Recently I wrote about meeting the great photographer George Krause and what a wonderful pleasure it was. We had a great conversation in person and several subsequent chats over the phone.

I don’t know if I will ever see George again … he lives in Texas and I live in Pennsylvania. Neither of us has any plans to visit each other’s state. That having been said, I did something very important. I mailed George a check for a signed copy of his wonderful book George Krause: A Retrospective.  I also found a signed copy of his first book, George Krause I.

I feel very lucky to have these fine books and would want them in my collection whether we had met or not … and whether they were signed or not.  But having met and spoken to George several times made getting these signed books all the more special and necessary to me! Why? Because George is not only a great photographer and educator, he’s truly a good guy. Something rare in today’s hyped up photo/art world.

I will always treasure these two marvelous signed books. Whenever I look at them and see his signature I will think of the connection I made with George and the connection I will always have with him.

Stay well,

Michael

Every year the Borough of Bristol here in Bucks County hosts an Annual Puerto Rican Day Festival.  This year was no different except it was the 50^th one! As the sponsors say “Join us for a trip to Puerto Rico without the airfare” and so I did! The festival gods must have been watching over Bristol because it was supposed to rain most of Saturday, but it didn’t. Instead we had the incredibly sweltering weather that has made July the hottest month on record. But things can always be worse … instead of 97 degrees it could have been 100.

I attended the event several years ago and had a good time. Even got a nice picture out of the deal.  Things were pretty much the same this time around. Interesting people, good food, great music and plenty of kitsch to buy.

One of the first things that happened was literally bumping into someone with a large Nikon digital camera and an even larger zoom lens while about to make a picture.  That led to a lengthy and somewhat painful conversation about his amusement at seeing my Plaubel Makina film camera and how he used to have a darkroom. He gave it up when the first digital cameras came out and has never looked back … all those chemicals and other inconveniences. I found a nice way to end the conversation and was able to move on.

One of the things I do is try to keep up with things going on nearby. Bristol is on the Delaware River, about a 25 mile drive from home, so that works out nicely. But wait, there’s more action coming up soon! In August I have the Grange Fair I always go to and new this year is the Philly Naked Bike Ride. Should be interesting! Of course I don’t limit myself to photographing at local events and neither should you. But they do provide photographic and other entertaining opportunities. I particularly enjoy going to ones that have potential for the somewhat weird and out there. Asbury Park’s annual Zombie Walk comes to mind. And I’m determined to get to Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade. I was supposed to go this year but something I thought was important came up that I couldn’t get out of … I wish I had gone to the Mermaid Parade.

So I had a good time at the Puerto Rican Day Festival. An hour or so of meandering around and roll of 120 film was just about right. 6X7 yields ten frames which was all I needed, although I had three more rolls with in my camera bag just to be on the safe side. NOTE: While there’s something to be said about the discipline of restricting yourself to one roll of film for an outing (although 10 pictures may not be very much), there’s nothing worse than missing a great picture because you ran out of film! So don’t be a bozo and be prepared.

Summer is a great time for outdoor events that can yield some great photographic opportunities. Check some out … you might have some fun and get a few keepers along the way.

Stay well,

Michael

“I photograph to find out what the world looks like in a photograph.”  Gary Winogrand

I’ve highlighted this quote before.  It resonates with me quite a bit, especially, in the last month or so. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been spending a significant amount of time in my darkroom catching up on printing. I have an October milestone of ten prints to be ready for review as part of Monalog’s Visions of America project and wanted to stay ahead of the power curve. Going through proof sheets of the past several years, to select images I have not printed before, I’ve had to be pretty selective, even with a project so potentially large in scope.

And though I had yet to make prints of these images, they were by no means also rans. It turns out I was pretty behind in my printing! Of course my situation wasn’t and will never be remotely like what they found after Winogrand passed away, when more than 2,500 roles of his exposed film were discovered that hadn’t been developed.  But this recent experience made me think about how much my thinking is consistent with what he said. As much I cherish the “journey” aspect of what I do, there is something about finding that picture that gets isolated in the viewfinder of my camera for the briefest moment of time. This is especially true for me when using a rangefinder.  It’s very much like looking through a window onto the world … my world. If fortune is on my side and I’m lucky to get a keeper or two from an outing I can make a print(s) that captures what I saw in my mind’s eye for the real prize!

Falling behind in one’s work is never a good thing and I’m going to try to be much better about this going forward. But I have to say that I have enjoyed all the catching up! During the coming year I will have a lot of photographic opportunities to find out what the world looks like in a photograph that hopefully will yield some exciting results. Of course all of the work I produce will be curated by someone else who may not see the world as I do, let alone value what I am trying to recreate. But I’m not thinking about that at all. And why should I … I’m enjoying myself too much!

Stay well,

Michael

Since its introduction I’ve been using Photographer’s Formulary Liquidol print developer. Before that I used the sadly departed Zone VI print developer from the time it was introduced. Both were designed to be an improvement over Kodak Dektol, yielding better shadow detail.

This past week I ran out of Liquidol and called B&H to order some more. Sorry, not in stock and when it comes back I have to pick it up in New York. OK, I’ll call Photographer’s Formulary. Small problem … they only have two one pint bottles in stock and won’t have any more for at least three weeks due to supplier issues. Oh, and when they get it the price will be going up … but it won’t be available any longer in the largest and most economical size because … you guessed it … the black plastic containers are no longer available #@$%^$%^!!

So now in a mini panic I call Freestyle Photo and yes they have seven one liter bottles left in stock. Great … I’ll take them all! Unfortunately they won’t arrive until early this week.  That’s a problem because I’ve been working on a project with a bit of deadline and have been on a bit of a roll over the past several weeks. My plans were to spend much of this past Friday and the weekend in my darkroom. So what to do?  See if anyone within reasonable driving distance has some Dektol or anything like it. After a few calls I hit paydirt. A camera store about thirty minutes from where I live has three recently expired bags. No problem, it’s powder and there shouldn’t be any issues.

Picked it up on Friday morning, ate lunch then went into the darkroom to mix it.

NO, NO, a thousand times NO!  The color was that of icky black coffee! The fact that the powder was a milk chocolate brown was probably not a good sign, but I hadn’t used the stuff in almost 40 years so I didn’t give it much thought.

Ran upstairs and went on the Internet to see what I could find out. Turns out this is a well-documented problem that eventually Kodak had to recognize and address. Apparently while frightening to see, the color doesn’t prevent its use. Still …

Well, I can report that I used it over the weekend and although it was a little disconcerting to be developing paper in what looked to be bad coffee, the results were thankfully just fine.  One problem … when I woke up on Saturday morning I noticed my finger nails had become somewhat brown. I almost had a Brett Weston Amidol moment! Thankfully I had some gloves and used them for the remainder of the weekend.

My guess is that the Dektol now being made is no longer brown. However, my concern is that Kodak’s chemicals are made in China or at least the ingredients are, so there is the potential for quality control issues.

I’ve been worried about Kodak’s chemicals ever since they changed the formulation of HC-110. It’s no longer the syrupy consistency we all loved to hate, and who knows about its shelf life. Recently I’ve been able to score three bottles of the old stuff which should keep me going for a while. The only other Kodak chemical I use is Rapid Selenium Toner and I’ll probably look to replace that as well.

Now I am worried about Tri-X’s future.

So, what does this all mean? Not sure, but I can say this … when it comes to chemicals we all need to support those companies that continue to make good quality products such as Ilford and Photographer’s Formulary, and/or buy raw ingredients from reputable sources to mix your own. The formulas are out there in books like Steve Anchell’s The Darkroom Cookbook and on the Internet.

In the meantime, I anxiously await the arrival of a large and heavy box from Freestyle!

Stay well,

Michael

Recently while looking for a copy of the book Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Project on eBay I stumbled across an ad entitled “W Eugene Smith Camera Equipment Minamata”. Mostly run of the mill Minolta and Canon cameras with their lenses and some third party lenses, some Olympus rangefinders and a cheapo beat-up camera bag. Nevertheless, it could all be yours for fifteen grand or best offer!  I have no idea what the collectible value of Smith’s gear is, but it was used to make truly outstanding and important work and is part of photographic history! In any case, I only point this out to show you that you don’t need to spend boatloads on equipment to make great photographs. Don’t get me wrong; this stuff wasn’t junk, but it wasn’t Nikon or Leica and it certainly didn’t cost what Nikon or Leica did either.

When the Minamata photographs were first published in Life Magazine, I was eighteen years old, but by that time I had a Nikon F2! And while it was and still is one of the great 35mm SLRs of all time it didn’t help me make monumental pictures like Gene Smith’s!

We all worry about our gear to a degree and many of us suffer from GAS thinking that owning the “best” camera or lens will somehow enable us to make the best photographs. It took me a long time to stop chasing that misguided dream, but when I stopped things were a lot better.  That doesn’t mean I don’t have good equipment, but I was finally able to understand that it was the seeing that really mattered.

Looking at what Smith used to make his tremendous work is truly a humbling experience and should be a lesson to us all.

Stay well,

Michael

I haven’t been able to shake this and I’m not sure what it really means. There’s a million things more important, but hey, I’m writing about it. As I witnessed all of the current state-of-the-art at the Leica’s Photoville event it made me think of all that money for all that digital jewelry.  I’m certain all those that had the latest and greatest hanging around their necks felt empowered to make the best pictures possible.

Look, if it makes you feel good, do whatever makes you happy. And why not? We live in partially functioning democracy, so go for it. I just sat and took it all in. Someone even asked me if they could try my seventy year old Summicron on their M11 then and proceeded to make ten or twenty shots in less than thirty seconds.

This made me think about another great piece that appeared a number of years ago on the Leicaphilia website. So I had to find it again. Here’s an excerpt written in 2014, discussing digital and the great lengths people were going to in order have convenience while trying to emulate the look and feel of Tri-X:

“Which leads to the obvious question: why spend $7500 on a digital camera that emulates the “film look” when you can just buy a used Leica M film camera for $1000 and a 100′ roll of Tri-X and get the real thing? And another thing to think about: in 50 years that M4 you buy on Ebay for $950 will still be working just fine, no batteries needed, while your Monochrom will have been consigned to the junk heap decades ago.

The M4, all parts made by Leitz, is all mechanical, all parts capable of being replaced without much ado by a competent repairman or machinist. The MM (and all digital ‘cameras’) are consumer electronic commodities meant to be replaced by newer, “better” commodities every three years or so. Your Monochrom employs specialized chips and other parts, not made by Leica and therefore out of their control, which exist in finite supply: a proprietary shape and voltage battery manufactured by a third party, proprietary code to run itself, a proprietary imaging chip. Your Leica MM also depends on a host of other third-party technology (e.g. computers, image processing programs, web browsers) over which neither Leica nor you have any control. In 15 years, while your M4 loaded with Tri-X sits happily on your shelf next to book binders full of sleeved negatives you can touch and manipulate at your leisure, your Monochrom, all electronics and tiny motors, will be unrepairable because there won’t be parts. And good luck finding and/or retrieving all your MM DNG files.”

As far as I could tell from the Leica event, not much has changed since the above was written. That said, Leica is a great company and we are lucky to have it!!! Nothing I’ve said changes that fact. They arguably make the finest lenses and their cameras are beautifully made, best of breed tools designed to meet given sets of goals very well. They build a product that people want to buy. This keeps the company profitable and in business. And yes, Leica still makes film cameras!!!

Thank you Leica for helping to keep analog photography alive. I’ll think about all you’ve done and continue to do when I load my next roll of Tri-X into one of my M cameras, look through its gorgeous viewfinder and focus my Summicron lens.

Stay well,

Michael

It’s wonderful when the great and famous turn out to be normal people!  This is what I found when I had the good fortune to meet George Krause at the annual Photo Review Garden Party this weekend at Haverford College outside Philadelphia. I had a table representing the Monalog Collective where I was hoping to talk to curators and others that might be interested in our Visions of America project we’re working on.  Along came George Krause, who came up to my table and introduced himself. We had a nice conversation … he told me he thought I was only 50 and I told him there was no way he was 86!  Later on I got a chance to sit down with him, talk some more and admire his magnificent book George Krause: A Retrospective.

We exchanged information and agreed I would call him later this week after he returned to Texas. Fun fact: As I was attempting to have his contact information transferred from his iPhone to mine, George told me I might be the only person more technically challenged then him! Nice. In any event, I’m going to purchase a signed copy of his book, but this beauty’s also available on Amazon for only thirty five bucks! Get it … it’s a stunner!

It was a real treat spending time with a legendary photographer and photo educator who wasn’t in love with himself but was merely happy to talk to you. What a contrast to the insecure that think they’re great but really aren’t and the pompous asses who may be good but need to make sure you know how superior they are.

I’ve talked a lot about photography as a journey. The short time I spent with George was a real milestone on my path.

Stay well,

Michael