Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Shtick: A characteristic attribute, talent, or trait that is helpful in securing recognition or attention: waiters in tropical attire are part of the restaurant's shtick.

“Do one thing, do it well” is great advice, and I’d like to think that here at CalArti and www.markcassino.com, that advice is fully demonstrated. Whether taking digital infrared, using a toy camera, shooting a close up of an insect, experimenting with cross processing, taking micro photographs of snow crystals, or shooting medium format B&W landscapes – I’m just doing one thing – and I like to think I’m doing it well.

For a long time I thought I was doing many things. After all, the techniques and subject matter in the photos on this site run a wide gamut. I’ve often been advised to specialize – “Be the bug guy!” being the most usual refrain. I’ve even atteneded worshops where people try to tell you how to ‘define your brand identity’ – which seems to mean narrowing your focus down to one, predictable, outcome.

Branding may not be just for cattle anymore, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. Anyone engaged in creative pursuits has to ultimately ask themselves why, and if the answer is to ‘create a brand identity to maximize revenue’ then they have truly picked a frustrating path. With rare exception, the arts are a generally inefficient means of accumulating capital.

And yet, when push comes to shove, I’ve always felt that my photography has been highly centered, and focused on doing one thing. On a good day, behind the camera, I experience what Aleister Crowley meant by “knowing your own true will.” I indeed feel the momentum of the universe behind me – whether focusing in on a snow flake, spending an hour getting just the right shot of a wildflower, or intuiting the best time, temperature, and agitation scheme for the film shot earlier in the day. It is that sense of connection to something beyond myself that keeps me going – and that connection is independent of outcomes. Product, or results.

On a good day, that is....

“Do one thing, do it well…”

Great words - but more often, the real meaning behind them is "Get a shtick."

The definition of this word is at the top of this essay, and it’s worthy of consideration. In a sense, ‘shtick’ is “do one thing, do it well” reduced to it’s most basic, simplistic, formulistic element. A shtick with kitsch makes for a powerful combination in the artistic world, especially when focused around the goal of establishing a ‘brand identity.’

The Beatles did one thing, and they did it well. They made outstanding music that not only captured the spirit of their generation, but continues to speak to people of all ages, all around the world. On the other hand, the Bachman Turner Overdrive had a great shtick – they produced formulaic music that sounded great the first few times you heard it, but eventually wore thin. They managed to tap into the spirit of a few years in which they played, and then faded off, producing ‘brand identifiable’ songs that, well, just sounded like the last song. And yet BTO was a successful brand.

A non artistic example: When you read about Henry Ford, you generally read about his shtick – he ‘invented’ the production line, you could get any color Model T you wanted (so long as it was black), and he was driven by a vision of providing transportation to the working class.

All this is true, but it misses the distinction between Ford and his competitors, who focused on providing high priced automobiles to the elite and affluent.

Ford’s contribution was to revolutionize industrial society, freeing it from the mindset that people were best exploited by being kept in proverty, like serfs or peons. With his $5 a day wage for caucasian workers, he expolored the great opportunities of exploiting people as middle class consumers. Ford helped built modern economy where indentured workers live lives of relative opulence, subduing their sense of outrage, while being so in debt as to be even more penniless than the serfs and slaves of bygone eras. His contribution - his 'one thing done well' goes far beyond the shtich of the Ford brand. And his efforts certainly improved the maerial lot of many.

So – what does all this mean to the struggling photographer? Do you pick a subject or style, drop a claim on some sort of brand identity, and hope that the shtick works? Or do you do what you will, shoot as you wish, and let the chips fall where they may?

Clearly, the path to commercial success is via the shtick. A dash of kitsch will usually help you along the way as well. In the cacophony of voices all competing for attention, the most focused message will clearly win out.

But personally, I plan to follow my heart – which seems to be beating a path of its own. So in this photoblog I’ll be putting up whatever the heck I’m shooting, so long as it contributes to my personal goal of understanding the world just a bit more, just a bit better.

It won’t result in a coherent brand image, it won’t even result in an predictable shtick. Maybe it’s a road to getting truly focused, maybe it’s a waste of time. But as Iggy Pop put it – “I don’t need no heavy trips, I just do what I want to do.” And for now, that’s enough.

Yesterday I headed out to the Allegan Woods in hopes of getting some new insect photos. The weather forecast was for hazy, hot, and humid weather as the first serious heat wave of the summer finally rolls in. So I also brought my few rolls of infrared film, hoping to have a chance to work with it as well.

I decided to start the day in a field down by the river, near the Ottawa Marsh boat launch. So I took M89 across the Kalamazoo river, and then headed north us 46th street.

Before getting to the boar launch, I stopped at an open field packed with knapweed in full bloom. The weather seemed to be falling in line with predictions, except for some dark clouds to the southwest. I stepped out of the car to wander through the field with my insect close-up rig.

It can take an hour or longer to work a good sized field. In regards to subject matter, particularly insects, you can never assume that the area you step into will be representative of the whole locale. The edges of a field, if bordered by woods, are invariably different than the center. I f a road runs borders the field – even a little dirt road like 46th street – that area will be different than those deeper in. So I started my normal routine – walk along two edges of the square field, when it meets the forest, and then take the diagonal back through the center, winding up back at the car.

The field was a riot of blue knapweed flowers, with some grasses, dried vetch, and dead coreopsis mixed in. A few orange clumps of butterfly weed and clusters of black eyed Susans were the only other blooming flowers.

The dull thud of shot gun fire punctuated the morning air, no doubt someone out in another field either shooting skeet, or just shooting for the fun of it.

Shortly after I started wandering into the field, the wind picked up and a lot of the flying insects took to keeping low, hugging the vegetation. I saw some tiny eastern tailed blues – maybe1/4th to ½ inch in size at most, and I wondered if some of the other blue butterflies I had captured thus far this summer were really this species, as opposed to being either some sort of small hairstreak, blue, or azure. I also spotted a few spicebush butterflies and monarchs out among the knapweed flowers.

As I was turning to make the walk through the center of the field, the weather made a dramatic change. The clouds rolled in, it got dark (dropped over 3 ev per the camera meter) and the haze briefly turned to mist that wafted in from the forest, passed over the open field, and disappeared within minutes. But now the sun was gone, and the temperatures were decidedly cooler. As I walked back through the field a light ran began to fall.

Walking back I saw a common garter snake, larger than I recall having ever seen one before. As I spent the next several hours in other fields in the drizzling rain, I saw several other garter snakes – I guess the moisture must bring them out.

I headed back along 126th Ave as the rain picked up. I figured that I could scout out some new areas and hopefully wait the rain out. I tooled around 126th, and then the Old Allegan Road, and found a few promising sites. I wound up heading back toward M89 on 48th street. I was disappointed to see that one of my favorite two-tracks heading back into the woods / savanna was now gated shut and barridcaded, so I decided to get out and walk in along the road.

Here I saw a lone Karner Blue flitting amid the dry grass stalks. I walked a ways along with the road, with just a light rain dropping, when suddenly a steady hard rain developed. I always keep a plastic bag in my belt pack (the kind you get at virtually every type of store these days) so I dropped the camera into it, and walked back through the rain.

At this point I called it a day and headed home – which work out well with the weather, as it would rain heavily for the rest of the afternoon.

More Photos:

Karner Blue Butterflies:

I first became interested in photography in 1997. Prior to that, I had started experimenting with Corel Photopaint (starting with version 2). I used Corel to create digital collages of images I scoured off the internet, or off of royalty free stock CD’s. My interest in photography was first piqued when I coun’t find a simple image of some bricks that I wanted to use in a composition, and so I se

t out to figure out how to take images, convert them to a digital format, and work with them in Corel.

Those were simple times in terms of technology. I started with a 33 mhz 486 with 12 megabytes of ram, but ultimately worked my way up to an AMD 5x86-150, with a whopping 24 megabytes of memory. I found Corel Photopaint – versions 3, 4, 6 (the great leap forward!) and ultimately 7, and 9 to be up to the task for making collages. In fact, I still revert to Photopaint over Photoshop when doing this kind of work.

My initial goal was to create a series of collages that would express the essence of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trsimegistus, a cornerstone of alchemical philosophy. As a stepping stone towards this great work, I thought I’d start out with four simple compositions, depicting the basic elements that are the starting point for alchemical thought.

I got through all four, though my rendition of Air sucked. I realized that I needed to take charge of gathering my own source data, and so I bought my first SLR cmaera, and started to learn about photography.

Then came some computer crashes and other disruptions and interference, and before I knew it my collages were lost and I was merrily clicking along with the camera, happily figuring out how to photograph birds, bugs, snowflakes, and other stuff. 

But the original project always remained at the back of my mind.

A few months ago I dusted off my old Iomega Zip drive, and went through the torturous process of copying all of the readable 100 meg disks to a spare PC. (Anyone who has ever worked with a parallel port 100mb Zip Drive knows why the term 'tortuous' comes to mind.) Sifting through the digital debris, I found an archived copy of Water, and a copy of Fire.

Water and Earth were my favorite creations in this early series. Fire is OK, and as I said, Air never really made the grade. All I have of my original Earth image is a single 8 x 10 inkjet print. But I dusted off the surviving two digital images, and started re-working Earth. A decade after starting the project, something new was stirred into the pot, with a new interpretation of earth.

This isn't photography, it’s more or less abstract art. (Fire is weakest because it is too representational.) You may well say its all just crap.

But here it is 2006 – about this time a decade ago I started working on this project. After sojourning in the land of the nature photographer for all this time - a clean, well lighted place, for sure - maybe it’s time to return to something more serious. Maybe it’s time to stop making duplicate images of dragonflies, differentiated only by the day and month in which they were shot, and set myself towards some other purpose. Well, maybe a new task beckons, but my red is muddied, and my white is dingy grey. As I write this a storm is rolling in, the wind has risen and then thunder speaks. The rain cascades down - but here is no water, only rock.

On Friday I headed out to the Allegan Forest, once again pursuing insects. Due to other commitments, the time I have available for shooting has been reduced, so a weekly trip out is now about the best I can hope for. So I decided to devote as much of the day as possible to insect and landscape shooting, and headed out early in the morning, staying out until late afternoon.

It’s been dry in west Michigan lately, and the sandy soil in Allegan county results in a quick run off of the rain that does fall. Early in the week the area received a good soaking from a large thunderstorm, and that seems to have brought things back to life a bit. The butterfly weed and knapweed are now in full bloom, drawing in more fritillaries and lots of hairstreaks, blues, coppers and sulphurs.

I started out north of the Kalamazoo river, and worked several large fields between M89 and M43. There were lots of dragonflies and other insects, along with the abundant butterflies. The male Halloween Pennants are assuming the black and orange coloration that comes with maturity, and that’s a sure sign that the summer is advancing.

While north of the river I stumbled on an adult Ant Lion – and insect I don’t recall having ever seen before (and certainly have never photographed.)

I then headed across the river and into some fields to the south. These are areas where the lupine is usually tick in the spring, and where Karner Blue butterflies, along with other interesting species, can usually be found. This year, due in part to the dry weather and in part to a late spring frost, the Karner population is down. During the course of the day I encountered and photographed one Karner Blue, the only firm sighting I’ve made this summer (see above). There were several blue butterflies flitting about the field, and based on the way that they flew they quite possibly were Karners, but I did not pursue them for a closer look.

I wrapped up the day with some B&W landscape medium format landscape work. Shooting the woods in high summer is a challenge. The repetition and patterns of the trees dappled with sunlight is compelling, but difficult to capture on film in any meaningful way. Well, I have several rolls yet to develop, and perhaps a new post will arise from that activity.

More Photos:

Halloween Pennants:

I’ve been shooting a lot of infrared these days, and feel that some of my best recent work has been accomplished through the use of digital infrared techniques. This is a fairly new technique for photography – up till recently infrared work was done on film. So here’s a tutorial that covers the technique that I use to create infrared images with my Pentax *ist-D.

I should start out with the caveat that there are many different ways to take digital infrared photographs. The technique I use is one that I more or less stumbled upon by happen chance – I happened to acquire an infrared filter, and chanced to use it on the *ist-D in a way that worked. But different digital cameras have different sensitivity to infrared light, and there are many different types of infrared filters out there that, for all I know, might work better than the Hoya RM90 filter that I use. So, as the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

So just what is infrared light anyhow? The technical definition is that it is electromagnetic radiation close to but outside of the visible light spectrum. Infrared light is just beyond the red end of the spectrum of visible light – meaning that IR light has a longer wavelength than visible light. To get even more technical, the human eye can see light in the (approximately) 400 – 700 nanometer range. Infrared light lies beyond that, consisting of frequencies of 700 to 1000 nanometers.

The characteristics of infrared light contribute to the look and feel of IR photos. For example, due to the long wavelength of IR light, it is less prone to be dispersed by airborne dust particles. As a result, a clear blue sky will appear deep black in IR shots. IR light also reflects off foliage, resulting in what Ansel Adams described a “plaster white trees” in infrared photos.

In general, infrared photography is best accomplished on bright, clear days. Due to it long wavelength, infrared light can penetrate some barriers – like haze – but also can be blocked completely by others. After doing a lot of IR shooting, both with film and digitally, I still find it very difficult to predict how certain scenes – especially when shooting under foliage – will come out.

The CCD or CMOS sensors in digital cameras are generally sensitive to infrared light, but they also have infrared blocking filters incorporated into their design, apparently so the IR light will not interfere with normal photography. While you can have the IR filters removed from you digital camera, this will render the camera pretty much a dedicated IR device. Some day, when my *ist-D is obsolete for regular shooting, I plan to take that approach. But in the meantime I prefer to work around – or perhaps through – the build in anti-infrared filter.

 To do this, I use a Hoya RM90 infrared filter. This filter allows transmission of light from the (roughly) 750 – 3000 nanometer range. (There is actually diminished transmission of frequencies out to ~4700 nm.) This is the heart of infrared, and completely outside of the visible light spectrum. In fact, as shown by the image of the filter, the glass in the filter is jet black. So once it is attached to the lens, you are truly working with ‘invisible light.’

While the *ist-D has a built in infrared blocking filter, it is not 100% effective. For my infrared work I frame up the shot, attach the RM90 filter, and set the camera to manual mode. The camera actually reads and responds to the IR light passing through the filter, and the meter shows an exposure setting and the autofocus works quite well.

The ability to have autofocus through the IR filter is a real boon. Infrared light focuses to a different point behind the lens than does visible light. Good lenses (and most older lenses) have an IR focus guide on them. The idea is that you focus the camera using the visible light, and then adjust the focal point back to the point indicated by the IR focus guide. Since the *ist-D’s autofocus is working off only IR light, it focuses accurately right from the start.

The camera’s autoexposure meter, however, is not as accurate with IR light. In my experience, the camera will suggest and exposure setting that is at least 3 to 4 stops under exposed. You are also facing very long exposure times at high ISO settings when shooting digital infrared. My starting point, with the RM90 in place, it to set the camera to manual mode, and start exposures at ISO 1600, f16, 2 seconds shutter speed.

Depending on the actual lighting, the shutter speed at ISO 1600, f 16, can vary from 0.3 seconds to 15 seconds. While that may sound like an amazingly long exposure, it’s not that much longer than the exposures demanded by some IR films. The old Konica IR 750, for example, with a #25 red filter had an effective ISO of 6 (taking into account the filter-factor.) That’s about 1 stop from the starting point for the digital IR setup I’m using, and as Konica and all other film producers like to say when it comes to infrared – “bracket widely.”

The nice thing about shooting digitally is that you can look at the histogram and see how the exposure worked out. So, like I said I start out at 2 seconds, f16, ISO 1600, and see what the histogram shows. On a bight clear day that starting point will probably be over exposed, and on an over cast day that starting point might be a stop or two under exposed.

In any a case, forget about getting a histogram that shows a full tonal range from black to white. It just doesn’t happen – at least with my setup. Instead I get a compressed histogram, and a monochrome image. Once the photo is taken, a fair degree of post exposure processing remains to be done.

Here is a shot of “Thunderheads Over Mount Pisgah” – the first image (the magenta one) is the off the camera, unadjusted digital IR shot. The second image has been processed in PhotoShop.

 

The post exposure processing is really pretty simple. The image first mush be desaturated (turned to B&W). The white and black points must be set to punch up the contrast in the image. After that, its just the normal routine of dodging and burning to get the look you want

There are still some pitfalls to the whole digital IR process. First off, noise can be an issue. A 2 or 4 second exposure at ISO 1600 is bound to be fairly noisy. I rely on the camera’s build in noise reduction to deal with most of this, and apply dust and scratches or other noise reducing filters as a last resort.

Second is the issue of sensor flare. This is where light bounces around or flares within the digital sensor assembly itself. Just like with lens flare, the result is a bright spot in the image. Here are two examples:

In the first one you can see a huge arch of flare cutting through the right side of the image. In the second you can a smaller line of flare running parallel to the bottom edge of the image, and just a short distance above the bottom.

I loose about 20% of my digital IR images to this phenomenon, and I’m not sure what exactly causes it. I do know that it seems to be related to the angle of the camera to the sun, and to either the length of the exposure or f stop setting. By opening up the aperture and using a shorter exposure, the flare usually diminishes or disappears altogether.

So to sum up the steps I use when shooting digital infrared with the *ist-D and RM90 filter – 

1. Compose the shot with the IR filter off the camera (since you won’t be able to see through it once it’s mounted.) 2. Mount the IR filter, let the AF handle focusing (since it will need to adjust the focal point to compensate for the IR light.) 3. Start as ISO 1600, f16, 2 seconds. Look that the histogram and adjust as needed. 4. Process the RAW file by desaturating, and then setting the white and black points to compensate for the compressed tonal range. 5. Apply anti-noise filter if needed, and make normal image adjustments.

The really nice thing about digital IR is that, with the digital filter in the pack, you always have the infrared option open to you as a creative choice. That is something harder to achieve when dealing with finicky, perishable, and difficult to handle IR films!

Yet another summer is reaching its apex in west Michigan, as summers have for millions of years before and (hopefully) for millions of years to come.

This summer has turned out to be dry. The drought has snuck up on us – a while back I commented on walking through a wetlands that in years past would have been impassible. Now the last spit of the swamp there is nothing but a cracking mud puddle. The grass has gone from green to amber, and driving down dirt roads leaves a cloud of dust behind the car that hangs in the air longer than it should.

Over the last few days I’ve hit the Allegan forest and the local McLinden nature trails, hoping to work on dragonflies and other insects. I also hoped to build up my Karner Blue portfolio a bit.

The dry weather has laid a heavy hand on the natural world. Last summer the Oak Savannas in the Allegan forest were thick with Spicebush and Fritillary butterflies, and Karner Blues were by no means uncommon. This year the spicebush are rare, the fritillaries (once the most populous of all butterflies) are uncommon, and I have yet to get a solid sighting of a Karner Blue.

 On the flip side, locust are already out in the fields, a good month ahead of schedule, and the red ant colonies that lie like scars on the land are bigger than ever, and the ants are more aggressive than ever.

So here is a handful of new insect shots – paltry return on the hours invested in getting them.

A few more digital images from my recent trip to North Carolina:

Well – not film in general, but the stuff I shipped off while on vacation came back on Monday. It took 6 days to arrive at my destination, but only 3 days to make it back home. Arg –well, at least it made it back.

There are 5 rolls of silver B&W film, and one roll of slide film. With the B&W film I plan to use Rodinal 1:50 for the Efke KB 100 (2 rolls) and Agfa APX 25 (1 roll.) The roll of Tri-X 400 and Plus-X 120 that I bought on site will be souped in D76 1:1. In the case of the Tri-X this is to minimize grain, in the case of the Plus-X its because I haven’t tested it in any other developer. This is the ‘new’ Plus-X – the old stuff I would happily develop in Rodinal. 

Here’s a first glimps from the first roll to come out of the developer – Hooker Falls, shot on Efke KB 100. The film workflow is mighty slow – with at least an hour per roll for developing and more time yet for scanning it’s a slow process. In a few days, whatever worthwhile photos I get from the film will be on line.