Tarmac Meditations

  • Writing
    • Fiction
    • Non Fiction
    • Journal
    • Archive
  • LongRun Pictures
  • Contact
  • About the author

© 2010-2018 Michael Lebowitz · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Genesis · Admin

You are here: Home / Archives for Photography

Tarmac Meditations-It Ain’t Heaven…It’s Illinois.

May 29, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

I was riding in an ATV on my way to Memorial Stadium in Champaign-Urbana to get to the finish line of a 10K race event. In order to get there before the first finishers we scooted down a back road. I shot this from the back of the ATV, high shutter speed and ISO and a great deal of good luck. The sky wasn’t that precise blue and the shadows weren’t quite that long, but it felt like the end of day. The sunlight on the silo spoke of night coming and something special in the air. So that is how I processed it.

It ain't heaven...It's Illinois.

Filed Under: Journal, Photography, Tarmac Meditations Tagged With: ATV, Champaign, Illinois, Photography, Tarmac Meditations, Urbana

Embrace the Chaos-Shooting in the Real World

May 5, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

From Joe McNally, one of the best of the best…

“The life of a shooter is driven by passion, not reason. This is not a reasonable thing to do. A colleague I know offers this advice: “If you want to do this, you have to make uncertainty your friend.” Indeed, you do.

In this life of uncertainty, it is, however, absolutely certain that some shit’s gonna happen to you. What follows below are some notions on coping.

If the angels sit on your shoulders on a particular day or job, and you knock it out of the park, feel good, giddy even, but get over it. Tomorrow’s job will be on you like a junkyard dog, and will tear the ass outta your good mood in a New York minute.

If you win a contest, appreciate it, be gracious, and give thanks to everybody involved, especially your editor and the magazine, even if they had nothing to do with it and actually did their level best to obstruct you at every turn. Contest wins give a warm fuzzy feeling inside but shrug it off ‘cause tomorrow you still have to put on your pants and go find work.

Understand that the money monitors who show up at these contest driven rubber chicken dinners and breathlessly exclaim, “Love your work!” while shaking one of your hands with both of theirs’ are simultaneously eyeballing you and wondering why you cost so much money and there’s lots of pictures out there for free nowadays and why aren’t we using them? Smile back, and be thankful to them that for a brief interlude, they lost their sense of fiscal responsibility, and somehow you got a bit of budget to do something that was terribly important originally only to you, but because you executed it with such passion and clarity, it has now become important to lots of people, given the impact of your photos.

Know that whole bunches of folks will try to take credit for everything you just did. It’s okay. You got a chance to do it.

Understand that in the world of  content-desperate big publications, and the multi-nationals that own them, that next year’s contract will be worse than this year’s. And if the contract is real, real bad, they might actually hire somebody to come in and explain why it is “good for you” in so many ways. Know that the phrase “good for you” is interchangeable with, “you’re screwed.”

(Recent update on that type of language. Lots of contracts now are accompanied by language that state that what’s being offered is in keeping with “current industry standards and norms.” For the translation of that, see the paragraph immediately above.)

Know there will be days out there that feel like you’re trying to walk in heavy clothes through a raging surf. The waves knock you about like a tenpin, you have the agility of the Michelin Man, and you take five steps just to make the progress of one. The muck you are walking in feels like concrete about to set. Even the cameras feel heavier than normal as you lift them to your (on this day) unseeing eyes.

There will these days. You must get past them with equanimity and not allow them to destroy your love of doing this. Know on these days you are not making great art, and that every frame you shoot is not a shouted message of the truth that will echo down the corridors of time forever. You are out there with a camera, trying to survive, and shoot some stuff, however workmanlike or even outright mediocre, that will enable you to a) get paid, and b) live to fight another day.

There will be times when you cannot pay the bills. You look at your camera and desperately wish it was an ATM or the stock portfolio of a far more sensible person. Have faith. Return your phone calls. Keep shooting, if only for yourself. Actually, especially for yourself. Use this work to send out reminders that you are around and alive. Stay the course.

Spider Web in Winter

Love this fiercely, every day. Things change, and generally for the lonely photog, they don’t change for the better. What you are complaining about today, after the next few curves in the road you’ll recall with fond reverie. “Remember those jobs we used to get from the Evil Media Empire wire service? The ones where they paid us 50 bucks, owned all our rights, and we had to pay mileage and parking and let them use our gear for free? Remember those sumbitches? God, those were they days, huh?”

Remember we are blessed, despite the degree of difficulty. We are in the world, breathe unfiltered air, and don’t have to stare at numbers or reports trudging endlessly across a computer screen. Most businesses or business-like endeavors thrive on a certain degree of predictability, sameness and the reproducibility of results. They kinda like to know what the market’s gonna do. By contrast, we are on a tightrope, living for wildly unlikely split second successes, and actually hoping those magic convergences of luck, timing and observation will never, ever be reproduced again.

We don’t know what’s gonna happen, and most of the time, when it does, we miss it. Or what we think we’re waiting for actually never happens. It’s anxiety producing, and laced with forehead slapping frustration. If we were a stock or a bond, we would undoubtedly get a junk rating. Not a smart pick, no, not at all.

But what a beautifully two edged sword this is! What shreds your hopes one day cuts back, just sometimes, and offers up something to your lens that’s the equivalent of paddles to the chest. Clear! You’re alive again, and the bad stuff and horrible frames fall away like dead leaves in an autumn rain.

At those moments, the camera is no longer this heavy box filled with mysterious numbers, dials and options. It is an extension of your head and your heart, and works in concert with them. Whereas many times you look through the lens and see only doubt, at these times, you see with clarity, precision, and absolute purpose.

Know these moments occur only occasionally. Treasure them. They make all the bad stuff worth it. They make this the best thing to do, ever.”  Joe McNally 2012

 

 

 

Filed Under: Journal, Photography, Tarmac Meditations Tagged With: combat photography, joe mcnally, Photography, shooting

Tarmac Meditations-My New Year’s Resolutions 2011

December 31, 2010 By longrun 2 Comments

The ColumbiaUnder the heading of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” what are your New Year’s resolutions for 2011 for the runners in the crowd, the writers, and the peeps with dreams and schemes and other such that might bring them closer to the light in which they believe…post them in the comment section below or keep them to yourself BUT all the best of everything and may this year be a year  in which you get closer to to the light of that in which you believe for you and those you love.

Here are mine:

1. turn 65 years old

2. lose 65 lbs

3. run a 65 mile run in my 65th year

4. make a plan, follow the plan consistently, listen to the coaches

5. get to the start line of every event

6. keep a consistent journal of the journey: pretraining, training, and running.

7. write the book, take the pictures

8. Remember, everyday, to be grateful for the gift of being alive and to express it…

9. in an act of kindness for which no thank you is needed.

10. take a step, take another step, breathe, repeat.

Filed Under: Tarmac Meditations Tagged With: dreaming, finish line, journal, Photography, running, training journal, Writing

Tarmac Meditations-Track Work on Election Day

November 2, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

high school scoreboard and flag

Met M and R at coffee shop. The rain was light but steady, as much mist as rain, gentle, warmer than expected. Walk to the track. Straights and curves today. For me my fourth day with steady output. Came back later to take a picture of the flag on election day. Did not bring a tripod which limited my range of choice. Got what there was. Will likely go back another morning. On the way back to the car I remembered coming home to the US nearly ten years ago. I went to get my license renewed at Motor Vehicle Branch in Denton Texas. A big haired, bored, Texas gal took me through the paper work. Finally she looked up, said we were done but for one question. What party affiliation did I want to list on my voter registration card. I told her Democrat. After another minute or two she handed me my license and my voter registration card. I could drive legally in the US, approved by the State of Texas my license said and I could vote legally in the 26th congressional district in the Great Lonestar State. It was just another  Texas-hot day in June, but there in front of me was a battered, slightly crumpled guy, standing in front of the MVB window staring at two slips of paper with an amazed look on his face. I saw him looking back at me and it was only then that I noticed the tears rolling slowly down his cheeks,. The gal who had driven me over from the rehab joint I was in at the time came up to me and asked if everything was all right. :”Yeah,” I said, “I guess.” and I handed her the papers. She looked at them for what seemed a long time. “Welcome home Michael, glad you made it. ” she said and then turned away and headed back to the car. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t referring to Texas exactly, more like home from 30 plus years living abroad and more than that locked into drugs and alcohol. Yeah I said to myself, long time comin’ and wiped the tears away. Funny thing how the biggest moments, the end of the longest journey, can be marked by a little scrap of bureaucratic nonsense. Already voted by mail as we do here in Oregon, but before I did I took my now out of date Texas voter’s card out of its resting place in my desk drawer and renewed acquaintances with it; I remembered a big haired ol’ gal in a Texas motor vehicle bureau and said thanks y’all, my time to go and be counted.

Filed Under: Non Fiction, Tarmac Meditations Tagged With: Denton, morning, Photography, running, Texas, Track, vote

No Pasarans 2

October 22, 2010 By longrun Leave a Comment

memory plus time = storyI grew up knowing more about Teruel and The Spanish Civil War  than most of the adults living through those times. It seemed a beacon for right thinking people. The young and rebellious, the idealists of all stripes and creeds, my father included, flocked to it as volunteers and fundraisers. The enemy was clear, the expected outcome dire. Romantic to be sure but as the world turned colder and wars became an unholy brutality it seemed that the bravery and idealism of the Republican forces continued, even now, to hold their place of noble note...read more

Originally posted at   http://lifeasahuman.com/2010/arts-culture/photography/no-pasaran/

Filed Under: Tarmac Meditations Tagged With: journal, Photography, Spanish Civil War, St. Exupery