Shaly

Me: Okay well actually we're going to go home, have dinner, then dessert, then we can play your video game, then tubby then bed

Penny: Okay no tubby, games first, deal?

Me: This is not - what is happening right now?

Penny: Dada?

Dada: Arbitration?

Penny: I want to use bare foot when we go outside

Me: I didn't know we were going outside but you have to wear shoes girl

Penny: okay but what about I use bare foot's but at Penny's house? This deal?

Me: you know what yeah fine if you agree to not fight about shoes when we leave the house you can be barefoot in the back yard, deal.

Penny: -sticks her hand out expectantly- we deal?

Penny: but I want to go shool pwease

Dada: okay well it is 8pm, so you have to go to sleep now

Penny: okay but I see my fwiends at shool now please, deal?

Dada: Darling no one is at school, all your friends are asleep as well.

Penny: all Penny's fwiends are sweep? What about we... get in Dadas car and check to see watch them sweep, yes deal?

Me: (watching Penny scoot her step stool over to where we keep the candy jar): hey honey we're literally walking out the door to go get dinner, maybe we wait on the candy okay?

Penny: Oh but I will have some candy?

Me: Why don't you come have some mac and cheese and then when we get home you can have some candy, deal?

Papa: (yesterday morning, when Penny was a little grumpy) What about you come downstairs and we'll have some waffles and then tomorrow Papa will take you to the Diner in town for breakfast?

Penny: (extending her tiny hand to a VERY confused man) this is deal?

Papa: (not knowing hes entering a literal contract) uhm yeah deal.

-smash cut to 6:30 AM this morning-

Me: Okay baby this is going to suck. This is going to hurt real bad for a second and then it's going to feel weird and then it's going to feel good. You're going to hate it. But if you let Mama get these three medicines in and on you [Listerine, Antacid, Tylenol] you can scream it out and then we'll go get some ice cream! Deal?

Penny: (obviously not thrilled with this idea) okay, three big shreams, three medicines, ice cream ... it will suck... ice cream ... deal. (Sticks out hand and we shake on it)

Me: okay let's do this I'm so sorry (starts the process)

Penny: I will go upstairs and get my body clean but you hafta titch me, deal?

Dada: I would love to make this deal with you kid but I literally have no idea what you are saying- I don't know what the terms are, you're speaking a language I don't speak

Penny: you have to titch me like mama does okay DEAL!? (Sticks tiny hand out aggressively)

Dada: (looks at me bewildered for help)

Me: ( starts making a quick tick tick tick sound imitating a stop watch like I'm timing her, while penny jumps around yelling YES TITCH ME LIKE THAT)

Dada: In what world was I ever going to figure that out, thank you for acting as our legal interpreter yes deal let's go!

Penny: But I don't want to be sleeping, I want to stay up now! I want to see Grampy and Cozy and Guppie and Papa!

Mama: What if we video call all the grands and say good night to everyone? If we do that will you then go to bed no fussing?

Penny: Oh yes, this is deals! -sticks her hand out to shake-

** we make the rounds and video call all her grandparents, they are all already in bed and say good night and penny hangs up the last video call and toddles into bed with minimal fussing **

Me: Hey baby do you want to make a deal about school?

Penny: (immediately sticks out her hand, literally no hesitation, her entire demeanor changing in an instant) yes let's deals, I will be big and brave and go to school no fussing, and you will put Halloween every where all over my house, okay this is deals Mama??

Penny: (is doing some strange interpretive dance to let us know she's not a fan of the cup we've chosen to put her juice in, mind you this is the only clean cup at this moment. She is hopping up and down, and swinging her arm like an elephant trunk, she is pirouetting, her hands are on her hips. Shes is completely silent)

Husband: okay, you can not leave your room until someone comes and gets you okay? You're getting up way too early and we're guests in Papa and Guppies house so you stay and play in your room and someone will come get you when you can come out of your room tomorrow morning, deal?

Penny: (hand extended, plotting) deal

-smash cut to the next morning, penny is NOT in her room at the allotted 7:30 AM retrieve Penny Rose Time, we find her in bed cuddled up with my mom and dad watching a movie-

Penny: (hands out in a "calm down" gesture) LISTEN LISTEN I DIDNT LEAVE! I DIDNT- I didn't break da deals! I just knocked on the door until Papa came and got me.

Papa: (laughing hysterically) WELL DONT SNITCH!

Penny: I DIDNT DO NOTHING I KEPT MY DEALS! YOU JUS SAID SOMEONE HAD TO COME GET ME! PAPA COME GET ME!

Penny: can we watch a Pokémon?

Me: I'll make a deal with you?

Penny: -sits down at the dining room table like she's on literal trial- Listening

Me: if you can do bath time and get around for bed with literally NO FUSSING you and I can watch ONE POKÉMON in mama and dadas bed before you go to bed! IF I HEAR ONE BIT OF FUSSING POKÉMON IS OFF THE TABLE!

Penny: -folding her hands ready to counter, speaking to me like I'm losing my faculties- uhm, no deal Mama, I want Pokémon on the TV not on the table.

Me: -trying not to die- that's ...no I just mean the deal is if you fuss at all there will be NO POKÉMON TONIGHT

Yesterday I saw a mother with a baby carriage, being followed by a girl of about 4-6 years old on a bicycle. The kid started ringing her bike bell like RING RING RING RING RING RING RING, and the mother turned to look behind them to see whether they were being followed by a cyclist who desperately needs to pass them for the sake of everyone's safety.

And the little girl - who just rang the goddamn bell herself 5 seconds ago - also turned to look.

me and my brother later had a small discussion about whether that could happen randomly (conclusion: no, he probably had to file papers or something) and whether daniel should now be referred to as dad’s ex-husband (conclusion: yes but only to see the face he’ll make) but at no point did we find it like... alarming? the world is big and weird. we were used to it.

instead ask:

is it SINCERE

was it CATHARTIC

was it FUN TO MAKE

is it MADE BY ME

Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

These outtakes where the flash didn't go off are also AI generated.

I like this spooky dutch angle one.

I was just starting to learn flash and I didn't have all the equipment I needed. Since corgis are quite short, I had to put the lighting on the ground. The off camera flash was on a tipped over lightstand with a shoot-through umbrella to diffuse the light.

But I had no wireless triggers. And the only other way to trigger a flash, is with another flash. So I used the on-camera pop up flash to trigger the main flash.

But I had two issues.

First, I did not want that dinky on camera flash affecting my picture.

Second, triggering a flash with a flash is best done indoors. The flash will bounce all around the room and eventually hit the sensor so the main flash triggers. When you are outdoors, there is no bouncing.

SO... I took a little handheld makeup mirror and angled it toward my main flash. This blocked the dinky pop up flash and sent the beam of light towards the main flash to trigger it.

I was lying on the wet morning grass, holding a camera in one hand, a mirror in the other, trying to aim the mirror exactly toward the main flash, making crazy noises to get Otis's attention, and trying to get the focus point on his face so I didn't get a blurry photo. Also, Otis was much more interested in sniffing things than posing for a photo.

Here is an overhead view that might help explain.

I await all of your comments saying my amazing drawring is clearly AI generated.

Only 30% of the time did the flash actually go off. Aiming the mirror was tricky and I was doing like 8 things at once. I wasn't even sure I got the photo I wanted. But when I came back to the computer there was one that stood out and it is one of my favorites I've ever taken.

It was the best combination of monumental effort, great discomfort, perfect foggy sunrise light, and just pure luck.

Unfortunately, people like me who use advanced sculpting light techniques are getting accused of using AI more and more. Not really sure what to do about it—other than show the 30 awful photos it took to get the good one.

My 80s sunglasses photo and spoon photo get called out the most.

But it's just good old fashioned gradient lighting which has been used in product photography since the days of film.

@ironic-dysgraphia

Most of my photos with artificial light added would be considered "unmotivated lighting." I think that is the term you were looking for.

The short explanation is that motivated lighting always has a logical source. Like the sun or a window or a lamp off to the side.

That doesn't mean there are no lighting shenanigans used.

The overhead office-style fluorescent lights depicted in this scene were actually powerful diffused light bars that were much closer to the actors. They replaced the ceiling in post with more traiditioinal looking lights. So the lighting was still very crafted—but it has a logic and realism that doesn't set off alarm bells in your brain saying, "Where is the light coming from?"

Unmotivated lighting is the opposite. It's crafted, artificial light that doesn't need to make sense. It just has to achieve the aesthetic goal of the artist.

All studio lighting is unmotivated. I just re-edited this old photo of my dad.

There is no room in the world where he could have sat down and had perfectly sculpted light hitting his face. I intentionally directed the light to accentuate his features and capture the best, most idealized version of what he looked like.

Coincidentally I just wrote a post about motivated lighting in films.

Weirdly, I expressed a preference for motivated lighting in movies with a realism-based aesthetic and a lot of people disagreed. They said that the lighting comes from the same place as the music and that you just have to suspend your disbelief.

(Personally I think that is a bad analogy because music is *very* motivated by the emotional vibe. I would say unmotivated lighting in movies comes from the same place as women's apocalypse makeup.)

But I *love* unmotivated lighting in still photography. I love crafting an image and creating it in a fantasy realm where perfect, beautiful, sculpting light can come from anywhere. I want the most idyllic lighting possible.

It's the only way I could make fingernail clippers look beautiful.

And now people are saying unmotivated lighting looks like AI or CGI and isn't authentic. Even though this aesthetic was created before computers were invented and the tools of post-capture manipulation were done in a darkroom.

I'm fairly certain this is because AI does not have a great understanding of motivated lighting. It never thinks about where the light is coming from so it almost always creates images where the lighting comes from a fantasy realm. And now people are heavily associating unmotivated lighting with AI, even if it is a subconscious observation.

I think at this point in time, people are yearning for authenticity. We know so much of our imagery is heavily manipulated for nefarious purposes. Beauty advertising with retouched skin like porcelain dolls and liquified torsos that don't leave space for vital organs. Every fast food ad shows the perfect juicy hamburger because they paid a food stylist $500/hour to perfectly cook and arrange things.

But fast food workers are not food stylists and your burger isn't going to have perfect lettuce and a non-smooshed bun.

(Before you reply with urban legends about food styling, they don't use fake materials. They are required to use the actual ingredients. Those myths came from movie prop masters who needed to maintain the look of food during hours of shooting.)

I think AI just turned our uncomfortable relationship with unrealistic imagery up to 11.

It's a little depressing for me because I love to use light as my artistic medium. I say I am a photographer, but my passion is more focused on lighting.

And I often incorporate my other passion, which is image manipulation. I sometimes add another layer of unreality to my images by artistically editing them.

This is days of work.

I worked very hard for the in-camera image. Dragging a heavy chair and lighting equipment into a field on a hot summer day was not easy for me.

But I also worked very hard on the edit. The RAW file is overexposed, but once I corrected that, the lighting on him and the grass is actually what I captured. I hid a flash in the lampshade and lit him with my big 7 foot umbrella off to the right.

I could have shot this at night, but my area has so much light pollution, I would never have achieved the sky I wanted in my head. So I took the photo knowing I'd replace the sky later.

I like crafting images. I like picturing something in my head and then trying to manifest it in a photo.

I get why people are starting to prefer more natural looking images. I understand why they are currently preferring everything to be captured as it was in the moment. I know why they disparage the amazing work of CG artists and demand that every movie use only practical effects.

When everything is fake, a small dose of reality feels special.

But I see my photography more like a drawing or a painting. Light is my paintbrush and I am just trying to manifest my imagination into an image. I don't claim I don't use artificial light. I never say anything is "straight out of camera." I am very open about my use of Photoshop. If I were able to leave my house and go to more beautiful places, perhaps I would take a more motivated approach.

I mean, I love when the world is just beautiful all on its own and all I have to do is competently pick settings on my camera.

But I enjoy my artistic process and while some of my images may not be realistic, I think my artistry is always authentic.

I don't need every person to like every one of my photos. But when I work hard on a photo and there is clear talent and skill involved, I'm hoping people will still acknowledge that. I hope they will respect the effort and artistry involved.

I didn't enjoy the show Breaking Bad. I disliked all of the characters and the story just depressed me more and more as I watched it. But I still think it is an amazing show created by talented artists. I can acknowledge the monumental artistic achievement even if it wasn't my cup of tea.