well earned patina

Just like old times • click to embiggenI have a friend in north Jersey, Mel DiGiacomo, who is an extraordinary photographer.

In his heyday, he worked for Newsweek and was Sports Illustrated's #1 go-to guy on the pro tennis circuit. Until a few years ago, every time I saw Mel he had 2 beat up Leicas hanging from his neck. As a matter of fact, I have never seen Mel without a camera - at the dinner table, driving his car, at social gatherings, sitting with friends - name the time and place, Mel has a camera and is making pictures.

And get this, I have never seen him with a camera to his eye - all his picturing is done with the camera at arm's length, pointed in the general direction of his subject.

His "thing", you might even call it his obsession, is wide angle BW people in their environment. For all in intents and purposes, he does decisive moment street photography. In an interview in Rangefinder magazine, a photographer was quoted as saying, "My first true mentor was a crazy Sicilian named Mellshior Digacamo. He had the ability to capture the magic of a moment in almost any situation, and I began to see what it was to be creative." - a statement that pretty accurately sums it up.

A few years back, Mel made the switch to digital. While his picturing continues as before - Mel can make BW prints that have the look and feel of his former analog stuff - he has yet to come to grips with the digital darkroom. More accurately, he has yet to reach a peace with it. Every time he sits in front of a computer, he truly looks and acts dazed and confused. It's not difficult to see that Mel just doesn't feel at home.

Last week on my way to PA, Mel and I got together at my inlaws in north Jersey. As usual, he had his camera in tow as well as his laptop. For the first time, I noticed that Mel's digital stuff is as bunged up as his trusty Leicas - scrapes, gouges, tape, scribbles, and some general all-around crud was the order of the day - and it dawned on me that Mel was "making himself at home" in the digital age.

It was one of those mini-epiphanies when you see something familiar in a new way - jamais vu. Even though I see spanking new looking digital gear all the time, I never really thought about the passing of a photographic tradition - the era of the "brassed" and bunged camera, which at one time, was the mark of a hard working pro. A beat up Leica or Nikon was a patina-ed badge of hard-working honor.

In most cases, just like many of the photographers who carried them, the cameras acquired a time-worn character that spoke of interesting pictures, times, and lives. In the case of Mel Digacamo, he wears the badge with distinction.

urban ku # 186 ~ I dislike mural photography

Best Western ~ Lancaster, PA • click to embiggenWay back when - seems like half a century ago - one of my first blog entries was about quiet photography in which a writer, Gary Badger, mentioned "the muralist syndrome" - the relatively recent preoccupation in the Art world, photography division, with BIG prints. That is, really BIG prints, which until quite recently were often referred to as "murals". I have never been a fan of "murals" but, over the past year or so, I have become increasingly appreciative of really BIG prints, that is, prints larger than "standard" bigness of 20-30 inches or so.

That said, I am still very suspicious / unappreciative of BIG just for the sake of bigness. Some pictures take on an added dimension when printed BIG. These pictures manage to avoid turning into "murals" - think corporate lobby "wallpaper" pictures - when presented as BIG prints but for a while now I have been struggling with trying to understand why this is so.

One thing I have noticed about good BIG pictures is that they also "work" when presented as small pictures. These pictures do not need to be BIG to "work". As I mentioned, they just seem to gain an added dimension when viewed BIG. Maybe the reason for this is simply that a good picture can "work" at any size but, when it is presented BIG, it just seems to demand more attention. After all, we humans seem to be genetically imprinted with a fascination with BIG - BIG cars, BIG houses, BIG cathedrals, BIG guns, BIG dicks/tits, BIG production numbers .... you know what I mean ...nothing exceeds like excess.

That said, what is surprising to me is that "quiet" pictures - pictures of the ordinary - can remain "quiet" and intimate even when printed BIG or at least it seems so to me.

Have any of you made a really BIG print of your work? If so, have you noticed a new "dimension" to the picture? Can a BIG print be "quiet" and intimate?

man and nature # 8 ~ return to an old habit

Green • click to embiggenNot that you may have noticed here on the web, but I have a new camera and a new lens.

I purchased the camera for 2 primary reasons:

1) I wanted more pixels, in this case 15mp - almost 1.5x the number I have been using - in order to make big prints, 4×4 feet, of my decay and picture window series. I am running some direct comparison tests at 2×2 feet and there is some difference between 10 mp and 15 mp, but, frankly, not all that much at normal viewing distance. We'll see what happens at 4×4 feet.

2) I wanted to use a prime (non-zoom, single focal length) lens.

Before I got into digital capture, of all the lens I owned (35mm, medium format, large format) I only had 1 zoom lens - a Nikkor 43-86mm. It was common knowledge and wisdom that zoom lenses were always inferior to prime lens in sharpness, contrast, and speed. If you were a "serious" (and non-action/sports) shooter, you made pictures with prime lenses. End of story.

With the advent of digital capture and, to be accurate, far better glass and computer-assisted lens design and manufacture, zooms seemed to emerge as the lens of choice. Now, of all the digital capture lenses I own, only 1 is a prime - and that only since a week ago. And that only by switching brands to a manufacturer which seems to place a high value on prime lenses.

Why, you might wonder, do I want to shoot with a prime lens?

The answer is really quite simple - I like to keep it simple. IMO, and 1n my experience, picturing with a single focal length helps me, the photographer, focus on what I am seeing (and trying to convey) without having to be concerned at all with the mechanics of how I see it. The "mechanics" of my vision are locked in and there is a resultant visual consistency to my body of work.

There is little new about this approach. Very few, if any, bodies of Fine Art photography are made with or exhibit the use of obviously different focal length lenses.

So, here I am, once again, making pictures with just 1 lens, in this case, a 21mm f2.8 (35mm equivalent) and it "feels" good - just like old times.

How about you? Any prime lens picture makers in the audience?

picture windows # 4 ~ a look at my life

The press check from hell room • click to embiggenOn urban ku # 185, Mike asked, "In post 516 you mentioned photographing in the Amish Country — were you able to do that?"

Answer; "No." Thanks to a number of issues at the printer which were exacerbated by a printer's rep who was a total idiot when it came to estimating when I should be on hand to check a press sheet and, just to make matters infinitely worse, how long I would need to be on hand while they fixed various press snafus and assorted other issues. The net result was that I ended up spending most of my time at the printer with some 4 hour food-and-sleep breaks thrown in. This went on 'round the clock for almost 48 hours straight.

When it finally wrapped up at 3:45 AM on Thursday morning, I slept for 8 hours, then ate breakfast and headed home - a 7 hour drive. I just did not have the energy to take a detour and make pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't even have time to hook up with a Landscapist reader who did answer my open request to get together and have a beer. By the time I could get together, he was too busy. Oh well, maybe next time.

FYI, on Wednesday, May 14, PBS is airing (nationally) the 2 hour program, The Adirondacks. The program is organized by the four seasons and features 4 ....

.... passionate characters, each with a unique perspective on the region .... a craftsman restoring one of the legendary Great Camps, rustic retreats for the super rich of a bygone era; an Olympic hopeful training in Lake Placid, home to two historic Winter Games; a young visitor climbing his first Adirondack High Peak; and North Country Public Radio reporter Brian Mann's story on proposed development in Tupper Lake ... "

THE ADIRONDACKS conveys why living within these protected lands makes for an extraordinary human existence. For many people, questions about the relationship between man and nature are largely theoretical; Adirondackers, however, confront these issues in their everyday lives as loggers, conservationists, innkeepers, artists or athletes. As viewers get to know these engaging characters, they may contemplate their relationship with the natural world in a different light.

I would highly recommend this program for those of you who have a PBS affiliate that airs THE ADIRONDACKS. It sounds as though it will provide a good look at where and how I live my life.

urban ku # 185 ~ accidents do happen

Specialty store of the year - Milford, PA • click to embiggenI'm back home and my brain is pretty much out of the press check from hell fog it was in for the past few days.

And, because of that fog, I re-read and re-read the article that I mentioned in the previous post. At first I thought that maybe I had missed or misunderstood something - surely someone wasn't seriously suggested that, in essence, you judge a color photograph's success / goodness / quality by converting it to BW and then judging it. But, no matter how many times I read the thing, that does indeed seem to be the point.

The idea that you judge what something is by turning it into something that it is not is, as I stated previously, rather daft. In fact, IMO, it is quite daft. The only reason that I can think of that someone would suggest this idea is that they simply do not understand the radical differences between the skills necessary to make successful color and/or BW pictures.

Each genre has its own distinct visual vernacular, its own way of seeing - both in the making and in the viewing. On a purely visual level (form), ignoring content, most successful BW pictures rely heavily on the expert use of tonal values and contrast. Color pictures, on the other hand, rely heavily on the expert use of ... well ... you guessed it - color.

Make no mistake, these are two very different skill sets. If you are to be successful in either genre, you need to understand what is required by each approach and work accordingly. This concept of knowing the difference has become more than a bit muddled in the age of digital capture wherein all pictures start out as color images. In order to edit and print in BW, one must convert the color values to bw values after the act of picturing.

This way of working has led many, if not most, picture makers to consider BW as an effect not as the unique way of seeing that it actually is - you need only witness the never ending stream of this comment found on so many photo forum sites - "I think this photo works better as a BW picture than it does as color picture.", or its inverse, "Do you think this photo works better as a BW picture than it does as a color picture?"

Simply stated, this comment(s) displays a complete ignorance of the BW genre, or, for that matter, one could argue, a rather significant misunderstanding of the how and the why of making a truly good body of work (color or BW) - rather than the occasional and "accidental" making of a single good picture (color or BW).

Again, simply stated, if you want to consistently make good BW or color pictures you must have, at the very least, a basic understanding of the visual vernacular of the genre of your choice. Otherwise, you are little more than an "accidental' photographer.

Any thoughts on this?

Update on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 01:29PM by gravitas et nugalis

FYI, Milford PA is a small village (pop. 1100) in the extreme NE corner of PA. It claims to be the home of the conservationist movement (courtesy of Gifford Pinchot) and actually is the resting place of the blood-soaked (still visible) American flag that was draped on President Abraham Lincoln's booth at Ford's Theatre the night he was shot.

If neither of those inducements are enough to get you to visit the place, you might also consider the fact that, in September 2007, Frommer's Budget Travel named Milford, Pennsylvania, second on its list of "Ten Coolest Small Towns in America".

Truth be told, I knew none of this until yesterday when I "accidentally" - not by mistake - passed through Milford on my way home from the press check from hell.

urban ku # 184 ~ say what?

Best Margarita, NYC - click to embiggenI am posting this entry a bit early because I'll be driving home most of tomorrow and I wanted to float this topic so you can think about it for a bit.

On Friday AM, I'll post an entry about this bit of nonsense. This piece seems to be an excellent example of ignorance regarding medium specificity - in this case, the BW medium and the color medium, photography division.

The notion that one can/should determine if a color photograph is good by converting it to BW, then judging if it is 'good' as a BW photograph, and, if it is not good as a BW photograph, it certainly can not be good as a color photograph, is, quite simply, rather daft.

It seems to me to be like trying to determine if a blues riff is good by judging it as played on bagpipes.

picture windows # 3 ~ a big city view

picture window, NYC - click to clickOne thing I am getting in the can on my trip is plenty of picture windows and I am really starting to warm up to this series/project.

The one opportunity that I have on this trip that I don't as much at home is that of picturing business / commercial windows - hotels, printing plants, etc. As I work along, the possibilities start to seem endless.

In any event, today's picture window picture is of the view that you get from a $1.3 million dollar NYC apartment kitchen window - a featureless concrete wall with a thermomator. Ahhh, life in the big city.

cicilized ku # 83 ~ East Village, NYC (a amost perfect day in NYC)

East Village cemetary oblisk, NYC - click to embiggenOn my way to Amish county, I spent Monday and Monday night with my friend Robert in NYC.

Before we hooked up I spent a considerable amount of time walking the streets of NYC looking for a Verizon store in order to replace my cell phone which had disintegrated that morning. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the time but it was a gloriuos NYC day and no matter how many times you walk the streets of NYC, there is always something new to see.

After a very frustrating day at the press check, I am hoping to get out into Amish country tomorrow and poke around.