Endings and beginnings

For many of us, I suspect, 2020 is a year we are happy to put behind us -- kind of like seeing Lubbock in the rear view mirror, as the Mac Davis song goes. I've sure had some good times in Lubbock, but I never wanted to settle down there.

Photographically, the constraints imposed by the events of this year have lead me to explore new types of image making. I've taken an online workshop or two. And I have gone back through my archives of family photos with more care and attention than I otherwise would have. 

Still, I am as keen as anyone to turn the page on 2020, and that is what the image of the fire represents to me. 

Speaking of which, although I love film photography and shoot about a hundred rolls per year, digital imaging is also great, and in terms of shooting at night, I prefer it hands down to analog.

Two books to lift your spirits

I've been on a bit of a book acquisition kick lately. Mostly older books that are long out of print but that can still be found for not a lot of money from used bookstores and online auction houses. I typically find out about these books in a completely random way, which adds to the overall sense of enjoyment. I generally prefer to pick up a well worn copy of the book first, even if a few pages are missing or if there are a marks or even an inscription, just to see if I bond with the photographer. If there is no synergy, I can just pass the book along to someone else.

One of my favorite acquisitions this year was "A World Through My Window" by Ruth Orkin. The collection of photographs is exactly what you'd expect from the title, but you have to bear in mind that Ruth had a pretty amazing window on Central Park West. So the views are generally pretty spectacular. But still, documenting the goings on over a period of several decades resulted in an impressive body of work that should inspire any one. I found out some interesting things about the photographer, such as the fact that she bicycled from Los Angeles to New York in the 1930s.

I'm far from the madding crowds of NYC, but several of our windows are interesting to me. The first image was taken with the Polaroid SX-70 using their currently available black and white emulsion. Expensive, but the results can be very lovely indeed.

Nature's asymmetry

I've heard that C. P. Snow once said that not knowing the second law of thermodynamics is analogous to not having read a work of Shakespeare's. I wonder how many folks other than Snow himself have actually done both of these things. Well, I've tried and found both to be pretty challenging.

You can attend a play (fingers crossed) or watch a movie to learn about Shakespeare. On the other hand, if you want to learn about the second law, Peter Atkins's book on the subject is a good place to start. 

The key point about the second law is that although energy is conserved, the distribution of that energy changes in an irreversible manner through time. This leads to certain asymmetries in nature such as the spontaneous cooling of a hot object (but not the spontaneous heating of a cold object). By extension, the construction of new buildings and growth of plants comes at the cost of destruction elsewhere. 

In some sense, then, entropy is the subject of the photograph above. With the leaves gone for the season, we can study the manner in which the vine tries to cover the surface of the wall. The greater the coverage of leaves, the more energy available to the plant through photosynthesis. Humans apparently prefer to build using Cartesian geometry as a guide whereas plants are more free form or 'organic'.

Sonnar salutations

Knocking out a couple of sun salutations is a good way to get your juices flowing in the morning. Lately, a couple of lovely Zeiss Sonnar lenses have been waking up some of my photographs. The basic Sonnar lens design was developed at Zeiss in 1930 and the name derives from Sonne, German for sun.

The image of the cypress foliage was captured using the Zeiss Sonnar 100 mm f/3.5 lens mounted on a Contax ST. The film stock was Lomography Berlin and processing was done in a monobath, because why not? Interestingly, I think the negatives came out better using the monobath than when processed using separate solutions. At any rate, this is a really terrific lens that punches above its weight, and like most slowish lenses is cheap as chips. In addition to a pleasant rendering overall, good sharpness, a flat field, the bokeh is pretty spectacular too. Pairs well with digital sensors in addition to analog.

Play with your food

I was grocery shopping earlier this year and came across some organic honey that included a large chunk of the comb in the jar. This brought back a vague but pleasant memory of chewing on a piece of the comb as a kid, so I purchased the jar of organic honey instead of the stuff in the cute little plastic bear container. 

Suffice it to say that the honeycomb was far more interesting to photograph than it was to chew. Lighting was a bit tricky, though, as honey is a very reflective surface as are the walls of the comb. But, my trusty Rolleiflex SL66 and my Photoshop skills proved adequate.

Some might object to adjusting scanned film negatives in Ps, but I'm willing to go to hell and back as long as the image looks the way I want at the end.

Give a dog a bone

While it might be very nice indeed to find a shiny new or vintage camera waiting for you under the tree on Christmas morning, let's be honest, it's not that likely to happen. Best to just get over it. On the other hand, there are many things that are superior to that lump of coal you actually deserve. I always appreciate it when I find something interesting to photograph in my stocking. As an aside, a lump of coal might actually be interesting to shoot, but please don't tell any of my friends, I'll handle that on my own.

At any rate, sometimes the stocking stuffer is just an object, such as this ceramic piece. This photograph was taken with the Rolleiflex SL66. I really dig the result. The other nice thing is that these objects can spruce up your studio environment when they are not being photographed. That is what the managers call a 'win-win' situation, I believe. Hmm, probably not, but you know what I mean.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

 

Guam -- where America's day begins.

A Contax for Christmas

"At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect -- a sense of inclusion. Our subject thus redefines us, and is part of the biography by which we want to be known." -- Robert Adams

From the back cover of Why People Photograph, seen in the image below. What is between the covers is also pretty good stuff.

You've stood in front of some interesting things this year, and you've tried to be a decent human being. In other words, you've put some real effort into your bio. You deserve something nice, but that kinda goes against your better nature, doesn't it?

Well, that's old Saint Beatnik standing in the background, with his cool crazy black beard, Dad. I hope he brings you something groovy this year, like a Contax.

Holga hell

There is certainly much to hate about social media. Don't worry, we are not going there, not even thinking about it. But, in terms of photography and art, one thing that annoys me about Instagram is how people tend to only show their best work. Me too! But scrolling through the extensive feed of an accomplished artist can really mess with your psyche. 

There is nothing particularly new here, of course. Elliott Erwitt once said that, "contact sheets should be as private as a toothbrush". Only showing the best work has long been part of the artist's mystique. 

Fine and dandy, but I still think it would be very interesting to see some near misses from time to time. 

My personal bete noir is the Holga. I don't know why. I've shot with actual broken cameras before. But after shooting dozens of rolls through it, I've finally started getting some okay images. No 'bodies of work', but solid images.

This one has a little of the famous Holga brooding atmosphere, and you can rest assured that I'll be sandwiching this negative with another one at some point. 

Throw away culture

Conventional wisdom (Time magazine, for what it's worth) has it that the first Christmas wreath was made from the branches that had been trimmed from the tree. There was less of a throw away culture back then, we are told. We have a fake tree in our house owing to my allergies to all things conifer, so I have no direct experience with the matter. I'll take Time at their word for now.

If I had come across this scene in the summer, I might have gravitated to 'nest' as metaphor, but 'tis the season, so maybe 'wreath' is more apt? At any rate, if you're looking to reinforce a nascent optimism, either will work, I think.

This image was taken with a workman like digital camera and a 35 mm lens. I have to say, I really like the field of view of a good old 35 mm lens.

Suspend your disbelief!

Are you more interested in observing photographic properties, or in experiencing a photograph? I'm not trying to be 'judge-y', just curious, is all. I mean, there are numerous endlessly fascinating properties of a photograph to explore, if not to optimize, if that is your thing. Bokeh, sharpness, depth-of-field, micro contrast, all of it. Then, there are the various metrics pertaining to the output to consider. 

My son told me not too long ago that he often streams movies on his phone with whatever ear buds are at hand. How big is your screen and how many channels does your sound system have? Does it matter? To be honest, I won't watch a horror movie no matter how lo-fi the system, because I know I'll be scared out of my mind regardless and will have nightmares for weeks.

On travel

If asked, I would say that one of the things I missed the most this year is traveling freely, taking road trips on a whim, things like that. Which makes sense at first blush, but if these excursions are so meaningful, why are there some I seem to have no memory of, even when looking at a photograph I took to document the trip? 

Apparently, we stayed in this cute little motel on a road trip long ago, but what were we up to? I have no idea. Was I wrapped up in job stuff, and is that where the empty spaces in memory occur? Is this image photographic evidence of being obsessed with work?! Ugh.

The dumbest thing I've ever done...

... photographically speaking.

A few years ago, we had a family reunion of sorts in Jackson, WY. It was the time it snowed in May. Wild stuff. It was also the time I made the stupidest mistake ever with my photo gear.

I decided to bring the Leica R6 as my main rig with the pocketable Rollei 35 as a sweet back-up. I was armed with the well respected 35 mm Summicron as well as the cheapish 28-70 mm Leica zoom. The latter is likely a rebranded Tokina or Sigma, but it seemed like a good, relatively compact walking around lens. 

For today's images, I was using Kodak Ektachrome 100 which I had every intention of processing in normal E-6 chemistry. I usually wait until I have 8-10 exposed rolls and then process them all at once so that the chemicals don't rot on the shelf. But I just wasn't shooting much E-6 at the time, so I made the decision to cross process in C-41 color chemistry. I know that the X-pro look can be over done, but I do really like the way these images came out. You'll note that the lens has a little geometric distortion. :) But the image does capture the mood I experienced on this walk.

Coloring outside the lines

I was paging through "Contact: Theory" again, this time reading what John Gossage had to say about how he selected the final negative for one of his fine art prints. Ultimately, the decision came down to a tiny detail at the edge of the frame of a single negative. When I read that, it occurred to me that most photographers probably would want to crop that little detail out, either in camera or in the darkroom, just to keep the edge of the frame tidy. I think we've all been there. 

Interesting how Gossage thought it important to keep that little detail in. Sometimes you need to compose loose, to color outside the lines. But if you never practice doing this, how are you going to be able to execute when the time comes? An interviewer once asked Charles Mingus, the great jazz bassist, how he was able to play so well when drinking. I'm sure you can guess his answer. The same way you get to Carnegie Hall.

I have a tendency to shoot these kind of 'urban exploration' scenes straight on, with the wall standing in for a canvas of sorts, I suppose. I like the composition, don't get me wrong.

Making marks and taking notes

I suspect this old van, which I photographed in NYC way back in the day, was actually owned by an artist or a group of artists, and they chose to cover its rotten paint job with graffiti. If you look closely, you'll see that it comes with instructions, "CONSIDER THIS ART". Very helpful, although by now, the issue is probably settled for most of us. 

I am happy to have captured this record of the early days of street art on film -- it was an exciting time. Some have even called it utopian. As I drink my tea and allow my mind to wander, I find myself contemplating whether images of public art can be considered works of art in their own right.

No one cares about your process

Every day we go for a brisk 45 minute walk that covers just under three miles. That, coupled with pushing around some weights and enduring 30 min of yoga several times a week, has kept us from spreading out too much over the past nine months. Walking turns out to be a very pleasant way to burn a few calories since you can chat, too, while you exercise. From another perspective, of course, we've actually accomplished exactly nothing by walking, since we depart from and return to the exact same location (for me that would be the sofa). 

The first image was taken using a digital camera and converted to black and white using software to simulate the look of film. The same software allows you to add a black border to the image, which I thought looked cool and added to the retro vibe. By the way, this image was not taken during the pandemic; the reason the streets are empty is because the temperature was about 10° F that morning.

 

Hold the mayo

I think it is probably a pretty good idea to chill with your old images every so often. We all love to push forward, which totally makes sense. I'm just suggesting that we make time once in a while to check in and see how our former selves are doing, is all. Of course, in order to be able to do that, we need to resist the impulse to burn all our old negatives whenever we are in a bad mood. Keep some hidden away at the bottom of an old box somewhere hard to get to. Years later, you'll be glad you did that. 

And when you do go back for a peek, if you're lucky, you will find a real gem that you previously overlooked for one reason or another. Other times you'll wonder what the hell you were doing putting a star filter on your lens. That kind of thing.

Here is an image I made back in the day on a trip to South Carolina. For some reason now lost to time, I put this one in the 'maybe' folder. Was the subject matter just a little too hackneyed? Was the arrangement of the branches just a tad off? I can't recall, but now, I like the image just fine. I am okay with the composition and I'm not the least bit angry with any of the trees for not having branches organized in a certain preconceived manner.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

I wish I could remember the details, but I've heard it said that if you want to get classic images of a city like NYC, you should aim your camera to the third floor or higher when you shoot. I thought it would be fun to test that hypothesis by comparing an old photograph I made on a visit to NYC several decades ago with something current from Google Street View or Apple Maps.

So, here we go. Shown below is a photograph from the mid 1980s shot on the corner of Lafayette and Bond Streets looking roughly east along Bond. Great Jones would be the first street you came to if you went to the left. Canon AE-1, 50 mm f/1.4, Tri-X, Rodinal. 

Making art to move forward

Yesterday, my head was filled with uncertainty and dread, and I needed Yeats' faery to guide me through the door and past the ominous water. They could have chucked me in, but chose not to, for which I am grateful. Today, however, what lies beyond the portal bothers me less.

The image below was captured on the Rolleiflex SL66 using the 80 mm lens wide open at f/2.8 on Tri-X. Illumination comes from faery lights reflected in a window. They remind me of the summer fireflies and suggest an alternative origin story for Christmas tree lights.

Come away, O human child!

Some Yeats for today....

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you
can understand.

A schtickle of dish soap

When I was rising through the ranks as a young martial artist, I remember thinking that many of the senior black belts were essentially retired in place, no longer actively sparring or pushing themselves very hard in training. The coveted black obi was often just decoration, a status symbol, or a means to support their growing bellies. When I earned my black belt, I went in a different direction, and decided to start training in a different martial art. In other words, I went back to being a white belt again, which, if I'm honest, required a major attitude adjustment. 

Recently, I stumbled upon some images on Instagram tagged #filmsoup. This turns out to involve taking an exposed roll of film and cooking it on the stove in the broth of your choice: salt water, beet juice, vinegar... you get the idea. Of course, my first reaction was to roll my eyes since, of course, stuff like this has been tried before many times. 

Yet, why not come at this with more of a beginner's mind? So, I put my ego to the side and prepared some delicious film soup of my own. I boiled a roll of exposed Bergger Panchro 400 in a mixture of salt water, black tea dregs, and a schtickle of dish soap for 10 minutes. I let it dry in a sunny part of my studio for a week and then I developed the negatives normally in a 1:25 solution of Rodinal.

The roll of film I chose to process had been sitting around for a while, and I had forgotten what I had shot. Not the family Christmas photos in other words. The first image is of a door jamb I must have thought was interesting. Boiling water had the effect of warping the film emulsion in addition to the other effects. Visual research...

A pile of dead flies or dust in the wind?

One of my favorite photographs was made by the great Irish/American photographer Alen MacWeeney. At first glance, it merely records the landscape as seen through a window of an old country house. We see a field dotted with cattle, but in the foreground we also observe that the window sill is covered in a random pattern of dead flies that mirrors the arrangement of the cows outside. (The image can be seen at alenmacweeney.com).

Importantly, the depth of field extends all the way from the flies to the horizon. It is MacWeeney's concern with the formal aspects of the photograph that makes this a memorable image, because, really, who gives a damn about a pile of dead flies. 

I came across Alen's image again recently as I was flipping through a book called 'Contact: Theory' in which a curated group of photographers discuss their process of culling images from contact sheets. According to MacWeeney, "The illusion ... of having taken an exciting photograph is a burden ... unbalancing one's readiness to make a selection from what is on the contact sheet rather than what is in the mind."

The many lives of images...

I forget who first introduced me to 'Apogee', a jazz recording from the late 1970s that features Warne Marsh and Pete Christlieb, two highly regarded tenor players of their time. While the music is mostly straight ahead and pretty hard driving, there was something downright mellow about the album art, which is a picture of telephone wires against a background of sky and clouds. To my eye, the image appears as if it was composed in the square format, and, if I had to guess, I would say it was probably made using a Hasselblad. It looks like the final darkroom print was heavily toned and even splattered with chemicals.

The photographer was Benno Friedman, who states in an interview, "I think of myself as an abstract expressionist photographer... Taking the picture has been like stretching the canvas. It is not about the image. But freeing the elements of the image in order that they have their own life".

Transcribing solos

Do movies and television alter how we perceive the world? Undoubtedly, but they can sometimes also serve as inspiration in ways we might not intuitively expect. 

When we streamed the last season of Bosch in the Spring, I noticed the use of mirrored images in the title sequences. More recently, I've noticed a similar technique being used in a series we have been watching called 'The Capture'. Maybe it's a thing?

Regardless, it can be informative and also fun (remember fun?) to try to reproduce visual effects used by others in our own photographs. Kind of like transcribing solos in jazz, it can be way to grow in our own practice.

When shooting film, it is possible to have both the scanned negative and also the inverted positive at hand. Why not juxtapose them? Here is an example that works pretty well, I think. Balance or symmetry, that is the question... 

Layers of meaning

A variety of advanced imaging techniques have been developed by scholars to assist in the study of historical palimpsests. It has been possible to decipher important documents, to discover that certain manuscripts had been written over with liturgical texts rather than being burned, and the like.

In a similar vein, sometimes it is just simpler to repurpose an old or ugly building rather than tearing it down. As a result, architectural palimpsests abound in the modern urban landscape. Might photography be a useful tool for artists to begin to understand these elements of their built environment?

If well seen, images of architectural palimpsests can make interesting abstract compositions in their own right. If done really well, perhaps the viewer is also invited to create an accompanying narrative that leads to some new understanding on their part?

Being open to inspiration

Keeping a loose but consistent schedule has helped us maintain a modicum of sanity over the past eight months. So, while pizza and a movie on Friday evenings has always been a thing for us, it has become nearly sacrosanct in 2020. This week's watch was a film about Moholy-Nagy called "The New Bauhaus". Zwei daumen hoch, Leute. 

On Saturday morning, we went for a little photo walk, and I guess thoughts of Moholy had been percolating in my brain subconsciously overnight, because I came back with some rather Bauhausian images.

The instrument of choice this day was the Leica R6.2 with the 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens attached. This is a terrific lens, by the way, one that, in my experience, also pairs very harmoniously with digital sensors. Since it was designed to image up close, you have to be a little careful when focusing on subjects in the distance, but that quirk just serves to promote mindfulness, never a terrible thing.

The weather was crisp, clear and bright, so I grabbed two rolls of medium speed film on my way out the door.

I had a roll of Foma 100 loaded when I made the photograph below. This is a cheapish emulsion made in the Czech Republic and this was my first time shooting it. Very decent results, I would say, and I'll gladly shoot more Foma in the future. What caught my eye in this scene was the door to nowhere about 3 m up. Perhaps this is the smoking area? 

Is nostalgia always such a bad thing?

I've always tended to think that nostalgia is for idiots, and although I still have a real aversion to it, this year, as the days get shorter and we brace for the long, dark winter ahead, I find myself going through my old negatives and lingering on images that move me a little in that direction. 

Is this the first sign of some age-related mental decay, or is it something more benign, like simply wanting to think that things ultimately will get back to normal? I have a feeling it is the latter, which is kind of okay, I think. That being said, when I was younger, I probably would have burned the nostalgia-provoking negatives just to be on the safe side. So maybe there is a kind of decay going on after all. 

Flea markets and birthday suits

A number of years ago, my wife and I were in the habit of going to flea markets and thrift stores pretty frequently. When prices started going crazy and the pickings got slim, our visits tapered off. A couple of times a year we'd pack coffee and snacks, and head over to Atlanta to spend hours looking around Scott's Antique Market. There were usually cool discoveries to be made on every outing, and we'd normally come home with a carload of vintage furniture and a camera or two. With money still in our wallets, to boot. During those trips is when I started buying old cameras in earnest, anything that looked interesting. One Christmas, my wife gifted me several rolls of film, and that's when I decided to make a practice of not just collecting, but shooting each and every old camera I picked up.

Inevitably, you'll forget about a roll of partially exposed film sitting in one of your cameras, only to discover it years or even decades later. When this happens, it is an invitation to do a little personal archeology to figure out what the hell you were thinking or doing at the time you made a given exposure.

At one point, my wife rented space in an old country schoolhouse for her studio. While she was working, I used to enjoy walking around the place looking for interesting compositions. I'd forgotten about this until I found some old negatives lying around. Old plaster and lathe walls are always worth investigating. At this point in photographic history, you'll never get rich or famous taking photographs of old walls, but it is a good way to develop your sense of composition. Plus, I'll be honest, I just like walking around taking pictures of things, "to see what they look like when photographed", as Winogrand famously said.

The color palate of the film emulsion adds another dimension to images of this kind that I particularly like, too.

Blue Highways and Flyover Country

After settling in Austin, my trips back to Los Angeles slowly dwindled in frequency from about twice a year to every now and then. Mostly, I would fly to save time, but on one occasion, I decided to drive in order to see with my own eyes what some folks refer to as 'flyover country'. The journey West by car truly was a great experience, but, unfortunately some jackass Angelino stole my license plates and I had to drive back to Texas with no tags. It was a bummer -- I got stopped by a tag teaming pair of CHP cars near the Arizona border. Seriously, guys?! In retrospect, maybe they were just a bit bored, but the episode unnerved me a little, and I spent the rest of the trip home with one eye always looking in the side view mirror.

Anyway, the only camera I had with me at the time was a Canon AE-1 and a 50 mm f/1.4. A person could do far worse than that. I was going through a phase where I developed my Tri-X in Rodinal plus sodium sulfite. In my one and only photojournalism class, I had been criticized for too much grain in my Rodinal souped negatives, and the addition of sulfite was supposed to ameliorate this issue. It did, but at the expense of yielding pretty thin negatives. That was actually fine for darkroom printing, but I'm not so sure about how well it works for modern day scanning. A bit of a moot point with these negatives, though, isn't it?

Most of the driving time was spent crossing the State of Texas, and I was traveling along what are sometimes called blue highways -- I was avoiding the interstates, in other words. There were plenty of spectacular vistas, and stopping to take a picture didn't really have much of an impact on travel time. I have absolutely no recollection of where I was when I took this photograph, but looking at it now does trigger other memories from the trip.

Pining for PolaChrome

I was paging through Beth Moon's "Ancient Trees" the other day, and, in addition to the photographs, I enjoyed the following quote from W. S. Merwin: "...trees may be one of the things I miss most from the earth".

I think many of us might agree with that sentiment, even though we each might have our own unique reasons why. And this may also be why we feel compelled to photograph trees, to help us hold on to our memories of them as long as we can.

One of the most impressive trees I've personally ever seen is growing in a cemetery just outside of Nashville, TN. That day, I was using the Leica R6, the 35 mm Summicron, and a roll of Kodak XX. 

While it is a spectacular tree, I can't help thinking that it's a bit of a shame to only photograph the oldest, tallest, and most beautiful trees. 

What about the trees in our own backyards? 

Working with the Leica IG

During the pandemic, I decided to stop going to the gym, and a daily vigorous walk has emerged as a new habit. If I stop to take a picture, my wife generally keeps walking, so I can't faff about as they say on the British TV shows we've been streaming lately. I've lost a little weight over the past eight months, so I think our system is working reasonably well.

On a recent outing, I brought along a Leica IG from the mid-1950s. These cameras were never intended for regular shooting; instead, they were made for a variety of technical applications, such as mounting on microscopes. Consequently, they have neither a range finder nor a view finder, and are basically a light tight box with a shutter. On the plus side, they have often been well cared for and not used to within an inch of their lives. Mine has a small, but very noticeable dent on the top that the seller told me rendered it 'uncollectible'. So I got it for half price. Yay! Other than the dent, my copy looks and functions like a brand new camera. For the walk, I added the 50 mm f/3.5 Elmar, also from the mid-1950s, and an external viewfinder. I was shooting a bulk loaded short roll of Ultrafine Extreme 400. For this set-up to work, you have to be comfortable zone focusing or shooting at the hyperfocal distance. Oh, and you should be okay with estimating exposure using Sunny 16. Very doable with some practice and it helps develop your craft. All part of getting your 10,000 hours in, if you believe in that sort of thing.

We live not too far from our local synagogue and we pass it pretty much every day on our walks. In the Fall, the children always build a tabernacle for Succos. This year, I thought their efforts turned out really well, and I especially liked the use of bamboo in the construction.

These days pretty much any camera can make sharp and contrasty images, and it is easy to take awesome results for granted. But, 65 years ago, when most folks were snapping away with box cameras, this kind of quality must have been truly jaw dropping.