they needed to talk

The details are a bit sketchy now, but everyone agrees the picture was taken in Memphis, Tennessee, on a late summer night in 1973. Karen Chatham, the young woman in blue, recalls that she had been out drinking when she met up with Lesa Aldridge, the woman in red. Lesa didn't drink at the time, but both were 18, the legal age then. As the bars closed at 3 a.m., the two followed some other revelers to a friend's house nearby. In the mix was a 30-something man who had been taking pictures all night. "I always thought of Bill as just like us," Karen says today, "until years later, when I realized that he was famous...."
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tripod resolution

Every now and then when the moon is almost full I grab my camera. I think it's because I love the phrase "waxing gibbous moon." Waxing is the opposite of waning; it means it's getting bigger. And gibbous is the opposite, or the complement, of crescent; it means a partial moon larger than a half moon. I've always wanted to title a picture Waxing Gibbous Moon.

Two nights ago I took the camera out by the garage and took this. I tell myself in those situations that there's no time for a tripod. For this shot, I turned on "Anti-Shake" (actually, I never turn Anti-Shake off) and jammed the camera up against the garage door.

When I saw that the exposure wasn't totally sharp and the moon was still blown out (this would be a good application for two quick exposures blended with one of those actions that combines two exposures for extended dynamic range—I'm not just imagining that those exist, am I?), I had one of those "tiny epiphanies" of which my days are full—I realized I dislike tripods on principle. That is, I don't think of myself as a tripoddy kind of person, all finicky and particular. I'm an anti-tripodite.

Real Purple: This unsharp waxing gibbous moon Kind of Blue moon
—a detail from the shot above—is also one of the few times I've ever
actually seen bonafide purple fringing from my 7D and 28–75mm lens.

I have a friend named Christopher Bailey who was once a house painter. I remember keeping him company once four stories above Georgetown. I couldn't leave the window, but Chris was scampering around on boards laid on scaffolding with nothing under him but sidewalk, dizzyingly far below. Now, I'm scared of heights, dramatically so, so just watching him had my stomach in knots. At one point I said, "Chris, aren't you afraid of falling?"

At that, he started jumping up and down on one of the boards, which flexed beneath him and then flung him upwards. He jumped on it like it was a trampoline. "Oh, I don't know," he said, "I just feel like if I fall, I'll get my hands on something."

Bingo. That's how I feel about steadying the camera. I'll use anything and everything to brace the camera on or against—mantelpieces, car windows, someone's back, whatever. I like to extemporize. More than that, I like to think of myself as someone who can extemporize. Even when I do use a tripod, I just jam the camera down on the top plate with my hands—I seldom actually attach the camera to the tripod head. What I realized the other night is that I avoid tripods just because of this self-conception I have—even when they're called for, and would be appropriate and useful. There was really no reason at all not to grab a tripod when I went inside to get the camera the other night.

So here's my resolution. The next time I shoot a waxing gibbous moon (granted, the shot above is another miss), I'm going to get the tripod out, and use it properly. In fact, I'm going to try to use my tripod more often in general. I don't care for "tripod snobs," but being an anti-tripod snob is no better.

panography

Today’s PhotoJojo newsletter had a tutorial written by the very talented Mareen Fischinger about creating your own Panographies. These have an effect much like looking at a scene, taking it all in without looking through a camera. The instructions are very well-written… can’t wait to try taking some of my own. These would look beautiful printed oversized on archival paper and pressed between glass.

Mapping The Way

Artstream Studios introduced their new exhibition to me earlier this week. Six artists have created work based on the idea, “Mapping The Way.” The work is all on paper and will be for sale after the opening reception tomorrow, Friday, dec 2 on the Artstream online store.

The prices are extremely affordable with work starting at $40. The artists in this show are Heather Smith Jones, Anna Corpron & Sean Auyeung, Edibeth Farrington, Susan Schwake and Stephanie Levy.

out with cold

i started writing this post well over two weeks ago, but got sidetracked (as often happens). i think that posting it on new years eve is quite fitting though:

i processed film for the first time since graduating (june 06) thursday night. it sparked an avalanche. yesterday i processed 6 times in a row, officially working through half my pile of neglected film. my aim is to get through the remainder by this friday.

i intentionally threw all the film into one bowl refusing to differientiate the newer work from the older because i knew if i knew which ones were which i might never have touched the older ones. of course this made the experience of looking through the images much more difficult. very scary. i didn't even want to look at the older ones because i feel such a strong urge to move on, but then when i finally saw that some of those images were rather stunning compared to the newer ones in which none of my ideas are fully developed yet, i was rather demoralized. but over all i think the new work is headed in an exciting direction. and i still have 12 plus rolls to process so the adventure continues.

special thanks to lisa elmaleh for constantly nagging me to process my film at her house and for subsequently driving my chemicals back to my apartment (and for getting that stupid filter off my faucet). the diptych below is hers.