EVOLUTION OF A PHOTOGRAPH

Castaway Boats, 1987/2013

One of the nicer things about the square format is that it enables the photographer to crop either vertical or horizontal, or to leave it square. My process on this image has been one of discovery. It took me several days to come up with this composition. Perhaps I went a step too far (I will look at all the variations again and again and ultimately pick the "winner"), but I think I am nearly finished with this one. I still need to decide whether or not to tone it.

I think I will wander down to the area where this used to be, to see how it has changed.

A WORK IN PROGRESS

Much Closer to What My Mind's Eye Thinks it Saw, 1986/2013 (not Indian Island, but is behind the Pepsi plant near Target).

As I said before, this blog is about my photographic and personal journey as a photographer and as a person. I think this image conveys some of the essence of that journey.

I saw this image in the nineteen-eighties, and I photographed it then. The processed negative sat for nearly thirty years. I rediscovered it, and have now actually worked it to its fullest potential (or nearly so).

I feel a synergy with my forty-year-old self. It is as if the current Tom and the earlier Tom are bridging the space-time continuum, and am somehow both are present simultaneously in past and the present.

Historic Humboldt Bay

Indian Island (I think), 1987

I scanned this image the other day. It started out square, but I liked it better with this 11 by 14 crop. I think it is on the east side of the highway, and that it is Indian Island. I do not know why, but I never printed this in the darkroom. I think I will print it with the inkjet soon. I will sit with the image for a day or two first, just so I can be sure that I like the processing.

CONCRETE STRUCTURES IN LINCOLN CA

Lincoln, CA, 1986

I hope these photographs are at least somewhat enjoyable to you. I think it will be fun to see what happens when I go back and photograph them later this year. I think I am looser now with my style, but perhaps I am more precise in my compositions - if that makes sense.

SOMETHING I AM WORKING ON

Windswept Alder, Dry Lagoon, 2013

This is a fairly straight-up representation of what I saw the other day. I think I caught the essential colors and hues. 

FEELING THE SPIRIT

A New Photograph of a Subject That I Have Photographed Numerous Times, 2013

I took a breather for the past week, and did not make any new postings on this blog. A year ago I made a deal with myself to post as close to daily as I could. I made 230 posts last year, so I did fairly well. I did not post just anything to make a post a day, but I think most had some amount of substance.

SHADOW PLAY

Recomposing Light, Texture, Form, and Shadow, 2013

I did considerably more work on this image. I brought up details in the shadows, and recomposed the actual composition. I think that the previous version had too much wall on the top. I included the fence on the right so that I could completely fill the frame. I am not sure if it detracts or adds anything to the overall image.

BACK WALLS AND CHAIN LINK FENCES

The Old Safeway Building, 2013

I took this photograph this morning while I was walking in an area of town that I have never photographed. I had my little pocket camera, and took a dozen or so photographs of the interplay of texture and shadow.

ONE MORE GRAIN TOWER

Sacramento Valley Rice 03, c.1986

I am strongly drawn to the perspective that waist-level viewfinders provide. The camera I used in this series was a Rollicord with a 75mm lens. My all time favorite digital camera, the Sony R1 featured an articulating LCD screen and provided the opportunities for similar compositions to this.

SOME MORE SACRAMENTO VALLEY RICE

Sacramento Valley Rice 02, c. 1986

This is another image that I always liked. The negative has a little room around the edges, but I straightened out the vertical lines, and that cropped the edges of the structure. I am learning these days to not crop so tight in the camera.

I understand that many folks will not appreciate these images, and I am fine with that. I am drawn to them, and I am thinking that I will go back soon and see if and how I will approach these structures twenty-five years later, and with digital technology.

SACRAMENTO VALLEY RICE REVISITED

Sacramento Valley Rice 01, c. 1986

As a photographer, I have always been drawn to photograph large structures such as this. My eye was drawn to study bridges, towers, buildings, railroads, aircraft, and ships. I consider these elements to play major roles in the landscape, and as an artist it is my job to showcase the elements that I find create the composition that is most appealing to my aesthetic sense.

This photograph is one of many that I took on a week-long expedition to the valley. I think the trip occurred in about 1986. Back then I was using a Rollicord and for this series I used some of my stock of fine-grain Panatomic X film. I scanned this negative at 6400dpi to capture as much detail as I could.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

Tug Boats on Humboldt Bay, 1983

Prior to moving to Eureka in 1979, I had never lived by the ocean. The place where we lived was a little over a mile from the old Del Norte Dock. Occasionally I could hear the whistles from the tugs as they were going about there duties, and sometimes I would dash down to the harbor to watch them work.

I had a scale model of a tug boat when I was a kid. I think I always imagined that working on a tug would be a good thing to do. I think tug boats are of the same caste for the maritime world as are switch engines for the railroads. Tug boats like switch engines, play important roles in supporting there larger siblings, but are generally behind the scenes, and therefore do not have the glory that goes with large ships or long trains.

I scanned this the other night, and I did a little processing in Light Room. Somewhere I have a gelatin/silver print of this shot in storage.