The Source of my Madness

Plato said, "Necessity is the mother of all invention."

It is the single source of everything that I am and everything that I'm not.

Simply put, this philosophy is both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness.

I've written about the "what if" game throughout my blog. That's when you ask, "What if [fill in the blank]...? It's the perfect game for genres such as photography, where you can make small changes over many iterations that ultimately lead to a course correction or branching off into a new area of growth. Like "What if I use this blue filter in my channel mixer and then change it to monochrome and then change that layer to luminosity blend?". Well, that series of decisions turns skin tones much darker and allows me to make highlights and shadows in the skin that wouldn't otherwise be visible.

You're probably wondering, "How do I know when to play the "what if" game?" The answer is YMMV (your mileage may vary). I play it all the time. It's who I am. I'm dissatisfied with the way the world is. I do not accept things at face value. And I don't believe I have to lower my standards to suit your needs. Therein lies the heart of how I do anything and everything. It's what allows me to grow constantly, and it's what makes me a very difficult person to deal with. I'd venture so far as to say it's what makes the lives of those around me very difficult. For example, my wife says, "Nothing is ever good enough for you."

And she's right.

I've always had a problem with contentment. A fear of contentment, rather. The fear that I'll stop growing if I settle for what I have. A lot of people know this as "the grass is always greener on the other side" syndrome. Yeah, I have that. Or rather, I'm curious to know what's on the other side, so I have to see for myself (because I won't accept it if you just tell me).

So I've never lived with the fear of being copied. Sure, you can copy some techniques, some adjustments, or some photographic elements that I employ (like prisms), but you won't be able to recreate the essence of my style because you're not me. You don't have my "disease", so you won't wonder what, why, and how, and then make subsequent changes to accommodate those questions. You're probably a happier person than I am. Living in a state of constant dissatisfaction only leads to unhappiness and conflict with the world around you.

So ultimately it's a double-edged sword. Stagnation is contentment's "next of kin". You don't evolve or change as quickly as I do because you don't ask why. The reason you don't ask why is because you don't wonder why it can't be better. And the reason you don't wonder why it can't be better is because you're not unhappy with the way it already is.

Then nothing changes.

I've seen comedians wonder if they'd be funny if they hadn't suffered some trauma in the past. Many of them attribute their genius to drug abuse and other bad choices they make in life. Many of them eventually discover that there's a delineation between constant self-destruction and past trauma. Just because you've suffered in the past doesn't mean you must continuously suffer in order to be funny. Comedians who have gone clean usually realize that they are just as funny without the self-destructive behavior. Their perspective is already forever altered by the events of the past. Continuing to suffer might make for new material, but it isn't entirely necessary since you already possess a unique lens with which you see the world. For comedians, humor is the point of reference for interacting with this world. They can't help but see things in a funny light. They're simply not satisfied with not picking at loose threads, wondering, or thinking about how ridiculous the world is if you think about it.

Comedians clearly don't take things at face value. If they did, they wouldn't have jokes.

Maybe the question should instead be, "Can you learn to be dissatisfied with the world? My gut feeling is, "No, being dissatisfied is innate. Even if it was brought on by some past trauma, that trauma had to first interact with some root of who you are to create the questioning nature. For example, if you're an incredibly forgiving person and don't hold onto pain and misery, I don't believe past trauma would affect you the same way as it does others. You'd make peace with all the events of the past and be happy and content.

But you also wouldn't have my madness.

Corner Unit

In the Spring of 2015 I signed a lease at 610 South Main Street for a corner unit on the 7th floor (#735). It would be the third iteration of LUCIMA STUDIO (aka LUCIMA STUDIO III) and the first time I had a corner unit as a studio.

Over the course of the next two years I would shoot this studio day to create all sorts of different looks. My favorite setup was 8AM direct sunlight streaming through the East-facing windows onto the south wall of the unit. You can see the lighting pattern from the image above. That setup would create the most brilliant highlights on the models' skin (more on this in a future post maybe). My failsafe setup was allowing mid-day diffuse light through the East-facing windows hitting the subject on grey paper. I shot this setup to death and while it worked amazingly well, it was too easy. Finally my second-favorite setup was using the corner windows to create opposing light (usually backlight) to shape the model. You can see the windows of the corner in the following picture.

While I never painted the walls grey (as I would later for all future iterations of LUCIMA STUDIO), I used the modular 4x8' walls from the original LUCIMA STUDIO as grey backdrops after I painted them grey. They were mobile and lightweight and served extremely well until put them in storage after moving into LUCIMA STUDIO IV. The following image is an example of the faux walls as the backdrop. You can see the seam of the two walls overlapping.

Shooting the corner was never easy. The exact placement of the subject between the two windows was critical because the distance from each window would dictate how much light the model would receive from each side. This would cramp my style a little bit since I normally prefered to have more flexibility in placement and movement. But when the light was balanced properly you'd get magic like this.

Or this where the windows were not exactly juxtaposed but served amazingly well as a main light with a back/rim light.

But I didn't come here to talk about old pictures and corner units exactly. I am here to talk about this image.

Because this is not a picture that I shot. Rather this was an iamge created by Stable Diffusion that reminded me very much of LUCIMA STUDIO III. So much so that the placement of the windows relative to the walls (and the subject) is nearly identical to my actual unit. While I could have tried to use Stable Diffusion to inpaint (modify a part of the image in Stable Diffusion) the walls and windows to look more like 610 South Main Street, my fascination for this image is how much it reminds me of #735 610 South Main Street and also the level of realism from Stable Diffusion. I've been using the Edge of Realism model for a couple weeks now and it's by far my favorite model for creating images that resemble my work. Even though it's a SD1.5 model, I find it uncanny how lifelike the results are. The last couple posts have demonstrated that I've come full circle. When I first got my hands on Stable Diffusion it was all about exploring and making random pictures. Then I started applied a logic set that forced me to explore the "impossible". While I still have many series that I've yet to show from that logic set, I've already come back to exploring what feels familiar. These images while not terribly interesting, mundane even, are still not easy to create. The iterations required to produce something that I deem valuable and worthwhile enough to share is about a day's work on average. Luckily I have a 4TB HD and a mobile workstation otherwise I wouldn't be able to run all these experiments at all hours wherever I am. Maybe the point of these recent images is to simply come home and say, "the heart wants what the heart wants". Sometimes it's not about shooting "the impossible". Sometimes it's just about making something that makes you say "wow" and refine that to the extent of your abilities (and the technology). It's okay that it's not different, unique, impossible, and never done before. Sometimes it's just enough that you like it.

Athleisure Simplicity and the Education Afforded by AI

There is one advantage that Stable Diffusion offers that is somewhat unique to me compared to other photographers. Stable Diffusion allows me to share the before and after as long as I'm willing to reveal my process.

Well, I'm willing to reveal my process.

I realized this when I was pondering the benefits of AI and how I could literally talk to Tony Stark about anything. AI isn't afraid of subject matter (within reason) and is more than willing to go down the rabbit hole with me in my interview. Similiary, my Stable Diffusion "subjects" aren't people so they don't have feelings and aren't going to care if I show the process for creating the final product. Historically there were two problems with showing the unprocessed images. 1. It makes the model look terrible because the original images are usually chockful of problems including but not limited to the model being fat, skin blemishes, wardrobe mistakes, etc. 2. I didn't want people to think that I couldn't get better better models if judging my abilities from the unprocessed image.

Fortunately Stable Diffusion (and all text-to-image generators) resolve both problems. 1. There are no humans involved in the creation so no one's feelings can get hurt (outside of my own) and 2. I'm not using models so you can't judge me for my model choice.

But this isn't what I came here to talk about today.

This image of what seems like a blonde girl is somewhat mundane. It's fully clothed for one, which is a departure from most of the images that I create. Secondly the backdrop is austere and devoid of anything special; it is literally grey (probably) paper.

So why this image?

There's something about simplicity that is beautiful. I suppose this post is akin to the grey paper post from last week. But rather than extolling the virtues of grey paper, I'm now talking about the beauty of simplicity. That's studio portraits (closeups) are some of my favorite pictures. It's actually why I have always been (unbeknownst to many) drawn to faces first and bodies (a distant) second. There's something powerful about a look, a gaze, a pose, an angle, that doesn't rely on gimmicks to work. Sure I chose this pose, this body language, and asked for this kind of a subject with this kind of a look, wearing what is still skin-tight clothing... but what makes this image work isn't that she's overtly sexy or doing anything particular. She just is. And sometimes (not all the time) it's just good enough.

To understand this process however, let me start at the beginning.

I started this journey with this image I'd found on the Internet. I was hoping to make a better version of it. Unfortunately the pose didn't play well with the AI models understanding of overalls and ultimately I coudln't create anything that was more interesting.

I then flipped through my own archive of edited imagegs and settled on this image from my horses series because I liked the pose. No they're not the same girl. I literally used different AI models to make each image:

In ControlNet I ripped the pose with OpenPose. What you don't see are the many iterations of modifying this pose (particularly the hand position) so that it is improved (and different) from the original image. I probably went through 10+ iterations of modifying the pose alone.

After 50+ different images and countless changes to the prompt, I got something a little different. Something more clothed but more interesting.

The problem with this image is that it showcases one big flaw of AI models; they're largely trained on porn and Instagram. The model's chest was pushed up too far and felt like it defied the laws of gravity. The shape of female breasts is of course a very subjective matter but I think most would agree that natural and believable shapes look better. Therefore I took it upon myself to alter the size and shape of the chest so that it fit better with my own ideals. But as I always say, your mileage may vary.

I also took liberties with changing the shape and size of the subject's butt. I could pretty much repeat everything that I said above with the exception of the "defying gravity" part. When I look at an image I look for balance. Some part of that balance is photographic, meaning I shot it too high or too low or too close or too far etc. Some part of the balance is intrinsic, meaning it has to do with the subject's proportions, issues that are not illusions/issues created by photography. In this case I took issue with the fact that the subject wasn't to the proportions of my liking (few are). Again YMMV. Do I need to explain that I grew up on a diet of 90's supermodels again? Maybe. I was sure I had a post addressing this in the past...

Of course the final crop, the B&W treatment, there are a myriad of little details I've skipped in the interest of time. The main objective in writing this post was to marvel at how an image so "contrived" could still capture and retain my attention enough to edit and then write a post about it. And two, to discuss the opportunity that AI imagery affords for me on the education side of things because I don't have to be afraid that the model will be afraid of backlash over the unprocessed images (or worse when and ask me to take down the pictures). Will there be more to come? Time will tell. You guys can make requests here or on Instagram.

Superimposed you can see the changes better