Visual Disintegrations

I hate lulls, lethargies and languishments. I’ve been in one or all of these for the past few weeks. I’ve tried not to assess the “why” of why I’ve been experiencing this lull, though of course, I have indulged in that. I have heard the lonesome whistle of depression, what Lucinda Williams named the big black train. So far, that train only whistles from a somewhat safe distance.

Instead, I’ve tried to find the way through and out of the lull. That moment came this week when, feeling leaden, as though I weighed a ton, I put a camera in a bag and forced myself into the January air, which felt like walking through a knives-out maze even though the temperature is relatively mild. The bees in one of my hives have even spent a couple of days whizzing about.

How hard can it be for a creative to do their creative thing? How hard can it be for a photographer to start making photographs. Pulling out of the lethargy of a lull is like trying to escape from fly papers. Cruel as it seems, that’s an apt metaphor. And even crueler than it sound, I have watched flies trying to extricate themselves from fly paper and it is both fascinating and Kafkaesque.

But I finally pulled my legs from the goo and went to a scene that I had wanted to photograph a month or so ago but couldn’t because I was driving with my wife and dog and because the light wasn’t right. The light was right that day and I willed myself to go.

I have photographed this billboard before with a 4x camera and black and white film. One of the photographs I made is one of my best friend’s favorites. In fact, he’s asked for a print the next time I’m in the darkroom. A request that I am honored to fulfill. This second time, I planned on “just a shot or two” of the entire disintegrating billboard. Even that required what felt like a monumental effort.

But as so often happens, I’m photographically like that old Pringles ad slogan, “Betcha can't eat just one!”

And I couldn’t. And I didn’t. And I kept getting closer and finding a visual story in little pieces of the billboard that was peeling off the billboard underneath. Like the one presented here, focusing on a piece tells a more interesting story to me.

And, yes, it’s another photograph of decay, joining years and years of finding the allure, if not the downright beauty, of the unalluring and unbeautiful (conventionally speaking). I try not to examine why I am drawn to this subject. I just am, and best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It’s not hard to find an overwhelming amount of “ruin porn” on the interwebs. It’s a potent subject. I was opened to it by the writer William Gass. Back in the late 80s, I was working for a university alumni magazine and was assigned to write a feature about Gass’s latest project, which involved his photographs of urban/industrial decay. He had a slideshow with long-hanging rust stains and broken surfaces. I resisted liking this unpretty images. Gass made some sort of “case” for the work. I moved on and into a long fallow period when I was focused on writing more than photography.

But some sort of inspirational (aspirational) seed had been planted. Beginning about 15 years ago, images (many made with an “ugly” Holga camera) of disintegration became a recurring subject. It’s now one of the recurring themes in my work. As my body of work grows and I can take a meta view of it, I know I am drawn to certain subjects and approaches.

So, this billboard pulled me back into a working state of mind and I am grateful for it. I recently discovered William Basinski’s “The Disintegration Loops” (2002-3), and that work resonates (no pun intended) with its visual counterparts.

Leica m8, 50mm Summicron f2.

Ghost Sign - Who Is Mike Brown.

I have photographed and written about this mural before. I drive by it often on a certain route along Union Avenue when I am heading into the City of St. Louis. The last time I photographed it, I was “run off” by woman who I assumed just didn’t want me photographing the mural. As I’ve considered that incident and the vague exchange we had, I have come to think she may have been concerned for my safety. She may have been warning me because is one of the areas of St. Louis with a reputation for violence. The sort of area that Springsteen meant with “…Down in the part of town where when you hit a red light you don't stop…” in his song “Johnny 99.”

When I made this photograph last weekend, using my large format 4x5 camera, a few people walked by, looking at me strangely. One man rode a bicycle along the sidewalk and we exchanged pleasantries.

Making another photograph of this mural was not in my plans. I drove by and noticed the dumpster and made a note to stop after my appointment. I used to think of documentary photography as more like news or journalism photography. I was never that type of photographer - not counting high school yearbook or local newspaper work. But documentary photography is a portion of my continuing work. I may not be photographing “breaking news,” but I am photographing slower-breaking events. I have been surprised at how often I have photographed a scene, thinking I have plenty of time to stop. Then finding the place bulldozed or burned down the next time I pass by. This has been especially true of my work in Cairo, Illinois.

I returned to this mural because the dumpster scared me. The building is probably just being renovated. But one never knows. That Jiminy Cricket voice urged me to photograph again, with the dumpster, just in case the mural becomes a ghost sign. That, plus, people have painfully short memories. If the mural goes, so might its message, slowly yet again progress. It’s inevitable that soon — if not already — someone driving by would ask, “Who is Mike Brown?”

The Photo Gods Giveth

My photo gods are awesome gods.

They giveth…and they taketh away. The are capricious and sometimes reward superstitious processes while making photographs and other times punish for no apparent reason. Such is the nature of the photo gods.

This photo is a case in point. I have recently been running a lot of film through two Soviet cameras. First, a Zorki 4 with a Jupiter 8 lens, and second, a Fed 2 with an Industar lens. Like others I read on the interwebs, I wish these two cameras could have wed. I like the Zorki’s larger viewfinder, in particular. But my copy exposes the film a bit low, so that the bottom is cut off and there is more space between the image and the top sprockets. I can live with that, just remembering it has this quirk.

More troublesome, however, is how ‘fiddly’ the Zorki is, especially after turn the knob on the shutter release to rewind the film. The rewinding works fine, but turning the knob back to the shooting position often doesn’t work as advertised. The film doesn’t catch and advance properly. It doesn’t stop when positioned to take a photo. I have found that if I rewind the film without opening the back, I can usually get it to catch properly. I sometimes lose the first few frames trying to reposition the film back to the beginning.

I encountered this issue when I took several shots of this funnel cake stand at a local fair. These were the first shots on the roll, and I noticed the usual Zorki post-rewind situation. I went through my perhaps superstitious routine of rewinding and starting over. It didn’t seem to work, and the light changed and so I though things were screwed. I also though I had set the exposure wrong.

I was pleasantly surprised when I developed the roll and all but two of the imagers were indeed hosed. There were two that were properly exposed and looked good. After scanning, I realized that the one ‘keeper’ shot I had hoped to capture, the one here, with the stand, the flag and an old dude heading for the porta-potties turned out.

I have been trying, somewhat unsuccessfully for years, to improve my gratitude. So, thank you, photo gods, for providing me with this shot. I will be humble moving forward, because the photo gods may giveth, but the take away in equal measure.

Bogdanovichyssoise

“I love beautiful black-and-white movies…” – Peter Bogdanovich

By CB Adams

When I think of chemistry in terms of analogue, film-based photography, I first think of developer, stop bath, fixer, photo-flo, etc. But there is another “chemistry’ or reaction between photographer, camera, film, light and subject, as well as a less-definable emotional attraction, energy and woo-woo vibe.

I passed this structure for more than year before I brought a camera to make images of it. I don’t know why, nor do I want to know why, this small, garage-like building surrounded by arable fields attracted my attention, but it felt emotional, dark. I shuddered every time I passed it, like the old saying, “Someone just walked over my grave,” uttered after a shiver.

I often adhere to the “first thought, best thought” approach to things. My first thought was to stay off the private property and photograph the building from the roadside. This initial approach was to highlight the small window, just visible above the corn, and the horizontality of the roof. I was using a Tele Rolleiflex to make this image, and even without the chimping “advantage” offered by digital, I had the definite feeling that I hadn’t make the image I wanted, the one that drew me, beckoned me, into its energy. It was too “Children of the Corn.”

So I trespassed, as I often do. A “Private Property No Trespassing” sign is a welcome mat to me. Has been for years. I justified my trespass this time with, “Well, it’s only 30 feet or so from the road. I’m not trespassing that far.”

Clearly, “first thought, best thought” wasn’t working for me, so I shifted to Robert Capa’s maxing  “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough,” which almost always serves my photographs well. I was using a tripod, and if you review the proof sheet you would see subsequent images you would see me inching (footing, actually) my way toward this structure. The final two images on the roll are my favorites.

The one I show here includes the out-of-focus corn, which has a creamy-dreamy cinematic glow to it, thanks to the Cinestill film, which is a cinema film. Hence the Bogdanovich quote above. This image has a “Last Picture Show” vibe to it, at least to me. The other image, which I’m holding for another time, is the same frame, a few feet closer, no corn. It has a different feel, almost winter-like and stark, like an Andrew Wyeth painting. Again, my vibe, not necessarily anyone else’s.

When a scene like this curls its come-hither finger at me, I obey. I try to make a photograph that is somehow true to the emotional resonance that my internal antenna is receiving. I feel like the little girl conversing with off-air television in “Poltergeist,” like challenged to make a cohesive image from the memory of that chaotic static. Yeah, it’s in there, but how to reveal it. I don’t question that need and can only make the best image I can and, if it passes my own muster, then I offer it to others.