Assigment

Today was a nice day as far as being a photographer is concerned. I got an assignment to photograph Deyan Sudjic, architecture critic and author. He is the new head of the Design Museum in London. I write this because unlike most of my assignments, we had a nice pleasant conversation. Most of the time I have a few minutes with someone and I barely utter a word except, "look this way or look at the window or please put your pants back on, etc etc".

Anyway I googled him when i got him home and he seems to be the author of a book entitled "The Edifice Complex:How the Rich and Powerful Shape The World" which seems like the kinda book I want to read. and will buy soon.

I saw a film called "The Fog of War" by Errol Morris, a great documentary about Robert McNamara. Its a great film about the inner workings of Political power. You can't help feeling sorry for McNamara as he stumbles his way through Vietnam. He seems to acknowledge the weight of responsibility about all the death and misery he was partly instrumental in creating. He still seems puzzled about how it all went wrong. A wonderful portrait of a very smart but flawed human being. Morris is great at bringing this once powerful man to a more human level.

anyway..its late and I have a busy day tomorrow. Lots to do, Lots to do.

Last days of film for me

One of the joys of being on holiday visiting my family is just having my little Konica Hexar shooting Tri-X, always shooting from the hip. Was.

The problem was getting back to London with a bag full of film and wondering when I was gonna process it. I normally had so much film that it would sit for weeks while I manage to sneak a roll or two at a time with a real job to get it processed for free. And even then I would sit on the film for a few more weeks trying to find the time to scan it (Print it!? No way! More money I didn't have)

So I finally processed by last roll of film from my last visit to my family last christmas. The roll contained pics from a day we spent with my friend Thor and his kids Aurelia and Leif at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Beautiful building and a great day. But a great example of my dilemma.

Almost 20 years of shooting and I have a huge backlog of material that needs to be scanned and printed and archived and put into libraries. You would think I would have great albums of my family and friends, but I don't. All sit in boxes and files waiting to be discovered. Everyday coming into my office, I battle wether to work on images that are potentially great re-sales, or work on images that I love for my portflio or finally get around to those images of people I care about.

Today was spent shooting a portrait of a model who slept with a cricketer, then sold her account of this one night stand to a tabloid, and then regretted it. Not exactly gonna change the world, this assignment. I sometimes feel so far away from the images I set to make when I first picked up a camera.

Antonio
18/04/2006

So sue me. I am still getting the hang of this Blogging thing and I can't help it I love my family and just post pics of them.
I had a great day today. really relaxing, good food, a nap, a snuggle with my wife and a great walk with her and Pablo. Relaxing and even though I had planned a bike ride as well and did not ride, I don't think the day could have been better. Just enjoyed the beautiful light as the sun went down on our little walk.

The 4 day weekend is over and back to the slog tomorrow. Always have alot to do,. Days filled with office and computer work and less time for shooting. Its a balance I am not comfortable with. More on that later.

Tony

17/04/2006

Happy Easter.

Spent the day cycling and hanging out with my family. Hooray, my two favorite activities....well almost....

The photo above was taken by Asya, my wife. Its by far my favorite photo of Pablo since we got the digital camera. Pablo is like all toddlers, a lot of fun. He enjoys laughing and playing and being a bit of a monkey. But his mother loves it when his serious side comes out. Pablo can seem to contemplate the world for long stretches of time and this photo captures that side of him.

Its a great photo too.

Anyway, the day ended with a dinner of burgers. I am stuffed and tired and drank the bottle of wine mostly by myself. Which is usually the case.

Good night.

Its Midnight and I started a Blog.Why?, Who the fuck knows. I guess cause Its always been a hope of mine to keep a journal of my time on this planet and combine it with the photography I do. Digital photography has allowed to me posts photos that I take on the day or soon thereafter and comment on them or what I do as a photographer.

Today I did not take any photos. Spent the day in the park with my family and some friends, saved a snake from certain death, chased some Hassidic Kids who were pestering some nesting Swans and then ate too much Yummy arab food on the edgware road in London.

Above is my son asleep, photo taken soon after I got my first Pro digital camera. (The canon 5D if you must know) The camera has allowed to me to explore any photographic idea I have. Not so much projects but just random snaps that maybe I once avoided taking due to the cost of film or if I did, I would see the image much later in some contact sheet days and maybe weeks after taking it. I like the immediacy of digital. I think it has its faults, but for those quiet random moments in my life that are not "work". the fault in this approach, especially with pics of family, i have so many images now that instead of before, when i had no money to process personal work, now I have no time to properly edit, much less print those images which i make because the cost of making them is negligable. I will return to this topic a lot in the future. How to manage all those images, personal and professional that now seem to be cascading from my camera into my laptop.

oh well that seems like a good beginning.
Tony 15/03/2006