There I Fixed It #5

I am sharing two photos that were taken at Ernie's Midtown Pub this  past Tuesday. They will be the final photos in this series, There I Fixed It.  I  am eager to return to using zoom lenses and sharing color photos. Maybe, it is fitting that both photos for this week contain reflections because I am trying to review what I have learned during this brief experiment.  

Nikon 35mm

This first photo is of Ernie's bar with the liquor bottles reflecting in the mirror.  The bar mirror reveals part of the decor within the pub which consists of framed posters and vintage black and white photos of the city.  The pub is housed in two adjacent older buildings which still retain their old walk in display windows providing lots of natural light.  

The second photo is a photo of a framed poster hanging near one of those windows.  It caught my attention because it provides an example of what I have learned during this series. This photo has a funky liquified effect caused by the glass protecting this poster.  What you don't see is the actual poster beneath that glass.  What you do see is the outdoor street scene reflected on the protective glass covering that poster.  From the direction I photographed the poster, the outdoor street scene was the dominant image but two steps to the left and the street scene vanished revealing only the poster.

 

My black and white only experience reminded me of how I crave color in photographs.  To produce the images I wanted,  I felt limited by predetermining whether an image will be color or black and white.  That decision is best left to the photographer only after confronting their image.  I used to think that all good black and white images must contain true black areas and some true white areas hosted by many shades of gray blending with the white and black extremes.  Last week's photograph of a pasture scene in the middle of a blizzard had no true black or white areas.  All the tones were within the grey range because blizzards, fog, smoke, etc. tend to limit our range of vision and really make everything within them tonally similar.

I learned that shooting with only a fixed lens was confining.  It was awkward to see potential photos missed due to immediacy and access issues.  Those scene within the larger scene shots were missed because it took time to move my body to a different location.  I missed being able to easily feature a given focal point within a scene. On a positive note, using only a fixed lens reminded me of how lazy a photographer I can be.  By not being more inclined to move to a different perspective to gain an even better perspective, I risk missing opportunities to see something unique.  That particular piece of learning resonated with me by reminding me of how I need to re-adjust my perspective mentally to help me better understand others who may hold different viewpoints on matters not relating to photography.

Sooner or later we all will feel stuck in a photographic rut.  We look for something more than what we currently do or see around us.  My name for the series, There I Fixed It,  had a hint of sarcasm in it because I didn't expect that this experiment with my photographic routine would lead me to a dramatic aha revelation into my photography but it brought me to reconsider some attitudes and photographic routines.  As I exit my black and white period, I feel like joining Paul Simon singing the chorus of "Kodachrome".    But the photographer in me is not quite ready to sing that "everything looks worse in black and white".

There I Fixed It #4

Winter Pasture Scene - captured with 35mm lens processed with NIK software

This week's photo was taken one week ago today during a fast moving snowstorm which dumped 6 inches of snow on the area. What made this storm different was the volume of snow coming down and the unusual mix of large and smaller snowflakes.  During the short time it took me to get out of the car and shoot the photo, the snow rapidly blanketed my hat, coat and camera.  There is something about a storm that makes a person reconsider their place in the universe and during this short time outdoors, I realized my place was back in a warm, dry car.

When I returned home and looked at the photos, I was reminded of the muted landscape shapes and the lack of color and contrast throughout the scene. What the camera couldn't capture was the the silence of the scene and that unique charge of excitement in the air that seemed in total opposition to the peace that was so encompassing even in the midst of those oppressive weather conditions.  

 

 

 There I Fixed It #3

This week's photo came to me like a blast from the past!  While sorting some photographic equipment that I have not used for some time, I came across a negative sleeve of 120 film.  My curiousity got the best of me so I took the negatives to my friend and print maker, Bob, at Image N That Photo Processing. He scanned the negatives for me and I discovered that most of the photos where taken of an old shed, likely owned by a hoarder/ collector.  

The images on the roll showed a variety of vintage advertising memorabilia acquired by this hoarder over a long period of time.  Most of it looked like it came from local businesses that had disappeared many years ago. Perhaps he collected theses pieces to preserve his memories of these special places now long forgotten within his community.

As I studied these images which were taken about six to eight years ago, I recalled that I had just purchased a  Rollicord Twin Lens Reflex Camera at an estate sale and I was likely checking out that old camera.  Looking back, it was probably fitting that the first subjects photographed by this old camera were peers from the same decade as the camera itself.  Maybe it was fate that allowed this old camera to preserve some artifacts from a society that no longer exists -- an act not unlike the hoarder.

This is the one of the six photos that caught my eye.  Since the scan had produced a digital negative, I chose to process them with an old version of NIK software using a Panatomic X Film simulation.  From the other negatives, I could see that I was struggling with the way the camera reverses images in its waist level viewfinder.  It's a wonder that I got five recognizable images from that roll of twelve frames.  Today it is so much easier and cheaper to produce a decent photo.  Knowing that fact makes me stand in awe of photographers like Vivian Maier and Robert Capa who composed and shot so many frames so quickly and precisely the first time.

While Jim Croce poetically sang of keeping time in a bottle, this hoarder decided to keep it stored outdoors around his shed.  I guess we all have our unique ways of trying to hold on to the past. However, I liked the way that nature patiently and persistently intervened over the years covering the vintage pieces with vines and sapplings while the grandfather clock continued to rest against the shed for its support.  Life presses onward, and as Tolstoy wrote, " Two of the most powerful warriors are patience and time."      

 

There I Fixed It #2 

This is the second photo in my black and white set kicking off the year.  Today is a frigid, very blustery January day.  As I was taking the photo, the wind pushed hard against my body causing me to brace my stance.  I chose the corrigated steel storage silos with their distinct texture to contrast with the smooth edges of the blowing snow drifting across the landscape.  There is a starkness in the landscape at this time of year where everything slips into a deep sleep.

Hold fast to dreams for when dreams go life is a barren field frozen with snow.      Langston Hughes