black and white photography – I dream of sumac and milkweed (and other wild things)

tiny hike in a squall

November 22, 2021 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

Yesterday, late afternoon, we left the toasty cottage to hike in the woods behind us. It was only meant to be a short hike, to have a look at the little lake that’s tucked into the trees back there. The woods would offer some protection from the wind that was picking up. When I was little, there was a trail that went all the way around that lake and I knew it like I knew my own image in the mirror. The spots where the trail kisses the edge of the lake, the clearing where local boy scout troops were allowed to camp, the marshy places where you needed to step carefully, the places where locals sometimes fished. The lake was filled with tiny frogs and fish and lily pads, and water skaters carved patterns on its surface. It was magical.

The land went through some ownership changes over the years, including a spell of logging and another spell of an owner who didn’t want anyone in there, so our access became limited. Now, though, a good part of it is owned by a conservancy, and I’m rediscovering it.

After we hiked the ridge that separates the dune from the woods, we made our way down to the water’s edge for our favorite view of the lake. On this occasion, we got to see three eagles soaring and dipping over the lake and into and out of the woods on the opposite end. Luckily, eagles are no longer a rare site here, but it’s never not breathtaking to see one (or three). So we watched for a while before moving on.

After that, we hiked off-trail toward the far end of the lake, noticing that it was getting darker and darker. And then the rain came, and with it a fierce wind that reminded us that the woods isn’t the smartest place to be, with old trees swaying and cracking, so we quickened our pace.

Once back up on the ridge, we could see how wild the weather had become. The wind pushed the remaining leaves from the trees up into the sky, where they danced and pitched and soared like the eagles we’d watched 30 minutes prior. But the sky was filled with them, like a murmur of starlings.

We pushed into the wind as we took our final steps back to the cottage, getting pelted by rain and sand and those soaring leaves, all to the deafening din of a now-roaring Lake Michigan.

winter grasses

November 21, 2021 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

Lake Michigan dune grasses, last winter (2021)

The dune grasses on Lake Michigan go to seed in the fall. One variety shoots a tall wispy stalk of delicate seeds several feet above the grasses; another produces these thicker stalks, which are soft and sturdy and remind me a bit of a cat tail (but not the plant called cattail, or bullrush–I mean an actual cat’s tail). The grasses turn from a verdant green in summer to a rather striking golden straw color in the winter.

In the spring, the green shoots of new grasses poke their way up through the golden carpet. This carpet of old and new grasses just layers on top of itself, helping to stabilize the dune. It’s miraculous, I think.

I took this photo last winter on a short hike across the dune near the Little Sable Point Lighthouse with my Minolta SRT-102.

evolution, changes

February 20, 2018 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

And here things go again, all changing and rearranging.

I only just got used to the idea of my oldest graduating college and then the idea of her interviewing kind of snuck up (I know, it’s sneaked, but I like snuck better even if it’s wrong) on me and then just really out of nowhere it appears that just weeks after she graduates she’s moving too many states away from me. She’s leaving her mama.

How does that happen? (I’m only partially asking rhetorically. I’m dumbfounded.)

I’m excited–so excited!!!–for her. I’m obscenely proud. I will be thrilled to visit her when she invites me. But selfishly I want her right here, a couple of towns away from me, where I can drive to her when I need to lay eyes on her. She is capable, I know this. But I remember the first time I sent her to camp for two weeks and it felt like forever and I worried endlessly (and needlessly) and walked around feeling like a part of me was absent, like I’d left a piece of my body somewhere I couldn’t see. Out in the rain. And the wind. Dangling from a cliff.

I felt like that again when she moved off to college. You settle into these things and they begin to become okay, that odd feeling that a part of you is not attached ever so slightly starts to fade. You adjust. I know I will adjust, but oh how this part is bittersweet.

So, there is that. An end, a beginning, new adventures. These are good things.

stone rail, foot bridge in fog in distance

I sent four rolls of film to the lab and hoped I’d get them back before I went to California for work last week. One was a roll of 35mm Lomography Earl Gray film shot on the Minolta SRT 102, and the other three were 120mm film–Kodak Tri-X, a Kodak T-Max and Fuji Acros–all shot on the Bronica SQ-A (the square shots are the Bronica).

These first images are from a neighborhood park on a day that remained foggy all day.

I don’t know about you, but I kind of love fog. It’s mysterious, you know?

The rest are some of the images from that snowy hike with my son a few weeks ago.

My son.

I don’t want to put pressure on the kid, but with my daughter leaving I’m kind of hoping he sticks around a little longer.

I know, I know. It’s what they’re supposed to do. I’ll roll with it.

So, an oddity… I never have light leaks in the Minolta SRT 102, but in shooting the 8 x 10 in the snow I have this lovely light leak shooting through. Isn’t that interesting?

half-here

February 5, 2018February 5, 2018 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am. I don’t write much about work here, but I have a pretty amazing job at a company that doesn’t scrimp on showing its employees that they are valued. More than that, though, it’s the people I work with. They make it all even better.

I spent a week in January at my company’s office in the San Francisco Bay, and while it was busy and I didn’t get to spend any time outside (my favorite thing) at least it was nice to have not only a change of scenery, but to be able to wear cute shoes and not ruin them because of snow and salt. I’m luckier still that my dear friend will be joining our team in just one week, and I will be flying again to California to help get her started.

I also think that it’s a luxury to have a job like this. I hear too many stories about people hating their job, their workplace, or their supervisors and tolerating those things, sometimes for decades, because they have to. I’ve either been lucky or I’ve played my cards right, but my career has been full of friends, mentors, and people I respect. I wish everyone had that.

Anyway, maybe because I was there three times last year, I’m starting to have dreams about California. It’s starting to feel more like home.

And I’m getting itchy for another non-work trip. I poked around a bit on Airbnb last night, dreaming of different skies. When I do that I feel like I’m half-here, half-somewhere else… one foot in my normal world. It’s a strange feeling, but not an unpleasant one.

But I also dream in pictures. And most of my pictures, or at least the ones I feel like I’m meant to be making, are here in Michigan and of the lake, the plants, the landscape I feel connected to.

These photos are from my first roll of film of 2018. It was snowing like mad and I left the cottage to wander into the meadow and woods with the Bronica SQ-A and a roll of Ilford FP4+. There are some odd lines on a few of these images and I’m not sure what might have caused them, but they are on the film and not just on the scans. I was more worried about correct exposure with all the white, but I either lucked out a bit or FP4+ is forgiving. Either way, I like my snowy shots and feel a little more comfortable shooting in the snow now, in terms of metering (it’s still challenging in terms of managing gear, snow on lenses, cold, and wetness!).

square love

December 11, 2017 sumacandmilkweed3 Comments

So, the Yashica Electro 35 GSN I for some reason felt absolutely compelled to buy… doesn’t work. Well, it does. I mean, all the bits work. But when I put a battery in it, the things that the battery is supposed to make work don’t work. So technically I could run a roll of film through it because it defaults to a shutter speed of 1/500; so I could use it, but with limitations. That’s the chance you take on eBay, and I’m only out the price of a couple of fussy pour-over coffees or a pour of very nice bourbon, so not a big deal. I might run it over to the camera repair anyway and get a quote. In any case it’s shelved for now and I’ll mess around with it in January because I have a gazillion things to do because, you know, holidays.

I still haven’t bought chemicals and equipment to develop my own black and white film (I have tanks and reels, but not the other stuff) and I didn’t shoot any black and white over the summer anyway, but I have lately and I’ve sent it off to The Darkroom because they do a terrific job. I am in limbo right now because I hoped to sign up for another film class at a local community college and I just assumed they’d have a winter night class available like they did last winter, but alas, all the film classes are during the day and I am beholden to my employer during the daylight hours. There is a new community darkroom that I contributed to that will hopefully open in January, but I’m not seeing any updated news on their website so I don’t know. In any case, I’m itching to have a darkroom available to me so I can do this myself. I miss the magic. I miss printing and reprinting until an image is just right (er… is it ever just right?). So for now The Darkroom will develop my black and white film until I can do it myself again, and I’ll have to live with digital scans instead of prints.

I’m itching, I tell you.

I shot two rolls of black and white film, Ilford FP4+ and an expired roll of Kodak Tri-X Thanksgiving weekend. 2018 should be the year I start to take notes… I’m awful at that, and didn’t write down the year the Tri-X expired. I metered at box speed (400) and that seemed fine. It was my first time with FP4+ (I think, anyway. See, that’s where notes would come in) and I might be in love.

LDC_20171209_000232140005 — Brookwood in a dusting of snow, Bronica SQ-A, Ilford FP4+

I’m feeling a little googly-eyed and swoony over the Bronica SQ-A right now. I am dreaming in square format. I want to use it all the time. For everything. I want to lay it on the pillow next to my head when I sleep so I can gaze at it lovingly when I wake up, although I think it would hurt a lot if it bonked me in the middle of the night because it’s really quite heavy. If it were one of my children, I’d without shame tell it that it’s my favorite. I wouldn’t even whisper so the other kid wouldn’t overhear.

post, Bronica SQ-A, Ilford FP4+

milkweed pod and seed, Bronica SQ-A, Ilford FP4+

rows, Bronica SQ-A, Ilford FP4+

farmhouse, Bronica SQ-A, Ilford FP4+

firewood, Bronica SQ-A, Ilford FP4+

bee smoker, Bronica SQ-A, Ilford FP4+

gull, , Bronica, expired Kodak Tri-X

sentinel, Bronica, expired Kodak Tri-X

Everyone does this, right? Gets all swoony and wants to write poems about things like cameras and films.

No?

Ah, well. I shot two more rolls through the Bronica after a snowfall this past weekend. I’ve a bit to learn about proper metering in snow, so who knows what I’ll get. And one roll was a 2003-expired Kodak Verichrome Pan (I took note! there is hope!), a film I know nothing about. You can’t say I’m afraid to experiment.

Frantic limbo

April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 sumacandmilkweedLeave a comment

I’m right in between things.

barn and field, Kodak Tri-X, Mamiya 645 1000s

leaning shed, Fuji Acros, Mamiya 645 1000s

In between a work trip. My film photography class is ending. Then a vacation to an unknown and, to me, exotic place. Then a move from town to the beach for the summer. And in the meantime I feel the unease of my kids as they finish their college terms. Does that part ever end, I wonder–the part where you feel the pain of whatever stress or difficulty your (albeit adult) children are going through? Somehow I don’t think I was totally prepared for that part of parenting.

Oh but who am I kidding? All the parts of parenting have surprised me. Why would I think that now, because they are grown, it should be any different?

White River Light, Kodak Tri-X, Mamiya 645 1000s

In any case I feel such a sense of limbo right now. I’m trying to roll with it.

And speaking of rolls… I have been frantically shooting film like I have the budget of someone who has, well, a big budget for film. I’m a copy editor, after all, and last I checked no one ever said they wanted to go into copy editing to make the big bucks. But here I am buying and blowing through rolls of film like they’re free or something.

LDC_20170416_img198 — creeping juniper, Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

LDC_20170416_img195 — new shoots on the forest floor, Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

I have developed 22 rolls of black and white film for my class and will develop three more this week before the lab will be off limits. I had four rolls of color film developed in February; I’ve got five rolls of color film at a lab right now, and had two rolls of color film developed a few weeks ago. That’s 36 rolls of film shot and developed since January. Of nothing special, even. I could have far worse vices, right?

LDC_20170415_img193 — orchard road, Fuji Acros, Holga

For my last class assignment I wanted to photograph a thing I love. The sand dunes at Silver Lake offer a shifting landscape that at times buries and other times unearths the ghostly treasures of its past. I’ll never tire of hiking these dunes and coming across these alien, sculptural roots and trunks of the trees that once forested this landscape. The light cooperated, but I found the resulting photos an interesting juxtaposition–these images look serene, but the wind was so fierce it nearly knocked me off the tops of some dune ridges and sand came out of my scalp for two days after I got home.

I still have so many more to scan, and a few might show how windy it really was.

long shadows on the dune, Fuji Acros and Holga

driftwood and dunegrass in valley, Fuji Acros and Holga

driftwood, Fuji Acros and Holga

waves, Fuji Acros and Holga

LDC_20170416_img200 — resting under a live tree, Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

Ilford FP4, Minolta SRT 102

LDC_20170412_img180 — alien on the dune, Fuji Acros, Mamiya 645 1000s

Spring, sort of

March 31, 2017 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

Last Friday’s burst of warmth and color quickly turned to chill, gray, lackluster. I crave that color, but I’m beginning to see things differently. Black and white film opens you up to that, I think.

umbrella, riverfront, rain, Minolta SRT 102 and Lomography Earl Gray

Since January I’ve shot and processed (myself!) 16 rolls of black and white film, 35mm and 120mm. I have one more assignment in the class I’m taking and then I may need to go a little nuts with color film for a while after that, especially as I’ll be in California for one day of sightseeing before a few days of work and then after that in Lima, Peru for a week. I don’t know much about Lima yet, but I am imagining it’s a place requiring color film. I can’t wait to find out.

gnarly trees and clouds, Mamiya 645 1000s, Kodak T-Max 400

But despite the gray, there are green shoots, buds, the smell of wet earth, wildly chirping birds… all these signs of impending color and warm and sun. We are poised and ready and the wait makes the reward that much more delicious.

Marsh in metropark, Holga, Kodak T-Max 400

This week is exciting, different, changing. I have a new outlook. My youngest turned 21 this week, which feels like a new era… both my babies are adults. I shared an interview and photos with a community of film enthusiasts and the experience makes me feel lucky, like pinch-myself lucky, to be considered as someone with a passionate voice. I will have family around me this weekend and I will revel in that.

Good things are coming.

Love letters to the city, part two

January 12, 2017January 12, 2017 sumacandmilkweed4 Comments

More of Detroit’s downtown buildings, these things that make me swoon and forget to look where I’m going.

This time in black and white, also 35mm film. A study in shapes, lines, angles. I took these on both the last day of 2016 and on the first day of 2017, closing out and opening up the new year looking up.

These were shot on two different different Minolta SLR cameras and both with Kodak Tri-X film–an SRT-102 using the suggested film speed (400) and an X-700 pushing the film two stops to 1600. I’m not certain I can tell the difference, but this is my first stab at pushing and I think it might not be my last.