Spent last week after the show at Wells Street in Raleigh doing non photography stuff. Wells Street lived up to its reputation of being an art festival wrapped in a beer festival. On top of that the weather was a real trial. It would just randomly start raining, throughout the entire weekend.

Worked on some commercial stuff earlier in the week, and now Im off to Chicago, again. wish I had just left the van there and flown home. It probably would have been cheaper. After this week, my show schedule gets less arduous. Its will be about two shows a month. No more of this three or four in a row, unless they are really worth it.

Really getting excited about heading to Washington next month. It will be a combo photo trip/wine trip/vacation. We shall see how that goes, doesn't always work.

Occasionally I get asked by people at art shows deeper questions then I am expecting to answer in that setting. A couple of weeks ago a young women who was in college asked me what one piece of advice I would give. I vomited out some stupid answer, but it stayed with me. I have given it a lot of thought this week. First let me say this: any time I give advice, I feel like the 5th grader explaining calculus to a 3rd grader. I consider myself a student. I may know more than a some people, but I still feel like I have so much to learn.

I think back to the best piece of advice I ever got regarding photography. I was getting a stern, kind of demeaning lecture about my work in front of the entire class of photographers at a John Sexton Workshop in March of 2005. He was asking me about what camera, lenses, film, film developer, paper and paper developer I used. At the time I was using 2 cameras(Toyo 4x5, and RB67) , 5 films(TMAX 100 & 400, Ilford HP5 and Fuji Acros 100 and Infrared), 4 film developers (Pyro PMK, HC-110, Agfa Rodinol and D-76) and two different papers(Ilford Multigrade IV and Warmtone). I was buying whatever I felt like. There was no consistency. He told me in no uncertain terms that I would never learn my tools if I kept switching them. He told me how for almost the entire decade of the 1970's he used 1 camera (Linhof), 1 lens (Nikkor 210mm), 1 film (Tri-X 320), one film developer (D-76), one paper (Kodak Gallerie) and one paper developer (Dektol).

For the record, I now use one camera (toyo 45A), one film (HP5), one film developer (Pyro PMK), one paper (Multigrade IV) and one paper developer (Dektol).

But my point is this: Simplicity.

People are under the illusion that it's easy...Technically, it is complex. You have a million options with equipment to distract you. I tell my students to simplify their equipment. - Brett Weston

I actually had a bunch more written at this point, but my computer lost the internet connection. I don't remember all I had written, but it was amazing and life changing.

Back to the point. Simplicity is so important. We really need so little to create, everything else is superfluous. Get rid of that which is not vital. I have seen it for myself, and I have seen others with the same struggle. For me, I had to figure out my own voice. Sure I could shoot in color or make photographs of still life, but that isn't what Im drawn to. It wouldn't be bad if I did do that kind of thing, but its ultimately not my passion. Im passionate about about telling stories about quiet places I have been. When I get away from that, the work loses its personality, because its no longer my own personality. I have to focus on one thing, or I can't focus on anything.

Learn your tools, and keep them simple. Don't confuse yourself. The limitations are far outweighed by the benefits of having your tool being and help and not a hinderance. If you don't limit yourself, you choices and complications become your limitation.

Just hanging out in Green Bay for the night before I head to Chicago tomorrow to pick up Celeste. We have a show on Wells Street this weekend that I am really looking forward to. I return to Philly on Monday, only to leave Monday night for Raleigh till next Thursday. I will be sick of traveling at that point. I just want to go play in my garden and sleep in my own bed.

Hanging in Michigan's Upper Peninsula for the week. 57th Street was a decent time, sent some prints home with some people. I like Chicago, people are pretty cool. Not everything was great, though. Ate some really bad spagetti. Plus it rained like crazy Saturday morning as well as during tear down on Sunday.

Headed north after the show, but made a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of the peninsula. Got to the park a few hours later than I had planned. Still made it to a place I was hoping to get to, Mosquito Beach. It was a tough hour hike to the beach through a mosquito-infested forrest (who would have thought), but the payoff was well worth it. The trail dropped me off on a sandstone outcropping. It reminded me a lot of the sandstone formations I found in the Navajo Nation in Arizona. I made some abstract images that I am really excited about. The hike back was tough, but it was worth it.

Up here it is light out pretty late, due to the fact that its so close to the Central Time Zone and its pretty far north. Sunset was at like 9:30, but the light didn't leave the sky until well after 10pm. I got back to the town where I am staying and everything was closed. Early to bed kind of people here.

I'l be here through Thursday, hopefully making some more photographs before heading back to Chicago for the show in Wells Street.

So Im back from Montauk. Its a place to go if you have lots of money. Everything is quite expensive. Monday I went to go look at some dogs and then had dinner at the Feury's. Patrick is one of my favorite chefs, and we ate some great food and had some awesome wine.

I spent my week getting things together before I spend a few weeks on the road. Matting, Putting together frames and stuff like that kept me really busy.


Tomorrow I leave for Chicago. Its my first time showing in Chicago, Im looking forward to it. I actually have two shows, back to back weekends. Instead of coming home, I will be heading to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I figure I'll spend several days up there making photographs.

It should be a nice trip, Im looking forward to it.

Getting ready to head out the door to Montauk for the weekend. Had a great week in the darkroom, I was able to accomplish a lot. Unfortunately the mattboard I use is backordered, so I won't be matting anything new for a few weeks. Im bringing all my photo gear to take some pictures this weekend in Montauk. Hopefully there will be dynamic weather, but not during the show, obviously.

I just wanted to touch on a couple of my recent posts. If you have read them, Im sure it came across that I was somewhat angry (which I was). It also came across that I hate digital photography and think that it can't be used to create art. I do believe that the digital method of capturing light(a digital camera) is an amazing tool. It has many uses. I use it myself for commercial work. But it is not the best method for when image quality is of importance. If I was shooting sports, something for magazine print or something that was to be used for a website I would use digital. One of the great things about the landscape is that it doesn't move that much compared to people or wildlife or cars etc... I can slow down and make sure its right. I don't need an LCD to tell me I exposed the image correctly. There is no digital capture method that can equal film, and in some ways there can never be. That is a fact.

On the other hand, I believe that the digital printing process can be valuable in the fine-art world, especially color printing. If I was a color photographer, I would still shoot film, but I would scan it and digitally print it. Black and white is different for a couple of reasons. First, it is easy to process traditionally compared to the color process. Second, the technology is not as advanced for Black and White digital printing as it is for color. Black and white digital prints can be great, but I have yet to see them be as good as a silver print.

So, I hope this will wrap up my angry digital rant. Ultimately, it is the heart and soul that matters, not the tools. Great tools cannot make a great artist. Thats all for know.

For those of you who read my last post may have figured out, I was really annoyed after my last art show. People have questions, I understand that. People don't know, and thats fine. But when someone decides to tell me about what I do for a living, except they have no clue, I start to take offense. Its really just a matter of if you don't know, shut up. If you don't know, ask questions. Anyone who knows me knows I love to educate people about what I am passionate about; whether it be photography, food, Jazz, Italian culture, history, sports, theology.... I love to talk about these things. I also like to hear those that also know about these things talk. I like to shut up and learn sometimes. I probably don't listen as much as I should, but Im trying to be better. What it all boils down to is this: your a grown up, you should know when its time to shut up and listen.

This all stems from a few interactions with a few people attending the last art show. One was a patron who said he wanted to get back into photography, but he said he had been told by the other photographers at the show that they had all switched to digital because they couldn't get film and paper anymore. I looked him in the eye and told him that they were liars. He was shocked. It wasn't his fault, of course. I informed him that there are almost as many film choices as there were 10 years ago when I started. Sure, no more Agfa. No more Kodachrome. You want slide film? Fuji still makes (in 35mm) Provia, Sensia, Astia and Velvia. Kodak still makes Ektachrome and all its variations. You want color print film? Fuji still has its full line of Pro and consumer color film. So does Kodak. Black and White? Freestyle Photographic carries 11 different brands of B&W film in 35mm and 8 brands of sheet film, making 125 different types of film. Heard that? 125 different types.

check this out:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/c40-Black-and-White-Film
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Sheet-Film/ci/335/N/4289268775


Let me be clear about this; NOTHING I have ever used on a regular basis to create my art has ever been discontinued. What are these other photographers talking about? They all shot Kodachrome? They only used Agfa products? Or are they all just saying that because they went digital because the quality of their art doesn't matter, all that matters is their bottom line. I am ashamed show with people like that. They have no souls. We all must make compromises. I can't afford to shoot 11x14 inch negatives. I don't have the darkroom space to print bigger than 16"x20". Does my art suffer because of this? YES IT DOES. But I am doing the best I can with what I have. I cannot say the same about so many of my fellow art festival photographers. $19 for a digital print matted to 16"x20"? It takes 2 pieces of mattboard to mount and matt a photograph. My mattboard in that size costs me almost as much as his prints. Don't believe me? Check this out:

http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com/westminster-rag-standard-4-ply-bright-white-16-x-20-25-pkg/standard-mat-board-sizes/

$4.47 a piece. Not to mention the $1 or so for the mounting tissue. Thats $10. This guy, when not selling prints on canvas of course, has no concern for the quality of the work he produces.

I feel like I have been silent about this too long. Me and other photographers who do care need to speak up. This kind of thing has been eating away at me, but I have bit my tongue so as not to offend. No more. I will stand up for what I believe. I will call it like it is, or do my best to.

I want to talk about some serious. Something that might make a few people uncomfortable. I want to get right down to a subject that is at the heart of what is wrong in America today. I want to talk about photographs printed on canvas. We have only to look back at history and se ourselves repeating our past mistakes. My Grandfather always used to say "He who forgets the past is bound to repeat it". During the early days of the 20th century there was a strong bias against photography as art. It was viewed as mechanical, not even remotely on the same par as painting. Photographers decided to try to make their photographs look like paintings, using soft-focus and other techniques to dull the detail of photographs. It was called pictorialism. Luckily for us, people like Steiglitz and Weston changed photography, believing that it was a strong art form, and that its strength is the amount of detail it can have. By softening a photograph, the artist is working against photography's strength. No painter can paint as sharp as a photograph. Painting has its own strengths, but Im not here to talk about those. With the founding of the group f64, which was a small group of fine-art photographers on the west coast whose ranks included the likes of Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, photographers spent the next 70 years or so trying to show detail a sharp focus. It was only then that when photography showed its strengths that it was accepted as a fine-art medium, not just something that failed painters did.

But as my Grandfaher says, history will repeat itself. With the advent of digital photography, digital photographers were criticized for the lack of artistic merit that their work has. So to make up for their own shortcomings as artists, they decided to try to make their work like painters, by printing on canvas. All that printing on canvas does it cheapen the work. It is a fad, and any time an artist follows a fad, their work is bound to suffer, and eventually they will lose themselves as artists when the fads change. I believe prints on canvas have Thomas Kinkade-esque feel. They have a sterile, uncultured look that has no human connection to them. They were not created by a person, they were created by a machine. They are art that is sold to the lowest common denominator, stuff sold in malls and at discount retail stores. They are a cheap imitation of art. They are not real art. They are the equivalent of painting on velvet, maybe even worse. I believe no photograph looks as good as it will on any surface other that photographic paper.

A lot of Art Festivals are banning them, as they should. They insult both painters and photographers alike. They look cheap. When I see them at a show, I will think twice about ever doing that show again. Sorry if you disagree with me. I try to not get too opinionated in this blog, but it is my blog, I will do as I like. And sometimes a person must speak strongly about something that they feel is wrong and evil. This disgusts me in so many ways. Although I am not a fan of digital photography as many of you know, I definitely believe it had its place, especially for commercial work. I do not feel the same way about prints on canvas. They have NO place in art.