Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Congressman from Kentucky

©David Sorcher 2014

Last month i was asked to photograph yet another of our regional politicians for Cincy Magazine. This time it was Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie. As you can see from the above image, Congressman Massie is "out standing in his field", but before i get to how we came to this picturesque moment some background information is necessary.

©David Sorcher 2014

Originally i was offered one opportunity to shoot the Mr. Massie (btw, first tip when photographing politicians is not to show up and announce out loud that you are here to "shoot" the congressman ;-)). That was at an armed forces academy day at a local Kentucky high school where he was scheduled to speak. Knowing i would need some one-on-one time i reached out to his aide beforehand to set up when we could do that. She offered me 15 minutes of his time before he would be mingling with the attendees prior to his speech. 
The school offered no good locations. Inside was mostly dark and institutional and outside was blazing sun with no good, relevant backgrounds, the worst of both worlds. I finally settled on the stage he would be speaking from, mostly for its simple background and the symbolism of the flags to at least tie him in to his office in some way. In the end, given the time allowance and other constraints, i think i produced the best portrait i could under the circumstances, though one which admittedly i find rather mundane at best and really just a tad bit boring. 

©David Sorcher 2014

My second shooting opportunity that day came as Mr. Massie mingled with the crowd before his speech, speaking with constituents and students considering one of the military academies after high school. These weren't bad editorial moments, but not the kind of situation likely to produce a good photo for a full page bleed image for the article's cover page.  

©David Sorcher 2014

My last opportunity that day was during the actual speech. These situations rarely produce great imagery and i wasn't expecting much. But just before Thomas was to be introduced i noticed that there was no spotlight for the speakers as i thought had been arranged. The overheads were very hot and out-weighed all the other light on the speakers. I alerted the congressman's aide who set someone on the task. Unfortunately, i don't think they were an actual lighting person. They did finally get a spot on the mark, but it was weak at best and didn't create a very good light ratio. In the end i believe i only submitted this one speaking shot which also shows the audience and some of the honorees on stage. 

I was disappointed to say the least. The writer, Danny Restivo, had shared many very interesting facts about Thomas Massie with me before this day. He holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and lives completely off-the-grid in a solar powered house that he built himself on his 1200 acre farm near Shawnee State Forest where he keeps bees and raises his own cattle and chickens. And when he is in Washington he drives an electric-powered Tesla around town. Frankly, this was not my preconceived picture of a Tea Party candidate. Given such a background i felt my images from the day were a complete failure. 
My original impression was that Tom didn't want us to come out to his farm for photographs, but i wanted images that reflected Tom's self-sustainability, not just another politician in a suit. Since this was an aspect of his nature that had also impressed Danny and would be a big part of the article he was writing we both began conspiring to make a visit to the congressman's farm a possibility. Danny was going to talk with Tom that afternoon after the speech so he put that question on his agenda for their interview lunch.

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

As it turned out Tom was very willing to have us out. His only concerns seemed to be that he didn't want us to show unfinished aspects of his little castle on the hill (and the other side of the house does indeed sport castle-like turrets). His home is a work in progress. But the side i was most interested in was the one with the solar-paneled roof. It seems rare to find a Republican with such a solid personal investment in alternative energy, especially one living and serving in the middle of coal country.

©David Sorcher 2014

Tom has been keeping bees for a number of years and neither he nor his ten-year-old daughter Sarah showed any fear of them. For that matter neither was i, though i was not quite so hands on with the bees as Tom. We had an interesting chat about bee sustainability and colony collapse issues while i shot these. Oh yeah, and honey straight from the comb…delicious!  

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

I also wanted to use a bit of the wonderful surrounding landscape for some of these, showing the man and his land. That winding road behind him is his driveway.

©David Sorcher 2014

At first it was agreed that we would not shoot inside Tom's house, but in the end he was most gracious about giving us an interior tour. I think that again he was more worried about photographs of unfinished aspects of his masterwork. And it is indeed that. Tom cut and carved the rafter beams himself from trees felled by an ice storm on the land. He also laid the hearth stones himself and incorporated a wood burning pizza oven into the design. The place was an architectural and artistic joy to behold and i was so glad to be able to visually connect this man to a work of which he is so obviously proud to have created.  

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

Tom followed us down the long winding driveway as we were leaving for one last shot. I had hoped to capture some of his 50 head of cattle in the background of the first shot in this post, but just in case you never gave it much thought, it is really hard to actually cue a herd of cattle from a half mile off and they obviously had some other off-camera plans at the time i captured that shot. So he drove down to see us off and pose one last time with his bovines.  

©David Sorcher 2014

As Danny and i started our two hour journey home i certainly felt much better about this shoot than the first one at the school. At least i feel that i have captured images that say something about the man himself, ones that show him in the midsts of his own environment and grant us some insight into who this person might be. I want to thank Tom for letting us peek into his private world. I honestly don't really know much about his politics. As i have mentioned in these pages before, i don't feel it is my place as a journalist to impose my own political views upon my subjects though i am pretty sure that if we went there we would no doubt find much to argue about. So i stuck to the matters at hand, finding common ground while i shot in talk on sustainability, off-the-grid living, alternative energy and beekeeping. It's comforting to know that in these days of harsh political division there is still room for common ground and understanding. While i might not vote for Tom if i lived in his district, i would certainly kick back and have a beer with him any day of the week.   



  
  




Monday, May 12, 2014

Urban Archaeology

Today's trash is tomorrow's artifact, cryptic keys to understanding our culture left behind for future historians in urban junkyards, secluded dumping grounds and forgotten wooded lots. The remains of what we eat and drink, the tools and machines that drive our industry, mysterious messages scrawled on hidden concrete walls, will all no doubt be evidence of our existence long after this civilization has fallen and the next tries as best it can to understand the people that went before them. And as history has shown, all civilization do inevitably pass.
I have always considered myself something of an amateur archaeologist, trading in my spade and brushes for a camera, trying, most probably in vain, to decipher my world through images of the rusted remains of things our society discards when it finds their usefulness has finally come to an end. I had been scoping out this one section of the West Folk Mill Creek for some time and finally ventured in for a look-see. So here, submitted for your approval, another chapter in Urban Archaeology.

(please be sure to click on any image for a larger full screen view)

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014


©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Nature's Way…

A few years back i found an old cast iron owl lantern and hung it from my porch. I never put a candle in it, but i have an affinity with owls and thought it was a nice piece of commercially made sculptural "art" to decorate the front of the house. I soon found that the open lace design meant to allow light out also functioned well at letting things in. So it was a nice surprise a few years back when small birds took to nesting in it's base every spring.

©David Sorcher 2011

Four years ago the first eggs appeared in the lantern nest and i made a few images of the chicks. I didn't spent too much time with it, but i did at least want to document the moment. 

©David Sorcher 2011

It was so wonderful having nature come right to my doorstep. I had just purchased a 105mm macro, a lens i have really come to love since, and this was a great opportunity to capture the unfolding drama of nature without having to travel, well, anywhere at all, to view it. The only problem shooting into the nest is that the openings in the ironwork are quite small so a hazy vignette was created by the edges as i tried to shoot through them. Let's just call it "artistic blur". ;-)
I know the birds returned the following year, but for some reason or other i ignored them, at least photographically. I enjoyed the morning chirpings at feeding time, but did nothing to record the unfolding events. 
Last year i thought i might give a documentary project on this a go when i noticed the birds busily preparing the nest for yet another year. I waited for the chicks to hatch, but before i could get started disaster struck. Over night all the chicks mysteriously disappeared. There was no sign of struggle or the birds themselves, but they were far too young to have flown away. 

©David Sorcher 2014

So i got a little excited when i noticed two bird spending a lot of time around the owl lantern this spring. It was clear that they were preparing the nest and i decided that i would attempt a more in depth nature study this year. I watched as the little blue-green eggs appeared in the nest, one a day over the next five days. This time i would start before the eggs hatched. Since i recently got an iPhone and was experimenting with that camera i tried shooting with the phone at first. One advantage i immediately discovered was that the lens is so small on the iPhone that i was able to shoot into the nest without being partially blocked by the edges of the metalwork. As the eggs began to hatch i envisioned a shot of a full nest of hungry hatchlings with their beaks raised upwards in anticipation of their next meal.  

©David Sorcher 2014

Alas, this was not to be. That very night disaster struck for the second year in a row. The nest was empty, two dead chicks were down on the porch. There was no sign of the remaining three birds and i can only image that they had been eaten. Small as the holes in the metal work are, they were not small enough to protect the birds from some aggressive predator. Nature's way…. 
These hatchlings were tiny and while i grabbed the iPhone at first to record this tragedy i quickly became aware that some more serious equipment was necessary for close, clear, sharp images. So i grabbed my DSLR and the 105mm macro. What had started as a nature documentary on birth, life and spring had now become another image for my Future Fossils project. The cycles of life and death…so it goes…