A spacious split second2008-06-25
Rialto & Cake Rock, January 2008
I waited for over an hour for the tide to do again what I thought I saw from the corner of my eye. I’m always chasing peripheral impressions. But I waited more for me than the tide. I was about to pack it in when the cycle finally repeated. The next time it happened I was sure it would be too small, and so on..Must learn to count. How many second chances do I get? Details: Time to make the donuts2008-06-22
Ruby Beach, February 2007
Getting up really early, well it never gets really easy. But it does get tolerable. When I was younger and first moved to Seattle and worked in restaurants I used to get up to catch the bus at around 4 am. Of course I drank somewhat more in those days. Nothing quite like a whiskey hangover and the dim fluorescents of a metro bus at four-thirty on a winter morning in a strange new city. The desolation and futility of such an existence seems comically melodramatic now, but I’m still tethered to those days by slender threads of muscle memory, free association, and a knack for packing as much headache as possible behind one bloodshot left eye…
You can never truly forget such things, so sometimes when I flick on the kitchen fluorescents at 4 am I get an associative migraine. But the thought that I’m doing this for just for me is plenty to snap me out of it. Details: Sweet & pungent2008-06-14
 Lake Crescent, East Shore, March 2008I packed up and stored my enlarger today, which is somewhat tearjerky and bittersweet. Sweet, because the damn thing is a monster. Bitter… well mostly bitter because I haven’t been able to find a new silver paper I like in two years. Time marches on. I put on some Duke Ellington to mark the occasion. I replaced it with my UV printer, seeing as that’s the only light source I’m using anymore. It’s a homemade wooden box with a bank of black light UV tubes- pretty low tech but efficient. I can burn maximum blacks in a carbon print in 10 minutes, kallitypes in 5. I’ve had it for awhile but it’s been living in the dining room, much to the irritation of my wife. Just ask her. I’m really into carbon printing these days. It’s a dichromated colloid process; very old, very labor intensive, that essentially involves sensitizing a pigmented gelatin tissue with a dichromate. This renders gelatin insoluble when exposed to UV light. The negative of course controls the degree of this, resulting in a continuous toned image when the exposed tissue is transfered to a suitable final support, such as watercolor paper, and developed with very warm water. The resulting image has a very subtle relief that is quite effective. The prints look like nothing else- they are capable of a impression of depth and sharpness unrivaled in any other process, largely due to the etched look of the relief. Also, the possibility of print color is endless, limited only by the use water soluble pigments- hardly a limitation. Right now the great fun is finding images that show off the effect. And they all do, to a degree, but tree images are especially rewarding. It’s startling that a gelatin can hold such fine and delicate detail throughout the print, and it surprises me every time a print emerges from the dark pigment laden developing water. It’s like cleaning off something old, filthy and buried to reveal something sparkling, fragile and new. Details: The muse in wingtips and smouldering waters2008-06-10
Destruction Island from Ruby, November 2007
Last night I dreamed I was giving a photo workshop and Jack Nicholson was the only one who showed up. It was the Five Easy Pieces era Nicholson- more hostile than curious and probably more bored than both. For some reason I was focusing on water quality in darkroom work and wouldn’t shut up about it- it is very important, but far from interesting, and I am no teacher to begin with. Oddly, the only water available was from settling tanks off the Cuyahoga River-possibly the only river in the world to ever to catch fire. Nicholson watched me though one printing disaster after another as little bubbles of methane fire kept flaring up in developing trays. I swatted at them while he threw open his hands and said You want to get on with it chief, my feet are falling asleep. And how about breaking out some pH-balanced refreshments or something, for chrissake. From there the dream made a descent into absurdity that confounds description- something to do with my darkroom becoming a reformed strip club, and an armless mannequin taking the stage to model different pairs of wingtip shoes.
It’s the first dream I can remember that was about photography, limited that it was. Certainly it was the first dream I’ve ever had about Jack Nicholson or wingtip shoes… and I dont even live in the same state as the Cuyahoga River. What this has to do with anything I’m not sure. Nothing what so ever to do with this picture. As with most of my dreams, the spell is broken the instant I talk about it or write it down, my interest evaporates. But it did inspire me to wake up in the middle of the night and download a new copy of my misplaced Randy Newman album Sail Away, just to hear the most excellent Burn On. Oftentimes mere mood is enough, and it got me seeing this image in a different light- at that hour of the morning anyway. I’ll take inspiration wherever I can find it.
Now the Lord can make you tumble Details: |
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