Staring At the Sons

A son.

The holidays are officially over. We finished “taking down” the decorations and packing them into the storage room this past weekend. I also processed the last roll of black and white film from the portrait sessions with my sons the week of Thanksgiving. There may be a roll or two of color candids, aka happy snaps, which I made with a point-and-shoot camera, but these are the last “serious” photographs I made. Photography was definitely part of my overall enjoyment of the holiday. As I looked at the scans this morning, the experience was different. Their eyes were upon me.

A son.

I’m taking Nietzsche’s oft-quoted phrase out of its original context and meaning, but his phrase “When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back” came to mind. I thought that if I looked at their portraits long enough, I would stare back at myself. Somehow. And I did. I certainly “see” myself in my sons in terms of the physical and personality. I am reminded of Chuck Palahniuk’s assertion that “Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary” balanced with Richard Avedon’s aphoristic “My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.”

I hope that someday, somehow, even without me knowing it, they will stare at their own portraits and see me. “The Child,” after all, as observed by Wordsworth, “Is father of the Man”

For What It’s Worth

“There’s something happening here / But what it is ain’t exactly clear…”

Apologies to Steven Stills and Buffalo Springfield for co-opting their anti-war song, but this opening phrase often plays in my head in relation to any number of associations. I developed this roll of Kodak Double X a few weeks ago, then scanned it. This image was one that I singled out.

I was using my recently restored Nikon F2 Photomic, which I constantly point out has been in my camera bag since I purchased it used in 1978, and a new-to-me Nikkor 43-86mm f3.5 lens, gifted to me earlier this year. I do not typically shoot with a zoom and have, in fact, sold off two or three in recent years. It’s totally unreasonable, but I eschew zooms because prime lenses are supposedly “sharper,” which is an almost meaningless term in the age of pixel-pumping, and somehow “cheating” because you can…well, zoom. Rather than position yourself, Bresson-like, in the ideal position.

This type of snobbish constraint was something I picked up as a young autodidact from magazines and photojournalism student friends. It’s rubbish, but it clutters my head, nonetheless.

I was drawn to this scene because it was rich in content. There is, indeed, lots of “something happening here.” I set up the shot, guiltily using the zoom to frame the scene. I pressed the shutter once and felt satisfied, but before I pulled the camera from my face, I watched the person walk quickly into the lower right of the frame. Now there was something more happening here. I instinctively pressed the shutter again.

“BAM!” It was an Emeril moment.  

I am describing this image because, like the best dishes, it has layers of intentional content, from the tiger-stripe curtain to conquering ivy, to the damaged wheelbarrow (so much depends upon a wheelbarrow). This is not a swipe-type image. It is meant to be savored – compliments of the photographer.

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.

The ‘Inherent’ Loneliness of Chairs and Trees

If a chair sits empty and isn’t photographed, was it ever really empty?” --John Bent

“Sitter” by CB Adams

 There’s a recent book about photographic “no-no’s” that I haven’t read, but I suspect it includes (or should include) two of my guilty pleasures: one my wife calls my Lonely Trees series, which includes one of my most-liked images ever, and the other, which I have borrowed the title for, Lonely Chairs. This latter series is less well-liked on the interwebs, as if this were any signifier of quality, but which I am drawn to repeatedly. I mostly keep such images to myself, this one notwithstanding.

This image, “Sitter” is the latest lonely chair I have put to film. I was driving down a St Louis street and my eye was drawn to the interplay of light and shadow – the light being especially pleasing, like a spotlight on the chair. By the time I found a parking space and metered the scene, clouds invaded overhead and I took waaaay too many shots before leaving.

I’m not sure why lonely chairs appeal to me, but I know they do to other photographers as well. I’ve seen countless empty chair images made everywhere from Parisian streetside cafes to junkyards. I find a melancholic resonance between lonely chairs and lonely trees, emphasis on lonely. That’s probably the appeal, the sad appeal.

“Sitter” was created with a Pentax SV, 50mm Takumar and Kodak Double X film.

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.