Books and comments

I haven't done a book read blog, or a comment commentary for a while, so today you get a double dose. Plus a fun link to a documentary film about the SAIT darkroom that I appear in for a few seconds. Blink and you'll miss it, the two times it happens.

Where I Find Myself by Joel Meyerowitz.

Lots of great photos, but the interesting thing was that it was arranged in reverse chronologic order. I read it the normal way, and intended to read it again from back to front, but never got the chance. This busy retired life, you know. I'd take it out of the library again to do that.

At Work by Piet Oudolf.

He is a well known garden designer, and the book is filled with lovely garden photos, and diagrams of how the gardens are laid out. Linda bought this one.

Truth Telling by Michelle Good.

The Ansel Adams books. These are a gift from a long time friend. They are considered classics in the photography world, but in one sense they are tough reading. They're quite dense, and they were written on the order of 80 years ago. That seems incredible to me. Part of the difficulty is that much of what he took for granted, such as papers, chemicals, and films, no longer exist. 

The Art of Photography and The Essence of Photography by Bruce Barnbaum. 

I would buy these and read them again. He talks about what lies behind the camera, that is, what is in the mind of the photographer.

The Last Launch by Dan Winters.

Lots of shuttle related photos.

Comment Commentary.

My regular readers know I love getting comments, and lots of times I'd see them as the start of a conversation. Except often even just getting a comment through Blogger is difficult, and it's a stupid way to try to have a conversation. What follows is comments on some of the comments. I last did this about a year ago.

Janet said here:

"I watch Midsomer Murders when I'm at Mom's (PBS carries it with other British shows on a Sat. night) and don't mind it. That being said, we can get it on Knowledge network (Canada's answer to PBS - which, btw, carries Brokenwood, a New Zealand detective show you two might enjoy), but have yet to watch it with Ron. Too many other (better) crime drama on our Britbox (another suggestion, Shetland...pretty sure it's on Prime and it's really good, dark but good).

Right now, we're hooked on Unforgotten - a cold case type of show!!!"

We loved Midsomer Murders, and have watched up to the last aired episode. Not so fond of "the new" Barnaby. And we just finished binging on Brokenwood. We'd seen some of the episodes on disc, out of order, and wanted to start from the start. We can't wait for Season 11. From there we just started on The Almighty Johnsons. Lots of the people from Brokenwood show up on this show. Linda was watching New Tricks, about reexamining cold cases in the UK. It didn't appeal to me though. 

Sean said here:

"I understand about not feeling the groove. There are times when I am excited or committed to a project or living. There are other times when dragging my ass is as good as it good as it gets. And then there are the days when I just procrastinate. I hope you and Linda have a good day.

Speaking of software, I would like an operating system that does only that and isn't trying to make my life better."

I'm bad for procrastination. It's easy to stay in a nice chair, providing the demanding cat with a fuzzy blanket lap, reading a good book with a cup of coffee or mint tea nearby. A bit of that is fine, unless there's something that actually needs doing. 

On the software front, I am quite sure the current photo computer would still be perfectly adequate if Lightroom hadn't bloated up their software. I am seriously contemplating having to buy a new laptop with associated necessary stuff and going through migration hell, or deciding that I can continue to suffer through the experience of processing many hundreds of photos at once from a race or community association event. It's not hard, just slow, and takes a bit of babysitting. 

Both Janet and Sean liked the Sept IotM. (A closeup of Linda smiling. She says thank you so much!)

This is the first one that got printed at SAIT, and I have to say the print came out much nicer than the digital version. I actually did a run of 5, numbered and autographed. #1 is framed and on our mantlepiece, and the other 4 were sent to Linda's sisters. I don't know who got which print.

Janet said here:

"I'm not sure how you even manage to contemplate Image of the Year with all the photos you've taken - mindboggling. That being said, I do love your choice - haunting <3"

One of my photo buddies once expressed amazement that I could edit many hundreds of race photos and post a link to the edited version later that same day. When I asked how long they took to edit a photo, they said 10 to 30 minutes, sometimes more. I was shocked. I cannot imagine spending that much time on a random photo. The vast majority of my photos probably have less than 1minute edit time. The camera tweaks the output for what I want, and I usually nail the exposure and focus. I don't do a lot to the race and community photos. The few that get printed to be framed or to go in a book, or are part of a panorama, or might need special treatment for some reason, will get whatever it takes, and I can guarantee you it still isn't 30 minutes.

It's sort of like the high end stereo sales person flogging $$$$ things that make the source sound "better".  Or so they say. If I can't hear the difference, why buy it? Think about photos. Almost all of mine are viewed as fairly small JPEG images on the blog. I know perfectly well what I see in Lightroom is not what gets seen via the blog. Plus, I'm using a 4K Retina iMac, so I'm seeing lots of pixels. If nobody (including me) can see the difference between a 1 minute edit, and a 10 minute edit diving into local changes with tiny changes to the sliders, why do it? I make up my mind, come up with the 80 or 90% solution and move on.

Similar for selecting for Image of the Month or Year. Most photos are not under active consideration. Boiling down to a short list is fairly straightforward. I keep in mind what one photographer said, I no longer remember who. Paraphrased, they said most people think editing is tweaking sliders in a photo program, but really, editing is saying, no that's not good enough, a lot.

When I do get down to the short list it gets hard. I've talked about the dithering. And yet, I know they're all good photos, or at least as good as I could make them at the time. The criteria I make up drive the selection. I know I've used different criteria over the years. And even using the same criteria, I know that if I were to go back and look at the same short list, I might make a different choice today. So I think about it and dither for a while, long enough to enjoy the process, but then I make a decision, and move on.

I think the important thing about this is that I took the photos for whatever reason seemed good at the time. The digital versions have whatever molestation the camera software and Lightroom does, plus whatever happens along the way via blogger and the inter-tubes, plus the software used to view it. The film photos are much cleaner, almost virginal. Someone might like a photo, or not like it, and that's them. 

The advice George Webber gave one of the darkroom students was "Do you want to be a second class Vivian Maier, or a first class xxx (her name)." I'd rather be doing what I enjoy doing for my reasons, rather than doing what someone else thinks I should be doing.

Sean said here:

"This sequence makes me smile. Cheers, Sean"

There is another, similar sequence. Maybe I should blog it one day.

Sean said here:

"Well I am not as far behind in my comments as I thought. Congratulations on getting your 1 week chip (even if you are the one giving it to yourself). Yes, FB makes it easy to have our minds vacuumed. It is not a conspiracy to make us stupid - it is just business to them. Anything we can do to keep our creativity alive and fed, and away from vacuum cleaners is a good thing."

As I said here, and only needing to add social media to the mix."

1. I completely believe there is an alien conspiracy. Some of them walk among us as TV and movie producers. Their evil plot is to turn human brains into tapioca pudding via insidious broadcasts and commercials. They happen to like human brain tapioca pudding, and are patient. The harvesting will happen any time now. Even human brain tapioca can go rancid, and there are lots of signs of it happening. Which is why I don't watch much network TV or see many movies anymore."

Sean said here:

"2,3 Ah I have a soft spot in my heart for that bridge. I am not sure that the right hand third of #3 helps the image . My eye travels in a rough circle on the left side of the image, which I like. I wonder if this image would be stronger as a square. Cheers, Sean"

I barely looked at 3. I saw the vertical bright line and spent a bunch of time pondering exactly how that happened. The line is actually on the negative. Plus all the dust spots, and faint lines, and not liking it enough to have another go at cleaning the dust and trying again. I might try printing it, since I can frame it so that line isn't in the print, and drop out the rightmost part of the image. 

For those that are wondering, this is the pedestrian bridge over the Bow river just south of where Deerfoot Trail crosses the Bow.

Here's the promised link to the short film.

https://youtu.be/FGj_wBLUlBs

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

Twillingate

Linda

Newfoundland

Polar bears

Curling up for a snooze.

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

The show has begun

I hope you don't mind me going on about this. This is one of the only times my work has been displayed publicly, other than the cover of our community association newsletter. 

Those of you living in Calgary can drop by cSpace to see the print I have on display on the 4th floor. It's one of about 30 prints from SAIT's darkroom classes last semester. Michelle took this photo of me beside my print.

I'll be there on the 13, and hope to see you. If you can't make it, there's lots of other times you can go.

In a note from the person who organized it:

Our exhibit is up at cSPACE, Level 4 Gallery. (1721 29 Ave SW, Calgary) It will be open to the public MONDAY-SATURDAY, 8am - 8 pm.

The documentary film is now complete and will be showing in the Level 4 Gallery on the following dates:

* Saturday February 8 (Today) 12-4 pm

* Thursday February 13 cSPACE OPEN HOUSE SHOWCASE evening 5-9 pm

* Saturday February 15 12-4 pm

* Saturday February 22 12-4 pm

In the meantime I've been working on selecting the next negatives to print, and hope to get another print session or sessions going soon. 

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

HP5, thinking about texture.

Linda

Newfoundland

Yes, that's a little rocky beach down there. No, this isn't the start of a path down to it. Boat access only.

Polar bears

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

3 week chip, and

So here I am, three weeks and no Facebook. Originally the idea was to make it to the end of January. Except one of the things I started thinking when the temptation to look at Facebook happened was to ask myself, what is something useful I could do right now? Sometimes that was to do a house thing. Or take a camera for a walk. Or actually read a book. Anything that involved me getting up from the computer and actually doing something was a good answer. It's worked.

In fact it's worked so well I'm a week past the original deadline and not really missing it. It's sort of like the American news. Fascinating in a slow motion circus train wreck kind of way, but it's bad for my blood pressure and emotional health to watch it. One of the projects has been to update the tabs on my photo blog page. I'm not done, but I've made a start. I hadn't realized how out of date it was.

One of the useful things is the Exposure Festival currently under way. I've been out to 3 gallery openings now, and you'll be even more impressed when you remember it was in the face of minus WTF cold. In each case I've met people I know. Last night was the formal festival opening, and I actually met several people I knew already, and was introduced to another photographer who had some prints up on the wall. George, Colleen, Christine, Sean, Kathryn, in case you were interested. I was quite taken with some of the work on display.

Back to Facebook. I'm thinking about this in terms of addiction. At one point in my life I was seriously thinking I might be an alcoholic. This was a long time ago in terms of dates, but I remember it quite well. I was going out to the bar after work with the same bunch of people. Typically we'd eat supper, and drink more than I should. Then do it again the next day. About the same time beer cost $1 in the bars. Yes, it came in the ugly stubby brown bottles. If you knew how much money you went into the bar with, you could count it the next day and find how much you'd drunk. Good thing I could walk home from that bar.

Somehow I decided to go a month without drinking. I told them I had a demanding girlfriend that wanted me for kinky sex and I needed to keep my wits about me to avoid being injured. Not that I was getting any sex at that time. The month went by quick. I no longer remember how much money I didn't spend on beer, but remember being surprised at the time. 

The test was to go out with the group, have one beer, and leave. Just one beer. Maybe that was a bit of a risk, but it all worked out. I escaped, in the face of them trying to buy me just one more beer and them not believing there was a hottie waiting for me, which there wasn't. Then I didn't drink much for a while. Part of the reason to not drink was that I lost a bunch of weight. I hadn't realized beer had that many calories. And the money. 

My conclusion was that I was not actually an alcoholic, but I could see how the road I was on led in that direction. I've heard alcoholics say they were an alcoholic right from the first sip of the first drink, thought they didn't realize it till much later. Wine is my usual tipple, but I can drink a glass with dinner, and leave it. I might go a week between drinks. A cold beer on a hot summer day is nice, and it's just that. A beer. One.

I sympathize with the people struggling with addictions. There's a phrase I heard my older relatives say, "there but for the grace of God go I." I didn't understand it then, but our society seems to be built around making it easy for the rich to get richer, and the poor to fall not just into the gutter, but get swept into the sewer system and out of sight. Many of the rich like to claim they got where they are through thrift, hard work, clean living, blah blah blah, and the rest of us are moral degenerates that deserve whatever happens to us. Bah!

Back to Facebook again. It took me a while to fully realize that some very clever people have done their best to make Facebook an addictive experience. They want us to scroll and scroll, hoping to see what we came for, which is probably connections with friends. The side effect is getting hooked on the rush from the likes, and in the meantime they're scraping all the data they can about what we like, what we comment, what we share, what we look at, all while feeding us ads. Once you start, it's hard to stop. I admit to a bit of curiosity about what's happing in a couple of the groups I belong to. I'm a bit tempted to drop in and see if anyone missed me, but the more I think about it the less likely it seems. It seems much more risky to me than walking into that bar with the intent to have one beer and leave.

Part of the time last night at the Exposure Festival opening I was watching people, rather than looking at the photos. There were all ages from toddlers to mid-80's. A couple of the guys were exquisitely dressed. Some of the women had made interesting fashion choices, and I couldn't help but think how much those piercings must have hurt. Lots of the people knew each other, happily doing hug greetings. Lots of conversation. People were having fun. Actual, in person, fun. It was nice to see. Maybe I should do more of it, making an effort to change my home body habits. A work in progress.

It's gradually warming up here. It's only -12 C outside and the sun is shining. Still, there's a long way to go till spring. After all, this happened a couple years ago in mid May after a several weeks of nice weather.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

Polar bears

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

A camera and mittens don't go togther

The mist was rising off the Bow river the other day. Probably today too. That's not a surprise given that our thermometer says it's -23 C outside. It was about that cold the other day, but I was determined to at least try again to capture the mist and chunks of ice as streaks in the water. 

I went over to Mallard Point in the early afternoon. This time I was dressed for it. Bison wool socks, Sorel boots, long underwear, regular pants and snow pants on top, T shirt, sweater, oilfield parka, scarf, hat liner and hat, mittens.

The problem is that it's essentially impossible to operate a film camera wearing mittens, even the ones with the little flap so gloved fingers poke out. That lining is almost colder than bare hands. So I had my mitts off to operate the cell phone to figure out exposure settings, looking up the reciprocity factor, set the camera, click the shutter and phone timer, then close the shutter at the right time. 

I goofed once for a totally overexposed negative, and there's a frame I don't understand at all what happened. Some of the photos are nothing special, and there's only a couple I like well enough to show you. The mist never really showed up on film.

Here's the two I liked. Some of you might remember this branch. These are medium format Delta 100.

And this one, totally un-edited. For the film photographers out there, any idea what that vertical white line on the left is is? The frames before and after look totally as expected. This has a 10 stop ND filter, with the shutter open about 9 seconds at f16.

I was out for less than an hour to expose 8 frames in the cold and stiff wind. Even dressed as I was, I was getting cold. Fingers and face, mostly. When you aren't moving much it's hard to stay warm.

Don't get me started on the whole trade war nonsense.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film, see above.

Linda and Newfoundland

Polar bears

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

From the 2017 Yukon trip.

90 days, or so ago

Our community association building.

January Image of the Month

 Not a big month, photographically speaking. Keeping a low profile, working on community association stuff. Looking forward to lots of photo stuff in Feb.

I'm going with only the one image this month.

Image of the Month

I was on the way home after coffee with a buddy and stopped in at Carburn Park. I was totally not dressed for the weather, (-16C and windy) but just wanted to take a quick look at the mist coming off the Bow River. As it turned out, the photo was nothing special. But on the way back I was struck by the light on this scene. I did not take a long time to compose it, and hustled back to the car. I can't wait to see what this one looks like as a darkroom print. Film is medium format Delta 100.

The first Exposure event

It was cold. It was foggy. It was dark. And yet I went out. It was fun and I'm glad I went. Even though I didn't have a camera with me, as I drove there and back I was thinking about how I'd capture images of the light and shadows on film. This is about the closest I've got to a hoarfrost photo just now.

The occasion was the gallery opening for Byron Robb. Sean had told me of him, and it, during our walk last week. Byron isn't a common name, and for whatever reason it sounded familiar. I was wondering if I'd run into him at a photography thing somewhere along the way.

As it turns out, no. Sean introduced us, and we chatted very briefly. I sipped my wine, enjoyed his photos, and chatted with some other guests that I happened to know. Not in that order, in case you were wondering. 

His work is totally unlike anything I would do. I enjoyed it, and I think it was well done. I spent a bit of time with most of the pieces, enjoying the different perspectives and layered images. If you're in the area drop in and take a look.

One of the things I have to work at a bit is to look at photos that I don't like, or I don't "get". My thinking is that someone thought it was a good photo, good enough to print, frame, and hang on the wall of a gallery. It's more likely that several someones thought it was a good photo. I try to understand why. Maybe there's something I can bring to my photography. 

I've got several more events on the calendar already, and I'm considering a couple of the workshops. Perhaps I'll see you at one of them.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

Linda (and me)

The occasion is my last race, the Black Diamond to Millarville half marathon. It's been seven and a half years already. Wow.

Newfoundland

Polar bears

It paused for a second, looking up at us. The caption is, "I'm just a polar bear, looking for some lunch. Don't mind me. You could share, you know."

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

I can't believe that our Churchill trip was 3 months ago. All of a sudden I have only 25 photos in my 90 days folder. I'll have to get out and capture more.