Well, now it is REALLY the time of year when I'd rather be in the darkroom than outside with the camera.  Out there the windchill is in the teens, the light is dull, and the old snow is visually boring.  However, the darkroom is warm, and snug, and it's time to make prints that I can hold in my hand instead of looking at on a computer screen.  Actually, I've been in the darkroom a lot during the last two weeks printing for a group show at the Wallkill River Gallery, but now that work is done, and it's been fun to look through old negatives to see what I may have overlooked in the past, or decided I now like better than I did when they were made.  Below is a scan of one of those negatives that I've never printed, but often remembered as being worth some time working with, so I'll probably print it tomorrow.  It may go well with some of the Cape Cod photographs I've been printing even though it's from Fernandina, Florida eight years ago.  One more reason I love film is that I might have long since either lost, deleted, or corrupted this if it were a digital file due to my own carelessness. Again, to those of you who accumulate pixels, be diligent with your data...back it up, and keep the storage medium current. 

This photograph taken last June at Natirar (Raritan backwards) in New Jersey is particularly important to  me.  It has a very wabi-sabi affect...the bridge's decay, and the spring's floral renewal...has a powerful resonance of my father's world of the Philadelphia of his youth.  So many places we visited in Fairmount Park, Germantown, and along the Schulkyl River in my early childhood had this 19th century ethos about them, that it has become an indelible emotional chord.  I am not a student of Asian or Japanese culture, but some of the few elements I have come to understand are remarkable and valuable additions to my linear and "contemporary" American world view. It's good to go slowly, and savor the moment. 

Behind our house is a secret treasure of great beauty.  The secret gets out when the fog rolls in, or the snow covers every branch and twig, or a wonderful light suffuses the woods.   It's almost embarassing to relate how easy it is to throw open a window and point the camera where the eye rests, or carry the camera out on the deck with not much more than a robe and slippers to confront the weather.   As it says over on the right, it just isn't necessary to travel very far to find film worthy subjects...they're in our own backyard.

 

This past weekend was so springlike that, if you closed your eyes to the fallen leaves and November light, you would have thought you were enjoying a late April day. I decided to visit GPMSP* with the 4x5 (which I've not used for quite a while) to photograph these particular trees in this particular way. I've thought of both of them as an homage to Michael Kenna's Retrospective Two, but with a sardonic poke at the contemporary photofashionistas who seem to decry unalloyed beauty, and demand irony in the only work they insist is currently worthy.









*Goose Pond Mountain State Park

Last week's walk in Goosepond Mountain State Park couldn't be repeated this weekend because of the rain, mud, and general dreariness, but here are a couple more from then. I think the more one is familiar with a place it becomes both harder to photograph because of that familiarity, and yet more rewarding to photograph when you can break through, and see it freshly. The variables that contribute to this are time of day, season, weather, and light. At least one of these will nearly always be different. The discipline is to be there often, and with openness to each.

Well, so much for the notion that the weather was going to send me into the darkroom and studio, and much less often outside. It's been unseasonably mild and gorgeous which makes time in the darkroom totally uninviting until it's dark outside at least. Here are two from a couple of rolls that I exposed on a lovely walk this past Sunday. Shorts and a tee shirt again in November?? Wonderful!

Last Sunday was a gorgeous mid-autumn day that lured us out to the black dirt farming region of Orange County. My wife, a friend, and I stopped by the road and spent a considerable amount of time photographing the 'scape. Susan and Mark, using digicams, fired off eleventeen scadzillion exposures to my 30 film frames, but we'll see who ended up with what...;-)...(it's all good!!!). We ended our intensely absorbing afternoon at the abandoned farm buildings and silos in the first photograph below, and had earlier explored the roadside view of the plowed and irrigated fields in the second image. I am amused at my decision to abandon tripod, and mirror lock-up, and guesstimate the exposure with a polarizing filter for the silos image. It worked out fairly well, but it certainly isn't my usual technique....oh! the thrill of perilous adventure!!! ;-)

It's important to me to emphasize that what you see here are scans of negatives, not prints, that have been adjusted in PhotoShop in the direction I will likely pursue when and if they are printed as actual reflected light images on paper. I have been very tentative about posting such work here because the paper prints are better by orders of magnitude, but I really want to share the "vision thing" (hehe...) nonetheless.

It is about to be the season for me to feel it's okay to stay in the darkroom on a Saturday with only a brief foray outside for exercise and/or photography. It's going to be cold and nasty, and the warm womby darkroom will be a happy place to work without regrets for the lack of outdoor exposure.

It's a great tribute to master photographers that their "vintage" prints (those made at or near the time of their taking or their initial printing even if at a later date) are regarded as prime by dealers and gallerists. For those of us who inhabit a lesser sphere, the revelation that later printing that has had the benefit of long term percolation can vastly improve our initial attempts can be dramatic and thrilling. Below are three photographs that have been posted here before, but have been floundering around in my head as not very worthwhile as final prints. Using the magic of Photoshop as a tool with which to play, I've altered the original rather prosaic virtual "prints" into versions I'm far happier with and which I can very competently render in the darkroom with my traditional workflow.

So... what you see here is typical of the kind of work I'll be doing for the near future...i.e revisiting old work, and printing what I've not been able to get to. There may not be much or anything new, and there may be untypical lapses in posting, but I'm working on making better final images than ever, and that takes time.......

Autumn has come to the wetland, and with it the wind and the rich color that fades all too soon. For one who photographs in monochrome, it's a challenge to separate value from chroma knowing that only the values will be registered on film. The two images below were made to record the wind (the leaves are a mess...almost unidentifiable) in the tree, and the suppliance of the reeds.

What these two photographs represent is a pleasant memory of a quiet, and tranquil walk in a place that has become as intimately known to me as my own face. Neither is remarkable, nor particularly memorable, but if they were pages in a book about this wonderful, simple place, they would certainly belong there as much as any other.

I spent some amiable time that afternoon talking to a couple of delightful people who have known this terrain for some 80 years. They were enjoying a walk on ground they've known a generation longer than I've been alive. Their love for each other was palpable..profoundly comfortable, and deeply, deeply familiar. Both have wonderful faces that speak of a rich, and happy life together. I'm beginning to view my relationship with the wetland in a similar way.

As this is a blog, and not a website where the posted work should be the best one can make, this entry is just a "for instance". It's an example of the dilemma that confronts the photographer who is still loyal to the imperatives of modernism as defined by Adams, Weston, and their legions of disciples who continue to make photographs in that tradition to this day. But also, a photographer who's imagination is entertained by revisiting the pictorialists and their many modern practitioners who've reinvented that art and revitalized it. "Alt processes" now inhabit the photographic landscape in significant numbers, perhaps because artists demand to have a robust and active hand in making their art rather than to have to slavishly serve the authors of algorithms.

The pictures below are two versions of the same scene at nearly the same time. I had gotten to this place (Lakes Road beside the east end of Walton Lake...that's in "upstate" Orange County, New York, folks) just a bit too late for the excellent light that had been there moments before. I decided to play with selective focus, and sharp focus because I'm more and more intrigued by the former after being addicted to the latter for most of my work. Were the light on the foreground leaves, the top image would have been the clear choice for me. As it had just disappeared, the bottom 'graph made sense because of the graphic values that remained. Neither will be likely to ever be printed, but these have value to me as lessons learned...or at least considered. And, the exercise serves as one more invitation to be more playful and experimental. It's an amusing mystery to imagine what my posts might look like two years from now....Yikes!

It's that melancholic time of year when mid-afternoon's sunlight dancing on golden leaves too soon gives way to deep sylvan shadows, and redolent misty air. Evening encroaches ever earlier. It has been noted by those who are the gatekeepers of art that "unalloyed beauty" is suspect....too easy, and not intellectually challenging. Such writers fail to appreciate that the "alloy" can be a union of the viewers spirit with the image that brings him to a private, personal, and unique place. Each of us is original, hence each of us experiences art uniquely. Perhaps that is really all that is necessary.

It's been a few weeks since I've posted anything here, and even longer since I've posted a photograph, but I am posting the one below because I want to be able to look at it away from this 'puter. It's a place of great solitude, and natural stillness, and to visit it online during a stressful day at work is a genuine treat. It's of a boardwalk that is suspended over a small section of the wetlands at Goose Pond Mountain State Park. This summer has been unusually wet, and there has been an absolute riot of growth in these fields of rich soil and abundant moisture.

The 5 PM sun was quite low here, and there's a slight lens flare hot spot on the near planking even though I used my hand to help shade the lens beyond what the actual lens shade was able to do but I don't think it intrudes too much. I've toned this negative scan in PhotoShop to more closely approximate the actual rich warmth I'm getting in my prints now using the thiocarbamide and selenium prescription I wrote about below (September 2nd).

This post is for the eleven people on the planet who care about such things, but here goes nonetheless: my current toning regimen with thiocarbamide and selenium . Tim Rudman's excellent (and currently out of print and expensive to buy used) "The Photographer's Toning Book, The Definitive Guide" has been a bible of sorts for this exploration.

To achieve a chromatic tonal pallette more or less like the PhotoShop filter I've used on the more recent negative scans below, a variable sepia toning process can be used. It involves purchasing the chemicals: thiocarbamide, potassium bromide, potassium ferricyanide (no...it won't kill you unless you're stupid careless), and sodium hydroxide (which will burn your skin off in a trice if you don't wear protective gloves, goggles, apron and magic amulet..it's commonly known as lye), and those were purchased from Photographers' Formulary. Dr. Rudman's book gives a recipe for a stock solution of the bleach, toner, and activator, but the adventure lies in tweaking the brew till it suits one's taste (aesthetic taste, of course). Here's what I've settled on for the moment, which may change a bit as I get familiar wtih it on different images:

Pot Ferri bleach: 10% solution for 30 to 40 seconds
Thiocarbamide toner with Sodium Hydroxide activator" 950 ml of 9 to 1 dilute toner with 50 ml of activator for 2 minutes or until full redevelopment seems to have been achieved.
Thorough washing need to be done between each step, and then a 4 minute bath in selenium 1:10 and a final 30+ minute wash.

Serve with coffee or scotch depending on the time of day.

Well, I was mistaken. Photography IS possible in August...especially when it rains. The photographs below were made on our deck between downpours. It wasn't fun standing in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity, but art is a demanding taskmaster and must be obeyed. (big wink...I'm not that impressed with myself. As my mother often said, those who love themselves too well have no rivals. She was wise.)

I don't know the name of this flower, but Susan has arranged for it to grow vinelike (and a vine it may well be) around and through some branches cut from a dead tree we had to have felled which are wired to our deck's railing. The birds love to come and perch there, and this plant seems to thrive on the armature the branches have become.

I seem to be most often drawn to a lens that offers about a 65 to 80mm lens view in 35mm terms. Each of the cameras I use has one lens that more or less fits that way of seeing. In this case it's the 135mm lens on the P67. That lens also has some macro capability, so it's well suited to this subject. We'll see what else compels me to put the camera(s) to work in the coming two weeks before the summer ends for me.

August is a terrible month for photography around here. The light is harsh, the weather is hot, humid, and not conducive to "getting out there", and since I've not yet succumbed to the current craze for last light, or no light (i.e. night) photography there won't be much if any film exposed. I was also so disappointed in the rest of the film I shot in North Carolina that I choose not to post any of it here.

But...there are a helluvalotta negatives I've yet to print, and the two scans below are among them. The other challenge is to finally lash myself to the "wet side" of the darkroom, and work on selenium and sepia toning until it meets my expectations, which are quite high.

It's a paradox that during the academic work year I long for unstructured time away, but when it finally arrives I find myself mired in inertia. Yes, the movies I've watched were good to see...the extra sleep was welcome and needed, contemplation of my navel needed renewed attention, and general laziness has a worthy place in a well balanced life. But, getting stuff done that makes one happy is a low stress imperative that I need to adhere to in the waning weeks of vacation (which is actually a lifestyle change), so to the grindstone I shall commit my nose forthwith. Well...maybe tomorrow...;-)

"The South" is not what I grew up thinking it was...witness a teeshirt I saw for sale in North Carolina that boldly proclaimed: "Paddle Faster, I hear Banjo Music" Well, that may or may not be funny, but as a caricature, it's close to what I was raised to expect. The civil rights movement also made an indelible impression of a culture so antithetical to mine that I early on told the woman I would eventually marry, who is in fact a southerner, that I wondered what was the point in venturing anywhere "below" Washington, DC.

I've come to know better. The states from Virginia to Florida that I've just begun to become familiar with are beautiful, interesting, cultured, artistic, and totally worthy of respect and high regard. They have a difficult history, as do the northern states. So what!

My time spent in Georgia and North Carolina has been immensely rewarding. The two images below were made on the property of the rented cabin we spent several days enjoying in North Carolina. I'd have posted images from our day in Savannah, GA as well, but I didn't make any...too much to absorb in too little time to make photographs. There will be some more images to come from our little hike at Linville Falls. I hope you enjoy these two.

For the past ten years I've been assistant principal cello in an excellent professional orchestra that performs for nascent, and experienced conductors at an upstate NY college during the month of July. These conductors are there to improve every aspect of their approach to the conductor's art which is exceptionally demanding, and highly stressful. We are there to perform significant repertoire in a way that accurately mirrors what they, the conductors, are attempting to show through gesture. This month the repertoire includes Mozart-Jupiter Symphony, Beethoven-Symphony No. 8, Brahms-3rd Symphony, Mahler-5th Symphony, Ravel-Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2, Bartok-Concerto for Orchestra, Stravinsky-Rite of Spring, Berlioz-Symphoy Fantastique, a wonderful full string orchestra version of Shostakovitch-String Quartet No. 8, and a yet to be chosen contemporary work that will have a world premier at the end of the month. Sooooo.....I just haven't got time to make photographs, nor post here this month. I need to be able to play these pieces well, and be flexible enough to modify what one conductor chooses to do, with the next, and possibly different approach that may immediately follow.

I thank you who visit here regularly for doing so, but there will not be any new posts till sometime in August I expect. Ironically, my drive to and from Bard College is a gorgeous one, and I'd love to be able to stop and make photographs, but it just can't be done. So...please visit as often as you'd like to review past work, but nothing new will appear for a few weeks.

Bye for now!

These three photographs were made a little over a week ago when I first noticed how over-its-banks the Wallkill River had become from preternaturally heavy rains. But now the rains have continued, and I'm going to have to go check out how much higher the water may have risen out where these were taken (very near Montgomery, NY where our gallery is located). I'm not used to seeing tree trunks in water, and their lower hanging branches bobbing in the rapid flow, so there may be some more good stuff to photograph.

They are scans of 4x5 negatives made with the Shen Hao and my 250mm Fujinon lens that I love to use. But....that is one big honkin lens, and the Benro K-2 ball head just isn't doing the job of holding it very well, so I'm going to return to using the Bogen 410 geared head that is as rigid as a wingnut conspiracy theorist. I paid less than $100 for the Benro (only to then read that some consider it to be a GPS..and no, I do not refer to the satellite guidance thingie.) and it works very well with my other two medium format cameras, so I still feel it's an okay piece of kit, but if I win the lottery, I'm going to get me one whoop-di-doo Arca Swiss B-1 or B2 that'll hold a howitzer in a hurricane. But there's that pesky hurdle of first winning the lottery ....sigh!! (Must remember to buy ticket...must buy ticket...must buy ticket....!!!)

I have just officially saved myself about $120 at the very least. Why? Because I decided not to send my new-to-me Mamiya C330 to a camera repair shop to have the light seals replaced. Instead, I bought a repair kit on-line from ebay for about $10 including shipping, and did it myself. I did try this earlier using the self-adhesive soft half of a strip of Velcro without any success at all, so I'm really glad I found the right stuff to use this time.

The images below are from two different rolls of long expired HP5 (2002) that I used to check the results. Woohoo! success! There's no discernible photon penetration in places that shouldn't be penetrated by photons especially in the upper 'graph which was made in very bright and intense sunlight. And, happily, the film itself seemed to have done well despite its alleged terminal status.