Kitschy

This old Christmas tree was one of my mother's favorite decorations. At least that is what I tell myself, since it is one of the last surviving items from those long gone days. It is precious to me in all of its kitschy goodness. Somehow, too, it reminds me of the old Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer animated show from the middle of the last century. This year, the funky little tree is sitting in front of a mirror in the living room. 

The bokeh comes from the Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 lens mounted on the period correct Rolleiflex SL66. It was shot on HP5+ and developed in DDX. I'm slowly getting in the holiday spirit.

Romancing the phone

I've got to hand it to the famous fruit company. Their phone, watch and tablet all work in concert to have my back. It's weirdly comforting, sometimes. Other times, it's weirdly creepy. My tablet fishes out old photographs from my stream and features them on my Home Screen, and so, a different image from the past greets me every morning. At first, I thought this was a silly gimmick, but over time I've grown to kind of appreciate it. My technology has a different set of biases about photography than I do, and brings many overlooked images and memories to my attention. Like this image from 2008, the dawn of the phone photography era. We went to our first farm-to-table event just outside of Atlanta and my EDC camera at the time was the iPhone 3G. The camera had an amazing 2 MP of resolution. While I'm used to feeling nostalgic about old prints, romancing phone photos from the past is going to take a little getting used to.

Nostalgia -- to taste

 

I hit the wall yesterday after lunch and decided to make some French press coffee to get a little extra energy flowing. I can tell how strong it is by how much half and half I need to add. It was a bracing cup, let's put it that way. I enjoyed seeing the reflection of the trees in the surface of my favorite beverage as well as in the puddle on the table. I ended up having a reasonably productive afternoon. I had just watched a video presented by photographer Alec Soth who at one point mentioned that he enjoys shooting on both film and digital. He talked about how nostalgia can present a major challenge for photographers using film. And yet, many of us respond very strongly to the qualities of analogue processes for reasons other than just nostalgia. I think the color shifts, imperfections, and other properties of film can be used to artistic advantage without drawing undue attention to themselves. In some ways, the use of film simulations, filters and the like on digital images to make them appear analogue is a more egregious example of creeping nostalgia than using film for a given project. 

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.