Restored Passion

Photography was something I really enjoyed doing. Now, before you think I’ve lost the enjoyment of it and am calling it quits, keep reading. My path to dedicating so, so many hours of my life to this mashup of Art and Science started as an adolescent, watching my dad and both grandfathers taking pictures with their SLRs on the many vacations we took together. One grandfather in particular got what was then a quite nice camera: a Nikon N6006. It was the first time I’d seen an autofocus camera and was amazed that a camera could do such a thing all by itself. Around that time, my grandmother gifted me a basic point-and-shoot camera for Christmas. A few years later, in high school, I took my first photography class and soon got brought on to the yearbook staff. I had such fun recording scenes out in the world on film and then coming back into the darkroom and processing that film. Making prints from those negatives and watching an image gradually form on a blank piece of paper added to the magic. Later, at the end of my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I was working with my Mission President in applying to college at the brand-new Brigham Young University-Idaho, my choice of major was either Photography or another subject I thoroughly enjoyed, American History. In a figurative coin-toss, I went with Photography. At the time, landscape photography wasn’t really on my radar, as far as career plans were concerned, having been involved with the yearbook staff in high school. I enjoyed taking landscape photographs, had taken a lot during high school, but I figured I’d end up in photo journalism, or find work at a mountain bike or BMX bike magazine to put bread on the table (Little did I know then just what those industries would look like even a mere decade later).

The fun and amazement continued to grow, fostered by an excellent professor/instructor/mentor/friend Darren Clark. During my first semester the plan was to pursue the journalism or magazine path, but seeing the amazing landscape work Darren was doing, getting more immersed in the work of Ansel Adams than I had been previous, as well as the work of Edward Weston, and John Sexton during that early part of my education, and then making more and more landscape photographs of my own, my career ideas and plans started shifting.

We learned the Zone System during my second semester, while still working with my Nikon N90s, which I got during my senior year of high school, and which I still own (I’ll never ever get rid of that fantastic camera). The control that the Zone System makes possible oopened up a whole new dimension to me, adding more excitement and satisfaction in making consistent negatives, allowing for making easier prints.

And then I was introduced to the View Camera (my memory is a little hazy, but I think it may have also been during my second semester), after having only worked with the 35mm format. If the control of the Zone System sparked a flame, then learning about and how to use the view camera was like pouring several tanker trucks worth of gasoline on a wildfire. That was when photography went from a thing I really, really enjoyed to being a passion. An obsession. I loved  viewing the world upside-down and inverted on the ground glass. I enjoyed the slow and deliberate nature of the process. I loved the huge negatives. I soon bought a Graflex Crown Graphic 4x5, a Nikkor 90mm SW f/4.5 and some film holders. It didn’t have the movements of the monorail camera owned by the school that I learned on, but I didn’t need them for the kind of work I was doing and still do. Not long after that, I found and purchased a Kodak Improved Century View No. 2 5x7 on eBay. It cost $120, including shipping; the previous owner said one of the gears to adjust the focus was broken, but I never had any issues with it. I think one of the knobs that locked things down was just a little too tight. That format became my favorite: I just love the elongated rectangle. The 4x5 format has always felt a little too square-ish to me for my own work, though there has been the rare photograph that feels better having a tighter frame. Another “pro” for my 5x7 argument is that that size negative produces wonderful, intimate contact prints, a strong motivator in my wanting to learn the carbon printing process.

That old Kodak (I traced the serial number to a manufacture date of 1905) became my main camera, using the Graflex as my backup, or the camera I would bring on longer hikes or backpacking trips where I didn’t particularly want to take the 5x7, though the 5x7 accompanied me on a few trips deep in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park. I took it everywhere; it was never left home no matter where I went, as is the case with any camera of just about every photographer out there.

Early in 2008 I was able to use a Nikon D300—then one of Nikon’s newest prosumer digital bodies, borrowed from another good friend, Jon Long. I was impressed with how well that camera performed, and around June of that year I purchased one of my own. A few weeks later I moved down to Logan, Utah ahead of starting grad school at Utah State University. Despite no access to dedicated darkroom facilities between graduating at BYU-I in 2005 and starting grad school in 2008, I made the bathrooms of the apartments I lived in work to process the sheets of film I exposed. But during that first (and only) year of grad school, my use of the digital camera really increased to the point that my use of the view camera all but ceased. The ease and convenience of the digital camera was just too alluring!

During the summer of 2009, I came to the incredibly hard decision to discontinue my graduate studies, which meant I was once again without access to a dedicated darkroom to process film. Since I had pretty much transitioned completely over to digital, I decided to sell off all of my large format equipment. I pretty much never regretted selling the 4x5, and still don’t really regret it to this day, but I didn’t make it a week after selling the 5x7 before I was filled with regret, even though I didn’t have an easy way of processing the film in the house I was living in at the time.

I continued to photograph, despite being filled with regret of having sold the 5x7. I felt like I’d evicted a part of my very being, part of my photographic make-up, even though I hadn’t made much work with it at all over the previous year. Around 2014, now living in a different place, I found and purchased another 5x7, along with a lens and film holders, made a few exposures, processed the film in the cramped bathroom—I haven’t yet mentioned that I was processing in open trays, and so had to be in complete darkness—and decided I didn’t want to put up with that and sold it all off again. I had a little less regret that time, but it was still there. Then in 2016 I did the same: bought a whole new kit, made some photographs, processed the negatives, decided processing film in trays hunched over the side of a bath tub was too big a pain, and sold it off again.

Meanwhile, over the years, I lost the same passion I had for photography. It wasn’t something I was conscious of, and it’s only been within the last five or six months that I’ve come to realize that it had happened at all. It’s true that I went through phases of greater and lesser productivity—my Lightroom catalog shows a fairly large dearth of images made in 2014—and I made work I’m quite happy with and proud of. It’s true that I still got a great amount of satisfaction and joy out of practicing photography almost exclusively digitally.

Starting in the late fall/early winter of last year, I began collecting parts of Eastman Kodak 2-D 5x7 cameras, finding pieces for sale on eBay here and there, and by February of this year I had my final piece to make a complete camera, as well as a lens (a Schneider Super Angulon 120mm f/8) and half a dozen film holders. I then spent two weeks disassembling everything, stripping and sanding the wood of it’s old finish and stain and applying a new stain and finish, and polishing the brass. Since then, that restored camera has been my main way of making images, not including my iPhone. It’s been during that time that I’ve felt an excitement for photographing that I haven’t felt for so long. Like I said earlier, that’s not to say that I haven’t experienced excitement and joy about new concepts and techniques I’ve delved into over the last decade or so—I have. But using the large format has resurrected the highest excitement for the art and craft that I had between 2003 and 2009. It’s been so good to have that kind of structure to the act of photographing again. And owning our own house, and having some decent options for daylight processing mean that many of the frustrations of not having a dedicated darkroom are gone.

I may not be as prolific an image maker right now as I was fifteen years ago—being a husband and the father of two young boys are greater priorities, speaking qualitatively, not quantitatively, though the three of them do demand and deserve all the time I can give them. Finding the balance between Home Life, Work Life, fulfilling my church calling, and spending time in my other hobbies and interests is no easy thing. Thankfully some of those things can all blend together. At any rate, the 5x7 camera is back in my life, and all is right in my little photographic world.

What I’m listening to—Podcast edition, Vol. 1

Podcasts have been a staple in my listening/entertaining/learning habits since This Week in Tech and Diggnation started in 2005. The former continues on, but the latter ended in 2011. I’m no longer a faithful listener of TWiT—I’ll listen to an episode if the show notes list anything particularly interesting to me—but as podcasts have been such a prominent thing in my life for so long, I thought I’d create a series of blog posts listing the various podcasts I listen to. Some are still going, while others have gone dead but episodes still remain online to listen to. So with that, here’s Volume 1:

First, what may be the longest-running photography podcast: LensWork—Photography and the Creative Process, by Brooks Jensen. Brooks puts out a daily “Here’s a Thought” episode, usually 3-5 minutes long where he briefly shares thoughts on some aspect of photography, and a weekly longer-form episode, where he goes a bit more in depth on a photography-related topic. Those topics range from wish-list features for new cameras, to philosophical ideas, to dealing with challenges a creative person might encounter. As of the time of writing this post, the long-form LensWork episodes number over 1300, and the “Here’s a Thought” episodes number over 1400, so if you’ve not yet listened to this podcast and are the type to listen to the backlog of a new subscription, you’ll have plenty to binge.

Up next is On Taking Pictures, by Bill Wadman and Jeffery Saddoris. OTP began in May of 2012, then ended 325 episodes later in July of 2018, and for those 6 years, Bill and Jeffery had some truly great and inspiring conversations. Despite the title, this was not really about just photography, but about life, relationships, mental health, art in general, and so much more. The conversations these two had were really on a level with being in a graduate class. Those still subscribed to this podcast got a surprise in October of 2018 when the two decided to roll tape on their discussion after Apple announced new hardware, and then the feed lay dormant, seemingly done for good, until January of this year, when we got another big surprise and found a new episode they’d recorded, followed by another two episodes since then. This one is well worth going through the whole backlog.

After On Taking Pictures ended, Jeffery continued recording podcasts, under three subtitles/topics: Process Driven, conversations with artists of various disciplines, Iterations, along the vein of Jensen’s “Here’s a Thought” episodes, and lastly, Deep Natter, conversations with a different set of artists, most often Sean Tucker, on the more philosophical side of living a creative life. And like OTP, these conversations are about photography, but not really about just photography. Photography becomes a metaphor for living a more fuller life, and the challenges of life become metaphors for dealing with creative and photographic challenges. You can find the three podcasts in Jeffery’s Everything feed.


About 10 years ago, Phil Monahan of Orvis shared a video in his Friday Fly Fishing Film Tour blog post he put out every week. This video featured a fly fishing guide by the name of Hank Patterson. The video was full of the worst advice and instruction a fly fisherman could ever put to use, and the humor and sarcasm coming from him was lost on so many people who viewed the video. But it was so over the top that I’m still amazed anyone ever took him seriously. Flash forward to 2019, and Hank started up a podcast titled Hank Patterson’s Outdoor MisAdventures. If you’re a lover of the outdoors, give this one a listen. Hank is sometimes joined by his very indoorsy friend, Kevin, where they talk about basically how to not do the outdoors. There’s never a dull moment listening to Hank.


And lastly, a podcast called The Wild with Chris Morgan. Each week, Morgan tells a new story of wildlife, and the ecosystems they inhabit to educate and bring awareness to listeners of issues our planet is facing.

What podcasts are you listening to? Share in the comments!

Unusual Lens

Several years ago now a retired co-worker came into my office with a giant lens, not like any I’d ever seen before. He handed it to me and explained it was an old TV camera lens. He asked if I wanted it, and despite not having any way of using it, I knew I had to have it, so I accepted his offer.

The lens, a Schneider Varigon 17-170mm from the 1960’s, sat on my shelf for while. I thought that I might use it for some Franken-camera made out of a cardboard box or something, but I told one of my brothers, who has a 3D printer, about it, and he started designing an adapter to mount it to my DSLR.

Once he got it done, the lens still sat for months. I knew before the adapter got finished that there was no way it could cover a full frame camera, as it was made for 16mm film, so I knew there would be vignetting. I also didn’t know (still don’t) the distance it needed in order for it to focus properly, so I had no idea what to really expect. When I got the lens in my hand and mounted it to my camera, it was a very pleasant surprise. There was heavy vignetting, especially at when the lens is zoomed any wider than about 150 mm, and if the exposure was set bright enough, some of the internals of the lens can be seen. I soon found that there’s a very narrow window in which things come into focus. Of course with a lens that old, predating any kind of dream about digital photography technology and what it would be capable of, the coatings on the glass are virtually nonexistent, and so the lens flares like crazy, and the sensor on my Nikon Z7 vastly out-resolves the resolution of the glass.

I brought the lens out with me on a few outings after I got the adapter, but nothing I was doing then really jived with the limitations that new piece of gear presented, and so I felt rather uninspired in what to do with it.

But then we bought our house, and as I spent hour after hour working there, and walking through the back yard with all the Ivy and Yucca and Roses and Virginia Creeper and grape vines, I knew that when I was done with all the renovations and had time to get the camera out again, that this lens would be exactly the tool to use to get to know our property.

I’ve had the lens out a few times in the past few weeks, and it’s been pretty fun to look at the backyard through that lens, literally, and metaphorically. That yard is so rich with vegetation that between the lens-based work I can mine from it and the lumens I have in mind to begin, I think I’ll never exhaust this place of its photographic potential.

Zion National Park

I’ve been a Utah resident for 11 years now (14 total, counting the 3 years I lived in Orem and Salt Lake City from 2005-2008), and in all that time, I’d never gone to Zion National Park. So when we started thinking of what to do for Gina’s fall break, we decided that was a good place to go.

On our way down, we toured the Kolob Canyon Scenic Drive in the northwest arm of the park so we could all stretch our legs. I got my first taste of the beauty, and grandeur of the park when we drove around a bend in the road and saw Tucupit Point towering in the distance. To say it was breathtaking would be…well, accurate, I suppose. Having been to Moab and Canyonlands and through San Rafael Swell, I’d seen sandstone formations before, but nothing like Tucupit Point. It wasn’t just the red of the rock that was so astounding, but the height, and the way it rose straight up from the surrounding topography. We hiked the Timber Creek Overlook Trail so we could all stretch our legs after the long drive. Tommy was real excited to be out of the car, and walked the entire distance.

The next day was our full day in the park. We got up early and drove to the visitor’s center and spent the day riding the shuttle, walking a few trails and driving through the east part of the park to let Tommy nap.

We started out by making a short visit at Big Bend Viewpoint, where I got to see the newly fledged California Condor flying overhead. I made a few photographs that I’m a little unsatisfied with while Gina watched Tommy throw rocks into the Virgin River. After that, we hopped on the shuttle again and rode to the last stop, and walked along the Riverside Walk. Tommy drove his brand new Duke Caboom Hot Wheels car on the rock walls lining the path. We ate lunch, and then headed back, following Tommy back down the trail.

Virgin River, Zion National Park 2019

It was getting to be time for Tommy to nap, so we rode the shuttle back to the Visitor’s Center and went for a drive to the East side of the park through the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel.

White Cliffs, Zion National Park 2019

White Cliffs, Zion National Park 2019

We finished the day at one of the most iconic/photographed viewpoints in the park. I just had to indulge and photograph there.

Virgin River, The Watchman, Zion National Park 2019

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt as overwhelmed visually by a place as I did in Zion. The place is stunning, to say the least.

Tommy

Despite my lack of posts here over the last few months, there hasn’t been a lack of photographs being made. Most of the work I’ve done has been in continuation of the Through Tommy’s Eyes project. Tommy’s really been giving us a run for our money lately, so it’s been harder to sneak away to photograph. We’ve tried to get out in the hills as much as possible, and I’ve photographed our little dude playing and tossing rocks every chance I’ve got. I’ve just loved watching him grow and learn, and even if nothing grand comes out of this project, I know I’ve got some great photographs documenting his childhood.

ADP_1559.jpg

Music and Me

I love music.

I know I’m not unique in this aspect, so why bring it up? Why devote a post on my photography blog about my love of music?

There was a recent period in my life when I wasn’t the voracious music listener I was before and after. The only time I listened to music in any degree was while I was driving. But last year I gradually paying more attention to my iTunes library, and one of my resolutions for 2019 is to really get back into music.

I’m going to make perhaps a long-winded correlation, but hear me out: In the past 12 to maybe 18 months I’ve felt a resurgence in my confidence as a photographer (this whole topic of confidence deserves its own blog post, which I may or may not write), and I feel like my return to searching for new music and listening more often has been a big contributor to that change I’ve seen in my creatively, especially over the last month and a half. It was in early- to mid-2014 that I stopped searching out new music and listening so much, and it was around that same time that I felt a decline in my confidence level.

Music has always been one of my favorite things. I love the memories that certain songs can bring to the surface; I love the excitement of hearing an old favorite I may have neglected or ignored for a long time; I love the thrill of hearing a brand new song that stirs up emotion in whatever way, be it happiness, or sadness, or rowdy, or hopeful.

And while I’m on this topic of music, and its impact on my creativity, music has been a part of my photography. I’ve often thought of what a soundtrack for projects or individual photographs would sound like: what style of music would it be? would it be a score? who would compose it? what artists and songs would be on it? During the years of 2015-2017 and part of 2018, whenever I went out photographing I played music in the car that had an impact on me when I was in college or during my time in grad school. Artists like Interpol, Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, The New Pornographers, and Elliott Smith. My thinking was that that music inspired me and helped channel my creativity back then, so it should inspire me now. I felt my work was strong then, so listening to that same music should help me make strong work now. Right? I even made a playlist with all of those old favorite songs and albums.

Looking back on that period, I feel like I was making work that was trying to by like the work I was making during college. I feel like I was trying to make that old music inform my present-day creativity. In mid-2018 I realized this, and thought “it’s 2018. I’m not in my early or late twenties. I need to be making work that is more authentic to my 2018 self. Why not update my music?” And once I did that, once I started playing the music that was inspiring me currently, today, I think that was when my confidence began to really return. I had, without stating specifically, decided to live in the present and look to the future as an artist, and turn to those things that are currently inspiring, informing, and influencing me. I’m not trying to make the music I listen to be responsible for my success or failures, or ups or downs as an artist. I just mention all this to illustrate the music’s power to influence me.

The lesson I’ve learned (and maybe it’s still sinking in) is that I’m not the same person I was when I was in college. I’m not the same artist I was then, or in 2008. I’m not the same artist I was a month ago, nor am I, I think it would be safe to say, even the same artist I was yesterday. We’re all progressing—or, god forbid, digressing—and we need to embrace that progression, grow with it, and learn from it. It might do us good to take a minute periodically and identify (if it’s not obvious) what is causing that growth.

10,000 Steps

In my last blog post I wrote about some of the goals I have for 2019, and that I wanted to begin a project I’ve been thinking about for 10 years. That project being about walking and hiking. A tentative title for it has been 10,000 Steps. And when I say I plan on beginning the project, I mean I’m going to undertake the project more earnestly. Because the truth is, over the years I have made the occasional  image while hiking in the mountains surrounding Cache Valley with the intention of developing the idea. In fact, I’ve blogged about it before, twice in 2013, and again in August of last year.

This project, I feel, has so much potential, and there are so many directions I can take it. Or that it can take me, which will probably be more accurate, both creatively and geographically.

The following image, a 360° panorama, is the first I deliberately made nearly 6 years ago, and it more closely resembles what I then imagined the images to be. Now, in 2019, I’m not so sure of the format of the images.

I like that you can see the trail leading both to the North and to the South in the same image, and this is one direction the project could go. We’ll see. I just need winter to come to an end so I can start making images. And since it’s mid-February, I’ve got a long wait ahead of me…

Influences

I'm reading Beauty in Photography by Robert Adams again. It's one of my go-tos when I need to figure things out, whether it be where to go with an entire project, or help me clarify my      thoughts on things. Adams' book, Why People Photograph is another resource I turn to often.

In the essay, "Making Art New," Adams tackles that gremlin artists face to keep their work fresh, keep improving, and perhaps even reinventing themselves.

A section of the essay begins, "The question, 'what is new?' implies a more hopeful question, 'what is better?'" (WPP 79) Then goes on to ask by what mark we measure progress, and offers "more Truth and/or Beauty" as a measure, but then points out the challenge this can be, and says he is "unacquainted with any first-rate painter or photographers who believe that their pictures will be more beautiful than those of Rembrandt." But Adams acknowledges that sometimes our predecessors were wrong, or at least viewed to be wrong, by those influenced by them. Though seen to be wrong, we are never free from their influence: "...as long as we respond to our forebears, they are with us." 

It is my belief that we are influenced by our predecessors always, whether we respond directly to them or not, for it is that response to an influence or denial or divorce from it that shapes us, informs our current work, and guides us in our quest to improve.

“Isn’t it necessary for [art] to be…different from what has gone before?” Adams asks. Then begins to answer with this gem:

...All art comes out of a background of convention established by one's predecessors. Every serious artist borrows not only from those conventions, but from the particular insights of individuals he admires. This is unavoidable because, as the painter Mark Tobey observed, "No young artist can grow unless he emulates someone bigger than himself"—we all start small. Thus, Cézanne, for example, borrowed from Delacroix, and Matisse from Cézanne and Delacroix. It sometimes even seems as if the greatest artists borrow most. Certainly none of those just mentioned ever tried to hide his dependence on his sources; each, great as he was, understood that creations out of nothing are possible only for God. We seem in the end to be left with a series of revivals. (WPP 81)

In order for us to grow, in order for us to even begin learning, it is necessary to emulate and borrow. But, as Adams later states, “No serious artist would…ever set out simply to repeat another.” Sooner or later, we must be as Matisse who said “I have accepted influences but I think I have always known how to dominate them.”

Some New Work

It's been far too long since I've posted anything here. 2018 has been a busy year so far. Our little boy has been keeping us on our toes. I haven't been focused on my photography as much as I would like to have been these past four or five months, but hopefully that can change soon. My attention has had to be placed on other things. But I have been able to get out and make some new work on occasion, included making several lumen prints and venturing into making chemigrams, which I will post sometime in the future. I just need to figure out a way to flatten them all—that fiber based paper sure likes to curl a lot. So none of them are included in this post, but look for them in a future post! Meanwhile, here are some new photographs:

Little Bear River, Cache Valley, Utah 2018

Melting Ice, Bear River, Benson, Utah 2018

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Utah 2018

Cement Forms, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Utah 2018

Drained Canal, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Utah 2018

Blacksmith Fork River, Utah 2018

I've been venturing into a new area oh photography for me. For those who know me personally, I've never really been interested in making photographs of people. I haven't really been interested in taking family snapshots. But after getting married, I began changing, and then changed even more when Thomas was born. My phone is full of photos of our little boy, and selfies of Gina and I from all of our various trips and adventures.

As Tommy has grown, and especially as he's moved into Toddlerhood, I've been fascinated by and interested in how he views the world. He's such an inquisitive and busy and active little fellow, and he is always getting into things, and now climbing up anything his little arms and legs can get up. He loves to go for walks; in fact, any time he hears the words "out" or "outside" he bolts to the front door and starts knocking or pounding on it as if he's asking us "you said 'outside,' why aren't we leaving right now?" He loves picking up rocks along the trails we hike, and he often has to have a rock in each hand. If there's any running water nearby, he claws his way out (or tries to) of our arms to go to it and play in it, or throw rocks in it.

But, as I watch him grow, as I watch him walk/run (mostly run), as he talks in his little baby gibberish (that isn't gibberish to him—in his mind, I know he's telling us very important things, and I love his intensity), I find questions swarm my mind: What draws him to certain things? Why did he pick up that particular rock, only to drop it 5 feet down the trail to pick up a new one? What is going on in that little mind of his? What is it like to be in that little body, and want to do so many big things in a big world? Why is repeatedly doing one thing for several minutes so captivating? What is it like to understand what those around you are saying to you, but not be able to express yourself or talk back?

This wonderment on my part has driven me to start taking more serious photographs of Tommy, and the things he sees. Photographs that are more serious and intentional than the snapshot of him doing something cute. The photographs that follow are some preliminary photographs in my own exploration into what being a toddler is like, and what being a parent to such an active and intense boy is like.

This boy feels everything right down to the core.

New Lumen #1

It's been pretty quiet here on the Departures blog a lot this year. It's not because I haven't been photographing. Quite the contrary. I've been out quite a lot. And I cranked out a lot of lumens this summer, and finally started scanning them in, and wanted to post this one quick, since I'm particularly pleased with it. I hope you will be too!

A Day on the Buffalo River

I've been waiting to post this until I had finished the other photographs from a recent family camping trip in Island Park, but my excitement to share this one has finally taken over!

I spent one of the days there making photographs from the same spot as the lighting and weather conditions changed throughout the day. The photograph below is the result:

This is just a digital rendering of what I have envisioned in my mind. The finished physical piece is intended to be an installation piece that will measure about 7.8 feet by about 4 feet, with each "bubble" being mounted directly to a wall. This is the direction I see these pieces going.

I need to spend a lot more time with the other photographs I made on our trip before I decide which ones to publish, but keep checking back for them!

Litter

Just about everywhere I go to photograph, hike, fish, or camp, there's always some sort of litter, and almost always, there's a beer can or bottle to be found. I try to practice what I learned as a Scout to "pack it in, pack it out," and "leave a place better than I found it." Lately, I've been using the litter I see as visual exercises to make found still life photographs before I pick it up. I don't know if anything major will come of all these photographs but I feel they're still important in my image making.

Mountain Dew

Mountain Dew

Michelob Ultra

Michelob Ultra

Corona Extra

Corona Extra

Coors

Coors

Work In Progress

I've been out quite a bit in the last month gathering photographs for these photo-mosaics I've gotten into making, and thought I'd share a few of the pieces I'm working on.

This first one has images made on three or four different occasions—once in the evening and twice in the morning just before and after sunrise.

Upper Bear River Recreation Area Parking Lot and Boat Launch

This next one has images made on five or six different occasions, at dusk, and at dawn and late afternoon.

Upper Bear River Recreation Area

This last one has photographs made on two different occasions, once at sunrise, and the other at sunset.

Lower Bear River Recreation Area

It's been a lot of fun conceptualizing, composing and then piecing together all the photographs that make up the larger piece. It's real time-consuming, both in the making of the photographs, and in the editing and arranging. I've got several hours already put into each of these photographs, and they're not even close to being something I'd say is a finished piece of artwork.

In a way, I feel as though I'm rebelling against the style I've worked in in the past 13 to 15 years, and it feels good to break from my "norm." 

Krista Wortendyke

About eight or nine years ago, I created a blog titled 52 Photographers, where I would feature one photographer each week of the year. I don’t remember now just how many posts I made on the blog, but I know I didn’t make it a whole year. The purpose of the blog was to help me seek out photographers I hadn’t seen before to keep the creative juices flowing.

I recently had the thought of resurrecting that blog, but I don’t have the time to make it a weekly thing. So, I’ll make it as much of a regular thing that I post about on this, the Departures Blog. And so, with no further ado, I’ll introduce the first photographer I’ll be featuring: Krista Wortendyke.

One of Krista's photographs was featured in a recent Your Daily Photograph email. The photograph, Untitled_014, from her (re): media project struck a chord in me at the very moment I saw it.

It wasn’t the content of the photograph that grabbed my attention so immediately and completely. It was the way she had pieced multiple images together in a multi-frame mosaic. I had seen seen work in this same approach before though—I have been aware of James Balog’s photographs published in a book titled Tree: A New Vision of the American Forest. But it had been so long since I'd seen or thought of Balog's work, that I'd nearly forgotten all about it, so it was if I were seeing work done like this before, not in terms of content—in this case, a fireball in an unnamed or even unknown desert, presumably from an explosion, and a large, black and gray plume of smoke rising into the sky—but in technique.

(re): media untitled_014

(re): media untitled_014

The body of work "is an exploration of the way imagery and information from movies, videogames, newspapers, and the Internet come together to form our perception of war." She goes on to explain: "Explosions are war’s most universal and most spectacular signifiers. We are never falling short of this imagery. I have made use of these magnetizing images to show not only how the lines between fiction and non-fiction blur, but also to show how a mediated experience can become indecipherable from a real experience." I find the concept intriguing, and the implementation is quite apropos to the subject matter.

(re): media untitled_011

(re): media untitled_011

I love coming back to these photographs. There are so many things that go unnoticed on a first look because there are is so much imagery to take in in each piece. And with so much of war and violence in the news, the imagery of war has become so commonplace and mundane, and with the quality of graphics and the immersiveness of war video games, it is easy to confuse reality with fiction.

Take a look at Krista's website and other projects here.

*All images used by permission of the artist.

Benson

On Saturday evening we drove out to Benson again so I could photograph. Here are a some of the evening's fruits:

Cottonwoods, Ditch, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cottonwoods, Ditch, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cottowoods, Bear River, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cottowoods, Bear River, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cottonwoods, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cottonwoods, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cattails,  Benson, Utah, 2016

Cattails,  Benson, Utah, 2016

Live and Fallen Cottonwood Trees, Benson, Utah, 2016

Live and Fallen Cottonwood Trees, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cottonwood Trees on the Banks of Bear River, Benson, Utah, 2016

Cottonwood Trees on the Banks of Bear River, Benson, Utah, 2016

The Avett Brothers in Seattle

 

Last week I got to go to Seattle for the first time in eight years to see the Avett Brothers in concert. Yeah, I know, Seattle is a long way to go just to see a band, but the Avett Brothers are no ordinary band!

For those of you who don't know, my brother got Leukemia while in South Korea in the Army in 2004. After treatment at Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis in Tacoma, the cancer went into remission, but some months later, it relapsed, and the only chance of getting rid of it then was to do a bone marrow transplant. So, while in my very last semester of college, I went up while he went through that treatment at the VA Hospital in Seattle. At that time I was in the middle of my Parks project for my BFA, and I got to photograph a lot of the parks in and around Seattle. While I was there last week, I took the opportunity to go back to a few of those parks and rephotograph some of the original scenes from 2005.

This one is really the only "re-photograph" I made. The rest are all new images.

 

Magnolia Park

Magnolia Park

Puget Sound, Discovery Park

Puget Sound, Discovery Park

Along the road, I snapped a few photos with my phone (for those of you who follow my Instrgam feed, some of these will look familiar):

Somewhere in Oregon

Crossing into Washington

 

The concert, as the Avetts always are, was amazing!

 

 On Sunday, after church we drove down to Redondo, a place on Puget Sound with a nice boardwalk. It was still a nice place for a photograph.

I didn't realize how much I missed Seattle until I went back. It's such an awesome city, and it was hard for this good thing to end, as all good things must, as the saying goes.