photography – Page 10 – I dream of sumac and milkweed (and other wild things)

Full circle

July 30, 2016August 11, 2016 sumacandmilkweed6 Comments

In the winter, I resurrected my mother’s old point and shoot camera (a Canon Sureshot circa 1980s). It came to me when my dad moved, I think, and I shoved it into a drawer or cupboard or closet and forgot about it.

A battery was left in it, which had corroded and the corrosion was leaking out. I painstakingly cleaned off the muck with vinegar and q-tips; carefully dried it out; gingerly put a new battery in. When that motor whirred to life I felt a jolt, a sudden excitement, like my mother had tiptoed back into the land of the living.

I put a roll of film in, which advanced as it should. And…

deshantzcook_20160729_img020 — my daughter as model

…it worked. It has a ridiculously loud motor that made me laugh when I used it. And there is a unique joy that only a point and shoot can provide. No messing with settings, no choosing a focus, no missing anything that might suddenly come into frame.

In hindsight, I see a circular nature in this experiment. My mother’s old camera. My own old fake fur jacket, given to me by someone I once knew when I was the age my daughter was this winter, when I asked her to wear it so I could photograph her. My son, who developed the roll in his black and white film class a few months later, even though I didn’t have a way to see the images other than to hold the negatives up to the light and squint. And today, the delivery of a film scanner so that I can do more with the negatives piling up in my office because of this new film addiction.

Okay, maybe a sketchy circle. But it makes at least a little sense to me.

I’ll admit I’d been snobby about the idea of a point and shoot. But my mother’s camera was a breath of fresh air, a kick in the ass to remind me that fussy isn’t necessarily better, or more fun. And a way to reconnect with her, if only for the time it took to shoot a roll of film.

deshantzcook_20160729_img034 — Detroit, Fisher Building in distance

Sadly the camera croaked when I tried to remove the film. The motor just flat out stopped, and no amount of cleaning the battery compartment or shoving newer batteries in there would coax it back to life. I took it to my local camera repair shop where I’ve had several vintage cameras worked on, and they said it wasn’t worth repairing.

It was fun while it lasted.

Turbines

July 12, 2016 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

deshantzcook_20160711_IMG_9427 — sun-slicer

There is a 56-turbine wind farm nearby, in western Michigan. The turbines are the backdrop to rural homes and rolling farmland, stalwart giants towering over corn and grain fields, orchards and farmland.

corn-power

grain-power

I’m both drawn to these behemoths and terrified of them. Okay, maybe I watched too many of those original Godzilla movies as a kid, but I swear they will morph, uproot, and come lumbering after me, crushing farms and terrorizing the horses and cows in their path, smoke and fire spittling from their terrible blades, screeching like Godzilla’s adversaries.

Unless you’ve been up close (or, close enough, in my case) you might not realize that they make a humming, whirring, eerie mechanical sound that makes me wonder about the tolerance level of the neighbors. I wouldn’t want this on my farm, near my house, a whir and flickering shadows so definite and inescapable.

What have we done to our landscape?

multipower, edit 1

multipower, edit 2

multipower, edit 3

multipower, edit 4

I’m not opining about the pros and cons of wind energy. I don’t have the knowledge or experience for that, nor am I speaking for anyone who lives near this wind farm; I’m an observant bystander only.

As art, I think they can be beautiful. As neighbor, I don’t know. As for noise, you could say the same about living on the ocean or a big lake–the sound of the waves can be ceaseless. Or living on the plains or open land where the wind howls relentlessly. But those are natural things and in living in those places, you might know what you’re in for. These were planted in people’s backyards one day. Well, not one day, but you get it.

I’m just saying I’m in awe, and a little afraid, and a lot wondering.

Lovely little film surprises

June 21, 2016June 22, 2016 sumacandmilkweed2 Comments

I only waited a little over one week for three rolls of film to be developed, which in the scheme of things is so completely unimportant. I am not a patient waiter, however (is anyone?). I get a little obsessed about waiting. In fact, when I sent my rolls of film across the country just over a week ago, I became fairly obsessed with tracking the package.

I sent it from Michigan on Monday and it landed in California on Wednesday. It then went to four different cities before it started to circle back through these cities again, at which point a notice popped up on the tracking site saying there was a “delivery exception.”

Panic!

Were my precious rolls of film ripped from their prepaid envelope, rolling around individually in the backs of several different USPS trucks, now never to reach their destination?! Heartbroken, I prepared for exactly this. I promised myself that next time I shipped film, I’d drop a small piece of paper, maybe even a few dollar bills, into each canister with my name and address. Some wonderful person would find this and lovingly send my film back to me and I’d start the scary process of sending it for developing once again, maybe even drive it to its destination myself. In the meantime, I emailed USPS and hoped for the best, which of course occurred the very next morning when my envelope, intact, was delivered to the processor.

But by then it was the weekend, so more waiting.

Then today (Tuesday), the email arrived with news that my film was developed and scanned and images were ready for me to download. Hurrah! Prosecco for everyone! (Yes, I really am this excited.)

deshantzcook_20160619_03580027 — Who wouldn’t be excited about *this*?! Be still my heart. Pentax K1000, Portra 400

Okay, maybe not everyone gets giddy over these things. But thank you to the neighbor who discarded the toilet, and to the other neighbor who had the foresight to fill it with lilacs.

There was also a roll of Ilford HP5 400 ISO shot on the Pentax, which I was just as excited about, but seemed a little extra grainy. I’m still learning, so there’s that.

deshantzcook_20160621_43230010 — mama goat and babies

deshantzcook_20160621_43230031 — not goats, or babies

But then there was also this:

deshantzcook_20160621_43130003 — open Tues – Sat

The new (to me) half frame camera, one of the first models of the Olympus PEN. Good lord, the camera itself is cute. And the images, oh yes, yes, yes. You can keep them in twos, or threes, or however many you want depending on how you cut the film. Or you can make individual images. Oh, the possibilities. And the lovely surprise of not quite knowing what you’re going to get back. That’s what film does. At least for me.

deshantzcook_20160621_43130001 — zone focusing is new to me

Is it just me? Or is this not awesome?

deshantzcook_20160621_43130022 — double cute

deshantzcook_20160621_43130010 — didn’t even plan this symmetry

The camera could probably use a cleaning, but that isn’t stopping me from using it. Now that I know it works and my guestimates (and occasional light meter app use) weren’t too off (there’s nothing automatic here), I’m feeling a little more confident about it. I’ll get it to a camera repair shop when I feel like I can take a break from it. Which I can’t right now. Because I love it.

Did I mention how cute it is?

Sigh. I’m smitten. I guess I better get used to waiting.

(Edited because I inadvertently lied about the film I used. It was Portra 400 for the color roll, not Ektar 100 as originally stated. And I didn’t mention it, but the film I used in the PEN was T-Max 100. I should write these things down. Really.)

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And COLEaboration, part 2

June 20, 2016 sumacandmilkweed2 Comments

As promised, more images from the weekend with talented dancer and friend Margi Cole, who I’m just so grateful to have spent time with. And more thoughts on the process of creating. Or, really, editing.

As a copy editor (my job), I know how to edit other people’s work. There’s a process. If the deadline is tight, I have one chance to sharpen the writer’s work, clean up mistakes, tighten up concepts, make the work clear, concise, error-free. If I’m lucky and I have a little more time, I’ll do a first edit and then step away before I come at it fresh for a second edit. I usually find a another round of things I can make clearer, a mistake or two I missed, something that can be tightened up. As a writer, I self-edit–sometimes forever. I have a hard time knowing when it’s just right, when to stop.

In the process of blogging, I’m trying to be a little softer on myself. Of course when I go back and read a post I find things I want to edit, but I’m really trying to leave things as they are. This is a moment, right? And moments are rarely perfect.

Like writing, I find a similar struggle when editing photos. So many different directions I could take. And when I put my work “out there,” I often get advice and suggestions about how to edit. Sometimes I feel insecure about this advice and my choices. Other times it’s a learning process and I’m grateful for the advice. In any case, how you choose to present your work, I am finding, is awfully individual and dependent on all sorts of things… your mood when creating or editing, your frame of mind, your securities or insecurities, what kind or how much booze you’re drinking (and I’m only half kidding on this).

Anyway. I bet I’ll re-edit many of the photos from this weekend. But I am still on a high of inspiration and creation, even if imperfect, and I’m owning it (and this blog post, possible typos and grammatical errors and all).

COLEaboration, part one

June 18, 2016June 18, 2016 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

I had an idea. Or, more of a spark of an idea. A vision, maybe.

I am near Silver Lake State Park, which is a section of land that separates an inland lake from the big lake (Lake Michigan). Legend is that after the Great Chicago Fire, this piece of land was deforested to provide lumber to rebuild the city. Now, I don’t know for sure if this is true, but what I do know is it a vast, open landscape of moving, shifting, shape-changing, tree-swallowing, rolling, blowing, lunar landscape-looking, absolutely stunning sand dunes that I find infinitely compelling to photograph.

Twenty some years ago I met a dancer in a geology class in college and we were instant friends. I had never even heard of modern dance, let alone seen it performed, until I met Margi and she opened my eyes to it. We lost touch after college (pre-Internet days) and got back in touch in recent years via Facebook. She teaches dance and has a 20-year-old dance company (The Dance COLEctive), which I’ve seen perform several times and have always left these performances a bit shaken up–awed and inspired and full and just wowed. So many beautiful and talented dancers and creative voices.

I had a vision of photographing Margi on the dunes.

Movement, dance, shapes, shadows, sand, the driftwood as architectural element, human and stark nature. I don’t generally photograph people unless they are incidental to an image, but I’m trying to get more comfortable with it (directing people is not my strong suit). And this vision persisted, so I asked. Not only was she willing, she brought up the word “collaborate.” That felt safer–it wouldn’t be just me experimenting photographically with a willing participant, but it would now be two people creating something artistic, an experience, planting a seed. So we finalized a date.

We spent the weekend catching up, laughing, drinking, taking photos, and comparing vision as I started the editing process. I found she was drawn to some of the images I might have dismissed, and I was drawn to some she would have overlooked. In general, though, we gasped at the same images as I uploaded them, which I took as a very good sign that we had some stuff we were both happy with.

color, or…

…black and white?

I think we have some of the same sensibilities, and while she has the artist’s vocabulary to describe these things, I am still working on developing that language, those senses. In these few days I learned just a little of this language as well as a new way of looking at movement that is more organic and artistic. What a weekend of inspiration, of rekindling an old friendship, of creating. I feel full. And again wowed.

This is just a little of what we ended up with. I am having trouble moving away from black and white edits for these dune images, but I’ll sit on them a while and let the ideas percolate.

There’s much more, but I’m still processing (photos as well as the whole collaboration process). I’ll follow up with another post.

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Necessary distractions

June 12, 2016 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

I don’t want to say anything today for fear of the sadness.

Can I just live in a world where I think people want to live just like me, seeing only the good and the beauty around them, loving others for their differences or at the very least assuming a “live and let live” attitude?

I can’t wrap my brain around the events in Florida last night–I don’t want to spend a moment trying to understand that kind of hate. I hope, in not giving any more of a voice to it in this post, that I will read this later and wonder what I was writing about, if only for a moment. I am neither trying to make light nor be too heavy, I’m just too sensitive sometimes for this world. And so the proverbial blanket goes over my head for protection.

deshantzcook_20160612_IMG_7324

And then I drive or walk or ride my bike in search of things to shoot. Actually, I don’t think that’s a word I even want to use anymore. Capture? Or does that sound equally jarring? How about just photograph? That’s a mouthful sometimes, though. I’ll work on a better word choice, I guess. Anyway I often find myself on this particular road because of this tree. Er, former tree. I think it was struck by lightning some years ago. It sits at the edge of what last year was a corn field, and there are often crows, wrens, other birds hanging around it, maybe nesting in it. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to this tree, but I am, and I probably have hundreds of photos of it from all seasons but the deepest winter. The sky behind it today made it even more compelling.

Across the road from the tree is a grain field. I’m seeing more grains planted around here in the last several years, and some fields that used to be fruit trees or corn are converting to grain. I’m not sure if this is wheat or rye or some other grain, but I liked how it’s still young and thin–you can still see the grooves in the earth through the stalks.

deshantzcook_20160612_IMG_7332

I’ll admit I photograph many of the same things over and over, and I don’t even mind that because they never look the same depending on the season, the sky, the clouds–but I’m always looking for something different, something I haven’t seen before, something I might have missed.

deshantzcook_20160612_IMG_7377

Like a former school, now used for storage, and its forgotten basketball courts. I have a soft spot for the abandoned and unloved. Probably all part of that whole sensitivity thing.

Tomorrow morning I’ll send several rolls of film out for developing. For someone who isn’t great at waiting, I’ve probably made a lousy choice in this burgeoning interest in film photography. It’s all about waiting and the element of surprise, neither of which I’m particularly good at. (I say I like surprise, but that’s just me convincing myself mostly.) Or maybe it means learning how to develop my own film is in my future? Oof. Another thing.