We moved into our house thirty two years ago when the trees in our backyard were much smaller. In the ensuing years, they have grown bigger and are too close to the house. We had to take them out.
I wonder if I will be here in another thirty two years when the next line of trees has to be removed.
It was my first day on my first job. Mister Waddell explained my new responsibilities and what I was supposed to do. He said the first thing I had to learn about were brooms. There they were; straight straw brooms, angle brooms and push brooms. Then there is the hand brush and the dust pan.
He put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and told me I was going to really clean up on my new job. He laughed and walked away.
My career had just begun.
The map said there was supposed to be a lake here with water. Now what are we going to do? We’ve been short on water for a week and the barrel’s almost empty. What are we going to do?
We hang on to these objects of memory, our most precious thoughts and memories longer than anything else. We give away, sell, bequeath and ultimately dispose of all but the most necessary, essential most prized of our possessions. After we’re gone this is all that remains. And our heirs look at all that is there and say what does that mean? The answer begins, “Well, do you remember the time…”
The memory is so clear I can still see it and feel it like it happened yesterday. Turning tight and steeply banked I was pushed down and back into my seat and I could see the freighter through the top of the canopy. The plane shook as we opened fire. I can remember no more.
I have this memory in my mind. I don’t know why because it happened eight years before I was born.
A photograph from the Erickson Aircraft Collection. Other images from the Erickson Collection are included in A Boy's Dream.
When I was very young, it was a special treat to go to the General Store. Right there on the shelf was a toy tractor. We didn’t have much and Daddy couldn’t buy it for me, but right then and there I decided that someday I would own myself a General Store and I would have so many toy tractors that I couldn’t play with them all. I would just leave them in their boxes and I would be the richest person in the world.
This photograph is part of the Carpenter Portfolio, one of the first folio projects I created. The entire project is at this link.
One early autumn morning some birds flew over the surface of Lake Abert, in Oregon. I was in the right spot, with the right lens and I clicked off a couple of shots as the birds flew by. I’m going to claim the image as my own and show it off proudly on my blog.
Yes, it’s a lucky photograph and being lucky never hurt when making one good photograph. I have many more photographs where I worked really, really hard in composing, figuring exposure and sweated out numerous technical details only to create something truly…forgettable.
Like all photographers we will proudly display our images to as many people as we can and tell stories to other photographers about the photographic failures.
After critically reading my blog posts for the last few months, (football coaches call that “self-scouting”) I am lost on my Creative Journey, straying a bit from what I really like doing. I figured this out because what should be fun was starting to be like work. So, it’s time to remember why I started this.
Postcards have a picture on one side and a little bit of writing on the other. So, starting next Sunday morning (and every Sunday morning after that), I will be posting a picture with a story. The blog will be less about photography and more about life, memories (both real and imagined), dreams and stories suggested by the images. If I do happen to come up with some photographic observations, those will appear on some other day.
I hope to see you next week on the next phase of the Creative Journey.
A seemingly long time ago, (or more recently, depending on how you view the passage of time these days) I had the temerity to assemble a photographic project entitled Fifty, a collection of my fifty best photographs – up until that point in my life. The motivation was the celebration of my fiftieth birthday. As I assembled the project I thought a lot about the selection process. Here’s what I came up with.
How rare is a great photograph? With the almost limitless number of factors that influence the outcome of a photograph, it is a wonder that good photographs exist. Consider the variables involved in making any photograph (especially the film and prints that made up Fifty). Timing is everything – remember f/8 and be there? In the real world, everything happens only once (and often too quickly). There is no instant replay in life. This is even true in photographing the landscape. Despite protestations from the uninitiated, the decisive moment also exists in landscape photography.
The answer to the question “How rare is a good photograph?” finally came to me. I look back on the work included for the collection of fifty images and cumulatively, they account for no more than ten seconds exposed film over thirty years. Good photographs are that rare.
While great photographs are rare, that should not be a cause for despair or lack of motivation. You can never tell when the next great photograph will be made. It very well might be the next time to pick up your camera to photograph.
The front porch of a house on Fort Vancouver's Officer's Row. This photograph showed up in two projects, The Pattern of Shadows and as a photograph in the Fifty Project. I had not included the Fifty Project in the original updated design of my website because it was set up as a web gallery using software that was fifteen years old. I am still undecided if I get a "do-over" on this project because of the effort required to re-digitize and process the original negatives. The philosophical/practical question to be answered is whether I would rather spend my time working on something very old, or working on something new. The jury has yet to render a verdict.
A while back I attended a contemporary art exhibit. The memorable aspect of the exhibit was an explanatory sign on the wall of the exhibit. The sign informed us artwork explored, “the political relationships among gender, culture, religion, labor and social codes.” I was wondering what ever happened to art that was about illuminating the universalities of truth and beauty?
Then I remembered someone told me Art was about questions. If contemporary art poses questions about “the political relationships among gender, culture, religion, labor and social codes” I thought maybe that’s why I am not too interested in contemporary art. The confusing thing to me about this artspeak is determining if all five characteristics have to be in a simultaneous relationship or is it possible to have multiple simultaneous relationships among fewer than all five at any one time and then on top of that, how to make all these relationships political? This is a lot to ask of a work of art. I have a difficult time even understanding how this all works out. I don’t believe I am alone in this puzzlement. Maybe that’s why the only thing I can remember about the exhibit is that little note telling me how difficult it is to understand contemporary art.
Nothing new or modern here. Wheelwrights working together to create a wagon wheel at the Hart Square Festival in 2018. An image that is part of the Made By Hand folio.
I enjoy photographing old buildings and other objects that have passed their prime. While photographing the renovation of the Cary Elementary School it occurred to me the school was worn out and run down because generations of students had used it. The school building fulfilled its original purpose and was ready to be repurposed. This realization inspired me to consider how I photograph old buildings.
There are two types of empty buildings. There are abandoned structures and empty structures. The difference is quite simple. If a structure is abandoned, there is no hope and no one will come back. Empty structures are not populated because there is no one there right now. The people will return and the space will no longer be empty. There is the hope the structure will be used once again. This was the emptiness I found in the Cary Elementary School.
This is a photograph from the Carpenter Portfolio. There are no people in the photograph, but we know that people have been there because of the worn wood on the bench. We know that someone was just there because they left their coat on the bench. They will soon be back to claim it and go about the business of the day.
Last week I talked about my Project Triangle and the characteristics of creating new projects. I have two little stories on that topic. My friend, Brooks Jensen (of LensWork fame) is obsessive about keywording his Lightroom database. He claims he has enough images keyworded to create projects for the rest of his life. The power of keywording automagically draws connections among images you would not have thought of and is one way of creating new projects from images you have “in inventory.”
One of the projects I talked about last week, “Passages and Portals” came about in an entirely different way. One day, after looking at some of my latest photographs my daughter told me, “Daddy, you are the best door photographer in the world.” Well, who can argue with their daughter? Especially if she is right. So, I went back and started looking through Lightroom and sure enough I found a whole bunch of door photographs. I stopped gathering images when I went way over a hundred door images. That’s how the project “Passages and Portals” came about.
While you can be inspired to create new projects by random comments from your family or other people you know, it is probably more reliable to depend on keywording your images.
Passages and Portals in the Shoshone Building in Wallace, Idaho. A wonderful old building being renovated when the owner has time. The building also contained an amazing collection of old telephone equipment and switchboards from local businesses. This photo is from the folio on my website
My projects have three characteristics; Time, Place and Theme. Most of my projects have fixed all three characteristics because I went someplace at a specific time and photographed a single subject. If we let at least one of those characteristics vary we can add some variety to what might become formulaic.
Single place, time and topic. Look at “A Boy’s Dream” folios; one place and one subject all photographed in a matter of a few hours. ( Just like the image above.)
Single place and theme fixed. Look at “After the Memories, Part I.” Academy Street, architecture with photographs gathered from thirty years of photography.,
Fixed topic. Look at “Passages and Portals.” A single theme photographed in many different places over a long period of time.
Mathematically, there are multiple combinations for these three characteristics, but the idea is the number of characteristics you can play with when you are deciding on a project.
Go back and look at your projects and find your own project characteristics. Better yet, go back and look at your photographs to see if you can group some or your own photographs to make a new project.
The ME-109 from the Erickson Airplane Collection in Madras, Oregon. Sometimes good images don't fit in the overall scheme of the project. This one didn't. It's tough to have to reject an image for a project, but sometimes a hard heart is required to make a project do exactly what you need it to do.
