Memories and Projects

the farmhouse, 2016

 Over the past few weeks I have been diligently going through my various hard drives and consolidating my image files onto one 4TB hard drive.  I am appalled at how poorly I used to organize my scans.  On top of that, I find that I have probably lost some files that had been previously on a Mac.  Once I am done, I will then recopy the newly assembled files onto several 1TB hard drives, and erase the old drives that had previously stored all my backups.  One thing is apparent -- I have shot a lot of digital images over the past 12 years.  Even though I also shoot even more film now than I did 15 years ago, I still have quite a few digital images, though I would say that the number has dropped considerably from a few years ago.  It's also given me a chance to revisit images that I haven't looked at in a while.   In some cases, I can see where a series of images from different years could easily be a project, or even a publication, were I inclined to forge ahead with them. I will be considering that aspect more seriously in the coming months.  Some images meant a great deal to me at the time, and in retrospect, have less interest to me now, and others that I may have thought less of at the time, and may even hardly remember now, have more significance.  That's the thing when I shoot digital -- it's easy to take a lot of photographs and experiment with the lenses and controls at the time of exposure to make a shot "just so."  The instant feedback is certainly a creative bonus.  However, I found that some of the results were exactly what I was getting with some of my "toy cameras," where I may have only taken one shot of a scene.

I am enjoying looking at images from 10 years ago, and seeing how my photography has changed -- not just subject matter, but also the quality of the image.  I will still be shooting some similar subjects as a decade ago, but am choosier about it now.

Along the way, I looked at a series of images from June 2016, when we were visiting my mother-in-law (Charlotte Murphy) and family for her 90th birthday.  Looking at them now, I was probably thinking at the time -- when will we be back to her house again?  I shot a series of images inside the house that to me, captured how I would always think of her home.  Charlotte is still doing well at 92, and I am impressed with her mental acuity and ability to be on her own.  I tell her she's my favorite MIL, and that always get a bit of a chuckle.  After knowing her for 42 years, she's probably heard most of my jokes at least twice.

the road to the farm

apple trees

Cat and stairs

Corner cupboard

Family 

Living room with desk and empty gun rack

Mementos on the mantle

There is a different look to the two sets of images - indoors vs outdoors.  The interior images, taken in the quiet morning are relatively sharp and focused.  The "memories"  are the objects depicting memories.  Trinkets from trips, photographs, paintings, and the accumulation of a lifetime.  These are purposefully shot to indicate those things.  On the other hand, the outdoor images, shot with a CCTV lens on a Nikon 1J1 camera,  are blurred, in soft-focus, and somewhat surreal.  That's because we have a memory of the farm as it once was - a working dairy farm with many acres of land and crops.  Now, it's a horse farm, owned by someone else, and partitioned off.   While I photographed it in 2016, my mind was still imagining the scene of 40 years ago.    That's how minds work.  Our reality is shaped by our experiences.  Memories are plastic, as well.  I think this is why toy cameras such as the Diana and the Holga are great at producing images that make us think of memories.

old silos

fence and trees

The flag

As I looked through the images from the farm, I realized that I have many such series that have "photo essay" all over them.  I will try and do more of these in the coming months.

Walker Evans, Wright Morris and Lee Friedlander share a cabin

Well, not really.  However, while we were staying at the tiny cabin along the AuTrain River in late August, I spent about 40 minutes doing some shooting inside the cabin. It was morning, Adrienne was still asleep, and I was feeling a bit  creative.  I got out my Nikon F3HP with a 50mm lens, tripod,  and did some shots of the interior.  I finished scanning in the Kentmere 100 negatives, and as I edited them, it occurred to me that there were elements I had seen before, made by other, earlier photographers that for whatever motivations, did the same thing at some point.  So, here are some images that I made, and you can decide who would have shot what, had they been there.

Finding My Way in Photography

meta-Sudek.

Last night I was reading the latest issue of Lens Work (No. 115) and an essay by Brooks Jensen ("Those Who Inspire Me") featured comments about Ansel Adams and Josef Sudek -- two photographers that could not be more opposite in terms of recognition, subject matter, and methodology.  Yet, both were dedicated to their craft and vision.  Of the two, Sudek's work is more introspective, moody, but no less beautiful than prints by St. Ansel.   His subject matter is much more limited in scope, as many of his photographs were taken in his studio in Prague.  But to me, what I found interesting was that Sudek was no less dedicated than Adams, no less absorbed in realizing the quality of light was the key to defining an image, and no less productive, having a career that ended with his death in 1976, at the age of 83.
This morning, still thinking about Sudek, I pulled out my copy of the monograph of Josef Sudek that was produced by Sonja Bullaty -- a beautifully-printed volume that was published in 1980, and given to me by my mentor Bill Brudon in 2001 or so.  As I read the introductory text and turned the pages, I realized that I  have a better appreciation for Sudek's work now than I did as an emerging photographer in 2001.  I didn't know what I didn't know back then.  Photography is not about the gear, the lenses, the latest film, the latest megapixels, or the latest body from Canon, Nikon, or Sony.   Photography is about your vision, and how you convey it to others.  Just as painting isn't about the tools and paints, photography should not be about the tools.  It's the end result, of whatever technique and tools that you used to convey your vision.  Knowing HOW to use those tools to do your work IS important.  And that is the key in my mind -- achieving competency with the tools takes time, as does the evolving nature of one's photographic pursuit.  I first got serious about photography in 2000, after, using cameras since 1972 or so.  I wanted to be more proficient with macro photography because a) I was an entomologist and b) because I was unhappy with my results at the time.  I soon learned the techniques and the tools required to do what I needed, and along the way, I found myself drawn into photography not as a means to an end, but as a form of self-expression.    It's taken me a decade to figure out what my vision is, but I think I am getting there.  I recently explained my thought process about a series of images to a couple of people that wanted to know about how I shot my photos at my latest exhibit. I recall saying "Of course it doesn't look like this in reality, but this is how I feel it."
I think that sums up Sudek's work - he truly felt whatever properties of what he was photographing, and carried those feelings into his images.  He contact-printed almost all of his images, so he had to get what he wanted pretty much in camera.   There is a quote by him that I will end with:
"I believe a lot in instinct. One should never dull it by wanting to know everything."

One Subject, Many Possibilities

Those people that know my style of photography are never surprised when I am on a photo shoot - road trip and find me trying to decide which camera(s) to bring along on that particular day. We often hear the refrain "the camera doesn't matter." I beg to differ. The camera matters a lot. Whether I want to shoot with a toy camera, a Nikon SLR, film or digital, 35mm or 120 film, hell -- even a Polaroid, these are all choices that make the final image of any given subject a reflection of the camera and materials used to capture it. Here is a case in point:

Take one exotic vegetable that I have only seen previously on Flickr -- Broccoli Romanesque (actually a cauliflower), which I finally picked up at a local store. Could I capture its interesting quality? Apart from the obvious Fibonacci/Fractal connection, the broccoli head and the leaves surrounding it had great texture and possibilities for a still-life.

So, before we had the vegetable for dinner, I spent an evening photographing it with several different cameras set on a matte black backdrop and used one incandescent light for the light source.

Shot with the Nikon D70s and the 60mm macro lens:


Using the Polaroid SX-70 and 600 series film:


Using my Canon Powershot, and shooting in manual b&w mode:



and finally, shot with my Hasselblad 501C, 80mm lens, and a +3 diopter on Fortepan 200 film (probably shot at f5.6 here):



Obviously, each camera helped me create different images. I love the Polaroid image and the Hasselblad shot is very nice. So, I think this shows that the camera does make a difference, as does the person using it. Maybe the next test is to take the same camera, same subject, same set, and let a few different photographers shoot. Could be an interesting exercise!