Geography of Old Wars

Boston, MA
Holga 120N

Willow Don't Weep For Me

Boston, MA
Holga 120N

Starry Sky #2

Boston, MA
Holga 120N

Valley

Recently, I have been printing a series of images on Unryu paper. Unryu paper comes in many variations but in this case it has long strands of kozo fiber against a thin and translucent mulberry paper backing. In Japan, the name "unryu" means "cloud dragon paper". I apply a thin coat of inkaid matte precoat to each sheet, hang them to dry, and then print the image on my inkjet printer.

This image was taken with an Agfa Isoly camera with a Holga lens.

Occupy #1

Boston, MA
Holga 120N

Terminal Moraine

Still working all these rock images out of my head. Back to regularly scheduled programming soon.
Dogtown, Gloucester, MA
Holga 120N

Kindness

Dogtown, Gloucester, MA
Holga 120N
More of these are posted on my flickr stream.

Truth

Another image taken with the new Holga 120 Panoramic camera. This was taken in Dogtown, Gloucester, MA. A couple of early observations on this camera. Earlier test images I saw posted online didn't seem to have much in the way of that Holga edge focus fall off. But there appears to be significant loss of focus on both left and right hand sides of the initial roll I shot. Which is a pleasant surprise for me, anyway. Why would anyone want a Holga with crisp edges? There does not, however, appear to be any vignetting whatsoever on these images. If you like those dark corners, perhaps this isn't the camera for you. I thought the vignetting on the 6x17 Holga pinhole was too excessive for my tastes anyway (to the point where I sold it after shooting one roll). This camera is only a 6x12 format and I shot these images with the factory mask in place. Perhaps removing the mask would change the look of the corners and edges somewhat. The 90mm "optical" lens that comes with the camera seems to cover the frame quite well.
More to come.
BTW, click on the image in order to see it larger.

Courage

This image was shot with the new Holga 120 panoramic camera. Perhaps a bit more on that camera later.
Taken in Dogtown, Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Probably best to click on the image to view it larger.

Balancing Act

Holga 120N

Worlds Collide

This is printed on a piece of Thai Unryu paper with some lovely long paper fibers. I gave the paper a light coating of some clear matte inkjet precoat in order to boost the density and blacks on this somewhat translucent paper. The original image was shot with a Holga 120N.

Swept Away

Camera on a tripod in a 50 mph wind and a storm surge. I think the exposure was about a minute.
Lower Darnley, PEI
Holga 120N

Fallen Empire

The abandoned Woodleigh Replicas site in Burlington, PEI
Holga 120N

Miracle of the Sun

Somewhere in the Middlesex Fells Reservation. Holga 120N

No Tech/Low Tech Show

My image "Birdwatchers" will be in the upcoming No Tech/Low Tech exhibit at the Vermont Center of Photography in Brattleboro, Vermont. The show opens on November 4th and runs through the rest of the month. If you want to see the image, just head back a few posts. Better yet, head to the gallery and see it in person.

Northeastern Southwest

Lower Darnley, PEI
Agfa Isoly with inverted Holga lens

Structure

I've been experimenting recently with hand held multiple exposures with the Holga . This one is eight exposures if I remember correctly.

Off Season

Seaview, PEI
Holga 120N

The flipped lens "Isolga" hybrid camera

A while back I wrote about my Agfa Isoly camera in which I had transplanted a Holga lens element.
You can find more about that here.
I recently continued using my "Isolga" camera but this time I flipped the Holga lens element to see what the results would look like. So far, I quite like the results.

Birdwatchers

Newburyport, MA
Holga 120N

Continental Divide

Lower Darnley, Prince Edward Island
Holga 120N

No Evacuation Possible

Newbury, MA
Holga 120N

North Rustico Harbour Sea Wall

North Rustico Harbour, PEI
Holga 120N

Beef

Saugus, MA
Holga 120N

Cactus

Saugus, MA
Holga 120N

Toyed With Show...the invitation

Here's the invitation for this year's Toyed With show at the Open Shutter Gallery in Durango, Colorado. Lots of unfamiliar names here, to me anyway. But I'm sure that I'm most likely an unfamiliar name to them as well. About half the prints in this show are "alternative" process prints such as wet plate collodion, platinum and van dyke. That surprises me somewhat, though I am not entirely sure why.
And B&W (or at least monochrome) greatly outnumbers color images as well. It's always interesting to me to see what a juror actually accepts into a show.
There are 26 images in the show by 25 different photographers. (I'm the lucky one with two images evidently.) You can see them online here with additional info regarding print process, title, etc. Just go to the "Gallery" section on the site and you'll be able to see both this year's and last year's accepted entries.

Evening Pool

Lower Darnley, Prince Edward Island
Holga 120N

2011 Toyed With Exhibition

Two of my images, "Hay Field House" and "Edge of the Ocean",  have been accepted into this year's Toyed With exhibit at the Open Shutter Gallery in Durango, Colorado. This year's juror was Michelle Bates. The show will run from August 27 to October 1. If you're in the area, drop by and check it out.

There will also be a "gallery walk" in Durango on September 16 from 5-9 pm when you can see this show as well as work in other local galleries.

North Rustic Chair #1

North Rustico Harbor, PEI, Canada
Holga 120N

Photo + Craft Exhibit

My image titled "Tree on Birch" has been accepted into the upcoming Photo + Craft exhibit at LightBox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, Oregon. The show will run for a seven week period from August 13 to

October 2. The opening for the show will be August 13. The images for this show will also available for viewing online at Plates to Pixels. 

Blue Mitchell (of Plates to Pixels and Diffusion Magazine) and Michael and Chelsea Granger of LightBox Photographic were the jurors for this show.

If you are interested in the process used to create this image, just check back a few blog posts for the info. 

Fells Art Show Images

These are my images that were accepted into the "Celebration of the Fells Art Show". All three of these images have been exhibited previously in juried exhibitions. The top image is "First Snow" and was a "People's Choice" winner in the 2010 Krappy Kamera show. The middle image is "Hemlock Pool" and has been in three juried shows. The bottom image is "Vernal Pool"and has been in two shows previously. These images had been retired from competition and were happily living on the wall of my office at home but were brought out one more time for this very local show which is in a gallery only a mile or so from my home. The opening is Friday, July 1, from 7-9 pm at the Beebe Estate Gallery in Melrose, MA.
If you are local, come on by and say hi.

Celebration of the Fells Art Show

Three of my images will be included in the Celebration of the Middlesex Fells Art Show which will be  on display for the month of July at the Beebe Estate in Melrose, MA. The opening for the show will be on Friday, July 1 between 7 and 9 pm. For those of you unfamiliar with the Middlesex Fells Reservation, it is a conservation area of approximately 2,500 acres just north of Boston. I have always enjoyed taking
a walk with my Holga in these woods. I'll post the images in the next post.

Another Transfer onto Birch

This is a recent ink transfer from an older image. For this transfer, I sealed the wood so that the alcohol gel mixture would sit on the wood and not soak in.
 I applied a very liberal amount of alcohol gel to the wood and let the transfer material sit in place for about five minutes. I slowly (and I mean very slowly) removed the transfer material.
 The excessive amount of alcohol gel caused many bubbles and dark cracks in the image, which is what I was going for here. After drying, I applied three coats of a spray gloss polyurethane and one coat of paste wax. It has a wonderful depth to it which is pretty hard to display from a flatbed scan. And I love all the imperfections caused by the alcohol gel solution. Ultimately I am trying to achieve something which has the feel of a wet plate image. I probably will attempt this on glass as well. Stay tuned.

More Experiments in Printing: Part Two

A couple more inkjet transfers, but this time on birch plywood rather than paper. In a nutshell, the process
involves making a transfer image on
InkAid transfer material. That image is then transferred to the wood using a solution comprised mostly of 91% isopropyl alcohol.
I modified both of these a bit rather than leaving them as straight transfer prints. Both of these images were scorched with a plumber's torch after the ink had dried (the bottom image more so than the top). I also sanded much of the bottom image away after
being scorched. The top image has a
very light coat of stain as well.
I applied a couple of coats of a paste wax to both as a finishing coat.
The original image is a few dead trees which I shot with a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash camera with an inverted lens.

The Last Stand

Boston, MA
Holga 120S

Clown

Boston, MA
Holga 120N

The Good China

Boston, MA
Holga 120N

20,000 Flags

Twenty thousand flags on Boston Common this weekend for those
from Massachusetts who have lost their lives in service since WWI.
This image was taken with an Anny
camera (a Diana camera clone).

More Experiments in Printing

 I've been experimenting recently on printing images on various media and then somehow layering them together to form one image.
This image is composed of an image printed on Unryu White paper layered on top of the same but darker image printed on glassine material.
The two images are slightly misaligned to create a sense of motion.

I'll post some additional layered stuff soon involving translucent papers as well as images created by layering various papers over metal and wood.

BTW, the original image for this was created with a Holga 120N.

Plastic Fantastic II Show

I am happy to say that my image, "Washed In", has been accepted into the Plastic Fantastic II show. The exhibit will be on display at LightBox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, Oregon between June 11th and July 6th. The juror for the show this year is extraordinary photographer Susan Burnstine.
More info on LightBox Photographic can be found here.

Foghorn #3

My never ending fascination with this foghorn. This time in the fog.
South Boston, MA
Holga 120N

Mystic Motors

I will shoot anything with the words "Mystic, Psychic or Art" in it. :)
Medford, MA
Holga 120N

Bellevue Pond

Bellevue Pond
Middlesex Fells Reservation
Medford, MA
Holga 120N

Atlantis Falling

Dorchester, MA
Holga 120N

Ford

Found in a corner of the Middlesex Fells Reservation in Stoneham, MA.
Holga 120N

Handmaidens

Chinatown storefront.
San Francisco, CA
Holga 120S

Mr. Bing's Cocktail Lounge

Me: "Excuse me, sir, could I borrow your ladder for a second?"
Window washer guy: "What?"
San Francisco, CA
Holga 120S