the bend project

Now that the manuscript is finished, I've promised myself that I'll spend more time writing (and writing more regularly) here. I started the bend project a couple months ago. I was feeling pretty burnt out with most things related to photography. I didn't want to test new cameras or film. I'd gotten tired of that and without any conference travel plans on the horizon (having a chance to take pics places I'd normally never get to is the main incentive for doing conferences these days), well I'd grown pretty bored with things. Inspired by a flickr contact's seemingly endless creative projects and experiments, I decided to try to take a photograph of the same (approximate) point on a riverwalk path with each camera in my collection. I've only got 20 in the flickr set so far. For a time there, we were walking the path once a day. With the snow, the semester starting, etc. I've not gotten back there as often. Still, I figure that if and when I'm back there, I'll take with me another camera or two and see what else I can add to the set. Having only gotten to know this fabulous place in December, I'm eager to see what the walk looks like in spring, summer and fall! Featured below (top down) are bend pics taken by the holga, a 110 vellum film plane camera and a suprema camera with a vignette jelly lens. The first image of the bend was taken with the vivitar vivicam 8025.

honoring, rivaling and revising lp

lp may well not dig this--my silent variation on her theme--but i spent some time this afternoon remediating (i.e., honoring, rivaling and revising) a tiny portion of the 13 minute process documentary she produced for my language and society class. in fact, if we were of the same generation, lp might find herself singing "look what [she] done to my song, ma" when (or if) she views this.

i have to say, the original documentary was--is--incredible! lp used my office to conduct brief interviews with other members of the class. she asked them to describe what they were doing for their final projects, what they had already accomplished, what they had left to do, what their motives were, etc. lp then spent time shadowing one member of the class whose initials are also, ironically, lp. lp1 videotaped the processes lp2 employed while working on her final project, a complex piece of work entitled "the knowledge project."

while the bulk of the documentary focuses on the similarities (but mainly the differences) between lp2's processes and motives and those of her colleagues, i found the last three or so minutes of the piece to be incredibly moving.

backstory: when lp1 and i discussed the various types of footage she might collect for her project, we decided that she'd set up in my office with two cameras--my good videocamera and a flip video i borrowed from a colleague--leaving two other cameras free for classroom footage. one of these cameras (my flip video) was passed around from student to student (thereby freeing me up to take b/w stills with my yashica d) during the class session during which lp was conducting interviews in my office. before class began, my old sony cam was set up in the corner of the classroom where it just sat there, largely forgotten, collecting stuff.

and it was this stuff lp1 sped up and featured at the end of her documentary.

looking for a good excuse to do something with premiere pro i decided to take the last few minutes of lp1's video and insert into that footage the b/w stills i had taken that day. sadly missing from this version is lp1's most excellent soundtrack. . .

another pinhole comparison

when testing a new camera or technique, i find it really helpful to shoot the same things to provide a point of comparison. bracketing off the fact that lighting conditions, angle of the shot, overall composition, etc. contribute to the overall impact of the shot, it would be helpful to be able to review the difference between using this or that camera, this or that technique.

so. . .if i regret not having established and maintained a specific flickr habit or organizational/learning routine, it is this: inspired by this publication (originally published in 1978), i wish i had created sets named after the things i take pictures of when trying something new. (as it is, most of my sets are named after the camera or technique--holga, diana, diana pinhole, zorki, redscale, color developed as b/w, etc.)

i might have created instead (or as well) a set for the rusted-out tricycle, one for the bench in the woods, one for the kitchen table, etc. in this way, the bike set would have contained images of the tricyle taken with the flipped lens bhf, ikoflex, holga, and so on. i had thought briefly about doing this when i started shooting film (as this gave me a point of comparison between digital and film) but i never committed to it mainly because i kept thinking (after acquirng each new camera) "okay, this is it. i will stop testing new cameras now." 20 or 30 cameras and techniques later, ah well. i do consider, every now and then, taking the time to go back through the test rolls and creating these sets but it seems like soooo much work. in short, i really regret not doing this when i got the holga.

so, in the spirit of attempting to do this now (at least with pinhole comparisons), here are study shots--the first two were taken with my matchbook pinhole (with two different pinhole sizes) and the final image was taken with the zero image pinhole.

One subject three ways

In his 1982 essay, “Variations on a Theme as the Crux of Creativity,” Douglas Hofstadter (def. not the individual pictured above) references a really cool book—one that he actually describes as “curious”—published by William Kaufmann (again, also not the individual pictured above) in 1978. The book is called One Book Five Ways. As Hofstadter describes it, “a manuscript on indoor gardening was sent around to five different university presses, and they all cooperated in coming up with full publication versions of the book, which turned out to be stunningly different at all conceivable levels” (245). The text (as “metabook”) features side-by-side versions of the various texts. Hofstadter, using language reminiscent of Marx Wartofsky’s (still not the statue guy), calls this a “foray into ‘possible worlds’” (245) and I’ve had the concept of this text in mind as I’ve thought about shooting the test rolls for the various cameras I’ve recently acquired. Otherwise put, in an effort to have some point of comparison for better understanding what I’m doing, what the camera is doing (or what we are doing together), I’ve made an effort to shoot similar things with the various cameras: the rusty tricycle, coneflowers, kitchen table, the spout out back, the woods, etc. Thanks to a recent flickr contact, I’ve learned how to put these images together in photoshop. (Prior to that, if I wanted to create a diptych or triptych, I’ve had to do that with the Nikon n50, remembering to take photos and cut the negatives accordingly before I try to scan them.) The William Sondheim (that's the guy pictured above) triptych featured here is comprised (left to right) of a shot taken with the Yashica D, the (quite toylike) VistaQuest VQ350, and the Ikoflex. Not a terrifically interesting (or, in Hofstadter’s terms, “curious”) composition, but in the process of putting this together I’ve begun thinking about ways to achieve more interesting variations on this particular theme. Hmmm.