Bonsai

A while back, we went on a tour of the homes of the 'master gardeners' of our area, which is where I came across this particular example of a bonsai. The normal sized flowers on a miniature plant struck me as a bit odd, which is why I took the photograph. Some bonsai gardeners tend to the same plants for decades. Me, I can barely manage to keep plants alive for more than a few seasons...

Lunarcy

Yeah, I'm a bit of a lunatic, I suppose. Not like I haven't shot the moon before, it's a subject I keep returning to, never boring to me. Plus, with modern equipment, you gan get a pretty great image without really breaking a sweat. Photographers have it so good these days... 

"Lunarcy" is the name of a composition by the pianist Lou Levy based on the jazz standard, "How High the Moon". 

Still Life With Hydrangea

I found this dried up hydrangea bloom by the side of the road on a recent walk and carried it home. I guess it must have been discarded a while back, but somehow managed to escape the metal jaws of the recycling truck. It caught my eye, and I've added it to my pile of dead things in the studio. I like the S-shape and texture of the specimen.

Cherub In the Details

My wife once told me that I looked grey and on the verge of fainting during our wedding ceremony. Corpselike, in other words. Funny, I thought I was beaming... I guess I was a bit nervous, in a good way, I think. Anyway, it wasn't until years later, on a subsequent visit, that I noticed some of the architectural details at Lyndhurst. Plus, I didn't have a camera with me for the wedding -- I ain't that guy.

Fellow Traveler

This freeloader hitched a ride home with me one afternoon after work. It was a journey of a couple of miles with speeds up to 40 mph. I kept thinking that his grip would break free and he would fly away, but nope. He held on until I got home. I was able to grab an amusing shot on the road when the light turned red. 

Good light and plentiful photographic opportunities to you this weekend, fellow traveler.

What Nice Bokeh Looks Like...

... to me anyway. Like so many other aesthetic concepts, ideas and opinions about lens blur abound, proliferate, grow exponentially. They've been turned up to eleven, Bob Ross-ified, the whole nine yards. Artificial Intelligence, connoisseurs, and 'philes have gotten involved. What the hell is a simple person with a camera gonna do? Moi, I've come up with my own ideas over the years. And, I've learned to keep my dumb thoughts to myself and instead try to let my lenses guide me to a good answer as I shoot. 

 
Works sometimes.

Happy Wednesday

There was a diversity of statues and markers in this burial area behind a temple in the mountains, everything from plain to extravagant, smiling faces, gaping scream-holes, and everything in between. I suppose this statue marks the grave of a happy individual, although maybe not. Perhaps the happy buddha is intended as a counterweight to all the surliness of the individual whose ashes are buried beneath.

Keep Calm -- Its Only an Experiment

I did a bit of a double take when I came across this image in the old archive. A bit of a cosmic composition, over the top to my eyes now. These days, I tend to avoid symmetry, but I have a whole series of these meditative pieces to reflect on (hehe). 

Peace!

Photography From The Island Of Misfit Toys

The "Island of Misfit Toys" was always my favorite scene from the animated Christmas show, "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Many of us naturally tend to pull for the underdog, which is why these scenes exist in the first place, I suppose. In a similar vein, I've developed an interest in what I'll call underdog cameras, in particular, quirky old digital cameras from a decade or so ago. It is a good theme for me to base a collection on, since the cost of entry is pretty low and I prefer a cheap hobby. I have all the serious photography tools I need at the moment, if I'm honest, but, who doesn't like playing with cameras and lenses from time to time? So, misfit cameras it is.

One of the first misfits I picked up was a Canon Powershot G1x from 2012. It is slow in operation, clunky in handling, sports a rubbish optical viewfinder, and must be set to macro mode to make a portrait! The key with these misfits, however, is to overlook their (often numerous) failings and focus instead on what they do well, even if it is only a single thing. What makes the G1x special is that it packs a relatively large sensor in a compact body, and, in spite of its slow clunkiness, makes a pretty great portable slow photography camera. 

Old Dog, New Tricks...

A few months back, I purchased a new old lens for the Rolleiflex SL66 -- the 80 mm f/4 Distagon. This lens has an interesting trick up its sleeve -- a leaf shutter, originally for syncing with studio lights. But for me, the lens, with its internal shutter, is part of the contingency plan for my old SL66. You see, if the camera's focal plane shutter ever craps out on me, I'm going to set it to bulb and rely on the leaf shutter for exposure... Anyway, I finally got around to testing the thing out the other day. Long story short, it is a marvelous lens, noticeably better optically than the 80 mm f/2.8.

Tasting notes: Ilford HP5+ exposed at ISO 800 and pushed two stops in DDX 1+4.

Quotidien?

The tulip magnolia blooms tend to be among the first signs of spring each year. They are so diverse, it is difficult not to want to stop and photograph them. These are the fundamental experiences of our existence, why would we not want to record them? If you want to understand your art, start with the quotidian, says moi. Anyway, even though the temperatures are still pretty frosty here in the Deep South, I know a new season is about to arrive. I'm so tired of cold toes. Conditions on my walk yesterday were pretty perfect -- good enough at least to make any of my cameras look good. 

Tasting notes: Photographed with a Fujifilm X30, a camera overlooked in it's day, but apparently, no longer. 

Slow Horses

I checked in this morning with Tuesday’s Valentine flower. Still looking good, even in the mixed illumination produced by the warm room light and the northern ambient light. Guess I could have turned the room light off. But I was shooting with a slow lens and needed all the light I could collect in a fraction of a second at f/8.

Have a lit weekend, fellow traveler.
 

Years Later

At the time I made this photograph, it ended up overlooked, a bit of an afterthought in the over all group of images. Not one of the final selects, that is for sure. I mean, it was just a quick grab inside an abandoned mill that didn't really vibe with the rest of the images. Years later, though, and this image is one of my favorite compositions, something different. The old mill project has long since been forgotten and the documentary photographs I made are gathering dust just like what is left of the physical structure. But this impulsive grab may end up with a new life as fodder for art.

Rough Around The Edges

At the start of the pandemic when things were locked down and so many were dying in New York, I photographed the hedges around our property. It was the temporary boundary of my world for a few weeks. I went for a hard black and white conversion and a heavy handed vignette. I like how these three turned out. They remind me of the uncertainty of that little window of time.  

Walls and Photographs

Do walls last longer than photographs? Sometimes I think that must certainly be the case. They are made out of stone after all... On the other hand, I think that only a hand full of people have ever laid eyes on this particular wall. Does the number of views actually matter? One thing is certain, it takes much more physical energy and time to produce a wall than it does to make a photograph. Would your photos be better if you had to labor harder to produce them? 

Helios Overture

I tend to forget how important seeing the sun is to me. For the past week, it has been particularly gloomy, but today, I plan to bathe myself in photons. As far as today's image is concerned, as much as anyone, I like seeing the hand of the artist in work. Fact is, sometimes a straight up image is fine, too. 

Abstract and Two Dimensional

I found this photograph in the same (virtual) pile as the one from yesterday. It is presented straight out of the scanner. While I'm no longer posting wall shots like this to Flickr as I did back in the glory days of the internet, I find I still respond to these kinds of textures and compositions.  I gravitated to this image right away, just like when I took the original photograph. Just who I am, I reckon, abstract and two-dimensional...

The fact is, these photos are like sketches to me now. They find their way into my art in more indirect ways. I should probably be more diligent about printing them out and putting them into a sketchbook. 

What's important to you, fellow traveler?

 

Dev, Scan, Forget...

A few years ago, I felt like I was at the top of my game at the old day job. Yeah, man, I was the cock of the freakin' walk, struttin' my stuff. A real bad ass of the capitalist system. But I digress... I definitely still needed my shutter therapy sessions as much as I ever did. In fact, those sessions are probably what kept me 'sane' in the first place. I found these film scans from back in the day totally untouched in a rarely visited corner of my photo catalog. The red blotches on the negative are the telltale signs of Cinestill film. Confronted with the image, I can still recall lining up the shot. Can you remember your past photo sessions?

Passing Photographic Obsessions

Going through my archive of images from a trip to Charleston, SC a few years ago, it would appear that during that trip I had developed a temporary fascination with creeping fig. This is based on the statistically significant number of photographs including the stuff. My interest in the subject has long since passed, I can assure you, but I sure do have an abundance of creeping fig photos to ponder. This photograph makes me smile because it does a nice job of illustrating the 'creeping' aspect.

Low Key Celebration

I'm not a huge football fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do love guacamole. I'm thinking about guac. So, we will probably have an informal celebration this weekend featuring our favorite Super Bowl snacks. I don't know if we will stream the game in the background or not -- I'll just have to call an audible I reckon. 

Nice, but What is It?

Is it obvious what this photograph depicts, and does it even matter? It may not matter much in the grand scheme of things, but "Nice, but what is it?" can sure be an annoying question when you show off a set of abstract photographs. As the artist, you might prefer discussing gesture, emotion, form. But the idea that photographs are and index of reality is hard to shake. This can work to the photographer's advantage, too, of course...

The Art the Crop

Going back through a set of images after a certain amount of time has elapsed, I'll often discover new compositions hiding in plain sight within old frames. Pictures within pictures, in other words. For me, for some reason, extensive cropping has always been something that I've tended to avoid. Over time, I've taught myself to be more free in altering the frame. At the end of the day, it is the final image that matters. In this connection, I always think of that famous portrait of Igor Stravinsky by photographer Arnold Newman. 

Morning Stretch

This morning, like most, I wanted to get a short warm-up in. Photographic warm up, I mean. In other words, finding a few compositions within the few hundred square feet I occupy in the morning. I was moving too slow to get a shot of the fox that showed up in the yard, making its rounds, but fingers crossed for tomorrow. I'll try to be ready. In the meantime, you gotta work with what's in your immediate environment. So I'm glad we live in a nice environment. It helps to surround yourself with beautiful things.

Tasting notes: Fujifilm X-S1 in b/w mode.

Superzoom Fever Dreams

I reckon I'm no Steve Jobs, but then again, in general I prefer lurking in the shadows, sitting on the back bench, sawing away on the double bass to seeking any kind lime light. I'm cool with my low profile. But anyway, the point I wanted to make is that even if I was smart, I never would have come up with the idea of combining a telephone and a camera because I kinda hate phones. I'm biased, man. Truth be told, I prefer talking on my watch, but that's a topic for another day... But anyway, my vision for the future of camera tech was the increasingly capable and miniature superzoom camera. Funny, right? Almost the exact opposite of how history actually played out. But now, a decade later, the superzoom camera with its enormous telephoto reach, is the one type of camera that can do what a phone can't. Like getting decent shots of things far in the distance. The Fujifilm X-S1, the only superzoom I have left, with it's wild 633mm field of view on the long end, was brought to market at precisely the wrong time in 2011, when the iPhone was just hitting its stride and 'serious' photographers were demanding more and more megapixels from the massive DSLRs hanging around their necks. But these days, with everything being shared on little screens, perhaps it is time to start carrying a superzoom in your sling. Just a thought...

The Organic and the Manmade

Numerous small arrays of solar panels dotted the landscape in the parts of Japan I recently visited. I found these manmade structures to be a bit of an eyesore, to be honest, and tried to exclude them from my photographs as much as possible. On the other hand, I considered the greenhouses to be interesting subject matter, and sought them out. Go figure.

 

Trifecta

The rounded corners on the lower bouts of certain double basses are known as Busseto corners, named after the township in Northern Italy where Verdi spent time. It is also the region famous for Parma ham. Opera, ham, and bass -- one kind of trifecta.

A Little Me Time

One of the upsides of traveling in Winter is that there are not many tourists around, locals or otherwise. So you get to experience places alone. It was a bit of a schlep up to this pagoda, but once there, I spent ten minutes experiencing the scene with no one else present. I got my shots. When I revisit later, during warmer months, I won't be bothered so much about all the tourists milling around obstructing my view. I will feel free to take other kinds of photographs.  

Conventional Wisdom

The conventional wisdom is that the golden hours before sunset and after dawn are the best time to photograph, but the fact is that we spend most of our time while traveling dealing with whatever light happens to be present. In a two or three week visit, you can't be too picky about light or you'd come home with only a handful of images. Fact is, there can be interesting light at all times of the day, you just need to be sensitive to it.

 
Another bit of conventional wisdom is that the plastic-y zoom lens that came with your camera is a total piece of rubbish. Many folks sell them ASAP on the second hand market. Thanks to this particular bias among photographers, I picked up a pristine copy of a 24-105 mm zoom for a mere $200. It ended up being the perfect travel companion, a more than decent imager, feather light, and easily tucked away in my carry-on bag.