Rodney Smith

If there is one photographer whom I have admired and tried to emulate over the years, it is Rodney Smith.  I never knew much about him except that when I ran across photos in magazines that really resonated with me, it more often then not turned out to be an image by Smith.  When I read about his working methods which apparently involved arriving on the set by himself with one camera, no lights and a bunch of film stuck in his pockets, I was totally smitten.

To my great delight I ran across his blog yesterday.  I had no idea that he was maintaining  one.  It is titled “The End Starts Here.” Like his photographs, it is extremely elegant, witty, honest, and to me totally fascinating.  It blows my mind that there are hardly any comments on his posts, indicating that the number of comments does not equate to anything, certainly does not reflect the quality of the work.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall…”

Hmm, on my screen the image comes out a bit green, when I click on it to go to the silghtly bigger version, it looks better.

New web site

Here is a link to the new website I am developing.  I would appreciate it if you could take a look and give me feed-back.

Warning: It changes from day to day.

“I’m afraid it means leaving you…”

Another of my text/photo images – see post below.

v3 Tallahassee Pecha Kucha Night

1998project

This coming Thursday we will have our ‘volume 3′ Pecha Kucha Night at the 621 Gallery in Tallahassee.
I’ll be talking about my highway 19/98 project, and here is the slide show that will accompany the talk.

Huckleberrey’s

This morning, on my way back from Cedar Key, I finally got a chance to stop and get breakfast at Huckleberry’s in Fanning Springs. There is a photo of the outside of Huckleberry’s in a post below.
An egg, bacon, grits and a piece of toast were $2.45. It all was served very informally in a styrofoam container, and I had a choice of sitting inside in the air-conditioning, or outside in the screened in area. Since the inside looked more interesting, I sat there, on a counter with the prominently displayed ‘Concealed Weapon Permit” number of, I presume the owner.
On the way out, I gave a copy of the outside, panorama print to the cashier, hoping to stop by again, and do some more photos.

Ovation TV | Sally Mann: What Remains

Here is a wonderful video about Sally Mann working with Collodion.

“The Vortex”

"Screen Door"

Road Trip on US19/98 – Tallahassee – Cedar Key, Florida

Made with Slideshow Embed Tool

Since the mid 80’s I have been driving back and forth between Cedar Key and Tallahassee, on highways 19 and 98, a lot. I always wanted to photograph the funky buildings and scenes along that rather deserted stretch of four lane highway. It seems to be ’stuck in time.’

Well, so far I have not gotten around to it, so I started photographing with my digital camera as I was driving or riding along. With dirty windshield, motion blurs and tilts all part of the ’scene.’ Not at all the kind of work I had been doing. At first I did not care for it at all, and then it grew on me, and I became obsessed with it. Thanks to Alexandria’s encouragement and editing, I managed to layout a ‘blurb’ book and get it printed. These are screen shots from the book.

19/98

By christian harkness

Book Preview

Cedar Key WaterWomen

A tribute to female clam farmers in Cedar Key, Florida

Jeanine Beckham learned her left hand from her right by building crab traps. She still recalls one of the first lessons of the skill. “You have to start twisting the wire from the left, or the trap will buckle and become deformed.” Such are the secrets of the women who were raised crabbing and fishing the waters of Cedar Key, a small island community on the west coast of Florida. People have fished there for generations, but when commercial gillnetting was banned in 1994, they turned to clam farming, learning to read the bottom with their feet, and heaving huge bags of clams onto boats. I had the privilege of watching these women race their boats in and out of obscure channel markers to make a new kind of living from the water. Strong and unassuming, they are an exceptional window into a proud way of life.

“The pace here is real slow. I figure, why wear a watch when you live by the tide? Watching the water go in and out is much more appealing than looking at my wrist.” —Diana Topping

“I helped my father with shark fishing and crabbing when I was young. After the net ban, he taught me clamming, then dropped me off out in the water on a lease. It was tough, but I wanted it.” —April Reynolds

“My father died while harvesting oysters on Corrigan’s Reef when I was ten months old. My mother set a great example by being a strong water woman. She taught us how to help shuck oysters and build crab traps.” —Jeanine Beckham

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.

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.

Word Cloud

If you would like to see what the text in this blog looks like in a Wordle word cloud click on the image below.

“For Sale”

From this morning’s walk in downtown, Williston, Florida.

Manoel de Oliveira

Some food for thought from the March 9, 2008 issue of the NYT:

Some more collages ….

visitors map

It is always interesting to see where my web site hits come from. Here is a recent map showing where each hit originated.  Interesting pattern, now, if I could just figure out what it means.