Last weekend I drove up to the Johnstown, NY area and participated in a photographic retreat organized by the very fine photographer Tillman Crane. I didn’t have a lot of extra time so instead of making the four hour drive on Friday night and getting a decent amount of sleep I got up at 4:30 on Saturday morning. Of course our puppy that has recently taken to sleeping on our bed decided after my incredibly loud alarm went off that it was now time to play. @$#%^&I*!  Chaos notwithstanding, I did manage to get out of the house on time.

One of the nice features of this retreat was that it was free!  Because I chose a more scenic drive I showed up a tiny bit late to my first destination, the very old and lovely Fort Herkimer Church and cemetery, located in Mohawk, NY.  I am a sucker for old churches and especially old cemeteries so this was great!  One problem … I was so busy prior to blowing town that I didn’t pay much attention to the weather a couple of hundred miles from where I live. The only thought I had was that it would be 70 degrees in Doylestown. As I drove through fog much of the way the temperature continued to drop. By the time I reached the church it was around 32 degrees, with several inches of snow on the ground!  Beautiful for making photographs in the cemetery, but after a couple of hours walking around my sneakers were wet and my thin knit gloves were useless.  The result; my toes and fingers were freezing. No problem, it would be warm inside the old church.  Wrong!  There was no heat and it felt colder than it was outside!  Despite some pretty numb fingers I think I got what I hope will be some good results … at least the negatives I developed look good.  Lesson learned … plan better when it comes to warm clothing and proper shoes!  What was I thinking … I had grown up in New York State and drove or hitchhiked across most of it, camping along the way.  I called my wife on the cell. Her response … you’re in New York State.  Right as usual.

Next onto another wonderful old house of worship, Palatine Church, located in Fort Plain, NY and thankful for the efficient heater in my car!  Naturally, I kept stopping along the way several times to make pictures!  To me, driving around with no plan in mind or just being lost, only to find something interesting is one of the most exciting aspects of photographing.  I finally showed up at the church just as other participants were packing up and it was being locked.  Fortunately the person with the key pitied me enough to let me go inside for the short amount of time necessary to make a few photographs. Then on to the Johnstown Holiday Inn to show and discuss prints.

I had a nice time photographing, met up with one of my friends who lives nearby me and ran into someone else who has attended one of my Photo Chat Get Togethers. I also spoke to Tillman who is great guy. Most of the prints I saw were digital landscapes or other digitally made images despite Tillman’s emphasis on large format and platinum prints.  I was pretty much odd man out. But no worries, it was fairly entertaining.

Several of the digital pictures I saw, like the photographs I viewed at the Diane Levell show were good, in this case those where efforts were employed to make them look as natural as possible (e.g., non-digital and not overdone).  So my question to some that were displaying their work … why not just use film?  The short answer was that it comes down to a question of ease and time. Sometimes you hear “I could never make this photograph with film and traditional darkroom processes”.  But why should I ruin a nice event?  I wrapped up in a couple of hours and then headed home.  I am sure the dinner was nice but I needed to get back.

All in all a good time and many thanks to Tillman Crane for organizing this fine event.  I got a chance to listen to some great jazz in my car, nearly got frostbite, made what I hope are a few nice photographs, discussed photography, ran into some people I know and met some others I didn’t. What more can you ask for in one day?