Camera phones are ok!

With the ’switch’ to digital photography, it has seemed to be next to impossible to stay away from the every accelerating camera specifications, yielding more and more technically spectacular images. Working with my film cameras and ‘ancient’ Sony Cybershot, I at times feel as though I have gone from the ‘mainstream’ to the ‘tailend stream.’  So, it was nice to see a short piece in the December 14, Sunday Styles section of the NYT about “…supermodel turned fashion and art photographer…’ Helena Christensen’s method of working with “…archaic camera phones…” and other krappy cameras.

Cyanotype

Normally I don’t show stuff that I am not happy with, but I will make an exception here.  This is the first print, a Cyanotype, I made from a digital negative in our new studio, aka the garage.

My timer did not work when I made the exposure, so I counted seconds in my head.  The image could have used quite a bit more sun exposure.  I am used to giving my Cyanotypes about 3 to 3.5 minutes of exposure when standing on the porch of the Cedar Key Arts Center.  Here in Tallahassee the sun strength should be about the same, but the negative was pretty dense.  I will try again in a few days.

The paper is Arches Cover.  I like it, although I never see it as one of the papers listed in discussions about proper papers for Cyanotype and VanDyke Brown prints.

A link to my new book:

19/98

By christian harkness

Book Preview

Terzoocchio exhibit in Fukuoka, Japan

I know it is a bit late, but here are some shots from the Terzoocchio Exhibit in Fukuoka Japan. A group show, which had some of my work in it.  Here is a web page with a video from the exhibit.

This is a photo of a portion of the exhibition space with some of my work in the left hand corner – get out your magnifying glass. Seriously, I am really impressed by the venue and size and scope of the exhibit.  Many, many thanks to Stefano Bernadoni for orgnizing this impressive event and to Roberto Mutti for curating it.

19/98 Published

Since about 1994, I have driven the highways between Cedar Key and Tallahassee, Florida on a frequent basis. Except for the thirty-mile stretch from Cedar Key to Chiefland, the road is a four-lane, divided highway. It runs up the northwestern part of the state, and is probably one of the least crowded four lane roads in Florida. It also goes through some of the most rural, poor and conservative parts of the state. I am sure that, when the road was built, there was great expectation that it would bring traffic, tourist, and prosperity to the lands adjacent to the highway. After all, it is the most direct link between the capital and the Tampa/ St.Petersburg area of Florida. Somehow, the traffic has not yet come, which is a blessing when you drive that stretch of the road. However, it also means that much of the scenery along the highway has not changed appreciably in over 25 years or so. The old motels are still there, sometimes refurbished and sometimes just left over ruins, or empty building. Old gas stations, long out of service sit by the side of the highway, used for sheltering old cars and other junk.

In other words, it is just the kind of place I have always wanted to take a large format camera, and do formal pictures in the manner of the f64 Group, or Sally Mann’s “Southland” series. Of course, I never got around to it. So, I finally just grabbed my digital ‘point&shoot’ and started photographing driving or riding. At first, I was not satisfied with the images I got. For starters, I am pretty much wedded to black&white film work, and was not comfortable with color. Secondly, because of photographing through the windshield, which I don’t keep sparkling clean, and not being able to keep the camera level, or properly focused, or even on the subject, the images fell totally short of my expectations. Then it just clicked, this is what it really looks like when I am driving. I only see snatches of the scenery at a time. They are ‘out of the corner’ of my eye. They are blurry and I do see them through my dirty windshield, and I don’t stop the car, get out, and leisurely view every old, decrepit, and interesting looking structure. This image actually convey the feeling of what it looks and feels like driving this stretch of road much better than any other type of photography I had been considering.

I assembled the photos into my ‘blurb’ book 19/98. Those numbers are the highway’s designation between Perry and Chiefland. Highway 98 actually peels off to the west in Perry, following Florida’s Panhandle coastline, but in my mind, I have always used the shorthand designation 1998 for the entire trip, and so it made sense to use it for the title of the book.

Alexandria was a wonderful editor and designer when I put it all together, and without her encouragement it would still be just a concept. You can preview the book on the ‘blurb’ website. Or, if you would like, you can see the whole layout in slide show format.I will also be posting some of the images on my web site.

Negatives

I am not a very organized person.  The one thing of mine that is fairly organized are my black & white negatives.  After developing them, I cut them up and put them into 8.5×11 inch negative sleeves, five images across, and six strips down per page.  Then I number and annotate the negative page.  My number consists of the last two digits of the year, the month, and which roll of film it is within that month.  Like this: 081201 – that means the film was shot in December 2008, and it was the first roll of the month.  Negatives for that roll are then numbered according to the number on the film, thus: 081201-15, this works nicely, and when I list negative numbers on the computer, they sort themselves nicely by year and month.

Now that I am scanning a lot of them in a somewhat systematic way, I do continue to come across some that I never printed because I just did not see their potential as a silver print.  However, with Photoshop I am finding that often I can get them to look exactly as I wanted them to be when I first took them, but was not able to do that in the darkroom.

This one is an example of what I mean.  It is a portrait of a friend that on the contact sheet just did not look promising.  I knew what I wanted when I took it, but then was disappointed by the resulting contact sheet – but now, voila, I have what I had been looking for.

Zero 2000 – pinhole “In the Doorway”

The Zero 2000 camera is one of my favorite pinhole cameras.  It uses 120 film and has an extremely wide angel of view.  If one has a light meter, the exposures actually come out pretty well if you count seconds in your head while exposing the film.  Of course, there is no viewfinder, and it is always an extremely educated guess as to what will show up in the negative.  Usually I photograph landscapes with it, this is one of the few people shots I have, and I sure wish I had more.  Just have to remember to have it on me next time I do some portraits.