The Odometer Clicks

In my father's day, a car's odometer was a purely analog device. I remember the time he surpassed 99,999 miles on his old Ford, and it rolled over to five zeros just like when the car first arrived from the factory. Anyway, I'm not particularly good about marking each new year with top ten lists of all the great crap I did in the previous twelve months, resolutions about how I can better my crappy self, profound reflections about the meaning of it all. But that doesn't mean I take anything for granted either. I am still happy about each and every one of the new years as they come along, and I hope you are as well. Cheers to 2023!

Your Work In The World

Could it be that this mobile is about trees? Their verticality in the landscape? I'll never know for certain because the artist isn't around for me to ask. Regardless, it does become about the trees for me in this photograph, where it is layered against the out of focus background. The artist may be gone, but the work is still very much alive. 

Hang loose this weekend, fellow traveler. 

An Eye For Every Work

You have the freedom to make any work you feel driven to produce, my friends. I say, get Ye into the studio and and make some stuff. Trust the process and know that there is an eye for every work. Making images for 'likes' or to please others just leads to average work. Social algorithms are designed to converge, baby, and that ain't what you're looking for. Instability and divergence, may prove more interesting in the long run. 

Anyway, that's just me preachin' on this fine Thursday morning. 

Woodpecker Down

One of the risks of being able to fly is periodically crashing into things. Like windows, for instance, which happens a couple of times each year around here. The sound of a crashing bird is a bit dreadful, if I'm honest. This beautiful woodpecker literally knocked itself out, but within a few minutes, was able to gather it's strength and fly off.

All I Want For Christmas Is A Bird's Nest?

Well, kinda, yeah. You see, my wife spotted this beauty in the gutter on the side of the road during a walk and brought it home for me. It must have been dislodged from its perch in a tree by the rain and it is pretty amazing that it held up so well. A real testament to the quality of construction. The skeleton leaves on the sides look like a kind of filigree to me and the oval shape also is quite photogenic. I'm going to have to keep it out of reach of studio cat, but I'm sure I will come back to this subject more than once in 2023.

Amuse Yeux

Naturally, our renovation project overlapped with the coldest cold spell we've had in several decades. There are a couple of spots where the siding had to be removed, such as the place we are going to install the on-demand water heater. The color coded water lines made for an interesting splash of color on an otherwise dull field. A small delight for the eyes.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from Albus & Fergie World Headquarters. Looks like it may get above freezing today. Stay warm and safe, wherever you lay your head, fellow traveler! 

Ice and Shadow

Ice, if it's a good enough subject for the likes of Paul Caponigro, I reckon it's good enough for the rest of us, well me anyway. Look closely and you'll see it is already starting to melt. That's my kind of ice for sure. Keep warm on this cold Christmas Eve.

Flowers To Warm A Frigid Friday

Like most of the country, we are experiencing some unusually cold weather right now. Fact is, it doesn't get into the teens very often down here, and when it does, we are not really set up to cope with it particularly well. I still remember the Thanksgiving my brother came down from NYC and never took off his sweater because he was so damn cold. We had the heat cranked up all the way, but mostly the energy was just flying out the windows.

Taken with my wife's old Canon GX7ii. I was planning to move this thing on until I happened to notice that it was being praised by a few online influencers for its 'filmic' image quality. So I'll hang onto it for a while longer to see if the used prices start going insane. Fingers crossed.

Happy Friday, fellow travelers. Enjoy some photography this weekend with your 'filmic' digicam or some actual film. 

Who Needs A Camera?

In the spirit of reducing my overall carbon footprint, perhaps I should do more recycling, including the recycling of old images. There's plenty of them out there, trust me. I could sell all my cameras on the used market and purchase a few hundred thousand old photographs off of eBay. I could hunt and fish my way through the piles and find the keepers. Here's a nice photograph from what looks like the dessert Southwest United States, a place I am pretty familiar with owing to my numerous drives between Austin and LA back in the day. Does it really matter that I don't know exactly where the photographer was standing? Nah... I could tell all the stories I need to tell about those trips with old found photographs like this one. Who needs AI anyway?

Slow Squirreling

I was reading a book review about 'slow birding' in the NYTimes recently -- a non-competitive version of birdwatching modeled on the slow food movement. The crappy little sparrows that populate your yard are sufficient, that kind of thing. Sounded like my kind of birding, and I thought, 'you know, I really ought to give this a try'. So I headed into the yard armed with my biggest ass lens. But of course it is the middle of winter and the birds are mostly out of town for the next couple of months. I did, however, observe some of the local tree rodents doing their thing. Which was climbing up to the sunniest spot they could find, spreading out and trying to keep warm in the 30 degree weather. In my version of slow birding, observing non-birds is totally allowed since noticing nature is what it's all about. And it was kinda fun, to be honest.

What Wild Looks Like

You might have to hike a ways, but thankfully, it is still possible to find wild places in America. You might have to risk getting scratched by the brambles or falling on your ass as you slosh through cold water, but you can get there. These places can be on public or private land, and sometimes you have to hear about the exact location from another person. But you can find them. They are characterized by chaos, untidiness and diversity and can be a challenge to photograph. Your images of these places, ironically, may not be your most popular either. For some, I guess, the idea of the wild is what is captivating.

Camellia Season

This is the time of year when the camellias are in bloom. While most of the country is gray and leafless, here in the South we still have color to celebrate, even when the temperatures dip below freezing as they have recently. It's all good: the cold will kill off some of the cockroaches and other vermin, while the flowers remind us that warmth will return in a few days. These camellias have been bred to flower and it never ceases to amaze me to see a plant in full bloom with a carpet of fallen petals.

Pile O' Tires

That's thousands of dollars worth of rubber, my friend, just stacked up along a wall. Like the bags of potato chips lined up near the cash register in your local Buc-ees. I reckon they must either chain 'em up at the end of the day or someone has to roll 'em inside for safe keeping. 

Entropy is Photogenic

What is it about decay, rust, dilapidation that attracts our attention? Maybe it is just the formal and material aspects that we find interesting. Entropy at work, that kind of thing... Then again, perhaps it is because we all get tossed over the fence if we stick around long enough, or too long. I've heard it said that it is better to retire five years too early than five minutes too late.

Reflections

Inflation has impacted the cost of food and fuel, for sure, but if you keep an eye open, there are certainly still good deals to be found in 2022, such as dresses for twenty bucks. And reflections are always a good opportunity for us photographers, never impacted by the economy. 

Good light to you this weekend, fellow traveler.

Thanks, Jackass!

One fine morning a couple of days ago, I was greeted by the sight of a partially eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread. It was perched just outside the living room window. Someone had chucked it over the hedges after taking only three bites. It looked perfectly fine to me, far more appetizing, in fact, than the spaghetti sandwiches my mother used to pack in my school lunch box back in the day. Though sorely tempted, I did not snack on the sandwich, preferring instead to heave it back over the hedge. Here's hoping the owner saw it in the gutter on their return trip.

Traveling Light

About a decade ago, we had the opportunity to purchase a little condo from which we could easily walk to the Appalachian Trail. It is obviously a beautiful place to chill, hike, and take photographs, but the sweet little home away from home was kind of in the middle of nowhere. Super, super boring in other words. Likewise, we've often discussed owning a travel trailer, but if you aren't careful, you can end up with a real millstone around your neck. Plus, neither one of us wants to be in charge of emptying the poop. Cameras, backpacks and hiking poles turn out to be more our style, I guess.

Poetics of Place

The late afternoon Autumn sun certainly brought out the texture in the wall. In reality, the surface of the plaster is pretty nuanced, but the glancing illumination turned it into a kind of checkerboard as rendered by the camera's analytical eyeball. These are the sorts of observations and experiences that turn a house into a home, I think. 

Another Kind of Sun Salutation

What I like about this image is the majestic magnolia, of course, that fills the frame, but also how it looks like I am doffing my bowler hat rather than holding a camera up to my face. G'Day!

Before 2020

I am not usually a huge fan of cross processed film, but this lone roll of E-6 film was just sitting undeveloped on a shelf staring me in the face, so I impulsively chucked it into the developing tank along with a roll of regular C-41 color film. I was using the venerable Summicron R 35 mm f/2. It is a terrific lens, but flares pretty easily and has just the right amount of distortion. Looking back, the past often seems like a more innocent time. That is frequently down to nostalgia, of course, but for most of us alive today, it's probably an accurate assessment of our experiences prior to 2020.

Telescope Macro-ish Photography

Mirror lenses have an easy tell, the so-called donut shaped boke pattern they produce in the out of focus highlights of an image. Of all the catadioptric lenses I have ever had the opportunity to use, the old mirror Nikkor 500 mm f/8 (close focus version) is possibly the most unique. That is down to its ability to focus to just under 5 feet (1.5 m). In other words, the lens is basically a close-focusing telescope. On a camera with a micro-four thirds sensor, the field is reduced by a factor of two compared to a piece of 35 mm film. Using a tripod, I was able to get a few molecules of the orchid petals in sharp focus.

Wide Angle Macro

One fine morning my son stopped by with some super fresh eggs -- I mean straight out of the hen fresh. Before turning them into an omelet for our breakfast, of course I wanted to photograph them. The natural light entering the house from a large north-facing window was absolutely perfect that day, as it typically is. I used the Leica Q, a camera I had recently picked up for a 'bargain' price. Turns out the 28 mm perspective is not really my cup of kombucha, but I sure loved the wide angle macros I was able to get with that lens! Alas, I couldn't really justify owning such an expensive macro camera; fortunately, the previous owner was feeling a little seller's remorse and was happy to buy it back from me.

Good light to you this weekend, fellow traveler.

 

Ho Ho Hum...

Some of the neighbors pay a decoration service for over-the-top holiday displays; others take a more subdued approach. With temperatures in the mid 70's, I'm not really in the Christmas spirit yet.

Nailed It!

Sorry about that. Actually, not really. I've made a decision. I'm no longer apologizing for my stupid dad jokes, they're part of who I am. It's a coping mechanism, ya know, humor. If I didn't tell 'em, I'd have to cut you off in traffic. So, deal. Along the same lines, the ability to tell a joke should be a requirement for being considered an adult. I knew a person who was born in the 1920s, gone now, but he could tell a joke, mix a proper cocktail, hold his liquor, play at least one song on the piano. Maybe we need to bring back finishing school (j/k). 

Idle Moments

Sometimes it is worthwhile to do photographic exercises — just to get the juices flowing, so to speak. For instance, put the camera in the most automatic mode possible and just shoot B&W jpegs. On this outing, my goal was to make an exposure every ten seconds during a short walk. Two years later, and a few of the frames still interest me.

Thick As A Brick

Here's an exercise for you. Look at one of your photographs and write down your stream of consciousness thoughts....

I never much cared for the music of Jethro Tull to be honest, but for some reason, the word 'brick' triggers memories of prog rock. Go figure. My brother and I grew up in a household filled with piped in Muzak, at one point we could both sing along with the arrangements heard in any department store in America. It amazes me that we ever discovered a wider world of culture. Thank god for Tower Records, how music was discovered before the internet. 

I'm Old Fashioned

Inevitably, it seems, as soon as the maples reach 'peak color' the rain comes along and pummels the delicate leaves to the ground. You gotta be ready to enjoy the display because it ain't gonna stick around for long. I don't usually mess with the aspect ratio in the camera, but for this shot, I thought 16:9 matched the scene.

The Rock

I encounter this little tableau of rock and fence from time to time, depending on which route I take on my walk through the neighborhood. To me it says a lot about pragmatism, compromise, getting things done. Served up with a dollop of Kafka on the side. It seems counter intuitive, but perhaps that's truly the best solution, building the fence over the top of the rock. 

Homogenized

I still remember the first time I took the train through the Bronx and saw buildings covered in graffiti. It was pretty wild stuff, a bit like being on the set of a dystopian movie, as corny as that might sound. At any rate, these days, you no longer have to travel very far to get a similar experience. This photograph was made in the Deep South. Could it be that Professor Baudrillard was right after all? 

Good light to you, fellow traveller.

Leaf Catcher

I have a theory that folks with a visual bent tend to notice similar things. For example, my wife and I both commented on the leaf-catching pumpkin shown here. A corollary to my theory is that most people would just walk past without noticing. After all, it is just a silly pumpkin. But what about those crazy few who would remove the leaves in order to have a more perfect and tidy pumpkin?

Out the Window

When I was a kid I always wanted to sit in the window seat; these days, I'm an aisle man 100%. I'll take the extra wiggle room any day of the week. On this flight, however, I was stuck next to a window with a fixed lens camera and did what I could to come up with something interesting on the way from ATL to SFO. The windows are not designed with optical excellence in mind, so a monochrome presentation ended up working the best.

Urban Hieroglyphics

Most people probably just walk on by, but I've always been a little bit curious about the signs and symbols spray painted in bright colors on paved surfaces in most cities. It is a language I don't pretend to understand, yet the patterns can be interesting to photograph. Could be I was just plain oblivious like everyone else, but I don't remember seeing these markings when I was a kid. Perhaps what they really signify is that our infrastructure is aging and in need of repair. 

Street-ish

There was a period of time when NYC was like a second home to me, an era that has long since passed. A fine, shiny time before the internet, cellular phones, and apps. In those dinosaur days, one had to figure out one's own way of dealing with the city, learning from personal experience. Like, for instance, where the hell the public bathrooms are in each neighborhood. That isn't the only reason to love the New York City Public Library, of course, but it sure is a good one. This is a photograph from the modern era, taken on my way to the bus to La Guardia airport. It was one of the coldest days I ever spent in the city.  

Deep Fried Chicken Skins

With extremely flat feet, it has to be a pretty special occasion for me to put on my fancy shoes. In this case, I was happy to oblige because we were visiting a new restaurant. Hyper-local food, nose-to-tail eating, that kind of thing. After suffering through an afternoon of lace ups, my dogs were barking, as the saying goes, and I was very happy for a chance to sit down and enjoy a nice meal. Funny, I don't remember much about the experience except that I ordered a plate of deep fried chicken skins as an appetizer. Welcome to the South.

A Real Legacy

Our neighborhood is on fire right now, with all the maples in full Fall color, I mean. I'm not talking about the fires that arise from deep frying a turkey that hasn't been fully defrosted (story for another day). Fall is over most places, but here in the deeper south, it is peak leaf. Apparently, in our neck of the woods at least, planting a few Japanese maples in your yard was a thing back in the 1950s when the place was developed. Now, seven decades later, these trees are fully mature and the current owners of the homes can still enjoy the awesome display each fall. Now that's a legacy as far as I am concerned.

Serendipity

This was just a quick grab, but, as John Cage would have it, the world was in an interesting state, now permanently recorded on film. It was cold and sunny so we were both wearing hats and coats.

Happy Thanksgiving

I took Studio Cat in for his annual check up and challenged myself to find one decent photograph somewhere in the parking lot in the twenty minutes I had to wait. To my surprise there was a ginkgo tree in the corner of the lot in full Fall glory. I was using a new $50 lens from a company called Ttartisans. Fun.

Groovy Shadow Play

During most of my childhood, my parents had a mobile hanging in the house comprised of images of eyes. It was a hippie thing, I guess, and if you google hippie eye mobile, you'll find it right away. Funny thing is, my parents were pretty much the Platonic ideal of the anti-hippie couple. Go figure. Perhaps unsurprisingly, mobiles have been a constant fascination for me, so I was keen to see what my wife would come up with at the mobile making workshop she recently attended. Maybe mobiles are having another moment? I sure hope so. Groovy.

Remarkable?

A picture of a dead bird on the sidewalk is child’s play by Joel Peter Witkin standards, but have you ever asked yourself how far you would go to get a ‘remarkable’ shot? Is that the goal, to make remarkable work? Would you document the death of a loved one, for example? As for me, I have a handful of images of dead things found along the way. That’s about as far as I want to take it. I’m not going to volunteer at the morgue anytime soon.

Literate Lizard

 

Recently, I’ve noticed that the studio cat has been interested in my bookshelves, and I finally figured out why. It ain’t the critical theory, that’s for sure. With temperatures dipping into the legitimately cold range, I’ve seen a few lizards indoors of late. This little fellow seems to have found a safe place to spend the winter, but we will see how long he lasts. I’ve already found several dismembered kin scattered around the studio.

Creating Memories

A major house renovation not only provides new amenities for improving one's quality of life, but also some cool photo opportunities. Not sure this image will make the cut for my next (ha, leaving that in!) MoMA show (will keep you posted), but in the meantime it pleases me as a composition, and years hence will remind me of all the little trials and tribulations we encountered on this particular journey.

Its Complicated

This tree is a complicated mess, which makes it both interesting as a subject, and a bit difficult to position within the frame. Not sure about you, but my tendency is to want to simplify things, to impose order, but sometimes the best move is to just embrace the complexity.  

Joys And Sorrows of a Koi Pond

In general and overall, I'd say that our koi pond has been a good thing, a feature of our home that adds to the positive vibe of living here. But periodically the neighborhood raccoons come by looking for water, discover that there are fish present, and do their best to catch them for a quick snack. The resulting chaos is definitely not okay. Fish in a barrel kind of thing. Mostly the fish are good at avoiding capture, but every once in a while one goes missing, which is a real bummer, and not only for the fish. The other thing the raccoons like are the black stones at the bottom of the pond. They fish them out of the water and leave them on the side, as a warning, I reckon. We'll be back.

I hope your weekend goes swimmingly, fellow traveler.

Working Distance

Poison ivy. Over the years, I've had plenty of personal experience with the stuff, such that I know that I want nothing more to do with it. Luckily, when you use a camera to investigate the world around you, you have a little working distance between you and your subjects built in to the process. You don’t have to touch the vines. At the quantum level, it's well known that the act of measuring perturbs the system. I wonder, do the camera and photographer leave a trace even at the normal scale of human experience?

Catching Up With My Inner Child

When I was but a wee lad, my first 'serious' camera was something called a Sears TLS. I saved up my allowance money and bought it to document the life and times of my pet iguana. That was a thing back in the day, I guess, pet lizards. Anyway, after the requisite reptile portraits were in the can, one of the first photography experiments I tried involved misting my UV filter with a little bit of water, placing it in the freezer for an hour, then re-mounting it to my lens, and snapping a few photos of the lights on our Christmas tree. You see, folks, photographers have been interested in diffusion and blur since, like, forever. I must have read about that little parlor trick in Popular Photography. Fast forward a couple of decades to when we first moved into our current house. There were quite a few spiders occupying the place at the time. The old window glass had enough imperfections to create some pretty interesting bokeh. I suppose you could say that I got back in touch with my inner child as I framed up this little snap. Is that such a bad thing?

 

But I Like It

So, one fine Sunday morning not too long ago, I woke up to find that a rather large package had been left on the deck. Turns out, it was a very fancy pressure washer that I had not ordered. I had a quick glance at the address label and figured out that the intended recipient was about a quarter mile away on an entirely different street. No idea how the miss delivery happened. I suppose I could have just kept it, but I have no interest in pressure washing, so I loaded the beast into the back of my car and delivered it to its rightful owner. Turns out, my neighbor had just poured a new concrete drive way that I thought looked pretty cool. It is just a formal composition, but I like it -- to paraphrase Professor Jagger.

What You Give Up When You Drive an SUV

During the early days of the pandemic, I purchased a used camera with a micro-four thirds format sensor because of its ability to automatically stitch together 80 megapixel photographs from four 20 MP images taken in rapid succession. I do a lot of work that involves photographing subjects on a copy stand, and a high resolution file can come in very handy sometimes. It is a pretty convenient way to digitize medium format film negatives as well. Anyway, I found that I really enjoyed using the little camera off the copy stand, too, and have been checking out some additional lenses for it. Recently, I discovered a compact 35-100 mm f/4-5.6 lens for $100 that seems to be a bit under appreciated, probably due to the variable aperture. The fact of the matter is, it produces fine images in good light. And, when I saw the image above, I really appreciated the old school bokeh. The little lens is an extremely compact telephoto zoom that would be perfect for travel...

Battle Tested

Let me tell you, son,  the orchestra pit is a far more dangerous place than you could ever imagine, especially for a large, unwieldy and delicate instrument like the double bass. I can't begin to count the number of times my poor instrument has been kicked and bumped due to the close quarters on stage sometimes. The only time I ever leave it unattended is for bathroom breaks, unavoidable during three hour rehearsals. Still, over the course of some twenty-odd seasons, that's plenty time to accumulate a few scars. Image captured using an old Fujifilm S5 Pro (ca. 2007) with a Nikon 105 mm f/2.5 lens. Not yet sure if I like this camera or not...

Bologna In Color

The internet provides plenty of opportunities to fritter away one's precious time here on Planet Earth, but every once in a while, if you are just a little bit lucky, you can also find some useful, dare I say even productive, ideas. A few years ago, I came across a blog post from Julieanne Kost (www.jkost.net), from Adobe, about a series of abstract images she created to explore the color of a specific place. She described her process in detail, so I decided to give it a go using a series of images from a trip to Bologna. While it was an interesting exercise, it ultimately wasn't my cup of kombucha. But the idea of abstracting from a series of images and then recombining the fragments in unique ways is something I continue to pursue to this day.