“I tramp a perpetual journey.”
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
If I’m on a perpetual journey there’s always a cup of tea along the way. My life is paved with simple pleasures. As the road winds through field and forest the sounds, sights and smells spark joy and make the journey tolerable in foul weather and thrilling in good. It’s true for riding a Vespa and in a metaphoric application to life in general.
Journeying into the new year has brought me through a new professional landscape as I puzzle through new work and responsibilities. The trip has forced the Vespa scooter into a quiet nursing of electric on the little black wire to a Battery Tender Junior 12V Battery Charger
But all is not lost…
A familiar path to Saint’s Cafe has reopened a photographic door to a fallow creative field, one in which I’ve labored to plant with a renewed interest in photography beyond producing images for Scooter in the Sticks. It’s been a long time since I’ve exhibited a project, or anything for that matter, and I’ve begun contemplating an exhibit of words and images involving life on a Vespa — a version of this blog which would live in a physical space.
Planning and building an exhibit is no small task considering the time involved to conceptualize a collective message, envision a visual experience and invest in the printing and presentation necessary for installation of a body of work. On the blog it’s simple and inexpensive. Not so much in the physical world. And aside from framing, one of the biggest challenges is the printmaking process.
A journey can be made easier with a companion. As I begin exploring a photographic project my friend, photographer and rider Paul Ruby has provided support and inspiration to keep moving when the road becomes steep and rocky. Watching his ongoing photographic work along with others has led me to purchase an Epson SureColor P800 Inkjet Printer
Blame my fascination for the fumes of a chemical darkroom.
Journeys start with a single step. So it is with the Epson printer — some online training to avoid bad habits and get my head around a process that will allow me to transition an idea of a photograph onto photographic paper. I’ve been exploring a workflow process using small prints to confirm the limitations of the digital files and hone the craft of the printer — me.
Making images to post online is seductively easy. Not so with ink on paper where you lack the dazzling electrons blasting from a screen. Reflective images on paper are more challenging and require forethought on everything from size to type of illumination. I’ve stored that expertise in a box somewhere in my head and am still sorting through the mess to find it. And almost every print until now that I’ve exhibited in public has been black and white.
Color is a different beast.
That’s where my recent journeys have taken me. I confess to an aching desire to ride along with rejection of single digit temperature rides as my body screams “no way!”. The days ahead promise some rain and moderating temperatures so perhaps the Vespa will wake to the road.
I can’t go long without a ride.
On-line posting is easy, compared to actually printing an image on to paper. The difference for you and me is the chemical-laden darkroom with oftimes corrosive liquids, and the smell of fixer is no more. Replaced with the chugging (is that an appropriate turn of phrase?) of the paper as it moves over the rollers and the print heads squirt ink in tiny amounts to produce a finished product.
With digital, total preparation before rendering an image to paper is far more important
than it was for film. With film, the image was as rendered; the magic performed was in that darkroom; with digital the magic is performed on a properly balanced for colour monitor beforehand.
You have made many images on film (with Leica) and with digital recording devices.
It is time to place your images where they may be viewed and perhaps purchased by others not aligned with internet blogs and two-wheeled machines. Images of your excursions into the hills of central Pennsylvania and as well the lives of your four-legged companions.
Perhaps Saint’s Cafe can provide a venue for such a display; you have purhased enough refreshment in the establishment!
You’re right about the workflow for digital printing being different than working in a chemical darkroom. But I can see how the “ambience” of the event could be just as engaging if the digital darkroom is configured in the right way. The sound of the printer has a calming effect — nothing like the early dot matrix printers with tractor fed paper.
I’m slowly working through the ins and outs of printing but I already see possibilities that would have been difficult and costly in traditional printing.
So, I’m thinking or presentation, sales, and reach of the images to more people. Hard to ever beat the numbers piled up on Scooter in the Sticks where the views of images is in the millions. But a conventional exhibit is a different experience. Saint’s Cafe doesn’t have the space for an exhibit. I’ll have to think hard on a location.
Steve,
Once again, words as smooth as a good glass of scotch.. No doubt, your photographs will lead one on a smooth quiet journey. You have great talent my friend, you must share it…
Stay Safe,
Bob
“Smooth as a good glass of scotch.” I like that. Single malt?
Thanks for you kind words about the things I post. Just trying to work diligently removing noise from my head and reducing it to text and images…
An exhibit of one’s photographs in framed hard copy….truly an interesting experience/daunting task/learning experience to go through.
Can a book then be the next step?
A book has been floating around in my head and on my to do lists for a long time. But it remains daunting at the moment. Perhaps an exhibit is a first step. What scares me about a book is how many bad ones there are. I want to make sure I can commit to making a good one from concept to content to execution.
Ah, charlie, you beat me to it. The exhibit is an awesome idea, notwithstanding all of the work to accomplish it. Your work is deserving of such.
I read a comment on MV recently suggesting Stephanie Yue do a book. That thought passed my mind as I read this post. Between your stunning photography and quiet musings on riding, life and nature, I think it would be a winner. On the other hand, it’s easy to suggest something like that, and a labor of love to complete it……
All of this kind of stuff requires a lot of work as you rightly point out. And content. And the right expertise. Stephanie Yue has a great resource of content from her travels along with expertise as an illustrator. Seems like a perfect mix.
I have a document in Evernote titled “SITS Book Project Notes” that I have been adding ideas and plans and other notes for awhile. Someday I’ll move from plans to action. Hopefully.
FYI. Surplus has a pretty sweet large format HP inkjet on bid.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Designjet-Z6100ps-Plotter-PSU-/191775650274?hash=item2ca6b831e2:g:iX4AAOSwGotWi~lJ
Oh, and there was much discussion around the office this week, when a position looking very much like yours came up on the PSU jobs board.
That’s a big printer. No room for that monster. We used to have something similar in our design and exhibit shop.
And that position is for my replacement on the PR and marketing side of the house. I’ve been doing two jobs for a long time now and as a big project deadline looms it just made sense for me to focus. Hopefully we’ll find someone with a Vespa…. *grin*.
This is only in my mind but I feel ‘on line photographs’ are not real in the way ink on paper photographs are real. I’m not complaining I’m only saying that I get a good feeling when I make a print that rockin’ that I don’t get so much when I post it to our online photo forum etc.
Everything is impermanent but a hard print on the wall in a frame is waaaay more permanent than something stored on Googles hard drive in San Jose.
Now let me make the case for Scooter in the Sticks photos. It would be hard to do any better in areas of community and unity than a blog like that. Those friendships you make through the blog would be really important to me. To me, that counts big time.
Paul
Yeah, let’s see a book of your pictures and selected edits of your blogs to accompany the pics. Easy for me to say but you have scads of material there. A high quality eBook perhaps?
(I can hear the howling in the background).
It’s now up to you Steve, your half way there already.
Oh, where to begin…?
I started on my “hybrid” photographic path in 1998 when, fed up with not having regular access to a “proper” wet darkroom, I took heed of the late Quentin Crisp’s adage “swim with the tide, only faster”, and bought three items: a new 13-inch format Epson SP 1200 printer, a used Nikon LS-10 35mm film scanner, and a Yamaha 4x CD burner – this was back when all three items were still regarded as somewhat esoteric. The equipment has decidedly changed up a bit since then, but my workflow hasn’t changed much: I do have a few digital cameras in my photo array, but film still rules for the most part. Print-wise, however, I pretty much left the wet darkroom for dead, even though it was murder for the first few years in terms of black-and-white, where inkjet printing took a long time to catch up with silver printing (and sometimes still takes a back seat, IMO), even though I’m rather content with the output quality now. I’ve made prints for exhibits, including one of my own, and while it’s frequently a high-wire act, at least when things go wrong, I now have a reasonable idea in terms of the what and why.
After years of avoiding Epson, I’m back in their camp – somewhat reluctantly – with an “inherited” R3000, the immediate predecessor to their P-series (like yours). They keep swearing “we licked the clogging problem, honest!”, but you’ll have to pardon me for squinting a bit when I hear this.
At any rate, I’m looking forward to hearing about your progress with the printer. And, if you end up with an exhibit somewhere, I certainly want to know about it. It’s obvious you’ve got a damned good eye, seeing results in print form would be a genuine treat.
Go for it Steve, it will be great!
Brent