Bumps in the Road

 My Nikon FE has made some good pictures for me, but I haven't made a lot of use of it.  I decided to rectify that neglect with a trip to the zoo on a fine morning.  I made all the shots there with the Vivitar 3.5/70-210mm macro zoom.

  I grabbed a quick still life the next morning and then took a walk in Old Town with the Nikkor -P Auto 2.5/105mm.

When I got to Old Town I found that the meter's batteries had died, so I switched to manual exposure to finish off the roll of Fuji Neopan 400.  Back home, I processed the film in HC110b.  About a third of the zoo shots were blank frames.

The short series of shots from Old Town were ok, so I'm hoping the dying batteries accounted for the missing zoo shots.  I'll shoot another roll of the Neopan 400 to test that theory, and maybe also try developing in PMK to comapare with the HC110 results.

More About Still Life

Still life art (Google)

A work of art that depicts inanimate objects, such as fruit, flowers, or dead game. Still life art can be a celebration of material pleasures, or a reminder of the brevity of human life. The term originated in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greco-Roman art, and became a distinct genre in the late 16th century.

I am mostly happy with the conservative definition offered by Google, and that describes what I am looking for when I search for still life examples.  In practice, though, I take a looser approach beyond the traditional strictures, often looking to express a feeling of stillness.  I have also often here presented pictures of found arrangements which I have identified as belonging to the genre.

Still, I try to stray not too far from the historical approach which implies a composition with a  purposeful arrangement of objects.  The plural is important, I think, as a delineator to establish a difference between still life and macros, close-ups and product shots.  To represent an arrangement, it seems that at least two elements are required. Online photo sharing sites tend to feature offerings which mostly depict isolated items including flowers or other natural or manufactured objects.

Recently, while looking for sources of inspiration I came across a conversation about still life at Rangefinderforum.com which started sixteen years ago and has continued intermittently since then.  The images and words of participants show that nearly all struggle to define the character of their efforts as well as to master the relevant photographic techniques.

Most of my own efforts to create still life compositions have found their way to my Still Life Album at Flickr.

Bottles

My still life compositions tend toward the minimalistic.  Partly, that is because I don't have anything approaching a studio setting; my setups are done on the fly.  Also, I rely on window light, which changes through the day.

My photography over the years has mostly been a product of discovery during long walks.  With diminished mobility still life seems increasingly appropriate if I want to continue with photography.  So I'm going to try to be somewhat more thoughtful in preparations and execution.

in vitro

 Relentless Spring winds have pushed me indoors and strengthened my resolve to do more with still life.

Exercising the Signet 35

I thought these recent b&w images from the Signet 35 were interesting, though the combination of TMAX and hc-110 did not yield the quality I have gotten from it in the past.  The photos from this roll also introduced too many variables and are not useful for comparison with the last outing with the Signet 40.

I'm going to shoot another roll in the Signet 35 with the same film and lighting conditions as the last Signet 40 pictures to see if I can better compare the performance of the two Kodaks.

the death of film

Another treatment on the theme can be found on the NYT Lens Blog.

Working at Home

geranium with fruit


counter clutter


More play than work, I suppose.

My old Epson 2450 scanner still does a reasonably good job with my negatives, but it is really slow. While the scanning arm crawls across the images I usually pass the time by browsing the web. In producing this set of images I came across a nice piece in the NYT Opinion section by Michael Cunningham entitled "Found in Translation".

Cunningham, a novelist, sees himself, his translators and his readers as all sharing a piece of the creative process in similar ways. He also dissects the common delusion that we create primarily for ourselves. In the teaching of writing Cunningham urges his students to write for a specific individual. In his own case, the person he selected for the job was someone he worked with who was a voracious reader, not burdened with constraints of academic opinion. Cunningham wasn't looking for criticism, but rather for an open-minded sensibility that could perceive his intent without prejudice.

It didn't seem from Cunningham's account that he ever explicitly revealed his choice of a muse before writing about it in the Times piece. That is probably a good strategy because there is an obvious pitfall to tailoring the creative product too specifically to a particular set of tastes. I'm thinking in this case of commercial artists who work in portraiture or advertising. Some can maintain creative integrity in the face of editorial and customer pressures, but I think that is much more the exception than the rule.