John Voss Photography

2012-01-19T18:49:00.000-05:00

It's winter enough that being outdoors for long periods of time with the camera isn't too appealing. I know people go to Iceland, Antarctica, and a host of other places with snow and winter weather, but at the moment where I live the winter is visually boring, and drab during the few hours a day when I actually could make a photograph. So...I've been looking through piles of older negatives for ones that I've not gotten around to assessing, and what's below is one of them. It' was taken in a park that has gone through a major renovation, and this view is no longer there. It seems to be a sad symptom of what we in America all too often insist is necessary to justify the expense of rehabilitating a public space, that it be given a purpose which, in rural areas, is usually sport related. So, here is a scene gone by.

2012-01-18T20:26:00.001-05:00

One of the "art" imperatives of this era is the series. It's not enough that there are a dozen excellent, interesting, but disparate images..."they must be related" is the mandate of the current arbiters of artistic practice. To make a lone, one off image is to demonstrate a lack of artistic vision I suppose. Still, there is merit to the discipline of making related images that form a coherent body of work. I have seen some dreadfully contrived, hurry-up-and-finish examples of such work that have been published, but an authentic series takes a lot of time. Seasons, and years may pass until a group of images exemplify genuine variations on the theme.

So here is yet another of my multi-year series of black dirt region photographs. They have that region's trademark homage to irrigation canals, furrowed land, and dark rich soil. The photographs that comprise this ongoing series are all similar, but unique. Here is one more.

2012-01-16T18:07:00.000-05:00

I have resisted, and will continue to resist surrendering my years of practice with traditional photography (film and wet darkroom) for the convenience and immediacy of digital 'imaging', but I'm about to make some adjustments nonetheless. NOT to using a digital camera, but to printing on our Epson 3800 printer, and preparing files in Photoshop from film scans. The image below is the reason for this resolve. It's flawed. There is an unacceptable lens flare on the film, but I really like the negative. I just don't have the chops to get rid of it in any other way than with Photoshop, and I will use this negative as an etude in the digital process. It will also open the door to printing on the multitude of gorgeous papers there are to try, and the vast and subtle array of toning possible with inks. The wet darkroom will be with me for as long as the materials to use it exist, but I think it's time to add another couple tools.

2012-01-10T16:08:00.003-05:00

We live only 50 miles or so from NYC, but it's far enough away to be quite rural in some respects. Farming is still prevalent, especially in the rich, black dirt region that is so distinctive for its' onion growing. Yet other crops are common here as well, and other parts of Orange County are very active agriculturally. I don't know what crop is being protected here by the plastic sheeting, but it looks very labor intensive. The sheeting continued for acres and acres, and I'm sure the young plants will thrive with this kind of attention. The other field is fallow, I assume, and the dead plants will help renew the earth here.

2012-01-05T18:51:00.003-05:00

I've not posted here for a longer interval than I like to allow, but there's just not been worthy work to offer. What's below is an image from 2010 that I haven't cared much for because I hadn't figured out how to render it until now. What you see is a digital approximation of what I soon will do in the darkroom that I expect will satisfy me. It's interesting to reflect on the creative process that, for me, involves a non-linear progression from the inception of an idea to its' final rendering months, and even years later.

2011-12-09T18:47:00.001-05:00

I used to live a few miles from where I stopped last week to make this photograph. It was taken from a little park in Peekskill (say that fast a few times!) just beside the Indian Point nuclear reactor...and I mean BESIDE the reactor. I could have thrown a rock at one of the out buildings. The Hudson River is rather narrow here having just made a sharp bend from due north to sharply west for a while. This is why there are some serious issues with its' effluent which is much warmer than the river's normal temperature.
But, those issues aside, the afternoon light was diffused in late autumn haze, and quite beautiful and I enjoyed being there after many years away.

2011-12-08T18:40:00.000-05:00

A mile or two from our house is a field that's been vacant for as long as I've known it. Recently, I guess, it changed owners, and the new landlord is clearly a Christian. It's easy to drive past this scene and not notice the crucifix (or small sign "God's Little Acre" ) because the value of the cross is so similar to the surrounding grasses and more distant trees. But, I did, and stopped for a while to make this photograph.

2011-11-26T19:11:00.000-05:00

In mid/late autumn the trees revert to their skeletal selves. The endless patterns of symmetry that one discovers that were never designed for aesthetic satisfaction by nature, are nonetheless truly rewarding to discover and uncover. A well known artist, speaking about portraiture, said something to the effect that portraits of others reveal the artist more than the subjects. I'm certain that is true about the kind of photographs that I'm drawn to appreciate and to make. Here are three.

2011-11-20T18:05:00.001-05:00

I sometimes take the same route home that I take in the morning (there's an alternative), and do so because there's no toll, and because the latter part of the trip is though Harriman and Bear Mountain State Parks. For too much of the year the morning drive is in darkness, but the afternoon drive isn't, and the scenery is gorgeous in every season. The two pictures below were made in a little park that sits beside a Hudson River inlet. The inlet is barricaded by a railroad bed that was man made to accommodate the Hudson Line and goes all the way north to Poughkeepsie and beyond.

And, here's another image that simply celebrates the new lens I bought from KEH.com. It's a 300mm f4 one that was listed in LN- condition, and seems to be just that. The thing is tack sharp even at shutter speeds slower than 1/30th when mounted on my very sturdy 'pod with the massive Manfrotto ball head that weighs about 4 pounds and has the mass to steady a lens of this focal length on a 6x7 camera.

2011-11-11T19:30:00.001-05:00

The extraordinary October 29th blizzard we experienced here in the Hudson Valley of New York was unseasonable, unwelcome, destructive, and beautiful. The destruction was from the weight of the snow on still fully leafed trees that were in peak color and not destined to fall for a week or more. The beauty was from the clingy, wet snow that girded limbs, branches, twigs, and leaves. Were I a color photographer, the yellows, reds, and oranges of the autumn color show that were set off in bold relief by the snow would have been a real treat. Still, the monochrome of it all was beautiful to me. This is a scene from behind our house.

A week after the blizzard, all was back to normal (except for post storm repairs), and I was again enjoying the glories of the autumnal show. But, despite its not being particularly vivid in a seasonal sense, I decided to stop at Iona marsh on the way home from work a few days ago . It's a tidal marsh that, were it not for the mountains that rise beside it, could be mistaken for an ocean side marshland. The tide had drained the water and all it would have contributed to making a photograph. But, I really liked the stalks, stems, seeds, and branches that I found rimming the big muddy, and decided they would be just fine as portrait sitters.

2011-11-01T17:47:00.001-04:00

The upper photograph is yet another in the series I've made at Round Lake, one of two lakes less than five miles from home. The other lake never seems to call me visually, and I've rarely photographed it, but I feel, out of fairness, that I probably should try. The lower image, therefore, is from Walton Lake, the 'other' lake. Perhaps it's the easy access I have with a parking lot, a dock, and no traffic to interfere, but Round Lake has become a favorite place to visit, just sit and watch, and when conditions are favorable, to photograph. Walton Lake is less accessible, and not so easy to get to, but it needs to be attended to. Mission!!

2011-10-25T18:12:00.001-04:00

Autumn in New York's Hudson Valley is over the top gorgeous. It doesn't last very long so even going to the movies on the weekend is not a good idea unless it's pouring rain with gale force winds and maniacal zombies lurching toward your front door. These two images were made on Sunday, October 23rd at a little river near Harriman Park that just two months ago was a raging aqueous nightmare during and after Hurricane Irene. It's back to its' gentle, quiet little self now, and a pleasure to visit.

2011-10-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

It's very nice to have one or more places nearby that are continually interesting to photograph. One of these is Round Lake, a modest sized body of water very close to our house. Last winter I made a photograph here of the dock below covered in snow. Last week, I was lucky to be free to visit the lake on a very foggy morning. Here are two images from that visit.

2011-09-27T19:21:00.000-04:00

After finishing the roll of film from which yesterday's post was made, this image is from the next roll about five minutes later. It's Bethesda Fountain, a landmark Central Park icon, that is an extremely popular destination in the park. I've been coming here for decades, and never remember seeing the lotus plants that are present now in the fountain. I suppose they're a recent addition, and one I like very much.

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2011-09-26T19:12:00.003-04:00

Though natives of other capitals will disagree, I think New York City is the most interesting, dynamic, and vital city in the world. I am not a native, but have been privileged to have lived in, and later nearby (still in NY State) "the City" for decades, and I consider myself a New Yorker to the core. Manhattan is an absolute gem, and within Manhattan, Central Park is a diamond. Both this year and last, I've accompanied my wife, and now my stepson into Manhattan on Saturdays for them to attend classes at the Art Student's League of New York while I spend that time doing something else. My mecca is always Central Park. With a monopod I got last Christmas, I've decided to use my Mamiya kit there These images are from the first roll of film I've made this way. They are statues of the poets on the Mall in Central Park that most people refer to as "poet's walk". The poets are Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and Fitzgreene Halleck.

2011-09-16T18:48:00.000-04:00

The most beautiful season of the year is just beginning to emerge from the lushness of a wetter than usual summer. I've never known exactly how the relationship between weather and autumn color works, but I suspect that this will be a memorable year. This image is a late summer one. I will go back later and see how it may change as fall progresses. It is of a marsh beside the Hudson River in the town of Cornwall-on-Hudson from a road that's not easy to find, but well worth looking for as it meanders by the river's edge.

2011-09-09T19:07:00.002-04:00

This coming Sunday will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11/2001. The images posted here have never been printed nor scanned until now. I took them a little over a week after the murders at the WTC and they have haunted me since. There were hundreds and hundreds of posters with pictures and messages begging for any information that could possibly reunite the missing with those dear and important to them. Those reunions never happened. I have not been able to prepare these few photographs for this post without intermittent bouts of deep grieving, and tears. The entire experience of that day has made me profoundly hostile to religion...every religion... and, especially, their particular forms of fundamentalism and judgmental intolerance.

Sadly, the NO FEAR poster seems to me to be more bravado than reality. In fact, the thousands of people who still live with PTSD belie the notion that terrorism has no impact on our or anyone's society. The next photograph tells a different story.

As does this one.

This last represents but a miniscule fraction of the tsunami of grieving, and mourning that brought many hundreds of people, including myself, to lower Manhattan to be witness to and connect in spirit with the nearly three thousand victims of wanton murder and the far wider circle of their friends and families.

2011-09-02T19:35:00.007-04:00

A year ago or so I bought two exhibition catalogs of the photographs of Chip Hooper. I've like his work a lot since I first saw some large monochrome prints at a now closed gallery in NYC. His principal body of work is of shoreline views of the ocean and the extraordinary variations that occur. For the past several years I've been fortunate to have been able to spend a week or so at a beach front place in Florida that has allowed me to see what Chip Hooper regularly sees at the Pacific Ocean sites he frequents...those wonderful variations of sky, and sea and their perpetual interactions. The two 'graphs below were made at a location south of St. Augustine. The first, facing the ocean of course, and the second 180 degrees behind.

2011-09-02T18:59:00.001-04:00

2011-08-30T20:04:00.001-04:00

When you're facing the ocean on almost any kind of day there's probably something worth photographing. I was lucky enough to be in Florida at the beach during the onset and retreat of hurricane Irene with absolutely no ill effects from the storm. Instead, there were the most extraordinary sky shows of brilliant clouds and roiling ocean. Here's but one of many negatives I made last week. Not unlike digital photographers who wisely discard huge numbers of "captures" that just don't make it, I have discarded a lot of negatives that just weren't worthy of further attention. This scan is of one that I will print this week if I can. I really like it.

2011-08-16T13:33:00.004-04:00

Here is one more cityscape from a while ago. This is Park Avenue (NYC) from a 10th floor office window at 230 Park Ave (the New York Central building). It is dwarfed by the Met Life (nee Pan Am, then Sony) Building behind it, but has this unobstructed view looking north. It was taken around 5:00 PM on Christmas eve of 2000. My friend was still in her office, and she let me bring in the camera and tripod, open the window, and shoot an entire roll of this single view. I had to experiment with exposure time, so some of the negatives are unusable, but this one is the best of the lot, and I think it was 45". It also demonstrates the convergent verticals a rigid camera is stuck with in this situation that a view camera's movements would have "corrected". However, I think the convergent verticals help the eye down the "chute" so to speak, so I don't regret the rigid camera.

BTW, this will be the last post for a while as we're going away for a week or two. Happy rest of summer to those who get to enjoy time away from their normal routines...and to those who don't as well.

2011-08-15T20:06:00.003-04:00

Continuing with posts of older negatives is this one. It's from the same roll as my post of August 3rd, and was made from the same rooftop. It's interesting that photographs that may not be particularly special in themselves, are amplified in their importance merely by their being made in locations not available to everyone. This may be one of those photographs, but I like it as an image as well as its' being a record of place, and time.

2011-08-11T18:36:00.001-04:00

As I wrote in my last post, summer light isn't the best for the kinds of photographs I prefer to make (and to look at for that matter). So I've been casually reviewing negatives that have accumulated over the last decade that I've never printed or even scanned to proof . I came across the photograph below that was taken in March of 2000, and I think I know why I didn't print it at the time. I was using pre-cut mats to mount my prints which pretty much required that I utilize the full, or nearly full negative. Ever since I learned to cut my own, and acquired the mat cutter to do it with, I've felt totally liberated to arrange and crop the original as I choose. This had stuff in it I couldn't exclude when I took it because of my Hudson riverbank point of view. But I just finished printing it with judicious cropping. This is a negative scan that very closely emulates the physical print except for the toning which is a bit different from the print due to my minimal photoshop skills.

2011-08-03T18:56:00.003-04:00

Summer is too often a miserable time to make photographs around here. The light is exceedingly brilliant and intense leaving little latitude for subtlety. Of course, the adage has it that breakfast and dinner are the worst enemies of good outdoor photography, but they're also cherished times during this season when I have time away from work, so they're just going to have to remain in the schedule. The quieter light at the beginning and end of the day comes too early and too late for me. But, as summer wanes and the days get shorter with sunrise coming later, I'll be a lot happier about getting out to photograph. So...here's a photograph from February 22, 2000 that I've always been happy I made, but was never quite satisfied with. In the negative, the moon appears above the left side of the bridge. I have finally decided to crop it out (it's not been cloned away, the image has been cropped), and I'm much happier with the result. I was on the roof of a building on East 57th Street in Manhattan looking east into Queens. It's the 59th Street (Queensboro) Bridge.

2011-07-28T19:15:00.000-04:00

Most people seem to like sticks-in-the-water kinds of photographs. Either that, or such images are an infection among minimalist photographers. I'm not one of those, but I like them just the same. The natural beauty of natural sticks adds a good deal to such work, because their forms are so elegant and complex. Wandering along a pond side trail I'd never visited before, there was a little clearing, a bench facing the pond, and what you see here. I sat for a long while enjoying the sounds of bull frogs, and the patter of very light drizzle on the water in front of me. There were also several acres of lily pads in full bloom that were too far away from where I was able to place the camera to make a photograph, but they were gorgeous to look at nonetheless. Now that I've found this local site, I'll return whenever light, atmosphere, or seasonal changes invite me.

2011-07-25T13:32:00.001-04:00

I feel bad that it's been nearly two months since my last post here, but my musician and teacher life has made it impossible to make photographs. But now I will have a few weeks to myself, and this past weekend I was able to use the camera (in this case, the P67 with 55mm lens). This is a 'graph of Round Lake in Monroe (NY) that I've photographed many times. Every time has been different, and this was a cloudy bright early morning with not a hint of breeze, and no one on the lake.

2011-05-30T18:47:00.001-04:00

It's hot. It's too hot. It's too damn hot this early in the season. I will not complain, because it's been too damn cold and too damn snowy this past, and last winter. I know there are places in this country and in others that maintain a fairly uniform pattern of weather that never wanders into extremes. But, we don't live there and have to make do with what we get. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow the mercury has, is, and will be reading near 90F, but it was only a few months ago that the snow was approaching 4 feet in depth. So....I repeat...I will not complain. I will just post a couple of pictures from 2008 (when the snow wasn't so deep that I couldn't hike in it) that I made with the Shen Hao. It was tough slogging in the snow with the 4x5 backpack and a tripod, but I really enjoyed the shlepp, so here they are, two antidotes to too early summer!

2011-05-23T11:42:00.001-04:00

The town we live closest to doesn't have enough of the charm that other nearby places do. In the middle and latter part of the 20th century, too much was torn down and replaced by characterless, modern storefronts and shopping venues. Nonetheless, some of the town's ancestry remains on a few streets that have preserved their late 19th century flavor. However, there is one wonderful asset that is about a mile and a quarter around, and that is the Goose Pond park. At all hours of the day people walk or run around it on the encircling footpath. Serious joggers in spandex and tank tops pass very conservatively dressed Chassidic men and women with their strollers. In fact, all manner of people seem to love the place (as do I).

In the warmer seasons, the two halves of the pond (there is a street that divides it) are aerated to help keep the mosquitoes down, and a dredger pulls copious water grass out as well. Early this past Saturday morning I visited with the camera, and these are what I came away with.

2011-05-08T18:46:00.000-04:00

Saturday, May 7th, was gorgeous here in the Hudson Valley, and staying home to do yard work was unthinkable (well, actually it was thinkable, but not acceptable) so off we went with cameras to the black dirt region. I think I've photographed this particular irrigation ditch a dozen times, but it's always different. The sunlight was creeping back across the field as the clouds moved on.

(This was photographed with the P67 and a 55mm lens that I'm becoming very fond of, but have rarely ever used before. I don't think wide angle is easy to use well, but I think I did so in this case. There's always a lot to learn.)

2011-05-06T19:24:00.000-04:00

The all too brief season of flowering trees and early leaves is upon us here in the Hudson Valley. The greening is progressing rapidly, and is discernible daily. I'm amazed I haven't driven off the road, or into a tree for all the staring into the woods that I do going to and from work. I've known where to find the dogwood trees below from having visited this spot in other years, but now there are a number of signs designating the area as a US Army live firing range with trespass forbidden. The gunnery is actually quite a way into the tract of land, and very far from the public road that borders it by the Hudson River, but it's off limits nonetheless. So...of course that's where the best camera bait is located, hence I ran the very remote risk of being arrested by federal police while making these 'graphs. It's interesting how doing that sort of thing is kind of exciting, and makes the experience all the more intense.

2011-04-30T19:35:00.001-04:00

I wish I had the time (and the courage) to fully photograph the black dirt region of Orange County, NY. That would, of course, have to include documenting the migrant workers who harvest the onions and other produce that find the ancient sea bed soil so rich and nourishing. It would also have to encompass all the seasons, and the full range of weather that blesses and besieges the land. Still, I have made enough photographs over the years that I will always remember the look and feel of this region. The two images below were made at the same place on the same day in mid-April.

2011-04-28T18:44:00.001-04:00

After endless bouts with snow, sleet, ice and frigid unpleasantness the return of real-thing-spring is beyond welcome. Behind our house are twenty plus acres of forested land that have been able to remain undeveloped because they sit atop an aquifer owned by the town. The consequence is that we get to enjoy trees in their seasonal splendor both leafy and skeletal without another house in view. Just now, they're leafing out, and a few entertain flowers that precede their greening. This past Sunday, April 24th, I walked back there with the P67 and made the photograph below. It's minimal as flowering trees go, but it's actually there, and I didn't have to trespass on anyone's land to make the image. Eventually, we will move to north Florida, and I will deeply miss this landscape while I learn to love another. This, and many other of my 'graphs will sustain the memories.

2011-04-04T17:54:00.002-04:00

It's damn difficult to make a waterfall photograph without it being a cliche. I've been photographing this one in Harriman State Park since I moved to the Hudson Valley in the late '70's, and it's always been a joy to look at and a challenge to photograph. Of course, just about anything in nature has been photographed countless times so trying to say something unique isn't a worthwhile enterprise. What matters is that the image is worthwhile to the photographer, and I think these two may be to me. Of the 20 negatives exposed using three different lenses (55, 105 and 135) and two different shutter speeds (1/15th, and 1/60th), these are the only two I'm willing to share. I will return to this subject again many times I'm sure before we move south eventually. It's an old friend I'll always remember it fondly, and as with any old friend, it's nice to have pictures of!

2011-03-27T14:56:00.002-04:00

This post is a bit unusual in that I've made the actual print below before scanning the negative. As traditional a photographer as I may otherwise be, scanning negatives beats the hell out of making contact sheets, and I haven't made one in years. Once a negative is scanned, it's incredibly easy to see what's possible in Photoshop so that darkroom work then becomes considerably more direct. It's just a matter of figuring out how to make the print look like the best rendering I've created on the computer. With experience, that translation gets easier and knowing what will and won't work and why is invaluable. The biggest difference is viewing the image by transmitted light on the monitor rather than reflected light on the print, and that distinction would apply regardless of whether the actual paper print were made in the darkroom or the lightroom.

The scene here is by a path along the Wallkill River at New Palz (NY) in the early winter of 2008. The water is from heavy recent rain, I think, and not an overflow of the river. I have no idea why I've neither scanned, nor printed this before. It seems like a pretty good image to me.

2011-03-24T18:23:00.000-04:00

It's the first full week of spring. Obviously, that called for a snowstorm. And so it proceeded, but with paved surfaces too warm for snow to stick until the overnight when the air temperature dropped into the 20's. It's really rare that I am available when both weather features are visually interesting, and when what I'd like to photograph is accessible. So often a good snowfall makes all the road pullouts impossible to park on, but this time everything came together. These two photographs are the result of a really enjoyable hour in the wet, falling snow.

(I've had my Pentax 67 kit for over a decade now, and I am still delighted by the bulletproof build of that system. Getting it a bit wet didn't phase it in the least. I know everyone admires the Hassie outfits used by many prominent artists, but I'll stick with this gear as long as it lasts. The 4x5 just wasn't up to the wetness!)

2011-03-18T18:53:00.000-04:00

In the ongoing lookback at older negatives, I found this one from a few years ago. It was made at a beach in Florida that, sadly to me, allows vehicle traffic. Many photographers make pilgrimages to the western American deserts seeking the perfect composition with flawless sand and gorgeous light. I haven't been so fortunate, but have been happy to have access from time to time to the sand dunes at our Atlantic shores. As we will be moving to this area in several years, I'll probably not think too much of this image when I will have made innumerable and perhaps much better ones, but for now, I like it.

2011-03-07T20:08:00.001-05:00

It's been a while, but I finally had a chance to get out with the Pentax, and was able to trudge around the little pond at GPMSP wearing a black and less expensive version of "green wellies" (rubber boots) to slog through the slushy snow, mud, and puddles. It's amazing how often I've visited this place, and I've made a lot of photographs here. I didn't think I'd see anything I hadn't seen or photographed before, but I was mistaken. The ice changed the entire image from merely reflecting the trees and bushes, to evidence of itself as a design element. It pays to continue to look at even the most familiar, because it may reveal itself in an entirely unexpected way.

These two photographs are titled "End of Winter?" 1 and 2. It's hard to convey how much I hope that's more than an idle wish! We, of this area, are impatient to enter spring as soon as possible.

2011-02-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

Of late, and as described previously, I've been revisiting old negatives some of which have been printed before. It's just amazing, though, how I see some of these images in a very different way now than I did when I took them. I regard cropping and recomposing my original conception as a valid and appropriate exercise. Other photographers see that as heresy...a failure of original vision, as if, in some otherworldly state of omniscience, complete perfection was imperative from the moment of exposure. Well then, I'm guilty of that sin, but, I think it's one I shall not beat a "mea culpa" on my chest about. Here then are a couple of photographs that I will work on in the darkroom tomorrow. One has been posted here, I think, a long time ago in a very different way, and the other is posted for the first time. I hope you like them.

2011-02-21T18:57:00.000-05:00

Once again, it snowed last night. It was a fluffy, easy to shovel snow, but it was snow nonetheless. And it is no longer welcome despite its fresh beauty. It's been a hard winter for us. We're not used to being tasked so regularly to wield the tools to clear the stuff, and if we slack off about it, the chore becomes that much more difficult as it softens and refreezes into an icier, and really intractable mess. On days like this the computer goes directly to the real estate sites that catalog what's "for sale" in the part of Florida we intend to move to eventually. "Eventually" seems waaaaay to uncertain a date at the moment.

So here is a photograph from 2004 of our back woods in very early spring. It's a pleasure to look at today when this scene is white and wood. We can hardly wait!

2011-02-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

I've had the pleasure of revisiting older work as I've not had the time to create new. It's really interesting how the incubation and development of one's perception of a creative artifact/image unfolds. I like these two photographs a lot more now than when I took them, and, to be honest, I've cropped them somewhat from the 4x5 compostions of the original negatives. It gives the lie, to me at least, that vintage work is somehow more authentic and valuable to gallerists/dealers than more considered and mature work that shows up much later.

But, that aside, these two images represent a soon to be season that is incredibly welcome to us who used to think we inhabited a temperate climate of gentle seasons,. WRONG! Spring just can't come soon enough and to hell with the damn Punxatawny bigasss rat who may indicate otherwise!

2011-01-04T18:52:00.001-05:00

Dear Visitor,
I'm just overwhelmed with stuff to do that makes my photographic work impossible for the time being. So...this blog is suspended temporarily until I can free up the time to resume making new images. It's not as if I've suspended "seeing", it's just that being able to stop and photograph what I've seen isn't possible. So, please check back in a while (or as my younger son said as a very, very young child: "in a couple of whiles") for future posts. I will be back, but not right away.

2010-12-27T18:43:00.001-05:00

This post is an interesting one for me. I've not had the opportunity to do any new work for the past couple of months, and I have a huge backlog of printing to do so I'm not overly motivated to generate yet more negatives. But, I also feel a nagging obligation to keep up with this blog at least once a month (though I'd prefer once a week), and, as I have nothing new to offer, I looked into my negative files for something old, but never before published here.

I found the image below. What's special about it is that it was made on the very first day I used my spanking new Pentax 67 in April of 1998. I kept very few records on the negative file then, because I had not yet discovered the Sharpie pen that now annotates every filing. I can barely make out the "4/98" that I wrote with a ballpoint pen at the time.

The other thing that makes that day extremely memorable is that I either lost or had stolen the new 135mm lens that I had set on the ground a short distance behind me as I was using the camera, and only discovered later that day was no longer in my improvised camera pack. It was an $800 or so loss that was a major hit at the time. Ever since, I have always looked around at least three times for anything I may have dropped or overlooked to repack, and been hyper aware of other people near me when I'm working.

And finally, I kinda like this photograph, Photoshopped now in emulation of my current printing style, because it is an early indication of the way I've come to "see" images, and because it's chaotic enough to emulate my life at the moment...joyous and exuberant, but tangled and knotty at the same time. (a broad smile attends that statement!)

2010-11-21T17:42:00.001-05:00

Getting out to photograph in this very busy time of year is difficult enough, but when I do, making a worthwhile image is still as difficult as it has always been. But, I'm happy with the two 'graphs below. They are of a willow tree I've come back to many times that sits at the edge of little parking lot on Round Lake in Monroe, NY. I've tried to interpret it in various seasons and weather, and these are yet another attempt. Willows are the last to lose their leaves, and their vivid color when all around them are in their skeletal winter guise, is always exciting.

I've been rereading Robert Adams wonderful little book on beauty in photography, and am again reassured that there's nothing new that matters except what is new for the artist. That that work makes a difference in the world of art at large is irrelevant. That it makes a difference in my life is essential.

2010-10-27T17:25:00.001-04:00

So often when driving through Harriman State Park I'm frustrated that it's illegal (and even impossible) to stop the car to make a photograph when I come across something camera worthy . So this post and the previous one are evidence that I was willing to hike to what I was interested in, and burn some film in a several of those places. As I stood behind some low hanging branches of a brilliantly yellow leafed tree, I was fascinated by the delicacy of the supporting twigs, and the leaf's network of capillaries.

What interests me now is how to print this...large (10x10 or bigger), or rather small (5x5 perhaps). There are several photographers who are making their images part of a greater presentation that is integral to the work. In other words, the frame (either hand made to suit, or a collected antique) is more than a simple holder, and becomes an essential complement to the image. From what I've seen, it works incredibly well sometimes, and rather poorly in other instances. It's somewhat of an art in itself, and I intend to pursue it, and see where it leads.

2010-10-16T20:40:00.001-04:00

Autumn in New York is a song, and a splendid experience. The "other" state park I often visit and have regularly photographed is Harriman SP...a large and gorgeous tract that includes a segment of the Appalachian Trail. On Columbus Day, I spent some very pleasurable time walking a hilly, quiet road there schlepping the P67 kit and a pod. It was both good exercise, and a rich visual feast. Some leaves were in mid-turning, while others were in their full fall splendor. The air was neither warm, nor crisp, but luxuriously comfortable, and dry enough that the well-earned sweat of climbing steep sections of the road evaporated quickly.

It's always a conundrum deciding where the two dimensional, graphic scene that can actually be photographed parts from the total visceral experience that "being there" inspires. Only a great deal of experience can inform that judgment. I think the photographs below manage that well, but I'll assess them again later when a good deal more time has elapsed.

2010-09-13T19:05:00.001-04:00

Oh my! I see it's been a while since I've posted here. If you maintain a blog, and you're halfway conscientious, you're inevitably going to feel responsible to keep it current, or suffer the ignominious guilt of regarding yourself as an irredeemable slacker. I, therefore, confess to wanting to be conscientious while realizing that my slackfulness is worthy of considerable guilt. Mea bloody damn culpa! (I don't think Sister meant me to say it that way ;-)

Goose Pond Mountain State Park is so close that I can pick up and go for a walk there whenever I have the time...and I love the place. On Labor Day weekend I enjoyed a visit that allowed me a leisurely hike with the C330. What prevents me from exploring there at the times, and in the light and atmosphere that would be most conducive to the best picture making is the pesky, and intrusive matter of doing my day job. I would be scared witless if my income were dependent on selling photographs, but I share with eleventyzillion other folks the fond wish to have an independent income that would bypass the daily grind. Nonetheless, limited time can not only be a challenge, but an opportunity to make the best of what's there when you are. Here are a couple of the images that I made that day. I really like the upper image. The lower one is more a record shot of what the park once was...private land with both simple, and elegant entryways to the homes and estates that NY State appropriated ( and hopefully paid well to acquire) for public pleasure.

2010-08-22T19:14:00.001-04:00

Vacations for me have usually just been time away from work. But, every year, if we're lucky and if only for a few days, we spend some time in a special place that's memorable. My trip to Jacksonville this summer was enriched by several days at a hotel at the ocean...and I mean AT THE OCEAN!! ... as in fronting on the beach. I couldn't get enough of it. I'd get up in the middle of the night and go to the slider to the deck and just stare at whatever was out there. We never closed the drape (3rd floor room made privacy possible) and never stopped staring out on the ocean when we weren't actually walking on the beach or flopping around in the water. So, not surprisingly, here are a couple of photographs from that balcony of a morning sunrise. I had to wait for quite a while for the camera to adapt to the warm, humid air from having spent the night in the air conditioned dryer air of our room, but that wasn't a problem. Coffee, and a magnificent view made the wait not only tolerable, but a real pleasure.

2010-08-13T19:02:00.000-04:00

It's really nice to get back here after a couple of months hiatus. My cello work during July consumed the entire weekday, and I was utterly disinterested in anything but prodigious laziness on the weekends. That means that I had not exposed a single frame of film for quite a while. But, my brief annual sojourn to Florida last week was energizing enough to finally do some work with the camera.

The Florida landscape is so enormously different than that of the Hudson Valley that I won't really begin to know what's significant from what's just novel to me until I have lived there eventually in retirement for a while. Still, live oaks, moss, and palmettos are visually so seductive that I couldn't resist. I may look back on these images some years from now and wonder why I bothered with what then will be a commonplace subject, but for now, I can't get enough of this stuff.

2010-06-15T15:59:00.001-04:00

The day job has been very stressful and time consuming of late (concerts, concerts, concerts), so there's not been much time or energy left for photography during the week. Fortunately, the same super early schedule that I need for work bleeds over into the weekend, which has enabled me to get up really, really early (before 5AM) to go out with the camera. Just this past weekend I decided that it was time to revisit some familiar places with a different approach. I almost never use wide angle lenses, but it was a revelation to do so in the two places below that I've photographed before....a lot! I think I've been reluctant to allow so much subject onto the film because I don't usually "see" that way, but I'll think differently about it now. For those who are interested, I used a 55mm lens on the P67. Now I have to figure out how I can eventually acquire a similar field of view lens for the 4x5. Hmmmmm........

2010-05-18T19:30:00.000-04:00

I finally got out with the camera this past weekend. I stopped on Canning Road where I have found so many pictures I really like that the place seems never to disappoint me. It runs parallel to, and just a few yards from a section of the Wallkill River that offers endlessly interesting and different subjects, or different light on the same subjects I've photographed before. I would have used the 4x5, but of late I've gotten so sick of dust on the film that become laborious to remove spots on the negative, that I almost always now use the P67, and did so here. Still, the view camera would have been more satisfying to use. It always slows me down...makes me look, and think,.and contemplate, and only then make the photograph that has ripened in my imagination. Nonetheless, the lesson is learned and I insist to myself that there's no hurry, no need to burn meaningless, ill considered frames of film.

I am often amused at the photographers who travel all over the world, but consistently return with the same photographs they could have made much closer to home because that's their "style". I'm so sure I'd do exactly the same thing that I no longer feel any temptation to wander away for the sole purpose of making photographs. Rather, I'd just love to visit the wonderful places that are currently so popular like Iceland (now with its' volcano), Antarctica, Greenland, and so on. I'd probably look for the kind of photograph I am drawn to make, but I'd be thrilled to make it in one of those fascinating places.

2010-05-04T20:06:00.000-04:00

It's important to remember that "old" work isn't obsolete, nor less worthy than new work. In fact, old work, unless it's utterly incompetent, is evidence of one's evolving vision, and may be instinctively even better because it is a testament to that moment in which it is newly discovered. That aside, here's a photograph I made at least four or more years ago that I've not printed nor published on this blog before. I'm posting it because I like it...nothing more or less that that.

2010-04-22T18:25:00.000-04:00

There hasn't been much time for photography of late, but there's just been no way I could go on indefinitely without burning some film. So, last week, I took myself to the part of Harriman Park that I enjoy walking in, and photographing. Most of the images from this place have been one's I've not kept in my portfolio. They've not passed the test of months or years as being worth keeping. But, they've been very, very important as lessons learned. Perhaps I go there with the unquenchable hope that I'll find the right conjunction of light, subject, mood and satisfying composition eventually...like a challenge one makes for oneself. So...below is just such a photograph. I've no idea whether I'll still like it a month from now, or be sorry I posted it here, but at the moment I like it. It literally reached out to me (and that's the name of the negative scan of it: "reaching out"). It's fun to find a subject that will photograph with inherent contrast and dynamic form without having to do anything more than discover it, examine it, walk around it a lot, frame it to suit your sensibility, and make the photograph.

2010-04-01T19:03:00.000-04:00

Our show is now up on the walls at the Wallkill River Gallery in Montgomery, NY. It took a lot of time to hang, but it looks really good. There are a few more than 30 works to view...about an equal number of paintings and photographs. All are invited to our opening on Saturday, April 10th from 5 to 7PM at the gallery. There will be food and wine, but no dancing girls, or ritual sacrifices...sorry! ;-) We're going to relax for a little while and get some chores done that went begging while preparing for the show, but we will be back making more artwork soon. As rewarding as a show can be, it's really more satisfying to create the next piece.

2010-03-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

Here's one more photograph from this past February. It was made after the storm that hit the week before THE STORM that clobbered us on the 26th. There is a tiny little plot of man made land that extends maybe 25 feet or so into Walton Lake. It's fenced off, and used during warm weather by the several families that built it. In its' season there is lush grass kept in finely manicured condition, but in winter there's not much to see except for the fence. This image also is intended to bid a not so fond adieu to what's been a pretty nasty winter. At least I did manage to get some photographs I like out of the season.

2010-03-17T18:14:00.001-04:00

The past week has been another wet one, but this time with copious rain and wind. At least I didn't have to shovel any of it, and it did a wonderful job of melting the shoulder high snow I cleared that we were visited with just the previous week. I don't know what's next...maybe locusts?

The nor'easter rain and wind storm was much more devastating to Westchester County where I work, than to Orange County where I live, so much so that my workplace was closed from Monday 'til today (we're back tomorrow), so I had the last two beautiful days to get out with the camera, and record some of the wonderful and unusual effects of the high water where the Wallkill River had crested many feet over it's usual high water mark. For those for whom this was NOT a beautiful event, I'm sympathetic, but I'm also glad I could make these photographs that will last far longer than the errant flood. The waters are receding, the fallen trees are being cleared, and we are quickly returning to whatever passes for normal around here.

The photographs below were made during this very welcome hiatus from the usual grind.

2010-03-05T19:48:00.000-05:00

Here's one more from last week's storm. We live at the top of a hill that, now that I've gotten to drive around a week later to see where else got what, is clearly more heavily burdened with snow than anywhere else in this vicinity. So many other places not that far away have returned to wintertime drab, their snowy coat melted and evaporated away, but we here on the hill still have over a foot of the stuff. The next few days are predicted to be very mild and sunny, so I look forward to seeing dirt and grass in the near future. Till then this post adds one more scene from behind our house that will probably look reaaaaalllly appealing sometime this summer when it's baking outside.

2010-03-03T18:52:00.001-05:00

We've just gone through a helluva week with snow. It's been almost intimidating in its depth (about 3 feet) in terms of the difficulty involved in clearing enough of it to be able to use a car, or even walk up the driveway to the street. Still, when not worrying about when the electric will come back on, or the plow will stop building a wall at the top of the driveway, it has been a really a beautiful event. The two pictures below were made after a few hours of work trying to deal with it. I was happy to see the snow, then, in a very different way.

2010-02-20T19:11:00.002-05:00

Today is the 108th anniversary of Ansel Adams' birth, and I shall absolutely (though not with Absolut) hoist a glass to this towering and troubling icon of 20th century photography. Why troubling?... because, during decades of cataclysmic world turmoil and disaster, Adams chose to primarily record and interpret the majestic, the grand, the intimate, and the serene. (although his Myanmar series of the lives or interred Japanese Americans is a significant exception). So what? Well, there are many who feel that that was an abdication of a photographer's perceived responsibility to record the depth of the world's abyss. I disagree. There were wonderful photographers who did that wonderfully. All are not called to do the same thing. To offer what Adams offered was to expand beyond the tragic reality of the moment and invite the viewer into a more uplifting, tranquil and peaceful world. Bringing those now iconic scenes to the people's attention was significantly instrumental in furthering the public and governmental will to preserve and protect them. Over the course of decades, that contribution has becaome as important as that of any of the American photographers who recorded the depths of the 20th century's tragedies from its wars to the FSA's record of the depression and its aftermath.

Adams is also responsible for nudging photography into the mainstream of "art". Others, like Stieglitz, Steichen, and the Westons did that as well, but without the mass appeal that Adams was able to command. Adams wrote articles in mainstream photo magazines, and proffered suggestions for better photography to a public eager to be informed. Other 20th century icons did far less beyond production of their work. Hence, Adams' work has become a touchstone for what most people think of as a black and white photograph. (Try passing a poster and frame shop in any mall and not see AA's work prominently displayed.) Many still place their tripods on Ansel's marks, but very, very few reinvent what he had the marvelous vision to "see".!

2010-02-14T18:30:00.002-05:00

Just south of the city of Newburgh, New York is a park interestingly called "Unique Area". It is a rather small riverside tract that sits on the western edge of the Hudson, but also includes a wide swath from the highway to the shore. We stopped by there yesterday (February 13th) to explore it again as we'd not visited it in the dead of winter before. The river was engulfed in a significant amount of ice with only a center channel completely open to shipping. The ice we encountered was noisy! I'd be engrossed with the camera and be startled to hear what sounded like someone loudly approaching me, but I'd immediately realize it was just the ice groaning and cracking from the eternally active river water forcing it to yield.

It's also amusing to me that I've railed a bit at the cliche minimalist photographs of "sticks in the water" on several internet sites, and here I am posting one of mine. But, in my defense, it's different enough to not be a clone of another person's image. There probably isn't anything one can find in the real world that hasn't been successfully photographed, but it's important to be certain that one's take on each subject is genuinely one's own.

2010-02-12T18:58:00.000-05:00

The Orange County Land Trust is a local organization that is determined to save our beautiful woodlands and open spaces from the ravages of developers. It has raised the necessary funds to purchase tracts of unspoiled land for our enjoyment and that of future generations. Some of it may be minimally developed for athletic recreation (an inevitable consequence of bending to the common weal), but it will nonetheless be public and undeveloped in any significant way. This tree and rent in the land is a feature of a very prominent piece of one of these tracts near Sugarloaf, the "Village of Craftsmen" (as they bill themselves). It has always appealed to me in countless drive-bys, and I finally succumbed to a chance to park and photograph it. I used the Shen-Hao for this with, I think, the 250mm Fujinon.

2010-02-08T19:05:00.000-05:00

I've been overwhelmed of late by a greatly expanded circle of Facebook photographer "friends". Some of these folk are wonderfully creative makers of original images, but a large number of them are utterly lame "Kennabes" who don't seem to have an original idea for an image in their shrunken little heads. BUT, who can resist the zeitgeist! Here's a photograph I posted a few years ago that I've rethought and remade. It's now an obligatory square (that I really do prefer), and toned a bit. Ansel Adams, Edward, and Brettt Weston, and a host of other icons of the 20th century influenced a multitude of photographers who emulated these masters to a faretheewell. Michael Kenna has inherited that mantle, as has the aesthetic of minimalism. I'm not a fearless, and "damn the torpedoes" kind of "artist", so I won't be blazing any new trails, but I'll be damned if I'll post a "sticks in the long exposure water" photograph even if I'm eventually senile. (I'm grinning here...don't get upset!)

2010-02-02T18:29:00.000-05:00

Here is another photograph from January 31st's drive through our rural Orange County countryside. It used to be really difficult to just stop somewhere and make a photograph, but over the years I've come to enjoy "deep looking" that can result in something worthwhile from even the most unlikely place. We were in bright sunlight and open territory, but after a while I thought this image was interesting. There's a wonderful "buzz" that accompanies the recognition of something I want to photograph that makes it exciting. Without that sensation, it would be a tedious chore to make art of any kind. It needn't be "gold", but it has to be vital.

2010-02-01T18:52:00.003-05:00

It has been a while, hasn't it? Well, there've been some big time winter illnesses, and a raft of other commitments that have hijacked my time from photography, so...those are the excuses/reasons/explanations for a month's interval between posts. Going forward, I'll be spending most of my photography time printing for our April show at the Wallkill River Gallery, so there probably will not be too much new stuff.

However, here are a couple of images I took yesterday (January 31st) during an afternoon's car ride in our Orange County countryside with my wife. She used her digicam for painting reference photographs, while I used the P67 for these and the rest of one roll of Delta 100. These two were made in the little memorial park in Craigsville that I've referred to elsewhere on this blog.. I never tire of visiting this gem of a place of solitude. Its' dedicatee is very well served!

2010-01-02T19:04:00.001-05:00

Well, now it is REALLY the time of year when I'd rather be in the darkroom than outside with the camera. Out there the windchill is in the teens, the light is dull, and the old snow is visually boring. However, the darkroom is warm, and snug, and it's time to make prints that I can hold in my hand instead of looking at on a computer screen. Actually, I've been in the darkroom a lot during the last two weeks printing for a group show at the Wallkill River Gallery, but now that work is done, and it's been fun to look through old negatives to see what I may have overlooked in the past, or decided I now like better than I did when they were made. Below is a scan of one of those negatives that I've never printed, but often remembered as being worth some time working with, so I'll probably print it tomorrow. It may go well with some of the Cape Cod photographs I've been printing even though it's from Fernandina, Florida eight years ago. One more reason I love film is that I might have long since either lost, deleted, or corrupted this if it were a digital file due to my own carelessness. Again, to those of you who accumulate pixels, be diligent with your data...back it up, and keep the storage medium current.

2009-12-29T17:52:00.001-05:00

This photograph taken last June at Natirar (Raritan backwards) in New Jersey is particularly important to me. It has a very wabi-sabi affect...the bridge's decay, and the spring's floral renewal...has a powerful resonance of my father's world of the Philadelphia of his youth. So many places we visited in Fairmount Park, Germantown, and along the Schulkyl River in my early childhood had this 19th century ethos about them, that it has become an indelible emotional chord. I am not a student of Asian or Japanese culture, but some of the few elements I have come to understand are remarkable and valuable additions to my linear and "contemporary" American world view. It's good to go slowly, and savor the moment.

2009-12-23T19:03:00.000-05:00

2009-12-07T17:57:00.006-05:00

Behind our house is a secret treasure of great beauty. The secret gets out when the fog rolls in, or the snow covers every branch and twig, or a wonderful light suffuses the woods. It's almost embarassing to relate how easy it is to throw open a window and point the camera where the eye rests, or carry the camera out on the deck with not much more than a robe and slippers to confront the weather. As it says over on the right, it just isn't necessary to travel very far to find film worthy subjects...they're in our own backyard.

2009-11-23T18:25:00.007-05:00

This past weekend was so springlike that, if you closed your eyes to the fallen leaves and November light, you would have thought you were enjoying a late April day. I decided to visit GPMSP* with the 4x5 (which I've not used for quite a while) to photograph these particular trees in this particular way. I've thought of both of them as an homage to Michael Kenna's Retrospective Two, but with a sardonic poke at the contemporary photofashionistas who seem to decry unalloyed beauty, and demand irony in the only work they insist is currently worthy.

*Goose Pond Mountain State Park

2009-11-14T19:03:00.003-05:00

Last week's walk in Goosepond Mountain State Park couldn't be repeated this weekend because of the rain, mud, and general dreariness, but here are a couple more from then. I think the more one is familiar with a place it becomes both harder to photograph because of that familiarity, and yet more rewarding to photograph when you can break through, and see it freshly. The variables that contribute to this are time of day, season, weather, and light. At least one of these will nearly always be different. The discipline is to be there often, and with openness to each.

2009-11-09T20:28:00.006-05:00

Well, so much for the notion that the weather was going to send me into the darkroom and studio, and much less often outside. It's been unseasonably mild and gorgeous which makes time in the darkroom totally uninviting until it's dark outside at least. Here are two from a couple of rolls that I exposed on a lovely walk this past Sunday. Shorts and a tee shirt again in November?? Wonderful!

2009-11-06T18:40:00.009-05:00

Last Sunday was a gorgeous mid-autumn day that lured us out to the black dirt farming region of Orange County. My wife, a friend, and I stopped by the road and spent a considerable amount of time photographing the 'scape. Susan and Mark, using digicams, fired off eleventeen scadzillion exposures to my 30 film frames, but we'll see who ended up with what...;-)...(it's all good!!!). We ended our intensely absorbing afternoon at the abandoned farm buildings and silos in the first photograph below, and had earlier explored the roadside view of the plowed and irrigated fields in the second image. I am amused at my decision to abandon tripod, and mirror lock-up, and guesstimate the exposure with a polarizing filter for the silos image. It worked out fairly well, but it certainly isn't my usual technique....oh! the thrill of perilous adventure!!! ;-)

It's important to me to emphasize that what you see here are scans of negatives, not prints, that have been adjusted in PhotoShop in the direction I will likely pursue when and if they are printed as actual reflected light images on paper. I have been very tentative about posting such work here because the paper prints are better by orders of magnitude, but I really want to share the "vision thing" (hehe...) nonetheless.

2009-10-20T18:18:00.008-04:00

It is about to be the season for me to feel it's okay to stay in the darkroom on a Saturday with only a brief foray outside for exercise and/or photography. It's going to be cold and nasty, and the warm womby darkroom will be a happy place to work without regrets for the lack of outdoor exposure.

It's a great tribute to master photographers that their "vintage" prints (those made at or near the time of their taking or their initial printing even if at a later date) are regarded as prime by dealers and gallerists. For those of us who inhabit a lesser sphere, the revelation that later printing that has had the benefit of long term percolation can vastly improve our initial attempts can be dramatic and thrilling. Below are three photographs that have been posted here before, but have been floundering around in my head as not very worthwhile as final prints. Using the magic of Photoshop as a tool with which to play, I've altered the original rather prosaic virtual "prints" into versions I'm far happier with and which I can very competently render in the darkroom with my traditional workflow.

So... what you see here is typical of the kind of work I'll be doing for the near future...i.e revisiting old work, and printing what I've not been able to get to. There may not be much or anything new, and there may be untypical lapses in posting, but I'm working on making better final images than ever, and that takes time.......

2009-10-13T18:58:00.006-04:00

Autumn has come to the wetland, and with it the wind and the rich color that fades all too soon. For one who photographs in monochrome, it's a challenge to separate value from chroma knowing that only the values will be registered on film. The two images below were made to record the wind (the leaves are a mess...almost unidentifiable) in the tree, and the suppliance of the reeds.

What these two photographs represent is a pleasant memory of a quiet, and tranquil walk in a place that has become as intimately known to me as my own face. Neither is remarkable, nor particularly memorable, but if they were pages in a book about this wonderful, simple place, they would certainly belong there as much as any other.

I spent some amiable time that afternoon talking to a couple of delightful people who have known this terrain for some 80 years. They were enjoying a walk on ground they've known a generation longer than I've been alive. Their love for each other was palpable..profoundly comfortable, and deeply, deeply familiar. Both have wonderful faces that speak of a rich, and happy life together. I'm beginning to view my relationship with the wetland in a similar way.

2009-10-04T19:11:00.005-04:00

As this is a blog, and not a website where the posted work should be the best one can make, this entry is just a "for instance". It's an example of the dilemma that confronts the photographer who is still loyal to the imperatives of modernism as defined by Adams, Weston, and their legions of disciples who continue to make photographs in that tradition to this day. But also, a photographer who's imagination is entertained by revisiting the pictorialists and their many modern practitioners who've reinvented that art and revitalized it. "Alt processes" now inhabit the photographic landscape in significant numbers, perhaps because artists demand to have a robust and active hand in making their art rather than to have to slavishly serve the authors of algorithms.

The pictures below are two versions of the same scene at nearly the same time. I had gotten to this place (Lakes Road beside the east end of Walton Lake...that's in "upstate" Orange County, New York, folks) just a bit too late for the excellent light that had been there moments before. I decided to play with selective focus, and sharp focus because I'm more and more intrigued by the former after being addicted to the latter for most of my work. Were the light on the foreground leaves, the top image would have been the clear choice for me. As it had just disappeared, the bottom 'graph made sense because of the graphic values that remained. Neither will be likely to ever be printed, but these have value to me as lessons learned...or at least considered. And, the exercise serves as one more invitation to be more playful and experimental. It's an amusing mystery to imagine what my posts might look like two years from now....Yikes!

2009-09-25T20:11:00.003-04:00

It's that melancholic time of year when mid-afternoon's sunlight dancing on golden leaves too soon gives way to deep sylvan shadows, and redolent misty air. Evening encroaches ever earlier. It has been noted by those who are the gatekeepers of art that "unalloyed beauty" is suspect....too easy, and not intellectually challenging. Such writers fail to appreciate that the "alloy" can be a union of the viewers spirit with the image that brings him to a private, personal, and unique place. Each of us is original, hence each of us experiences art uniquely. Perhaps that is really all that is necessary.

2009-09-20T17:24:00.002-04:00

It's been a few weeks since I've posted anything here, and even longer since I've posted a photograph, but I am posting the one below because I want to be able to look at it away from this 'puter. It's a place of great solitude, and natural stillness, and to visit it online during a stressful day at work is a genuine treat. It's of a boardwalk that is suspended over a small section of the wetlands at Goose Pond Mountain State Park. This summer has been unusually wet, and there has been an absolute riot of growth in these fields of rich soil and abundant moisture.

The 5 PM sun was quite low here, and there's a slight lens flare hot spot on the near planking even though I used my hand to help shade the lens beyond what the actual lens shade was able to do but I don't think it intrudes too much. I've toned this negative scan in PhotoShop to more closely approximate the actual rich warmth I'm getting in my prints now using the thiocarbamide and selenium prescription I wrote about below (September 2nd).

2009-09-02T18:25:00.003-04:00

This post is for the eleven people on the planet who care about such things, but here goes nonetheless: my current toning regimen with thiocarbamide and selenium . Tim Rudman's excellent (and currently out of print and expensive to buy used) "The Photographer's Toning Book, The Definitive Guide" has been a bible of sorts for this exploration.

To achieve a chromatic tonal pallette more or less like the PhotoShop filter I've used on the more recent negative scans below, a variable sepia toning process can be used. It involves purchasing the chemicals: thiocarbamide, potassium bromide, potassium ferricyanide (no...it won't kill you unless you're stupid careless), and sodium hydroxide (which will burn your skin off in a trice if you don't wear protective gloves, goggles, apron and magic amulet..it's commonly known as lye), and those were purchased from Photographers' Formulary. Dr. Rudman's book gives a recipe for a stock solution of the bleach, toner, and activator, but the adventure lies in tweaking the brew till it suits one's taste (aesthetic taste, of course). Here's what I've settled on for the moment, which may change a bit as I get familiar wtih it on different images:

Pot Ferri bleach: 10% solution for 30 to 40 seconds
Thiocarbamide toner with Sodium Hydroxide activator" 950 ml of 9 to 1 dilute toner with 50 ml of activator for 2 minutes or until full redevelopment seems to have been achieved.
Thorough washing need to be done between each step, and then a 4 minute bath in selenium 1:10 and a final 30+ minute wash.

Serve with coffee or scotch depending on the time of day.

2009-08-26T18:15:00.003-04:00

Well, I was mistaken. Photography IS possible in August...especially when it rains. The photographs below were made on our deck between downpours. It wasn't fun standing in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity, but art is a demanding taskmaster and must be obeyed. (big wink...I'm not that impressed with myself. As my mother often said, those who love themselves too well have no rivals. She was wise.)

I don't know the name of this flower, but Susan has arranged for it to grow vinelike (and a vine it may well be) around and through some branches cut from a dead tree we had to have felled which are wired to our deck's railing. The birds love to come and perch there, and this plant seems to thrive on the armature the branches have become.

I seem to be most often drawn to a lens that offers about a 65 to 80mm lens view in 35mm terms. Each of the cameras I use has one lens that more or less fits that way of seeing. In this case it's the 135mm lens on the P67. That lens also has some macro capability, so it's well suited to this subject. We'll see what else compels me to put the camera(s) to work in the coming two weeks before the summer ends for me.

2009-08-18T19:07:00.003-04:00

August is a terrible month for photography around here. The light is harsh, the weather is hot, humid, and not conducive to "getting out there", and since I've not yet succumbed to the current craze for last light, or no light (i.e. night) photography there won't be much if any film exposed. I was also so disappointed in the rest of the film I shot in North Carolina that I choose not to post any of it here.

But...there are a helluvalotta negatives I've yet to print, and the two scans below are among them. The other challenge is to finally lash myself to the "wet side" of the darkroom, and work on selenium and sepia toning until it meets my expectations, which are quite high.

It's a paradox that during the academic work year I long for unstructured time away, but when it finally arrives I find myself mired in inertia. Yes, the movies I've watched were good to see...the extra sleep was welcome and needed, contemplation of my navel needed renewed attention, and general laziness has a worthy place in a well balanced life. But, getting stuff done that makes one happy is a low stress imperative that I need to adhere to in the waning weeks of vacation (which is actually a lifestyle change), so to the grindstone I shall commit my nose forthwith. Well...maybe tomorrow...;-)

2009-08-11T20:22:00.002-04:00

"The South" is not what I grew up thinking it was...witness a teeshirt I saw for sale in North Carolina that boldly proclaimed: "Paddle Faster, I hear Banjo Music" Well, that may or may not be funny, but as a caricature, it's close to what I was raised to expect. The civil rights movement also made an indelible impression of a culture so antithetical to mine that I early on told the woman I would eventually marry, who is in fact a southerner, that I wondered what was the point in venturing anywhere "below" Washington, DC.

I've come to know better. The states from Virginia to Florida that I've just begun to become familiar with are beautiful, interesting, cultured, artistic, and totally worthy of respect and high regard. They have a difficult history, as do the northern states. So what!

My time spent in Georgia and North Carolina has been immensely rewarding. The two images below were made on the property of the rented cabin we spent several days enjoying in North Carolina. I'd have posted images from our day in Savannah, GA as well, but I didn't make any...too much to absorb in too little time to make photographs. There will be some more images to come from our little hike at Linville Falls. I hope you enjoy these two.

2009-07-01T18:26:00.002-04:00

For the past ten years I've been assistant principal cello in an excellent professional orchestra that performs for nascent, and experienced conductors at an upstate NY college during the month of July. These conductors are there to improve every aspect of their approach to the conductor's art which is exceptionally demanding, and highly stressful. We are there to perform significant repertoire in a way that accurately mirrors what they, the conductors, are attempting to show through gesture. This month the repertoire includes Mozart-Jupiter Symphony, Beethoven-Symphony No. 8, Brahms-3rd Symphony, Mahler-5th Symphony, Ravel-Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2, Bartok-Concerto for Orchestra, Stravinsky-Rite of Spring, Berlioz-Symphoy Fantastique, a wonderful full string orchestra version of Shostakovitch-String Quartet No. 8, and a yet to be chosen contemporary work that will have a world premier at the end of the month. Sooooo.....I just haven't got time to make photographs, nor post here this month. I need to be able to play these pieces well, and be flexible enough to modify what one conductor chooses to do, with the next, and possibly different approach that may immediately follow.

I thank you who visit here regularly for doing so, but there will not be any new posts till sometime in August I expect. Ironically, my drive to and from Bard College is a gorgeous one, and I'd love to be able to stop and make photographs, but it just can't be done. So...please visit as often as you'd like to review past work, but nothing new will appear for a few weeks.

Bye for now!

2009-06-22T18:04:00.005-04:00

These three photographs were made a little over a week ago when I first noticed how over-its-banks the Wallkill River had become from preternaturally heavy rains. But now the rains have continued, and I'm going to have to go check out how much higher the water may have risen out where these were taken (very near Montgomery, NY where our gallery is located). I'm not used to seeing tree trunks in water, and their lower hanging branches bobbing in the rapid flow, so there may be some more good stuff to photograph.

They are scans of 4x5 negatives made with the Shen Hao and my 250mm Fujinon lens that I love to use. But....that is one big honkin lens, and the Benro K-2 ball head just isn't doing the job of holding it very well, so I'm going to return to using the Bogen 410 geared head that is as rigid as a wingnut conspiracy theorist. I paid less than $100 for the Benro (only to then read that some consider it to be a GPS..and no, I do not refer to the satellite guidance thingie.) and it works very well with my other two medium format cameras, so I still feel it's an okay piece of kit, but if I win the lottery, I'm going to get me one whoop-di-doo Arca Swiss B-1 or B2 that'll hold a howitzer in a hurricane. But there's that pesky hurdle of first winning the lottery ....sigh!! (Must remember to buy ticket...must buy ticket...must buy ticket....!!!)

2009-06-13T14:46:00.004-04:00

I have just officially saved myself about $120 at the very least. Why? Because I decided not to send my new-to-me Mamiya C330 to a camera repair shop to have the light seals replaced. Instead, I bought a repair kit on-line from ebay for about $10 including shipping, and did it myself. I did try this earlier using the self-adhesive soft half of a strip of Velcro without any success at all, so I'm really glad I found the right stuff to use this time.

The images below are from two different rolls of long expired HP5 (2002) that I used to check the results. Woohoo! success! There's no discernible photon penetration in places that shouldn't be penetrated by photons especially in the upper 'graph which was made in very bright and intense sunlight. And, happily, the film itself seemed to have done well despite its alleged terminal status.

2009-06-04T18:14:00.008-04:00

When, for whatever reason, I can't actively be making a photograph in the field or the darkroom, I am constantly looking at photographs by any medium available. Of course, on-line is the most likely, and I've posted some favorite sites on a side bar. But I've stumbled onto a site that offers the visual equivalent of a nearly endless buffet of food. It's a buffet that allows indulgence without calories or guilt. A wallow if you will (or even if you won't).

I believe that looking at photographs as much as possible is an indispensable part of educating one's self in the medium. It nourishes the visual literacy that is necessary to distinguish worthy work from the trite and cliched, as well as what's just not going to ever be part of the aesthetic you embrace however well regarded it may be by others. I experience a palpable, and visceral thrill when I see photographs that resonate with my current sensibilities, and find myself startled when work I'd not thought I'd ever be likely to enjoy satisfies my viewing.

So here, in lieu of a photograph or two of my own, is the URL of the site I've discovered. I warn you that you will need a lot of time to explore it's many contributors, and I make no apology if such indulgence gets you in trouble with those who insist on availing themselves of your time. I wish you who visit this resource multiple eyegasms!

http://photography-now.net/listings/index.php?option=com_alphacontent&section=29&sort=5&Itemid=293&limit=50&limitstart=0

2009-05-23T17:43:00.005-04:00

Last week's post mentioned the multitude of millionaires in New Jersey. Well, some of these folks were thoughtful enough to leave or sell their estates to the state or counties which have now become extraordinary parks for all to enjoy. Natirar (Raritan backward) is the name of an estate once owned by the king of Morocco. "The river and Peapack Brook run through it. The estate includes 22 buildings, many historic, six wells and three bridges, NJ Transit right-of-way and three streams, a pond, woodland. The 33,000 square-foot mansion itself, grand that it may be, is sedate and austere. Its history intrigues."* It is owned by the Somerset County Parks Commission which bought the place for 22 million dollars. "The mansion, two cottages, carriage house and greenhouse stand on 88 acres that the county plans to lease to Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Airlines. The house will continue on as a retreat facility albeit commercial, not philanthropic with a full-service spa, conference center and restaurant that will be open to the public. The other 403 acres will be maintained as open space." *

The place is an absolutely gorgeous park. The two photographs below were made on May 15th while circumambulating the carriage path that is about a mile and a half or two in length. I schlepped the entire 4x5 kit (3 lenses, Shen Hao camera, 1 degree spot meter, darkcloth, tripod, film holders (10), filters, and loupe); the P67 might have done as well, but I love the big negatives. Thank goodness I don't have an 8x10 jones, or I'd be in traction.

* from: http://www.njskylands.com/clnatirar.htm

2009-05-17T19:04:00.004-04:00

People give the entire state of New Jersey a terrible time. It's as if it were simply destined to be the butt of jokes because some state had to be, and Jersey's number came up....I don't know. It doesn't help that it hasn't got a single city that's got the stature of it's Pennsylvania, or New York neighbors' greater cities; nor that it's decades of polluted air from the oil refineries in the northeastern part of the state are drive through souvenirs as one traverses the New Jersey Turnpike. But I recently learned (though I haven't checked that this is true) that NJ has more millionaires than any other state in the union. It also has some of the loveliest and most cultivated wealthy suburban and semi-rural areas I've ever visited. It has some pretty damn good universities too i.e. Princeton, and Rutgers, and one helluva popular Atlantic Ocean coastline.

The two photographs below are from a Morris County park called Willow Wood. It's an arboretum that is easy to walk through, and lush with a rich variety of plantings that offer wonderful flora that bloom and strut their stuff during the different months and seasons of the year. We will return to this pocket paradise again...and perhaps many times...to paint and photogarph it's vivid beauty.

2009-05-09T18:54:00.002-04:00

I often marvel at the extraordinary still life photographs of flowers done so well by so many photographers. I, however, have almost never made an image of a flower or flowers either outdoors or in the studio with the notable exception of some flowering dogwood trees. But, here are a couple that I've posted to break the ice. The lower one was made at an arboretum here in Orange County. Making flower photographs there is like fishing in a well stocked pond...the subjects are abundant; the skill to capture them well is another matter. The upper 'graph was made at the little park in Craigville where I've made a number of images that I really like. As I may have written somewhere else on this blog, it's a memorial to a young boy who died of an incurable disease, and whose family belonged to the religious congregation that built the park. A lovely stream runs through it, and the place fosters a deep sense of peace that is a fitting commemoration of a young life too early extinguished. I never fail to find something that absorbs me there, and may also be worthy of a photograph. But most of all, I enjoy the sense of tranquility that permeates the trees, grass, and flowing water.

2009-05-01T19:58:00.003-04:00

The photograph below was posted with a rant I should never have written late on a Friday night when I was too tired for my frontal lobe to have taken an active part in its composition. In other words, it was a pretty dumb thesis that seemed even dumber after a good night's sleep. It wasn't dumb because it was wildly wacko wrong, but because it needed a lot more words, and a lot deeper scholarship to make its' case. So...here's the pic that it went with without the blather. It's a bit abstract, but not too much so that you can't recognize what it is. I hope you like it.

2009-04-26T17:46:00.004-04:00

This weekend was spectacular! It has been unseasonably warm...a strong taste of summer...and brilliantly sunlit, but the humidity didn't accompany the heat, so for me at least, it's been a real treat. On Saturday morning we drove over to Iona Marsh that lies just south of the Bear Mountain Bridge on the west bank of the Hudson River. Susan wanted to scout the area for painting subjects, and I had brought along both my MF and LF kits to make photographs.

It's interesting to me that marshes seem to change very little from season to season other than the presence or absence of ice which isn't even a factor when the marsh is in salty water. The water this far up the Hudson is, I am told, a bit briny although it's quite far from the sea, because salt water is conveyed in ever more diluted quantities by the tide.

Once again (as will often be the case now) this is a PS toned negative scan that attempts to replicate a real print that will be toned as described below. The camera was the P67 with 135mm lens, and a green filter.

2009-04-20T18:21:00.002-04:00

Living where we do, spring gets sprung a bit later...maybe a week or two...than it does closer to NYC. The early vivid green of nascent leaves and swollen buds on a warm and sunbathed day is palpably thrilling. I found myself wandering near where our gallery is located (Montgomery, NY) and drove to several places I'd thought might yield promising camera fodder, and was happy to discover what you see here. These are negative scans that I've photoshopped to resemble the toning they'll get when prints are made. The toning will be a light bleaching in a dilute potassium ferricyanide and potassium bromide solution, and then a brief bath in thiocarbamide with sodium hydroxide controller followed by selenium 1:10 with generous washing between steps. For certain subjects, I think the warmth added by the toning is very welcome. (BTW, I was using the P67 with a 135mm lens for these which I've cropped to the more squarish presentation I prefer. )

2009-04-07T17:05:00.004-04:00

The opening for our show was a lot of fun! As I've written elsewhere, the show itself was totally free of anxiety...the work was done; it was as good as it was going to get, and folks would either like it or not. But hoping people would attend, that there'd be enough wine and goodies, and even maybe (by the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) some red dots would appear (as if the work were getting chicken pox! ;)...well, that's what one worries about. But all the concerns were quenched with a decent turnout, adequate treats, and...yes...some red dots for both Susan and me! (in fact, today, another of Susan's large paintings sold which is a really good thing to have happened given this miserable economy). And best of all, we were surprised and delighted to have some very special people show up...friends from both our real and virtual worlds (i.e. internet buddies), and family...my two sons, who traveled a great distance to be there. So...it's been worthwhile, and I'm pretty happy about it all.

Now, since these posts almost always involve an image or two, here's one that I've not scanned or printed before. It's from a week in 2004 that we spent visiting Susan's family in Florida (north Florida...not the south Florida snowbird roost that so many from our area have migrated to. Susan's a native of the area.) It's from a road that leads to and from the Kingsley Plantation (google it...it's quite a historical treasure). I was using my big ole honkin Toyo D monorail camera on a heavy tripod with the only lens I think I had at the time, a 210 Rodenstock Geronar. I'm posting it because it's a nice reminder of where we could have been this week. It's also fodder for toning in thiocarbamide and selenium which is my current exploration.

2009-03-29T08:45:00.002-04:00

We're having our second show at the Wallkill River Gallery. The back of the show-card says:

"An exhibition of oil paintings and black and white photographs in the main galleries of the historic Patchett House, home of the Wallkill School and Gallery.

April 1-30, 2009

Reception on Saturday April 4th, from 5 - 8 PM"

Any of you who can make it to the show will enjoy seeing the Patchett House at the very least. It's a mid 19th century structure that has been beautifully restored. It's located at 232 Ward Street (17K) in Montgomery, New York. Hours are Tuesday through Sunday 9AM to 6PM
The webaddress is: www.wallkillriverschool.com

We'd love to see any of you who can drop by for the opening, or hear from you if you visit the show during April.

2009-03-17T18:55:00.003-04:00

Sunday, the 15th of March, was a gorgeous and springlike day. I couldn't wait to get out of the house and exercise myself and the camera which I did with great pleasure. Before I hiked at Goose Pond Mountain State Park, I stopped at the bottom of the "hill" we live on to photograph these images at Walton Lake. The top image is of a fence that separates the public access part of the lake from someone's teensy little postage stamp plot of lake front. The bottom image is of two of the aluminum fishing boats that have wintered over rather badly topside up in the rain and snow. A couple of guys have some serious bailing to do!

2009-03-13T19:48:00.002-04:00

Here are yet a couple more from my perambulations around the pond at Goose Pond Mountain State Park two weeks ago. I've titled them as "Winter Light" one and two, but they're really not images that should be titled beyond the imperatives of time and place. Were "winter light" to be a meaningful title, there would have to be less than one percent of the gazillion images that call themselves that to be significant.

They have yet to be printed. I am about to embark on a toning journey that may deepen the sense of mood and light, and these are grist for that exploration. We'll see.

2009-03-09T18:18:00.003-04:00

Here are another three from yesterday (March 8th) at Goose Pond Mountain State Park. I've returned here over and over again for several years now, and I recognize in photographing it, the same mentality I seem to exhibit when I buy clothes. Blue, denim, khaki., blue, denim, khaki, white., blue, denim, khaki, white with stripes, black, black black...etc. etc. These negative scans may become prints eventually. They're 6x7 negatives that I've cropped to my nearly obsessively favored squares. They will almost certainly end up being toned with thiocarbamide and selenium, so what you see here isn't really what they'll look like. And...I've Photo Shopped them a good bit in the manner I will likely utilize when I'm printing them for real, so they're not really pure scans at all. Anyway...the joy is in the discovery and the execution, and the next best part is yet to come, i.e. the darkroom. I would abandon photography in a heartbeat if I had no recourse but a completely digital continuum. The irony is that digitizing film is my absolute first choice in previewing negatives...I've not made a contact sheet in years. But, after that, the "real" photographic process begins for me, and I get to retreat to my warm, and cozy darkroom. Will the weekend never come! ;-)

2009-03-08T19:29:00.004-04:00

Today was a gorgeous respite from the last few wintry weeks. I can only hope that we've seen the last of ice and snow, but I'm hedging my bets on that...we'll see. My younger son was born on April 8th, two days after a monstrous blizzard of 14 inches or so of snow on April 6th 1982, so who knows. I'm going to hang up the shovel and drain the snow blower; I could be wrong! ;-)

2009-03-01T19:12:00.004-05:00

After a reflective week following the portfolio review, I'm enthusiastic about my work...I feel empowered to make my own decisions, and utterly comfortable being dismissive of the bullshit that one reviewer had a hard time defining as "contemporary photography". Of the six people who evaluated my portfolio, most were very enthusiastic, one was exceptionally helpful, another was indifferent, and the rest spanned the gamut in between.

These two images were made on February 28th, and represent a direction I'm eager to continue pursuing. The chaos of nature is utterly hypnotic to me, and I hope to become yet more attune to the order that, nonetheless, resides therein.

Woo Hoo!....a happy occurrence!

2009-02-13T17:56:00.010-05:00

Fraction Magazine, an on-line photography 'zine has included one of my photographs in the APUG (Analog Photography Users Group) group show. There were apparently 200 submissions, and 29 images were chosen. So...I'm happy about that, and grateful for the selection. Here's a link if you'd like to see what was chosen of mine, and the rest of the remarkable 'graphs that have been published.

www.fractionmag.com/

2009-02-11T18:26:00.004-05:00

This is to be the third in a series for the portfolio review of similar views of the same scene in different iterations: early snow, fog, and winter snow. It amazes me that I've not printed this before. The negative is a really good one. The negative was made with the 4x5 Shen Hao and 250mm Fujinon lens.

Well, I decided I preferred this negative after all to the one from my previous post. It looks more like what I had in mind as a variation on the other 'graphs than the more vaginal first choice. And....don't go there!.... there aren't any issues in my life...just enjoy the pic hehe..... ;)

2009-02-03T18:36:00.002-05:00

Well, believe it or not, this is a view from the exact same spot as the Beacon stream series that I posted on November 29th, and a springtime series of the same thing I posted in July of 2007. I guess this must be the place I find the most varied and inspiring, because I've never yet found another that has so much dynamic interest, and so many different moods in one very confined area. This will get printed on Friday evening I think, and is a good candidate for the review portfolio.