50mm ƒ/2 at 1/3200 sec ISO 800

Before I broke in my new 20mm the other morning, I brushed up on my sun flares in the fields out by Martindale. Holly was great enough to wake up at ~530 to shoot with me. Thanks Holly!

After the flares, the 20mm came out. It was hard to get into the mindset of a 20mm. Especially since my experience with wide angles were always zoom lenses.

The Nikon 20mm 2.8d lens is the newest part of my arsenal.

20mm ƒ/2.8 at 1/4000 sec ISO 800

20mm ƒ/5 at 1/400 sec ISO 200

24mm ƒ/6.3 at 1/160 sec ISO 200

Meet Joe. Joe is a day laborer. He works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and I don’t know where he lives.

The assignment was to take pictures on Canyon Road with two motivations. 1.) Find reflections that work and 2.) capture environmental portraits.

I found Joe working on an adobe wall off Canyon Road (tired of walking the beaten path). I was trying to take a photo of a wall or something silly when Joe chimed in from across the street, advising me that another wall was more attractive.

Joe and I sat together against an adobe wall in the shade, eluding summer heat. This was his job, doing handy man work for financially wealthy individuals – those who can afford to live on or adjacent to the pricey Canyon Road. Joe didn’t live there, he didn’t have have much but what he did have was leathery skin from years of sun exposure.

I thought he was simple at first. Judged him straight up. But he was a little more complex than I thought.  Joe has this way about him. A eye for remembering the finest details of the tiniest things. Door frames and wood work. The precise hue of a mailbox. And the way he spoke about such nuance was riddled with words of simple passion.

Joe knows.

Joe understands something that I overlook. He knows that it’s nuance that makes life engaging. The kinds of nuance that make every solitary breath a unique experience. Something that’s more valuable than anything in the garages of those high priced homes.

So now that I recount this memory I realized that I took a reflection picture and I captured an environmental portrait. A reflection of a simple man that understands the simple complexities. An environmental portrait of Joe in his environment not solely because of the image but because of his story that breathes alongside of the image.  Environmental portraits are more than just a physical image.

I don’t know where Joe is now. Maybe he is trimming a hedge or rebuilding a garage wall. I walked away knowing that I probably wouldn’t see him again. And I probably won’t. But I have ths pictutre of him.

And I have this memory that puts nuance into my life.

50mm ƒ/1.6 at 1/160 sec ISO 1600

Most of my photography, as I’m getting back on the band wagon, have been people focused.

Modicum moments are where I find my guiding light, my sentience in this art form.

What are your moments? What brings sentience to those droning days?

Not much of a blog post – but it’s what I’ve been up to.

50mm ƒ/3.2 at 1/320 sec ISO 200

I have no idea. I was doing a tilt/shift trick

35mm ƒ/3.5 at 1/1600 ISO 800

What I've been up too

Well, as the title infers, I am plugging(shamelessly) my new blog on my other blog. This blog.

They are going to be similar, well because they both are from me. But I should note that they have two purposes.

The Phaedrus Drift is my photography blog that explores photographic concepts and tracks my thoughts and technical techniques over time.

Bildungsroman is my writing blog that explores life in a broader sense, primarily through questions and day-to-day musings. Its goal is to develop ideas for my summer ‘memoir’ project while cultivating perspectives on the formative years of adulthood. The blog might possibly inspire some sort of future ministry for those living their own Bildungsroman. It is dialogue driven and comment reliant blog.

Sure they will overlap from time to time. Photography is part of my perspective and perspective philosophy is part of my photography.

So, let’s see what happens, eh?

http://bildungsroman.typepad.com/