St. Ann's Beach, Laguna Beach, California

Happy New Year, everyone. Time for the annual renewal, recharge, relaunch or whatever. I’m promising myself that some things will get done.

Adam is 11 years old today. He’s everything a Dad could wish for, and I’m very lucky to have him in my life.

He’ll celebrate with his friends next weekend, but this year’s portraits are already on their way to family all over the country. Like last year, we went out to a local park for a natural-light posing session with the 5D and the RB67. The digital result is above, and the film below.

Though I was pleased with the results from last year’s experiment with WHCC (I’ve used them since), based on a number of recommendations, I decided to try the services offered by Mpix. Apart from the good reviews from friends, I really liked one of the Mamiya frames and wanted to include it as the second shot in the family package so I was interested in their True B&W Paper process.

The Mpix order flow was easy, and all of the options were clear. I chose the Endura Metallic option on the color prints, the True B&W  for the other, and the die-cut corners for wallets. Post-order communication was good, and production and shipping were speedy. The prints arrived on-time and nicely-packaged. The colors pop on the metallics, and the depth and gloss are nice. The matte black-and-white processing lived up to the promise, so I’ll probably put more work through it in the near future. The price was comparable to WHCC and other services I’d shopped – a little higher on some items, lower on others. Overall, a great experience and I can join the satisfied customer chorus.

Ordinarily, the order would have included a larger print to frame and place on our family gallery wall. As I was considering print vendors. coincidence dropped an e-mail in my in-box from CafePress and their recently-acquired Canvas On Demand service, offering half-off a gallery-wrap canvas print. I took the chance and ordered an 11×14. The result was not bad for the price I paid, but the assembly quality was not up to the standard of some gallery wraps I’ve seen. If I want another, I’ll probably look elsewhere.

OK, I guess “Small Arts Media LLC” is officially up and running, so I need to get off my ass and do something about it.

And, as I feared, that was the easy part.

Are you sharing art with your kids? Arts education is one of the best investments we can make in our children’s future – program after program and study after study show the benefits. Conservative forces in Congress and their constituents engaged in culture warfare will keep trying to kill funding for the arts, but it won’t happen if we don’t allow it.

Regardless of political theater and the shifting fortunes of public media, this is something you need to take into your own hands. You can’t just hope they’ll pick this stuff up on their own. There’s an art museum near you, and a children’s theater series. Your local library has a whole section for you. A world of art is open to you in the the biggest library ever conceived, the Internet – Kids.gov will get you started. Take advantage of the annual Free Museum Day, as well as free museum days year-round. Take your kids (and their friends), and show your enthusiasm. Make it real for them.

If you, as a parent, aren’t exposing your kids to art – visual art, music, literature, whatever – you’re guilty of a form of neglect. It’s child abuse, really. You’re stunting their development, and leaving them less-able to cope in a world where cultural literacy actually is as important as those flaming Liberals said it would be.

No, I don’t need another expensive, complicated pastime that requires a lot of equipment, mixing things, and having to wait to enjoy the results. My friend Kip’s all about that, though, so through him I can enjoy a taste of something new without taking on a new hobby/obsession/money pit of my own.

Speaking of tasting something new, Kip makes good beer – really, really good beer. He’s been doing it for a couple of years now, and his results continue to improve. As he’s produced batch after batch – close to 50 at this point – he’s acquired the skills, tools and confidence to design his own brew recipes and submit them for competition judging. He and his brewing/business partner John have progressed to the point where they’re winning awards in regional competitions and are poised for broader acclaim. They’re cooking up a business plan now, and will soon make the leap from home-brew to nano-brewery pro.

I find a lot of parallels between the brewers and the shooters (especially analog folk). There’s the craft and hand-made angle, the chemistry and alchemy, controversy over style and lots of gear talk and envy. Both crowds get enjoyment out of doing the work, but whether a golden pint in a glass or a well-captured shot behind glass, it’s most meaningful when the results are shared.

My friend Mark and I got to pitch in over the weekend on a new brew (a full-grain rye IPA, spiced with fresh Cascade hops), and I’m grateful for the chance to help. I took away a load of inspiration from the process. I can’t describe the experience as heartily as Kip can, so hop over to bierkast.com for the tale of the Rusty Rocket. It’s about half-way down the entry, alongside some snapshots I managed during the steps.

Thanks, Kip. I hope to help out again soon. Brew on!

Quite a year, everyone – not all good, but decent on balance.

Here’s to a kinder, more consistent 2011. There’s a lot to be done.

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and days of old lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
and surely I’ll buy mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

I’ll stumble, and I’ll fall, but I’m going to keep trying. Happy new year.

The image above is from our yearly custom holiday card. We share or trade off design responsibilities each year – past efforts have included hanging paper ornaments assembled from hundreds of die-cut parts and a Photoshopped re-imagining of our cat and guinea pig pets as reindeer-antlered beasts. Adam’s newer to the game and has been the driving force behind the last two. A committed Legophile, he was pretty set on this one, and I did my best to execute his vision. The inside reads “Build Yourself a Happy Holiday!”.

As 2010 draws to a close, I want to wish everyone a happy set of holidays. If your year was great, I hope the next at least matches it, and if not, you probably deserve a better one to come. I know mine will be interesting at the very least.

This is my photographic life (most of it, anyway) condensed into a rapid-fire video by Pummelvision, a project from the founder of video service Vimeo. It can pull photos from Flickr, Facebook or Tumblr. It’s free – give it a try.

It Might Get Loud

Davis Guggenheim (2008)

It’s about doing something (in this case, playing guitar) because you can’t imagine doing anything else, dedicating yourself to becoming great because you don’t want to do anything else, and letting your art speak for you because it has become your voice. I have a new level of respect for Jack White for the watching, too.

Objectified

Gary Hustwit (2009)

Bad design is all around us. “Objectified” teaches about the design that goes into the objects we bring into our lives, and shows that consciously good design really can make things better. There’s a lot of bad photography around us. I want to be consciously good.

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

Eric Bricker (2008)

Of the three, the only one about photography (except it’s not). Julius Shulman became, with no more training that a high school photography class, the preeminent architectural photographer of all time and probably the greatest photographic documentarian Los Angeles has known.

The boy and I had some time to ourselves this afternoon, so we decided to play around a bit with imagery. A locked-off tripod, manual settings, three shirts, sunglasses and a bit of Photoshop layer compositing – this is the oldest trick in the book, but we had fun with it.

I managed to assemble a cardboard pinhole camera (will test after the glue dries) and homemade-dough sausage, olive and mushroom pizza. It was a day for making.