So much for New Year's resolutions

Sadly, I was unable to fulfill my desire to make a photograph a day in 2011. In the course of a day I was unable to accomplish all that I needed to do and make a photograph. I chose not to, in desperation, whip out the camera and take another photograph of my cats to maintain my requirement. I think that in the long run that would have been unfulfilling. Rather I intend to make at least one very good a photograph once a week.

I have been frantic this new year preparing for our trip to New York for the Power Portfolio Reviews in Brooklyn. Since I have been living in Southern California for the last twenty years I am not all that prepared for tons of snow, so I pray the weather will mellow once we arrive. I've reprinted my "Lakewood" portfolio using Epson's Exhibition Fiber, and I am very pleased with the results. The paper is thick so it can be handled without bending, and it's semi-glossy surface brings a nice punch to the photographs. In addition, I've also ordered a new custom portfolio for the "Lakewood" project, see mach up above designed by my friend and mentor F Ron Miller. Years ago we used to live in the same bungalow complex in West Hollywood. He completely gets my sensibilities, so I just send him the artwork and words and he arranges it beautifully. What I most admire about Ron's work is his knowledge and use of fonts.

I've put so much time and energy into the Lakewood it deserved a handsome portfolio. The label on the front of the portfolio is letter pressed and reads "Lakewood: Portraits of a Sacred American Suburb." Letter press is an old process that stamps the type onto a thick piece of of card stock. It's expensive, but it adds a second dimension to the portfolio. The work was done at Aardvark, the one place in Los Angeles that still does this process. The guys there were very accommodating considering the small magnitude of my order. I was there at "press check" giving the approval of the final layout and colors, then watched these well tuned machines over 100 years old create this beautiful label (see above).

Finally, yesterday in the middle of the Los Angeles River in Long Beach, with the help of Sydney, I photographed my nude self-portrait for Brian's portrait class. I made the photograph with my 4x5, so even with Sydney's help I'm not sure at all what it will look like. I look forward to seeing the results. I will post it, but I guarantee you it will be cropped. Cheers.

A Photo per Day

4. 9 I 2011, Downtown Long Beach, 1st Saturday of the month art walk.

3. 7 I 2011
2. 5 I 2011, Alamitos Bay

1. 1 I 2011
   

This year I intend to make a photograph a day then post at least one photo from each day of the year. However, on some days I will be shooting film, so it may be a month before I'll be able to post an image for that day on this blog. Or perhaps even longer, because I may shoot an image which may lie dormant in one of my Hasselblad backs until I get around to finishing the roll of film, taking it to L.A. to be developed, selected, scanned, cleaned up and adjusted, sized down and finally posted. Oh dear, it's so much easier shooting digital.

9 days into the new year I have not failed to make a daily image, however one image I shot on 3 I 2011 I accidentally deleted in Aperture. It was a photographs of some limes I took with the 5D Mark II @ ISO 4000. It wasn't very good. I just wanted to see what a digital image looked like at that ISO. I sure looked noisy on the back of the camera.

The first image made on New Year's day-above- was made with Sydney's Canon G-12 that Santa left in sock for Xmas that she so kindly let me borrow to make this photo at Badwater in Death Valley. Due to the recent heavy rains the brine pond was deep with beautiful reflections. I made other 4x5 images on 2 I 2011 with my Super Graphic and will post those later once I scan the film.

4 I 2011- I made images on film for my project: "Lakewood: A Photographic Journal of a Sacred American Suburb."

5 I 2011- I am working on a project for my friend Mark Shadrow's real estate website. In this project I make images at Long Beach's cool locations. This image is of Alamitos Bay seen from Naples in southeast Long Beach.

6 I 2011- Lakewood, see description for 4 I 2011.

7 I 2011- Another for Mark Shandrow's website in the Bixby Knolls section of Long Beach.

8 I 2011- Another for Mark Shandrow's website taken in downtown Long Beach during 1st Saturday of the month artwalk.

9 I 2011- Lakewood, see description on 4 I 2011.

Death Valley

Over the New Year's weekend Sydney and I took a road trip to Death Valley. Ignoring the getting trapped for 3 hours on I-15's Cajun pass by the returning Las Vegas crowd and the snow dropping below 2500 feet it was a wonderful trip. Sydney brought her new Canon G-12 that Santa left in her sock, and I my very old Super Graphic that I got for a song. The uploaded images are from her camera; my sheets have yet to be developed. She shot 300 images, I 30. There were photographers all over the park, mostly amateur, but by the looks of the some of the gear I saw there were many serious amateurs and a few pros in the mix. Except for one other guy porting a 4x5 everyone was shooting digital.

If you've read any of my previous posts you know I am stuck in the middle between analog and digital. Let me tell you it's not a very pleasant place to be. Digital photographic technology is expanding so rapidly that if you're not on top of it you're eating binary dust with one hand still holding your film camera. During our trip there were moments where I felt very stupid and archaic carrying my heavy tripod and film holders. It would have been much worse if Sydney wasn't assisting me. She shot with her G-12 and simultaneously assisted me. I've got the best wife!

While on the dunes we ran into a couple of French-Canadien photographers, Remi and Guillaume. When I walked up the dune breathing heavily due to the long climb up and down the sand with my 4x5 and heavy tripod on my shoulder to where Remi was shooting I noted he was using a neutral density gradation filter to darken the sky of his image. I jokingly announced "A gradation filter, while that's cheating!" They got the gist of my joke, because gradation filters were used long before the digital camera was created. Well, in ear shot was a another serious amateur who took offense to my joke, and yelled rather coarsely "Why is it cheating!" I didn't reply to her hostility. She didn't get that the joke was on me.

Remi was kind enough to show me the affect his filter had on the sky. The only filters I use are a yellow and a red to darken the blue skies or add contrast to my black and white images, yet I was very impressed with what I saw on the back of Remi's camera. I chatted with Guillaume and Remi for a while and was very impressed with their knowledge and gear. They had everything they needed professionally organized in their photography backpacks. They had modern gear and they were young and mobile. The sun was setting, the contour shapes I had trekked nearly a mile to photograph were fading and still to far away. I didn't have a lens to capture to make an image, so I returned to the car feeling very dejected with Sydney trailing me happily snapping away with her G-12. I began doubting myself thinking I was an old stubborn codger stuck in the past.

Yet this was New Year's Eve and I was not about to let my doubts spoil the evening. Before dinner Sydney and I toasted the end of 2010 by sipping on a wonderfully cheap Napa Valley sparkling wine. At the Stove pipe Inn we had the worst Cornish Hen ever placed on one's plate, yet after dessert we went to the bar and were actually, at least I was, entertained by the band consisting of a couple of old rock and rollers. I capped the evening off with a shot of Jameson Irish Whisky. We were back in the room by 10:00 pm and due to the long day of driving and hiking we sadly passed out about an hour before 2011 began.

The following day we travelled a couple hundred feet below sea level to Badwater. There it was magical. The pool of brackish water was deep enough for one distant visiter to Kayak upon. It also created marvelous reflections and there were a plethora of tourists making photographs. Perhaps I was reveling in optimism due to the new year but my bad mood from the day before had dissipated, and once again I unfolded the Super Graphic. But this time I didn't bother myself with what everyone else was shooting. I just concerned myself with my image, and what I could do with my analog camera. I don't know if I took any memorable images; I'll just have to wait to view the results upon development. If I have any keepers I'll show them to you in a future post. But I do know that when I am making my photograph I've kept the demons at bay and I'm content. Until then Happy 2011!!

Down River

Yesterday. I was cruising Belmont Shores the hip beach section of Long Beach for images. The sun was nicely diffused by some residue cloud moisture from the previous day's rain. I eventually meandered my way to the Alamitos Bay side of the peninsula. The tide was low and laying neatly along the beach, parallel to the shoreline, was a column of debris. The refuse was an olio of plastic, styrofoam, tree branches, and other crap that had made the long journey from its origin, the streets of East Los Angeles county. Most of it had probably already been in the storm drains, lying dormant until it was swept up by the recent rains and finally flushed through the storm drain's intestines flowing into the San Gabriel river and eventually swept out to sea. Conversely and ironically this junk finds its way back to land by the eastward ocean currents emanating from where the storm came. Dumped on the beaches where it now rests for those who live in very nice coastal properties to view while sipping on their morning coffee. This debris was able to survive the long journey because it's an entwined mix of floatable and hardy non-biodegradable detritus. One, although I would not recommend it, could safely walk barefooted on it because its sharp edges had been worn smooth due to its long eroding journey along asphalt, concrete, the ocean's bottom, then finally buffed by the fine sand of the beach. The debris would not entice such strong feelings of disgust if it consisted merely of broken branches and other naturally occurring organic matter; however, the ugly imprint of modern civilization has it's footprint all over it. I picture, staring at a remnant of a Styrofoam cup, someone however long ago discarding it after exceeding its purpose without thought or consequence. To that at best uneducated person it was only a useless expendable cup, but multiply that by hundreds of thousands and what results is what you see on my post. And what washes up on the beaches is only a minutia of what ends up in the ocean. Where do all those cigarette butts go that you see smokers toss out of their cars. Do you think those butts are biodegradable?

There was another photographer also documenting the mess. He blamed the debris on corporations for producing the non-bidegradble mess. This made me laugh, knowing how the new congress will attempt to whittle away at environmental regulations enacted under the Obama administration, which they label as job killers. I disagree with my colleague. I say, look no further than us. We did this.

Keeping it Analog

In Brian's last class I showed my tintype of Larry. This image, taken directly onto a tintype with an 8x10 camera, with 300 mm lens wide open at 5.6, was a 4 second exposure. Fortunately, Larry was able to hold very still. I am still learning how to spread the emulsion onto the plate as you can see by dark spots on the edge of the plate. I feel they work for this image, but my inability to spread the emulsion evenly made many of the plates unusable. But I got one, and in the end that's all that matters. You can have a successful shoot if you have 99 horrible images but one great photograph. Likewise, you can have a painfully unsuccessful shoot if you have thousands of just good images.

One of the other students asked me if I would ever do a tintype from an inkjet transparency-- a contact print. I answered absolutely not, just like I can't imagine making a platinum/palladium print from a digitally produced negative. To many I might seem stuck in the past, which admittedly I am, but I consider using digital technology to obtain an analog affect cheating. It's an insult to the masters. She seemed a bit surprised by my response.

As is in most instances the better answer came to me much, much later. What I love about making tintype images in camera is the result is first generation-directly from light rays to emulsion, very much like a polaroid. There is also the mystery of not knowing I have an image until after the required fix time and I turn on the light in the darkroom . The bottle of Ag plus does not come with a film speed, although after some trial and error I start by assuming it has an ISO of about 1/2. And it doesn't hurt to play it safe and overexpose it. But that's the magic of the tintype process-- it's inexact.

On the other hand if I was to make a tintype with a digital transparency it would be indirect; the image would have to make its way through at least two computers (I consider an printer a computer), and the soul of the image would be lost in a binary code. And what you would see embedded in the tintype would not be nearly as magical.

Artistic Profile

Hi All,

In August the city of Lakewood sent out a video crew to film me at Phantom Galleries where I had my show, Lakewood, a Photographic Journal of Sacred American Journal. I thought Jerome Academia, who produced and edited the piece did a marvelous job. It's a bit awkward for me to watch myself. As I can so easily see the flaws of my photographs; I can, likewise, see the flaws of my character. Cheers....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yEbtLsM1rU.

Billy

Sydney and I recently visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art primarily to see the current exhibition of William Eggleston. I have been an admirer of Eggleston’s work since I was introduced to it about ten years ago. Like many other of my contemporaries his pictures have and will continue to influence my own. But this evening rather than just appreciate Eggleston’s work, (Actually, I can never just appreciate photography, when I look at the work of others I have a terrible habit of torturing myself about my work. If I wish to merely enjoy art I’ll view sculpture and paintings, two mediums I have no intention of dithering in) I wanted to understand why his work is so revered.

I acutely studied Eggleston’s Color Dye Transfer Prints. The simple answer to my inquiry is he is a genius. He was/is able to do with a camera and color film what Miles Davis could do with a trumpet, Brando a script, Picasso a brush, and Updike a typewriter. They could take the same instrument their contemporaries used but do something their contemporaries couldn’t: take something simple and make it brilliant. William Eggleston was born with the innate talent to see an angle that composed a normally mundane chromatic scene into a two dimensional masterpiece.

In the forward of William Eggleston’s Guide, the book originally published in conjunction with Eggleson’s exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art in 1976, John Szarkowski explains that before Eggleston photographers were struggling with color film in their camera. Color photographs were either taken without consideration of the hues and form was ignored, or with pretty colors being the focus resulting in an image that, “comprises of beautiful colors in pleasing relationships” (Szarkowski 9), yet substantially meaningless. Eggleston was the first to be able to organize colors the way the greats of black and white photography mastered the composition of shadow and highlight.

Within his images I feel the touch of a jazz musician, an improviser of scenery who can twist a note or extend a beat that tickles the ear, or in Eggleston’s case the eye. In some of his images the scene is classically composed in perfect thirds as if to demonstrate to the viewer that he knows the rules. Then the next image, a famous photograph, of a white man in a suit in front of a black man wearing a white jacket both to right of a white car. At first glance this photograph is unsettling because it appears unbalanced. Yet, like an unmelodic Stravinsky opus it grows on me and I begin to admire its offbeat ness. The open car door, the pairs of trees that fall off into the background, the similarity of the two men’s posture and melancholic expressions, all sustain, within a monochromatic brownness, a 3-4 tempo that swirls around and around the white man’s red tie.

Many before me have tried to dissect Eggleston and his photographs, and from what I have read and seen the artist gives very little insight as to what motivates his imagery. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., a director at MOMA suspected that the inspiration for most of Eggleston’s work radiated “from a central circular core.” Eggleston’s response, perhaps a bit flippant, was that the composition of his work was based on the Confederate flag (11). This description is appropriately implied, not in composition, but in the theme of the photograph in the preceding paragraph. The references to the old south are obvious. Even though the two men stand in a similar pose there is a droop to the black man’s shoulders. Standing behind the white man, his white jacket without a tie, suggest the black man is subservient. The reference to the days of the confederate flag could not be clearer and more painful.

Eggleston once noted that he was at war with the obvious, and from my point of view there isn’t an obvious credo to his work. It’s feel and nonintellectual. Eggleson’s famous exhibit at MOMA in 1976 was initially harshly criticized. Hilton Kramer reviewing for the New York Times wrote, “the truth is, these pictures belong to the world of snapshot chic” (Weski). Perhaps there-in lies the answer to my original question: Eggleston was apt at conveying so much with an irreverent click of the shutter, and southern life of the 1960’s and 70’s is explicitly there.

Szarkowski, John William Eggleston’s Guide. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002.

Weski Thomas “William Eggleston: “The Tender-Cruel Camera.” American Suburb X February 2009