Word-for-word: A custom tailored shirt

The latest in a series of articles I’ve written for 35mmc; the original can be found here.

Style wasn’t always my thing, and spending a lot of money on a custom-tailored shirt wasn’t something I’d always wanted to do but in this case it was inevitable, I suppose.  Since 2017 I’ve been working on a photo project documenting my job driving Jeep tours around Colorado Springs, and part of that job is dressing up like a cowboy.  In the last two years I’ve been taking greater interest in my appearance, developed a bit of a clothing obsession, and gotten a reputation at work for it now.  While still studying I was encouraged to really delve into the culture as far as I could, and reading a book called Confederates in the Attic helped as well.  The book is about one guy’s journey taking part in American Civil War reenactments, how much of a lifestyle it became for him and the people surrounding him who would obsess over minute details of their appearance in the pursuit of authenticity.  The resulting application of this in my photo project work so far is the amount of money I’ve invested in my personal wardrobe (and right now I’m hearing a song by the Drive-by Truckers in the back of my head…don’t call what you’re wearing an outfit). And really, shooting film is as much a part of pursuing authenticity as anything else I do.

When your local haberdashery Rutledge’s sends you a $100 off coupon for anything in the store (valid only through December), and your boss gives you a $100 gift certificate to the same place at the work Christmas party, well then: some things are just meant to happen, I guess. I’m a sucker for a good deal, and what better way to take advantage of the opportunity presented than to make a work shirt that absolutely no one else will have? Colorado’s historic place at the forefront of Western American clothing style makes something like cowboy business casual pretty usual here, and without knowing it I was channeling the spirit of a certain country singer as well.
I have one shirt that when worn, often elicits compliments on my appearance from random women I pass in my travels, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more of that. I don’t know if it’s the colors or the patterns (or a combination perhaps?) but I also like the way it’s cut so I used that shirt as an initial template. The defining traits of a Western shirt are that it has snap buttons and a fancy shoulder yoke. I wanted two fabrics so that the yoke would stand out: what’s the point otherwise? As Rutledge’s customer base is going to be mainly businessmen wanting suits most of the fabrics weren’t too interesting or noticeable but I worked with what was available and came up with some nice complimentary but contrasting patterns. I discovered while writing this that John Denver wore an eerily similar shirt to mine on the cover of TV Showtime magazine back in 1975, so I’d say I’m in good company. It’s one of those little coincidences but as soon as I saw the flower pattern I was thinking of the guy and it’s possible I’d seen that photo long ago.
Final price of the shirt is determined by what fabric(s) are chosen but also I was informed that the Western-style with the added shoulder yoke would cost extra, so I knew that I wasn’t getting out of the store without denting my wallet a bit. But as the saying goes, “If you have to ask how much it costs then you can’t afford it,” so I was determined to keep my mouth shut, and the final price didn’t have me running away screaming. The actual tailoring process was nearly painless as it mostly involved standing still while my regular sales associate John took measurements.

Of course I carry a camera with me nearly everywhere I go and on that day it happened to be an unmetered Nikon F2 and a roll of Kodak Tri-X. While I’m pretty good at Sunny-16 outdoors, indoors can involve a bit more guesswork, especially with the sunshine coming through the windows at 10:15AM. I believe these were taken between f/5.6 and f/2 at 1/60th, and I’m fairly confident in my ability now so shooting meterless doesn’t faze me. It took a few months between taking body measurements and receiving the shirt, and unfortunately the company that does the cutting/sewing hadn’t quite followed instructions: the wrong fabric was used for half the shoulder yoke and it had to be sent back to be redone, taking another few weeks but we got it right in the end.
I was at least able to try on the shirt and see that it fit well, which was the most important thing. So now I’m ready for another year of pretending to be a cowboy and looking halfway decent while I do it, I hope. Not that I usually go in for style shots but I wouldn’t want to leave you all without a picture of the shirt in glorious color:

Lab-developed.  Scanned/finished by myself using the Pakon F335 and Affinity Photo.
You can find my work at The Resurrected Camera or for all-cowboy all the time, my Instagram: @thefamouspdog.

I have two bonuses for my blog readers:

The shirt I was referring to, one of John Denver’s originals which I unknowingly followed pretty closely, is on the left.  On the right is a shirt I actually bought from Rockmount Ranch Wear (from their John Denver collection) and regret returning, but I’d have to slim down far too much to make a size S work for me and it was the last shirt left; I’m very bummed I couldn’t find a size M anywhere but I came late to the party so I had to make my own.

Outside

Partiers, thankfully not too raucous: standard St. Paddy’s celebrations I suppose.  I met a couple fun people at the photographers’ open house that invited me out afterward, and I was going to meet up with them at a particular Irish pub.  They offered to share a cab with me but I wanted to put all my excess stuff in my truck instead of carrying it around with me, so I went there first and walked to the place.  Of course they never showed up and I can’t blame them because there was no way we were getting in.  I got what I wanted out of the experience, which was plenty of crowd shots.

Actually as soon as I got there I remembered why I hate the bar scene and shied away from it.  And you don’t find true Celtic culture in a gaggle of slobby drunken Americans that just want a themed party with green Budweiser.  Why do what everyone else already wants to do?  I don’t mind being in crowds but I have to remember that I’ve never benefited from being a part of them.  At the same time, staying home every night watching movies isn’t really much of a life; I just don’t know how to really strike that balance yet.


I never could sit stillI never was too hipI never caught the ride
-Oingo Boingo

Sheep on the summit

This is the reward for getting up to Pike’s Peak extremely early–we set out before 7:00 and were waiting when they opened the gate.  A couple of people were my passengers, the others were working for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

I’m happy to say that the F4 has proven its worth in yet another area: it operates without a hitch in cold weather.  I do believe that it was designed with that contingency in mind!  The amount of forethought that Nikon was putting into their pro cameras at that time is wonderful.  This camera has taken everything I’ve thrown at it and performs like a champ.  I wouldn’t say that it’s completely changed my opinion of battery-dependent cameras but I’d say it’s the exception that proves the rule.

Word for word: What my first portfolio review was like

I like 35mmc’s format quite a lot, whatever theme they have does kind of present better than here: it might be time for me to improve things.  Well maybe tomorrow.  For now read the original here.

In a nutshell: it was like a boxing match between me and the world, or perhaps between me and my ego. I’m unsure at this point which, because I’ve now taken so many blows to the head that I’m surprised it’s still attached.
What was I even supposed to get out of it? I probably went in with the wrong hopes and expectations, and that definitely got me taken down a peg. I was sorely mistaken if I thought that everyone would see my brilliance and that the world would open up for me immediately, as well as ashamed that I dared to have such high hopes in the first place. But to carry the boxing metaphor farther, you shouldn’t step into the ring with a great fighter expecting to win, but because he will show you were your heart is.

So let’s start out with some confessions: I was underprepared. I didn’t know who I really wanted to have look at my work, just signed up for eight timeslots and then went down the list of people who sounded interesting. And then I signed up for an extra one while I was there! I didn’t really delve into what work they did or found interesting as much as just went off of suggestions from others as to whom I might want to talk to. Because these people that were reviewing our work, I don’t know if I should think of them as gatekeepers to the art world, or people who struggled up from the same place we’re currently at, or gods delivering judgement on whom was worthy of bestowing Their wisdom. I keep thinking of it as us vs. them, and naming them as “portfolio reviewers” seems to keep them on a level that makes them simultaneously more and less than Human.
I also acknowledge that I may have been asking the wrong questions.  Then again do I know what the right questions are?  I was hoping to be told by these subhuman gods just where to go to have my work accepted.  Instead, they were more interested in telling me what direction to take my project to have it accepted by them.  Every reviewer had their own things that they liked and didn’t like, and hearing so many conflicting opinions was of course aggravating.  But despite what they might have told me about my work, I hardly ever got the sense that I was hearing what they really, truthfully thought of it.
After a while though I was able to stop listening to the individual words coming out of their stone-faced visages and hear a buildup of consensus and that is what helped me get Direction.  The thing is that I was hoping find this photo project’s ending point and move onto different things; instead I consistently heard “you need to keep going.”  And while I initially found the upbeat encouragement flattering, there’s ultimately something soul-sucking about having so many people react so enthusiastically to your work while simultaneously making you feel like nothing you do will ever be good enough for them.  But I didn’t come to that conclusion until sometime on my second day.
In the interim we photographers had a public showcase of our portfolios which was nice as a way to gauge the reaction of regular people. That’s what all these black & white photos have been because I was far too busy during actual portfolio reviews to make photos for an article on this website. Thinking about the experience afterward, the work I really wanted to show publicly to everyone at the showcase was in a little 5×7 box. Instead I spread out everything I had over more than my share of table space and ended up giving everyone information overload. It would have been bolder to display the box all by itself but I can only see that in hindsight.



There were however some great little nuggets of Wisdom that The Reviewers imparted to me, to which I can cling. There were a few that took the time and effort to give more of themselves, whether that was to come to the public showcase, or one guy who looked at my work beforehand and brought me some material to look through for inspiration: I really appreciated that. Another guy told me that my work spoke about the relationship between land & people better than most of the other photographers there. That was special and built me up.
But as the second day went on I began to realize just how tired I was, how sick of fighting I’d become. Sick of everything, really, from my work, my own life, to everything in between. And I suppose I bitched about it more and more to my peers. If I can call them that, because nearly everyone I talked to was at least a full decade older than me and they all seemed to have so much experience, wisdom, patience, what have you. I suppose that I didn’t take nearly enough time to get to know them, I was saving as much of my energy for The Fight as I could and might have missed a key element of the process as I was too busy focusing on my own problems. They still helped me out by patching me up between rounds, as it were.
There was plenty of hangout time and I could have stayed in our Green Room looking at colleagues’ work more. Some of my fellow photographers were generous enough to ask to see my work, and I was happy to show them. I did look at some of their work as well of course, but not enough. One of the things I remember learning at college was how to avoid common words/phrases in critiquing my classmates, being encouraged instead to find different ways of imparting reactions to their work. I definitely made use of that when talking to my colleagues.
I suppose that my mood changed quite a lot over the course of the two days, from one of giddy anticipation at the beginning to near total defeat by the end. But I was open to opportunities and willing to accept invitations as they were presented, one of which involved sitting next to a woman whose work I found really fascinating. It involved a little creative rearranging of the table seating chart and was a bold move for me, a bit out of character.
I subconsciously tried to make up for it the next day by paying it forward to another photographer who was told he had a shot at a career as a photojournalist, and needed to get in to see this one particular reviewer. I guess I could have given him my timeslot but instead asked him to buy an open timeslot of another reviewer that I was interested in talking to. And that’s something we remarked upon, kind of treating the portfolio reviewers as no more than baseball cards: I’ll trade you Ken Griffey Jr. for Nolan Ryan!

In retrospect I turned what should have been a free Gift into a Bargain or Agreement. And it was a poor bargain: that timeslot was the absolute last one of the day and I was so exhausted already, that I almost immediately regretted having to wait around for it instead of skipping out early. And the thing is, I already went eight rounds, why didn’t I see that the fight was already over?
By then it was too late and I had to stick it out to the bitter end: the one thing I wasn’t about to do was shy away from one last round, even if I knew in advance that I was going to lose.  I went in and sitting down talking to this woman, I didn’t really want her opinions, I was too tired for it, I just wanted to complain about the whole experience.  At the same time, I wanted to acknowledge the generosity of time that all these wonderful people had put in, their stamina in looking at so many other people’s work for two whole days when I had the opportunity to leave the place for several hours at a time.

But I broke a cardinal rule of gaining acceptance at these things: Don’t go into the review saying that you’re sick of the work.  Because at the end of it all, I still wanted to know if this reviewer had anything different to say, and she did: she told me that if I couldn’t find my motivation anymore then I should drop photography and go back to making music.

And since that day in the middle of March I’ve had a lot of questions in my head: Do I believe that last reviewer taking her at face value, or was it just a Challenge?  What is Truth?  Can I believe anything anyone said now?

The woman whom I signed up for last-minute, who was the most enthusiastic about my work and I thought was willing to help further it along?  The man who asked me to email him a PDF of my portfolio because he sometimes publishes human interest stories?  The woman who said hardly two words to me during my review but was the only one to reply to my Thank You email?

Any little bit of helpful encouragement, little hints from the consensus of the chorus of reviewers saying: “Keep going?”

Am I good enough?  Am I even a photographer anymore?

Am I even still alive?

Is that a bell I just heard?

Technical note: all images were taken with the Nikon F4 and the 35mm f/2 AI-S Nikkor lens (except maybe one or two as I did also have a 50mm f/1.8 with me and I’m too tired to judge which were which right now).  Film used was Cinestill 800T and Kodak T-Max P3200.
Lab developed.  Scanned/finished by myself using the Pakon F335 and Affinity Photo.
You can find my the sum total of my work at The Resurrected Camera or for strictly photo project work, my Instagram: @thefamouspdog.

2022 trolley day 2

Which was actually our converted Ford van that they call the 12-gauge.  As I present these in chronological order it’s entertaining to me to see how the temperature got progressively warmer over the course of the day.

Doing a day full of shorter tours back-to-back isn’t my favorite of mine but I do pitch in when and where I can.  What’s really rewarding to me is the chance to get some nice group photos out of the day, usually a full roll’s worth.  And one of these photos is part of my current portfolio for this project so I call this experience a success all around.

Colors in the fading light

(I wrote this a while ago but held back because I decided to wait until 35mmc published it; of course I rewrote a lot of the article so it’s worth checking out on their site as well.  It’s my first published piece outside of this blog, and I’m very happy it’s finally happened!)

It’s been probably 5 years now but I bought a whole bunch of 2017-expired Fuji Superia 200 off ebay, and it’s lived in my freezer since then; I shoot a roll or two every year.  With the run on color film right now I decided to pull out a couple rolls so that I didn’t have to dip into my stock of Portra 400, Gold, or Ultramax (or Velvia).  This is all shot around my backyard or in the city park just beyond it.  About the only time I get the itch to shoot color is when the leaves start changing, and these photos are the result of that.

I seemed to remember in this post that it didn’t handle the shadows as well as I thought it could so instead of shooting it at ASA100 I went for ASA50 this time, and wasn’t disappointed.  The grain structure is wonderful: occasionally noticeable, but tight and for the most part unobtrusive.  And the colors…I’ll always love Fuji’s colors more than Kodak’s for most applications and this film definitely has that look that I’m in love with.  These are mostly shot with the 28mm and 35mm AI-s Nikkors, because I think from now on I’m just going to trust the matrix metering on the F4 whenever I’m not shooting a film with which I’m intimately familiar like Tri-X.

Filter on/filter off

Ahhhhh, tungsten-balanced film!  I wish there were more of you in the world!


I kind of take it for granted that I’ll have to put in some effort in post making Cinestill films look right but sometimes I hate the extra computer work.  A few months ago I picked up a 52mm Nikon-branded Wratten 85B filter for use shooting Cinestill 800T outdoors, and it works like a charm, much better right out of the scanner.  Though I really do like the look of the unfiltered shot as well, even with early dawn light it was still pretty damn blue.  I really think that if you are planning on using this film in all conditions, it behooves you to get an 85A or 85B filter.  Armed with one of these Cinestill 800T easily becomes the most versatile color film you can buy; I just hope that someday Kodak makes something like a Portra 1600T so I don’t have to deal with the annoying halation effects…

Now that’s what I call style!

If I do say so myself.  Modeling my brand-new shirt, self-designed (kind of) and custom tailored through my local Colorado Springs haberdashery.  They sent me a Christmastime coupon, and my boss gave me a gift certificate as well, which went a long way towards paying for this shirt.  I’ve worn it a couple times already to events where I needed to dress business-casual.

I’ve used Cinestill 800T a few times, usually indoors with very poor lighting, but I recently bought an 85B filter and am starting to use this film in more all-around capacities.  I’m happy to say that the results have been incredibly promising!

Hat: Stetson
Shirt: Rutledge’s
Jeans: Brave Star
Boots: Alden
Truck: Chevrolet
Dirt: Colorado

Also…it occurs to me Katie that I’ve given you crap for the very thing I’ve just done…shoot some good low-light film outside in rather bright conditions.  Sorry.

Western shirts of the 2021 and 2022 seasons

A helpful reminder that if you wear cowboy clothing you technically are ranch dressing.  What could be more American than that?  In fact all these shirts are Made in USA.  These are the ones I’ve bought in the last year or so, as you can see I’m fond of Southwest patterns:

Do you guys have a favorite one? (or more than one?)  Then please tell me.  It’s for science, so please vote!

1-Ruddock
2-Freenote Cloth
3-Rockmount Ranchwear
4-Ruddock
5-Western Aloha
6-Freenote Cloth