Photojournalist - Susan Markisz - Behind the Viewfinder

June 3, 1998

Shooting for Stock (click to see image contact sheet)

Two recent trips to California afforded me a glimpse of the diversity of nature and human nature, and an opportunity to build up my portfolio of stock images.

A return to Vasquez Rocks in the Santa Clarita Valley rewarded me with images of rock formations in color that I did not get when I was there in 1993. My earlier black and white photographs have an almost "Hollywood" look to them, reminiscent of early episodes of "Gunsmoke" contrasted with the virtual reality images that I got with the color saturation of Velvia, a transparency film that I use whenever possible.

(click to see image contact sheet)

Back in Calabasas in the San Fernando Valley I met bikers Rusty Tinsley and Jeremiah Gerbracht, who congregate at the Sagebrush Cantina every Sunday; my love of chrome yielded dreams of being a biker babe in a future life...if only for the perception of "cool" that eludes me now. (I already have the accoutrements; black leather is de riguer in New York...) Missing is a tatoo, and a bike...with a motor.

Later on that night, my cousin Laurie and I visited The Queen Mary on Ventura Boulevard, a drag queen bar where the need for self expression and voyeurism meet in a world of inbetween, a world of observers and participants with dollar bills and the desire to understand the dynamics of human sexuality

"Bobby" The Queen Mary, Ventura Blvd.
May 1998 © 1998 Susan B. Markisz

(click to see image contact sheet)

The following day, a drive north to the Channel Islands and Mandalay Beach revealed the devastation of El Nino. There were huge piles of wood and debris that have washed up on the beach, some eight feet high. A group of migrant workers was cleaning up a section of Mandalay. One woman told me that they had been working on one section of Mandalay for over two months. Each day they have to rake up the debris all over again. She said they would still be working for another four months on the cleanup effort. .

During my earlier visit in April, I enjoyed the hospitality of a newspaper photographer, who shared with me some rare vistas (rare, that is, for this city slicker who had to make a midnight run to Walmart for appropriate bartwear when asked the night before our desert venture: "Got hiking boots, right?")

"Aren't these good?" I asked, pointing to my clunky black leather boots?

Loaded up with gallons of water, gatorade, and lunch, we explored portions of old route 66, an abandoned mine, wildflowers, sand dunes and granite mountains in the Eastern Mojave Preserve, rare views for this photographer from the canyons of New York City.

City girl kept up admirably with desert trekkers until the reality of a sedentary urban existence caught up. Day ended with unparallelled beauty and serenity; the sun set over the top of a sand dune where the wind whispered silently past, and God showed Himself to be the master planner that He is.

Susan B. Markisz

June 3, 1998

Some notes on film. Since I was going to be photographing a variety of assignments, both personal and professional, I took along print and transparency film of speeds ranging from 50 to 800 for the different types of lighting situations I expected to encounter. I brought along approximately 40 rolls of fim, and ended up buying more. It is imperative when flying to hand check your film with the high powered x ray machines now in use. I always put my film in a clear zip lock bag. I never have a problem hand checking film, and it is a minor inconvenience in exchange for not having to worry about whether or not my film will be ruined.

I used Fuji Velvia, which is rated at ISO 50 and is a highly saturated color transparency film for many of the images and I bracketed exposures in some cases. All of the photographs were made without a tripod, which is something I normally consider indispensable when using a slow film such as Velvia. The bright sunlight allowed exposures fast enough to hand hold my camera.

For the photographs of bikers, I was in print film mode, using Fuji Super G Plus Press 400 ASA; lighting was heavy shade; for photos of performers of The Queen Mary, I pushed Fuji Super G 800 to 1600 and in some cases, used fill flash TTL on camera, rear sync at equal to or up to minus 1/2 stop below the ambient exposure. In many cases the movement was simply too fast for the shutter speed, with a slow flash sync. I ended up getting a lot of motion, but nothing interesting enough to print.

(click to see image contact sheet)

Susan Markisz

< smarkisz@digitalstoryteller.com >
Contributing Photographer
The Riverdale Press, NY
Freelance for the New York Times

Other journals by Susan Markisz

334	November 10, 1999	I have a New Boss
328	Is Photojournalism Dead? Susan Markisz	I am not a photojournalist here (at the U.N.)
322	September 20, 1999	The heavy artillery has arrived
321	September 21, 1999	My adrenaline was already running high when I was given today's schedule.
318	September 14, 1999	7:45 AM: I note as I arrive at St. Bartholomew's Church on East 51st Street for the Interfaith Prayer Service
317	September 13, 1999	Milton hands me two Nikon F4's and an assortment of lenses and assigns staff photographer Evan Schneider to accompany me on my first assignment in the GA
314	September 10,1999	Milton Grant, Chief of the Photo Unit, welcomes me to the department and takes me on an informal tour of the UN.
312	August 31, 1999	The Boy Who Fooled New York.
311	August 20, 1999	I Went Scuba Diving
310	August 16, 1999	The Junkie Priest
306	July 21, 1999	The relentless quest for (Kennedy) imagery
296	July 7, 1999	Hot Hot Hot
294	July 3, 1999	The Sleepovers
288	May 31, 1999	Bad Judgment / Good Judgment: The Picture That Never Was
285	May 27, 1999	Shut Out
281	May 17, 1999	I received a letter recently that reminded me that I'd been taking some things for granted lately.
278	May 7, 1999	A Mass for Littleton
250	March 15, 1999	It's been three months and I've finally developed the rest of my film.
245	March 11, 1999	The picture-taking took less than 10 minutes.
242	March 3, 1999	I don't want to get in a mudslinging contest about the future of photojournalism
235	February 24, 1999	Lately, I seem to be the queen of features and the environmental portrait.
219	February 9, 1999	Does Color Matter?
208	January 29, 1999	Let Me Take This Call
194	December 28, 1998	Last July on this website I wrote about an assignment I had had, to photograph a mother and her young son, both of whom were battling leukemia
193	December 27, 1998	Girls, curls and slipjigs
188	December 19, 1998	Around this time last year I wrote that one of my goals was to find out how photography fits into my life.
172	November 4, 1998	We've all had to do our share of one computer genius/computer programmer/computer innovator/computer geek photograph after another... and it begs the question: How many ways can you shoot a computer without taking out a double barreled shotgun?
165	October 28, 1998	Baseball legends
162	October 26, 1998	"Keep following the story, sounds like fun!"
149	September 17, 1998	Something about Harry
144	September 6, 1998	Photography enabled me to bring my own vision and interpretation to the canvas, at first fairly effortlessly, at least compared to what it had been like trying to eek out an image from a glob of burnt sienna to replicate a paper bag still-life.
136	August 21, 1998	A Day in the Life
134	August 17, 1998	What was startling was that one of the kids who used to play there not so long ago, now a young mother herself, was there with her 3 year old.
117	July 18, 1998	This story is not about a war on another continent. It's about a silent one being fought here...and in just about every corner of the world
113	July 15, 1998	I don't do wars...
112	July, 1998	Lighting 101
107	July 5, 1998	Hundreds of people would gather and watch as unscripted---and illegal---eye candy unfolded.
104	June 25, 1998	How many ways can you spell G-R-A-D-U-A-T-I-0-N ?
102	June 24, 1998	Simple Pleasures
99	June 22, 1998	Life Begins at 40
95	June 15, 1998	"I am woman, hear me roar..." ...Ok, so it's only a muffled "Yesssss!!!"
93	June 13, 1998	Pomp and Circumstance
88	June 9, 1998	Anything Goes...
86	June 3, 1998	Shooting for Stock
85	June 1, 1998	Baby, think it over...
79	May, 1998	Art.Rage.Us -- An Essay
64	April 19, 1998	Thursday I took the day off ... well, sort of.
60	April 14, 1998	Bernard L. Stein, Co-publisher of The Riverdale Press, wins Pulitzer prize.
57	April 10. 1998	A Homecoming of sorts
56	April 6, 1998	"I am not Julia Child"
54	April 5, 1998	The Photojournalism Roller coaster: Of Extremes and Insecurities
49	March 30, 1998	The dark side of humanity reared its head in one of our communities over the weekend.
48	March 29, 1998	A mitzvah is a good deed...
46	March 29, 1998	Today, it was over 80 degrees
45	March 28, 1998	"the (not really) begging phone call."
41	March 22, 1998	In Search of Art
36	March 12, 1998	And today's assignment is to photograph...real estate brokers.
26	February 23, 1998	I always breathe a sigh of relief when I edit my negatives after a basketball game.
19	February 18, 1998	Newsroom Decisions, Dilemmas and Cut Lines
15	February 10, 1998	These are the things about journalism that are truly joyful
4	January 23, 1998	One of the last photographs I took in 1997 was of firefighter John Usai. . .
2	January 14, 1998	My hope for 1998 is an ability to come to terms with what role photography plays in my life.

Contributor since 1998