Sea and Santorini
Santorini is one of the Greek Islands we visited during a “Journeys of Paul” tour that Diana and I were on in June of 2017. Our vessel is the sailing craft in the upper left corner of the view, also depicted in Aft-Deck Morn, one of my other views in this round – quite an amazing boat. This was taken with my Sputnik, the only film camera I had on the voyage. Pretty sure I used the Sunny 16 Rule, shooting at 1/125.
This shot is from 2000, I took it with my carefully adjusted Sputnik with a Vivitar 285H fill flash on a tripod. Probably 8 seconds at f16. This is an example of the terrific results the Sputnik can produce, this is one of my all time favorite slides.
Patrick Dougherty came to Charlottesville a couple of years ago, and I undertook to document his work. If you google his name, you’ll soon find lots of background information that I need not repeat here. Patrick was in town for about a month, commissioned by UVA Arts to make a stick sculpture in the (then brand new) Arts commons, right next to Ruffin Hall (which some of you know as one of my “clear buildings”).
Before his arrival, a crew of local volunteers will have assembled. In his first week, Patrick gets to know his volunteers in the work to gather his sticks. Patrick’s raw material is young saplings. He’ll correspond with people in the area, to find “doomed” saplings – i.e. saplings in wooded areas that are about to be clear cut. So he tries not to harvest saplings that would otherwise grow into mature trees.
After a week of gathering saplings with his volunteers, the work on the sculpture begins. The first slide shows some of the initial work: saplings have been stuck straight into the ground, pressed into ground some four or five feet if possible. Each sculptural structure will be anchored by a few very large and strong saplings. These will be placed into boreholes that were drilled first. At this point, volunteers keep busy preparing the saplings for integration into the sculpture – which mainly involves removing all the leaves. Throughout the work, more and more saplings are trucked in from whereever they had been cut.
Once the installation’s initial layout is secured with these larger saplings, then the work can proceed with smaller saplings and “sticks.” My (uneducated) impression is that the sculptures are more or less woven into place. It is weaving with sticks. Dougherty uses no fasteners of any kind. No nails, screws, twine, rope, zip-ties, nothing of the kind! Only the sticks. The work proceeds for about two more weeks, at which point the sculpture will be mostly complete.
His structures thus fashioned can get quite large. Although the one he built at UVA was nowhere more than about ten feet tall, others I’ve seen depicted online can be multiple stories tall. They are also very strong. Dougherty typically specifies that his installations should be taken down after a year to 18 months. But for some reason, this one at UVA was left in place for over three years! (UVA wanted to get its money’s worth, and I bet Dougherty had to remind the university to take it down). Surprisingly, even at three years old, the sculpture didn’t look all that bad – it got a little shop worn around the edges, and some of the structures had started to sag a bit. (I should have photographed it at the end of its life, but I failed to do so).
In the fourth week of his visit, Patrick tidies up loose ends and gets ready for his next project. I include a slide taken at a farewell reception, of Patrick talking with one of the UVA big wigs who funded the project; and a slide showing the finished project with all (or most) of the volunteers standing with Patrick for a portrait (that last slide was helpfully exposed by my beloved Michele). Patrick makes about ten sculptures per year in this fashion: one per month, anywhere in the world. Then he takes off two months to be at home with his family.
PS
I did undertake a 3d timelapse of the birth and subsequent aging of the sculpture: I shot two stereo pairs per day for about four months. After an initial review of the imagery, I decided that it was not looking very “good” (constantly and rapidly shifting light was very distracting in the video), so I didn’t do anything more with it. But you can see some of the beginnings of aging, if you look closely:
Guatemala is a great place to visit within Central America. We arrived here mainly to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal as part of a 3 month trip through Central America, and we found ourselves intrigued by it’s beauty and history. No doubt, Guatemala has had it rough over the years, but it still hangs onto it’s founded traditions regardless. After visiting Lake Atitlan, we managed to go to the beautiful colonial city of Antigua. Mostly known for it’s famous Easter day parades through town, we were graced with some Christian processions starting holy week before Easter. Due to our timing we couldn’t stay for Easter in Antigua, but it was nice to be there regardless. As we were walking through the center of town, near the square, I noticed a beam of light going down the corridor onto a woman seated and reading.
Having my Sputnik camera with me, I managed to swing and take a shot. That was an eye catching moment that I caught on camera. Hope you like it! Shot on Fuji Provia 100f film. All in all, Guatemala was one of my favorite countries in Central America to visit and to shoot in 3D!
One morning, I was walking along on the outer edge of the seashore, and I came across the fishing docks of Essaouira. The place was lined up with tons of fishing vessels of all kinds, many of them moored because of a wind storm the day before. A few fishermen did manage to make their way through the storm, and began to arrive with their catch from the previous day. Of course this attracted the attention of hundreds of seagulls.
I was at first walking along the outer edge of a high wall that surrounded the main docks to get an overall wider shot of the action.
However, as we all know, being ‘down in the pits’ is a better way to get a good 3D shot. So, I climbed down to get closer, and whoosh! I was surrounded by seagulls! Prime 3D action! This one I shot with my Sputnik, on Fuji Provia 100f.
If you get a chance to visit Morocco, Essaouira is a great place to go, especially within the walls of the medina.
Ayutthaya is a city just 40 minutes north of Bangkok by train in Thailand. The town itself is not too impressive, but the ruins of old Ayutthaya, are fascinating. Ayutthaya was once the capital of Thailand, or Siam. It’s inner cities, surrounded by water moats, can be navigated by renting a bicycle for just a few dollars a day. Lots of biking is needed to cover all of the grounds, and at least 2 days are needed to really take it all in.
While exploring the city, you come across multiple Buddhist statues, most of them being headless. The head of Buddha was always redeemed as being highly sought after for it’s spiritual properties, so it was often stolen. The one I photographed was no exception. There are also notable spots where fire destroyed some of the structures during the sacking of the city by the Burmese, back in 1767. Ayutthaya was one of my favorite cities in Thailand, and one of the most memorable. In fact, I named our rescued Siamese cat after it. The name suits her well.
Overall, Ayutthaya was a great place to photograph in 3D. Tons of little alleys, and corridors of ruins. I shot this with my Sputnik, on Fuji Provia 100f.
This set of slides is a continuation of my experiments in multiple exposure shots. I am using a more mathematical approach in these, calculating different exposure setting to set things in front of or behind one another based on exposure order and timing. Maybe it is working. Maybe I am just kidding myself.
“The Window” – This is a location I have shot at before. The following two images are also from the same location. Several earlier entries in this Folio have been shot here, also. Always with my Sputnik on Fuji Provia 100F. This image is an attempt to memorize a position in the first exposure and attempting to line up in a very specific way elements of the second exposure. Thus the spiral metal sculpture focusing the eye on “the window”.
“The Gazebo” – A triple exposure – The title tells the story. Again, I am attempting to create interest between the various objects by not only exposure “math”, but also through placement of critical bits between the two shots. My Sputnik, purchased from John Thurston, has a nice modified viewer which made this “alignment” between shots much easier. I don’t think I could have aligned things this well with the standard viewer!
“The Apple Gate” – A triple exposure – Actually this is a miss on a couple of fronts. I hoped to get the “gate”, which was the last exposure, in the gap of the arched apple tree limbs. I had also hoped for better focus of the second exposure, which was the apple tree in the foreground. BUT, the exposure of the gate was just what I was hoping for! I was also pleased that my math kept this image from blowing out too far. This is what I love about experimenting!
“Old and Older” – This was a location my friend and mentor Steven Lederman and I stumbled upon on a day of looking for interesting places to shoot here in Southern Ontario. We wondered onto the property finding this VERY old barn, in the foreground behind a few other building shielding it from view from the road. The barn in the background is certainly well over 100 years old, but the one in the foreground is much older. I will probably post another shot of this older building in the future. I was attracted to the angles of the two structures roofs.
Many thanks to Steven Lederman for not only developing these rolls, but mounting my slides! The mounting is NOT something I have gotten the hang of after many hours of frustrating attempts.
Last year we went to an exhibition of installation artists called “Wonder” at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. Several artists made very interesting pieces for this show. Using hundreds of thousands of pieces of reclaimed, old-growth cedar, John Grade built an intricate structure – Middle Fork – based on plaster casts taken of a massive, old-grown hemlock tree in the Cascade Mountains. At Wonder, I shot cha-cha’s with my Sigma DP1-M and a Sputnik. Tripods were not allowed, but I was incredibly lucky: each room in the Renwick had a fairly broad chair rail along the wall, wide enough to give good support to the Spud. The exposures were typically 15 to 30 seconds.
Another model I’ve been working with since 2016, this one is still in town good for more creativity! With her I’ve been trying to explore what I call “Challenged Glamour.” THat’s were I create an image that is nominally an ordinary glamour image, but then I put in some details that disturbs or mocks the normal first impression.
I briefly worked with this lovely model early in 2016. She had some great creative ideas, but sadly we were unable to follow up on all of them, because she ended up leaving town after just a few months. Them’s the breaks working with models – as inconstant as the weather.
The Union Cyclisme Internationale held its World Championships in Richmond recently, to the great delight of bike racing enthusiasts all over the east coast, but especially central Virginia. This view is overlooks the crowds on Libby Hill, the next-to-last climb on the about ten miles around loop of city streets that the riders raced (but they raced something like 15 laps). Ben King, a Charlottesville native, was in the race (he raced in the Tour De France last year as well), and many C-villains were there to cheer him on.
I shot my pictures of the event all at this basic location. From the very bottom of the hill looking up, and also from halfway up, and then this view looking down. You can make out the cobbled road snaking down left and right through the crowd. This was a very difficult surface to ride on – keep in mind the road is ridiculously steep here, and the cobbles reduce traction on your tires. Coming around these bends, most riders tried to stay in the gutter, which was made of poured concrete – much smoother. But the gutter was only ten inches wide or so, right next to the crowd, thus also presented its own difficulties.
I shot a twinned set of GoPros from this location also, trying to capture the action in 3d video. Alas, one of the cameras was malfunctioning (but I didn’t know it – GoPros will sometimes be failing and not let you know…. not good!), so all I got was the “flat” video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55ZElh8q-Ws
You’ll hear a lot of noise in the video which is me fiddling with the Sputnik – I was sharing the same tripod with both cameras. A twin camera bar held the stereoscopic GoPro enclosure on one side and the Spud on the other.
Taken on a backpacking trip to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, also known as the Enchantment Lakes, or just The Enchantments. I think that’s Lake Leprechuan on the right. My first major outing with my Don Lopp-modified Sputnik. When the larch are turning golden it’s one of the most breathtakingly beautiful spots I’ve ever visited.
The nearest lake and it’s only 4 miles from my house. I run here often. Lake Balboa is in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation area in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles. I used at Sputnik and Fujichrome RDP III 100.
All three of these images were captured in Elora, Ontario, Canada at the site of an old mill on the Elora River. I was fascinated by how much was left standing of this structure, although all things considered there was more missing than present! Matt Neima and Steven Lederman, featured in this folio, along with some other friends were out for this photo jaunt. It was a bright day, allowing some significant blue skies mixed with the deteriorating building.
“The Inner Garden” – As per my last run, I am still experimenting with multiple exposures, but this image is the only example I have included this time. It was very bright, so I had to do a bit of calculated guessing at the stacking of the exposure times. I was fascinated by the garden like aspect inside the walls of this building. I also loved the fact I was shooting through a chain length fence. All three images were captured on my Sputnik which I acquired from John Thurston.
“Under deConstruction” – The strange position of the construction barrel, with the bizarre rebar jutting out of the old foundation caught my eye here. It was also an interesting optical illusion that the supports appear as though they are pushing the crumbling walls over rather than supporting them. The Fuji Provia 100F film did a nice job with the blue sky and drab greys.
“Stuck in the Corner” – Experimentation is at the core of my shooting. I was intrigued at how much the person in the corner disappeared due to the brightness of parts of the building. My attempt here was to slightly over expose the brightest part of the building, hopefully then under exposing the bottom right area. Maybe it worked…
Thanks to Steven Lederman for developing this film for me.
Matt hasn’t shot alot of film lately, but still wanted to participate in this loop of the folio. Since members of Folio B haven’t seen any of his images, I suggested that I be allowed to pick out four slides from his past body of work for submission to the Folio. He agreed and asked me to curate. My image descriptions will also serve as my comments. Matt usually shoots with Fuji Provia 100F film (not for “Ferry Dock” of course), and a Sputnik. He has also owned two incarnations of the TL-120 – a TL-120-1, and a TL-120-55. As these selections span seven years, I’m not sure which camera or film was used for each one.
“Albion Falls” – captured in Hamilton, Ontario, Summer 2004 – I selected this shot for its composition, varied lighting, depth and detail. That particular area of Hamilton / Ancaster is home to a great number of waterfalls. Matt has captured a lovely rendering of one of them.
“Pretty Women” – Misha, Sandra and Kim, in Matt’s backyard, 2009 – I selected this image simply because I think it’s a great portrait. You can invent your own back stories for the expressions on the women’s faces. Thought went into the stereo composition – there are foreground elements, the main subjects, and a slightly soft background which serves to highlight the main subjects.
“Lake Huron” – captured in Pinery Provincial Park, 2010 – As you may know, it’s not easily to properly expose snow. Especially when it’s 30 below, ho ho ho. I like the repeating hilly motif from foreground to mid-shore.
“Self Titled (Ferry Dock)” – captured in Vancouver’s Ferry Market 2011 – I selected this image for the wonderful use of the dr5 process, the composition, subject matter and the sharpness of detail.
Matt died of cancer October 1, 2016. His generosity and support for his friends will be missed. [JRT October 3, 2016]