low_delta

I wrote about my cameras on Substack.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/156650327

I'm posting it here mainly to have a record here where I keep all my records. Writing that took me five or six hours! I had to do a lot of research, both on which cameras I used at which time, but also tracking down the photos.

Thursday I wasn't feeling well. Friday wasn't feeling as bad. Saturday I was mostly better, if still not 100%. Today I felt fine, but by supper time I was dead tired.

I did a photography workshop. One of our members shoots large format, and uses X-ray film. X-ray film is cheap or free these days, since clinics and hospitals have all gone digital. It's interesting because it doesn't perform the same as regular film. It is more contrasty, and leaves more to chance. For people who have shot large format before, they would find this in interesting challenge. I haven't, so I was doing it just because I have never shot large format, and I have never developed film in a darkroom before.

So this was a 120-year-old camera, that uses 8x10" sheets of film. The cameras that the other people used were made of metal, and used 4x5" sheets. Carl gave me that camera because I was the youngest guy there, and this camera and tripod were the heaviest. We were going out in the woods by the river. (There were five people taking the workshop - three of us old guys, and two young people who had their own cameras, borrowed from school.) The main advantage of having the larger camera was that it was easier to focus. Other than that, there was little advantage in a setting like this. That is, people who don't know what they're doing, and aren't making art.

Taking pictures was a bit of an ordeal. Find a scene. Set up the tripod and level it. Pull the camera out of the pack and mount it to the tripod. Open it and run the front of the camera out on the rails. Open the aperture. Get the shot lined up. Everything is backwards and upside down, and you probably have to look at the image which is projected onto the ground glass on the back of the camera while you have the black cloth over your head. Focus it. Decide on an aperture. Take a light reading. Check the reciprocity, if necessary. Set the shutter speed, if possible. Test the shutter a couple of times. Redo the whole light reading and settings thing once or twice to get something that works. Put the film holder in the back of the camera. Remove the dark slide from it. Trip the shutter to expose the film. Replace the dark slide. Reverse the process to disassemble everything and find another scene.

It turns out my camera had an issue with the shutter speed, and I had to put the shutter speed on manual. Then I would make it so that the exposure would be as long as possible, so I could get the right exposure by counting the seconds. There's no way I could have counted a tenth of a second, so I'd do it at ten seconds.

I made one mistake in the field. The film holders are two-sided. For my third shot, using first side of the second film holder, when I was ready to take the shot I pulled the wrong darkslide from the film holder. This exposed the back sheet of film to the light, ruining it. I'm just glad it hadn't been used yet, and there was no image on it that would have been ruined.

So then we went back to Carl's house, to develop the negatives. I really had no idea what I was doing, there. There were six trays we had to put our film in, in turn. Water, developer, stop bath, fixer, water and water. Then more water. I just followed his instructions. Fortunately whatever lapses in instructions due to his distractions didn't have ill effect on my negatives. Another guy did have some damage to his.

So of my four sheets of film, shot 1 turned out OK, not great. Sheet 2 turned out well. Sheet 3 turned out badly, and sheet 4 was ruined. I'll count that as a success.

Then three of them left, and three of us went out to eat. That's when the day caught up to me. So tired. I had been carrying the heavy camera up and down the muddy trails. And using a lot of brain to figure everything out. And trying to figure out everything that was going on in the darkroom. And basically being on my feet for the entire afternoon. And trying to keep up in conversation. After that I drove home, talked with Cindy a little bit, and now I'm trying to write about it, and scan and process my images.



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I sold a piece. I think it was my first sale ever (I assume if I've sold work before, one of you will tell me!). Cindy and I were invited to an exhibition of people who all know each other. This was our second year in it, and the third year of the exhibition: Electric Eclectic III.



The gallery took a commission, so I think I netted about ten bucks. I had shown it a few times, so I had kind of a low price on it, though if I had done the math, I would have raised the sale price by about $40. Still probably would have sold.

Someone mentioned the Veils series, by Morris Louis. I think there are similarities, maybe more than any other painter, except for a few paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe. More than Rothko, definitely.

http://morrislouis.org/paintings/veil-paintings

https://www.mnuchingallery.com/exhibitions/morris-louis-veils#tab:slideshow;tab-1:slideshow;tab-2:slideshow

Any similarities are purely superficial of course. Lewis's technique is a huge part of the paintings.

I don't think I mentioned O'Keeffe before. Her work is the obvious comparison, because she did abstracted flowers. But I didn't feel they were particularly similar, until I saw one of her purely abstract works at the art museum. It's very much like mine! Or, mine are like hers. Here are a couple of them...

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I went down to Bay View tonight, to visit an artist who was showing her work for Gallery Night. I was talking with another photographer. He was looking through my Instagram feed, and he saw a resemblance between some of my abstract works and Mark Rothko's paintings. I thought that was nice.



Later the subject of artistic influences came up. I think he said that it's good for an artist to know their influences. I thought about it, and I can't come up with influences. I just do what I do. My main drive is composition. I'm always looking for balance. Lines, flow. Regardless of the subject, it's the composition that makes it a good image.

I have a better-than-passing familiarity with art and artists in general, which seems to surpass that of most of my compatriots in my organization. So I feel like I should at least know whose art I share commonality with. Looking...

Well, I share the monochrome-ish feel with Rothko. I haven't yet found anyone else who uses line and form like I do. But then I'm looking at painters, while I'm a photographer. I'm basically using found objects. So rather than creating interesting arrangements of random forms and colors, I'm finding them.

It's going to take a while to find all the abstract artists. It's been interesting so far. I'll have to think about how my flowers compare with O'Keeffe's. I've found a similarity with certain Margaret Neill works. There is so much variety in abstract works, or course. I'll have to keep looking.

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I was accepted into a show. The 2021 Secura Fine Arts Exhibition at the Trout Museum in Appleton. That was nice. 354 applicants, 117 accepted with 130 works. Cindy got in as well.



In theory, cameras capture reality, but in actuality they can show us familiar subjects in ways we can't see with our eyes. I explore the ways that depth of field, focusing, cropping and focal length can show us familiar subjects in ways we haven't seen before. I am fascinated by the sublime abstract art hidden in simple flowers, unleashed by the macro lens. My macro photos use only minimal post-processing to retain an element of realism in an otherwise alien landscape. Similarly, the images are titled for the names of the flowers to help the viewer orient, while highlighting the difference between their perceptions and the lens's.


Cindy got into the show with the one I posted a few weeks ago...
https://low-delta.dreamwidth.org/1724674.html
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I saw this scene on my first day at work in the new office. I'm not really supposed to be taking photos there, so I kinda snuck over to get a shot with my phone. I tried it three times and went back to my desk to post on Instagram. I realized there was a waste basket visible, so I went back to move it and try again.

My phone has a problem, where if I zoom in with the screen, it doesn't take the photo. I needed to zoom to get the right angle of everything, and to post it on IG. That happened, and I didn't realize it until I got back to my desk. Now, I know this is an issue, so I have no idea why I didn't check to see if it took. So I "snuck" back over and did it again. I mean, I took the photo, and went back to my desk without checking to see whether I made the capture, and found out I didn't. I gave up. Some time later, I decided I'd give it one more try.

I finally got it, and went back to post it. Unfortunately, I was so intent on getting and posting the shot, that I didn't realize I didn't get the shot. I realized later it didn't look very good. It's the first one here. The second version is the way I intended it.



A couple of days later I brought my big camera in, and did it right. The image is divided roughly into thirds. The middle third is the open doorway into the conference room. The left third is the door itself, partway open, and the right third is an etched glass window, with a pattern of lines. Out the window across the street is an ionic pilaster (embedded column), centered in that third. The vertical line of the door bisects the window that's next to the pilaster. And you can see the pattern in the glass. I think it's a successful image.

This next one was taken with my phone as well. It's the only phone pic where I got the composition right, but it's got that wastebasket. Even the light levels are correct. If I'd stopped to really look at the photos on my phone, I would have just posted this one.



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As I mentioned, on my last trip to Scotland, I had hoped to see a steam train, but didn't. But I didn't make plans for seeing one, so I wasn't surprised. Also, I saw Glenfinnan Viaduct, which the steam train crosses twice daily. I knew it was there before I saw it, but I found out later that the viaduct and steam train were famous from the Harry Potter movies. In the movies, it was the Hogwarts Express, but in actuality, it's The Jacobite.

While steam trains are fun, I'm also a fan of bridges, so I really wanted to get a photo of this train on this viaduct. On the previous trip, it was a cool, wet day, and it was kinda late, and I was with my dad (in his 70's), so I didn't walk up the hills for a better view of the viaduct. But this time I did some research. One of the things I learned was that the hills are rotten with photographers. A few sources indicated that you won't get a photo without other photographers in it. One site said that to get a place to park, you need to be there before the train leaves Fort William.

I think I was there before the train left Fort William, but there were no parking places anywhere. I made a couple of passes, but there was nothing. And this was September - not the high season!

We drove on up the glen and came upon an entrance to some sort of dirt road. There was ample room to park without blocking the gate, so I did. We went up a nearby hill, and we were greeted with the view of the valley - and a bridge over the tracks!



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This is my cover image for the Arty Bollocks punk ball. Or would be if there was a cover... and I had anything to say about it.

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Our photographers' organization, CoPA, is putting on a contest and an event. There's this website called Arty Bollocks, where you can have it create an artist's statement for you. Things like My work explores the relationship between the tyranny of ageing and vegetarian ethics. With influences as diverse as Nietzsche and Frida Kahlo, new tensions are created from both orderly and random textures. This is known as artspeak, or bollocks. Our leader has contacted the site's creators, and I guess they're going to be adding a section for photographers. Then we're going to have a contest.

Artists will download a random artist statement, and then create a work that matches it. Unlike most of our competitions and shows, this one will be open to the public. But that's not all! We're going to make a big deal out of this and get some citywide exposure. There's going to be an Arty Bollocks Ball. I guess the event (not the contest) will have a punk theme. You know, Sex Pistols, Nevermind the Bollocks. And we need some promo photos for it, so our leaders arranged a model shoot. Another organization, called Truu Art joined us. We're the experienced ones, and they're the younger, more creative ones.

On Friday, we started at the Iron Horse Hotel. It's got a cool, vintage industrial vibe. The models were supposed to be punk style, but there was a broad latitude, so styles varied. There were over 20 photographers, I think, and only about ten models, but they all kinda trickled in over the course of the morning (three hours for the shoot).

So it was like, pick a model, go somewhere and shoot. But I've never done this kind of thing before, so I just kinda hung around and when someone else was shooting, I'd go up and take some shots too. And then maybe make a suggestion. Since there were so few models, this was common. Only occasionally did I actually set up a shot.

Then I came home and edited the photos. I went back down to the city for the evening shoot at the Pfister Hotel (pronounced "fister"). The Pfister is the oldest and fanciest hotel in town. There's a lot of brass and gilt and marble and crystal and paintings. It's a nice contrast with our nominally punk models. This time there were more photographers and many more models. In the morning, the hotel had lots of windows and great light, along with some outdoor spaces. This one had few windows and not much light remaining. Most of the photographers brought lights. There's going to be a lot of professional-looking photography coming out of this session. But you couldn't really horn in on someone else's shot, because of their lighting concerns. Plus, poses in general were often more specific to the moment, meaning that it was a specific vision, and if it wasn't yours, you weren't getting a shot.

Fortunately (1) there were lots of models, so you didn't usually have to wait long to grab one and set something up, and (2) I did come up with some shots to take. I think I got some unique images. Unlike in the morning, where everyone was gathered round, there will be fewer unique images.

I've seen a few people's images from the day. A few did not impress me, but most are way better than mine. I can't wait to see them all. I'm hoping they'll upload everyone's submissions to an Instagram feed or something.

I have a couple dozen photos, which I will post, with stories, in a few days when I have some time.