March 2026 — Think Outside the Box
52 Week Photography Project
Chapter 1: Think Outside the Box — Embrace the Cliche
Flashback to the 1980’s. A young computer programmer is slumped lazily in a worn-out blue office chair. He was wearing baggy surfer shorts and an oversized tee emblazoned with a hand-painted dragon — forgetting, as usual, that there was a project status meeting.
The meeting room is full of others who look pretty much the same, except for the team lead, who is standing at the whiteboard explaining a problem … we are weeks behind schedule because the database still cannot talk to the rest of the system.
He is getting agitated, talking loudly and waving a marker wildly as he tries to make a point, his face turning red as his mind searches for a solution.
There is some back-and-forth discussion with anyone who is brave enough to speak up. The discussions go like this: someone proposes a solution, the team lead immediately shoots down the idea, then silence. Repeat, forever.
Eventually, the team lead calms down, thinks for a bit, and states you all just need to start thinking outside the box!
The programmer laughs to himself. The phrase is new to him, and now he is visualizing a box which, for some reason, is represented as a 3-dimensional hypercube — a data structure they had recently employed in distributed network architecture. In his mind, the programmer sees the team lead hovering above the cube, flailing around hopelessly while trying to avoid poison arrows that the meeting attendees are shooting at him.
The meeting ends. As he makes his way back to his cubicle, the programmer’s brain is stuck on the outside-the-box thing. But he lacks the necessary focus to apply any such thinking to the problem at hand, and well, the problem wasn’t his anyway. It had been the new kids’ idea to add an unspecified interface layer above the database.
It would be great to solve the problem. He could be a hero, make a statement. Show everyone that he knows his stuff. But his mind just comes back to the box. Does the box have a lid? No, of course not, everything would be trapped inside. Images of objects start to appear outside the box: a pizza, a pie chart, a flow chart, a dwarf, a sword, a tree. He wonders why he cannot simply focus on the problem, until suddenly …
Ding! Eureka. The light goes on.
The solution is to replace the database with a tree (another computer science data structure). It is so strange how the mind works.
About this image:
It was a rather nondescript tree, backlit, no leaves, desperately in need of pruning.
I took a single in-focus shot for reference, then another, composed of 8 exposures from different angles. When I first printed the multiple exposure negative in the darkroom, it looked a bit boring. I tried adding a few overlays and textures, but it still wasn’t doing it for me.
Then I remembered a solarized print that I had seen at a recent Lee Miller exhibition — so I decided to try to solarize the tree. This is done by exposing the print as normal, then ‘flashing it’ with another light source just as the image is starting to appear on the photo paper.
This extra flash of light messes up how the silver halide crystals on the photographic paper behave. In this case, it created the white halo effect in the tree branches and flipped the background hills, etc., from dark to light.
Voila, a dystopian exploding tree scene!
Chapter 2: In Stitches
I rarely shoot straight photographs anymore. I am more likely to be wildly moving the camera around, putting stuff like vaseline or kitchen wrap on the lens, capturing multiple images on the same frame, and so on. I usually have a plan or idea of what I want to achieve, and there is a certain suspense and mystery in waiting to see how the crazy ideas will turn out once the film is developed and printed.
My daughter, like most people, takes most of her pictures with her phone. She recently showed me an app, and explained: “… it lets you take pictures on your phone, but you don’t get to see them until the following morning …” The idea is that you get to enjoy the moment instead of constantly chimping shots on your phone. And the bonus is that the next day you get to look at your pics and relive the event.
Everything’s a cycle, isn’t it?
You may recall that I started this story with the phrase straight photographs. I am not talking about rotation, ie, straight vs angled, etc. Rather, about the style of film photography where one just shoots a scene and prints it. One-and-done if you will. Like those photos you used to see when you looked through the window at the mall photo shop. Other people’s memories and adventures coming out of a machine, temporarily on display for everyone to see. I used to stand there with friends watching them, waiting for something risque or bizarre, which never came.
Anyway, the above image is not a straight print. I guess technically it is a darkroom composite. There are two negatives, each loaded into a different enlarger. The photo paper is exposed to each of them, and then developed. Sort of like using a couple of layers in PS, and changing the opacity on the top layer.
In this case, I wanted the stitches from the overlay (a picture of a placemat from our kitchen) to show through, so that the final image would be a portrait in stitches.
Chapter 3: Best Foot Forward
There is a lot of calm, focused energy before the start of a marathon. Runners mill about, some warming up, some pacing in anticipation. Little sips of water or bites of energy snacks. Shoe laces are tied and re-tied.
Many runners have support people, family, or friends who wait with them before the race and who carry the clothes and supplies they brought with them but which they don’t want or need. They are also familiar faces, they may see again en route, or who will be waiting and clapping for them at the finish. I am one of these people.
I came armed with a camera, two cameras actually. The first one was new to me — and I had never shot film in it before. It is an old Yashica A TLR, made in 1960. It was a cheap consumer-grade camera, costing about $30. I picked mine up on marketplace for $75. It is pristine, even came in the original box, with a flash that takes those older exploding glass bulbs. The shutter is smooth, and the speed sounds correct. Looking at the film tensioners, I am certain it has never even been used. Of course, it is manual focus, no auto modes, no metering, manual film advance, etc.
In case you are wondering, TLR’s are basically a box camera with two lenses, one atop the other. The top one is used for viewing and focusing, and the bottom for capturing the image. Under a flip-up top, you will find a focusing screen, which is just a piece of ground glass. The camera is super fun to use, imo, and a really good way to test your ‘shoot in manual mode’ skills. It is also great to avoid the “don’t take my picture” folks. For some reason, people actually want their picture taken with older gear like this.
The other camera I brought was a Sony mirrorless. I don’t really like this camera. I had ‘upgraded’ from an old D90, a mistake imo, but this is a story for another time. The reality is that the Sony will be much more capable at action shots, and the goal is to try to capture my runner in the pack just after the start, when there are lots of runners still bunched together.
I move up the road maybe a half a kilometre from the start, and find a nice vantage point. It is slightly uphill of the runners and at the beginning of a broad sweeping curve. I load some Ilford HP5 120 roll film into the TLR, and check the light levels using a phone app. I don’t know where in the pack my runner will be, so I decide to shoot with the lens stopped down to get a wide depth of field, and I’ll use a fast shutter so that my runner will not be blurred. I pre-focus at the approximate distance I think the runner will be, and just leave it there.
The Sony is much easier. Just put it in shutter priority and let it do its thing.
There is an announcement, and the first pack of runners is off. My runner is in the third or fourth start, so the first few starts will be to take some practice shots. As the runners get closer, I realize that I have completely underestimated the number of participants. There are hundreds and hundreds. Of course there are — what was I thinking!
I snap some pics with the Sony and check them. I realize that this will never work — to capture my runner in the pack. I’ll try, but I think I will be lucky to even spot her. Maybe I came out in burst mode or something, and pray a bit. Not really my style, so I decide that once everyone has started, I will go to the halfway point and set up for a shot there. The pack will be thinned, and she should be easier to spot. For now, I’ll just play with the TLR.
When you first use a camera like this, you notice that the image you see on the focusing screen is reversed (flipped left to right). It is not upside down like on a large format camera, but it is reversed. This can be a bit disorienting if you want to pan your shot on a group of runners, because they cross the screen in the opposite direction that you need to move the camera! It is a really strange feeling, your brain (well, mine anyway) just doesn’t want to make my body move in the opposite direction that it thinks it should. I ended up laughing at myself, and the other photographers who had gathered in the same spot kept looking over.
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Anyway, I shoot some single-exposure shots, then close the lens by one stop and shoot some double- and triple-exposure shots. And with that, I completed my first photo shoot with the Yashica A!
Footnote: we were able to catch transit to a midway point and get some action running pics of my runner, who had an excellent race, who put her Best Foot Forward.
Chapter 4: When We Were Young
The girls were excellent swimmers and could hold their breath and float underwater for minutes at a time, a skill they must have picked up while practicing synchronized swimming with a local club.
I, on the other hand, had about 45 seconds max before my lungs would explode, not helped at all by my futile attempts to stay submerged and hold and shoot the camera. I imagined a funeral …
“How did he die?” they would ask.
“Drowned”, would be the reply, “Trying to get an underwater shot. Stayed down too long and could not get back to the surface.”
I digress. I want to talk about something else that seems pervasive in modern city life: Clubs. Activities. Play dates. The de-facto regimen for many of today’s youth. It wasn’t always like this: the queues of cars at the schools (apparently, it is not safe to walk home), the driving kids from place to place after school so they can attend scripted, planned, and controlled activities. It all seems so frantic, and I am not sure it really benefits the kids.
I suspect I had the exact opposite upbringing. I attended a school that was three or four blocks from a rather nondescript suburban home in a typical middle-class neighborhood. There were probably 15 or 20 kids on our street, all within 3 or 4 years of age. The street was exactly one block long. We would race home from school, grab a snack, and head (or be told to go) outside.
Once outside, we would choose the day’s activity, which was usually a game of some sort: street hockey, bike riding, hide-and-seek, or anything with plastic guns and knives. Sometimes the play would be less active, like building forts, playing in a sandbox, or pooling all our Lego so we could build larger things (we only had red and white square blocks and no instructions).
There was a gravel pit at the end of the street. It wasn’t huge, maybe three or four square blocks. The perimeter was second-generation tree growth, such as wild cherry or birch, interspersed with blackberry brambles. Over the years, a small network of trails wound their way through our forest, and we knew every trail by heart. We knew where they went, where the tripping roots were, how they intersected, where to hide, where to gather.
The actual gravel pit was in the middle. It was completely inactive, but still had steep sides where the gravel had been dug out. The sides were possibly 20 feet or more high and very unstable. If you stood on the top edge, it would probably collapse, and you would tumble to the bottom. We had made a few chutes that the braver kids would jump into and slide down, and there was a walkable path around the outside to get back to the top.
One of our favourite games was just called ‘Guns’. We’d arm ourselves with plastic water pistols and such, and run around searching for each other to ‘shoot’. No paintball or anything. If you saw someone, you would point the gun at them, shout ‘bang’, and they would drop to the ground dead until you were gone. Silly game, but we would play it for hours.
As we got a bit older, most of us had acquired little pocket knives. We would cut branches off trees, bend and tie them with a string to make bows. We’d carve other branches into arrows. They never worked very well, but we were busy making things. Learning. Playing.
I have no idea if our parents knew what we were up to. Probably not. We did not let them ‘play’, and if they tried to watch, we would mock them and tell them to go away. That was just how it was, kids got to be kids, and parents had more important things to do.
Eventually, we tired of the bow and arrow thing because they never really worked, and someone had decided spears were much better. We would start the afternoon by each carving three or four sticks, maybe 2m long and 1 or 2cm in diameter. Whittle a pointy end, strip the bark, and flatten the knots. Then we would take turns where one person would jump down into the pit and run around while the others tried to hit them by throwing a spear from the top of the cliff. The runners were a couple of hundred feet away, and the success rate was zero for months. Until it wasn’t.
It was my turn to throw. Actually, my second or third turn — because after all your spears were tossed, you went down and collected them up, and let someone else throw at you. We had done a few turns already, and the afternoon was almost over. I am up top and on my last spear. I lean back and launch it, sort of upwards at a shallow angle and with all the force I could muster.
And I knew. The split second the spear left my hand, I knew. I don’t know how — but I knew it was a perfect throw. It was on target, and it was going to hit my friend!
I yelled, “Look out!” He turned around and looked up. The spear hit him right in the middle of the forehead, and he fell to the ground.
I felt a moment of panic. A constriction in my gut. Then he jumped up. Blood was trickling from his wound. He yelled, “You’re dead!” and started running to get me.
A great chase ensued. We were both very, very good in the woods, but he was faster, and eventually he caught me. Luckily (for me), we were both tired and just fell to the ground laughing.
I vaguely recall a phone conversation between the parents that evening, and I probably had my pocket knife confiscated for a few days. We decided that maybe this was not the best game, and we should find something else to do.
When we got home from school the next day someone suggested that it would be fun to build a dam in the local creek. What could possibly go wrong? And on and on it went, When We Were Young.
Chapter 5: Holes
I don’t know this book, Holes. I had to Google it and read that it is pretty common in schools, but I have never read it. In school, we read books like Lord of the Flies, The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird, or my favorite: 1984.
It is strange what you remember from these books, even decades later. Over the past year or so, I have been experiencing flashbacks, which I am sure must have come from that novel, 1984. So many, in fact,that I decided to go back and read the book again.
I went down to my local used bookstore and asked where to find it (in this store, you have to ask, because there are thousands and thousands of books, in no apparent order, stacked double deep on shelves, in piles on the floor, or still in boxes donated by people who have watched too much Marie Kondo).
The clerk chuckled when I asked where to find the book. She said, “I am sold out. You are the sixth person today who has asked for it.” We chatted about the book for a bit, about its renewed popularity, about Doublethink. Things like
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength., or
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past., or
They told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
It is so easy to get all caught up in the noise. To start thinking that all is woe, that everything is broken. It comes at you whenever you turn on the radio, the TV, or the computer. The constant, never-ending news cycle with all its propaganda and hype. It comes at you slowly from so many angles, and slowly constructs its own reality in your brain.
But it isn’t reality, is it? It’s just an interpretation that has been trained into you. If you don’t replace it with something else, well, then it becomes your reality — doesn’t it?
The escape is simple, I think. Turn off the news. Leave the screen. Go for a walk in the forest, with a camera, of course!
There are many, many interesting things in the forest. Certainly many different types of holes. This is why I love this photo challenge: how each prompt gives me a goal. For example, I can spend a couple of hours just photographing holes. It gives me focus, and purges all that unnecessary doublethink right out of my brain!
Footnote: I assume the tree in this image is the work of a rather industrious woodpecker — but I am not a bird guy — so I’ll let anyone who knows better school me on this.
And that’s it for March — I am a bit late, I know. I got a bit sidetracked on another project … building a camera. More about this in April.
Oh, a question for you (if you have read this far): my stories seem long. I worry that they are too long and that maybe I should tighten them up a bit. I am more than happy to take feedback on this!
