We had our first snow of the winter season two weekend (excluding that fluke one that hit us in October). Because of that, I was able to add a few new images to my Winterscape Gallery Series. Finishing up them this weekend, so hope to share them early next.

Otherwise, it was a busy week without too much shooting, actually, until late in the week. I like doing these visual week in reviews mosaics since they do help me reflect back on the week. So easy for it all to rush by us.

That “voucher in the mosaic this week was just a quick little design piece I did for my wife’s birthday on Thursday. I knew she didn’t want any “thing”. What she wanted, what every wife and mother of little kids wants, is peace and quiet for a few hours. So she can redeem the voucher for 36 hours away from the brood. Told her to pick a hotel in Philly or New York. Maybe one of her friends, or her sister, will join. But even if all she does is lay in a big comfy bed and do nothing, that’ll be fine. Heh.

The design firm I work with and I have been have a dastardly time trying to figure out how to get the hard drives they get from photographers (usually formatted for Mac) to work on the PC laptop I have at my job. I know it shouldn’t be this hard, but we just can’t get to the right configuration and with the annual report heading into the homestretch, I can’t be wasting time trying to figure a solution. So I opened a DropBox account this week; hopefully that will solve our problems.

What large-file sharing tool do you like to use? I’d be interested to know.

Oh, and the last update about the Employee Art Exhibit my job has…I got an honorable mention for the On The Pitch image shot in Kitui, Africa.

I wasn’t really happy, especially since I saw what won. But no time for sour grapes. You can’t please all the judges all the time. I’m already thinking about next year.

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This Week’s Links:

* I don’t normally link to my own stuff, but if you didn’t see my review of Rear Curtain, Issue 1, check it out here. Then go get a copy!

* New Joe McNally video: On Location With The Nikon D4

* Texas-based photographer Jeff Lynch posted this awesome B&W image this week.

* Best quote of the week come’s from Tokyo-based photographer Irwin Wong, writing over on the Strobist blog: “Multi-light setups, gear reviews and lighting tricks are all worthwhile food for thought. But when people are looking back at your life’s work, will you be remembered for your lighting or for what you tried to tell the world with your camera? ”

All I can say is…. Yes! All that stuff if fun (or stress-inducing if you are like me) and important. But more importantly, just get out there and shoot.

Show me what you saw.

Tell me your story.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

Only two ways you leave a joint like this.

You decide.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

Two years ago today, this is how I came down to breakfast…

Two years ago, this WAS my breakfast…

Two years ago today, I was on a photo shoot at a stable with some beautiful light…

Two years ago today, I was meeting some really wonderful people in a really pretty setting and doing some environmental portraits….

Two years ago, I was taking pictures of people taking pictures…

Two years ago, since I was in Urakawa, Japan, this is how I had to wish my beautiful wife, Leslie, a Happy Birthday:

Today, though, I’m home in the Great State of New Jersey, and I – was able to wish her a Happy Birthday and give her flowers first thing this morning.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

I’m a little late to this party, since the print edition of Rear Curtain has been out for a few months now – just over two to be exact. Somehow, though, the time from it’s 11/21/11 launch till now has just slipped away from me.

I think it was almost a year ago now that Ray Ketcham sent me an email about the new photojournalism website he, Matthew Connors and Sabrina Henry were starting.

What he wrote to me then was Rear Curtain is for stories and photo essays that show that folks in the west are living and breathing the same problems along with those in far off places. Less emphasis on religion and more on the common everyday problems that we all share. Breaking stereotypes by showing how we all live an everyday life, both the good and the bad.

I found this to be a very intriguing and exciting pitch, and immediately came up with three or four stories that I hoped to work on, shoot and contribute over the coming months

Fast forward a few months…and I turned in ONE story.

Yep, just one. Oh well, better than nothing.

But my lack of storytelling notwithstanding, the Rear Curtain site has been producing some fantastic pieces of photojournalism from photographers all over the world.

Then…gast forward a few more months after that and Ray, Matthew and Sabrina tackled an even bigger animal. When everyone is crying about the death of newspapers and magazines, they decide to do a print version of Rear Curtain. See, they had always expected to produce a print version of the site. It’s in their DNA. Photojournalism isn’t mean to live on the web. It’s meant to live on the printed page. And for thatvision, I commend them.

(c) Matthew Connors from Disconnect

Why? Because there is something about photography and photo stories that begs to be put into print and savored over a cup of coffee, tea (or perhaps something stronger). We all shoot so much digital now, and post to websites, it’s almost an EVENT to make a print of one of your photos, let alone print a photo magazine.

See, tt’s easy to get lost in the flashing pixels of the web and its videos and slideshows; loading and attaching, and hitting send. But it really still means something to hold that finished product in your hands, to read the words and to examine the frames.

Maybe that’s why I enjoy working on my company’s annual report. Because I know that, a bit further down the road, I’ll smell the ink and hear the whirr of the Heidelberg print presses running. And then I’ll get to hold it in my hands.

Same thing with Rear Curtain. The stories on the website are fantastic and the photography is stunning.

But to sit and read these stories, and really look at them, and examine how the photographers made their frames,… that is really special.

(c) Stephen Urhaney from A Story Of Love

What I really love about what the Rear Curtain team is doing is taking the bull by the horns and getting their work/our work out there. There are tons of photo sharing sites, and hundreds of photo contests (Just pay us $50 to maybehopefullypossibly select your photo to win. No refunds!), out there, so many so your head can spin. But most don’t have the form and intent that Rear Curtain does. And that’s what’s refreshing.

To me, what Ray, Matthew and Sabrina are doing with Rear Curtain is a harken back to the self-publishing times of the ’50s and ’60s. I can see someone like Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg stepping up and contributing to this, just because they’d know that the end user appreciate what they did.

(c) Gavin Gough from The Calligrapher

Now, to be fully transparent, another reason I really love Rear Curtain, Issue 1 is because the team asked me to close the book with one of my noir images, and a short story. We’ve talked about me contributing noir images over the next few issues, building each photo and story on the last. Like the pulp fiction serials of old.

(c) Mark Krajnak from Blackout Night

Rear Curtain, Issue 1 features a whole host of great writing and photography from a number of talented people. And at $17.95 a print issue (or $4.95 for the digital version) it’s a steal.

You can order it here from Magcloud.

Go grab it. You won’t be disappointed.

Photojournalism isn’t dead. It’s still right there…behind the rear curtain.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

I continued to be impressed with the Canon S95. Above is an evening shot, taken through the windshield of my truck. A quick snap, but I’m I’m glad I had the little camera on me.

But this image is what, if I hadn’t already been sold on the S95, would sell me on it. Olivia and I were out in after the snow stopped this weekend, just tramping around. Had the opportunity for a quick portrait, high key, which I brought down a little in post.

It looked nice on the little LCD screen, but when I saw it on the computer, and made a 8.5×11 print of it on my home printer…wow.

Just amazed at the images this little camera produces. Definitely a keeper.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

***A 9 p.m. UPDATE edit: Oops! It’s the 21st today, not the 20th.**

Woke up this morning to the first snowfall of the year. Wasn’t much, just a couple of inches. But still opening visual to the day. Sounds like we may get more, but then it will turn into that obligatory snow/sleet/freezing rain deal. That’s always fun when you have kids that want to play in it, and dogs that don’t want to be out in it bu have to get walked.

Hitting a another milestone today – Matthew Logan turns three months old. It really does go quickly. He’s a great little baby though – just kind of watches all the craziness in my house, from Olivia who like to dress up like Batman to Chase who just wants you to “read” him picture books. (and he know if you call a giraffe an aardvark too. Furiously shakes his head “NO!” if you try to pull a fast one on him.

I did a lot of evening and night shooting this week, as you can see. Still, it’s not pitch black at 5 p.m. anymore so we’re slowing headed to spring.

Little mix of everything in the visual mosaic. The evening shot with the setting sun was with the S95, the bowl of Pho Bo Vien with my Blackberry camera. A new personal project has jumped out at me too, something I hope to work in the coming weeks.

Oh, and remember I talked recently about that Employee Art Contest my company has every year? They started hanging the works this week and there’s some really nice photography and paintings. Reception is later this week; I’ll see how I did.

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This Week’s Links:

• NY photographer Weegee at ICP

• A good guide to which camera lens to buy

• Amazing video from adventure photographer Corey Rich using the new Nikon D4

• Great post from my buddy Mark Olwick: The Obsession

• And….Bruce Springsteen released a new song this week – We take Care of Our Own. I like it. Harsh, brash, good guitar, cutting lyrics. Looking forward to the rest of the new album, Wrecking Ball, coming out in early March.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

Sometimes a guy just needs a break.

Is down.

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I know, I know…this isn’t one of my normal “fedora and gat” induced noir pieces. I think it works in the genre, though.

See, while noir is about B&W, stark lighting, fog, .45′s blasting in the night, and femme fatales…it’s also something more.

True noir is about not really know who the good guys are from the bad guys, or if the good guys become bad guys due to circumstance, a bend in the road.

And it’s also about that middle ground where one is neither good nor bad. Just trying to get by each day, anyway possible.

The opening sentence to David Goodis’ Retreat from Oblivion novel reads “After a while it gets so bad that you want to stop the whole business.”

What’s the “whole business”? The dark side? The crime side? Life itself? Hard to say and that’s the point. Make of it what you will.

I shot the above image when I was on the Retreat to Goodisville. It was near the end of the day and the group was down on the Philadelphia waterfront (now called Columbus Ave. but to me it’ll always be Delaware Ave.)

The guy in the photo is a noir fan and actor, Eric Rice. I saw him sitting there just looking out, enjoying the view of the Delaware River and Ben Franklin Bridge. It spans from Philly to the Camden side. Camden’s about as hardscrabble as it comes. At night, though, lit up blue, the Ben Franklin ranks, in my eyes, up there with the Golden Gate Bridge as one of the prettiest.

And while there’s no fedora, gat or femme fatale, when I shot this, I immediately thought of the neo-noir/hardboiled crime drama Payback. Not sure why, it just popped into my head.

And so did the story that I put with the photo. just the way Eric was sitting there seemed like he could be contemplating his next move…be it to the right side of the law or off the bridge.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

Here’s the final multimedia slideshow I put together for them:

I’m really happy Christine Burke, the publicist for the Sons of Ireland, and the Sons themselves, keep bringing me back each year to shoot this event. There are cameras all over this event. When I do a Google image search for “Sons of Ireland Polar Bear Plunge Asbury Park”, I see a ton of photos.

So many photos, in fact, that I sometimes catch myself in them.

I don’t know who shot this, but that’s me in the background…Getting THIS shot…

This was my third year doing this event and even though I’m pretty comfortable doing it, it wasn’t without it’s challenges.

The thing I bring to this event is getting my butt out into the water for those “crowd rush” shots. This year, though, I got hit by a lot of splashes and the 50D didn’t take to kindly to it.

What I normally do is put it on autofocus and rip pixels. I pick out people or shots I see coming and zero in on them, or anticipate where the splash will be. Unfortunately, after getting hit with some water, my autofocus snubbed out. The whole thing – the REAL part where the mad rush crowd is coming in is only a few seconds. I don’t have a backup body and lens on me, so I had to quickly figure out that the machine isn’t working, switch to manual focus, focus in quick on something and keep going.

Luckily, I think I still got some good shots but I was pretty worried but if I a) got anything good and b) if my camera survived. My autofocus didn’t come back until a good while later when I went into the men’s room and started running the camera back and forth under the hot air dryer (#togtip there, I guess). Waterproof housings are expensive (I only need it once a year) and the cheap coverings are just that – cheap.

So, I wing and a prayer it, at least for now.

Still, I have to hand it to Canon – their bodies take a licking. Once it all dried, the 50D has been great again.

I’m just happy Christine and the Sons keep liking what I give them. Hopefully, come January 1, 2013, I’ll be in the same place – knee deep in the Atlantic Ocean hoping my toes don’t freeze off.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

With all due respect to Dennis Lehane…

How much of what you’ve shot is no longer there?

As I look back, I seem to be developing quite a portfolio of things that I’ve shot and now aren’t there anymore.

I started to think about this right after I completed my Further On Up The Road piece.

After I finished shooting it, within days *poof* the motel was gone.

Bulldozed.

Just this weekend, driving east on Route 33, I noticed that the truck in the above image was gone. It was an old-time Fordd, and I made its acquaintance in it’s last days, apparently.

See, the truck had always been parked right near this roadside vegetable stand, and every time I traveled down Route 33 toward Freehold and Monmouth County, I passed it. The Ford was red and rusted, but proud. Like it had done more than one honest day’s work in its lifetime.

Up close, you could still feel the warmth of a summer day on the farm. You could catch the dust in your mouth that it’s tires had kicked up taking that wide, slow turn back towards the farmhouse as the hazy sun was setting in July. You could smelled the warm leather interior, and tobacco too. You could turn the AC on too, for sure. Just hand-crank down the window.

On January 1, as I was back from the Polar Bear Plunge in Asbury Park, I saw the truck again.

Except it didn’t look proud, and there was no warmth.

I don’t know what happened to it, but it was wrecked.

The shot that leads this piece was one of the last I took of that old Ford. At this stage of its life, a cooler blue cyanotype Nik filter seemed to work.

This past weekend, I drove past the spot again. This time….the truck was gone. Totally gone.

I don’t know what happened to it, but I’m glad I shot it when I did. Otherwise, I’d have no record of it.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, though. I seem to often get there right at the last minute.

Like the one time I stole into an old restaurant slated for demolition.

Once, I’m sure, it opened to great fanfare. When I got to it, it was a dust-coated, dirty, near-memory to another time and place.

The old grill looked like a lunar landscape.

The only thing this old place was serving up now was beautiful light.

Days later, the business end of a backhoe started the demolition.

Gone.

Then there was Joe’s Repair Shop…..

Gone.

And the old shotgun shack/tool shed/hen house that probably stood in its spot about a mile from my house for 60 years or so.

Built at a time when the town I now live in was mostly farmland and farms, more of pass-through. Not the thriving bedroom community Robbinsville is now.

Gone.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe my eye is just drawn to the rusty and crusty, the old and in disrepair, ready to be discarded, demolished or otherwise taken down.

Ready to be gone, baby.

Gone.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved

We’ve been having a bit o a Peter Pan revival in my house lately. It started with me picking p JM Barrie’s book from the local bookseller for about $7.

While we’ve watched the 1953 cartoon a number of times – most memorably one summer evening when we threw a bed sheet over our fence, my neighbor brought out his laptop and projector and the kids on our street spread out a blanket to watch it under the stars.

I brought out popcorn, they thought I was a rock star dad.

In reading the book out loud to Liv, though, more becomes evident. Peter’s really unruly, given to fits of grand mischief, some potentially life-threatening to Wendy, John and Michael.

Also, Tinkerbell is a jealous, um, well…it rhymes with witch. Really nasty.

And when was the last time you read an actual novel out loud? It’s challenging. I’m sure most of us, when we read, skim with our eyes, dismissing some words without even knowing it.

Not so when you read aloud to a child. You have to stay on your toes, especially when you’re reading prose written for London in the 1800′s.

Still, the best part of my days recently have been around 7:15 p.m. when, after Chase has been put to bed, and Matthew is just chilling, that Liv slides over next to me on the couch and she says “Daddy, read Peter Pan to me.” We turn off the TV and head to Neverland.

I shot the image above a couple of years ago, and had almost forgotten about it. I was searching my archives for black & white images and came up on it.

How timely. My little Lost Girl, whom I hope never grows up.

But I know she will.

Straight on til morning….

© Mark V. Krajnak 2012 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved