Time Travel

She didn't talk about it at all with us kids, or maybe I've just forgotten about it, but my mother journeyed to Japan before she had children or was even married. I think the experience made a significant impression on her, because she remained interested in Japanese art her whole life. So it was interesting to visit this department store in Tokyo and experience some of the same things, like this giant sculpture, that she did so long ago.

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?

 

Personal Images

Many of our photographs end up being what you might term 'personal images'. Stuff that is mostly of interest to us and us alone. These images often do not resonate with many others it would seem. Problem is, sometimes it's hard to tell, you know? Like when you post something you are particularly keen on to IG and it goes over like a led balloon. I'm sure you've been there. That's certainly one way to identify your 'personal' work, but it sure is not the most pleasant. For instance, the subject matter of this image is not epic by any stretch, but I'm interested in the color of the water and in how all the colors work together overall. The interplay of the reds, ochres and blues are interesting to me.

So, fellow travelers, good light to you this weekend, and I hope you find time to make some personal work.

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.