where does this leave us?

 

 
click 'er for bigger

Knowing I can usually knock these kinds of images out without too much trouble, I opted to do something completely different. I had the time, so all I had to do was make the effort. In fact my efforts went beyond my capabilities to keep up with them on film. At some point during the week I must have gotten in contact with four or five more people than I could find the time to go photograph.

So yeah, the project for the week - which really managed to center me for the workshop - was to photograph people working. It's an expansion of my efforts to get pictures of construction people. There was some of that, but rather broader too. I was concerned now and again that it was too broad, but it served as a suitable excuse to work with as many people I know as possible. If I'd not come up with a "project" like this, I know I would have really been lost @ sea. Others in the group expressed some serious feelings of disorientation because they had to find something to photograph in such a short period of time without knowing much of anything about Charlottesville. In a way, I wish I could have been more assistance to them. But alas, I was already by the second day rather deep into a schedule of appointments with a variety of people.

Tuesday was my heaviest day of work when I returned to the Coiner scrap yard and spent some time meeting and talking to the operator of the Liebherr trackhoe in the yard. Eventually I got a couple of photographs of him with the machine. Bill wasn't impressed. From there I stopped at the Laundry Building to see who I could find there. Fortunately Ed Brown of  Frontrunner Signs was there, and we did two exposures. Bill thought they were overexposed. Ed called around to the other side of the building for me to where his wife Tavia shares space with Martha Keith. I got a couple of really nice exposures with Martha, and had a wonderful conversation with her during the process, primarily about tools. (She may have more than I do.) I was rather nervous during the setup, because it was such a lovely setting and I didn't want to screw it up. My out loud thoughts were that I felt like I had to rely to a certain extent upon habitual processes, running in worn grooves through somewhat mechanical procedures in order to be assured that the check list is worked through. Results are satisfactory, although focus is on Martha's hands rather than her eyes. Once again Bill was unimpressed. After class - actually during it, I had to cut out early to make the appointment - I headed over to the university to work with Dave Metcalf in one of the lecture halls. Wide shot, closer, closer. Five exposures, three different emulsions, all fine in terms of exposure, but because they were in the 3 second range, Dave is not particularly sharp. Bill didn't even really look at these.

A wonderful day in which I think a learned a fair amount about working with people and setting them in an environment and giving some direction. What I've also learned is that I can do this "project" with the 4 x 5, but that many of the places I would like to go are inside, so some kind of supplemental light is going to be necessary due to the inadequacy of existing "natural" light and the horrendous color that it often is. I've got to learn how to work with flash, most likely even if I was to work exclusively in b&w - which I don't think I'm inclined to do. This is the piece of equipment I've neglected the most, and now that I'm doing people, it's the one that I need to learn the most.  I'd like to be able to practice with some digital equipment, but have nothing that will synch with an external flash. The excuse til now has mostly been that I didn't want to be burdened with another piece of equipment to set up and bother people with. But if I'm going to go to the trouble to meet with people and disrupt their schedules to pose for me, then I need to be sure that I'm getting something useable. Unfortunately, I don't think the exposures with Dave are useable beyond contact print size.

All in all, not much personal feedback from Bill Allard. The comments that he made over and over during the few days we were together: "Take it apart. Break it down." Eventually I heard him add what we were supposed to do after that: "Put it back together." What he was trying to get at is to look at every element in the composition and move the camera to a position so that all those elements communicate their respective importance as powerfully as possible. His amazing ability is to read nearly every inch of a photograph in a split second. With that ability one is able to make the slight adjustments that might be necessary to improve the clarity of the composition. The other question we heard over and over was: "Is it sharp?" To which Michael Bednar proposed to paraphrase Dustin Hoffman's answer in Marathon Man. "Oh yeah, it's totally sharp."