I've been photographing our marks on the landscape for my entire career. The tension between the natural world and our constructs is often strange, challenges perspective, downright odd, and sometimes compelling.
Despite my concentration on the natural world, I have never sought to idealize it, but rather plunge deep into what I find, whatever direction that might take. For over 30 years I have been drawn to the curious marks we make, the things we build, together with the debris and evidence we leave behind.
As is often the case these days after so many years of working, a body of work can emerge from looking at what I've been curious about over time. We see a photograph, get reminded of others, start to associate even more images, and without consciously deciding to consider a grouping, the associations start to form.
Many of the images that could be gathered under this idea of our hands on the land come from other projects, the Great Central Valley work, my series Western Artifacts, and countless isolated images that seemed irresistible at the time.
The theme also reminded me of a song I wrote over 30 years ago watching the moon rise and the sun set on the Anasazi ruins at Waputki near Flagstaff. Thinking back to the making of those buildings, a vivid image came to mind of people working hard to build a community, their very home clearly made from the earth, rising from the ground toward the sky.
I'm riding the wind back a 1000 years
I can see his skin in the sun
With his careful hands he shapes his earth
his red house growing in the blue
We are native to this planet. Naturally we leave evidence of our presence. Although there are many reasons to decry this impact with so much of what we do, it is also the very delight of researchers trying to understand our past, and the casual cultural anthropologists we all become in our fascinations. How old does graffiti have to be to become pictographs and evidence of who we were?
We often impose ourselves on the land incidentally, our works becoming visual evidence of land use, from agriculture to dumps, by merely using the land. We've been making such marks for at least 5000 years. Sometimes the impact is direct and intentional, human humor and art laid onto the land. Other times it is debris, the decay of what we leave to collapse back into that very land. Visually they can all be compelling in different ways.
Stone Fence. Ireland. 2008
It was invigorating to explore some of these files, and go searching for a few I vaguely remembered, most of which there is not room for here. But the last few days have been a good exercise. Whether this little archive exploration continues and is joined by others will depend on how these few images settle in, and grow on me, the feedback I may get, and if my curiosity dares open those daunting drawers with thousands and thousands of negatives...
Looking again at some of the work from the Western Artifacts Project does make me want to pull those together into a set of great scans and finished modern prints. Anyone want to come in and intern on some projects?...
At The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
Deliberate impositions on the land, using it as a surface for the making of art is often not as interesting as something that happens coincidental to the makers intentions. But sometimes you come across that rare combination of intention and aesthetics that makes you really notice.
Many of you know Robert Smithson's work, like the Spiral Jetty, work by Andy Goldsworthy and others. An artist from Santa Cruz, Jim Denevan, has been doing massive beach markings for years. Their art is in the marks they make on the land, by intention and hard work.
In Jim's case, they are ephemeral marks that the next wave can wash away. I documented some of his work many years ago, and greatly admired his dedication to drawing something so temporary, and that so few would see. The photo documentation became the record, and for most, the experience, the temporal quality part of the preciousness of the creation.
My good friend and former assistant David Gardner has been working an a great series Marking Our Place in the World which directly relates to these ideas.
Landsharks. 1984.
I've delighted in driving by the Landsharks for years. Where natural form has suggested a palette for art and humor, graffiti and comment, those sites particularly engage me. I wish I knew who did it, how long they thought about it, and if it was carefully planned or quickly improvised. I know the paint has been touched up over the years, so somebody cares.
Photographing from a commercial airplane is both difficult and irresistible. The views can be astounding. I'm amazed that people close their windows. There are a few obvious, and perhaps not so obvious things, that can make a difference in making the best of a challenging situation, to take advantage of the view, and occasionally make some fine photographs.
Plan Ahead
Unless seeking a specific view, try to book a seat on the opposite side of the plane from the sun, usually in the northern hemisphere this means facing north.
Book early and try to get a seat well in front of the wing to avoid jet exhaust. If that is not possible for increasing far and late bookings, try as far back in the plane as you can get.
Dress for minimizing internal reflections with a dark, non-patterned shirt.
Bring a rubber lens shade with sufficient flexibility to press against the acrylic plane window without it squishing and blocking your view.
Making the Photographs
Do what you can to buff the inner window of smudges. A laptop screen cleaning kit seems to present no problem for the airlines and can help. The elbow cloth of your shirt can also be a quick help.
Always use fast shutter speeds for normal plane motion, but particularly in turbulence. Higher ISO with the noise they can bring is better than blurs.
I usually opt for my 28-70mm lens as that is slightly too wide to avoid the wing in many cases, but long enough to simplify a bit without too much added apparent motion from a long lens. There are times when I wish I could go a bit longer though, so I keep a longer lens handy when I can.
Documentation
Use an app like Flight Aware to download the path of your flight, save the flight log and map to know where you were and when to match the time of the photograph to the log in order to identify your subject. This can be particularly satisfying when really bizarre things are seen and you become determined to find out what on earth they are.
I am a deep fan of aerial photography. I am always seeking a window seat and carrying my camera, as I have been for over 30 years.
Flying back from my recent east coast lecture tour, I looked into using an App from my iPad/iPhone called Fight Aware to track the route we flew. As I was exploring it, I noticed I could save the route as a Google Earth compatible .gmx file and save the times and location of the entire route,
San Francisco at Dawn. 2012.
This led me down a path of tracing back some photographs I made along the way of curious sites and some nice compositions. I now have the ability to determine locations, place names and some investigative opportunities to find out what on earth some of these markings on our earth actually were.
Baker Lake, Arkansas. 2012.
Razor Bluff, Colorado. 2012.
Flight Aware Route Screen.
At The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
Snapshot: Steve in the White House Press Room. 2012.
A West Wing White House Tour
While in Washington DC last week, I was fortunate to be able to tour the West Wing of the White House. It was amazing to look into the Oval Office and take in all that has happened there. The fate of our nation rests with decisions made in that room.
The Presidential election this year probably heightened that since of history. But I do find my mind keeps coming back to staring into that room, the Oval Office. The fact that it is smaller than all of the wide-angle photographs have suggested, the concrete non-emperor quality of ordinary old paint on old wood, the simple reality of the real space. We were not allowed to photograph on the tour, but the scene made a deep impression on me.
North Portico of the White House from the West Wing.2012.
Just moving around the White House, going in and leaving the tour, brought a core reality to the place that took myth and made the place real. Even the interrelationships of the rooms and space was surprising. It was hard not to photograph, as so much of what I saw contextualized spaces I had never before put together quite right. I was happy to make a few images outside and in the Press Room.
Like most any visitor to Washington DC, I am always taken by my first sighting of the Washington Monument. It seems from almost any view, I keep making photographs of the spire. To say that it's iconic is a bit obvious, but there is something singularly remarkable about it as a form and symbol. I get emotional at the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, and particularly at the Vietnam Veterans Wall. But there is something about this towering spire...
The Washington Monument from the Old Post Office. 2012.
The photograph you may see will often only be a photograph you make if you are prepared to capture it.
Check existing settings that might be left from a previous situation that may be quite different than what you need now. Common problematic settings may be methods of focus, high ISO setting, Manual vs Auto exposure, Image Stabilization turned on and customized for the movement, or off if on a tripod.
Thinking through the ambient exposure and likely subject matter needs can anticipate a moment so that your camera is preset for what is likely.
Fast moving action means pre-setting a fast shutter speed, and possibly high ISO if limited light needs it.
As you walk down a street, consider what it is you are noticing, and prepare for possible unfolding events that needs quick response. Put on the most likely needed lens, but arrange the pack for other things you may need, the second most likely lens.
Although it may seem an unlikely pairing, being prepared also makes for a greater possibility of serendipity playing a wonderful role in recording the completely unexpected.
The dolphin photograph to the right could not exactly be seen, it was happening too quickly. The settings I set up were able to capture a magic I could intend, but not actually see and react to quickly enough to capture. I had to just set the camera and keep tripping the shutter, sometimes on continuous bursts and hope that some of the magic I was seeing could be held. It was, and more.
I rarely know what these essays will turn toward, as I write from the photographs I make, and the experiences that evolve. Water reflections, movement, flow and its very precious nature seems to be holding my mind the last few days.
A few recent experiences contributed to this. A quick trip just before Labor Day to the high Sierra and Mono Lake brought me back to some deeply inspiring places. The lake water rising, reflections, the streams and rivers of the Sierra, all filled my head. The very life of water running brought relief from the desert heat. Then, just last week, a long awaited whale watch cruise into Monterey Bay with whales and dolphins moving through the blue-green Pacific brought water back into my head.
Last Light Cloud. Mono Lake. 2012.
The constant movement of water is one of its infinite fascinations. In photography, I never know exactly what the result of moving water will look like rendered. Whether it is ocean streaming off a Humpback Whale's fluke as it dives, the tumble of a waterfall, or the laminar flow of water in, and around dolphins speeding through their liquid world.
The dolphins were a great example. They played with the boat, racing along, round in front, speeding so fast it was impossible to understand how they could move so rapidly through the water. I wasn't fully prepared for the photographic opportunity, it all happened so quickly. I had carelessly left a slow card in the camera, and had only a very long lens handy when we encountered the dolphins. Sharp, carefully planned shots with real bursts of exposures, backed off in zoom were not going to happen. So I rolled with the abstraction of some blur and wildly improvisational compositions, largely out of necessity.
We were told they were Common Dolphins. We thought they were anything but.
Common Dolphins, Monterey Bay. 2012.
It reminded me of other experiences and photographs, of mammals, birds, water flow and reflections, even probably inspiring new work over the next few days where form and movement kept playing into the magic of water...
A few from the last two weeks, Monterey Bay, from the Russian River, and the Sonoma Coast seemed worth including here.
White Pelicans. Sonoma Coast. 2012.
Pelicans. Pescadero. 2012.
Great Blue Heron Landing on the Russian River. 2012.
Reflections and Granite Shoreline. Teneya Lake, Yosemite. 2012.
High Sierra and Tioga Pass
Driving over Tioga Pass in Yosemite is always special for me. I have to continually renew my connections to this road that takes me to 10,000 feet amid the mountains that have given me the greatest solace of my life. Just short of Tuolumne Meadows heading from the west is Teneya Lake which happened to have some unusual water color layers and reflections.
Mono Lake
No visit ever fails to deepen my fascination and appreciation of the wonder of Mono Lake. It is curious to see the lake rise and re-flood so many of the familiar tufa formation we came to love. We hoped this would happen, as it is critical for the lake's vitality as an eco-system.
But as trails get reworked and formations start to return to the water of their birth, I am also reminded that getting to know many of these places was a fluke of careless water diversions. Watching them start to disappear under Mono's ancient waters is simply the right course for this precious resource. It does also give us a short window (hopefully) to still see some of these magnificent formations.
Last week, revisiting Lee Vining Creek, one of Mono Lake's feeder streams, reminded me of some video I made last year which took me down a meditative path of water movement poetry. Here it is, unedited, for whatever transportive qualities it may have for you.
Lee Vining Creek. Mono Lake. 2011. Canon 5dII. (streaming may be slow)
Black and White or Color? A question that has changed in some fundamental ways in this digital age. Now we almost always make our photographs in color through Bayer pattern filters spread across our sensors filtering the light into red, green and blue.
If we want black and white, for the most part, we are starting in color. This is frustrating on one level, because it means if we want black and white, we have to derive the color first, then transform the photograph into grayscale.. This lowers the resolution of the file as compared to what it would be without the color filters.
But there are also some wonderful advantages. It means the black and white world we derive from color (albeit, now on the computer) can be almost anything we imagine, or stumble into through experimentation. The Black and White Adjustment Layer in Photoshop further enables a level of customization that it is almost unbelievable. We can experiment with conversions, customize different areas with masks, and re-imagine the nature of what a black and white photograph can be.
Although Grayscale (BW) conversion can be done in Camera Raw, Lightroom, Capture One and other raw processors, I prefer Photoshop because of the masking and control, allowing different areas to be converted in different ways, as shown below.
From July 2011 Newsletter: Black and White Selective Conversion. Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park. Maine. 2011.
Chard, Veggie Series (color). 2012
Chard, Veggie Series (custom black and white with adjustments shown on graphic to the left). 2012
In the example here, the color file provided the raw material for separating the BW conversion into dark stems on glowing leaves. It's a major tonal shift, but demonstrates the flexibility of the process.
I've been thinking about form, organic, sensual form, living objects, the things we grow and eat, the things we subconsciously pick up at a market, the fruits and vegetables that make up so much of our diet. Or ought to. The beauty of these objects, their vibrant color, improbable form and connection to the earth are all compelling sources we instinctively seek.
Our new RAW from RAW class and a visit to the San Francisco Farmers Market, brought a plethora of peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and strange fungus into our lives to serve as models for the class. We needed them as subjects, now feel somewhat overwhelmed at their beauty, imminent decay, and the need to act fast to do them photographic justice before they collapse into something quite different.
The class was fun, very hands-on, and filled with immediate feedback on our work, which was wonderful. In the studio, a slight change in approach shows up immediately. Working with depth of field in such a demonstrable and dramatic way was very rewarding. Making photographs as a depth of field expansion set, then demonstrating how to put them together was also very effective, and fun. (see Testimonial by Alan Kushnir).
It makes me want to wander the beach, collect more stuff, go through the rock and artifact collection, get lost in those most curious things we pick up and hold on to. There must be a reason after all, for me to hold onto so many of those precious jewels of the moment for so many years.
Pepper. Veggie Series. 2012.
Help! Bell peppers everywhere!!!!!!
I feel like we're drowning in the veggies we gathered for the class. Although it is shame they are wilting, it is also a delight that we are eating very well.
Cucumbers, Bitter Melon, and Peppers in color and custom black and white. 2012.
Black and White or Color
With the advent of the Black and White Adjustment Layer in Photoshop, whole new worlds of black and white interpretation have opened up to us. The veggies above are a simple example, the tutorial below explores the possibilities a bit further.
Surf at sunset, north Pacifica.. 2012..
Another Surf Photograph
Why do we keep photographing scenes we've seen a thousand times before? When do they become compelling once again, and what can the photograph be that makes the new particular experience stand out. A topic we'll explore in the Beauty in Photography course coming up November 3rd.
