The voluminous landscape

We were lucky to get tickets to Glenstone, and spent a great day there the other day. It was hot and humid, enough to regret not wearing shorts, but not bad enough to induce fainting. I enjoyed myself among the sculpture, as I always do, and had a few successes and failures on the photographic front. The photograph above shows a black and white version of Richard Serra’s ‘Contour’ in the landscape, and this perspective was one of my favorites. I was able to come to some level of understanding of how the piece works in the landscape and got some nice images. On the other hand, I struggled with ‘Sylvester’, the other Serra sculpture at Glenstone. Walking through the maze-like structure was disorienting — and that is part of the intent. But none of my photographs really communicated much about the experience and that was certainly a bit disappointing. Luckily, we are returning in September.

Irresistible

June and July have been pretty rainy around here until about the last week, when hot summer weather kicked in in earnest. The sunflowers in the yard all started blooming at about the same time. No matter how many times I see them, I end up taking photographs of sunflowers.  In some way, they are much like the human face. Each one is unique in its imperfections, with plenty for the eye to explore, and, hence, worth photographing. The fact that there were a few insects crawling around was so much the better. In this case, I liked the black and white conversion the best. I was trying to mimic the look of infrared film, or rather give just a hint of it, in the final image.

Have a fine weekend with good light. 

Step right up

When my son was very young, five or six years old, we’d sometimes go to one of those stores where everything costs one dollar. It was just for fun, usually on the way home from some other adventure. We’d pick up a couple of goofy toys or a can of Vienna sausages (really). Did you know that Vienna rhymes with hyena? Anyway, the other day I went into one of those chain hobby stores for the first time. I needed to pick up a few art supplies and didn’t want to deal with the long drive to one of the fancy places. I saw a bag of sponges for about a dollar, so I said, ‘what the heck’, and tossed them into my basket along with the oil paints. One of the little sponges is pretty cute, as it turns out. It is always interesting to observe how the camera records what you point it at. It is something that I never get tired of. But the best part of the entire experience was triggering that memory from so long ago. 

How’d THAT happen? 😮

At a certain point in your photographic journey, you expect to see 12 decent images when you pull a roll of 120 out of the developing tank. Plus, you should be able to recall more or less what you did for each frame, especially if you develop the roll immediately after exposing it. So, I was pretty surprised when I saw this image on a roll of Tri-X. First, I don’t remember composing the image or pressing the shutter button. Then, it is apparent that nothing, and I mean nothing, is in sharp focus despite there also being almost no motion blur. Which means I misfocused, plain and simple. There are words for unpleasant bokeh like nervous or jittery. Also, pentagonal. So the image misses on all counts. Yet, in spite of, or maybe because of these qualities, I am a little bit fond of the final result. It’s a minor keeper, to coin a phrase.

Rolleiflex SL66, 80mm lens, Tri-X, Decaffenol.

Frugal IR

I’ve never been a big fan of digital IR photography, especially ‘color’ IR, with its overtly trippy aesthetic, but I still wanted to give it a try since it is becoming harder and harder to find IR sensitive film. After hunting around online for a couple of hours, I purchased a very old Canon 5D that had been converted to IR imaging. It was in well used condition and only set me back a couple of hundred bucks. The first lens I slapped on the front of the camera was an old lensbaby. I figured the lens’s quirks would cover up any focus errors, something I had neglected to consider when going the penny pinching route. Later, I invested in a Voigtländer APO 90mm lens to help even more, but the funky old lensbaby was a fun combination. I think I still prefer the monochrome images better (old biases die hard), but with a bit of work the color images can work. So far, though, I have not been able to come up with a good project involving IR images, but the Canon 5D sure is a pleasant camera to shoot. 

Fuji-san

Most of us end up going through old family photos from time to time, often when a loved one passes, or when we move into a new house and need to consolidate. I came across this image of Mount Fuji a couple of years ago when we relocated. It was taken by my mother sometime in the 1950s, before my parents were married or possibly even knew each other. It was one of the images I felt compelled to digitize. Strange to imagine your parents’s lives from before you existed. What I do remember is that my mom was always fascinated by Asian art. It is interesting to think about how early life experiences can shape our sense of the world.

The tyranny of the grid

In contrast to astrophotography, sometimes you point the camera at the subject, compose to taste, trip the shutter, and voila, the image looks more or less complete as captured. Straight out of camera. SOOC. No need to add a bunch of frames together to reduce noise, correct for vignetting, color grade. No post visualization. None of that. Here I was playing a game of lightning photography, looking for compositions, textures and colors on a walk. Will we ever escape the tyranny of the grid? Do we even want to? Well, I’m afraid those are topics for another day.