The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry

It is the merry month of May. I had great plans for May. I had signed up for a photography tour In Oaxaca with Gary Goldberg. It has been 26 years since I've been there on another photographic tour with Geoff Winningham. This year the tour included visits with Mexican photographers and artists, time to photograph but also we were going to stay at Casa Colonial which is where I had stayed 26 years ago. I loved Casa Colonial, a huge garden, comfortable rooms, delicious meals, and filled with wonderful Mexican art. 

I was planning to go a few days early and stay a few days after the workshop. Unfortunately, the Pandemic changed those plans but I was thinking about the trip this morning so I opened the Oaxaca folder that had some scans of the black and white film I shot with my Pentax medium format camera. 

Digital Photography has brought many changes to the way most photographers work so looking at the scan of a film negative was shocking. Film had grain! And to print the negative you had to go into the darkroom, mix chemicals and spend hours on one image making test strips and multiple prints until you were finally satisfied with the resulting print. Then you had to spend a few more hours washing and treating the print for archivability. If you were able to finish two prints in one day, you had accomplished something. 

Looking at these negatives brings back some wonderful memories but I don't want to go back to the darkroom although I do want to go back to Oaxaca. 

This image was made just outside the village of Tlacochohuaya where we had stopped on the side of the road to look out across this wide valley with magnificent clouds hanging in the sky. 

What I Learned in 2018

Well, here it is, the book that you have heard about many times over the last eight years.

COMMON TIDE

Port Aransas, Texas

Photographs Inspired by the Mercer Logs 1866 to 1877

Billie Mercer

It is a large book, 12 by 12, 166 pages. Perfect bound with a linen cover and printed dust jacket. 

How did it come to be? It started as an idea of things to do while Ned was going through treatment for cancer. I wanted to keep him busy with fun things. Ned's family were the first settlers on the northern end of Mustang Island in about 1855 and that settlement eventually became known as Port Aransas. We had vacationed there many times when our boys were young, so we loved the island. I told Ned that I wanted to work on a photography book about the island and use the logs or daily diaries that his family had written as a guide in making those photographs. Ned was always willing to go anywhere with me when I pulled out my camera so, April 2011, was the first trip. The trips continued even after Ned passed away. In fact, making this book became more important to me.

Starting in early 2015, I uploaded to Blurb different versions of the book, even had some of them printed as a proof. I wasn't satisfied with any of them. At the same time, I was looking for other publishers, graphic designers, getting estimates, and learning more and more about self-publishing. I was looking for the perfect book and I was looking for approval. Needless to say, I became discouraged and dropped the project for months.

Fears about artmaking fall into two families: fears about yourself, and fears about your reception by others. In a general, fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work.

                                         Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

In January 2018, I wrote out what I really wanted, a book for my family. I put aside all my concerns about the cost or marketing the book; or what a designer or publisher might want. 

Everything I had done earlier was dumped and I started over. I learned more about Adobe InDesign and fonts. Almost every day, I spent time on the book and in late October I uploaded the book to get a proof print. My sons received copies of the book for Christmas. I have to tell you that I'm pleased that I pushed this big project though but now I am excited about the responses I've gotten from photographers and book people. Who knows what might happen in 2019. Maybe it will get published for a wider audience. 

What I learned in 2018, and should have already known, is follow my heart and my vision. Just do it!

Weekend Getaway

 

Me:   I'd like to go see this Annie Leibovitz exhibition in Mexico City. You interested?

My Friends: You bet. Let's go!

 

And so 12 days later we were in Casa Gonzalez which is just a couple of blocks from the US Embassy and the Paseo de la Reforma in the heart of Mexico City. It had been about 25 years since I had stayed in the Casa Gonzalez guest house so it was such a treat to go back and see how it had changed. There are more rooms, wifi, better, much better mattresses, more gardens and outdoor tables and chairs but still the same charm and intimacy. The breakfast is fabulous although now you pay for it separately, the cost is quite reasonable. In fact the cost per night is more than 25 years ago but still unbelievable reasonable.

 

We dumped our luggage and went off to find something to eat but finding something to eat in the area around Casa Gonzalez is not difficult. There must be at least three restaurants in every block. Everything from a taco stand to an elegant restaurant.

 

In addition to the Annie Leibovitz exhibition we had made reservations for the Jessica Lang Dance Performance at Palacio de Bellas Artes on Friday night. We had great seats in about the third row center. The production was beautiful and the performance was amazing. Lithe, beautiful bodies that seemed to hang in the air or carry another person across the stage as if they were light as a feather.

 

Saturday morning we walked across the Reforma and into the Colonia Juarez to the building housing Leibovitz's exhibition, Women: New Portraits. The exhibition wasn't hung on the wall but was more of an installation on big banks of LCD screens showing one portrait at a time. This reminded me of a recent talk with a Gallery Owner who told me that she expected to see more and more photographs shown as an installation. Hard for me to believe because I still want to see a print but maybe that is just my age showing.

 

A nice comida and then back to Casa Gonzalez just before the afternoon rain.

 

I always want to try new restaurants and this time we headed out in the rain and back across Reforma to Havre 77 that has been open for about six months. The food was delicious and we got to talk to the chef-in-charge Gerado Ramos who previously worked here in San Miguel.

 

The next morning after another wonderful breakfast we were in the van and headed back to San Miguel. It seems like I always leave Mexico City before I'm ready to leave. So I'll go back again soon, even if only for a quick weekend getaway.  

The Universe Is Speaking To ME!

I had three of the weirdest things happen this week within about 36 hours. I wrote an inquiry about a workshop last March. I knew a couple of people who had gone to the workshop last year and it really sounded interesting to me. I didn't hear back and actually I was busy and I forgot about it. This week I received a reply from them and my inquiry was attached but it didn't show a date in March. Instead it indicated that they had received the inquiry on June 18th. I have no idea where it has been. I guess floating somewhere in cyberspace.

Okay, so that is one of the three things. The second one was that I happened to hear that Keith Carter was in SMA and I contacted him and I had lunch with him and some of his friends. Keith will be one of the instructors at the workshop. I've always wanted to take a workshop with him but it has never worked out.

And the third one is that I had been thinking about maybe taking a photography workshop but one with more of a retreat atmosphere so I'd been looking on line the day before I received the reply from the workshop to see if anything interested me. Nothing did. They all seemed too structured. Too much travel from place to place. I wanted something that gave me time to stay put in one place and dig deeper. Something that gave me time to work with images that I made. Something that gave me time to play with some ideas and techniques. Something more hands on.

The workshop is Spirit into Matter. The whole workshop takes place in a small village near Florence, Italy in a renovated Villa. The instructors are Keith Carter, Kate Breakey and Jace Graf--all people whose work I know and admire. The other thing that some people might not like but I love the idea is that participants are assigned some times to help out in the kitchen. I hear the meals are made with local produce and that they are fabulous. So in addition to photography I'll get to enjoy a "cooking lesson" or two.

When the Universe speaks to me, I listen. I'm going!

The photograph was taken in Italy when I was in Sicily in 2015.

FotoFest, 2016

While in Houston I will try to hit as many of the FotoFest Exhibitions as I can. Yesterday was the Museum of Fine Arts where I saw Vera Lutter's Inverted Worlds made with huge Camera Obscura so of course the prints are also huge. I would guess most of them are at least four by six feet and some are made up of two or three panels of four by six. The exhibition was especially interesting to me because of my connection with Shootapalooza Heather Oelklaus and her Little Miss Sunshine pinhole camera truck.

There was also an exhibition called A History of Photography: Selections from the Museum's Collection. I liked seeing the variety of processes from the very beginning up until today's digital that have been used to make images.

There was a case or two of photography books and I did not realize that the Museum has Manfred Heiting's book collection of 25,000 books on photography.

In addition there is also a very fine exhibition of Lewis Baltz's work of the rapid changes due to construction in the California landscape. The style is stark and minimalist and caustic, influencing photography since the 1970's.

If you go to the Museum I hope you have time to see Sculpted in Steel, Art Deco Automobiles and Motorcycles. 1929-1940. Although it isn't photography, it is a beautiful display of hand-crafted automobiles and motorcycles that are truly sculptures. The link should take you to some pictures of these amazing works of art.

So far I have not been able to get a FotoFest Map and the online guide is a bit difficult to follow but I'll be out everyday and I'll report back on what I see.

RED at A.Smith Gallery

A friend of mine just bought this image. She was thinking about another image she had seen on my Pbase site. I asked her to take a look at this one because I like it a lot and I thought she might too. Those eyes, that direct look, and the wonderful face paint. It was pretty dark when I took it during the Day of the Dead celebration. I was afraid that it might end up blurry but the photo angels were there and it turned out okay.

She isn't the only one, besides me, who likes this image. Aline Smithson is the curator for Red at the A.Smith Gallery in Johnson City, Texas. A.Smith Gallery is a wonderful photography gallery but it is has also hung some amazing exhibitions and created a community of photographic artist. It is an honor to be included by Smithson with so many other amazing photographers in this exhibition. Red will be open from April 1 to May 15, with a reception on April 30. If you are in the Austin area, do yourself a favor and go see the exhibition.

Energized and Inspired

I am not sure where to start so if this seems disjointed, forgive me. This past week was an amazing week. It started on Saturday, February 13th, in Houston when I met up with the Shootapaloozas , a most talented group of women, well, there a few men, but we are definitely all photographers. The image you see above is one of the wall installations we did in the 3600 block of Main Street in Houston for Fotofest. I wrote about this project here. I can't begin to tell you how much fun we had doing the installation. It will be a stop on one of the bus tours for Fotofest. I'm really proud to add this to my resume.

On Sunday we headed to Galveston for a week. I'm calling this week a retreat, a creative retreat. We all chipped in for the meeting room and materials and we played with making cyanotype kites, lanterns, artist books, marbled paper, little and huge cyanotype prints on paper and cloth and we made fish prints. We did mind mapping. We learned more about the health benefits of a plant based diet and our nutritionist-photographer made lunch for us everyday. But for me, the best thing that happened was Show and Tell. Each day some of us would present and talk about our work. The work came from a very deep and personal place and there was so much diversity: lumen prints, albumen prints, digital prints, manipulated prints, collages, cyanotypes, 3-D installations and I've probably forgotten some process.

The plan was that we would meet from 9 to about 6 but after the second day we decided to meet at 8 so we would have more time. Actually from the time we saw each other at breakfast until we broke up after dinner we were talking about photography, our projects and the difficulty of making work that means something to us.

Now, I am back home in San Miguel and trying to sort out what this week means for me during this next year. I'm energized, inspired and oh, so thankful for this creative community of photographers.

A Hope, Prayer and a Dream - 2016 Biennial Fotofest International

 

 

 

I am honored that three of my images have been included in the A Hope, Prayer, and a Dream exhibit. Over fifty photographers have joined for a collective photographic exhibit encompassing an entire city block on Main Street and will be on display throughout Houston’s 2016 Biennial Fotofest International.

 

If you are in Houston between March 3 and April 24 I hope you will visit A Hope, Prayer and a Dream.  You can see the show at 3600 Main Street in Houston,Texas. Opening Reception is Thursday March 3, 2016 at 5:00 PM.

 

 Many thanks to Laura Corley Burlton and Marti Corn for curating and organizing this event. Special thanks to Judy Sherrod who is the driving force behind Shootapaplooza.  Thursday March 3, 2016 at 5:00
Many thanks to Laura Corley Burlton and Marti Corn for curating and organizing this event. Special thanks to Judy Sherrod who is the driving force behind Shootapaplooza.



 

 



 





2016

Yesterday I headed out for a walk. Not planning on a long walk, just a walk, but I think about things when I walk, solve problems and maybe sometimes it is even a meditation. Suddenly I found that I had walked through Rice Village and was starting to walk on the wonderful jogging/walking trail around Rice University. All the way around the University is almost three miles plus what I had already walked and I'd still have to get back to my son's house. Oh well, I thought, I'll go a little further and cut across the parking lot to head back.

My thoughts were about 2016. I just had a birthday and I'm starting my 80th year. Eighty years old. It is hard to believe. I remember when I thought 80 was old, really old and the people I knew in their 80's acted old. Do my kids, my grandkids, think I'm old? I dare not ask. Especially the grandkids. I might not like the answer. But here is the thing, I don't think I'm old. Yes, I do make some concessions for some things I use to do in my 40's, I'm not climbing ladders or moving bedroom furniture from one room to the other by myself, but I don't feel old. I feel healthy and happy.

When I thought about how happy I am, I remembered a TED talk I recently watched. It was a 75 year study of men from Harvard and men from slums and it had followed them for all 75 years asking questions about their lives and how happy they were. It wasn't money or fame that made them happy but it was family and friends and community that brought them happiness. I'm glad it wasn't money! I'm so blessed to have family, friends and community.

While I was striding along, I also thought about how good it feels to put one foot in front of the other, legs  strong, arms swinging, feeling the cold wind on my face and seeing the trees and traffic and other joggers and walkers. Last week a friend asked me if I was going to be younger in 2016. He was teasing about me writing about the book Younger Next Year. It will soon be three years since I read that book and I have to tell you I AM younger now than I was before I took some of the recommendations in the book to heart.

I really don't have time to be old. I still have so many things I want to do. Just this year, I want to join the Shootapaloosa friends I made last year in Port Aransas in Galveston for another B-12 shot of creativity, maybe a trip to Big Bend National Park with long, long-time photography friends, a trip to Nashville and beyond and hopefully a trip to Ireland. I bought a travel book on Ireland today. I'm doing some repair and remodeling work on my house and this year I want to finish the project I've been working on in Port Aransas. That project needs to go to the publisher.

So I'm walking and thinking and wondering, what word would describe how I am feeling about 2016 and the word I kept seeing in my head was JOY.  It is going to be a joyous year. And then, I realized that I'd passed the parking lot that I was going to cut across to head home. In fact, I'd almost gone all the way around the University. I laughed and kept walking. I walked 6.5 miles. Not too bad for someone heading toward 80.

PS I'm not sure how the picture above will look but I'm trying to coordinate several devices to add a photo. I think it may be dark but I can't tell for sure. I felt joyful looking at it as I walked along the walking trail. It isn't dark or dreary to me at any time of the year. At any rate it is a part of the campus at Rice University and I've always loved this forest of oak trees in the middle of the city.

Photographs Don't Lie. Or Do They?

Recently when I was in Port Aransas on a rainy day, I decided to take the ferry over to the mainland and drive over to Ingleside. I have been on that road before but it was a long time ago. I thought I might find something to photograph in the drizzly rain. In Ingleside I saw a sign that said Ingleside by the Bay. I turned left on it thinking I might get a shot of Port Aransas from the other side of the Bay. For about ten minutes there was no sign of the Bay just the road through the wonderful wind twisted oak trees. And then, there was a sign pointing to the right, Ingleside by the Bay. I turned right and I was in a little community about four streets deep rising from the water's edge of a little inlet and maybe a three-fourths of a mile long until the streets ended at the bay front that faced Port Aransas.

The street I was on ended at this sign. Ingleside Beach Club. I did a double take. Beach Club? Sand and a couple of covered picnic tables. I'm sure the overcast sky had some influence on me but I was thinking what a sad excuse for a Beach Club. I pulled over and stopped the car and I made several pictures of the sign and the picnic table. I had to capture this sad scene. I put the camera up and got back in the car and as soon as I turned left, I saw another building inside of the fence but about the equivalent of two blocks away. As I drove toward it, I saw posts for volley ball nets and space for parking and a pier. As you have probably guessed by now the building I saw was the Club House. It wasn't grand but it was nice. I stopped again and closed my eyes and I could see families fishing from the pier, playing volleyball, horse shoes, picnicking, eating on the veranda, New Year's Eve Parties in the Club House, Fourth of July cookouts, wedding receptions. This was not a sad place, it was a place where families made wonderful memories.

If I only showed you the image above and I had not given the whole story, would that image be the truth about the Ingleside Beach Club? I didn't Photoshop anything in or out of the picture. It is a "true" picture.

Ever since I made this image I've been thinking about it and this week I saw an article in Shutterbug about six professional photographers who were assigned to make a portrait of the same man but each of them were given a different story about the man and they had 10 minutes to make their portrait. At the end all six of the photographs were hung and the differences in the portraits were astonishing. The way the man was posed and light was used was highly influenced by what was in the photographer's mind from what they had been told.

Now I can think back to how I was feeling the day I made this image and why I had to stop the car and take this shot. For me it confirms what the article is saying, "The photograph is shaped more by the person behind the camera than what is in front of it."

Photographs from Sicily

Finally I have it. My book about my trip to Sicily in May. It is a 137 page Blurb book designed via the book module in Adobe Lightroom. Now those of you who do not have Lightroom and don't plan to make a book with it, may want to jump right to the end of this blog entry if you just want to see the book and not clutter your mind with Lightroom stuff you are not going to use.

 If you have Lightroom, you really should explore making a book. I'm not saying that because it is easy because there is a learning curve. And the book module does have limitations. I would like more templates from which to choose. I would like an easier way to add pages of text that would flow from one page to the next. I would like that the text didn't disappear when you change the template. And, of course, I wish the cost of one Blurb book wasn't so expensive. On the other hand, I haven't found another source that is cheaper and offers the color management that I've had with Blurb.

I care a lot about color management. I want what I see on  my screen to be the same as what my printer produces or what shows up in my books. Blurb is pretty much spot on with color and I am always watching my histogram to be sure that I do not have any clipping of the whites or blacks so that I also control the contrast.

Another thing I like about using Lightroom is that I can work with my RAW images and if one image needs a bit of adjustment to make it work better with its  two-page spread partner, it is no problem. Just jump back to the develop module and make the adjustment. When you go back to the book module the image is there with the adjustment. It really does make it easier to not have to worry about making the image a certain size JPG to fit an image window, not to worry about margins, gutters and cut lines. I mean, you are aware of them but the module does a good job of managing them for you. I've done a couple of books as PDF's outside of Blurb and it was a lot of work figuring all those measurements out. They made nice e-books on Issuu but I have a lot of MB's on my hard disk with the RAW images, the PS layered images and then the flattened and sized images that finally went into the books.

The Lightroom book module has been working for me but I have a couple of more complex books in mind. Now that I've cut my teeth, so to speak, on making a book, I may be ready to take on a more sophisticated design program.

Here is the link, if you would like to see my book, Sicily.

Don't Just Take Pictures, Make Art

Editor Brooks Jensen writes in the Editor's Comments of the May-June 2015 Lenswork Magazine:

Don't just take pictures, make art.
By this I specifically mean finish things -- be it an exhibition, a Blurb book, a website gallerly, a PDF or whatever else makes sense for your process and your content. The very act of committing to something all the way through to completion is one of the best ways to learn. 

I use to say that putting together an exhibition, especially your first one, was a huge learning experience. I'm not doing shows any more but I need the discipline of completing a project. It is nice to come home from a trip or a shoot and run though the images, mark some as the best of the lot. Maybe process one or two for FaceBook or the Blog. But nothing, absolutely nothing, is like deciding that the product of the project will be an exhibition or a boxed portfolio with an artist's statement, or a book that is designed and laid out with templates and text.

It is fine to say this is a nice image and so is this one. I like this too. But when I have to narrow down the shoot from 500, 1000, 2500 files to 20 or 25 for an exhibition, 15 or 20 for a boxed portfolio and maybe 150 for an affordable self-published book, that is when it starts to become a learning experience. Which images are the best of the best. Which images tell a cohesive story.

Then the images have to be processed so that they will be the very best prints I can make with a consistent look. It tests my technical knowledge but the other thing that is happening is that I am learning where my shortcomings are in making images. From that I learn to make the next project better.

Jensen is right. Don't just take pictures, make a finished piece of art.

The image above is Palermo, Sicily, made from the upper terrace of our hotel. And, yes, it will be in the Blurb book about Sicily that I'm working on.

The Mediterrenean Sea

Sicily sits off the mainland of Italy in the middle of the beautiful Mediterrenean Sea. Mediterrenean Blue is truly a color and it is different from the colors of the Caribbean Sea. You see the blue reflected everywhere in the colors of buildings and boats and often accented with a bright orange-red.

I did not see many sandy beaches. Mostly the sea rolled up at the foot of cliffs with maybe some small rocky inlets.

When you are looking out at the sea it is hard to imagine the part it is playing in the migrant crisis as people try to escape war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. Many people have asked me if I saw evidence of the refugees in Sicily. I did not.

Photography Tour

I recently spent two weeks on a photography tour to Sicily. It was an amazing two weeks. Our group was made up of six hand-picked photographers. Photographers who wanted to photograph and could roll with the punches which always happens when traveling. Before the tour I knew two people in the group but loved getting to know the others.

We started in Palermo for a couple of days, then to Noto, over to Trapani and back to Palermo and a hundred stops in between for photographs of landscapes loaded with poppies or hilltop towns cloaked in fog or fish markets by the wharf. Elisa Paloschi, our great and wonderful tour guide who is also an amazing photographer and videographer, knows Sicilian towns and country roads so we were in places that I might never have found on my own.

The days were long. Most of the time we left after an early breakfast and returned at dark to drop off camera equipment and head out for dinner. I don't think we were ever back in our hotel room until about 10:00 PM. It was really a great way for a single, 'mature' woman photographer to travel to places unknown and get to locations that might have been way too much to do alone in a car in a foreign country with a different language. I will definitely do some more photography tours. I'll put up more pictures from the trip and tell you more about it over the next couple of weeks.

Okay, that accounts for some of the time I've been missing from the blog. What else has happened? Well, life. All I can say is I've been busy and I haven't been in the mood to write. But now I'm back!

Happy 2015

That is me! December 30th is my birthday. I have been on the Party Circuit since Christmas but after welcoming the New Year last night, it is time to move on. A lot of wonderful things happened in 2014 but I am so excited about what is already on the calendar for this year.

First of all I'll still be working on my project in Port Aransas. Since last Spring so many things have happened that are more than just a coincidence or serendipity. I've met some very helpful people and doors have opened. One exciting thing that happened just this week is that I found out that a group of very creative photographers are meeting in Port Aransas at the same time I was planning to be there. I'll be joining them and I am sure it will be like a massive shot of creative energy. I have many things to follow up on and photographs to take but this project is bringing me great joy.

I've signed up for the San Miguel Writer's Conference. I've heard nothing but wonderful things from people who have gone and the schedule for this years conference includes amazing speakers and workshops. I can certainly use some help writing an introduction for the Port Aransas book but I'll also take some of the workshops about publishing. I'm hoping that some of the writing talent and creative energy of the people attending will rub off on me.

I am going to Sicily along with five other photographers. Great photography opportunities and great food.  And all of this is in the first half of 2015.

I also have some fitness goals that I will work on this year. Yes, I feel great but at my age I have to work on it so that I can do the things I want to do. I'm very optimistic about 2015. I think it is going to be a great year.

I wish all my readers robust health and many adventures in 2015.  

Playtime

 

I was looking at the cutting board today after I cut a tomato for lunch. The light was hitting the pulp and seeds left on the board and I thought it was beautiful with just the touch of green from a cilantro leaf. The thought ran through my mind that I should photograph it but just as I was putting that out of my mind because it was so tiny that I couldn't make a photograph of it that would show a close-up the translucent gelatinous pulp when CLICK! Yes, yes I could. Well maybe I could. I have a new close-up filter that I recently bought but had not tried. I raced upstairs and put it on the camera. That was the beginning of Playtime. Yes, I do like to explore so you are probably going to see some more images with that piece of equipment.

A Creative Shot in the Arm

Have you ever done something that energized you, replenished your soul, made you want to create more and better art? That is what I've been doing.

I went to NYC for a few days and walked and walked and walked. Rode the subway a bit as well. I had not been to NYC since Grandson #1 was born and he is graduating from high school this week. It had been a long time. I hit some museums and galleries, saw two plays but mostly I walked and just took in the city. I love NYC. In most ways it was the same but the parks and squares were glorious in Spring green and blossoms. Central Park was especially wonderful.

I was going from NYC to Boston. I checked the train and the buses. The buses didn't take that much longer but were a lot cheaper. I bought a ticket for the bus. It was a cultural experience. The taxi driver from the hotel to the address where the bus was to leave, kept asking me where I was going and he had never had a passenger to that location. It was a street corner on the lower east side. Let's just say that there was a diversity of people taking this bus. I got in line on the street corner and at the appointed time the bus pulled up. We loaded our bags into the bottom of the bus and off we went and we arrived in Boston on time at the South Street Terminal. So there was no problem. But it was an interesting experience.

I spent a couple of days in Boston with a friend from San Miguel and then I was picked up by my long time friend Frank. Frank and I were trying to remember when we met on the internet and the only thing we know for sure is that we knew each other for a while before 1991. Frank is an amazing photographer. He has been my teacher, mentor but most of all my friend for all of these years. Over the years we have visited in each others homes and he and Ellen have even come to see me in San Miguel.

Being with him and Ellen for a few days has been the highlight of my trip. First of all, I saw so many prints and we talked photography for hours. He gave a dinner party and John and Marilyn came down from the cape. John is another photography friend. Stephen, another friend who teaches photography at Clark University along with Frank, was also there. It was a marvelous night. Frank and Stephen are going to have a show in November and they are starting to get ready for that so I saw Frank's 42 inch by ??? maybe 60 inch proof prints. Can you imagine photographs that big made with large format cameras. The details are amazing. There were some gallery visits. Lunches. More talk about the process of making art. Yes! I am energized and inspired.

Now I'm in Houston for some family time.

A Photograph Or An Illustration

 

I should be working but I'm not. I was on Facebook where there is a new page for Olympus OMD camera users. I "liked" the page a week ago so now I see all the posts to it which are mostly uploads of photographs taken with the OMD cameras. There are some great macro photographs of tiny things like bugs. Who knew that the bee or dragonfly or ladybug looked like that so up close and personal. Using a macro lens on a bug takes some skill and patience. I think it is pretty interesting.

Then there are landscapes that are, not sure what to say about them.....so other worldly, so colorfied, so saturated, that in a way they are breathtaking. I can see a whole generation of photographers wanting to make landscapes like that. I guess it is the same as my generation seeing Ansel Adams black and white photographs and heading into our darkrooms to master the Zone System.

Except when I see these images, overdone in my opinion, all I can see is software. Kind of like when you see model images that have flawless skin and perfect skinny bodies. To me, the models look like illustrations and these landscapes look like illustrations. Will these exaggerated images eventually lead us to a discontent with the actual landscapes when we go to see them as it has led to women's expectations and subsequent discontent with our actual bodies?

While I defend the photographer's right to make their work however they want to make it, I hope that I'm not gradually led into that genre of photography.

This image was made one day when I was running errands in town. I like the geometry of it and the frames of faces.

By the way, I'm not opposed to using Photoshop or Lightroom, but more on that another day.

Mercer Logs, 2

The book project about Port Aransas and the Mercer Logs has been on the back burner for a while but I have spent a good part of today, if not putting it on a front burner, at least I've turned up the fire a bit.

First of all I had an email from someone who is a relative of another one of the earlier settlers on Mustang Island. She was doing some ancestry research and came on my blog. Then, I also have a friend who has seen some of the images and a bit from the logs and almost every time I see him he asks me when I'm going to finish the book. I'm also wrapping up another personal book and I learned a lot putting it together and that encourages me to go back to the Mercer Logs.

I made this image the last time I was on the Island. The Mercer's called their place Rancho del Mar and they ran cattle and farmed. This picture of the grassland was made on the bay side of Mustang Island. Looks like it could still be a good place to have cattle but I have only seen a small herd one time.

Today, in a word processor I typed in more of the potential book text from the logs and I gathered all the pictures that might fit the text in a book folder. So as I have said, I've turned up the fire.

Street Portraits

Jack Montgomery has an entry, The Chemistry of Portraiture, on his blog that says what I'd like to say. I'm not really a street photographer who can grab shots of people. Oh, it is okay if I have people in what I photograph on the street but I never feel a connection and quite honestly sometimes I feel that I have invaded their privacy. Usually the pictures that I like that I make of people on the street are made when I have asked for permission. Maybe all I do is smile, hold up the camera and ask, "Okay." Yes, sometimes people say no. Yes, sometimes I have missed some moment. But more often I have made a connection with the person and I think we can both walk away feeling good about that exchange.

I walked in this fruit and vegetable stall and kind of looked around. This man was leaning on his counter. I stopped, smiled at him and told him with a few Spanish words and a few gestures that I liked his hair. He laughed. I laughed too. "Foto, okay?" He nodded, yes. I don't think he moved at all during this exchange.

Montgomery says, "That moment when the subject connects and addresses the camera is often electric.  There is a non-verbal communication between us and for that short time we are alone in the world, entirely focused on the task between us. At that moment I feel an energy – an actual rush – that is unique in my experience."

YES! That's what I'm talking about.