Monthly Archives: May 2021

The Excitement of Being Out There

I’ve made a good amount of pictures and managed few keepers during Covid, but not nearly enough. Nevertheless the time I spent photographing during this difficult period was incredibly worthwhile. Even though the virus made it prohibitive to take many of the pictures I like to make, what mattered, and what I’ve always loved about photography is the journey. Everything about being out there is special to me, and if fortune is on my side, just maybe a meaningful picture will be captured during a memorable day.

Last week I wrote about Fred Picker’s Zone VI Newsletters and it seems they’re still fresh in my mind. Something he said so beautifully really struck a chord.

“Of the numerous aspects of the photographic experience there is only one that I find always wonderful, exciting, and capable of producing instant happiness. The best part of photography isn’t talking about it or writing about it or teaching it or developing film or hanging shows or publishing books or making prints. It isn’t selling prints or having your work admired. It’s the excitement of being out there: the anticipation of the unknowable wonder that may appear over the next hill. It is the knowledge that there is a chance of finding and recording a metaphor of your loves, your dreams, your past, and what you may feel about your future. It is the hope of searching out for yourself and your camera something incredible.” Zone VI Newsletter 47, p.10.

The rules that have governed our coming and going for almost a year and a half are now being changed as we move back to a more normal life. Today, still being a bit careful, I am going to photograph the Doylestown’s Memorial Day Parade and the very moving memorial service that always follows it at Doylestown Cemetery. It will be the 153^rdanniversary of this wonderful tradition and I’m excited to be a part of it! Not because I know I will make some great photographs, but because I will be out there experiencing something that is truly wonderful. And during that experience there is a chance that I and my camera will find “something incredible”!

Happy Memorial Day, stay safe, and best wishes for a better time ahead,

Michael

Fred Picker’s Zone VI Newsletters

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I have now finished reading Fred Picker’s Zone VI Newsletters for the umpteenth time. Just ask my wife how may times I have read these things, or talk to my kids about how funny they thought it was that I had brought those two fat grey loose leaf binders with me to the beach on vacations. Yes it’s true. I’ve read all 82 newsletters many times and always seem to gain some new insight with each reading.

I couldn’t wait for that familiar envelope from Vermont to arrive in my mailbox every few months. I have fond memories of getting the calls from my wife in the middle of sixteen hour workdays at the State Department telling me I got my latest newsletter … same thing when Shutterbug arrived! It’s surprising how much those calls meant to me. I still get great enjoyment from them and pick up new things. But there is something else about reading them … something about one person’s photographic journey in life.

Yes I know, Picker has been a polarizing subject and still draws criticism on the Internet. But if you can get beyond some commercial promotion of his products, a few instances of self-promotion and a couple of somewhat questionable things he mentions related to getting his picture, then there is just so much there for the black and white analog photographer … and yes … more.

All the innovations, the demystification of the Zone System, the sharing of correspondence with Strand, Adams and other greats, being together with him photographing … designing and producing exciting products unlike any before, searching for beaver dams, the excitement of capturing the light reflecting off a wall of slate, standing in awe before ancient monoliths or trying to photograph while being stranded during a non-stop rainstorm somewhere in the Outer Hebrides. Being with him as he lived a complete photographic life. Accompanying him on a photographic and life journey for over twenty years.

Fred did it his way and he told you what he believed to be the truth. He didn’t care what others thought. He told you not to trust anyone including him, but rather to TRY IT for yourself and see if it worked … you could make your own informed decision. Maybe too many were jealous of his entertaining life, his independence, all of the rule breaking, and the financial success he achieved from the business he created, etc. Many who were proud to post awe inspiring pictures of their family cats and the like on the Internet to demonstrate their photographic prowess claim his photography was dreck.

Fine.

You know what? I don’t give a flying fig about other’s insecurities. I believe Fred Picker’s Zone VI Newsletters are great stuff and highly recommended! Complete sets come up from time to time on eBay and are worth getting!!!

Go ahead, TRY IT!

Stay safe,

Michael

My Photographic Process – Step 17 – Redo the Print if Necessary Or Just Trash It If It Is Hopeless

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Ok, you have walked to the edge of the cliff, stood at the precipice and … jumped off!

I know this is hard. Been there done it many times. It’s simple … you need to be true to yourself. Are you going to push yourself to produce the best you can and strive to become better? Or produce something that’s good enough? Or worse yet, let mediocre work slide because you just don’t feel like investing anymore time?

I hate it when someone shows me a work print, or says they know their finished print needs a little more burning or dodging, or the contrast isn’t just right. If you care at all then do the best you can! If you can make the print better do it! If it’s a clunker forget about it and move on!

Yes, I know how painful it is, but I have no choice when there’s no alternative. None of us who really care do. After all, this is about you as a creator of art … as a person that can look in the mirror and honestly judge who you are, and what you want to be. In the end this is about your soul … as a photographer … as a person.

Stay safe,

Michael

My Photographic Process – Step 16 – Evaluate the Print

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This is where the rubber meets the road!

Evaluating the print is perhaps the most important step next to actually making the photograph in the first place! Let’s face it, you have done a lot, spent a lot of time and, frankly a lot of money to get this far, and you are so, so, close. Now is your chance not to blow the whole damn thing.

Study the results of all your hard work. How? As I’ve discussed before, I place my prints on a strip of wood attached to the wall in my workroom and look at them long and hard under the same lighting I use in my darkroom to examine prints. Why look at them long and hard? If all is well then GREAT! But it’s quite possible they may not deserve to be seen … in their present form … or at all!

Now read that last sentence again, because it can be a difficult thing to accept.

I have written about this several times over the years, but it’s worth mentioning a few things I’ve said before.

The wooden strip is wonderful tool that can help you determine whether the print you made was a statement of what you saw in your minds eye and deserving, or whether it needs more work or isn’t very good after all. If the print does not capture what you meant to say or is disappointing for some technical or other aesthetic reason, that’s what the garbage can is for! On this, John Sexton said, “I find the single most valuable tool in the darkroom is my trash can – that’s where most of my prints end up.”

Ansel Adams said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” Think about that for a moment. He made thousands of images most of us would die for, yet very few made the cut. I’m not Adams so I have to be pretty ruthless … and so do you.

Paper and chemicals are expensive and your time is valuable. A box of one hundred 8X10 sheets of Ilford Warmtone Variable Contrast paper alone is currently going for $160! Think about how much you have spent just to get to this point. But settling for an also ran after spending so much money and time is the worst thing of all! It’s also costly to the long-term growth of your work .

So what to do? Take a deep breath and toss it; then think about My Step 17!

I promise it will be all right.

Stay safe,

Michael

The Color of Black and White

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While I was walking Sparky on Saturday I started thinking about what I see and feel when I look at photographs … those I make and others. I’m certain that three things this week I experienced brought this about. I showed the Monalog Collective’s portfolio to a college that will be hanging a show of the members work, I participated in a virtual opening for a gallery show that includes one of my photographs, and I received a couple of black and white pictures of my beautiful grandchildren on my cell phone.

All of this caused me to reflect again upon what is so different and special about black and white photography.

When I’m living my daily life wherever I am I see the world about me in color … the colors that things are in reality. When I look at color photographs, unless the composition or subject matter is so compelling, it is hard for me to get truly captivated. It does happen sometimes and I do in fact own a couple of monographs containing color work. The problem for me is that when I view most color work I feel like I am looking at a reproduction of something that sometimes reminds me of a postcard.

When I look at black and white photographs, and especially ones made completely with analog processes and materials, I feel I am looking into something that comes from some alternative universe. There’s just so much depth to dive into and so much to explore. I never get tired of making them or looking at them … mine or others. The black and white viewing experience is just so much different. It takes me to a different place, a place that is often better for reasons understood and not understood, where there is a greater sense of compassion in the rendering of good and bad, a place that requires and causes contemplation. When I create the final black and white print and look at black and white photographs in person or in books, I sense that I am drilling down, penetrating the essence of the “thing itself”. All of this is good and it forces me to slow down, take a breath of fresh air and think more, maybe even daydream and become part of that alternative universe. All of this occurred for me even when I looked at my grandchildren on my cellphone, and in the most powerful way … not because I love them dearly but because the way they were captured … it was timeless, incredibly direct and … beautiful!

I feel differently about color paintings than I do about color photographs. Paintings seem to have a depth and luminosity that color photographs lack and I never tire of viewing great work at galleries and museums. I have taken my students to the Michener Museum to look at paintings because of what you can learn about light and composition, and I visit galleries and museums for the same reason.

Look, there has been great and important color work. In fact recently I purchased two color monographs. I bought them because I was interested in the subject matter. I enjoyed looking at them but I think the work would have been stronger in black and white. The great thing is that we have free will and we can make choices in life. My choice is black and white … the colors of my alternative universe.

Stay safe,

Michael