speaking of africa, here’s a shot of me shooting in uganda that sarah snapped. glad she documented this..there are typically very few shots of me. note the ultralong™ socks.

I finally launched a 4x5 section on my site. It’s still very much in progress, but for the sake of making myself work on it, I went ahead and made it public. Still working on galleries that make more sense for editorial, etc, but these shots made me super happy to create. The gallery will be updated as I work through new orders and rescan some of the images. As it is now, there are plenty of artifacts / newton rings, etc, but I’m trying to let go of needing it all to be perfect. That’s it for now!

4x5s are here.

Peter K, some gnarly scar, and (fake) Tony Hawk!

Last Halloween there was a skate comp at the now-defunct Shoe Factory skate spot hosted by Peter Karvonen, pictured above. I’m just now getting good scans of some of those shots (the black and white ones anyway) and thought I’d post them, even if I’m too lazy to spot them and stuff right now.

Below is a dude’s super gnarly scar and fake Tony Hawk.

Original Article

Working on a large format gallery for my site so I’m rehashing some old photos. I’m sure I’ve posted this 1000 times now, but here’s Ashley again, shot on the Legotron. A scan I’m finally happy with. Loving this ANR glass.

the tea set is my favorite part. that and the über bellows.

rvlvr:

Sam Haskins

(via allthethingswelove)

Branden on the Legotron, shot on Kodak Portra 160

In an attempt to stay positive about Kodak, I thought maybe today was a decent day to post one of the images I’ve shot in color on the Legotron. Kodak sent over a few sheets for me to test out a while back and I’m just now getting around to really do anything with the stuff I’ve shot so far.

This first shot is Branden. I took some sheets on my normal field camera also to be able to compare color and all that stuff, but I’m still working on getting super clean scans for color 4x5. Black & white and color film stocks are different and despite being able to get great scans now out of BW, color is still eluding me—damn Newton rings.

I’ve got to say though, I absolutely ADORE the weird color shifts that come from light leaks and colored blocks. A bunch of people who have seen the camera have told me that I should rather have black blocks inside the camera, or spray it flat black. But perfection is the absolute last thing I’m after with this camera! All these weird lines and blotches. Love it!

Original Article

I’ve been trying different methods of getting good 4x5 scans for ages with results that were never fully satisfactory. I finally decided to pull the trigger on a big piece of Anti-Newton Ring glass for sandwiching my negatives and I’m pleased to find that this will very likely work perfectly, at least for my black and white negatives. I haven’t gotten color negs to show up without Newton Rings yet, and that may end up being remedied by yet another piece of ANR glass, but then I’ll have to figure out precise heights for shims so I can get proper focus from our scanner. I have a bit of color to scan so I wish I had this sorted now (I’m trying hard to get this Kodak 160 scanned so I can review it for them, shot on the Legotron and a normal field camera) but for now I can at least knock out black and white in a way that pleases me. IF YOU KNOW A GREAT WAY OF SCANNING 4x5 COLOR NEGATIVES ON A FLATBED, PLEASE TELL ME.

Enough nerdery. This shot was from a Halloween skate comp at the now-defunct Shoe Factory spot here in Birmingham. The skate was actually to raise money to move the ramps to a new location (which is important, because the ramps actually got thrown away before being salvaged for the Shoe Factory spot). It was put on by Faith Skate Supply, who is also currently pimping out a very worthy cause—A.Skate. In short, A.Skate has an opportunity to build an Autism-friendly, handicap accessible skate park, but they need your votes to help win the Pepsi contest. Hit that link to see the (EASY!) ways to vote!

And seriously, if you’ve got color 4x5 scanning tips, I’m all ears.

Original Article

Branden’s face on the ground [plexi]glass of the Legotron.

Shooting Branden on the Legotron on Kodak Portra 160 (can’t wait to see it)

I had a realization today that it is absolutely not possible for my to shoot enough photos. I was watching a video about Marc Hauser, seeing image after image float by, and I became somewhat overwhelmed by the volume of great images. One after another after another. Some of his work reminded me of Avedon, some of Penn, but mostly I was just fascinated at the breadth of the work. On and on. Between the video and his site, he’s just got a ton of work. Granted, he’s been shooting for a billion years. Much like a lot of the other photographers I enjoy, their work just comes out of their ears. They seem to always be shooting.

And all that got me thinking, too, about personal work. The above shot is a simple 4x5 shot of bridge here in town. Typical, mundane. I can’t decide if it’s boring or not. I was compelled to take the shot. The lines were pretty, or whatever. But does that make it interesting? Even if just for me? And if it is interesting to me but no one else, is it any less valid? I don’t know. Nothing is really happening in the shot but the structure and lines and light all grab me up and shake me around. But is that enough?

I read a quote the other day by David Alan Harvey that goes like this:

“You must have something to say. You must be brutally honest with yourself about this. Think about history, politics, science, literature, music, film, and anthropology. What effect does one discipline have over another? What makes “man” tick? Today, with everyone being able to easily make technically perfect photographs with a cell phone, you need to be an “author”. It is all about authorship, authorship and authorship.”

This has always been a struggle for me. As long as I’ve taken photographs, my modus operandi has been to have a camera on me, live life, and react to what is happening around me. Intuition and reflex dictates my photos as much as my thoughts (but they also influence each other simultaneously). This feels like I am not in control, and I haven’t figured out if I am. And if I am or not, what am I saying? Is this idea of authorship as specific as I interprut it? Does my “something to say” have to be concrete and explainable? Is the documenting of my life enough? If I have no idea what I’m saying, am I saying something? Am I just too lazy to figure out what it is I’m already saying?

The work I make for myself, whether I end up liking it in the end or not, is fundamentally a reaction to life. My current main portfolio, or whatever you want to call it, was curated by my friend Jared Ragland who has such a keen eye. The grouping of my work he made for this site is far better than I could ever hope to put together. Maybe it’s my emotional attachment to the shots or knowing the backstory, but his objectivity let him draw a line between shots I’d never have even considered. This is exciting for me—to have someone else digest my work and spit out something that makes sense to them—but makes me wonder (imagine that) about what this body of work says about me. I get a glimpse into how my work appears to others, as well as getting to see all the interconnections between my life experience that I’d never have seen before. But does this mean someone else is saying something with my work about my work? Where does this leave me?

I guess it all comes down to the idea of not being in control. And perhaps that idea of feeling the need to be in control is rooted in the idea that I use photographs to make my living.

There are two roads in my head when I think about work for money and work for me.
The first is that the work I do professionally should be indistinguishable from the work I do for me. Then I’m a “true” artist or whatever (even thought I hate a lot of about that word/title) and I feel more validated about my personal vision or interpretation of the word. It feeds my ego, I guess, to think that the way I see things has value.
But then there’s the second road which is more pragmatic and WAY less idealistic. That road recognizes that you don’t sell stuff only with gritty, black and white, sort of weird images. Color sells. Happy emotions sells. Images that can be repurposed sell. Function over form, I guess this road is called. But the same things that make my personal work fulfilling for me aren’t totally divorced from me on this second, perhaps. Surely I could employ the same intuition and connection to surroundings and people to create images that really say something, but also serve an important function for industry (which, let’s face it, is my main target since I’m not really trying to make a go of being all-artist-all-the-time, right?).

Of course, selecting road two means needing to be in control of other things that are outside of my comfort zone. Business crap is the worst. And my brain does not gravitate toward it. But I digress. Without really answering my own questions.

One place where I see these roads overlap though, is non-profit work. At least to the degree that I can merge serving a purpose and engaging people/life the way I think I do best. But I’ll leave that conversation for another post.

I’d love to hear any thoughts on personal work you may have. Or your ideas about the division of business and personal work. Or your weird blend of the two. Anything, really. If you have reaction…I want it.

(Keep shooting!)

Original Article

calebchanceymusic:

by Cary Norton

Stephanie, apiarist

[rough edit]