Dec 1, 2019 | Blog
I have been in Civita di Bagnoregio for the past month shooting pinhole photographs on a fellowship. Civita is a surreal, isolated hilltop town north of Rome and I fell in love with It. It survived largely due to the work of an architect, Astra Zarina and her husband Tony Costa Heywood, also an architect. Read this article to learn what Astra Zarina did with her fascinating life. (Astra Zarina). The Civita Institute, known also as NIAUSI, now manages the houses and awards fellowships to all types of people, among many other things. Their website, civitainstitute.org has so much information: you should go there and read about it.
So this is what I did.
I put 35 cameras from the Pinhole Project around the town when I first arrived. They were loaded with paper. Since these needed a good thirty days of exposure, I put them up right away. Not in the plan was how much rain there was, I mean a lot of rain and wind which soaked and moved the cameras: some so wet that I had to pour the water out when I retrieved them. The tape used to stick the cameras up did not work at all with the tuff, the rock of Civita. Instead I put the cameras on downspouts, railings, fences and trees. One went in a car. Some got taped to windows inside.
The response from the citizens of Civita was gracious and for that I am grateful. They seemed interested, respectful and kind. Not one of the cameras was taken down or messed with. Apparently there are no pinhole bandits about the area. I have retrieved the cameras I put up and am in Rome right now. The paper negatives have been removed from the cans and are in a light tight box waiting to be scanned; several cans have been given to interested people with which to make images to be retrieved later. I will scan my negatives as soon I as I get home! I also have 32 rolls of 120 C-41 (color negative) film from my Zero 2000. This film is waiting to be developed along with 30 sheets of 4 x 5 C-41 film shot in my Leonardo. All of that film, once it is developed can be scanned and shared. I have been researching developing my own color negatives but am a wee bit nervous to start with this batch. I have been told that it is easy and would certainly be less expensive. Please chime in if you have done this type of development before or want to help!
I also shot a lot of iphone photographs. I have always loved that camera. I will probably make a little book of these images. I have been publishing them on Instagram as a way to keep in touch with everyone and everything. It felt good to publish to Instagram which worked when nothing else did but What’s App. (What’s Up with that?) I will do a blog post of some that did not make it to instagram in the future. I just have to say: I hate the selfie stick and do not understand the need to photograph oneself in front of historical places or monuments or landscapes. I have never used the iphone in this manner. And I never will. Just saying.
I did not intend to but started also to work seriously at night with my DSLR. I brought it along as a kind of polaroid for the pinholes and was glad I did despite how heavy it was. The rain would stop and the town would glisten. Since the images are digital, I have been working on them and have posted some previously unfacebooked images here.
Patience. It will no doubt take me at least four or even six weeks or longer to get these pinhole photographs done. I do hope there is something valuable there that will intrigue me and you and enlighten us both. I learned some interesting concepts living in Civita: that I can eat well, make art and be happy that I actually forgot to lock the door at night. Photography at night is more physically demanding than the day but digital makes it seem easy. Digital gives us that shot of instant gratification. In the meantime, here are some night photographs as promised. Grazie a tutti cari lettori! Buona Sera!
Some Titles:
Moonrise in Civita
Night Delivery
The Arch Fantasma
Boar Hunting in the Moonlight
From the Street: A Home
Other Images are untitled so far.
Featured Image: Outside Alma’s: Toward the Ape
Feb 15, 2016 | Blog
I am happy to announce that ten images from my Nighttime Portfolio have been chosen for the Blue Sky Gallery’s Pacific NW Viewing Drawers. The gallery is located in Portland, Oregon. These images are a part of the 2016 juried selections for the Viewing Drawers program and will be available at the Gallery for a year. Blue Sky, www.blueskygallery.org/ is a fantastic place, a must see in Portland for anyone who cares about photography. I am honored to be in these hallowed halls.
My Nighttime Portfolio is made up mostly of images made in the Seattle neighborhoods of Georgetown and South Park over the last five years or so. I began the series because I felt a need to document the rebuilding of the Argo Bridge a few blocks from my studio. As the old Bridge was demolished so was the quick walk and/or drive over to Georgetown from South Sodo. I simply did not have time to photograph the Bridge consistently during the day and I found that at night, the workers were gone, the train yards were still active and no one seemed to care if I was out there wandering around with a camera and a tripod. It was a great setting in which to stumble about and shoot my heart out. Many students accompanied me on these forays as well and I thank them for that. Below are the ten images chosen for the Viewing Drawers. They will be available from April 7th on. Stop by if you are in Portland. PS: the featured image is titled, Lucille Crossing, 2013.
South Park Bridge, Rebuilt, 2014
Under the Argo Bridge, 2012
Behind the Hanger Cafe, 2013
Albro Street between 13th Avenue South and Stanley Street, 2015
Off Airport Way, north of the Argo Bridge, 2015
13th Avenue South. 2014
Alley off Stanley Street, 2014
Along Airport Way at South Vale Street, 2015
Corner of Stanley Street and Albro Avenue, Looking North, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 | Blog
Since I am both a teacher of photography and a photographer who is still learning to see, I’ve been thinking about film and digital and how learning to see with each method is so different. Now some people believe that one cannot be taught how to see, that the budding photographer has an eye or not and this is true. But understanding how the eye follows a path to an image, tells the body to frame the image and click the shutter at that decisive moment, teaches awareness of how a lasting image is made. And everyone can improve. The contact sheet, a study in how the eye does this, exists in film but not in digital. Of course one can make a sheet in digital but the image has already been seen on at least two screens. With film, the photographer takes a roll, carries the images around in their imagination where is simmers until it is processed and seen on the sheet. This difference: not seeing the image immediately, ia of course what sets film apart.
If I loved the image when shooting film, it stayed in my head. Sometimes it grew, sometimes diminished. But I could not wait to see the negatives and be surprised; I am not sure that element of surprise exists in digital. Since there is no waiting period, instant gratification leads to instant judgement which hinders seeing. It also leads to a very off hand kind of attitude that everything can be fixed in post processing and the photographer does not have to make a great big effort to get it right in camera. As if post-processing (in both film and digital) is equal to making the image! In the darkroom, one is pretty limited in changing composition. But in digital, post processing can change backgrounds, change all things, and the viewer does not know what was real and what was not. While real has never been an important part of any photograph, I want to understand how I see and I do that better with film and a contact sheet. A great image lasts forever, a good one at least a lifetime. So what if it takes a few weeks to actually see the image.
I am thrilled that film is making a comeback before it (probably) dies completely. Students I know are excited to shoot film. Most never have experienced it. Many ask me how they know the image is going to come out. Of course they can’t know that for sure, but they can help the process along by being very sure of their technical abilities. Having shot a roll of film or two, most students are better digital photographers. Funny how that happens.
The featured image for this post is an image I made recently on film in a pinhole camera. Exposed for four nights in a row, I did not move the camera just opened the shutter at night and closed it in the morning before it got light outside. At some point my old tripod slipped a bit. It rained three out of the four nights but my little plastic bag cover over the camera actually kept the camera dry. The exposure was round 32 hours. Lots of time for happy accidents. I had to send the film to Tucson to be developed. It was about 3 weeks before it arrived back in the US mail. I did not know if this idea would work. It did! And I am thrilled that I have another way to make a film image in today’s digital world. And that I can expose those night photographs long enough in a pinhole camera with an fstop of 512.
Dec 13, 2014 | Blog
I went car camping in the high country east and west of the mountains several times last summer. The National Forests are full of unused logging roads all open to the public. It’s very rare to see another car or any people anywhere. We drove up and up through the forests. The trees! They were everywhere, all shapes and sizes. I tried to photograph them, tiny saplings to towering old growth. How to make an image worthy of them intrigues me now. I was driven around (such luxury) with lots of different types of cameras, both film and digital and of course pinhole. I got to shoot all day until it got dark, and then got to make all night long exposures. It is dark up there! And empty. And quiet. And so close to the I-5 corridor that from just about everywhere west of the mountains you can see the light glow of the cities from Tacoma to Vancouver. I am beginning to look at these photographs now and post the early edits here. I won’t name the camera with which I made each image. I will let you try and figure that out.
The trees call to me still, as I sit in my studio, rain and wind outside, and think about those forests: logged and re-logged, scarred with roads and slides and gullies and yet beautiful, teeming with life. A surprising number of old growth exists untouched, tucked way into the dark reaches of the forest. I am lucky that the friend who drove me knew which logging roads looked promising and where to find the old trees. And he knew their names and ages and is as in awe of them as I am.
On the east side of the mountains there is less light from urban areas glowing in the night sky. After dark settles in, the trees towered above us, shadowy and huge, bigger at night than during the day. The stars slid slowly across the sky. I wanted to stay up all night but of course, sleep came quickly and deep in that silence. So here are the first few edits. I tend to shoot and then put the work away for a few months. It needs to settle into my unconscious and I wait for the images to surface and call me to bring them to life. I have just begun to photograph the trees. I am hoping to go back up to the forests this winter, maybe shoot at night with snow on the ground. Let the snow reflect the silence and illuminate the trees.
Nov 22, 2014 | Blog
I am honored to be chosen as part of the Seattle’s Photographic Center Northwest, PCNW Presents program. They have selected ten photographers to represent for the next two years and will be showing the work in the gallery where people can buy it. This is a big first for me, to have gallery representation in my hometown, and I am humbled and grateful. And I am in very good company with the likes of Jenny Riffle, (http://www.jennyriffle.com/) and Glenn Rudolph (http://www.glennrudolph.com/), both amazing NW photographers. Others include Sylvia Plachy, a photographer I have admired since the 1980’s. For more detailed information on all the photographers, go to http://pcnw.org/exhibitions/pcnw-presents/ Over the next few months the two photographs below will be hanging in the gallery. Stop by and take a look and also visit the show in the main gallery, Well Read: Visual Explorations of the Book. It will make you think differently about books in general.
I have taught at PCNW for the last seven years and have always said that it is the heart and soul of photography in Northwest. I love teaching my ten week class at night: an introduction to the DSLR and “serious” digital photography. I think there is still room in the Monday night class that starts in January. And I will post whenever the PCNW Presents photographers have work on the wall. Stay tuned.
Featured image for this post Georgetown Backyards from the Albro Bridge, 2014 One of my newest night photographs, captured with a DSLR this year.
The two images below while both night photographs were each captured differently. The top image, The Road to Grant’s 50th, is a digital capture made with a DSLR. The image below is made on color negative film, exposed in a pinhole camera. Despite the differences in capture, they have many similarities that may or may not come through on the computer screen. All the more reason to go to the gallery!
Title: The Road to Grant’s 50th, 2012
Print Size: 22” x 15” Frame Size: 22” x 28”
Print Type: Digital Capture Printed on Crane’s Portfolio Rag Paper with Archival Inks
Title: Due West: Lost Coast, California, 2013
Print Size: 22” x 15” Frame Size: 22” x 28”
Print Type: C-41 color negative film exposed in a 4 x 5 inch pinhole camera; Negative scanned and printed on Crane’s Portfolio Rag Paper with Archival Ink
