30 January 2010
Kodachroowhoaoowhoaoome, cont'd.
I finally got my roll of Kodachrome back from the last place in the world that processes it. Not coincidentally, it was also one of the last rolls in the world, two of which I bought before anyone else could their hoardin' paws on em.
I shot one roll at the beach.
And I hate to say it, but I'm not all that impressed. Sure, the chromes themselves look good, but by the time I had them developed and shipped back to me, the cost was more than $1.00 per frame. So they'd better look good. But even then, what are you going to do with chromes? Project them? Make crummy duplicates and send them to magazines?
It's a different world, and that's why Kodachrome is gone. Now all that's left are the freezer-fulls kept by film devotees. And this.
I shot one roll at the beach.
And I hate to say it, but I'm not all that impressed. Sure, the chromes themselves look good, but by the time I had them developed and shipped back to me, the cost was more than $1.00 per frame. So they'd better look good. But even then, what are you going to do with chromes? Project them? Make crummy duplicates and send them to magazines?
It's a different world, and that's why Kodachrome is gone. Now all that's left are the freezer-fulls kept by film devotees. And this.
28 January 2010
27 January 2010
Fungus on the lens, fungus on the lens . . .
The story with the Konica is that the seller won't take it back, because the lens "has no fungus." I sent him an email with these pictures. No response. I didn't know I could pack so much emotion into 80 characters of eBay feedback. "whrs my fkn $$ ahl?"
So now the questions is: Keep the camera and shoot it, or use it to hone my camera repair skills? And by "hone," I mean "generate," because I currently have no camera repair skills. It might not be a bad idea to gain some.
23 January 2010
A Study in Scarlet
"'I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.'"
-Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson, Sir Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
"I hear you got a job downtown,
man, it leaves your head cold.
Everywhere you look,
life ain't got no soul.
That apartment you live in feels like it's just a place to hide.
Walking down the street, you don't look no one eye to eye.
And the cops reported you as just another homicide.
I can tell that you was just frustrated
from living with
Murder, Incorporated."
-The Boss, Murder, Inc.
If I wanted to condense the DarkTopo philosophy into one sentence--which I don't--I would say something like this: A documentation of the way people navigate between absolutes, and a study of the landscape upon which they travel.
On election night I ran into Arratik, the former Asheville blogger and key member in the Scrutiny Hooligans. He'd seen my SLR vs. Rangefinder shoot-out, and commented on the books on my bookcase. He's the only one to comment so far--despite the thousands of hits that post has gotten--about the fact that I have Adolf Hitler's biography prominently displayed next to the Bible.
In fairness to myself, I'd like to point out that I also have Hawking's Brief History of Time and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. So it's basically like a college humanities class, except without the pretentiousness.
There was a time when I wanted to read Mein Kampf, but then came the Patriot Act, and I didn't want to be flagged for checking it out of the library. If I'd known that I'd later launch a website called DeclareArms, I'd probably have just taken the heat. In any event, I settled for a borrowed copy of John Toland's Adolf Hitler.
My reason: Know your enemy.
We navigate between absolutes. That's one reason I love silver-based photography; it's so analogous to this idea. There is base plus fog, and Dmax, and all the zones in between, but you never get off the film. It's the same with digital, and any artistic medium with a dynamic range, but monochrome film photography stretches toward its absolutes much more gracefully than, say, quilting.
It's not a new thing, this idea of opposing absolutes. Right and wrong, light and dark. We've all heard them beaten to death by pundits and do-gooders, so much that they're permanently resident in our subconscious.
So why won't anyone call Anthony Sowell evil? I've heard disembodied ('scuze the phrase) voices on the radio saying he was "addicted to murder" and "had a disease." The stench still wafts from his house, according to the Times, and the scene is "grisly" and "macabre." But no one will say it. Similarly, Nidal Malik Hasan is "disturbed" or "sick," rather than "evil" or "insane." How can anyone look at pictures of people beating each other with rocks in Haiti, and still have doubts about human nature?
In the past week or so, I've posted pictures of rainbows, fog on the mountains, architecture in HDR, and a cute cat. The site has a new look that is decidedly less dark and moody. Some of the photos have "Buy me!" links beneath them. A friend of mine who wants to promote my work recently wrote and asked me for photos that are "energetic, vibrant, and non-representational."
My concern, readers, is that you'll think this is the harbinger of a new, radio-friendly DarkTopo. My New Years eve post might make you wonder if I'm aimless, or worse yet, aimed toward selling out. It's the old quote, often attributed to Henri Cartier-Bresson: "The world is going to hell, and Ansel Adams is shooting trees and rocks."
The fact is, I made a resolution. The morning after the Bard's colossal birthday party, I woke up and decided I would make five submissions a week for 2010. Galleries, magazines, whatever. Five cover letters, five burned CDs, five trips to the post office, uploads, emails.
This is no small effort. So I'm afraid what you'll hear from me, at least until I hit my stride on this thing, is re-run news of ideas that have already been sent off in packages with self-addressed, stamped envelopes. And I don't like it; I'd rather be updating my blog and writing about films and cameras and art, but there is a great contrast to deal with first. Some people can navigate between absolutes with an astounding grace . . .
. . . but I'm not one of them. So bear with me, y'all. And if you think things are getting a little cutsey around here, check that Conan Doyle quote and look at the new masthead.
Lately I've been accused of having something to prove. And that's exactly right. "So darlin, get it straight," the Boss says. "Keep pushing 'till it's understood."
With that in mind, here are the first real DarkTopo images of 2010.
-Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson, Sir Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
"I hear you got a job downtown,
man, it leaves your head cold.
Everywhere you look,
life ain't got no soul.
That apartment you live in feels like it's just a place to hide.
Walking down the street, you don't look no one eye to eye.
And the cops reported you as just another homicide.
I can tell that you was just frustrated
from living with
Murder, Incorporated."
-The Boss, Murder, Inc.
If I wanted to condense the DarkTopo philosophy into one sentence--which I don't--I would say something like this: A documentation of the way people navigate between absolutes, and a study of the landscape upon which they travel.
On election night I ran into Arratik, the former Asheville blogger and key member in the Scrutiny Hooligans. He'd seen my SLR vs. Rangefinder shoot-out, and commented on the books on my bookcase. He's the only one to comment so far--despite the thousands of hits that post has gotten--about the fact that I have Adolf Hitler's biography prominently displayed next to the Bible.
In fairness to myself, I'd like to point out that I also have Hawking's Brief History of Time and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. So it's basically like a college humanities class, except without the pretentiousness.
There was a time when I wanted to read Mein Kampf, but then came the Patriot Act, and I didn't want to be flagged for checking it out of the library. If I'd known that I'd later launch a website called DeclareArms, I'd probably have just taken the heat. In any event, I settled for a borrowed copy of John Toland's Adolf Hitler.
My reason: Know your enemy.
We navigate between absolutes. That's one reason I love silver-based photography; it's so analogous to this idea. There is base plus fog, and Dmax, and all the zones in between, but you never get off the film. It's the same with digital, and any artistic medium with a dynamic range, but monochrome film photography stretches toward its absolutes much more gracefully than, say, quilting.
It's not a new thing, this idea of opposing absolutes. Right and wrong, light and dark. We've all heard them beaten to death by pundits and do-gooders, so much that they're permanently resident in our subconscious.
So why won't anyone call Anthony Sowell evil? I've heard disembodied ('scuze the phrase) voices on the radio saying he was "addicted to murder" and "had a disease." The stench still wafts from his house, according to the Times, and the scene is "grisly" and "macabre." But no one will say it. Similarly, Nidal Malik Hasan is "disturbed" or "sick," rather than "evil" or "insane." How can anyone look at pictures of people beating each other with rocks in Haiti, and still have doubts about human nature?
In the past week or so, I've posted pictures of rainbows, fog on the mountains, architecture in HDR, and a cute cat. The site has a new look that is decidedly less dark and moody. Some of the photos have "Buy me!" links beneath them. A friend of mine who wants to promote my work recently wrote and asked me for photos that are "energetic, vibrant, and non-representational."
My concern, readers, is that you'll think this is the harbinger of a new, radio-friendly DarkTopo. My New Years eve post might make you wonder if I'm aimless, or worse yet, aimed toward selling out. It's the old quote, often attributed to Henri Cartier-Bresson: "The world is going to hell, and Ansel Adams is shooting trees and rocks."
The fact is, I made a resolution. The morning after the Bard's colossal birthday party, I woke up and decided I would make five submissions a week for 2010. Galleries, magazines, whatever. Five cover letters, five burned CDs, five trips to the post office, uploads, emails.
This is no small effort. So I'm afraid what you'll hear from me, at least until I hit my stride on this thing, is re-run news of ideas that have already been sent off in packages with self-addressed, stamped envelopes. And I don't like it; I'd rather be updating my blog and writing about films and cameras and art, but there is a great contrast to deal with first. Some people can navigate between absolutes with an astounding grace . . .
. . . but I'm not one of them. So bear with me, y'all. And if you think things are getting a little cutsey around here, check that Conan Doyle quote and look at the new masthead.
Lately I've been accused of having something to prove. And that's exactly right. "So darlin, get it straight," the Boss says. "Keep pushing 'till it's understood."
With that in mind, here are the first real DarkTopo images of 2010.
20 January 2010
DarkTopo Gets Disclaimed
This picture is so self-consciously straight it inadvertently rolls the heterosexual odometer all the way back to "000,000." --Asheville Disclaimer, 20Jan10
Well folks, I've finally arrived. My photo of councilman-turned-pundit Carl Mumpower appears this week in the Mountain Xpress's Asheville Disclaimer. I thought this photo was the most "DarkTopo" of all of my 2008 campaign shots, specifically because it is so straight. I mean straight-forward. Whatever.
Seriously, though. When I saw the truck parked there on the curb, I said "Damn! That's like something Walker Evans would shoot! Carl, go lean on the truck!" Walker Evans liked things straight. I thought this scene set itself apart from that because the truck was canted a bit, parked up on the curb. The looming shape of the sign would overpower everything, if not for the contrast of the red truck against that green background. All it needed was a tall subject looking straight into the camera. The result was just the kind of bizarre balance I look for--something that seems straight at first, yet isn't.
So Mumpower grudgingly posed with the truck and now his manhood is being insulted on account of my seems-straight-but-isn't artistic vision. There goes my career in campaign photography.
Oh well. At least I have the Disclaimer on my resume.
ps - That comment about Gordon Smith was pretty harsh.
pps - But funny.
ppps - And if anyone out there is questioning my manhood for being the artistic brains behind this photo, I'll refer you to my uber-macho, over-compensating film speed tests and my photo of Sarah Palin's ass.
18 January 2010
Trillium
Yesterday my smoking hot and incredibly patient wife and I took a walk down to the BP to get some caffeine. On the way back we met a gray cat that seemed very friendly, which of course made me suspect sinister aims.
Sinister or not, cats have very fine whiskers, and I have a new (sort of) camera: A "vintage" Konica Auto S2 of my very own. Now I no longer have to mooch off my dad's photographic generosity.
The problem is that there's fungus in the lens. Which means the camera, whose price tag was $32, is probably not worth saving. How much does a de-fungusing cost? Probably more than the return shipping on the camera.
Anyway, I decided to run a roll through the camera to see if there were crazy light leaks, or anything else that would make my decision easier. And then we met a cat with very fine whiskers . . .
. . . and let me tell you, readers, that lens is ridiculously sharp. So:
Option A: Return the camera and get my money back, less shipping.
Option B: Keep the camera, spend the cash to have it repaired.
Option C: Keep the camera, enjoy it until the fungus eats its way across the lens, sell it for parts.
What do you say? I've never dealt with fungus before. How long before the lens is unusable? Can it be fixed?
As we were talking to the cat, a little girl came out of one of the houses and told us its name was Trillium. Which was nice, except she caught us talking to the cat, and probably thinks we're crazy. I'm sure I was saying something like, "Ooh, you have very fine whiskers, strike a pose." And the cat was thinking, "i can has model relese or lawsoot. or cheezburger. ur choice."
Sinister or not, cats have very fine whiskers, and I have a new (sort of) camera: A "vintage" Konica Auto S2 of my very own. Now I no longer have to mooch off my dad's photographic generosity.
The problem is that there's fungus in the lens. Which means the camera, whose price tag was $32, is probably not worth saving. How much does a de-fungusing cost? Probably more than the return shipping on the camera.
Anyway, I decided to run a roll through the camera to see if there were crazy light leaks, or anything else that would make my decision easier. And then we met a cat with very fine whiskers . . .
. . . and let me tell you, readers, that lens is ridiculously sharp. So:
Option A: Return the camera and get my money back, less shipping.
Option B: Keep the camera, spend the cash to have it repaired.
Option C: Keep the camera, enjoy it until the fungus eats its way across the lens, sell it for parts.
What do you say? I've never dealt with fungus before. How long before the lens is unusable? Can it be fixed?
As we were talking to the cat, a little girl came out of one of the houses and told us its name was Trillium. Which was nice, except she caught us talking to the cat, and probably thinks we're crazy. I'm sure I was saying something like, "Ooh, you have very fine whiskers, strike a pose." And the cat was thinking, "i can has model relese or lawsoot. or cheezburger. ur choice."
17 January 2010
More photos on JPGmag.
I've posted a couple of photos on JPG Magazine, in the "Vice" and "Frozen" themes.
Obviously, the famous hand-on-her-ass photo went to the "Vice" theme. I'm not so sure about the Chuck Taylors. I mean, yeah, good photo and all that. But there's a fine line between "universally appealing" and "cutesy." And that's not a line I want to cross.
In any event, I've still got photos on JPG that are actually up for possible publication: High Rise and October on the Parkway. Go cast your vote!
Obviously, the famous hand-on-her-ass photo went to the "Vice" theme. I'm not so sure about the Chuck Taylors. I mean, yeah, good photo and all that. But there's a fine line between "universally appealing" and "cutesy." And that's not a line I want to cross.
In any event, I've still got photos on JPG that are actually up for possible publication: High Rise and October on the Parkway. Go cast your vote!
16 January 2010
Asheville Art-On-Transit Proposal
Photographers are a superstitious lot. I think this largely comes from film land, where sometimes, even though you did everything right, things go wrong. So you obsess, and you convince yourself that the number of times you rap the tank against the sink actually matters, or that you musn't watch the image appear in the developing tray, lest the half-developed shades cloud your judgement of the final print.
I've let go of most of that. It's hard to keep up that level of OCD in a digital world, where everything has an undo button. But I still have a hard time talking about a submission before it's accepted.
It's not so much the case here, because I have absolutely zero expectation of this proposal being accepted. So what can it hurt?
I know I've been quiet lately. Typically, the times when the blog slows down are the times when I'm most productive, and that's the case here. But the blog is important, too, and it keeps me grounded. Or ungrounded. Either way, it's important. Thank you for reading. The point is, if I can't talk about submissions, there won't be many posts in the near future.
So here's my proposal for the Asheville Art-On-Transit Bus Graphics program. The dark areas are where the wheel-wells will be. Click the images for full-sizes versions. Or hell, click the "Buy it" link to purchase a print, you freeloading culture-vultures.
Buy it!
Buy it!
Buy it!
Buy it!
So there it is. Now we can all wait for the results with bated breath.
It seems a conceit in the art world that no one admits trying for anything. You just succeed, or, more accurately, have succeeded. The resume gets updated with every success, and omits every failure, every hour spent with dry eyes and tension headaches, every magazine you never heard from again. It's a comfortable conceit; no one likes talking about things they might not accomplish. We'd much rather labor under the delusion that of course everyone always knew we were destined for greatness.
But that's not what we're about, right? This is honest photography. I imagine it's only going to get more honest from here.
I've let go of most of that. It's hard to keep up that level of OCD in a digital world, where everything has an undo button. But I still have a hard time talking about a submission before it's accepted.
It's not so much the case here, because I have absolutely zero expectation of this proposal being accepted. So what can it hurt?
I know I've been quiet lately. Typically, the times when the blog slows down are the times when I'm most productive, and that's the case here. But the blog is important, too, and it keeps me grounded. Or ungrounded. Either way, it's important. Thank you for reading. The point is, if I can't talk about submissions, there won't be many posts in the near future.
So here's my proposal for the Asheville Art-On-Transit Bus Graphics program. The dark areas are where the wheel-wells will be. Click the images for full-sizes versions. Or hell, click the "Buy it" link to purchase a print, you freeloading culture-vultures.
Buy it!
Buy it!
Buy it!
Buy it!
So there it is. Now we can all wait for the results with bated breath.
It seems a conceit in the art world that no one admits trying for anything. You just succeed, or, more accurately, have succeeded. The resume gets updated with every success, and omits every failure, every hour spent with dry eyes and tension headaches, every magazine you never heard from again. It's a comfortable conceit; no one likes talking about things they might not accomplish. We'd much rather labor under the delusion that of course everyone always knew we were destined for greatness.
But that's not what we're about, right? This is honest photography. I imagine it's only going to get more honest from here.
10 January 2010
07 January 2010
New Photos on JPGmag!
Go vote for my photos--High Rise and October on the Parkway--on JPGmag! These are for the "Strength in Numbers" and "Great Outdoors" themes.
The above photo--the one that looks like I scrounged it from Michael Kenna's trash--is called "High Rise," because for some reason I didn't want to title the photo after the theme to which I submitted it. That was stupid: "Strength in Numbers" is a much better title.
Next, there's this. A fine image, but I hesitate to include it here because it's not very "DarkTopo." But look what I had to work with. I mean, "The Great Outdoors?" Yawn. Why can't they have a "HDR Pictures of Guns" theme?
06 January 2010
01 January 2010
New Year, New Design, New Work.
Alright folks, clear your browser's cache, because things have changed. I traditionally update my masthead on New Year's day, but this year I made some big changes. It all started when the editor of a very large and very swanky photo magazine called me up unsolicited and said, "Hey, I like your work, but I can't read your resume." Time for a redesign.
But the big news is that I'm finally posting the images from To See A Darkness. I don't know why I waited this long, but I'm sure there's some meaningful artistic reason behind it. Other new stuff is the design of the galleries themselves, which I can't believe I didn't do about two years ago, and new prose in the "about section." If you've been with me from the beginning, it'll be old news. If not, read up.
So listen, have a look around and tell me what you think. I'm going to stumble outside for the first time today, now that the sun is going down.
But the big news is that I'm finally posting the images from To See A Darkness. I don't know why I waited this long, but I'm sure there's some meaningful artistic reason behind it. Other new stuff is the design of the galleries themselves, which I can't believe I didn't do about two years ago, and new prose in the "about section." If you've been with me from the beginning, it'll be old news. If not, read up.
So listen, have a look around and tell me what you think. I'm going to stumble outside for the first time today, now that the sun is going down.
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