Booksmart/Blurb 19/98 book

It is coming along.  On the last trip to Cedar Key I got another bunch of images.  Unfortunately I did not get one of me changing the right rear tire after it blew out, shortly after leaving Talllahassee.  We are making another very quick trip down ’south’ this Saturday; down and back in one day.  Hopefully that will yield a batch of new images.

I do have to concentrate on getting some good Tallahassee images this coming week, to round out this side of the trip.

This is what the pages are going to look like. My plan is to get the book out before Christmas.  If you are interested in getting a copy, drop me a line or leave a comment.

Diana in b&w and color

When posting images it is my feeling that I should submit only current work. So, what’s up with my suddenly posting older work. As always, I think my work on this blog should reflect what I am doing in the moment. If I am working in the darkroom, I slap the wet print on the bathroom wall to let it ‘drip-dry.’ Then, if I like it, I scan and post it.

Well, at the moment, I am going – for the first time – through my negatives in a more or less systematic manner, scanning them. Although I should just scan and file, I can’t resist working on some older interesting negative in a new way, or even ‘discover’ negatives that I never printed before. So, that is what is happening now. If you see a notation with my posting that looks like this: 2000/08, it means that the photo was originally taken in 2000 and reworked in 2008. Hope you don’t mind, and bear with me. One thing I promise, I am only posting stuff on which I am currently working.

ps. b&w negative scanned as color neg. 2000/08

Sally Mann

What Remains

I feel hopelessly behind in internet savy at times.  One such realization just hit when I discovered these two Sally Mann videos on YouTube.  I image those of you who check this blog now and than are well aware of all the rich material that is available on YouTube.  However, just in case you missed it.  Here are the links to the two videos:

In Response to Place

“Hot Chicken”

This weekend I went to CK again, and hoped to get more photos for my 19/98 book.  Only about twenty miles or so south of Tallahassee, my right rear tire blew. On my spare I drove to the nearest place I could get a new tire, and that seemed to be the Wal-Mart in Chiefland, the tire place in Chiefland I usually go to when I need new tires was closed. Wal-Mart had a tire sale and I got away with paying only $138.oo for two new tires. I had to wait about 2 hours, passing my time at the McDonald’s in the store, reading a magazine, and taking a couple of photos. This is my favorite from that occasion.

19/98 Blurb Book

I am in the process of laying out my 19/98 photos [the post below] in a Blurb Book.  This will be my third one. For me, this kind of ‘work-flow’ is a good way to visualize the flow of the story, and finding the photographic holes in the visual narrative.  Alexandria is always a great help in organizing the images, and I should have gotten her more involved in my previous books. I thouhgt I had quite a few images already, but looking at the preview of the book it quickly became evident that much work needs to be done.  So, it will be a while before the thing is finished.

T Magazine – “The French New Wave”

This past Sunday the New York Times published another one in its series of T Magazines, this one the Style Magazine, “The French New Wave.”  Paolo Roversi did the cover shot of Eva Green, and inside there are ten pages of his portraits.

I have always loved and admired his work, and to me it is great to be able to hold some of it in my hand, just because I get the Sunday NYT. Of course you can go to the T web site, but it seems to be designed for those with a 3 second attention span, and an inate desire to multi task everything. Plus, so far, I have been able to find only two of the portraits there – perhaps more are tucked away behing a ‘click’ I have not found.

A Sense of Place – Susana Raab

Earlier this month I caught Susana Raab’s blog announcement  of her new “magazine/catalog from [her] series on Southern writers, A Sense of Place.”  She sweetened the deal by “offer[ing] up the first 30 of these zines, with a limited edition (to 30, natch) 6″ print of faulkner’s telephone for the low,low, introductory price of $20, incl shipping and handling.”

I really like the immidicacy of this type of zine or book publication and could not resist.  I think I was one of the first few to place an order.  The catalog arrived promptly, with a hand labled address and an attractive stamp on the cover.

When in college I heard Faulkner speak in Charlottesville, Va.  If I remember correctly, among other things he railed against a Kennedy invitation to come to the White House for some function [perhaps it was one in conjunction with his Nobel prize.].

To me, the most nostalgic photo in the catalog is the one of his typewriter with a can of “My Mixture” Dunhill pipe tobacco on the side.  I don’t recall the number of the ‘My Mixture” I used to smoke, but I remember vividly that they ‘cut me off’ for a bunch of late payments on my part, when I was in Viet-Nam.  C’est la guerre.

If Susana has some issues left, go buy some.  It is a wonderful way of supporting your favorite talented photographers.

Overlooked ‘Mermaid Smoke’

I am still scanning older negatives and finding interesting images that I overlooked the ‘first’ time around in the darkroom.  This is one of them.  I guess at the time I thought it was too much out of focus, eventhough I was not adverse to printing out-of-focus work when I thought it appropriate.  Anyhow, I am glad I came across it again in Photoshop.

Quo vadis?

I am finally going through my film files and scanning and filing them in a more systematic way. If I were organized and systematic, I would simply scan and file, scan and file. However, I can’t resist processing interesting negatives in Photoshop. Some of them I never really printed before, other I process digitally with a different look than I would have given them in the darkroom, or could have given them in the darkroom. Examples of some grainy/textured ones are in the posts below.

When just doing film, it was relatively easy for me to keep a somewhat consistent look to my photos. Of course that is actually easier with digital processing, but the temptation to monkey around with them is greater for me in the digital ‘darkroom.’

Texture

For most of my 35mm work I use Fuji Neopan 1600, even in the bright outdoors.  When I first started doing that, I would get critical queries as to why I wanted to use such a grainy film, when the available light did not dictate it.  My simple answer was that I like the texture, and I like the flexibility it gave me when it came to shutter speeds and f-stops.

Going back through my work, and scanning the negatives, I have discovered that in many cases I can enhance the texture I so love, in a way that I was not able to do it in the darkroom.  So, now I have become even more obsessed with texture, and love what I am able to do with it.

The ’sisters’ image below is an example of the type of result I like, and here is another one.

The imperfection of pinhole work

The exposure was a wild guess & it was long, so whatever sharpness there might have been in this pinhole image, had it been on a tripod, it was further degraded.  Still, the mood and atmosphere come through.  To me it is another example that it is not the equipment that makes the picture.

I often chide myself for not using the pinhole approach more often.  I simply love the idea of making a meaningful photography with just a ‘box’ and a hole made with a sewing needle.

‘Suwannee Dawn’ collage

For me, one of the joys of working digitally is making superimposed collages, something I have never done in the darkroom, although multiple exposures surely can be made that way. However, I certainly could never control them as well in the darkroom as I can in Photoshop. This one is a combination film and digital piece.