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Category: Photography
Soulard Past
Was a time I wandered around with a camera around my neck and acted like the “cool photojournalist” type. Another aspect of “career” I never acted on in any serious way.
Except the work. I loved the work. The images were all. (I’d read about Alfred Eisenstadt walking away from his position at LIFE Magazine when a new batch of editors started cropping his photographs with scissors. He told them it was in his contract that they run his work as he gave it to them, but they said “Pop, it’s just not done that way anymore, you gotta get with the times” and he said “No, I don’t” and quit. …
Transparencies of Days Past
Gradually, given enough time, I’ll both learn proficiency with the new digital medium and transfer my best images from nearly forty years of photography. I’ve been doing this “in between” all the other things on my plate and it hasn’t had top priority, but once in a while I find some old negatives or, in this case, transparencies that make me wonder, for only a moment, why I’m doing anything else. I finish working something like this over…
…and I get a thrill such as I used to whenever I first made a new image that I thought was worth a damn.…
A Plague On Both Houses…With A Pastoral Addendum
Listening to election news lately is like keeping track of a Roller Derby game. They keep going around the same circle, bumping into each other, occasionally shouting unsubstiated things—at each other and the audience—and by and large just getting in each others’ ways. If you like that kind of sport, it can be entertaining. Otherwise…
So I’ve been working on new fiction and playing with photoshop and basically tuning it all out. As much as I hate to say it, I already know that I’m not going to vote for any Republicans, and most of the Independents are seemingly farther right. …
On The Way Home…
Stopped in the middle of one bridge to do this shot of another, early morning Monday on the way home.
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More Playing With Pictures
I had to call a friend to help me set up to scan slides. It was literally a matter of not having something plugged it. No, I don’t mind admitting “Doh!” moments. Learning is filled with them, embarrassment shouldn’t prevent sharing of knowledge.
Anyway, the scanner works for color transparencies now and I have a mother butt load of them in the closet. Thousands upon thousands. At least half of them are Kodachrome.
So I began with a couple on hand and started playing. One I did this morning I have worked up into two versions. Here’s the first.
Yes, I said and you read correctly that this is from a COLOR transparency. …
Photography and Change
Steve McCurry, a famous photographer whose image of an Afghan girl with brilliant green eyes for National Geographic has become iconic, has been given a great and sad gig—Kodak has handed him the last production roll of Kodachrome to take and shoot. He’s doing it in grand style, traveling all over the world, with a film crew shooting a documentary about it.
I wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic when I was a teenager. I knew nothing about how to do that, and for numerous reasons I won’t go into I never found out or took the chance. I played it safe with a nice steady lab job and didn’t pursue a dream. …
A Moment of Celebrity Type Stuff
A friend of mine, the estimable Erich Veith, came by my home a bit over a year ago and we recorded a long interview. Erich has finally gotten around to editing it and has begun posting segments on YouTube. Here’s the first one. (I still haven’t figured out how to embed videos here, so bear with me.)
Erich runs the website Dangerous Intersection, where I post opinionated blatherings from time to time and Erich graciously allows me to hold forth in my own idiosyncratic manner. Why he thought people would also enjoy watching and hearing me as well, I can’t say, but I enjoyed the process and from the looks of the first three (which are up at Dangerous Intersection) I don’t think I came off too badly.…
Shaw
Given the subject of the last post, I feel this is appropriate. Add a little light to the dark.
Tomorrow—June 23—is the 15th anniversary of the closing of Shaw Camera Shop. I was there on the last day (and at least one day afterward) and saw it shut down.
I grew up there.
As I’ve noted, I became interested in photography when I was fifteen. Dad gave me his vintage Canon rangefinder, bought me a small lab—Acura enlarger, a few trays, tongs, mixing bottles, a plastic film developing tank, a safelight—and I was off. Interestingly, I now recall, we bought all the darkroom stuff at, of all places, Famous-Barr. …
Dad
My dad. I have a lot of mixed feelings about him, as every child does even if they don’t admit it. Most of mine are positive.
To be clear, he is still alive. He’ll be 80 next month.
In his own way, he encouraged me in just about everything I ever did. The problem usually was that I didn’t appreciate his encouragement. Partly this stemmed from a profound misunderstanding between us of the reason for his encouragement—or perhaps I should say the purpose behind it. See, Dad was a Depression Baby. Even in today’s economically stressed climate, most people born during or after World War II really don’t grasp all that meant. …