Bazookas (and Other Fun Stuff)

My son and his friends, all in the 12 to 13 year range, are big fans of bazookas. Yeah. That's right. Bazookas. Those shoulder-mounted, mini-canons that fire explosive projectiles at tanks, armored vehicles, and other things. Their fascination and preoccupation with bazookas is closely followed by an intense admiration for medieval weaponry imbued with magical powers. I'm referring, of course, to the cyber-weapons they use while fighting the good fights on platforms like XBox and PlayStation.

I'm not sure why bazookas are their fave. It might be the word itself. Buh-zoo-kuh! It does have a cool sound to it and its kinda fun to say: "Buh-zoo-kuh!" There's even a bubble gum named after them! And there's a song named for the gum named for the gun: The Bazooka Bubble Gum Song!

I don't think bazookas are used much in modern warfare, leastwise by contemporary, technologically-sophisticated, fighting forces. Wasn't the bazooka a WW2 weapon? Hasn't it been replaced with things like shoulder-mounted Stinger missile launchers or some such things? I don't know. I'm not much of a student of the things men use to kill and maim his fellow man. At one time I sort of was, but that was years ago, when I worked for an aerospace defense contractor making marketing films and hanging out of chase-planes with cameras in my hands. (The aircrafts my ass was tethered to were chasing airborne weapons and surveillance systems: Mostly, RPVs and drones and those sorts of things.)

Some of the games my son and his friends play have their characters warring with quite an eclectic mix of weapons, from old-school to new. In one hand, their characters might be blasting away with laser-guided, semi-automatic, bazookas while, in the other, they're wielding magic daggers. Is there such a thing as a laser-guided, semi-automatic, bazooka? Or, in real life, are weapons like that as elusive and fantasy-driven as magic daggers?

Who cares? They're just games.

This old-school/new-school weaponry thing reminds me of the title character in the sci-fi movie, "Predator." In the movie, the alien hunter uses weapons that are both old-school and new: He fires beam-guided, explosive bolts of something from his shoulder, can detonate mini-nukes from a device worn on his wrist, and yet he also hand-hurls metallic blades, spears, and other old-school weapons at his prey.

These days, photographers are much like the predator and the characters in the video games my son and his friends play. We use tools, simultaneously, that are both old-school and new.

Our cameras, assuming you're shooting digital, certainly are part of a new-school arsenal of photographic weapons of mass capture. But then, many of us also (routinely) use stuff that is decidedly old-school in our efforts to make good pictures. The trick, of course, is to imbue those old-school tools with (seemingly) magical qualities in ways that compliment the new-school gear.

Take the simple, low-tech, reflector: Reflectors are about as old-school as lighting gear gets. Ancient warriors used their shields to reflect sunlight back at their enemies, effectively and momentarily blinding them. We, as photographers, do the same. Of course, our models aren't our enemies, except the ones who flake, and we're not trying to blind them. We only want to illuminate them in aesthetically-pleasing ways so that our new-school/high-tech cameras can artfully and beautifully capture them.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this post. It might be that "I'm just saying." I'm definitely the sort of person who notices (and thinks about) parallels and relationships in things, new and old. You might say I'm fairly fascinated by parallel tools and technologies, i.e., the relationships between the new and the old and how those new/old things can be bridged and utilized together.

Its occasionally been my observation that some new-ish, younger, shooters seem to shun the old. It's like they don't value what came before them. (Assuming they have much knowledge of what came before them.) Instead of using time-honored and oft-proven techniques and tools, they poo-pah them as "old school" and put them in a category of little relevance in terms of their use and effectiveness.

Dudes! If that's you, you are seriously screwing yourselves and your efforts to become stand-out shooters! It is so freakin' important to understand the basics, both in techniques and tools. I ain't saying it's mandatory you use those old-school tools and techniques all the time. Yeah, break the rules! Think outside the box! Push the envelope! But you barely know what the box looks like or where the envelope is without knowing the rules or about the stuff I'm talking about. Without that understanding, you're a photographic cripple! A snapshooter relying on post-processing tools and other trickery to add some wow-value to your snaps. You're shooting half-blind, ill-equipped, or with one hand tied behind your backs. (Metaphorically, that is.)

Here's the deal... and remember you heard it right here, from the horse's ass mouth: You might have a new-school eye and a new school style but its knowing that old-school shit which, often, will really help make your work sing!

The pretty girl at the top, the one with a butt suitable for resting a beer mug on, is Naomi. I'm shooting for some English blokes at the end of the month and, last time they were here and I shot for them, this pic of Naomi was one of the results of my endeavors.