Ken Smith Photo Journal

Leaf Heart

Hiatus sounds like a relaxing pause, but it has been the opposite around here. Since the first of June there have been shows, deliveries, new work, auto maintenance…..you name it. Little time to catch one’s breath. I am not complaining, for in this economy to be prospering is a joy. I only wish there was a better vitamin, or maybe that ‘hiatus’ that means ‘peace’ for just a brief time.

I am working on new work for a couple shows coming up. At the same time, brewing in my mind, is a dissertation about ‘Passion’ and being an artist. I hope to have that written soon. So please stand by and I will fill in the spaces shortly with pictures and philosophies.

Painted Turtle Shell Book

I have been preparing work for three shows simultaneously. The theme of one of the group shows is ‘Shell’, and I have enjoyed making work for it. One, I had written about in an earlier post involved turtle shells, shot with my old Burke and James 5×7 view camera. The finished piece is a hinged ‘book’ of two panels. The images are beeswaxed. The panel sides and backs are painted a chinese red. I am excited to show this new work.

Sea Memory

Unlike the turtle shell book, which was thought out, contemplated, worked on technically over a long time, another piece came about spontaneously, effortlessly. I had an old fossilized shell and I wanted to include it in the show. I made various images of it on my studio worktable, but it just wasn’t happening. On another table was a clutter of ’specimens’ – odds and ends of plants, bugs, rocks. An old feather I had picked up on a shoreline a long time ago caught my eye. I made a quick composition and it felt right, all in about 15 minutes. The image was made using my Panasonic G1, with my old Canon 50mm f3.5 macro lense and adapter. Handheld. The printed image is almost monochrome, just a touch of blue-grey, feeling like my sea memory.

Windowseat

Maybe the weather, maybe a series of events that have become a struggle…sometimes one has to take a long trip inward. This image of a castle window seat, in the Castilla Belmonte, in the LaMancha region of central Spain reminds me of that inward trek. As I wander alone, looking at this image, I imagine the numbers of women and men back in time that have sat at this window seat, pondering their own imbroglios. It is somehow comforting to know that there were places in the architecture of an old castle made specifically for contemplation.

Moss

Spring has finally come to the foothills of the North Cascade Mountains. On a rocky outcropping on the land where I live at 3200′ elevation, the moss has begun to propagate.

Maybe it is because I am at the maturity of my photography career and a certain age, that I occasionally drift into wondering about the legacy of my work…what will become of it, and will it matter?

©John Maloof/www.vivianmaier.com

Over on “wood s lot”, http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/wood_s_lot.html/ – a website that comes up with interesting links to photography, poetry, and other writings – I found the incredible and sad story of Vivian Maier, and how her work lives on. The blog link below, set up by the person who found her bereft work, and is now its guardian, is worth some time to read. I hope her story, and the journey her work is taking is as inspiring to you as it is to me.

http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/

Water Plant 2

Late Chrysanthemum

Yesterday there was this article on the front page of the online NY Times about how professional photographers have been required to make fundamental changes due to the influence of the digital world, the internet….and the sheer numbers of photographs being made and marketed by amateurs and parttimers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30photogs.html?src=me&ref=general

It can make the work of the fine art photographer even more challenging. The work must be so filled with significance, so well crafted, that it can alone in the strength of its visual presence, convince the viewer that this work rises above the millions of images, is meaningful beyond what he/she experiences every day. This image, is imbued with a heart, and the viewer is reminded of something she already has known deeply, and feels an innate belonging to what the image shows. Maybe it is the same primal task as it has always has been, but as the Times article implies, it may be more tough for the serious photographer – and the viewer – as we go forward.

On a side street in Xilitla, Mexico is a church with a row of churchbells, and on the right late afternoon, a half moon.

I am deep into several projects, and hope to post some examples soon. In the meantime, how about a trip to mexico….

I had an opportunity this last weekend to blow the dust off my Burke and James 5×7 camera. For a couple years it has been a shining sculpture in my living room, a relic and reminder of a past when things were not so electronic. I put it to work photographing some turtle shells I am incorporating in an art piece. It wasn’t an easy matter, for I had to reacquaint myself with the other world which I had left behind for so long. I needed to get out my handheld pentax spot meter, fill the wood film holders with efke 100 asa sheet film…I had to clean the darkroom sink of the accumulation gathered there as the darkroom became a multi-purpose room.

Then, for several hours I got to play in an earthy way, with things made of wood and glass. I needed to remind myself to put the lens cap back on the lens after focusing, before removing the dark slide from the film holder. Everything was alien, and yet familiar. It came back with a sweet memory. Again, I went back to the school boy timer…..”one thousand one, one thousand two…”, like in some hide and seek game with light and shadow. The exposure on the old french darlot lense was 4 seconds at f22, then I quickly put the lenscap back on the lens. It has no shutter.

I went to the darkroom, familiarizing myself again with the beakers, the formulas of the chemistry, the gralab timer. Jeez, I could screw up at any point and ruin the film. I could only develop one sheet at a time, having slipped it sideways in a curve inside the 1-liter Paterson tank, emulsion side in. I was using the two part Pyrocat HD developer, which leaves a brown stain on the film, and was so beautiful it could be a finished picture in negative form.

The whole process was so antique compared to what I had been living with in my photography for such a long time. Every part of it could have been a century ago, or timeless…what men had dealt with before they knew about things binary. But in a hybrid affliction I scanned the film into my computer to print on my epson. It is all pretty awesome, but I didn’t know it would be, till I actually went thru the compete process. Now, I need to do it again and again. The 5×7 is no longer a monolith in the corner, but of real use. I won’t leave digital either – I am a heretic to nothing. I move through the shadows, enticed towards the unmentioned taboo by two lovers, for one alone cannot satisfy me.