Oct 10, 2015 | Blog
My father passed away a month ago at the age of 95. An avid amateur photographer, he lived through so many changes with photography and the cameras he owned, from an old Kodak box camera to a small compact digital he used for the last years of his life. He loved to take photographs and to pose for them. One of my earliest memories is from a summer in the early 1960’s when he bought a Polaroid camera. It was something of a miracle. I loved its brown leather case and the way the Polaroid print peeled apart from the negative and smell of whole thing. Dad loved gadgets and he loved cameras of all types. He used an old Argus Rangefinder for years shooting slides long past the time that it was considered “modern.” He recorded our family trips and the everyday aspects of our lives. When I decided to become a photographer in the late 1970’s he could not have been happier. I bought an 8 x 10 inch view camera (outdated then) and photographed him with it. He was a great subject, patient while posing (although not patient in other aspects of his life). It must have reminded him of his childhood, when his mother, also an avid amateur photographer, posed him for portraits with her big 6 x 7 inch box camera.
When Dad turned ninety, I produced a book of photographs of his life for his birthday celebration. It begins with photographs of him as a very young child growing up on the farm in South Dakota. He photographed during WW II with his Army unit as they traipsed across France after the invasion, many of which are included in the book. As a child, I would sit on his lap looking at the albums he had made during that time-gruesome photographs of dead horses and bombed buildings and happier ones of his friends and his adopted dog. He never talked about that experience, leaving the photographs to speak for themselves. At the end of his life, I sat with him again and turned the pages of his birthday book. Though he could no longer talk very well, he still loved to look at the photographs. And again, no words were necessary, because the photographs really do speak for themselves. I post here, some of the great moments from the life of Dad. Some are taken by his mother, some by him, some by me or other unknown photographers. His was a life well lived and well recorded. Thanks Dad, for giving me the love of photography.
Sep 22, 2015 | Blog
I am happy to announce the retrieval of two long exposure pinhole cameras. One was left out on a windy high place in the Olympic National Forest (for about eight months) and was intact albeit face down on the ground when found. The other, retrieved from under a bridge on the Lost Coast of Northern California, was covered with spider webs. The former was stapled and nailed and taped onto a stump just at the tree line in a place that is called Top of the World by the locals. That place appears to be a hangout, but the pinhole camera did not stick out among damaged skeet targets, gun casings and broken beer bottles. Early on in the exposure, the camera must have fallen, then fallen again. Someone put it back up at least three times. The incredible view was not recorded, just a crazy mishmash of sun trails.
Then last summer on a trip to the Lost Coast of California, another camera out for just over two years was retrieved. Under an old steel bridge that covered an obscure little river, it survived without falling down or getting wet. Wedged underneath the steel structure, pointing straight down, this camera did not record sun trails but orange squiggly lines, perhaps kids with flashlights under the bridge, who knows what happened. Driving there, I was pretty certain the camera could not have survived for such a long time. But it did and that retrieval is one I will never forget.
I love so much about both of these images. The simplicity of a piece of black and white enlarging paper patiently gathering light over time and then somehow showing color when scanned. The fact that one forgets about the little boxes, time goes forward and then there they are still recording. These little breath mint can pinhole cameras are a tenacious bunch. I am happy to share their images with you.
An Aside: the featured image was made en route to retrieve the two year camera in Northern California. A two-hole camera was placed in the back window of the pick-up truck, the home away from home. The exposure was about two weeks, the time it took to go and get the camera, make some more pinholes, put some more cameras out and drive home. This image feels like a big grin to me, which pretty much sums up how I feel about these images.
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
Nov 18, 2014 | Blog
Right around the Solstice last summer, I asked everyone in the building where I live and work to expose a pinhole camera from their windows for ninety days for the Pinhole Project. The idea was to expose all the cameras from each studio in the building, leaving the cameras up from the Solstice to the Equinox. The cameras recorded amazing trails of the sun all summer and into the fall. The views are recognizable, at least for those of us who are here every day and tended the cameras through the heat of last summer. The colors are mysterious and varied. I thank my colleagues, friends, fellow artists, neighbors all who participated. I did not know, until we did this, how beautiful our neighborhood actually is or much the sun shines on us or how the freeway is just a little toy off in the distance. I also did not know you can see the light of the sun trails to north and the south as well as east and west.
The building where I live and work is an artist’s coop. We own the building together, 20 units in all and I have always loved the views, from all sides of the building. I wanted to capture them with the long exposure pinhole cameras, hoping this was a good idea, but during the ninety days, I worried that the images might come out all the same. the views, the sun trails, the colors and the group as a whole would be boring. Scanning completely proved me wrong. The thirty images which I have uploaded here are titled with the name/unit number of the pinhole photographer. The grid, as it appears below, echoes how the printed images were hung in my studio last weekend. Below the grid are all the images which can be viewed individually. The building sits up against I-5 in the SoDo area of Seattle right before the Spokane Street interchange. The front of the building faces due west, the back east, a few units have south windows, and all the units that face north have windows in that direction. The featured image shows a pinhole image of the building that I made last spring. It is a 30 day exposure and shows the building’s west side. You can see the sun trails from the east above the building and the sun trails from the west reflected in the front windows.
The 30 images were featured at the Open Studios at out building this past November 15th. They are still up on my studio wall and will be up until Christmas time. Another opening will happen early in December. Stay tuned for dates and times and thanks for your continued support of the Pinhole Project.
