Stairway

                         Chicago, Illinois

Monday Morning Coffee: Take 5 - Letters and Sentences.

“People parted, years passed, they met again- and the meeting proved no reunion, offered no warm memories, only the acid knowledge that time had passed and things weren't as bright or attractive as they had been.”
― Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the dolls

In Monday Morning Coffee -Take 3 - wrote about time and the role of a camera's shutter.  Choices that are there for the taking - sorry couldn't help myself. Fast or slow shutter speeds leave a mark on the image.  Hard and fixed or soft and blurry. 

A problem with still photograpahy is that the image is still.   As if you wrote using one letter or perhaps one word.  There is no where to go.  Writers use sentences, paragraphs, pages to say something.   

Still photographers have a single fixed image.  That is their letter and sometimes their word.  Sentences happen by combining images.

One's life always has a chronology and, with enough hindsight, possibly a development.  Still photographer's have always been fascinated about images in sequence influencing one another.  This montage effect is the heart of cimema, video and most picture books but their sequencing is arbitrary and for effect.

 Break out from the stillness of still photography.  Try sequences to communicate passage of time. 

Loading Dock

                       Richmond, Indiana.

El Station

                       Chicago, Illinois 

Black and white photographs seem "just right" for an Indiana Winter's day.  Gray overcast sky with a steady rain.  Good time to be indoors working with film and digital files in the darkroom/lightroom.

Will be working more and more with black and white film in the coming months.  Forces a slower approach to photographing and a more careful composition. 

Digital seems to call for taking many photographs followed by long hours in selection and post processing.

As always - click on image to enlarge.                              

Factory

                                Richmond, Indiana

Tracks

Image started as a 35mm colored slide.  In the darkroom the slide was enlarged to a black and white film negative.  We now have a negative which can be used to print - on photographic paper - a positive print.  This is an "old school" wet darkroom way to work.  A lot of time - couple of hours for setting up enlarger projection, getting correct exposure, processing, and drying film. Then repeating the steps with the film negative and photographic paper to achieve the final result - a print.   

Using a digital workflow, begin by scanning the slide and saving the result to a computer. Opening the digital file, using Photoshop software, the scanned positve slide is sized, sharpened and finished.  The digital file is printed using an ink-jet printer. Time required from start to print - less than an hour. 

Yes, the two prints - analog / digital - differ.  No, one is not better than the other - just different.  Which way to work is a maker's choice. Which print to choose is a viewer's choice. 

Monday Morning Coffee: Take 4 - Aim and Push

"No photographer is as good as the simplest camera."

                                                                         - Edward Steichen

The parking lot image was photographed on 35mm film with a plastic Ansco Vision I camera. Simple tool that cost about $5.00. Fixed shutter speed; fixed lens opening and focus free-i.e. fixed focus. Two choices- where you stand and when you push the shutter. Aim, push the shutter release and that's it.

In this case the camera was loaded with infrared-film - the reason for the red filter pasted over the lens.

These days you can spend some $7,000 (Leica M9) for a camera.  That will buy a lot of Ansco Vision cameras.  Now with the Vision I you also get a built in flash.  The Leica doesn't offer that!

 Not suggesting that you stop using your Leica/Nikon/ Canon/.......  cameras.  No they offer many choices and are able to produce fine images.  They offer a photographer more control of the final image. A photographer can craft an unique image by using focusing, various lens openings and  shutter speeds.

Every now and then, put away the expensive camera, pick up something simple and take a "walk about".  When photographs appear, aim and push.