I started this week’s post by uploading and talking a bit about some of
the commercial work I’d recently done. Work that is now published and
available for posting here on drool. But then I decided that that approach
was just too hype.

This is what this week’s post was gonna look like:

THE OTTAWA HOSPITAL ANNUAL REPORT:

Cover and some spreads……

A few out takes…..

Then this week’s post was going to segue from a shot of ex-assistant Ben
in the operating room to a shot of my new assistant Lindsey that I pieced
together from two test shots because I didn’t like the look on her face in
the wide shot:

BEN

LINDSEY

And I was going to close with this fortune I got in a cookie:

But then I got to thinking about how that was all just shameless self
promotion. (Who could possibly be interested? Even if I fleshed it out
with stories about shooting in the hospitals.)

Now, those of you who know me will know that I am, in fact, pretty
much a shameless self promoter. But I do have my moods, and today,
as I sit and write this, I’m not too sure about all the HYPE aspects of
the good-old photoblog. Not just drool, any photoblog.

I reckon the seed of my discontent was planted by this post over at
A Photo Editor that made me get to thinking about what drool is and
what I’d like it to be. (Although, on re-reading that APE post I see that
drool is satisfying 3 1/2 of his 4 reasons for a photographer to blog.)

Of course, it’s just a blog. It can be any fucken thing I want it to be. And
maybe what I’ve been doing here with drool is “working” fine. After all,
the last time I looked it was getting about 400 visitors a day. (There, you
see? More hype.)

Anyway, today I’m going to have my cake and eat it too. I managed to
squeeze in most of the images I wanted you to see to by using the
transparent “here’s-what-I-would-have-done-but-it’s-too-lame” approach.

Now what? Where do I go from here?

Let me tell you, based on what I know about myself:

drool will continue to be what’s on my mind and what’s on my desktop
from week to week. Plus, I’m going to try to talk about more, different
aspects of photography. (Modern European photography is really turning
my crank these days, so look for some references and discussion of that
in the coming weeks and months.)

In the meantime, here’s a thing shot by SPAO graduate Greg Zenha that
blows my mind…….

It’s titled: Greg Zenha by Julia Dickens.

I know Greg but I don’t know much about this piece…..but what I do know
is what makes it so interesting to me. You see, that’s Greg kneeling on the
bed. I assume (but am not totally sure) that the photo on the right is the
picture he’s taking in the picture on the left. (See, it’s getting interesting
and convoluted already.) I think, but am not sure, that the woman on the
right is Julia Dickens. I also think that, whoever she is, she’s dressed in
Greg’s clothes, in fact is outfitted to look vaguely like Greg.

The way this thing turns in on itself is genius. The concepts, the secrets,
the look of the final product seem pretty original to me. Of course, I’ve
always liked art that is about the creative process, that’s self referential.

Kinda like this post.