work as a commodity. However I am in the business of creating a very real, three dimensional product, such as it is, that is becoming somewhat of a rare commodity these days. In an effort to print more of my own work, while subsidizing the process to the extent that I can, and at the same time sharing more of what I do with the world, I've started an experiment of sorts on a new(ish) site called Patreon.

So how does this work? Simple, you sign up to pledge x amount of dollars each month and in return you get stuff from me, such as...

- Access to all exclusive content I post on Patreon, including wider takes of many series, behind the scenes, process notes, etc. I'll normally be posting twice a week, both new and archived material.

- Random perks in the mail from time to time, such as postcards, short run proof prints, things of that sort. I totally dig the mail and really love sending people stuff...

- Discount codes for books, silver gelatin prints and polaroids in my online shop. Always adding news things to the shop, I'll be posting discount codes for patrons on new work as I add it.

- A 5x7 inch proof print of your choice. One final perk, just for singing up and becoming a patron, I'll send you a 5x7 proof print of your choice.

I'm starting out simple and small with one level of support. Eventually I'll be releasing prints on a monthly basis in varying sizes with increasing levels of support... I've just begun adding content, but expect to be posting more material regularly from here on out...

If you're interested, please check out my page. http://patreon.com/jszymanski

If you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

“We stand to lose a lot of our history"

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“If we don’t find a solution our 21st Century will be an information black hole. “Future generations will wonder about us but they will have very great difficulty knowing about us.

“We think about digitising things because we think we will preserve them, but what we don't understand is that unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse than, the artefacts that we digitised.

“We stand to lose a lot of our history. If you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives which is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people's tweets, all of the world wide web, then if you wanted to see what was on the web in 1994 you'd have trouble doing that. A lot of the stuff disappears.

“We don't want our digital lives to fade away. If we want to preserve them the same way we preserve books and so on we need to make sure that the digital objects we create will be rendered far into the future.”

- Vint Cerf, Google Vice President

She calls herself a Hydra...

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marina_MG_0033 Got the chance to work with a lovely local model the other day, Marina the self proclaimed Hydra. Burned a few frames with a digital camera I borrowed to warm up a bit and thought I'd post a few shots, as well as some behind the scenes snaps for good measure. Have a look at her work @ http://www.modelmayhem.com/810750

Way behind on film but watch for scans and Polaroids to come from this shoot...

marina_MG_0041marina_MG_0055

marina_MG_0081

polaroids_1000526

On the road...

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on-the-road East bound this weekend, currently 97 degrees out... every few months we head out to Mariposa, outside Yosemite, where my wife works at a weekend clinic while the dog and I lay around nap all day... good work if you can get it.

and the bay continues to bleed talent...

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Aubrey-Studio Session-019 Got the chance to work with Aubrey one more time before she leaves town, yet another victim of the absolutely ludicrous and ever increasing cost of housing in the Bay Area. Seems like San Francisco is just bleeding talent these days. It's a shame to lose so many creative types for completely preventable problems fueled solely by greed...

Always a pleasure to work with this girl... a photographer herself, she has a wonderful presence on film, a rare gift. Thought I'd post a few behind the scenes snaps and test shots just for giggles... Polaroids and scans to follow just as soon as I develop the pile of film I've been putting off.

Good luck Aubrey... we'll miss you...

Aubrey-Studio Session-016

AubreyBTS_1000437

AubreyBTS_1000439