another edge - closer to home

more from on the edges

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on the edges

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While on a trip yesterday in search of the older Henrico County Courthouse, I was lured into this "wasteland" across the river from developed, downtown Richmond. Others may gravitate towards shops and restaraunts and bars and crowds. I am looking for evidence of some wilder aspect of life. Something that shows the natural world still abounds, even when dotted with steel towers and criss crossed by steel rails. It's a fabulous world of imagination, something like the Zone of Tarkovsky's Stalker. Without the resources of a famous Russian film maker, or those evident in the recent Crewdson book Beneath the Roses, I'm left to make pictures of what I saw one afternoon while scouting around an industrial landscape.

one of those places

 

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We've all got them as photographers. The place that we drive past daily or weekly, trying desperately to figure out what it is that draws our attention, but never quite figuring out how to present/photograph either. This one is behind the airport rental car service area. I've tried to photograph it before - without much success. This past Saturday I was in the vicinity once again. This time in a pouring rain, and it was obvious that what's been missing from the view of this landscape is the reason for this feature's existence: water. P&S in hand, I went out in the rain, got moderately wet, and got a picture that finally makes some sense to me.

It's another good example of having a tool along that can help with the capture, even during inhospitable weather conditions.

upgrade - whether you want it or not

Yikes! A good thing I finally looked at the Landscapist again. Mark's entry for today alerted me to the "upgrade" we've received by the Squarespace host. It's going to take some time to get it sorted out again, back to some semblance of what it had been. I've lost my banner and have been changed to a three column format that doesn't really suit me. Hang on while I go through the necessary changes to get things to look better. It doesn't appear as if there's any going back to the old layout. It is possible to revert to the original manmadewilderness layout, but apparently functionality is diminished. It's time for a new look here anyway. Any comments about that?

new additions

 

A couple of "new" images added to the "Continued Exploration...in progress" page. 

vernacular

 

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While thinking about this location, which is on the other side of the crown of the watershed from where I headed this morning, I was reminded of another location from three and a half years ago, which can be seen here. There are obviously a number of similar elements, but it was the Quicksand sign that really did it for me. It's not in view in this one above, but there was a sign at the edge of the frame seen in another exposure that didn't capture the overall view as well as the one that's been posted. I went for the better view of the two eras of architecture that stand buttt to butt across a diminishingly small "natural" area.

The quicksand warning has got to be someone's wry idea of a joke. Does anyone really believe such a thing exists - in Virginia? Yet another illusion manufactured by the image makers in Hollywood, that has become embedded in the popular culture. Some more vernacular, in the imagination.

let them free!

Be sure and check the Continued Exploration page to see more images not in the original exhibition.

Bed of Grass redux

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Here's the actual  bed of grass from earlier in the week. 

Bed of Grass

 

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While waiting for Claire during her violin lesson on Monday, I went into the no man's land at the end of the runway. (This is going to be intentionally vague, BTW.) If ever there was a Man Made Wilderness, this is one.  It was a fairly productive 45 minutes: 60 images. I was in some kind of photographic zone, but I'm afraid it was a "quantity" not "quality" one.

There are several observations about this issue, one that has been discussed elsewhere until the life of it has been drained totally dry. But I've got to add my two cents anyway.

When I go on one of these photographic sprees, it feels as if I'm using a shotgun approach to the location. It's a nice departure to look for a moment,  take an exposure , turn around, take an exposure, move a few feet, take an exposure , turn around again, take another exposure. It's  a release of the critical judgement that comes into play when using the large format. I can't work fast enough to operate in this manner, and the box of exposures would be too costly. But the shotgun technique hits a lot of different objects slightly, whereas taking the time to set up the 4 x 5 doesn't necessarily guarantee better results, but it does tend to force me to find the essence of the location and work on that in only a few exposures. It feels like I'm pre editing and digging in deeper than the casual glances of snapping away at everything.

The disparity in quality between a piece of 4 x 5 film and a 7 mega pixel p&s digicam is so great that my consideration of the end results it severely skewed towards the large format. I can't really take these "snapshots" very seriously, and I don't think it's the amount of effort involved to gather the images that is the issue. Or is it?

I study the 60 exposures that I came home with from Monday afternoon and think, "Hmmm, not too bad. Some decent stuff. Can't do anything with it (except post it on Man Made Wilderness.)"

I study three or four 4 x 5 exposures from a longer session in the field, and often think a pretty fair number of them look really nice. Better than decent. "Hmmm,  what am I going to do with this? Wish I could afford to make 4 foot x 5 foot prints. But where would they go, anyway?"

In fact, it looks as if the amount of time required to produce what appears to be fairly similar results on a web site is absolutely the issue. Given the ability to have the same result, why would you opt to spend more time on a given activity?

I'm still not ready to make the move to digital, though. 

Amongst Other Things...

After some help from tech support, the direct link to the thumbnail page works fine. It's moved down the page, but is certainly visible. Does anyone still need to be instructed to click on an image or text to start slideshows or enlarge an image?

Make it Easy For Them

By now the web site appears to function properly, and brother Roger has made a good suggestion to try to streamline the slideshow function in the gallery view of thumbnails and images. I've sent off a question to Squarespace about this and we'll see what they suggest.

Bill McCormick called yesterday after receiving the post card. He was having trouble getting on the website. This caused some concern, and a request to Roger that he confirm that all was functioning. It seems to be fine from his location. So Bill, try again. Get online before you enter the url, or something. And thanks again for the call.

Put together three more prints this afternoon, and after those it was time to do something else. Even with everything ready and right there in front of me, I can't do this for more than an hour or so. If my work table was higher and I didn't have to lean over quite so far, it might be a bit easier. Instead I'm over here fiddling with other parts. Only three more prints and frames to assemble. I can't imagine the work involved to put together 30 or 40 frames, much less the cost.

More publicity material is the thing now. Print deadlines are probably approaching fast. I'm having trouble getting the pdf of the show down to a manageable size so that people will open it. I guess I can't put all the images in the file. Encountered Twan - the owner of C'ville Coffee - on the mall Friday night peddling his Honeycakes. He mentioned something about sending pictures to the papers. His point is to do as much as possible for the section writers. I can do that.