I Failed. Yes, it happens to the best of us. As pros we have to "not suck" on a daily basis, that's a given. But in the dog eat dog world of bowling portraits, success has a pretty high bar. For those that care my subject rolls three hundred games like I drink coffee. Over and over. He rolls series (a set of three games) in the 800's routinely. Out of 900 possible you do the math. If I bowl a 300 series I feel pretty hot. (In my defense, when I bowl Miller
Highlife is involved).
So anyway, I wheeled into a bowling alley yesterday to meet my subject before a match started. Time will be short so I scouted the location for a good spot and set down my gear. That's when it hit me. The floor. (A side note-I love bowling alleys because they are divine time capsules of
sp
ace age design where Joe six pack meets George
Jetson.) The carpet on the floor of this alley was
sooooo cool. A groovy outer space design with planets, stars and even a ringed planet made of a bowling ball being
orbited by flaming bowling pins. Wow. I grabbed these shots to show you all. The crowd in the alley thought I was nuts, photographing the floor. OK, here's the failure. I could not get a good shot of my subject and the carpet with laying him down on it.
Aaaaargh! Here I was
jonesing to get a groovy portrait out of this situation but time and subject willingness was going to blow it.
So I
cowboyed-up and shot a portrait of the guy. Nothing to brag about, it was just a good solid portrait that was better than what the client had in mind. The bacon will be brought home but still I looked
wistfully at the floor. I file the location away and maybe on some other day...
I h
ave included this portrait of another really good bowler with the
psychedelic wall from a different alley. I used a simple radio tripped strobe with a shoot through umbrella slightly off to the side. I guess I'll have to wait until later to add to my collection for the bowling portrait book in my dreams. You take your failures and learn from them to be stronger the next day.
mber) and then cranked out some prints in my darkroom (er, spare bedroom actually.) Stephen stopped by Sunday evening, picked out a print and took off to become, well you know, Stephen Colbert. I like to think that maybe I was a small step as he climbed the ladder (hey careful due, that's my head.) Just another instance of my quality professional service providing great results on time and on budget. Maybe you could step on me too on your way to the top.
I'm taking a moment for some jazz, cool or hot, either way. Grab some coffee and check out the fabulous Blue Note
label album cover design by Reid Miles. Reid Miles mixed graphic text treatment with photography by Francis Wolff or himself with groovy results. A few years ago I joined other creatives bitching about creating album cover art for the CD insert format versus the lusciously large LP albums. I got used to it and created some fun stuff. Now the CD format insert is going away and the album art is being relegated a small blurb on a Myspace page surrounded by badly designed web garbage. AAAARRRGGGG! ...OK, I'm OK now. In addition to the Blue Note covers above I have included a few of my own images shot during a former life as a bartender at Chicago's "the Jazz Bulls" nite club which until it's demise it was the longest continuous
ly open jazz bar in Chicago. Every once in a while I miss it, for about five minutes. Still it was a good side gig for a starting photographer.
. It is an essential jazz album that is sure to satisfy. Download and then pop it on as you browse the Blue Note covers online here.
I Failed. Yes, it happens to the best of us. As pros we have to "not suck" on a daily basis, that's a given. But in the dog eat dog world of bowling portraits, success has a pretty high bar. For those that care my subject rolls three hundred games like I drink coffee. Over and over. He rolls series (a set of three games) in the 800's routinely. Out of 900 possible you do the math. If I bowl a 300 series I feel pretty hot. (In my defense, when I bowl Miller Highlife is involved).
ace age design where Joe six pack meets George Jetson.) The carpet on the floor of this alley was sooooo cool. A groovy outer space design with planets, stars and even a ringed planet made of a bowling ball being orbited by flaming bowling pins. Wow. I grabbed these shots to show you all. The crowd in the alley thought I was nuts, photographing the floor. OK, here's the failure. I could not get a good shot of my subject and the carpet with laying him down on it. Aaaaargh! Here I was jonesing to get a groovy portrait out of this situation but time and subject willingness was going to blow it.
ave included this portrait of another really good bowler with the psychedelic wall from a different alley. I used a simple radio tripped strobe with a shoot through umbrella slightly off to the side. I guess I'll have to wait until later to add to my collection for the bowling portrait book in my dreams. You take your failures and learn from them to be stronger the next day.
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