2022: 7 Back to the Desert

Sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind and act impulsively. I am far from that kind of person, in all honesty. I labor over decisions and choices, looking at things from every possible angle before making up my mind.

*Note: maybe most of the time… perhaps that is why I love doing improv…thinking on my feet, in the moment…

In any event, this past weekend, I made a Saturday evening decision to jump in the car early on Sunday and drive the 6+ hours out to Tucson, Arizona. My long-term project shooting the saguaro cactus was in need of some “winter shooting” and I had a small window in my schedule. So, with the blessing of my wife, who is woodshedding in prep for a solo concerto, I headed out of town…camera in tow.

The skies were clear, the temps were warm…hardly the winter experience I was hoping for. Still, the light at golden hour (sunrise and sunset) was beautiful, and my Holgawide pinhole camera did not disappoint. Plus, I avoided the spiky surprises of the unnoticed cactus ripping into my flesh for this visit, so that’s a win, for sure.

Not sure how many more visits to the saguaro this project will require, but the silence of daybreak over the desert, with the sun peeking over the ridge of a distant mountain, not another person to be seen or heard… that is something I will treasure every time and is reason enough to return.

Experimenting with film, double exposures and Procreate. Pushing pixels is not a crime.

2021: 41 You Never Know What You're Gonna Get

Yes, I’ve gone on and on and on about my love of film. I’ve also gone on and on and on about my love of plastic cameras, and pinhole photography, and on and on and on. Cue the anticipation music, please. Or maybe Tom Petty is more appropriate? I shot a ridiculous amount of film on my trip to Arizona, but then, of course, all that film needed to be developed. And scanned. So the whole process takes time. A lot of time. And that’s a good thing.

The time between shooting and then seeing the results is when the magic happens. You have no idea what you captured. or if you captured anything. Or if you advanced your film correctly, or if overlapping images is what you were hoping for. Or if your guessing of extremely long exposure times were accurate. Or if the shadow of your tripod sits squarely inside the frame. Or if your film is fogged. Or unevenly developed. Or scratched. Water spots, dust, those little half moons from a botched loading on the reel. Such a minefield. Such is the life of a film photographer. Masochism? Probably. And yet.

And yet, that moment when all the film is developed and scanned. You revisit the journey to make those pictures all over again. You celebrate the triumphs, you lament the “almosts” or “duds.” You see things you didn’t see before. You embrace serendipity. You learn form the experience. You keep going. You keep shooting. Masochism? Probably..

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2021: 9 ......... Interpretation

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Mistakes and oversights can lead to enlightenment. The image above was the result of my inability to remember to advance the film on my Holga Panoramic 120 camera properly. I’ve shot with this plastic beast enough times to have maybe been able to figure out this very basic step. Still, I’m prone to error. I am human, after all.

What I find fascinating about this particular photograph is that does not look anything like the reality of the day it was created. That morning, the sun was shining, the air was crisp, the sky clear blue. Ducks and geese were flying and landing in the pond just beyond the reeds. Yet, the overlapping of exposures definitely created a sense of otherworldliness, and setting my camera at ground level also helped me take advantage of the pinhole camera’s extreme depth of field.It all feels post apocalyptic.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my departure from showing the world “as it appears” in my photography. So true: everything has been seen in every which way, certainly as far as photography goes, there truly is nothing new under the sun. A friend recently shared a great quote by artist David Hockney: “There’s a point where you’ve got to interpret the world, not make a replica of it.” I have been going “all in” on interpretation. It has given my vision a serious push into exciting new directions. It has been liberating and satisfying. Maybe a few years ago I would have been disappointed by a roll of overlapping exposures. This week, it felt like a gift.

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“Honor thy error as a hidden intention.” - Brian Eno

2020: 20 (The Future Is Unpredictable)

I have been going pretty deep into an experimental stage with my photography as of late. Maybe it’s the fucked up reality we are living through, but I have felt a creative liberation of sorts. Whether it’s taping a pinhole lens onto my dSLR, or shooting with plastic cameras, it has helped me find a release from the pendulum swings between boredom and anxiety.

Recently I shot with a Holga camera, even choosing to run a roll of 35mm film through it, to further push myself away from predictability. This week I took it one step further, digging out an old Diana clone (a Windsor, precisely) which is an even cruder, plastic camera that takes 120 film. The Diana and its clones have an almost mythical reputation among film photographers, and as you can see from the contact sheet above, it lives up to its reputation.

Maybe I’ve been on a lucky streak lately, or maybe I’ve finally learned from numerous past mistakes, but the results I’ve been getting with these cameras have been very satisfying. I think I have finally figured out the correct combination of film speed, focus setting, and of course, using copious amounts of black gaffer tape to control light leaks. What I enjoy most about shooting with these cameras is the unpredictability of it all. I honestly don’t know when the roll begins and ends, since I tape over the film counter window, so I arbitrarily lose a shot or two at the start and end of each roll. Framing and composition is a guessing game, as is exposure. But that is where the magic truly lies. Pulling a roll of just-developed film from the processing tank is always a wonderful moment of surprise. As long as there is some kind of image appearing, I consider the whole exercise a success.

Perhaps the unpredictability of shooting film in this manner is the perfect metaphor for our current times, and I am grateful for the possibility of some magical moments to occur.