end of an era

Of course I knew it was coming. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. This is the last of my transparency film images to be processed by my local lab. A circuit board in the processing machine has died, and John Stubblefield has decided he doesn't do enough chrome work to justify repairing the machine. I'm assuming he's still doing negative film, since he accepted a sheet of FP4. But I've never been a fan of negative material, much preferring the immediacy of transparency. I can set them on the light table and see the image without having to scan and print a contact sheet. Looks as if I'm going to have to start shipping film out to a lab if I want to continue using my preferred Astia & Ektachrome G, in any format. But especially in 4x5 sheets.

Concurrent with this sad news is the announcement of a new Nikon camera, the D800, which I have mostly no interest in. Looks like another boring black dslr. Nonetheless, it's certain to be imminently more useable in more situations than my fifty year old Linhof Tech IV. On the other hand, I actually enjoy composing an image that is upside down and backwards.

The nails in the coffin are being driven closer to home. Bummer, dude.

visions of lovliness

"Christmas Eggs" - 24 December 2011

There is something about technical difficulties of a chosen format, and the manner in which they are solved. We often seem to go in the direction that is the most difficult solution, rather than the other way around.

For many large format photographers, because of the size of the "sensor" aka film, the challenge is to get enough DoF to have anything outside a very small area in focus. So we use camera movements to achieve something approaching complete focus within the image. If something is OoF, then we've failed. (Unless there was a conscious decision to limit focus severely, or there are elements in the composition from very near to very far that are very tall.)

On the other hand, for small sensor photographers using devices such as Point & Shoot or 4/3 or even 35mm, the challenge is to get an area that is OoF, since it's easy to get everything in focus. Instead we use fast lenses to achieve razor thin DoF, praising gorgeous bokeh in the blurred portions of the image.

I don't know what this says, other than that we seem to be technical contrarians. We're in search of something that not every technician can achieve.

Ricky Maynard in Virginia

A rather fascinating exhibit is currently at one of our local museums, the Kluge-Ruhe space. Here is some info about this show of photographic prints by Tasmanian native Ricky Maynard. I'm not certain that he works exclusively with a large format camera, but Ricky did tell me at the show opening that his landscape work is often done with a "5 x 4." He spoke about the difficulties of working with a bellows camera in the frequent winds off the Southern Indian Ocean. The portraits of native elders from Queensland are fabulous images of people we rarely see in these parts, despite our cosmopolitan proclivities.

Most of the images in the current Kluge-Ruhe show can be seen here.

A 2 part video about Ricky's "Portrait of a Distant Land" project can be seen here and here. Interesting to see a large format landscape photographer go about his work. Turns out, he works mostly with an 8 x 10 Ebony, and does all his printing in a wet darkroom.

welcome to NJ pt. 2

click 'er for biggerApparently it was a slow day. Or more likely the officer was new to the job and needed some experience. Details of my encounter with the CSX police can be found here. I was warned because I was supposedly within 24 feet of a railroad track. This photo is pretty good evidence that I was on the edge of the road, probably about 25 feet away from the track that runs down the middle of a public road. But who's quibbling? Believe it or not, the railroad was not what I was photographing. I probably won't be returning to South Kearny, N.J. any time soon.

another instance of my inability to conform

click 'er for bigger

This is a photograph that could benefit from an audio component. Or at least it would make the reality of its nature more immediate. But as I wrestle with what it is that I want to do with a motion picture capture device, it is fairly obvious that what "typically" works is not a collection of still images, even complimented with sound. The question that is posed by director Peter Watkins in his critique of the media and film making, is whether we can find other means of communication through visual media that transcends the hegemony of the three act structure of virtually all story telling.

This extreme crisis for global civil society AND for the environment, falls into six principal areas under examination: • the role of the American MAVM [Mass Audio Visual Media], with their disastrous impact on global politics, social life, and culture • the somewhat less obvious, but equally dangerous role of the MAVM in most other countries • the role of global media educators (encouraging young people to enter the mass media as acquiescent professionals, or to accept the mass media as passive consumers) • the role of film festivals and of film makers themselves • the complex role of the counter-culture movement • the role of the public.

Crucial to Watkins' analysis of the MAVM is his examination of the Monoform:

To explain to new readers: The MONOFORM is the internal language-form (editing, narrative structure, etc.) used by TV and the commercial cinema to present their messages. It is the densely packed and rapidly edited barrage of images and sounds, the 'seamless' yet fragmented modular structure which we all know so well. This language-form appeared early on in the cinema, with the work of pioneers such as D.W.Griffith, and others who developed techniques of rapid editing, montage, parallel action, cutting between long shots/close shots, etc. Now it also includes dense layers of music, voice and sound effects, abrupt cutting for shock effect, emotion-arousing music saturating every scene, rhythmic dialogue patterns, and endlessly moving cameras.

He proposes alternative ways of viewing (see especially this section of his statement), and that the entire process of media production become more democratic through subjects and audiences becoming involved and a part of the means of communication.  After all, the word implies some sort of two way process, rather than the simple passivity of a silent audience in a cinema or on the couch in the living room.

Can a lone landscape photographer find a way through this minefield?

power people

click 'er for bigger

Perhaps time to find out where they go? In our case, the coal fields of south Virginia and West Virginia.

being neighborly

click 'er for bigger

As flat as this composition might seem, there is a density to it that reallty draws me in. It says a lot about where we live. The four man made objects in the man made landscape attempt to exert their presence over the surrounding vegetation. But there is little doubt that those four objects and the infrastructure they represent have a limited lifespan that will require constant maintanence.

Yikes!

click 'er for bigger - one MORE snow?

Not really. This one has been sitting around the in/out box for several months, and I know there was a reason I liked the composition in the first place. Usually I can set up the Linhof in a matter of a couple of minutes, but for some reason it seemed to take upwards of almost ten minutes for this set up. Maybe that's why I'm posting it: after such an expenditure of time, I might as well do something with it.

But that's hardly the reason the image caught my eye. I've tried to figure this out before, mostly to no avail, and this time doesn't appear to be much different. It was something about the combination of colors and planes, and the imagined history of this well used back door to an abandoned Chinese restaraunt. Many workers coming and going, stepping outside for a smoke, illicit dealings after hours, all long gone and forgotten. Most or all of which can't be contained in a photograph. They function merely as evidence for storytellers and historians.

now that it's receeding...

 click 'er for bigger

More old news, but continuing in the trend of showing what the camera saw, here it is. Claire's is probably better.

never ending fascination

click 'er for bigger

thanks to CLW for this one

We've had a lot of this stuff around here lately, the cause of much consternation and anguish. Including a 50+ hour power outtage last weekend. Through that ordeal, we tried to maintain our humor - and some warmth as the interior temp of the house dipped into the 40's at night. Photography helped me through, so there are going to be some more of these pictures coming along in the near future.