I meet Gordon almost every Sunday morning at Saint’s Café to review our respective photographic lives for the week, to cajole or shame each other into further work, and to keep alive the dream of a creative life we heard rumored in graduate school. The 3 Prints Project (two rolls of film and three prints every week) began almost three years ago and has continued ever since with a few detours into digital and plenty of excuses for showing up without work.
On Friday I got an iPad2. Minutes after turning it on a strong desire to shoot film washed over me. The iPad may have been the digital straw that broke my analog back.
To be fair I like he iPad and acquired it to evaluate, test and monitor the release of the magazine I edit as an iPad edition. The measure of digital continues to grow in my life.
Friday afternoon the Leica is hanging around my neck, an extra roll of film in my pocket, and the world is revolving at a bit slower pace. Such seems to be the effect of shooting film.
Roll 521. I have to thank Matt Alofs of the 1PT4 photography blog for the idea of numbering by rolls. I have a mess of negatives and I have gone through many schemes of keeping track of them. Following his Flickr site I saw that he assigns roll numbers to sets of pictures. While I have no idea the meaning behind his numbers I thought it was a marvelously simple way for me to have a system that I could track.
The number 521 comes from the month and day I started using it. After that everything will just be sequential. I’m working on 522 now.
Matt has an amazing volume of black and white work that I have no idea how he finds time to produce. He documents the things he sees in life including ongoing portraits Kate (wife, partner, girlfriend, significant other?) in a manner that most partners would find withering. To shoot so much film is pretty amazing. If I find out he is not scanning negatives I’ll be really depressed.
Gordon arrived with digital prints of images made with his camera phone and a couple others made with a digital SLR during his drive to work. I’d arrived with a single print and contact sheet from the one roll of film I managed to shoot.
We’ve sustained a level of output over the years generating a steady stream of personal work, questioning process and intent, criticizing, supporting and tending the fragile flame of creative expression amidst the daily grind of earning a living.
Morning. Mount Nittany in the fog. My camera has pointed this way many times. Photographing the same subject over and over reveals something about the subject and the photographer. For me, this is home.
The iPhone and Camera+ app continues to impress me. This shot was made using the Clarity effect.
Last night I developed a single roll of black and white film. A familiar ritual repeated thousands of times over the last 20 years in this particular darkroom. The iPhone is always handy and this time makes a recording of the path less traveled in photography.
Looking at the contact sheet I realize I see the world differently with the Leica. Different than I do using a digital camera. Not better or worse, just different.
The ride into town was quiet with almost no traffic on US 322. Sporadic fog continually changed the landscape allowing me to ride from magical place to illusion and beyond.
I have a great capacity to be sloppy, something that does not incur many benefits in a darkroom. Rushed to make this proof print of Junior so I would have something to show at Saint’s Café. Flat, lifeless, drab. No digital effects to save me, mask the deficiencies of the image. And strangely, I am enjoying the process.
Again.
My printing skills and general late night sloth betray the magic a silver print can possess. Maybe next time I’ll work harder.
On towards town and a brief stop to exchange stories with a small herd of Penn State quarter horses.
On through the fields, fog beginning to lift and reveal a gray day with threats of rain. The Vespa is indifferent and moves on and on and on.
After Gordon and I exhausted comments and ideas we parted company and I headed home on a slightly longer route. Climbing to the top of a hill along the road I was offered the opportunity to photograph these two motorcycles speeding in the opposite direction. Everything looks insignificant from this altitude. A reminder of how careful I need to be on the road.
At Café Lemont, a spur of the moment stop for tea and a Neiman Marcus cookie (love these things), I pull up next to a 2002 BMW R1200 GS. If the Vespa is ready to riding in and around town the BMW looks ready to ride in and around North America. Inside the owner pretty much confirms that assessment.
His name is Mark and he tells me he’s getting ready to ride to Nova Scotia and then on to Labrador. I ask if he’s ridden in Alaska (he has) and he tells me that he and his wife have ridden in Europe a couple times through Edelweiss Tours.
I mask any jealously and envy.
We talk for awhile, shake hands and go our separate ways. On the way home I think about what it might be like to ride for weeks on end or travel to some exotic location. Rounding a bend covered with gravel my attention returns to the road and I grow satisfied with the adventures I create within a 200-mile radius of State College. It’s what I can manage now with work and family. And I love the riding.
Not far from home I pass a barn with a horse gazing out the window. I went past and continued on for several hundred yards before I couldn’t get the image out of my head and made a quick U-turn to make a picture. Would never have done it on that big BMW K1600 GTL. Just saying.
And I’m still working on those reviews.
For now I’m just glad to get out and ride a little, make a few pictures, and spend some more time in the darkroom.
There are some gorgeous images on this post. I also like the Clarity effect on the app and play with it a lot. My shots never look as good as yours. And it was worth turning around to get the shot of the barn with the horse. I take it that K1600s either have a large turning circle or don’t encourage stopping on the side of the road.
Thank you for sharing your photos.
Steve
The first of your Vespa and the fog at the base of Mt Nittany is outstanding!
Dom
Redleg’s Rides
Colorado Motorcycle Travel Examiner
I do envy your ability to climb a hill. I notice the lack of altitude in my environment.
Last night I spent 20 minutes practicing figures of eight on a lonely stretch of road. You’d be amazed how much you can do with a bigger bike. Not that I want a six cylinder monster but the Bonneville is astonishingly nimble.
In light of your regression, or shall we say return to a more simple way of photography, I agreee the Leica rangefinder is so much more of what we perceive a camera “should/must” be. As opposed to a bland digital device
be it telephone or otherwise.
In my own world have just in the last week or so received back from tedious rebuild by a friend an EXA
of somewhat ancient vintage. Originally came from a phptographer friend who over time willed me his various cameras as he became older and his arthritis prevented him from using them.
No Leica however a Mamiya C330 is the next to be given a CLA, have both the normal 80 and 135
telephoto lenses. Have placed a bid for a wide-angle.
Keep kicking myself for selling my rubber lidded Kindermann stainless steel developing tanks all too many years ago. So am dependent upon a commercial lab, which is not quite as satisfying as “doing it myself.” BTW sold my D700 for
a good price and am much happier with the D90. The extra cash enabled me to purchase a long-wanted 80-200 f/2.8 VRII zoom which is useful for both the F100 and the D90.
RichardM: Thanks for the supportive words about the pictures. My ongoing love affair with the Vespa makes it easier to keep turning the camera towards it.
Photoshop is the secret to expanding the things I shoot beyond what the camera records towards what I saw.
Except for the iPhone. Still don’t understand how it can make so many neat images.
Dom: The iPhone comes through again. Shot the same thing with my Canon G9 but couldn’t get it to look like the phone image.
Conchscooter: We have hills but I have to admit a growing reluctance to ascend. While scrambling up over the loose shale I was thinking when I break my leg it will be in this kind of situation.
Living by an ocean I would probably prefer some high, rocky ground available in case of a big wave on the way.
Practicing figure 8’s! Good on you to set a fine example. The Bonneville is a great machine and I wouldn’t hesitate at all with figure 8s. The big K bike on the other hand, well, it’s more daunting.
Bryce: Good to see you comment. You’ve been scarce lately.
The Leica definitely has a style and personality. But the digital cameras are 100 percent functional. So I am constantly torn between them.
Don’t see many Exa cameras around. The occasional Exakta passes by but even those are rare. Vintage cameras can be fun to work with. If they’re working.
The Mamiya C330f is a fantastic camera. I used one through the 1970s, 80s and 90s and loved it. Wished I hadn’t sold it now.
Can’t say I would want a D90 over a D700. I love working with my D700. But the lure of the 70-210VR 2.8 would be strong. I have one and it is my most commonly used lens just ahead of an 85mm 1.8.
I never owned a ‘real’ analog camera, but I envy what they were. I have a friend who has recently gotten into photography, and his pictures, while good, contain a very healthy amount of artificial color. When I shoot I don’t want the reds to jump out and shoot clown vomit on me, I want to feel like what’s in the photo could be seen. (usually)
I’ve lusted after a k16000 since they were introduced, are they not all they were cracked up to be? I’m currently running a Kawasaki Concours 1400 and love it, but the low-speed handling on it is challenging when compared to my old Honda or new Beemer dual sport. Put it in second gear, hold the throttle steady and play with the clutch, I guess.
Brady
Behind Bars – Motorcycles and Life
http://www.behindbarsmotorcycle.com/
Wonderful photos again Steve. You are certainly gifted.
Dear Scooter In The Sticks:
You have a great luxury, editing a magazine and taking pictures at your leisure. If you are rushing, it is probably an effort to hasten the creative process, that moves at its own speed. Some call it sloth… I call it thinking. It doesn’t become sloth until it entails a bottle of rum, two friends, and three motorcycles.
Some very nice shots in this group.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
The picture of the vespa with the horses in the background is exceptional. A shot with action in a sense.
Brady: Shooting film demands time, money, and space if you are going to have a darkroom. Digital has really changed those rules and hard for a lot of people to justify shooting film. Still, it is a unique way of working.
There is a lot of heavy-handed digital processing. Some of it is pretty cool but some not so much.
As far as the BMW K1600 goes…. I think it is everything it’s cracked up to be!
Mike: Thanks for stopping by to look at the pictures. I keep searching for new things to shoot.
Mr. Riepe: I feel fortunate that the processes at play in my work life cross so well with those in my blogging life. Keeps everything fun.
By your definition of sloth I have not yet entered that state. Another goal!
Anonymous: I keep looking at that horse picture and there is something intriguing to me about it. Thanks for your comments. I’ll have to consider the action notion you raise.
Do you ever think about going to Church on Sunday morning?
I have followed your blog for 2 or so years and wouldn’t miss it.
Tom Staggs: Funny you should comment on church. A friend and I were just talking about spiritual connection and where we find it. For me church was not where I found it as an adult. I brought a lot of religious baggage along from my youth that didn’t make it any easier.
I suppose the simple answer is I go to church every day. Just not in a manner anyone would point to an say, “Look, he’s going to church.”
The first time I every saw my path validated was in James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Deerslayer” as Nattie Bumpo described his relationship with God.
I suppose we all have our own path laid out ahead.
Glad you find something useful in Scooter in the Sticks. It continues to be a joy.