FLIR-de-lis

I shot these thermal images of wildflowers using a thermal imaging device that plugs into a mobile phone and costs about $200. For that price, I thought it would be interesting to see what creative uses I could find for a thermal camera. Cutting to the chase: it is definitely very much a work in progress. There is a lot of potential, I think, especially with living subjects that radiate heat, although at this stage I am not ready to share any thermal portraits. Hey, I want to keep the friends I have, and I wouldn't want to frighten anyone with psychedelic selfies. There are ethical issues to be mindful of, as well. There are a few downsides to the technology at this point, the first being the really low resolution (640 x 480). Stitching multiple images together is hampered by the image-to-image variations. And, higher resolution cameras start to get very expensive very quickly. The other issue that needs consideration is the color grading. The LUTs that are appropriate for practical applications are not necessarily best for achieving pleasing artistic results. 

At the very least, however, thermal imaging can be a way to activate your creativity while having fun doing it.

The last abstract expressionist

 

Recently, we watched the movie, "The Last Vermeer", which may or may not be a great film, but which certainly was an excellent entertainment. A few years back, we renovated our house and it was interesting to discover marks left behind by the original carpet layers. I enjoyed photographing the patterns revealed when I removed the nasty old carpet; they reminded me of abstract art. Many years ago, I was assigned to an office with an ancient and dusty chalkboard on the wall. I couldn't wait to cover it with a whiteboard, but I left a message for posterity before screwing the whiteboard down. Nothing vile, by the way, but hopefully funny. My office has been reassigned a few times since, and I sometimes wonder if my message has ever been discovered, and if so, what the person thought. If they got the joke.

Agitated...

I have a love hate relationship with monobath development. On the one hand, I really like the idea of using a single solution to process film because of both simplicity and speed. But it can also be a temperamental process, with inconsistent results over time, which is kind of unacceptable. The quirkiness of the process makes sense, I guess, since when you use a monobath, you are balancing the rates of two competing processes -- development and fixing -- in a single solution. The developer has to act pretty quickly to convert the latent image to silver, before the fixer has a chance to do its job. Anyway, you will have surely noticed that there are bright areas in the sky in the image above that correspond to the location of the sprocket holes in the film. The presence of these hotspots (dense on the negative) suggests that my agitation pattern was a little off. Sigh. That said, my disappointment with the problems in the sky was at least partly outweighed by by my pleasure in how the image was rendered by the terrific little lens on the Contax T. 

Looks like a pleasant enough weekend ahead for us in Dixie. Hope the light is good in your neck of the woods as well.

 

Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors

Aaron Siskind died almost exactly 30 years ago, in February, 1991. I've been a huge fan of his work for most of my life; recently, that interest has been rekindled and I've been keen to take a deeper dive. Unfortunately, most of the information that is readily available is quite dated at this point. Perhaps a young art historian will take up the cause of re-assessing his output, but in the meantime I've picked up a copy of a biography written by Carl Chiarenza in about 1982. In addition to providing a huge amount of personal information, the portfolios show a wider range of photographs than I have seen in one place before. What is of particular interest is that he did some of his best work well into his 70s, and this work is new to me. It is interesting how artists get pigeonholed, with one or two images being widely exhibited and publicized, while other bodies of work languish in obscurity. Pleasures and Terrors is a great pick-up and comes highly recommended.

 

Looking at | Looking through

I have always enjoyed using photography to understand the materiality of the world around me. Channeling my inner Winogrand, I will photograph objects to discover how they look when photographed. Sometimes I think the resulting images have artistic merit; other times they seem more indexical, like a collection of butterflies. I've heard the tension between the indexical and artistic aspects of photographs framed in terms of looking at versus looking through. Looking at a work of art; looking through a photographic record of a painter's body of work. I've read that artists own the copyright on documentary photographs of their work, while photographs of sculpture are considered interpretations, with copyright being held by the photographer.

Happy accidents / thoughtful play

Confession: as happens from time to time, I've fallen a bit behind on my film developing duties, and have been doing my best to get caught up. As a result, I've generated quite a pile of disorganized and unscanned negatives. As I was getting things sorted out on the light table just now, two strips of negatives happened to overlap each other in just the right way, and an accidental double exposure caught my attention. So I scanned in the negative sandwich, along with a few other images that matched up in interesting ways. What is unexpected is how the tonality of the scanned files is a bit different than with an in-camera double exposure. I enjoy the habit of going into the studio every day and just working, even if I don't know where I am going at first. Thoughtful play can lead to discovery and growth. 

Go climb a tree

 

The weather was so nice yesterday that it would have been a kind of sin not to go out and make some photographs. It was not a day for navel gazing or theorizing. The air was clear, the humidity low, and the temperature warm; Spring will be here soon. The sun comes up earlier in the morning and sticks around longer at the end of the day, but it is still low enough in the sky to provide warm light and long shadows. Time to get off my ass and out into the world with a camera. I grabbed the Leica Q because I love its macro mode. Its super quiet shutter does not disturb the trees. I would like to say that I climbed a tree in order to capture this photograph and the others in the set, but it would be more accurate to say that I got into the tree for a couple of exposures. I was pleased with these studies, so I may revisit the subject trees later with the Rollei.

Diversity of perception

 

There is a narrative that pairs with this image that goes something like this. I loaded a roll of film into my Rolleiflex SL66 and exposed 12 black and white images of the landscape. I developed the roll of film and then digitized the negatives using a flatbed scanner. Next, I imported my three favorite images from the set into Adobe Photoshop, where I inverted them into positives and composited them together in a manner that was visually pleasing to me and also reflected my experience. I exported the resulting image file and analyzed it in multiple ways using scientific image analysis software in order to identify any interesting trends. Finally, I tried to find a visually engaging way to present the analyzed data that both highlighted my findings and honored its inherent information content. Such image/graphs may endure as works of art, or they may end up being ephemeral explorations. There's plenty of advice about following your heart, but I think you should also follow your intellect. There are diverse paths to knowledge.

The thing that divides the world in two

Windows, mirrors, reflections... all enticing subjects for photographs. What attracts us to them? To quote Samuel Beckett, “...  perhaps that’s what I feel, an outside and an inside and me in the middle, perhaps that’s what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other the inside, that can be as thin as foil..." Perhaps the imprint of the photograph is as close as we can come to creating a record of that foil.

Or maybe all we are doing is rearranging electrons...

Still life with double basses

In general, the playing of classical music is not a particularly dangerous sport, at least not physically, but I have to tell you that the daily grind of the orchestra pit can take a toll on the health and well being of your instrument. You gotta be careful and plan for the worst! When we go on break, I generally try to place my stool strategically in order to dissuade folks from trying to step over the neck of the bass. Yes, they will try crap like that. And, should their toes catch the E-string, a whole chain of nasty events can ensue. 

Have a productive weekend of shooting, everyone.

The photographer's frame

Although this scene may not show any buildings or people, I was standing in the middle of town when I shot it, not far from a small municipal airport. I made a decision to point my camera away from the suburban blight. Many years ago, when he was young, I used to take my son to a spot near this place to watch airplanes take off and land. What I like about the photograph is how the long line of the fence and the curved road converge to the same point near the far left edge of the frame. Who knows what is around the bend or over the crest of the hill? And then, there is the fire hydrant in the middle of an open field. The grain of the Kodak P3200 film adds a certain atmosphere to the image, or perhaps I'm reading too much into things with a statement like that. Shot on the Leica R9 with a 50 mm lens.

Hiding in plain sight

I really wasn't expecting to come across a large dilapidated commercial vehicle in the middle of Buckhead, but someone tucked this beast of a truck behind some dense brambles. I wouldn't want to look out on this scene from my office every day, but I think it makes for an interesting photograph. I took another shot that shows the truck in more detail, but I like the mystery of this image better. I wonder what else is lurking just off the beaten path in Atlanta?

Highly recommended: Fuji Instax SP-3 printer

 

I really don't understand how prices for consumer products are determined, and probably never will. And, frankly, I have enough other things to worry about. I like using my instant cameras, especially the SX-70, don't get me wrong. But the prospect of creating Polaroid like output for images created with any camera is pretty enticing. I remember that when the Fujifilm Instax SP-3 printer first came out, it cost more than $150. That exceeded my threshold for an impulse purchase, so I never picked one up. Well, as of this writing, you can find them for well under $100, so I grabbed one over the weekend. What great fun it is to get a high quality instant print from any photo on your device. The shot of the moon was taken hand held using a MFT camera fitted with an old Nikon 500 mm mirror lens, while the image on the right was taken with a full frame mirrorless camera. I've also printed out scans of my 35 mm and medium format film images. The final print size is just under 2.5 inches (6.2 cm), and is slightly larger than a typical square medium format negative. It would be interesting doing a series of small images this way for a show. 

Turning the corner

I think the formal aspects of the composition are what prompted me to make this photograph. That said, I can't help but wonder about the origin of that corner condition. I think it is very cool. It seems like a practical solution to the problem of an odd angle bend in a brick wall, although a cynic might say it was just a cost cutting measure. I've heard it referred to as a pigeonhole corner, a name I really like. I wonder, was the architect viewed as a creative genius or as a schlub who was too lazy to cut bricks?

Spoiler alert

I've always enjoyed the work of Italian photographer Silvio Wolf. Perhaps his most famous photographs are the imaginary landscapes that originate from discarded film leaders. Knowing the exact origin was a bit of a spoiler for me when I first experienced the work, but I'm over it at this stage. In general, I'm not really drawn to the poetry of T. S. Eliot, but the quote below comes from Wolf's webpage, and I think it is germane.

We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the very first time.
                --T.S. Eliot, from Little Gidding, in Four Quartets, 1943.

Real stupidity

“Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world".
                                                                                                                             --Werner Herzog

Chickens may be dumb, but I enjoyed my time with these. Not long after I photographed them, they were eaten by the local coyotes. 

Get the shot!

It isn't that often that I see something in the course of my daily routine that I can honestly say I've never seen before, but it happened the other day. I was driving along when I saw a strange landscape comprised of huge brightly colored metal objects stacked together. It was one of those should I stop to make photographs, or drive on moments. Fortunately, we decided to stop. The good news is that I was able to get some really interesting photographs without being interrupted by security. The bad news is that I only had black and white film. Luckily my wife got some nice color images with her iPhone. So we are covered.

I don't know what, if anything, will become of these images. But they are in my possession, and that is the most important thing.

I hope you have excellent light this weekend, and that you decide not to drive by.

Dialogue

 

Still life is a genre of photography that is pretty difficult to pull off successfully, I think. When you get a solid photograph, it is very rewarding. At any rate, I picked these pears from a friend's yard a couple of weeks before they were at their prime, and was hoping they would ripen if I set them in the sun. They never did. We ate them anyway, they tasted like wet stones. But they also served as interesting subjects for photography. Rolleiflex SL66, Tri-X, 120 mm f/5.6 macro lens. The exposure was f/32 and a couple of seconds. It was simple to print in the darkroom, too.

I need to get out more

I was out for a walk in the Buckhead neighborhood of ATL yesterday in an area with a large number of well-regarded art galleries, architecture offices, and the like. I was taken with the graphic nature of the barbed wire against the cloudy sky. I found lots of great compositions. It occurred to me that it would be pretty tricky to break in to one of the galleries from the roof. Do cat burglars as portrayed in the movies even exist anymore? These days, art thieves would probably just bust through the front windows. I was shooting the Leica R9 and had the 50 mm Summilux attached. I was using a film from Finland, Santa Rae 1000. Shooting at EI = 1000, I think it gave nice results, but from looking at the negatives, I suspect it is actually closer to a 400 speed film. Next time, I might shoot it accordingly. 

Daily burn

 

There is a whole art to enjoying an outdoor fire in our little fire pit. It has to be cold outside, but not too cold, and my wife is always the master of ceremonies. I generally stay pretty far away as I am not fond of the smoke. The morning after the fire, I was amazed at how perfectly shaped this log was. It is a multi-fire log, and we keep it on a piece of slate between burns. I liked the geometry and texture on this one.

Baby spiders

When we first moved into our house, I remember seeing a giant wolf spider walking across the floor. It was a good 6 cm in diameter. Not wanting to kill it, I reached for a piece of cardboard to sweep it up and take it outside. As I did, hundreds, or probably thousands, of tiny baby spiders jumped off the large spider's back and started running like crazy. This memory came back to me when someone told me the other day that your images are like your children. Yes, but also no. I don't think they should be thought of like human children, which are far too precious. Maybe more like baby spiders, scattering in all directions, so that maybe one or two will survive.

Forget lemonade, I just want lemons

I thought the Meyer lemon tree we bought would do really well and be a low maintenance and productive fruit tree. You see, I really prefer cooking with Meyer lemons. They are a little sweeter than regular lemons, and juicier, too. When we brought it home, there were six rather large green lemons hanging from the tiny branches, all very encouraging. In the two years since then, there has been no new fruit. And, in the fall, all the leaves started dropping and we thought the tree was a goner. But we moved it to a sunnier spot and watered the hell out of it, and now there are quite a few new leaves and even a few flower buds. One of the larger leaves did drop off the other day, but overall I'm more optimistic than I was a few months ago.

Assman

On a walk last summer, I quickly grabbed the trusty Olympus Pen S half frame camera. It had been sitting unused on the shelf for several months and the shutter was sticking a little. But black and white negative film handles over exposure very well and I was happy with the motion blur on these self portraits. But man, does the projection angle ever exaggerate the size of the bum in photographs. I was tempted to correct the perspective in Photoshop, but I got a handle on my vanity and posted them as is.

Phoning it in

I recently completed a photography workshop, and I have to say it was just okay. The cake was certainly tasty, but there was no frosting. In spite of the fact that the course was conducted online, I told my wife that it seemed like the instructor was just phoning it in. On the other hand, I've continued to play with the multiple exposure setting on my camera. I have to say that I'm starting to get this technique dialed in reasonably well.

I hope you have good light this weekend.

A cult of one

My first job after I graduated from high school was working as a line cook at a famous amusement park in Southern California. My supervisor was a bit of a jackass. Let's leave it at that. In every performance review he would use some hackneyed expression to put me down and minimize my pay increase. Here are a few that stick out: "I don't like the cut of your jib", "assume makes an ass out of U and me", and "if you believe that, you are in a cult of one". That last one made me chuckle. Fortunately, I quit the job before my next performance review. You gotta just believe in your own work. Two sequential frames with the Olympus Pen FT, 38 mm f/1.8, JCH StreetPan 400 film. 

Labyrinths

I was always aware that my digital camera has a multiple exposure mode, but until a friend explained the details of how to set things up in a usable form, I never really got anything out of it. Too much faffing about required to do it on my own, apparently. Or I just wasn't open to the possibilities offered... But, in the past few weeks I've been experimenting with the technique and I'm beginning to see some interesting results. A long time ago, my brother told me I should read "Labyrinths" by Borges. I tried to read it on numerous occasions, but every time I just gave up after a few minutes. Then, one winter, I went to visit when my brother was living an old house in Jersey City, NJ. I was sick and in the house alone and started to read, and it all just made sense...

The photographic dad joke

I know this is a ridiculously silly photograph, the photographic equivalent of a dad joke, and every time I've thought about posting it before, I've held back. But not this time. One warm summer day a couple of years ago, I was taking my mid-morning walk at work and came across this scene. I just had to laugh. Classic construction worker humor. I had my Leica R6 with me and, naturally, I documented what I saw before me. So, my friend, this happened. Please draw your own conclusions. As for me, I would say that creating a satisfying humorous photograph is no easy task.

Shooting analog to connect with the history of photography

If you ask someone why they shoot film in the 21st century, you’ll probably find that there are as many specific reasons as there are photographers, but broadly speaking, it appears to boil down to matters of process and aesthetic. That is, the process of shooting film may encourage you to slow down compared to digital image capture, and the overall aesthetic achieved with film cannot be easily replicated in the digital domain.

For me, there is another, personally even more important, reason to shoot analog, namely, establishing a connection to the history of the medium and to the photographers who came before me. I remember having zero money left in my pocket after purchasing my Nikon D50 in 2005, and buying a couple of vintage Nikkors for pennies on the dollar to be able to start making images right away. One of the lenses was the legendary 105mm short telephoto made famous by Steve McCurry and his picture of the Afghan girl. I have always been interested in the history of photography, but this was my first experience using the same gear as a storied practitioner of our craft, and I have to say, it really struck a chord. 

When I was growing up, my father had a copy of The Camera, one of the volumes of the Life Library of Photography. I am not sure why, since he had no apparent interest in the subject. At any rate, there is an X-ray image of the Rolleiflex SL66 on the cover. I remember being captivated by this photograph and becoming a bit obsessed with the camera. Of course, the Rolleiflex probably cost more than my father earned in a year, so getting anywhere near one was never really an option. But, fast forward to a few years ago, and I found a clean copy for just over $500. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to own one of these classic cameras. Later, I discovered a short documentary film on Aaron Siskind, another of my favorite photographers, that showed him working with a Rolleiflex SL66. Through years of shooting with it, I’ve learned that the old Rollei is a pretty finicky camera to use, but that it can reward you with spectacular images if you are patient. As a result of this experience, I believe that I can appreciate Siskind’s results in a way I otherwise couldn't.