On Sunday I joined my friend and Monalog Collective co-member Peter Schrager for an action packed photographic road in Pennsylvania.  Our first stop was at the Best Western Plus Hotel in Bensalem, PA, about a half hour or so from where I live. We had discussed finding a date to see the Larry Fink/Judith Joy Ross double bill show at the Allentown Museum of Art and Peter mentioned his plans to drive down from Connecticut to go to Photorama USA at its Pennsylvania stop.  I love camera shows and hadn’t been to one since before the pandemic, so needless to say I was excited to go!!! We quickly set a date when we could do our road trip double header!!

We arrived at the Best Western in the morning just as things were getting underway in the morning and walked in. It looked like things were pretty much the same as the last time.  The show organizer and some of the dealers recognized me which was nice, and at first glance things pretty much looked the same … lots of stuff scattered with no rhyme or reason on lots of tables.

But it really wasn’t the same.  Almost everything was analog!!!!  From cameras (35mm, medium format and large format) to accessories, to film, and darkroom tidbits. We even checked out a stash of darkroom items in the trunk of someone’s car in the parking lot. But beyond the fact that there was hardly any digitalia to be found, prices had gone up dramatically for most of the used cameras you could previously pick up for a song. And much of what I saw was in “user” condition! Most shocking of all were the prices for medium format cameras such as Hasselblad, Mamiya 7, Rollei, etc. Sky high, e.g., $3500 for a user Mamiya 7 (not eve 7IIA!) and 80mm lens!

I didn’t spend anything except the fin to get in … I couldn’t afford to … but I had a lot of fun just looking at all the neat gear and talking to the dealers. Back in the car and driving to Allentown I thought about what was going on here. Look, the guys sitting behind the tables were there for one reason only – to make money!  So they brought stuff to sell they knew had the best chance to be bought. To me what was at the show and what was not, along the high prices was yet another set of signs that film is back!!!!

Yeah baby!!!

Stay well,

Michael

Last Monday I moderated and was a member of an Artist Panel of Monalog Collective members at Penn State Lehigh Valley University, as part of the programing surrounding our show. Ann Lalik, the gallery’s Director and Arts Coordinator was going to moderate the event but came down with Covid at the last minute. Rather than cancel we agreed the show must go on! And I’m glad it did!

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of my dual role, mainly because of the student attendees. Two good sized art classes came, along with a number of professors and outside guests, but it was the students that asked the most interesting questions and made some of the most important observations! You never know how these things are going to go, but we went well past the scheduled time allotted and even after that, a number of students hung around to chat with us.

Even though none of the students were film photographers – in fact many were not photographers at all – they were fascinated by what they heard and the pictures they saw in the Ronald K. Delong Gallery. This along with many other things encourage me about the continued importance and future of analog black and white photography. Film photography is unlikely to reclaim its place as the capture method of choice, but if the young remain as interested as they are in its efficacy, and especially the efficacy of black and white, then the materials we love so much will be available for a long time!

Part of the Monalog mission is to engage with others, individually and through collaborative activity. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to interact, mentor and work with young people that are photographing or just interested in the art of black and white analog photography.

Stay well,

Michael

Making pictures and eating … together? If there are two things I love its photography and macaroni and cheese. So how could I bring together my avocation and what I consider to be an entire food group? Go to the Bloomsburg Fair Mac & Cheese Festival in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. I recently found out about this and thought it could be a great photo op for my work towards the Monalog Collective’s “Visions of America” project I’ve previously written about. Not bad … make some pictures, try 10 mac and cheese samples, check out the Biergarten, and get a souvenir glass. Worth the $25 price of admission for sure. About two hours from my house, this confluence of art and gastronomic delight would neatly fit within my two hour plan rules … I’ve written about that too. Is this great or what!!! Well, that was the plan.

The problem is that sometimes plans or best intentions don’t work out for any number of reasons. In this case, I had one of my occasional bouts with benign vertigo. What is benign vertigo you ask? According to the Internet it’s a condition that exists when tiny “canalith particles (otoconia) break loose and fall into the wrong part of the semicircular canals of the inner ear.” It’s a little disconcerting when you get out of bed and the room starts spinning around or when you happen to fall down for no particular reason.

This situation was going on for a few days, but I had got an appointment with a therapist on Saturday morning. Perfect. She would put me through some positional changes designed to shift the pesky little particles back to where they belonged and I would be quickly on my way!  The car was packed and I thought I would leave directly from her office and drive the roughly 100 miles to cheesy heaven.

Turned out to be a little more severe then expected. While going through the positioning motions things started to spin really, really fast. Warp factor 8, but hey, no problem. Getting ready to leave she told me that I might feel a bit off, tired, dizzy or just not myself for 24 hours. In other words and it might be best not to go. Right. Got in my car and started to drive. Ok, I didn’t feel so great and pulled over a few minutes later until things felt a little more normal. Feeling a little better I figured I’d start driving again. All’s well until about two minutes down the road when what I’m seeing appears to be coming towards me then racing back to where it was. Not good.

Yeah, I hate when someone is right and I can’t do what I want #@!$%^. I pulled over, collected myself and drove home at a moderate speed. When I arrived, my wife was happy to see me. She agreed with the therapist which meant she was right too. Damn! What to do? Get into bed and zone out for three hours or so. When I woke up I felt a lot better. Problem was that I had missed the opportunity to get to the festival.

I felt bad, and the $25 ticket was the least of it. Missing out on all that gooiness, what might have been some great photo opportunities and the experience I would have had making those pictures. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think about pictures I hope to make. I actually see them in my head. Sort of my own version of “previsualization”! In this case I was thinking about the people I would encounter for the last couple of days, what they might look like and pictures I would make. Oh well, didn’t happen.

As in life, there is often disappointment in photography. Either, the light isn’t right, what you expected turns out to be a nothing, your compositions stink, there’s something wrong with the negative, or something comes up that causes you not to be able to go. It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself over a lot of important and unimportant things, like missing a Mac & Cheese Festival, and use that as an excuse to get down on yourself, or worse yet to stop what you’re doing. Don’t do that!

So what am I going to do? I took it easy for the rest of the weekend, just like the therapist and my wife recommended. Now I’m refreshed, ready to make some good pictures and catch up on my darkroom backlog.

And maybe I can talk my wife into making some Mac & Cheese this week.

Stay well,

Michael