Looked in the fridge the other day and wondered if I should be nervous or not. Kodak discontinued Plus-X several years ago and it was a sad day for many of us. Since that time I have been nursing a stash of rebranded and now expired Plus-X that I purchased from Freestyle Photographic Supplies in Los Angeles. Not the most convenient to use… 24 exposures per roll instead of 36, but I took what I could get and have about 50 rolls or so left. Ok, so that’s the bad news, because I love Plus-X and have used it on and off for years. Sort of like my LL Bean waxed field coat that is about 15 years old and is no longer being made. Yes, it has holes in it but I love it. It’s an old friend. My wife thinks it is time for it to be retired, so I need to find a different version from Bean, Eddie Bauer or someone else and learn to love it too.

Back to the Plus-X … I will adapt, find a near replacement or perhaps something even better.

Don’t get discouraged or caught up in the argument that film (and paper) is dead; instead, just take a look for example at the black and white films Freestyle lists in its inventory:

• Adox
• Agfa
• Arista
• EDU Ultra
• Ezox
• Foma
• Fujifilm
• Holga
• Ilford
• Kentmere
• Kodak
• Rollei

And there are others out there that Freestyle doesn’t carry! In fact, there a number of black and white film alternatives that didn’t exist or where not easily available 5 years ago!!!!

So there really is a wealth of black and white film … and the opportunity out there for those that want to use this wonderful medium!

This past September, just before it left town, I was able to see a really great exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art – “Discovering the Impressionists…Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting”. Well, I finally am getting a chance to write about it!

What a lucky opportunity! Apparently this was a “once in a lifetime special exhibit of Impressionist art associated with Durand-Ruel who as an art dealer in Paris that both championed and supported the new painting genre. Organized in part by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this was the show’s only US stop. The exhibit presented over 90 paintings including well-known favorites — but more importantly, many that had not been seen in the US for decades, or ever before! Included in the exhibit were works by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Degas, Manet, Cassatt and others.

To say it was an eye opener would be an understatement, and it certainly put an exclamation point on the notion that those who wish to improve their photography can learn a thing or two (or three or four, or many more!!) from studying the great painters.

Here are a few observations:

1. Most of the paintings were horizontals, but there were some notable vertical presentations.
2. All were rectangular in shape.
3. There was a great feeling of light, whether the subject was landscape or portrait. They were luminous!
4. Many of the scenes were of everyday life – people and their surroundings that included buildings, bridges and landscape.
5. One series of 15 paintings by Monet focused on a grouping of Poplar trees seen in different seasons of the year, different light, and in different weather conditions.
6. When looking at the paintings it seemed the perspective is what I would describe as close to “normal”, meaning not to wide or not to compressed.

I thought about these points for a while and it all brought me back to the wonderful Strand exhibit I had seen in ten months earlier – also at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Strand was very careful in thinking about his composition and so were the Impressionist masters. Strand focused on scenes of everyday life – people and their surroundings, just like the Impressionists. No exaggerated perspective in Strand’s work and the same was true of the Impressionist paintings I saw. This was particularly evident when looking at Renior’s tightly focused “Dancers” series. Well guess what, it turns out that Strand used only one lens for his 8×10 and 5×7 (modified to 5×6) cameras – a 12 inch Goerz Dagor. That is normal lens (e.g., analogous to a 50mm in 35mm format) for 8×10 and a mild telephoto for his 5×6. If I were looking at the paintings as photographs I would have guessed the same thing! There was a purity of vision and focus in both the paintings and the photographs.

All of the above is not meant to say that Strand was bald copier of the Impressionists. What I am trying to say is that I saw a lot in the Impressionist exhibit that could be and should be applied to photography, and upon reflection was applied by one of the greatest photographers of Twentieth Century.

I previously spoke about keeping your head in the game. That idea relates to the joy of living a photographic life. The question is how to do this! Let’s face it; most of us have non-photographic jobs, family obligations, etc. So short of making photography your livelihood, what can you do? Obviously you will want to go out into the world and make photographs. Trouble is that most don’t have the time or ability to do that on a regular and continuous basis. So our avocation can’t be our vocation. Time to move onto Plan B, which for most of us is the real world. But living in the real world doesn’t mean we cannot live a photographic life.

Here is a list of ten things you can do.

1. Make photographs whenever you can. And don’t feel you have to travel to some “exciting” or otherwise exotic location. Come to the realization that there is much around you that is interesting if you are open to it.
2. If you have a darkroom develop your film and make proof sheets.
3. Carefully examine your proof sheets and make prints of only the best images.
4. Read books about photographers.
5. Study monographs you own of your favorite photographers
6. Go to the library; take out books and monographs on photographers you aren’t familiar with.
7. Go to new and used (one of my favorite things to do) bookstores and search for books and monographs on photographers you aren’t familiar with. This is a lot more fun than looking on line.
8. Utilize the Internet for interesting and useful forums, blogs and websites for good ideas.
9. Visit museums and galleries for photographic exhibits. You will be inspired by the works of the masters and learn you are as good or better than a lot of what is being shown. That alone should inspire you to press on!
10. Take a photographic workshop with someone you respect that is supportive and will help you.

Bonus idea — visit museums and galleries for art exhibits. Yes, that is what I am saying! Believe it or not you can learn a lot about composition and light, and use the experience to develop new photographic ideas.

I am sure you can think of some more ideas yourself. Now go and live a photographic life!

When I was a boy I used to go fishing a lot. Not too often in a boat, but mostly on local piers along the Niagara River, Lake Erie or Lake Ontario in and around Buffalo, NY where I lived. Sometimes my Dad would come with me and hang out and other times he would drop me off with a couple of my friends. As I got a little older I would lash my fishing rod onto the frame of my red Huffy bike, strap my tackle box to the rear rack and peddle all the way down to Niagara Street myself. Neither my parents nor I ever thought twice about me riding down main streets by myself, miles from home, but I guess it was a different time then.

I would spend hours sitting on those old wooden or concrete structures that protruded into the water with my Dad, my friends or by myself. The fact is that I didn’t catch very many fish. But even at a relatively young age I realized that it wasn’t all about catching fish. The fishing was a means to an end because I was having a great time talking about all the girls I liked that would never want to be seen with me, telling stories and bad jokes, and just meeting other people, particularly the old timers.

I was taking in a world that was different from the world of my family, school, Boy Scouts or Little League. This was my special private world, void of expectations, but full of daydreams, fresh air, snacks and soda pop, and if I was lucky, sometimes some “keepers”.

Perhaps you are wondering why I am bringing up my fond memories of being young and going fishing. Well what I described is how I have felt for over 45 years when I go out photographing. I am in another special world. Not the world of my family, work, religion, politics or a hundred other things, both wonderful and not so good. This is my special world of seeing and just taking in life’s moments that are surrounding me as I walk, hike or drive. It’s wonderful and another means to an end, just like it was when I was “fishing”, even if I don’t end up ever snapping the shutter or getting any “keepers”. Of course not making an exposure or capturing a wonderful image is not the intended outcome, but just as I always hoped to catch a nice fish, it doesn’t always happen. Seeing the world and taking it all in, on your own terms, in your own time, is really special and an opportunity to be grateful for.

Think about it. You might enjoy yourself, and without the stress or self-imposed expectations of the results, you may get more “keepers” than before.

A November 24th economist.com blog entry concerning the photographer Anton Corbijn stated, “PHOTOGRAPHY as a slow, analogue art-form is dead. Over 200,000 photos are uploaded to Facebook per minute—that’s six billion each month—and there are over 16 billion photos on Instagram. Thanks to digital products anyone can be a Photoshop hack, selfie whore or filter junkie. We see with our smartphones, not our eyes. What need do we have for old-fashioned specialists using toxic chemicals to make a physical print that can be neither insta-shared nor “liked”?”

Recently I heard somewhere that over 3 billion photographs are being made each day. That’s right – 3 BILLION! Very few of these are being printed. So when displayed, they appear mainly on the Internet via the various photo sharing sites. As indicated above, the vast majority are most certainly digitally based. I think that’s fine, but how do you rise above the overwhelming quantity to create something special and truly meaningful to you?

Well, I believe more and more people are going back to film based photography, and to a lesser extent, getting back into the darkroom. Things will never be what they were 15 or 20 years ago, but again who would have thought vinyl LPs would make such a comeback (Not surprisingly, I never left vinyl and don’t own a CD player!). People are longing to create something that is really tangible, the results of a linear and creative process that can be held in one’s hands, vs. something viewed in a fleeting moment on an electronic device.

There can be no doubt that there is a tactile pleasure and emotional experience when holding a black and white print you made, mounted and matted, that cannot be duplicated when viewing something on your computer screen, tablet or phone.

I think you may know this is true. Yes, there is no hiding, no excuses, and it takes much more effort and more thought — but so does anything that is truly worthwhile in life!

Think about it…It’s the picture you first envisioned in your mind’s eye and exposed on film; the developed negative resulted in a print you labored to make as best as you could to recreate your original vision, then you finally viewed and ultimately held in your hands the results of your finished work. That is satisfying, and even more so if you take that print and put it on a wall somewhere.

In her wonderful essay “Photography Is My Passion,” Nancy Newhall eloquently expressed in greater detail what I am trying to say. It makes as much sense today as when she wrote it over 40 years ago:

“ There is always, eventually, the ‘moment of truth.’ Your straight photographer faces his ‘moment of truth’ constantly; there is nothing to hedge behind. There is only himself, a flexible instrument called a camera, with changes of lenses, filters, and films; and reality. And he usually has less than an instant to work in. The terrible pull of world events can indeed kill the journalist, blow him up or imprison him, but the average dedicated photographer just tries to face his environment, to face up to what he or she is or is not. Or what the environment is or is not.

There are two other ‘moments of truth’ in photography: first, when you examine your developed negative. Did you think it through? Have you what you hoped to have? Have you yet the discipline and the compassion and the insight? Stieglitz said, ‘When I make a photograph, I make love.’ And that is true. But if you don’t know enough to get your love into the negative, you will not have the next magic ‘moment’ – when you see your image coming up as a print in the developer. And that is magic. Then you set to work to see how much more revealing you can make your print. Adam, the old musician, says, ‘The negative is the score. The print is the performance.’”

There is no doubt that these moments of truth can be frightening, but to the dedicated and curious, they are worth the fear!

The great comedian Jack Benny was fond of telling a joke about Carnegie Hall.  “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”  The answer: “Practice, practice, practice”

The same is true with photography, or for that matter anything that takes work to get better at. The Internet is flooded with millions of photographs that are … well, not very good, because they are not what was originally in the mind’s eye of the photographer when the picture was made.

That is not an indictment of the pictures or those who took them. What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t always work out as intended, even with the best of intentions.
Ansel Adams said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” Think about that for a moment. Adams made thousands of images most of us would die for, yet very few made the cut. We all want more than a dozen a year but lets be honest with ourselves; are they really good, or in other words are they truly what we had in our mind’s eye when we made them?

What will give you or me a fighting chance to get to the Promised Land? Well guess what; before you hit pay dirt you need to kiss a lot of frogs, or make a lot of pictures, unless you have the special gift that most of us don’t have.

We all lead busy lives so I am going to go out on a limb and say that if you can’t be constantly out and about with your camera you need to keep your head in the game. Most of us work and have many obligations that somehow get in the way of what we want to be doing. I try to keep my head in the game when not photographing or being in my darkroom by reading as much as I can, looking at books by photographers I admire, practicing indoors without film in the camera or going to exhibits like the recent stupendous Paul Strand retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (I went twice in one week!). Sometimes I also go to an equally bad exhibit at a local gallery (seeing this type of thing encourages me to press forward with my own vision!).

Anyway, after I seriously got interested in making photographs as a teenager not many of my attempts were very good. But I kept on trying, kept going places with my camera. I am sure it helped that not having much money forced me into using only one camera with one lens. Yes I progressed beyond the Brownie, Instamatic and Argus, moving on to a Konica fixed lens rangefinder and eventually reaching the promised land … a new Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic with 50mm f1.8 lens! Yes, all those papers I delivered finally paid off!

Somehow I think that simplicity of the one camera/one lens philosophy can give you a better opportunity to “put yourself in the picture” as some have described it (I hope to talk about this more in another entry). I think this is a good strategy, at least until you reach a certain level of accomplishment. In any case, it took me about three years until I finally made a photograph that looked to me how I truly envisioned it to be in my mind’s eye.

Pay dirt!

So I had to make a lot of pictures…kiss a lot of frogs. I got better results the more time I put into it and the more images I made. By the way, the same was true of my darkroom skills (more on that at another time). I am not saying that it takes everyone as long as it took me. Maybe I am picky, who knows, but the point is that “practice, practice, practice” equals fun, fun, fun and results, results, results. So don’t sit around thinking about it, buying more gear or spending excessive time on the forums. Make images, some of which will be “keepers” and be meaningful to you!