Things don’t always turn out like you hoped or, even worse, carefully planned. Still, you try to make the best of it and move onward. In this case, it means a series of blog posts to finish, in part, something that was begun in preparation for a photography workshop with David Ward and Joe Cornish that did not pan out (well . . . not yet, says pony boy). Confused? You should be, so let me begin at the beginning.

Ann and I were supposed to attend a workshop hosted by David Ward and Joe Cornish. Originally, it was scheduled for April 2021 in Cornwall, England. You can imagine what happened to that one. Boris Johnson told everyone to stay away (a wise decision at the time) and it was cancelled. Sad at the news (and the state of COVID at the time), we were thrilled when David offered to let us fill a couple of slots at their November 2021 workshop in Scotland (yes, I can hear you thinking, “Scotland in November, the weather will be miserable!” Well, you’d probably be right, but with weather comes great photographic opportunities!). Ann and I of course accepted.

Then this very obnoxious thing called the Delta variant introduced itself to the world. And as the summer progressed, not only did COVID rates skyrocket in the US, forcing us to cancel our planned trip to visit family and friends, it did the same thing to the UK, forcing Boris yet again to take travel restriction measures unfavorable to, among all places, people flying in from Portugal. When it came time to make the call about whether international travel was a good idea, we decided that we’d better not risk it (even though the UK now says we’re welcome) and we cancelled our slots at the workshop. Wonderful gentleman that he is, David Ward said we could use the (nonrefundable) deposit on a future workshop. He knows we want a David-Joe workshop so we’re on the wait list, but that probably won’t happen until 2023, fingers crossed (their 2022 workshop is full).

During the early part of this year, when I still had high hopes for freezing my butt off in Scotland in November, I had an idea. It was the kind of idea that causes Ann to give me one of those looks like she thinks I’m crazy (or, probably more accurately, crazier than she knows me to be). As Ann puts it, I have a scheming voice and whenever she hears me go into it, she knows to get ready for a hair-brained idea. So . . . you’re at a workshop with two amazing photographers in a small group. You’re all staying at a small hotel and eating meals together. At some point, since it’s a week-long workshop together, you’re in a one-on-one discussion with one of these fellows and they say something along the lines of, “Do you have any images of your work?” Probably won’t happen, though it might. Especially if you buy the person a pour of 18 year Macallan or any other beverage of choice. But what do you do if he does ask? Pull out your iPhone and pull up a portfolio app of images? Grab your iPad from your room so they’re shown on a bigger screen? Well how about pulling out a portfolio of beautifully printed images?

There’s a saying I came to love from my time playing football (soccer). “Luck doesn’t just happen, you make your luck.” Thus I would charge the goalkeeper every time a shot went flying towards goal, on the off hope he would drop the ball. Did it countless numbers of times, usually getting nothing more than tired legs and heaving lungs out of it. But I’m pretty sure I got 3 - 4 pretty cheap, easy goals that way. The kind people refer to as garbage goals. Were they lucky goals? It wasn’t luck I was there when he dropped the ball….

Take a more recent example. A few years back Ann and I (and Devon) took a trip to Las Vegas. Didn’t spend a penny gambling. Went there to watch Sumo. In preparation (because I’m always scheming, and preparing) we found a shop in Oregon with these special hard boards with gold trim that people in Japan use to collect autographs. We only found a half dozen of them, so I went out and bought a small pad of watercolor paper as well. I also figured, “Hey, would they rather sign with a pen, or with a brush pen?” So I bought a couple of art “pens” that had brushes on the tip. And while in Las Vegas, I approached every rikishi I knew and asked for an autograph. Now, I don’t speak Japanese, but when you say a wrestler’s name (obviously shocking coming from a gaijin), they stop and look at you. And they understand when you hold up a pen and paper. Got a lot of autographs that way. And one that left Ann’s jaw on the floor.

Ann, Devon and I were talking one afternoon in the lobby of the hotel (the same one the rikishi were staying at … again, preparation) and I looked up. It was the first time I had seen Kokonoe Oyakata (the name of one of the stable masters), the former Yokozuna Chiyonofuji, one of the greatest Yokozuna ever (think Bart Starr, or Willie Mays, or Michael Jordan). I left Ann and Devon mid-sentence and made a bee-line to him. Ann swears that she and Devon looked at each other and asked, “Do you know that guy?” “No, do you?” Walking over I said (I’m sure Ann would say used my sergeant’s voice), “Kokonoe Oyakata!” He looked at me. You should know, his nickname when wrestling was “The Wolf.” He was famous for his stare-downs. When we locked eyes, I knew that if I looked away, he would make that flick of the wrist motion that meant, “No, please leave me alone.” As I approached him, eyes still locked, I could tell his face was beginning to get angry . . . but he didn’t look away, and I wasn’t going to either. I held up the brush pen and watercolor pad. As I got closer (and he probably realized I was as dumb as I looked, was not going to look away, and he would get in trouble if he slammed me to the ground) he glanced over at the pen, his eyes dropped, and then his face changed and he reached out. To his credit, unlike every other wrestler (or former wrestler) he didn’t sign his autograph parallel to the lines on the pad - he signed the autograph diagonally, from corner to corner (the powers that be were not always thrilled with Chiyonofuji, he was a bit of a rebel). And he signed both Kokonoe Oyakata and Chiyonofuji. I’m convinced that if I had a pen, or a sharpie, I would have gotten the flick of the wrist. But he saw a brush. Luck?

I guess the moral of those stories is, come prepared because you never know. So earlier this year I started thinking about printing a portfolio that I’d have with me at the workshop . . . just in case. Plus, the process of working on the portfolio would have its own benefits so I’d at least have that. Well, as the Delta variant rose over the summer the portfolio idea got placed on hold (not wanting to tempt fate … it didn’t help), and then we decided to pull the plug on the workshop. There was no need to print the portfolio. Perhaps I should work on other printing projects.

Well, I thought about that portfolio again recently and decided that I should revisit it, if not to print it, then at least to bring it into a tangible form into a portfolio app because there is value in doing it. I might as well benefit from the thinking and work I’ve done so far in preparing the portfolio. Thus, this blog post series.

Portfolios are not easy. In one sense, you are putting yourself out there and basically saying, “This is worth your time.” Then there is the question of what makes a good portfolio. When the photographs are just a random set of images, even your “best” images, there is something very lacking in the effort. Again, in my mind, it’s a lack of respect for someone’s time. If you’ve followed the blog, you’ll know that in the past year I worked on and printed two portfolios - Stone Town and Santiam. Both were very theme specific. So for me, the guiding theme and structure, of this portfolio was going to be very important because it wasn’t going to be as subject specific as the other portfolios I’d printed. I landed on the idea of organizing the portfolio in a way that shows the range of the landscape images I enjoy making. A combination of the types and range of subject matter I explore and what I think about when photographing that hopefully comes out in the photographs.

The other thing that is problematic is portfolio length, because you don’t want to be the person showing hundreds of images to people who are not really interested, or even if they are, very quickly aren’t. Everyone recommends 10-15 images. But I had a hard time thinking of just 10 or so images that could fit that bill (I wasn’t trying to convince a gallery owner to sell my work, I wanted to show someone the range of my efforts so they could offer me any bits of wisdom they thought worthwhile sharing - then again, if I ever do print a portfolio for this purpose the 10-15 image number would be a wise consideration), so I started thinking in terms of a physical portfolio with a set number of protective sheets (several of which I had), and that meant 25 front facing pages.

Eventually I decided to break my work down into 5 different categories, all with the natural landscape as the subject. I’ve gone back and forth about this, at one point decreasing the number of categories to 4 in order to round out the images. But since I’m not printing these images now, and I’m spreading the images out over several blog posts, I’ve not only returned to my original number of categories (and structure), but I’m adding an extra image to each because making those last choices is oh, so hard (even now, I’ve changed certain images within the collections preparing for these posts). So we basically now have five groups of 6 images, showing the range of my landscape photography. Each blog post will be of a separate category, and show 6 images.

Part 1 - Compositions: While I’ll discuss more about the formatting and sequencing of the sections in latter posts, I wanted to start the portfolio out with a theme I return to again and again that perhaps gives me the most joy when photographing. But since I didn’t want to dive right into my wild abstract tendencies, I figured a transition from readily identifiable natural subjects to abstraction would be an appropriate introduction to the types of images I love to make - Compositions.

WORKSHOP PORTFOLIO - PART 1: COMPOSITIONS

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WORKSHOP PORTFOLIO - PART 1: COMPOSITIONS

WORKSHOP PORTFOLIO - PART 2: SQUARE LANDSCAPES

PRINTING THE IMAGE - SMORGASBORD EDITION

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