WPD

 I have to confess that I don't recall previously being aware of World Photography Day.  According to the NPR website:

"Every year on Aug. 19, World Photography Day celebrates the art, science and history behind pictures. The day was first recognized in 1991 to commemorate the invention of the daguerreotype, a photographic process developed in 1837."

and

"...To celebrate this day, NPR asked readers and listeners to share the story behind their favorite photo they have ever taken. "

So, I am late to the game, but willing to play.  I've made a lot of pictures, but I can easily narrow down the possible candidates by focusing on my favorite subject.  I like all twenty-one images I've posted in the Margaret folder in my Flickr account.  Those pictures were made over a period of fifty-six years, and each was a favorite at the time.  Still, I think the first has some especially nice qualities, so I'll call it Number One.

As I noted in a response to a comment on the picture a few years ago,
"...I took the picture in a cheap hotel in the SF Tenderloin soon after we got to San Francisco. I bought the Speed Graphic just before leaving NYC along with the 4x5 polaroid back. I don't recall now what I really intended to do with that outfit at the time, but I'm glad I got this shot with it."

So, that's my story.  What's yours?

Singular Images

 One of the bright spots of my temporary housebound condition has been the opportunity to better get to know the work of Ansel Adams. While recognizing Adams' historical accomplishment in landscape work, I had never found it a great source of personal inspiration.  That changed recently during a small gathering of the New Mexico Film Photographers.

I had suggested that each of the meeting attendees bring along a book of photographs by one of their favorite photographers. Bob Eggers brought Singular Images, a collection of Adams' Polaroid work made in the 1950s and '60s that was featured in a 1974 exhibit at the Metroplitan Museum of Art in New York.

I was aware of Adams' long association as a consultant with Polaroid, but had never taken the trouble to look at the products of that connection. Seeing the 53 images in the book was an extraordinary revelation; I went home and immediately ordered a soft-cover copy.

As stated in the listing of prints, "Plates 1 through 40 are reproduced from original Polaroid Land prints of various types. Remaining plates are reproduced from enlargements made from Polaroid Type 55 positive/negative Land film with the exception of plate 45 which is an enlargement from a Polaroid Type 105 positive/negative Land film." All of the Met exhibit images in the book including the polaroids can be found on the Metropolitan Museum website, though the quality of the book reproductions is decidedly superior.

The Polaroid images resemble Adams' work with large format in several ways including his intimate familiarity of the characteristics and potential of his materials and gear.  However, the Polaroids differ significantly in the choice of subjects, the emphasis on close work, and perhaps most importantly in Adams' ability to express his vision in a miniature format. Even in the smallest Polaroid prints measuring just 73mm x 97mm the images appear as strong in their tones and textures as in Adams' monumental large format work. The most impressive example of that miniaturized monumentality for me was the 1954 image of Baker Beach near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Immediately following the Baker Beach shot in the book are half a dozen portraits which show Adams' talent for such work in a way I had never seen.  In fact I had a rather poor opinion of his portrait work up to that time.  It seemed to me that Adams' images of people often made them appear of no more significance than the stumps and rocks in their immediate vicinity, lacking in expression or character.  In the Polaroid close-ups his subjects' personalities come alive; the picture of Margaret Bourke-White holding her cat is especially charming.

Perhaps it is just a quirk of my own peculiar neuronal connections, but the picture which struck me most forcefully on first view was the 1957 image of a church and an abandoned car.  The sharpness and tonal richness of the image are extraordinary, but what really grabs attention is the compositional blending of foreground and background. I was immediately reminded of Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth. That is perhaps a comparison unfair to both artists, but one which I found compelling. 

* * *

For a completely different approach to Polaroid photography, see the work of painter/photographer, Harold Joe Waldrum.

Painter/Photographers

 I saw a piece on PBS about the painter/photographer, Barkley L. Hendricks.  The program featured a current exhibit of his work, but I see there is also a recent book about his photography.  It looks like both provide some insights into the relationship between his photos and his paintings.  Hendricks was not on my radar before he was gone, so I'm looking forward now to familiarizing myself with his dual accomplishments.

The attention to the Hendricks show and book immediately brought to mind the work of another painter/photographer, Harold Joe Waldrum, who had his studio in Truth or Consequences and who is best known for his paintings and prints of old adobe churches all around New Mexico.  Waldrum, like Hendricks, apparently initially made his photographs as sketches for his painting and printmaking,  but the photography seemed to take on a life of its own.

Waldrum's polaroids, made with an SX-70, are very carefully composed, showing the same attention to light, shadow, form and color as his painted work.  Thousands of those polaroids ended up in the Museum of New Mexico and are now in the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives.  Over 900 of the little photo prints appeared in an exhibit at the Albuquerque Art Museum which I had the pleasure to attend in 2011.  One of Waldrum's prints of a red walled church was included recently in an exhibit about print making at the Albuquerque Museum; I'm pretty sure there is a polaroid twin.

Exhibits at the Albuquerque Museum are often accompanied by postcard reproductions of the the art works which are made available at no charge to visitors.  In the case of the 2011 Waldrum exhibit, six prints were included in a fanfold booklet, with each being the same size as the originals.  I'm pleased to say I held on to my copy.

The Long Goodbye

This Sunday Slideshow is necessarily short as it documents two very brief flirtations with the Polaroid process. The first of these began in San Francisco in 1970 with a Speed Graphic press camera and a Polaroid back. I liked the smooth sepia tones of the images, but the cost was intimidating at a time when jobs were hard to come by.

Thirty years down the road found us in New Mexico. Polaroid was on the ropes and Walmart was unloading the film at bargain prices. I picked up several cheap point-and-shoot cameras and burned a few boxes of film before it came to an end.

What got me thinking back to those times was a current show at the Albuquerque Art Museum of the work of H. Joe Waldrum. He started using an SX-70 as kind of a note taking device for his painting, but then got absorbed in the process and made thousands of instant prints. The show runs until April 10, and features over 900 images displayed in a continuous line that runs the length of four walls in a large gallery. There is a companion exhibit with a few hundred more prints at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe.

instant flirtation

A few years ago when we still lived in our home in the desert of southern New Mexico I bought several old polaroid cameras for about a buck each at the local Goodwill. My purpose was to use pieces of the mirrors in the cameras to restore the small reflex viewers in some of my old cameras. I think that, at the time, the Polaroid Corporation was about to go belly-up, and film packs were being offered at somewhat reduced prices. So, I picked up a pack and shot it around the house. I wasn't comfortable with the inexactitude of the process of making photos with the simple cameras, and the price was still too high. Looking at the images now, though, I rather like them and wish I could have talked myself into doing a few more.