southern utah

in october of 2011 i took a trip back home to utah to visit the southeastern corner of my home state.  my dad and i drove down with plans to visit some of the anasazi indian ruins in the area and also to see some of the landscape in that part of the state.

our first stop was the "valley of the gods" - it's kind of a smaller version of monument valley however, smaller is a relative term here...  the tops of the buttes are about 1000 feet above the valley floor.

there's a dirt road that takes you through the monuments of the valley, this was our first stop as we got closer to the formations.

as we got worked our way around the valley we noticed a storm coming in over the valley and quickly jumped out to get the shot.  mine didn't turn out but my dad was able to get a great shot of the rain coming down over the west end of the valley.

after visiting the valley of the gods we headed up to cedar mesa to see a some anasazi cliff dwelling ruins.  the first is called fallen roof ruin.  

over the years the layers of sandstone have fallen away revealing the mineral-encrusted layers beneath.

this ruin is appropriately called house on fire.  the wide angle lens accentuates the layers of stone radiating out from the ruin.

the trick to catching these ruins at the right time is to be there in the late morning.  the sun shines on the opposite side of the wash and reflects the warm light up onto the ruins.

after cedar mesa we drove up to canyonlands national park.  we intended to catch the sunset looking west off of the green river overlook.  the sun never showed up but i'm glad i took a shot anyways - i like how it turned out.

early the next morning we got up early to catch the sunrise at mesa arch but we couldn't squeeze ourselves into the line of tripods that were already there so we hightailed it to our plan b - dead horse point.  we got there just as the sun was peeking over the la sal mountains.

i think it's just about time to start planning the next excursion... just not sure where.  any suggestions?

corn

when we moved to indiana there were two things that immediately stuck out to me: first, the flatness of the land - i had no idea that such incredibly flat land could exist - and second, the corn.

one of the first little excursions i took was out into the farmland.  i drove out from the city, not really paying attention to where i was going or how i would get back home (i had my gps).  i just drove admiring the golden fields of dried corn stalks (apparently they harvest it after it's all dried up).

overlooking the fact that it's all going to end up as either cattle feed or high fructose corn syrup, i've loved seeing corn throughout the year.

corn in the fall

corn in the winter

going low budget - branching out

for a long time i could only use slide film (usually fuji velvia or provia) or professional black and white film.  i did this in order to have what i thought would be highest quality pictures possible.  i felt that only the best would do.

as part of my therapy to break me of this mindset i bought some fuji superia 400 speed film - your standard print film - from walmart, took some snapshots, then had it processed at walgreens (just the film) then scanned it myself.

this is a big step for me.  in the end, i have to say i'm very happy with what i got.  the scans are somewhat unsaturated and grainy but i think it actually adds to the feel of the pictures.

at the detroit science center...

out garage sale-ing...

and the rest from a recent in-town vacation...

thanks for looking.

sacred grove

last summer we drove to boston for my brother-in-law's graduation and on the way home stopped in palmyra, ny to see the historical sites.

we spent some time walking through the sacred grove (click here if you don't know what happened there) and i got the following shot.






(here i am setting up the shot)

i was pleasantly surprised with how this one turned out.  it was a beautiful, cool day.  the sun was sprinkling in through the trees.  it was very peaceful.

i'm happy about the way the sky appropriately glows a brilliant white at the top of the picture.  i'm happy about the way the subtle shading from black to white just fell into the right places without any help from photoshop.

it's one of my new favorites.

the celebration

to celebrate the arrival of the scanner, i tried out some of my fuji provia slide film.

remember this post? remember how at the end i said i'd get the pictures up as soon as i had them? well now i have them. it only took me a year and a half.


see that white speck on the horizon at the end of the little path?

here's that section blown up:



yeah, that's a boat.

thank you epson.

self sufficiency in scanning

back when i was at byu and had free access to an imacon scanner for my 4x5 film i didn't know how good i had it. i didn't really have a plan for scanning my film once i left school - i guess i just figured i would cross that bridge when i got there.

well, that bridge has been harder to cross than i ever imagined. in new york i had to rent time on a scanner in manhattan. not too bad but still somewhat expensive. now that we're in indiana, there aren't really any viable options (that i have found) for getting my film scanned...

until now.

thanks to epson (as i've mentioned in a previous post) that bridge has just been shortened significantly.

i've gone and made the leap, purchasing the epson v700.

this beauty is a fraction of the cost of the imacon yet is almost equal to it (from what i've read) in quality.

i've got a handful of slides to scan and, if the u.p.s. man comes through, i should have the scanner in my home tonight. i will be, in a way, fully self-sufficient - photographically speaking.

that calls for a celebration!

photographs on display

i'm really excited to announce that i've got 15 photographs hanging up at 816 Pint & Slice (a restaurant in downtown fort wayne) from now through december.

it's a pretty cool setup they have there - every month they give local artists a chance to display their work, free of charge or commission.

so if you're in the area looking for some pizza, stop by, get a bite, and take a look!

816 Pint & Slice

816 South Calhoun St.

Fort Wayne, IN

abstract glow bracelet art

recently i made a couple of purchases - a new camera, and some glow bracelets.

first the camera. after researching point-and-shoots, mega-zooms, and d-slrs we picked up a panasonic lumix fz35 because of some of the features it has. mostly i wanted to have manual controls, image stabilization, hd video, and long(er) exposure times. so this one was the winner.



second the glow bracelets. i saw them at michael's - 15 for a dollar. there's no passing that up - i'm still very much mesmerized by the neon glow of glow sticks/necklaces/bracelets.

when my two recent purchases - and my boys - joined forces one night in the backyard, this was the result...



and this...



and this...



the exposures were somewhere around 8 seconds and i kept the camera moving to keep the background (neighbor's house, fence, etc.) from registering on the picture.

let's hear it for free flowing creative expression! woohoo!

drum roll please...

i've finally put some finishing touches on my new gallery including some new 35mm 'street photography' shots. i think i'll call it finished for now.

also, i just got some large format slides back from the lab (woohoo!) so as soon as i get my photo budget out of the red and well into the black i'll purchase this and post them in my gallery.

~

as a side note, i have to say that finding this was a miracle. for a while the only reasonable way to get my 4x5's scanned was by using one of these. byu had one that i used while at school and i was able to rent time on one in nyc for a reasonable fee but since leaving ny i haven't had access to one. thanks epson for bringing high quality, large format scans into a reasonable price range.

boston, and other news

can i just say, i love my new camera. it's so compact and user-friendly. that might sound weird considering it's size, but compared to my old camera, this one is a real champ.

anyhow, last may (sorry i'm a little behind on my posts) we went to boston to see my brother-in-law - and the city - before they moved away. just before we got boston we stopped in at the vine lake cemetery in medfield, massachusetts. my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great (that's 9 greats) grandfather, james allen, is buried there. he was the first of my allen ancestors to come to america - somewhere around 1637. he was also one of the original 13 founders of medfield. it was a pretty cool experience to learn a bit about him and then see his gravesite.

i brought my large format camera and took some shots of james allen's headstone.

here i am, about to photograph acorn street in boston. i'm not quite sure how the picture will turn out because of the crazy light - an overcast day would have been better but hey, you can't really schedule that when you're just visiting.

we also stopped by the sacred grove in palmyra, new york on the way home.

and now for the first bit of news, i got a new (used) lens!

this piece of work is the calumet caltar 90mm f/8 lens (woohoo!). i sold my other camera and was able to get this wide angle lens with the proceeds.

it's not the top of the line lens, and f/8 is a little slow for this type of lens, but it is a good lens and also an enormous improvement on what i was using before.

and as for my website... it's coming. i hate to promise but hopefully it will be up by this weekend. cross your fingers.

heads up!

if you head over to my website and find this, don't be alarmed. i'm just in the middle of transitioning to a new site. hopefully it will be up by the end of the week. thanks!

grand central terminal

sometimes luck has a lot to do with the success of a picture - especially when that picture is taken with a holga.

i was up on the balcony with the camera sitting on the railing, the lens propped up by my keyless entry remote on my keyring, and i held the shutter open for about a second. after that i crossed my fingers and waited.



i keep finding myself drawn to symmetry and order in my pictures. i feel in a lot of ways like i'm taking portraits of places. showing the simple truth of what something is.

sometimes it's purely informational i.e. - "this building is here, i found it interesting, let me show you what i see" - and that's all. nothing groundbreaking in the way i take the picture, nothing to knock you off your seat, the subject just speaks for itself. and that's all it needs.

the photograph above is extremely symmetrical and orderly (despite the usual rush of the travelers and tourists), even down to the formation of the people in it - an inverted triangle with a single man at the bottom (looking at his phone or something) holding it all together and drawing your eyes up and into the gorgeous space of the grand central terminal.

i'm grateful that he held still for that one second.

greetings from the lavatory

it has become a habit of mine to carry my camera with me at family gatherings or other similar outings. i enjoy snapping candid shots of what's happening around me - conversations, kids playing, friends laughing, etc. those pictures also make for great little surprise gifts for the people in them.

the picture above (the obligatory self portrait of photographers everywhere) was taken on one such outing. my family had gone to buca di beppo - which i think is becoming a family tradition at christmas time - and i had my camera right there with me... even in the bathroom.

after this trip i have to admit that i kind of burnt myself out photographically. i developed 8 or 9 rolls of film and then scanned something around 200 pictures and cleaned up most of them in photoshop - all within a week's time. it was awesome, i got so much done... but i haven't so much as loaded a roll of film into my old canon since. no need to fear though - the fire has been lit again.

i've got plans to explore the farmlands of northwest indiana now that it's warming up. i also might get a second chance to photograph in boston next month (if i can fit it into the schedule).

other than that, my next item of business is selling my old view camera. with the proceeds from that camera i should be able to buy a decent used lens.

it's good to be back.

cambridge, mass.

two and a half years ago, my family and i moved into a subleased two bedroom apartment just off of western ave. on memorial drive in cambridge, massachusetts. it was our first time venturing out and away from our families.

we immediately fell in love with boston and its surrounding areas. what we found when we arrived was a warmth and richness of life that was almost tangible. we only had 3 months to enjoy it so we made sure that we took advantage of all the time that we had there.

about a week before moving i finally found and purchased a large format camera in my price range. i was ready to take the dive and cambridge was a great place to dive into.

i would pass by this building every day as i walked to the “t”, boston’s subway, to go to work. this poor building looked like it was just plain tired of standing up straight – like it needed something more sturdy to lean on (like the building next to it). i also discovered what happens when you don’t check the corners of the ground glass carefully after raising the lens. the passing car was an unexpected bonus.




not too far away was this building on the corner of river street and pleasant street. i love this building - it's made of that dark red brick that you see so often in boston and the windows are framed by copper that has been streaked by years of green patina.




i only wish that i had more time to explore boston and cambridge with my view camera. i guess that's all the more reason for me to go back some day. i'll put it on the list...

holiday sale and giveaway!

from now up until the clock strikes 12 on new years day, you can get 10% off of your order from my gallery! simply use the super secret coupon code 'holidaypromo' as you check out and the price will be magically reduced!

but that's not all!

as an added bonus (for me and for one lucky winner), marta of the famed 'marta writes' blog has included me in her lineup of holiday giveaways! she is featuring various artists and other crafty people every weekday this week and all through next week. be sure to head on over to her blog on tuesday, december 15th and comment on the giveaway post to be entered.

happy holidays!

happy halloween!

when i look for something to photograph i usually try to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. things that you walk by every day and don't notice but when you actually stop and look at it you find that it is something special, something unique.

this picture was one of those instances but not one that i would have normally seen as an opportunity. i don't usually go for the creepy when it comes to subjects but i had to take advantage of this scene.

just about every day as i walked home from campus i would pass this sign:



i remember thinking just how creepy it was - rusted metal, creepy hand-painted lettering, and especially the "...." at the end. i think if they had had a little more room at the end they would have added "or else!" to top it off, the trees were cold and bare.

for my part to add to the creepiness i knew the picture had to be taken with my holga - out of focus and dark corners, lo-fi reproduction, and a low angle to get that creepy sign looming above the viewer - everything came together nicely on this one to make one creepy image.

the truth

"the camera never lies. the film sometimes does." - rodney smith, from the end.

depending on how you define truth, the camera (or film) rarely tells the truth. photographs are stylized moments in time, made visual. the camera by it's design actually modifies the truth of what it sees depending on various factors - shutter speed, aperture, focal length of the lens, film characteristics, grain, and camera movements (with view cameras), etc.

i've often heard people say that they want to capture exactly what is in front of them - the truth of what's there. but in my opinion it's the way that cameras distort the truth that makes photography so exciting.

despite what i've just said, i've discovered (for myself) an exciting way to show "truth" in photography - by photographing people when they don't expect to be photographed.

what do people (almost inevitably) do when someone's about to take a picture of them?

"smile!"

that's all good and fine but sometimes it's hard to really catch someone's personality if they're always putting their smile mask on when being photographed. sure it takes some guts to snap a picture of someone (even family) when they're not expecting it - but to capture them in that natural setting can be truly rewarding.

- unrehearsed subjects caught in a moment where the truth is subjective.

snapshot sunday!

i hope that even with all of my film-promoting, analog-loving, big camera-praising posts you don't think i'm an anti-digital photo-luddite. i would, in fact, love to get my hands on a nice dslr some day. the problem is that whenever i have some surplus cash in the photo budget it usually goes into buying film, chemicals, or - if i'm feeling ambitious - a new lens for my large format camera. seeing as how my current circumstances leave me without a digital slr, i rely on our digital point and shoot to get shots when i happen to have left my 30+ pounds of photo gear at home. here are a few shots that i've been able to snag with our dear little cyber-shot.

a king crab at the oregon coast aquarium in newport, oregon. dim light, show shutter, thanks for holding still mr. crab!


sam the giant!


sam and the seal.


navy pier, chicago.


flatiron building, nyc.


getting chased through the fall leaves in our yard.


chicago and the chicago river.

inspired

i find myself fascinated and inspired by scenes of ordinary life.

unlike pictures of notable monuments or famous locations, pictures of ordinary scenes usually don't grab your attention immediately - it usually takes some time to let the details soak in. i guess it's the idea of seeing through the mundane and plain and finding the extraordinary in it that really intrigues me.

here are a few of the pictures that i've stumbled upon lately that have inspired me.

stephen shore:

beverly boulevard and la brea avenue, los angeles, california, june 21, 1975

joel meyerowitz:


dairyland, provincetown

george tice:


strand theatre, keyport, n.j. 1973

next photo assignment: find and photograph an ordinary location and make it interesting. i'll report back in a while once i'm finished.

double whammy!

to make up for my lack of posting the last couple of weeks i'll give you a double whammy.

first: let's all give a warm welcome to the shen-hao.

oh yes, this is my new camera and boy is it a joy to behold. it's time to say goodbye to my graflex camera. it has served me well but an upgrade was definitely past due.

the beauty of this camera (aside from its beautiful construction) is that it folds down into a nice "little" box so i can now tote it around with my supplies in a backpack.



yesterday, to christen this camera, i packed up my stuff and headed up the connecticut coast for a one day photo excursion. this leads to the second part of my post...

ever since the third grade when i did a report on rhode island i've wanted to visit that little state. but, despite living in new york for a year and boston for a summer, we have never been there. so, for my trip yesterday, i planned to make newport rhode island my farthest destination before heading home.

here are some of the stops i made:

new haven, ct - home of yale university.

i had expected a lively college town but what i saw when i got there told a very different story. so that's what i shot. i wasn't really there for very long so maybe i didn't get a good representation of what new haven is actually all about.

sperry auto wholesale in new haven - the first picture taken with my new camera. it was a very blank looking warehouse, very worn. it's about to be torn down to make way for yale housing. glad i caught it when i did!

i found an empty plaza on the corner of an intersection in new haven. there were a lot of empty park benches, a lot of cigarette butts and trash on the ground, and plenty of grass growing between the tiles. i knew there was something in store for me there.

then it was off to rhode island.

newport is a beautiful town. it would be a great place to spend a week or so.

i visited the grounds of a couple of the famous rhode island mansions. wow. unlike anything you've ever seen.

i wish i could have spent more time there but i had one more stop to make before i headed home - stonington, connecticut - another place i'd like to spend a week.

i'll get pictures up as soon as i have them. thanks for visiting.