“Suwannee Spirits”

In one of the posts below I refer to the “old Jiffy” in downtown, Cedar Key. The other night I went down there after sun set to get some photos. My intention was to get enough good images for a ‘joiner.’ However, it did not work out that way. Nevertheless, I did get this single image of the public phone [rare these days] and the sign to the liquor store portion of the convenience store.

Some more film/digital thoughts

I don’t seems to be able to get off the film/digital comparison. It’s not technical questions I have but esthetic ones, I guess. In the process of scanning some of my film, [mostly 35mm] I am left with the impression that some of them have the distinct looks of relics. Here is one that is only six years old, but has a look that I just don’t see much anymore, either in magazines or on the web. This reinforces my theory that digital is a construct; at first it was trying very hard to look like the results one would get with film photography. However, very quickly those using it produced images that got away from the film/print look in a hurry. People discovered that exciting looking images could be made in a huge variety of ways, images that would have been extremely difficult or more often, impossible to make with film and enlargers. I think we will see this difference widening at an ever accelerating pace, and it is going to be super interesting to follow, be surprised, and hopefully also delighted at some of the results.

The Jiffy, two people, two cruisers…..

I continue being intrigued by the ability to ‘merge’ my images, and thus, to my mind come up with scenes that are much closer to what I experienced when taking the photos, then if I were to restrict myself to the traditional, single image. I also appreciate and enjoy the roughness of the merge. Not everybody’s ‘cup of tea”, I am sure. On the sidelines of this photo you have a guy getting obnoxiously loud and argumentative over the cell phone, while a young women, apparently a friend walks up to him. At about that time two police cruisers pull into the parking lot, on the left. There seems to be a connection between the guy on the phone and the cruisers, but I could not make out what it was.

Negatives and digital

In working with digital and film I have come to greatly appreciate my system of filing my negatives with the contact sheets. It makes it so great to look over past work, and reevaluate my negatives. Every time I look at them, I bring something new to them. Having worked out some digital work flows that add interest to negatives I previously found lacking in some respect, makes for great joy and wonderful surprises. I still firmly believe that one has to start with a good image, in order to end up with a good image. However, the digital process has opened many new avenues of approach for me that I greatly appreciate.

19/98 – Work-in-Progress

The drive from Cedar Key to Tallahassee, FL is about 150 miles, and mostly on a four lane, divided highway which has several number designation. A good portion of it is highways 19 and 98, so I simply refer to the entire stretch as ‘1998’. The part I drive is through rural counties which still look much like they did thirty or so years ago, with loads of interesting and funky buildings and places. For years I have said to myself that I needed to take my twin lens reflex and a tripod and start photographing the sights along the way.
Last week I finally concluded I would never get around to doing that, and if I still want some images of that part of rural Florida, I just needed to go ahead and photograph as I was driving or riding that road. So here are some of the ‘work-in-progress’ photos of my ‘Florida 1998’ project.