Moving Along

 The f2/38mm lens on the Pen-FT continues to impress me with its performance in a wide variety of situations.

I met three of my fellow film photographers for coffee at a shop on Central in Albuquerque.  The half-frame vertical format encourages this kind of composite of adjacent frames.

I've shot about ten rolls of Kentmere in the Olympus Pen-FT now, and it and the fine F.Zuiko lens have performed faultlessly.  I am, however, hearing some faint grumbling comments coming from the cabinet holding my other old cameras about neglect.  I'm out of 35mm film at the moment, but I have quite a pile of Kentmere and Fomapan 120 in the refrigerator's film drawer, so there is likely some medium format in my near future.

I've run into a bump in the road regarding film scanning.  My ancient Dell computer running XT is again refusing to boot up.  That means I have lost access to my favored Silverfast for scanning and Photoshop CS2 for editing.  The pictures in this post were done with VueScan and Gimp on my old IMAC. The results aren't awful, but it takes me a lot more time and effort to get to images I consider acceptable.

In The Neighborhood

 Our local film photography group met at a park near our home and then went to one of the Old Town coffee shops.  I took along my Leica IIIa with the Elmar 3.5/50.

I finished off the roll of Kentmere while walking the dog the next day.  

I haven't used the Elmar 3.5/50 much, but it always performs well and I intend to start using it more often.  The Hektor 4.5/135 is also a fine lens.  Mine looks like it might never have been used, and I think I understand that having tried to get pictures with it a couple times.  The telephoto needs a lot brighter rangefinder than I have on the Leica IIIa, and the accessory viewfinder seems just too awkward in use to be practical.  I should probably find a new home for Hektor.

Things are sometimes not as they seem.

Margaret's Redbud tree is in bloom.  There are pansies in the park and the globe willows are fully leafed out.
There are some signs of Spring, however, which precede those developments.
    Many people start coughing as the local junipers start producing berries.  My own awareness of the season is awakened by the light of the sun which comes streaming in my east window as the sun moves northward.

(The tousled morning hair is real.  The facial features are refractive artifacts from my glasses as I sit at my computer catching up on the day's news.)

Albuquerque's streets, like those of many other towns, are mostly empty.  Of course, that has its upside.  Walking and biking are pleasant ways to pass the time.  Yesterday, I got to take a long ride beside the river with three lovely ladies.  How good is that?

Last Sunday our local film photography group met on line using the Google Hangouts conferencing program.  The session went pretty smoothly for a first try.  The face to face meetings typically feature little in the way of an agenda.  We usually just start off by going around the group to hear what people have been up to with their photography over the preceding month.  That is pretty much the way it went in the on line experience.  We are going try another on line meeting on the first Sunday of next month.

Prints on a Wall

I haven't made many photographs lately.  I have several excuses/explanations, but I'll focus on just one here.  I have been preoccupied with organizing a series of exhibits for our New Mexico Film Photographers group which meets monthly in Albuquerque.

Our first exhibit was last September at the Juan Tabo branch library on the City's east side up against the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.  It was a show designed to be inclusive with no restrictions regarding subjects or framing styles.  That turned out to be challenging as all the pictures had to be suspended from wires or pasted on the wall.  We hung a couple dozen prints from nine photographers.  It ended up looking pretty good and it was a useful learning experience for everyone, including the photographers and the library staff.  We had a brief opening ceremony and then adjourned to a nearby pub to celebrate.

A friend and Margaret at Juan Tabo

Documenting the event with the Olympus 35rc

Celebrating at the pub
(photos from Margaret's cellphone)

I was contacted recently by the director of the Los Griegos branch library on the other side of town who asked if we might like to do a show there.  I was not initially enthralled with doing another exhibit so soon, but got more enthusiastic about the idea after visiting the site and thinking about the possibilities.  The Art Wall has a good hanging system and good lighting.  There is a table for printed material and a glass display case.  We agreed on doing an exhibit in March with prints from the Albuquerque group.  While we were at it I also scheduled another show for September at the same location.

The Wall

I have proposed that the group take advantage of lessons learned from the first exhibit.  We will require that all prints have standard mats and frames with wire hangers which should make hanging a snap.  The March exhibit will be entitled "Film is Back!" with a focus on the What and How of current day film photography.  Instead of a poster on the wall we will have info handouts and 4x6 prints for people to take home -- the idea being to better engage visitors with the information about the group and the work of the participating photographers.  I am also going to display a number of my old cameras in the available glass case.

For the September exhibit I am hoping to cast a wider net to bring in some work from film photographers from around the State of New Mexico.  The title for that show will be "Boxes, Toys and Pinholes; Art from Simple Cameras". 

So that is the plan so far.  Prior to this I have hung only a few prints at home and I have entered one print in one exhibit since we moved to Albuquerque ten years ago.

What makes a good photograph?

Our local film photography group is preparing to mount an exhibit at one of Albuquerque's branch libraries.  Participation in the event is quite a departure for me as I haven't made more than a few prints in the past fifteen years.  It turns out to be a useful exercise because it prompted me to look at my work and develop some ideas about how I wanted it to be represented publicly.

My criteria for selecting images for the exhibit are not fundamentally different from those I use to choose what I put on my blog.  A basic tenant of my photo philosophy has always been to show that virtually any camera - no matter how simple - is capable of making fine photos.  I like that first shot of the winter trees partly because it was made with my little Ansco Panda box camera.  In other instances I have been pleased when an image reflects the quality which derives from excellence of lens and camera design as in the case of the balloon captured by the Mamiya C330.  Beyond the instrumentation, of course, there are issues of composition, tonal range, emotional content, timing and many other aesthetic considerations.

I will probably select a couple images from that first group of six for the exhibit.  The second group of five images below was shared with group members to encourage them to include some pictures of people among their submissions.  That met with some success as two people promptly submitted a half dozen shots each, only of people.

Moving beyond the immediate goals of the New Mexico Film Photographers show to the broader question of what makes a good photograph, the answer is fundamentally simple.  The quality and value of photographic images can and should be evaluated as are any other art works in any other medium.  So, if confronted by the question of what makes a photograph good, the easy answer is probably to respond with a question:  What makes a good painting, drawing, sculpture, etc?  That is not to say that photography does not have unique qualities compared to other visual art forms, or that there is not room for individual taste or stylistic preferences.

Retina Redux

A brief shutter cleaning for my Retina Reflex got the aperture stop-down mechanism operating properly and allowed the nice qualities  the Xenon lens to come through in the camera's images.  I still have a bit of work to do on the film advance, and it would be really nice to find a replacement for the clouded prism.  That is not a difficult repair, but I keep getting outbid on ebay for junker donor cameras because I'm not willing to spend much on spare parts.

The last shot is Joe Van Cleave showing his marvelously crafted handmade cameras to the New Mexico Film Photographers Group.  He has posted an excellent series of videos about film photography on YouTube.

July Albuquerque Meet-Up

New Mexico Film Photographers are invited to attend a meet-up each month to talk about any aspect of film photography.

The next Meet-up:

When: Sunday, July 1st, 9:30 AM
Where: Michael Thomas Coffee Roasters, 202 Bryn Mawr Dr SE, Albuquerque
Who: Veteran film users and anyone looking to get started in film photography.

No dues.
No rules (except an interest in film photography).

New Mexico Film Photographers

New Mexico has a secure place in the history of photography.  Many of photography's great practitioners were attracted to the state by the special light and the persistence of the ancient cultural ways.  Ansel Adams did his best early work in Taos under the tutelage of Paul Strand.  Russell Lee, John Collier and Jack Delano  carried documentary photography to new heights in New Mexico during the Depression years with FSA and OWI sponsorship.  Van Deren Coke was the UNM Art Department head and the first director of the Art Museum in the 1960s.  Beaumont Newhall developed the school's graduate program in the history of photography in the 1970s.  New Mexico today remains a mecca for photographers, including quite a few who persist in the practice of film photography.

The following is a list of links to New Mexico film photographers whose work I follow on line.

* * * * *

Jon Caradies (Santa Fe)
Carefully crafted b&w images of Northern NM made with Leica, Nikon and Hasselblad.

Robert Christensen (Belen)
A specialist in vernacular architecture  whose work was featured in an exhibit at the Albuquerque Art Museum. A review of the Museum show and a description of Christensen's technique is available in an article at the New Mexico Magazine site.

Vincent Frazzetta (Bernalillo)
High quality film photography work from Maine to New Mexico.

Anthony Gross aka: Fixinater (Portales)
"I buy / sell / trade / fix old film cameras"
He also makes very fine photos with a great variety of  classic cameras.
(It appears he has abandoned Flickr and deleted his images there.)

Seth Jacob (Albuquerque)
Very fine writing and images on his blog.

Stephanie Lakos (Las Vegas)
Excels in capturing the essence of northern NM with Holgas, Polaroids and an assortment of classic film cameras. (I believe Stephanie has moved to Portland.)

Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga (Albuquerque)
Under the screen name "el zopilote" Lizárraga has gained a large following on Flickr where he posts almost daily.  He has a unique style with a focus on architecture and landscape with very little difference evident between the film and digital images.

Lee Palmer (Albuquerque)
Technically excellent b&w work with classic cameras and films, often expertly processed in pyro developers.

Gregory Peterson (Albuquerque)
Documenter of the University District.  His fine collection of old cameras was recently on display in the UNM Fine Arts Library.

Becky Ramotowsky (Tijeras)
A multimedia artist whose photo work is often accomplished with the simplest of pinhole cameras and processed in home-brew caffenol.  Besides showing her work in her blog, Palomino Pinhole and Other Distractions, she is also an active participant in the excellent Filmwasters forum.

Mike Tungate (Albuquerque)
A versatile photographer whose work encompasses a wide variety of subjects throughout New Mexico.  In addition to showing his photos on Flickr he also maintains a blog, mtungate, where he shows his 35mm and medium format work.

Joe Van Cleave (Albuquerque)
An innovator and experimenter with alternative photographic processes and equipment who often makes extraordinarily fine images from paper negatives.

Martin Ventura (Albuquerque)
Expert commercial photography for all occasions including events and portraiture.

* * * * *

There is a  New Mexico Film Photographers group at Flickr which was started nine years ago.  The group has not had many contributions lately, but some of the best photographers in the state posted examples of their work there in the past.  Perhaps with a bit of encouragement they could be lured back along with some who are newly arrived to the pleasures and challenges of film photography.

UPDATE:
I've accepted responsibility for administering the New Mexico Film Photographers group on Flickr. I'll be sending out invitations to post photos there.  I would particularly like to find some more participants from the southern half of the state.