Category: Portraits

Back to School

Portraits


It’s that time of year again. Summer is ending and the kids are heading back to school. Though schools start up in August now, the day after Labor Day was traditionally the time children began their new year of study. These images were shot for a local school system reading program.

Tomorrow I get to go to school myself. I’m covering for an instructor and teaching digital workflow and post-production at Randolph Community College in their Photographic Technology program. I’m looking forward to it. I really enjoy the opportunities I get to teach. RCC has a 2 year Associate Degree program in photography that is second to none. The Photography Department blog is http://rccphoto.blogspot.com/.

(images copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

Thomas Routh

Portraits


My Dad’s first cousin Thomas lives down the road from us. He is a retired dairy farmer and he and his wife Lula Mae raise vegetables that they sell at the local farmer’s market. Both in their upper eighties, they grow their plants from seed, transplant, tend, harvest and transport all their produce by hand, by themselves. This year Thomas told me they were going to cut back. I asked him how many tomato plants he had transplanted this year, and he replied, ….. 680.

(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

From the Vault

Portraits


This image was shot from the front seat of a Waco RNF biplane built in the early 1930’s. The pilot, Ken Brugh, was in his mid-80’s at the time. Something pretty cool about cruising along at about seventy with the wind blowing through your hair. I shot this several years ago for a “day in the life” book on North Carolina. Ken was an interesting man with a world of aviation experience. He grew up barnstorming in the 20’s and 30’s. During World War II he ran a flight school for the Army and ran the fixed base operation Air Services in Greensboro after the war until he retired. He owned and flew this airplane as well as a Waco cabin biplane and an Aeronica.

(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

You’re doing what Dad?

Family, Poetry, Portraits

(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

When I told my younger son Devin that I had started a blog, all he could do was stare at me with a odd look on his face. You’re doing what Dad? Guess I will have to work hard to prove to him that the old man can learn a few new tricks.

Speaking of my son Devin. He’s an undergrad at UNC and an aspiring writer and poet. Here’s some of his work:

Where I’m From
Devin Routh

I’m from rolling pastures
Veined by dry creek beds.
Where centenarian white oaks,
Younger than great-grandma Lucy
And her calamine feet,
Shade the black angus mixed with
The santa gertrudis as they
Chew their cud.
I’m from kitchens
Where green beans
And ice cream
Make music when we
Cook them,
Gardens and orchards where we
Grow corn and tomatoes,
Watermelons and apples,
And enjoy the occasional persimmon pudding.
Ambrosia isn’t coconut and pineapple,
It’s two cups of sugar,
Two cups of milk,
Two cups of flour,
Four eggs, cinnamon, vanilla,
And two cups of persimmon pulp.

I’m stuck between Erect
And Climax,
On the way to High Point
But I never go there.
I go down yonder
And ask ‘chup to?

I buy hay from Jack Fagg,
Honey from Janice Horny,
Meet John Brown at 3 a.m.
To discuss politics and watch
His drunk father drink more.

I see my cousins
When I drive 22 to town,
“Routh Oil Company,”
“Alvin’s Automotive.”
Eric, adopted Cherokee,
Still my blood kin, gives me 5th Avenues
To say goodbye.

In the barnyard,
I smell the diesel
Granddaddy Routh used to scrub
The grease from under our fingernails.
At the dinner table,
I taste fire in the peppers
Grandpa Cranford collected in his shirt pocket.

I’m from coldwater springs
Where we lose boots and calves
To the mud, like quicksand but only knee deep.
I’m from flower gardens
Where opossums slumber,
Where they wake under the moon
To eat the leftover cat food.

On my farm,
We build cairns as monuments
For the dogs and cats,
Feed corn to the deer and save them
From the hunters.
Sanctuary. “Jesus is Lord
Over Gray’s Chapel,”
But my grandpas taught me
How to fish, how to sow,
To kiss the catfish
And throw them back
(Their lips look just like a person’s),
Taught me how to look for pine hearts
And cut wood already fallen,
How to give life
And only borrow it.

Black & White or Color, Film or Digital ….. Stock or Assignment

Business, Native American, Photography, Portraits

(image copyright 2008 by Dan Routh)

Black and white. I learned photography shooting and processing b&w and that’s where my heart is. I guess most advertising and product photography is shot in color, but I still get excited when I see a good image in tones of gray. It may be all those books I read by Ansel Adams and I do still think in terms of the Zone System.

I learned on film, I shot every format of film available from 126 to 8×10 and for most of my professional life I survived on film. But, I guess I will take digital. Not that I think digital is any better than film; to be perfectly honest, I don’t really see any difference in the end product. Face it, film cameras and digital cameras are just tools to produce images. It’s just that today, it’s a whole lot quicker and easier to do things digitally. In my area labs are becoming fewer and farther apart and it’s almost impossible to find large batches of film for sale. Even if I shot on film, I would have to digitize the image to get it into my workflow so I find it easier to start with a digital file. I shoot in RAW format so my original files act as a sort of a digital negative. I find it pretty easy to replicate a film image with digital. Granted it does take some post processing. And, I really don’t miss keeping my hands in D-76 and fixer.

Assignment for sure. Today we are seeing more and more agencies and companies depend on stock imagery, the predominant reason being cost. I understand the economic reasons. Believe me, I understand the state of the economy. It just pains me to see part of the creative process disappear. Traditionally, an agency would create an idea for an image and then assign someone to produce it. I always have enjoyed being part of a collaborative effort to bring an ad or a brochure or an article to life. Today those same creatives either by choice or necessity seem to lean more towards stock imagery, royalty-free images and now even to free image services like Flicker. Sometimes they start with an idea and locate an image to illustrate it, and sometimes they find an image and come up with an idea to match it. If it works they are successful. But it seems to me that a lot of folks are trusting to luck, luck in finding that right image. There is an old saying that “it’s better to be lucky than good”, but my father told me that for the most part in life, “you make your own luck”. Don’t get me wrong, there are some talented designers that can use stock images very well, and there are some talented designers that can also shoot their own great images. I myself shoot stock photography and do indeed make sales. I just hope assignment photography survives, partly for the selfish reason that I survive financially on it, but mostly because I want to see the most creative, professional part of advertising and commercial photography continue. I hate to see that artistic collaboration between photographer and art director go away. After spending 30 years producing images, I think I still have something creatively valuable to offer. For the agencies and companies that depend on free or royalty-free or stock photography I hope they consider assigning more work and recommending to their clients that they do so, before someday their luck runs out.