Just take the shot

Sometimes in the world of images, we forget to just take the shot. Take it and forget about anything techy related. Just enjoy the moment and the times it was created. So take this shot as an example:

You can feel the gentle stir of the air as it passes thru you…..the shadows of the tree as you sit are blocking the heat. One is just here, in this moment….enjoying the day in the lazy days found in the state of New York. Or take this one, which I happen to enjoy.

The paddle boat is just floating on by. This could be a shot taken just about anytime in recent history. No cares….just laying here and watching the world as it takes a pause in being ‘busy’…. I love the open sky, vague to reason but the boat nestled down has a purpose but to where? I don’t care.

And finally a diptych of a stream with the light pouring in….blinding but present. The stream continues to move towards me as I sit on the bank watching this unfold. The water flowing while little bugs and insects dance upon the ripples. I love the peace that this shows.

So you see….beautiful and timeless images of nature that can be captured if you just allow them to be.

No Kings Day

It was a cloudy day in Philadelphia……deemed perfect for outside BW photography; well….at least the way I shoot. But really, no color needed although contrast would be nice. But I would sooner take a cloudy day over a sunny one and today, June 14th in Philadelphia proved to suit my needs. Misty….cloudy…..no wind.

The streets were not in that glistening mood though. A touch of mist doesn’t get you the reflective quality of a true ‘all and out’ rain. But I’ll take it as out the door I went with my Olympus OM2sp and 400 Fomapan. I had 8 rolls with me, plus the one in the camera. I also went in with one lens; my 55mm Zuiko. If you come in with ‘one only’ option, your eyes are trained for one focal perspective. I never get the people who use zooms as mentally, they are all over the place and in my thinking, taken as a complete body of work, their photographs miss a unity….a smoothness. One can’t always place their finger on this artistic flair, but something just misses with multiple focal points.

My selective approach for taking shots means ‘less shots’…..more keepers. I also knew I didn’t want the kind of shots that almost everyone else is looking for. While I did take shots of the crowd; for I feel they are needed to capture the ‘complete unfolding of events’…..I strived for more. I wanted a personal touch. I wanted the feeling of humanity as opposed to masses of humanity.

Take a look at this shot for instance. You can feel his tiredness by looking at his face….his aching feet, as he spent an entire day holding and walking with his sign.

Or this image below…..again capture with 400 film. I love the emotion of the lady holding up the flag in the middle. Feel it…..sense it. Look over the older lady beside here and see how she is just trudging along….her voice taking a momentarily reprieve.

This shot below also is emotional but in another sense. An older chap….eyes looking over the flag as it drapes in front of him. Lost democracy…lost hope. Lost America. Then the photograph below that shows a blur but a ‘nice blue’ as the overall read of the crowd is one of passion.

And at times…you just need no face…no emotion…but the image still oozes it.

I’ll end this blog with a couple…One is just of the front of the protest with 80,000—100,000 strong following behind. While the other, might just state what many of us are thinking privately to ourselves. The first, and last of a photo series.

West Coast to East Coast

I will be traveling from Arizona and my photography studio across country by car….to Philadelphia. And to boot, will be traveling first by going west to San Francisco and then up to eastern Washington State and up into Glacier National Park, before making the trek back. Yes, a trek…..surely a trek as we will have two solid weeks bopping around and close to 3500 miles.

So when up against those miles, what is my gear? First….it will be all film. No digital gear allowed which wipes out my GR11 and my OM Systems OM5.

My preferred choice will be my Olympus OM2SP with a 24mm Zuiko lens and my favorite standby lens; a 55mm Zuiko. Now, you have to understand the way I shoot….rough and ready. The 55mm is a wild, wacky and wonderful imperfect lens….. and since it can shoot at F1.2 it allows me enough light to capture ‘indoors’. This dynamic duel of lens’s is a combination allowing me to shoot a wide focal point (24mm) as we gear up for Glacier NP, Yosemite, Joshua Tree etc….

My second camera is my Lomo Kompakt Automat, and yes….it is Russia (A Ruski) and it is real and spectacular … just like my Olympus OM2SP. I selected this camera, being a point and shoot since many times when I walk the humidity of Philadelphia, I really do not want to lug around my OM2SP with a lens. The weight, although not that much relatively speaking as it is still lighter than most digital gear….still weighs on me. I am not a fan of humidity. But I do love CANDID street photography and the Lomo is perfect for that endeavor. It is really light, really small…..it is automatic if desired…and for me and of course, the way I shoot….it provides me with almost perfect results.

I have several favorite cameras….with the Lomo being right in the running. That along with the OM2SP, the OM1 and my Barnacks 1 Model A. If I had any combination of cameras, that would be it. Thus, no GAS. I don’t know what I would buy. I have fended off purchasing the new Rollei AF….fended off the Pentax 17 half-frame ( I have an original Pen F half-frame). I haven’t bought digital gear that really amounts to much in a long time. In fact, if I look at the number of shots digitally taken, it has to be less than 100 over the course of this past year. Why shoot digital when you have film?

The famed actor Paul Newman was married to his love….his wife Joanne Woodward for 50 years and they were true to each other. Since those Hollywood types are constantly playing ‘bed roulette’ ….Newman was asked why he and Joanne are still married. Newman responded that ‘why should I go out and eat ‘hamburger’ when I can have ‘steak at home’…… implying…well, you figure it out.

The point is,….my ‘steak’ is my OM2SP, my Lomo….my OM1….. …… and ‘hamburger’ is…..just about anything else.

Another Round with my Barnack

A year ago I went on my usual Australia trip to visit my grandkids. I decided to take with me my Leica 1 Model A and my Leica 11. That’s it….film and oldies at that.

Sadly while I did shoot a few rolls with the Leica 11 my Leica 1 Model A had serious issues. The film jammed and I couldn’t advance it, thus no images taken other than that partial roll. Now, after a year…..I decided to send it into DAG for complete overall and CLA. It recently was returned to me and it is a beaut for sure. ,

Yesterday I took it for a quick walk-about. And while ‘quick’ might be more appropriate to show the amount of minutes or hours I spent walking with my Leica 1 Model A, it sure does no justice in explaining the slow process that goes into the actual taking of a photograph.

And that ‘slow process’ is exactly what makes this camera my favorite. To load the film I need to cut more of a ‘lead’ in order to have the film advance work. I don’t look at ‘focus’ but I look at distance, so more along the lines of zone focusing. But on this model of a Leica, you never view by the focus as we do in other film cameras, modern or vintage or historic. You really need to get your distance down. IE….6 feet, 8, 10 etc…. I use a FOKOS which is attached to where a normal hotshoe is attached on your normal more modern camera. This FOKOS is akin to a rangefinder in how you view thru it. But the figures that come from it are either ‘feet or meter’ based, showing the distance from you to your subject.

So…..I gather that information for the FOKOS. Then I look at my lens and adjust the distance on my lens to match the FOKOS. Then I advance the film and determine my shutter and aperture. Once there, I shoot. The determination of the distance slows up this process heavily. But it is all a part of shooting this truly historic camera. See below….you can take a look at my Barnack Leica Leitz 1 Model A + the FOKOS….. enjoy.

AI is Depressing

Lately….well….a few months…..I have been seeing an increasing number of AI images crop up on various spots, including ‘in-house’ local clubs etc. This is depressing. Let’s not confuse things here; AI isn’t photography but it is a form of visual representation. But AI is making it’s way into the mainstream and many will equate to an actual photograph. Or for that matter…..AI is becoming Video and AI is becoming paintings and any form of visual representation.

While technology itself isn’t depressing, for me…..what disturbs me is that the populace thinks of AI as a true photograph. They look at an AI painting and feel it is true human hands that made it. They look at a video or movie and feel that the person on the screen is a real person and that an actual human director is directing. This is depressing.

When will AI be coupled with 3D and begin to produce AI created sculptures? When will AI be able to create ‘any’ artistic arm? Soon…..all too soon. And the vast populace who barely hang on with mental acuity as it is will accept this technology as that created by human endeavors and hands and eyes. This is sad.

This almost makes me stop with my photography and take a break. Will AI make me leave photography all-told? It might….. It might also make the painter quit painting and those who work with clay or bronze or just about any medium. AI hits at something that is intangible as it strikes away at what makes us human. Inside….really inside of me, I know I created this photograph. It should just stop there and as the artist, I should be content with my work as I created it. And I am….. but increasingly as other forces come into existence, what those do and what the populace views them as, will chip away at who I am as an artist. That is sad. That is depressing.

For now…..I continue. I load up my film and off I am. But I do notice I am not as avid in my pursuit. I leave you with two from yesterday, shot on my Olympus OM2sp plus 400 Fomapan.

Wrapping Up

2025…another year….they seem to roam along like a coyote crossing a road. Upon first observation or knowledge, while neat, they soon slink back into some anonymous mode and out of sight.. They seem to skulk into the shadows and life moves on. Somewhat like a new year….sure, 2024 is gone and now 2025…..So upon first thought, you say….wow, what a fast year it was last year. And then you think that we are already well into January and it came and went without much notice. The year moves and much like the coyote, days past are just that, days past.

Where does that make my photography….well….it also moves along like a coyote caught in the headlights of my car. While I don’t try to make new year resolutions as ‘time itself’ is just a configuration that humans place upon our culture to live by, ….to plant crops by…to sleep at dark and wake in the morning etc…. the number itself to me is meaningless or the date. But it is a new year and looking back I found I am doing about the same thing this year as last (filing taxes too) regarding my photography. Last year and this year I used January as a time to sum up my prior year projects and push them into the home front and for me, that is in the fashion of a new zine.

Not just one Zine but three….all around 44, 48 & 52 pages. That is about as close as I will get to a new year’s resolution and it isn’t even that as I wrap up a few photo-projects and get my work out there.

The image below shows my recent initial order to MIXAM; my publishing company. These are certainly not large orders as I usually order a small batch and hand them out to people and if I get positive vibes, I can order more. Also, each one this year has a purpose.

For instance….the first zine is entitled 4 Evenings. These sepia photographs used a combination of film (Olympus Pen F and OM1) and Digital (Olympus OM D) where I captured an artists colony in Tucson AZ. I just wanted some odd shots which represent this warehouse/art colony. My intent is to return and with a second round (perhaps this year) capture stories of a few individual artists.

The second Zine is my Urban Lyfe Series 3. Shot in Philadelphia and all on film, I pulled from 70+ rolls shot in 2024 and all of it shot on film. These images reflect the third year in a row where I have taken my best urban shots and placed them into a zine. No doubt, there will be a Series 4 as I have a condo in center city within the heart of Philly, so I wander a lot while there. I am going to change my shot composition/emphasis just slightly this year.

The third Zine represents my ‘salt printing process’…..all of the photographs are from my work in the studio perfecting my salt printing technique. Dating back to the 1839 upon first introduction (185 years ago) I have gone a bit radical in my approach, but that is par for the course with me. I want to be different, not the same. All images have a slight sepia tonality and all were printing using various water colour papers plus a mixture of chemicals that I managed to dilute differently than others might, as well as placement in the sizing process of the paper. My studio has a UV light box, which makes this salt printing process have less variables.

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That brings my 2024 to a close and now for 2025. What might be on the horizon?

First….my overall emphasis regarding shooting composition is going to change. More to come as there is no reason to give away ‘the store’….

Second, I am going to attempt to capture individual artists at the Steinfeld Artist Warehouse in Tucson, AZ. Again, I will match what I do in my upcoming Philly zine in terms of creating a new shooting composition/ emphasis. This is a tag-on to my first zine of 2024 “Four Evenings’ as I described above. I love the idea of these very creative artists and to represent them in an equally unique and creative way.

Third….I would like to build up my knowledge of the 1930’s and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and teach a course on this topic. As evident by below (By the way, is that a color photo? I shot color? What….no way man…I shoot black and white) , I am just starting and certainly have books to read and photographers to research individually. I have other books ‘on order’ so my reading this year is pretty photo-based. Sorry Tom Clancy. But I have a natural love for history and photographs. What better way to meet my love, than to combine the two and the decade of the 1930’s in America represents a time during the Great Depression where images shot by a cadre of photographers can’t be put aside and forgotten. These are simply too valuable.

Stepping Back into ‘My’ Time

I find myself stepping back…. looking for ways to take my personal life and shift backwards into a time less tech dependent…… . But hey, here I am on the computer, blogging….so I haven’t quite achieved nirvana, quite yet.

Although this process from getting to A to Z is a bit easier to do since I retired from a long career in education. Yikes, no more zoom meetings to attend, or relentless software updates ….nor emails to read and a ‘to-do’ list full of work related substances. It is gone man, and a huge portion of that was tech crap. With life in general, I feel humans have overstepped boundaries marking a clear delineation between what is technology and what is human. And the scary thing is that I perceive of this ‘now’…which is AI and Social Media in still its infancy.

So I have decided to return to a time in which my comfort zone resides in… I was just talking with my nephew and we were chatting about circa 1970-90’s…. an era in when I feel humanity was at a pretty top end of things in terms of creature comfort and knowledge yet little technology as we know of it today. But during that relatively brief era, a combination of technology and the social media which accompanied, has brought an era of increasing dismay and surely skepticism.

So my quest has been a return to a time now unknown to many and forgotten by an equal number. …that of a more analog world. For instance in my situation, there was a time I was over-reliant upon You Tube and it became addictive. And in our camera world, where the technology and ease of camera plus lens made it relatively easy to be void of both fun and creativity to arrive at capturing shots. I speak of extreme ISO’s or AF or more or less just ‘press and snap’ to take images in the camera world and to call yourself a photographer.

Don’t misunderstand me as I arrived at this conclusion based upon my thoughts, or my problem and I couldn’t care less about your stance. Go ahead and embed a chip in your brain or invest $20,000 in Leica cameras + lens. Shoot proudly with that red dot. Or take your newest Fuji 100 (whatever alphabet we are on now to designate model) and shoot it too. Use memory cards or no, better yet, Wi-fi your images to your phone or upload to the cloud. Again, not for me. Likewise, share my images with the world and be in constant anticipation of someone ‘liking’ your image with a thumbs up. It becomes all about social media and not the photography. Or if you elect, become a prisoner to social media and constantly worry about a You Tube Channel or Instagram or whatever senseless social media platform comes into existence, for they will always be there, friendless changing.

For…. I will continue to chip away at that hype and inhuman existence and strive for ‘none of the above’. I purposely elect to shoot with analog cameras and I take control by developing my own film. I even use caffenol where I can, as evident by what is in my refrigerator now cooling down and in the image I provided below. I even choose to enlarge my 35mm film negatives and create alternative printing from them. Some may label it as imperfect or lacking mainstream, but hey, so what? I might even hesitate to take the ancient medium of colored pencils and begin to shade in color into my BW images. Shame on me.

All of that forces me to pull back. I view the world of 1970’s—1980’s and say, okay…where can I bring today back into yesterday….It is possible but not always doable. For instance in with my camera hobby, I am not 100% analog for I obviously haven’t achieved pure analog (IE: this blog / Squarespace or DP Review). While I scan my film negatives I enlarge them from 35mm to 6” x 9” or there about and I do it using Pixelmator which is an old Apple app. I like to physically view my images and hold them in my hands so by enlarging this allows me to use alternative printing to showcase my art. If I decide to create a zine, I send them off to Mixam for printing.

So no, not 100% analog but a few baby steps toward. The end result of my imperfect masterpieces created using alternative processes fits my need for now. I have become more comfortable in my own analog skin and less reliant on digital. Perhaps I will find a need for a complete dark room set-up but no need to rush. My current studio works. But this analog process is one that slows me down and allows me to reflect. I am more at peace, less stressed, less reliant upon digital and less need to be perfect, in my imperfect world regarding results. I have taken a step back in my time. Below is a shot of my caffenol percolating in the refrigerator so I can develop a few rolls I took the other week.

The Swing of Salt Printing

I am here in my Tucson studio and have been working on salt printing. A few things come to mind.

First…I tried printing a landscape photograph of the Badlands in South Dakota which I took this past summer …a 35mm film captured with the Olympus OM-2sp. I happen to enjoy the photo. But I also have been showing it around and others are not overly crazy about it. So it has me wondering if I should even pursue more landscape photography using the salt printing process. I envisioned having a small zine of landscapes done in that manner. Will ponder on. Below is the photo.

The second thing that has come to me has been in answering a question I have had regarding why some images come out more sepia than others. I already knew that the longer a photo ‘rests’ after the final rinse, and with the addition of putting a coating on after it has dried, it turns darker in that final process. But I think it also has to do with when I prepare the paper with sodium or silver nitrate, if I force dry the paper by using a hair dryer or smaller space heater, than it comes out sepia it appears. If I just let the paper dry naturally, the sepia isn’t as strong. The image below has a sepia tinge to it, as I took a shot of this with my iPhone, so that is another thing entirely as in person, it is more black. Go figure. Also, the image below was not under the UV lights as long as I would normally as I wanted the person to come thru a bit more and not be as dark. So that too causes sepia. Too little time under UV lights. Lots to learn….each image has to be taken individually and understood.