Last weekend I attended a memorial held for the late great Michael Smith at the Michener Art Museum here in Doylestown. Stephen Perloff, Smith’s long-time friend and Founder and Editor of Photo Review Magazine, and Richard Trenner, another long-time friend and editor gave tributes to his life.  Then his wife and outstanding photographer Paula Chamlee spoke.  Very moving about a man who lived a life on his own terms and by his own rules.  Not many can say they have done that.  She also made sure that everyone in attendance had a nametag on so that they could introduce themselves to one and other and begin new friendships.  That is what Paula wanted, and what Michael would have wanted.

It was wonderful to see my good friends that I have had the good fortune to come to know since moving to here. I also ran into Peter Schrager who has been a long-time reader and commenter to this website. Wonderful to finally meet you Peter and I look forward to getting together in the near future!  But true to Paula’s wishes I met new people as well.  I met Diane Levell who’s photography exhibit I recently saw and wrote about here. Turns out we live only a few miles from each other!  I also met Steve Sherman, who’s first annual Photo Arts Xchange I will be attending and presenting at in May.  Finally, I was thrilled to meet the great George Tice and several other fine photographers and darkroom workers that I look forward to getting to know in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey area.

All in all a wonderful event … just the way Michael and Paula wanted it!

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?

While I was at the Steichen/Garber exhibit at the Michener I also took in a small but very interesting show of Diane Levell’s Bucks County landscape photographs.  They were made using a digital infrared camera and digitally printed on Japanese rice paper.  And I have to say that they were as tastefully done as any digital work I have seen. Quite enchanting but certainly different from analog work – even analog photographs made with infrared film (see my description of Sandy Sorlien’s wonderful little book Fifty Houses: Images From the American Road).

The point of the series was to transform the familiar (in this case intimate landscapes) into the magical.  I think she succeeded and I will admit that I liked many of her images. But don’t jump to any hasty conclusion here and think I’ve gone over to the dark side … I most certainly have not!

Look, I also like paintings made using oil, watercolor and egg temper.  What is used to create the painting creates different results – they’re different mediums. So I think it’s all right for me to also like digital prints if they are good pictures tastefully executed (I saw a few more good ones while participating in a photo retreat this weekend … more on that to come). They just are not the same as film-based silver gelatin (or platinum, etc.) prints and in most cases they don’t do it for me.  To me it’s a different form of art.  Ok, that’s my opinion and it won’t be a surprise to those who regularly visit this site. Digital is just not the same I am not sure the technology will ever be capable re-creating what I see and experience from all-analog produced images

So here are some questions.  Am I glad I went to see the exhibit? Yes. Was the work good? Yes. Do I like digital photography in general? No. Do I think you should see the exhibit if you’re nearby? Also yes.  Is Dianne Levell a talented photographer? Absolutely! After doing a little research, I learned she uses film and alternative processes, depending on her objective. It turns also out that we are both members of the Red Filter Gallery and she lives here in Doylestown … perhaps we will meet someday!

The exhibit runs through July 28^th.

On Saturday I went to see an interesting show at the Michener Art Museum, here in Doylestown, Bridging Two American Muralists: Daniel Garber & Edward Steichen(Note to self – I am truly lucky to have such a wonderful treasure of a museum in a small town and within walking distance of my home!).  Steichen was one of the Twentieth Century’s photography giants. But his first love was painting, which led him to move to Paris as a young man in 1900. It was after he returned to the United States that he took up photography with a vengeance and the rest as they say is history.

To be honest, I wasn’t aware that Steichen started off as a painter.  I know this now as a result of seeing this small but fantastic show that focuses on his mural work and that of the great Bucks County artist Daniel Garber. Garber has one of the most incredible senses of light I have ever seen and I have often taken my students to the museum to see many of his wonderful paintings that are in its permanent collection. Why? Because as photographers we can learn a lot about light and composition from studying the great painters!  But you need to actually go to see the paintings. You just cannot get the full appreciation of the great’s sense of light unless you are standing in front of their work. So do go to art galleries and museums whenever the opportunity presents itself!

Back to Steichen. Like many photographers of his time he started off by making somewhat blurry photographs to approximate impressionist paintings. Thankfully this trend quickly passed!  The seven paintings on display are anything but blurry. The murals are very large and incredibly colorful. The canvases measure 120 inches in height. Two are 96 inches wide and the other five are 55 inches. All include larger than life portraits of other painters, their children or Steichen’s patrons. Each canvas also includes flora associated with specific human traits or desires and served as the basis and inspiration for the composition.

Looking at the paintings it is easy to see how they informed Steichen’s latter straight photography, most notably his formal portrait work, and it was a real treat to learn and experience something about this great photographer I wasn’t aware of before. Steichen was a true multi-talented artist who could paint as well as he could photograph. It’s a shame that he gave up his painting and destroyed all his remaining canvases. Fortunately you can experience some of his rarely seen paintings, but only if you move quickly. The show ends on April 15^th.  So if you are near Bucks County, it is definitely worth a visit to the Michener to see this wonderful exhibit by two truly gifted artists.

It was a few years ago that I received the last Freestyle Photo catalogue in the mail and was advised there would be no more. Surely this was a bad sign for analog photography I thought. Thankfully Freestyle remained in business and I continue to purchase supplies from them, most notably paper (I have been a customer for a long time – years ago on a business trip to Los Angeles I found the time to make a pilgrimage to their Hollywood store on Sunset Boulevard).  Nevertheless I was sad not to receive the catalogue that came out a once or twice a year. Another sign of the times I guess. Sort of like my continuously shrinking newspaper and what remains of the great magazines.

So you can’t believe how excited I was about a month ago when I went out to get the mail.  There in the box was a Freestyle Photo catalogue!  On the cover in bold lettering it said NEW AGAIN … REDISCOVER THE WORLD OF ANALOG PHOTOGRAPHY.  Damn! Now if I hadn’t just spent $300 with them for three more boxes of Variant III I would have placed an order for something just to feel good!

For those of us that prefer using film cameras and making prints in our darkrooms, the catalogue serves as a reconfirmation that what we love so much is NOT DEAD OR DYING as some would have us believe. Want more evidence?  Take a look at the price of topflight film cameras. Take medium format. After nose-diving, prices for used Hasselblad, Pentax 67, Mamiya 7 and Fuji/Bessa folding rangefinders have skyrocketed.  Digital is not going away, but neither is film. Instant film and new cameras that use it are back too. And I don’t think paper is saying goodbye either.

So for those sitting on the fence over getting into, or back into analog photography, feel free to jump off and have a nice soft landing. There is plenty of fantastic high quality gear that is cheap, and of course you can still spend the money if you want a new or used Leica or Hassy, etc.

Anyway, I just spent a good part of the weekend in my darkroom. The world may be going crazy all around us, but it’s still a great time to be alive if you like using film and making prints!

I know … I only listen to vinyl, and only through vintage tube electronics, and I only use film and make silver gelatin black and white prints.  And I prefer “straight” photography. Ok, I get it, there’s a pattern operating here.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Allentown Museum of Art to take in the exhibit Fresh Perspective, Modernism in Photography, 1920-1950.  Little did I know that I was going to see three different shows!  Let’s start with the exhibit I travelled to see.  The Fresh Perspective show contained twenty-five mostly 8×10 black and white prints by Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstaedt, August Sander, Walker Evans, and others, some of which I was not familiar with. Everything from landscapes and landscape fragments, to formal portraits, to cityscapes, to objects used and worn in everyday life.  A few pictures stood out in particular to me … Edward Weston’s Kelp, Point Lobos, Margaret Bourke-White’s Aerial View of New York Bus Terminal Building, and Eggs with Slicer, also by Edward Weston. A very nice little show and well worth seeing!

I left the photographs of the Masters and strolled into a large auditorium containing the Lehigh Valley Photography Club 2019 Juried Exhibition.  As you can imagine, there was a large cross section of photographs covering all subject matter in both black and white and color. Of course mostly larger digital prints.

Then walked two floors up the stairs to a very large show, Carrie Mae Weems, Strategies of Engagement.  The New York Times has called Weems “perhaps or greatest living photographer” and I have to say the exhibit was fascinating on a number of different levels and perhaps it is top level representative of the current state of exhibited photography. Very large silver gelatin and digital black and white prints, purposefully out of focus color prints, even huge hanging images printed on thin muslin cloth. Most appeared to be staged or posed in some way.   There is even text and videos. The work focuses on racial stereotypes and problematic issues in American history concerning Native Americans and African Americans.  Very different to me, and to be honest, I had trouble wrapping my head around what I saw, but I believe worth seeing.

The trip to the Allentown Museum showed me where photography has come from to where it now is at the art museum/gallery levels. Also on display was the work of many who make photographs for the joy of it. It all gave me a lot to think about. I had started off with the older work, then went on to the camera club photographs, and ended with the new work.  When I finished, I just had to return one more time to view the older work.  I looked at those twenty-five prints again, then smiled and left for the ride home.

If you happen to be in or near the Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley do check out the Allentown Museum of Art.  The Fresh Perspective and Carrie Mae Weems shows run throughMay 5^th and May 12^th respectively.

After I finished seeing the two exhibits at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts I had lunch in the cafeteria, then hightailed it to the small town of Andover, MA. About a thirty-five minute drive and I showed up in time to take a leisurely stroll through the Addison Gallery of American Arts located on the beautiful grounds of the famous Phillips Academy.  The public schools I attended growing up didn’t have a gallery housing more than 18,000 works by some of the most prominent American painters and photographers! That’s all right, I survived and am now happy to have found this incredible gem!!!

Contemplating the View: American Landscape Photographs is a great show and in many ways was as much of a surprise for me as the Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico exhibit.  The show contained more than 150 photographs from the museum’s large photography collection and included an incredible and what might seem to be an unlikely cross section of great American photographers. Highlights included images by landscape masters Wynn Bullock, Mark Klett, William Garnett, Robert Adams, Alvin Langdon Corburn, Alfred Steiglitz, Edward Weston, Minor White, Harry Callahan, Ansel Adams, Ralph Steiner, Sonya Noskowiak, Aaron Siskind, Eliot Porter, Richard Misrach, Lois Conner, Frank Gohlke, Lewis Baltz and John Willis, but also unexpected work by Bill Owens, Elliott Erwitt, Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank, John Szarkowski and Roger Minick.

As was the case with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts show, I had the opportunity to see some landscape favorites produced in smaller sizes, like Ansel Adams Mount McKinley. There were others such as Wynn Bullock’sStark Tree and Harry Callahan’sSunlight on Water. Then there was a truly unexpected and beautiful photograph by Elliot Erwitt, Church at Wounded Knee. That is just one example of the many surprises awaiting you if you can get to this great show before it closes on March 3rd. And guess what … admission is free!!!

Not sure three exhibits and almost seven hundred miles driving in one day is for everyone, but it was a memorable and inspiring day I will always cherish.