Rain, Ramen, and Matcha.
Rain is an incredibly complex thing. Though we have spent our entire existence on this planet either wishing for it or wishing for it to go away, the reality is that rain is an everyday part of our lives. The process by which it builds and forms in the sky is something that is, on the surface, easy to explain simplistically, yet when you get into the details it will absolutely dumbfound most of us. Being able to predict the rain is somewhat scientific, but for the most part, it is more like reading the bones or staring at the bottom of a cup of tea, looking for mystical answers from some erroneous pattern.
Not knowing what the weather is going to do has always been a frustrating thing for photographers. The weather is so unpredictable here in Colorado that we have difficulty knowing what to wear and what to bring to any shoot. Are you going to need that sandbag for your light stand? How about your variable ND? Did I remember to get that rain cover for my camera? I know this camera is weather sealed...but what about this lens? You cannot be too prepared here. But you will almost always bring way more gear than you need.
The weathermen and women of the world that have spent years learning to do their jobs get a bad wrap from this beautiful state’s residents. Their positions are often referred to as “the only job where you can be wrong 95% of the time and still be employed.”
On any given day you may need to pack sunscreen, a light jacket, shorts, a fur coat, an inflatable floatation device, an umbrella, and a speedo. You really just can’t tell what is going to happen when it comes to the weather...especially in the rain department.
I have planned entire sessions around a 95% chance of rain and have never seen a drop. However, I have seen sunny days turn into a monsoon faster than you can blink. I have seen snow in July and hail in August. We have hit 90 degrees just a few days before Halloween on more than one occasion.
This day's session was another day just like that. A slight potential for precipitation that may, or may not, fall from the sky at some point between yesterday and tomorrow. There will definitely be clouds in the sky, but no one really knows for how long. And you can bet your ass the weatherman will be back tomorrow to tell you the exact same damn thing. Not only is summertime sticky and hot, but it is fucking unpredictable as well.
I said fuck it. Let’s shoot anyway.
The plan was extremely simple. Snatch up the photo crew and haul ass downtown to shoot some very tasty bangers while the fireball in the sky was hidden by the ever so threatening clouds that hung in the air. It truly was the perfect plan. Get out there and snap a bunch of tasty picks while all those clouds were acting as a giant softbox that enveloped the city.
This would also be a great day for practice. I feel like my previous adventure from episode 1 left me lacking. The goal that day was to get a better grasp of leading lines. A goal to which I feel I failed miserably on. So what better day than today to redeem myself and get some solid practice in.
Practice though is not the thing that turns us into quality photographers. While the catchphrase of practice makes perfect has been hammered into our head by a generation that lived by those words, the reality is that actually doing the thing is what catapults us further.
Our ability to accomplish any task, mental, physical, or otherwise, is directly related to our efforts in actually doing said thing. You don’t get good at walking by sitting around all day and talking about it. You get good at walking by repeatedly smashing your face into the floor, then telling yourself that doing that shit is painful, and there will be no more of that nonsense.
However, I do still slam my face into the floor on occasion. I like to think of myself as someone that just needs a refresher lesson from time to time. Others would just say I am a fucking clutz.
It really is just a matter of perspective.
My constant companion, also known as That Damn Canon, still refused to leave the house without a fancy variable ND attached to his lens.
He really is a ridiculous bastard. The kind of guy that wears his sunglasses in a movie theater….and at dinner, in the shower, during interviews, and surprisingly while standing in front of the mirror practicing an acceptance speech for an award he will never win. Sometimes I catch him in the process and ask what he is doing. That damn light catcher just sits there and stares at me blankly. His expression says it all.
Don’t judge, he says from behind his darkened monocular, you’ll never win anything either.
How is it that he is always right?
I rounded everyone up and we headed downtown to roam the city like a group of tourists attempting to take as many pictures as possible. For the first time this month, the temperature was not hot enough to make the crack of your ass drip with sweat. Being able to maneuver through the city and not lose 2 pounds in water weight was a blessing. There was no concern about the stains of sweat under your armpit and the backpack I was carrying didn’t leave a giant salty wet spot on my back. It truly was a glorious time to shoot.
The weather forecast called for rain the entire day when looking at the previous day’s prediction. This is generally a sign that the prediction was completely off and the clouds in the sky were nothing more than a blessing from the photo gods smiling upon our adventure with favor.
Rudy and I have a friend named Lexie. Over the past few months, this witty young lady has joined us on our step-intensive excursions through the Mile High City. We have been quite fortunate to have another individual grace us with their presence. While I do enjoy snapping random pictures of Rudy doing the random things that Rudy does in the random places that those he chooses to do them, I do like a bit of variety in my shots.
Being the brilliant young lady she is, Lexie makes for a fantastic model and adds just a bit of the ever sought-after variety to our sometimes punishing, though rewarding, street sessions. However, It’s not her face in front of the camera that makes her presence welcome. It is the fact that she is working quite hard at improving her skills with a camera.
Little does she know that Rudy and I have saddled her with an addiction she will fight for the rest of her life. We gave her a fucking lightbox and showed her how to stick the needle in her vein. We have become her dealers and these walks through the city are just our way of making sure that she stays addicted.
Rudy was also hosting a friend named Patrick from out of town. He was a charming fellow and wanted to join us on our stroll through the metropolitan portion of our fair city. What better way to enjoy this trip than to have a camera shoved into your hand along with some rudimentary lessons. Our first hour was more of the same ole same ole. The starting point was The Denver Pavillions.
We meandered around the east side of the city snapping a few buildings that were calling to us. The cloudy sky allowed us to point our cameras upwards without filling our sensors with the common lens flares that are always present on sunny days.
After a bit of walking, we took the time to visit an old location of ours that always produces some lovely images. It is a parking deck just off the 16th street mall that opens itself up to a panoramic view in the middle of downtown. Every direction you turn in this location your camera is greeted with magnificent sights and lines that are difficult to match anywhere else in Denver. It feels almost as if you are floating in the middle of the city. On its top deck, you are easily 60 feet above street level and you have access to at least ¼ of a block to roam.
Even that damn lightbox of mine loves to snap pictures here. I can feel its giddy tension as we walk from the 6th-floor elevator up to the top deck. The constriction of the pupils when you pass from the dark into the light is juxtaposed by the widening of eyes at the entrancing spectacle that seems to have been created just for photographers.
This day was special for us due to the previous night's rain. There were massive puddles strewn about the top deck that served as reflecting pools for quite a few tasty snaps. Rudy and I are like children at the sight of a puddle. We instantly are drawn to it in much the same way insects are drawn to those zapper lights before being fried in an attention-getting zap. Our uses for the pool are a bit different than a child’s, but the magic of imagination for the puddle is the same. Our creative minds launch into a million different ways that we can utilize the pools of water to create imagery that will make you spend a few moments trying to figure it all out.
Our brains go into overdrive and consume more than their fair share of calories to help compose masterful images in-camera. We begin salivating over angles and possibilities, so much so that after 30 minutes in the same spot we have to wrestle ourselves away from the dingy pools of standing water. You can imagine our elation when we found those puddles in one of our favorite spots. At one point Lexie Rudy and I were standing around the same puddle taking pictures of each other.
Over the next 15 minutes, we filled our quota for mandatory shots and decided it was time to move on. The glory of that spot never fades, but it does greedily steal time away from other locations. Besides, the light catcher that was latched onto my wrist began tugging at me to leave and find other things to shoot. The unfortunate thing about that damn canon is that it always wants to shoot, however, it never tells me where it wants to go. It just says “keep moving” in an almost aggressive fashion.
For a while we aimlessly meandered around the downtown area, attempting to find things that were worthy of shooting. With little real success, we decided to stop at a newly discovered tea shop. It is a really fantastic shop. Its minimalistic design beacons you to explore. The folks working inside are all dressed in black and draw you inside without saying a word.
You are compelled to ask what it is they do in this place as the signage is nothing more than a tea leaf graphic on a sandwich board just outside the shop. Everything about this business is pleasing to the eye, yet this establishment that is a testament to minimalist design is hidden away from the general public. Had I not been thirsty, we may have walked right by it. The shop serves Matcha based drinks with bits of fruity concoctions integrated with it. The creamy textures that this business mixes with the freshly prepared matcha produce a delectable concoction that is unique.
Unique and refreshing. The company is called Milk Tea People and it's fucking delicious.
For those of you that are unaware of what Matcha is, allow me to get you up to speed. It is a version of green tea, however, Matcha is made from the highest quality tea and is ground into a fine powder. This shop hand whips the tea with bamboo whisks before adding it to the fruity and creamy mixture. It was an absolutely magnificent discovery and the short break was quite welcome. Thankfully the caffeine helped us to carry on with adventure and allowed us to refocus.
Our tiny group of roaming photographers was once again on the move as we felt the first sporadic drops of precipitation fall from the now darkening sky. While tracing our way through the streets and alleys, there was a growing sense amongst us that the weatherman might have actually been right. The drops that were randomly increasing in size and frequency started smacking against our jackets and exploding off the ends of our lenses clued us into what was coming.
Our last location that was dry was an area called The Milk District. A fancy spot where the upper middle classes hang out to feel they have roughed it with the rest of us city dwellers. It is a very well decorated area and the part we chose to stroll through was an alley with a rather uppity make-over. Nicely pressure washed with a few fresh coats of paint and a series of fancy lights that changed hue ever so slowly as illuminated pristine murals that covered the walls. I remember this alley. Before all the dingy textures were stripped away. Honestly, though, there was nothing nice about it. It was just another crappy alley. I am glad all the rich people are here now.
In this remodeled space a slice of pizza will run you 5 to 10 dollars. However, you should be prepared to drop at least 15 bucks on a glass of cheap whiskey. I don’t even want to think about what a glass of wine would cost you. Nevertheless, I believe rudy was able to get a few amazing shots here. Lexie did as well.
No sooner than we exited this narrow slice of money fragranced real estate did we meet the full-on barrage of rain that was traveling across the metropolitan. Within minutes we were practically swimming down the sidewalk looking for a place to wait out the rain. I was shooting from the hip in true street photographer fashion. I could barely even find my viewfinder through the plastic bag that was protecting my camera from the torrential downpour, let alone review the images that were being shot.I was quite literally shooting pictures and hoping for the best. With rain like that you are lucky to get a shot at all. I was fortunate enough to get several.
Thank god for autofocus.
I wanted to really tie this episode up with a bit more about practice. Learning to accomplish a task is a hell of a lot different than being good at that task. As photographers, it is easy for us to walk out our front doors and click off a thousand pictures and call it practice. However, if you want to excel at what you do, you will always need to be up against the edge of your ability.
It is commonplace for us to get comfortable in our styles and not push the boundaries of what we do. A lot of the time that is because we plateau at a certain level and cannot see any path forward or upward for that matter. Much like the rain, we can never know when that growth opportunity is going to come falling out of the sky and drench us in a new skill.
If you want to grow though, it is important for you to be in places where there is a chance for rain. You have to actually get out there and shoot those pictures with intent. That intent should always be about either doing something you haven’t done, shooting something in a new way or just going to a new place to shoot.I know that when Rudy and I shoot, we will instantly look at the picture and evaluate if we can improve it.
Setting our standards higher, allows us to stay firmly pressed against our boundaries. That is why we can walk the same path a dozen times and continually shoot amazing new shots. If you really want to practice properly, try to shoot new things in new ways. You are not always going to succeed, but at least you will be striving to become better.
My personal rule is to shoot 1 great picture for every 100. Sometimes I get more and sometimes and sometimes I get none. But at least I am out there where the rain is, trying to have some skill soak me in its discovery.
After a few incredibly refreshing yet thoroughly soaking blocks we managed to trudge our way to a restaurant called Jenya. This place once made a guest appearance in a short video of mine. Though the first time we discovered this bougie little spot was at the height of covid we have returned here a number of times after other photo walks. It is well hidden amongst the other nameless locations cleverly stashed on the other side of a basic brick wall underneath what I can no doubt guess are very overpriced condos.
They do however serve one of the most delectable meals known to mankind.
Ramen. Yep one of the staples of life in the largest city in the world, Tokyo, can be found right here in Denver. In fact, ramen shops are popping up all over the place here in the mile high. This place has quickly made its way onto my favorites list. They have a unique twist on the ramen they serve. Jenya specializes in spicy ramen. Of course, you can get it without spice and the level of spice added to any bowl is rated from 1 to 10. Rudy swears he can’t tell the difference of anything past a 6, however, I am quite satisfied with the sinus leakage I get from the 3.
On this particular occasion, I decided to take a short break from my self-imposed alcohol abstinence and we all enjoyed a few bottles of hot sake as a reward for an adventure that was going splendidly. That is everyone but Lexie. She decided it was important for her to drink something a bit more fru-fru and helped herself to a Manhattan. As the drinks flowed we enjoyed some laughter and reviewed our images with a bit of awe. This story proved to be a fantastic tale that ended in just the perfect way. A group of friends drinking way more than we should be patting ourselves on the backs for a mediocre adventure that produced a tall tale that far surpassed the actual events.
Lucky for us, I am one helluva writer.
