Category: Documentary

This small world traveler seeks surprises

The macro (and even micro) world attracts my attention (again and again); wanting to get ever closer; seeking to discover forms, shapes and lines which my naked human eye fails to appreciate. The constant struggle to achieve both depth and visual poetry simultaneously frustrates and seduces the optical explorer of the world; whether one travels the globe or looks within a few inches of this amazing planet. So I continue to peek through my old Bausch & Lomb binocular microscope, and try every lens, tube, bellows and sensor I have, to discover an occasional aesthetic slice out of 10 to 50 mm of space and 1/100th to 1/1,000th of a second of time.

“The details are not the details. They make the design.” — Charles Eames

This particular “event” surprised this small world traveler and momentarily satisfied the insatiable curiosity which keeps him constantly searching for the next discovery.

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R8/DMR, 100 mm apo macro elmarit on bellows with maximum extension

Draw (still) life in — to truly see it

Dorothea Lange said, “The camera is an instrument which teaches people how to see without a camera.” Emile Zola offered, “In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it.” I believe that drawing also teaches people how to see [without a camera]. If you truly want to “see deeply” into the wold around you — do both — draw and photograph your life. Each process will provide a completely different “seeing” lesson. And let us not forget writing. “When you are describing, A shape, or sound, or tint; Don’t state the matter plainly, But put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things, With a sort of mental squint.” said Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). And in her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard offers, “Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won’t see it. It is, as Ruskin says, ‘not merely unnoticed, but in the full, clear sense of the word, unseen.'”

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Leica M8, 28 mm asph summicron

Yet somethings in life move far too fast to draw or write in the moments of experience. Photography serves our drawing and writing; just as drawing and writing serves our photography. As Henri Cartier-Bresson said, late in life, after putting his camera down, “All I care about these days is painting—photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.” Draw, paint, photograph, write, sculpt, make music — in order to draw life more deeply into our consciousness — and dig more deeply into life.

Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm apo macro elmarit

Hope: “If you build it he will come.” — Shoeless Joe Jackson, Field of Dreams

sit on the porch, watch
it build, then sit, waiting too
hoping for a meal

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Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm apo macro elmarit
(yes. stopping down would have been nice. but for 1/30th @ 2.8. I like it)

Friday flowers with a different sort of twist, tilt and shift

I photographed this flowering shamrock with a Leica R8/DMR attached to the back of a Cambo Ultima view camera chassis and a 90 mm Apo-Rodagon enlarging lens mounted to the front. This photograph made full use of swings, tilts and shifts to achieve the framing and focus we see. The “look” could not have been achieved without the use of those camera movements. The flowers measure approximately 25 mm across. If you look real hard you can “feel” some of that view camera “look” even on this little sensor (or maybe I’m kidding myself).

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“Hwy 51 runs right by

Luckily both Seth and I prefer two lane black top over the Interstate. So we took Hwy 51 to and from the ABANA Conference in Memphis. The photographs seen below were created on the way home “…up Wisconsin way…” in Historic Cairo, IL (which has the highest child poverty in Illinois); at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. And a slide show with more photographs from Hwy 51.

“…my baby’s door
Highway 51 runs right by my baby’s door
If I don’t get the girl I’m loving

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Won’t go down to Highway 51 no more.

Well, I know that highway like I know my hand
Yes, I know that highway like I know the back of my hand
Running from up Wisconsin way down to no man’s land.

Well, if I should die before my time should come
And if I should die before my time should come
Won’t you bury my body out on the Highway 51.

Highway 51 runs right by my baby’s door
I said, Highway 51 runs right by my baby’s door
If I don’t get the girl I’m loving
Won’t go down to Highway 51 no more.”
—lyrics © Bob Dylan

Beale Street 25 years later

Twenty five plus years ago I spent a day on Beale Street, the “home of the blues and birthplace of rock’n’roll.” At 39 it felt real. Musicians were on the street and in the clubs. Earlier this month, while attending the ABANA Conference in Memphis, Seth and I spent an evening on the street and it felt a lot more like a bizarre carnival. Every establishment had a hawker yelling out the reasons to enter their establishment. The musicians on every other corner were gone. There was a new little park with a stage where one could “do your thing” and it was surrounded by junk tents. Hustlers were selling Elvis’ drivers license for $45, laminated and appearing never used. Some decent blues could still be heard in a couple clubs; but the street ambiance of 25 years ago has disappeared; or so it seemed to my now 64 year old memory bank. View a slide show of additional Beale Street images.

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M8, 35mm Summilux Asph

Evening demonstrations at ABANA Conference

June 2nd, after the first day of photographing the 2010 ABANA Conference Gallery items, we strolled through the demonstrator’s tents; where metal met fire to become functional and decorative objects. Additional images from this stroll can be seen in a short slide show here.

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Leica M8, 50mm Summilux Asph