The LX tour of New England included stops at Stowe, VT, Franconia, NH, Gloucester, MA and Newport, RI.  A notable stop for dinner was The Alchemist in Waterbury, VT (20 min south of Stowe).  Brewmaster John Kimmich makes perhaps the best IPA in captivity.  Food is recommendable too.  Definitely worth a stop.  Our stop in Gloucester included a chest deep ocean meeting with my able web master Steve Brettler at smallfish web deisgn.  There are firsts for everything.

Further nattering about feeling young: Newport Jazz Festival dished up 78 year old “Saxophone Colassus” Sonny Rollins.  This event marked his return to the Newport Jazz Festival stage for the first time since 1958.  The man can play and play.  When I see someone like Rollins still doing what he clearly loves and does so well, considering he has been doing it for more than 60 years, it is truly humbling.

The two day affair was marked with terrific weather, emerging talent (Anat Cohen, Guillermo Klein, Chris Potter, Brian Blade) and established musicians (Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Wayne Shorter, Bill Frissell).  It is an extremely well run event in a stunning setting with Fort Adams creating a “natural” amphitheater and Newport Harbor as an awesomely beautiful back drop.

Roman numerals (while difficult to figure out) lend a certain ageless quality.

So I turned 60 on 8/2/08 and I have been entertained by comments and suggestions.  The best being “time to fill your pockets with rocks and walk into the bay.”  Though I am not ready it is a marvelous suggestion.  On 8/2 we saw and listened to Dave Brubeck play with his group and listened to an interview with him and Paquito D’Rivera and I felt rather like a teenager considering he is 87 and managing a pretty full concert schedule.  Oh my.  Last summer he played at Newport Jazz Festival and was terrific.

Yale has in addition to the afore mentioned Abe Morell show a small but worthy show of two pictures by Van Gogh:  Starry Night and Cypresses.   it is a solid art experience to have a timed viewing slot to view two paintings in a yellow room perhaps 15 ft. square with 8 other intimate (new) friends.  Who has time to feel 60?

more soon.

It is here and it is good.  It answers most all the post shoot needs I have, leaving Photoshop for heavy lifting.  The pundits will build it up or tear it down but it works very nicely.  My guess is that it will even get better.

In Jackson, WY at the Oswald Gallery, Cary Tijerina is holding forth and is showing a fine selection of work including Dylan Vitone, Kelli Connell, and Jon Stuart among others.  While not exactly known for first rate fine photography Jackson is blessed to have the Oswalds in residence there.  The gallery is large enough to have several galleries and devote a space to contemproary artists and a fine showing of collectable photographs as well.  Cary is a knowledgeable, engaging and articulate host.  When in Jackson and tired of the extraordinary landscape and weather, spend some time at Oswald Gallery.

Behind the Seen: Photographs of Abe Morell

The second time I have seen and written about an Abe Morell exhibition in two months; this time at YUAG in New Haven.  There are about 40 pictures up including some of his very recent color work done in museums (as Doran Artist in Residence at YUAG) and camera obscura. The show is up through Aug 10.

The guy just continues to make first rate stuff.

I have been awarded an Artist in Residence position this fall by CEPA in Buffalo, NY.  I will have a month to photograph the corridor between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. The area is full of the stuff I love to look at: tourists, industrial waste land, industry and the power grid, kitch and Niagara Falls.  I figure if I simply work my way from Buffalo to Niagara Falls every day on either Niagara Falls Blvd (rte 62) or Military Avenue I can’t miss. There is enough material to share.  On top of the AIR gig I will have available the Leaf 75S Aptus digital back for my SWC.  How could things get better?  Read on.

Concurrent with the AIR gig, I will be Visiting Artist at VSW covering the 1st year photography line and critic with 2nd year students.  It promises to be an interesting 15 weeks.  The students at VSW are square pegs trying to fit (or not) into round holes.  There is a locus of energy and creativity that is palpable that I have known since I was a workshop student there in 1972.  I return willingly and enjoy my time thouroughly.  I love it.

James Rajotte, student and now colleague has also been selected and has nearly sold out his edition on Jen Bekman’s 20×200.  Great for James and great for Jen.   His work is worth a look.

James is off to Frenchtown, PA (read middle of no where) for three weeks of photo concentration.  I’ll post something form this effort as soon as available.

I received an email that desrves wider distribution.  Stephen Dybas, former student and now colleague from VSW, has taken over the reigns of th In-Sight Photography Program in Brattleboro, VT.  His first task as director is to roll out the 2008 auction, a worthy cause and one with its heart in exactly the right place.

Have a look at what John Willis started and Stephen has assumed.

Best to you Stephen.

I am test driving a D3 for a couple of weeks and will post some reactions and images as they show up.  First reaction though was surprise at the size of the camera, particularly with the 24-70 lens on it.  Overall it was about 50% larger than my SWC.  The camera has a very high KPD factor (Knobs per Dollar) requiring 45 minutes to tweak the camera into submission before making the first exposure.  Why are there so many buttons?  I shot this past week with my SWC and with only one button still was able to make pictures.  Go figure.

After shooting for two weeks and before I worked with a file; some comments.  The D3 is still big.  And heavy.  I made it a bit smaller by using a Zeiss 25/2.8 Distagon.  I decided I do not need autofocus but aperture prioity is a good thing.  Te D3 is simply too much camera for the way I work.  Having said that and hearing that Nikon has announced a D700 which is a bit smaller, same sensor and having some fewer bells and whistles and  $2000 less this may be getting closer to the answer.

I shot 6GB with the D3 and found it to be reiable and easy to use once you were ready to use it.  There are still about 50 menues I haven’t touched and won’t.  Why don’t camera manufacturers get it?

I’ll add to this as things develop.  Pun intended.

I am doing a landscape workshop in Woodstock, NY; Finding the Social Landscape in and around Woodstock, September 20-21, CPW is a perfect base and Woodstock is that perfect setting.

The Woodstock area is full of both natural and man-made wonders. From the Hudson River to the Catskill Mountains, from wildlife to industry and from the local residents to the visiting tourists; this workshop will investigate how the natural landscape and the social landscape collide to offer up grand photographic possibilities.

Walking in the footprints of some of history’s greatest artists, we will investigate our surrounding area and all the wonders that encompass it.. This workshop will encourage you to find a personal way of seeing and interpreting a multi-layered environment. We will seek out the social landscape that surrounds us and begin to create stories and observations about it. Students will share their individual opinions about what photographing the landscape means within their work. There will be lectures, critiques and shooting trips in the surrounding area and beyond in search of the photographic holy grail. This is a workshop for fine art photographers, professional photographers and experienced amateurs who want to explore the photographic possibilities that are justoutside the door.

Myra Greene makes good art. She is currently campaigning a fine large group of colodian plates from the series Character Recognition. She has cast her net wide and is reaping the benefits of her hard work. See it if you can.

For the past two months I had the opportunity to work with a Leaf Aptus 75S on my Hasselblad SWC/M, thus giving me (maybe) the best of both worlds. Working with a camera I am completely familiar with an extremely high quality digital back. While it did make the camera bigger, I chose to work with the hard drive as I wanted to work on a tripod and the encumbrance would be null, plus I was able to work all day without having to think about reloading. The file size and quality is pretty stunning but not having to scan and clean files is such blessing.

I expected to miss working with the square but the aspect ratio (48×36) was close to my Plaubel Makina W67, with that size sensor I was able to use most of what the Biogon 38 would provide. (Normal Hasselblad neg size is 55 wide). I thought I would work slower and more deliberately (as in view camera slower) but this was not the case. It produces a 190MB Tiff at 16 bits so going to 30×40 or larger is no problem.

I worked directly from the hard drive to the Mac and imported into Lightroom where I could work nondestructively with the MOS (Leaf RAW file). Here is the rub: it costs the same as a Saab, but I can use my SWC. I have shot several hundred files and will work on them over the summer.  Stay tuned.

Jerry Leibling has a grand show at Yale Art Gallery that went up last week, most of a collection Yale recently purchased, with pictures from 1947-2000, b&w and color. Leibling is a master of surface, body, spirit and life. I sure like his work, especially his most recent color stuff.

Butterfly Boy, Jerome Leibling, 1949

Photographs from the Doris Bry collection are also up at Yale. A fine historical collection of pictures from Atget to Winogrand and much in between. Amazingly, there were no pictures larger than 20×24, which meant there were lots of pictures to look at very closely. A Robert Frank picture of the highway not even 2×3 in., many in the 8×10 range, quite a change to what we are typically seeing today.

Albert Renger-Patzsch 1942

It is hard to believe sometimes how fast things in the photo industry are changing. This week my C-41 lab (the last professional lab in the New Haven area) announced they are waving the white flag and calling it quits. Almost the same day my good friend Eric Luden, formerly of Ilford and later Harmon Industries, announced he is opening a professional black and white lab In Belmont, MA called Digital Silver Imaging where he will print to fiber based Ilford paper b&w digital files of the highest quality, catering to the fine artist and high end photographer, with a Durst Theta laser printer. Go figure. Best of luck to him.

I have seen the results and they are stunning.

www.digitalsilverimaging.com.

First Luke Strosnider then Kirby Pilcher, both students and friends at VSW were selected for Jen Bekman’s 20×200 program and both have sold out their editions. Yay. Proud.

Luke Strosnider

Kirby Pilcher

Raw Pipeline by Ted Dillard, a new book from Lark Books, is a straight forward work flow investigation and explanation into what to do and why do it to maximize the digital work flow.  Look for it at Amazon.

A recent extended effort, please note; this is the first black & white picture I have made in maybe 25 years.   More in the Extended Landscape gallery.

Digital Color Landscape

This class will emphasize seeing in color through assignments, critiques, lectures, and presentations. Using digital cameras and a Fuji instant printer, we will photograph and print daily without using computers or Photoshop. Experience is not necessary; enthusiasm is critical.

August 24-30

Penland is one of great workshop experiences. World class crafts in an idyllic setting north of Asheville, NC in the mountains. Glorious.

www.penland.org

My intention with this blog was to use it as a dynamic, current, and temporary space to post and try out new work and ideas; work that is not resolved yet but is intriguing to me; work that may not fit yet but warrants a look see. Along those lines, I have been carrying a Leica D-Lux 2 pocket size camera for a few years and I’ve shot about 3000 files. I am struck by some of the pictures I have made although I wouldn’t have shot these things with my big (read serious) cameras. There is a freeness and immediacy that this allowed me. I am continuing with this idea using a D-Lux 3 (bigger file size and snappy professional black finish).   To find out where it is going stay tuned as I will post pix periodically but regularly.

Chicago photographer Brad Temkin‘s work is beautiful, monumental work from Iceland. Really quite lovely.