HAMBURGER EYES

Photo by Ray Potes

On the Hamburger Eyes ig acct stories mode, I have been hosting a Q + A that has been pretty fun. In fact starting tomorrow we’ll do it regularly. So if you have any questions about anything, tune in on Tuesdays.

One of the questions from the last sesh was about what to do with a photo after it’s processed and scanned. At first I thought it was maybe sarcastic, but it wasn’t. I am realizing in this modern era, the finishing of a photo means many things to many people.

This has to do with the intended destination of your photo and the workflow that is needed to get there.

When I learned photography, a photo wasn’t “done” until you had a final print spotted flattened mounted matted and turned in on time. Your contact sheets and work prints were different from your “final” prints. I purposely made smaller sized “work” prints so I could scan them for my zines.

Fast forward to today and my photos still have the same 2 main destinations, either a print or a book, or both. Not every photo I snap, maybe 1 out of 25. Sometimes 1 out of 50 or 1 out of 100.

In school it was common to get critiqued and edited by peers and teachers before final prints. Posting on social media and my blog reminds me of this, these zones are sort of a testing place for a photo before decisions are made concerning a book or a print. (For me.)

This is how I arrived at my current process/workflow. You will arrive at your own. A commercial photographer’s finishing of a photo might be a billboard or the side of a bus, while a photo journalist’s might be front page of a newspaper or website. Both will have an entire process workflow system and sometimes whole teams to make it happen. Each photographer has their own thing and at this stage of the game, you will need to figure yours out.

Photo by Ray Potes

Happy New Year! Peace to you and all your peoples.

I have this battle in my head that makes me want to barf sometimes. Where one side is about doing more on social media and the other side is about doing more on the website. What happens is a stand still and everything is frozen for months or years at a time. (I have already written about this a bunch and have deleted and re-started multiple accts on multiple apps. I’m sorry.)

Today there is peace in this particular weird war. This pandemic and subsequent quarantine(s) have forced many realizations. The problem was never ig vs website. The problem was analog Hamburger Eyes vs digital Hamburger Eyes.

The digital side was originally built to service the sales of the zines and books, the analog side. What happens is the digital side does not sleep and is always hungry. And is always talking shit. It is a multi-headed monster of store, blog, site, ig, yt, etc.

The analog side tries its best to keep up by making zines and books and clothes and photography accessories as fast as financially possible, yet the digital side is never satiated. So the roles have now reversed and this makes both sides very sensitive.

The solution is to separate them. I have tried to kill the digital side on purpose multiple times, it won’t die. The economy has tried to kill the zines and books on accident multiple times, it won’t die.

We separate them by feeding them their own specific food and at their own specific feeding times. I am not sure exactly what this will look like yet. It could be as simple as more blog posts on the site (like this one, thanks to those who miss these writings) and more ig stories. Or it can be as complicated as submissions for site/ig (photo of the day, for example) and separate submissions for zines/books.

Obviously, as per usual, overthinking everything. Maybe the main point is that in these crazy isolated times, we need to connect and share more in as many ways as possible because we, you the photographers, are more important now than ever.