Rediscovery

I struggle with the transition to digital photography at times: I scan film, download memory cards, and it all just goes into this box underneath my desk. I feel like I am straddling two worlds – shooting film then digitizing it and filing it away … for what? Future posterity? Something for my child to find and wonder about? I’d like to say that film is better as we’re given a print to save and keep, but then I wouldn’t be able to open up Adobe Bridge, wondering what to post today, and find an old photo that I felt the punctum in again.

While toying with the thought of buying a new digital camera that I just can’t afford, I’ve been pulling out the unused film cameras that offered me so much joy in the past – from a medium format beast to a simple point and shoot. Part of photography for me is the technology – the weight of the camera around my neck, the view through a rangefinder, and above all, the unknown quality of film. After a shoot with my digital, when I pick up a film camera, I find myself looking at the back after I shoot. Usually, I see what kind of film I’m using. I guess that’s the biggest difference between film and digital for me – the participation. It’s been said that a photographer is mediating his experience with the world by putting a camera between himself and what’s on the other side, and I feel that a digital camera can do that even more by adding a self-editing step into the process. Instead of shoot shoot shoot, it’s shoot, look, shoot, look, etc.

All this is fine – mediating my experience, objectifying the world around me, separating myself in order to document it. Because I’ve found that despite all that, being a photographer can actually bring you closer to the world around you – more observant, more in tune with what’s happening than you might have been. I remember a morning at Crater Lake in Oregon – I had just driven from Sacramento the night before (delivering an eagle of all things for the Cascades Raptor Center) and got up early to catch some morning light. I chose my vantage point, set up my tripod and waited. In the time I was there, several cars drove up, got out, took a few shots, wandered around, then left. I was able to watch the sun rise over the rim, saw a kestrel hunting for breakfast, and got some great shots to boot. I just haven’t scanned them yet.

 

Moments: Everyone has them

The quote from a card, now lost but forever in my memory. The banality of the message, the generic schlock – it reminds me of an ad in a writer’s magazine for someone’s book: “Everybody has a story to tell: This is mine.”

“Moments” are what photography is all about, mostly. This place, this thing, at this moment. But that, too, generalizes. Because it’s not. Some are, some aren’t. Is this my moment, or the bird’s? Is it a moment in objective space? Does a tree …. ahhh, forget it.

Seattle rummage sale

The great thing about this pasttime of recovering other people’s photos is the opportunities I get to travel to far and distant lands and root among their trash. Like Seattle. And the rummage sale for the prep school of the rich. On a visit during my wife’s book tour, visiting the cousins. The thing about the rich is that their rummage sale donations consist of digital cameras past their manufacturer’s expected lifespan, so these photos came from a pitiful 3mp camera. I almost bought the camera. But I swiped the memory card instead and bought the $20 blender/food processor, balancing my karma.

What happens when you give a dog a bone?

Cat eyes.

I found my first memory card in a camera (a Nikon Coolpix 950) at the St. Vincent DePaul’s in Eugene. I was trying to find batteries to see if it still worked (it didn’t) when I noticed the card. About 160 photos on this card, dating back to 1999 – the year the camera was introduced! Lots of different stuff – a lot of one girl and some of Yosemite National Park, and then … this.

Those eyes! Did someone throw drain cleaner in there?

What I like best about the card though are the car show photos and almost being able to see the owner of the camera reflected in the chrome. As I do more and more of this scavenging of photos, the forensic bone in me wants to know who the photographer was and where they are now. Glimpses like this of the camera in action are priceless to me. Don’t ask me why.

Raspberry (Goodwill photos)

A quiet family moment. Thank god it’s someone else’s family.

Goodwill photographs

Photos from film left in cameras donated to Goodwill, St. Vincent’s and Salvation Army stores. Feel free to send me yours if you do this as well – I even carry a selection of batteries to the stores in case the camera is dead and I can’t get the film out. First, a few of the final moments for the film – shoppers testing the camera. A rare find, as it means the camera actually works and has film in it, which means they donated the camera without caring what was on the film.

I might have taken this shot. I can assure you, I did not take the next two.

Who tests a camera by taking a picture straight up? I suppose it’s not that odd, but still – there’s a viewfinder for a reason…

… and this ain’t it. Same woman? Perhaps – she seems to be holding the same object. Altogether different view.

Civic Stadium, Eugene, OR

It was a perfect day for photographing – changing light, some clouds, some sun. The empty stadium loomed and you could feel its age. The score cards had been stolen after the final game.

There were signs of a past life, possibly never to be felt again. It seemed odd to photograph this space without people – it is so clearly designed with occupation in mind.

Other groups are using the stadium at times – soccer practice seems somewhat out of place.

More loss.

Even the office building felt deserted, although life continued within. The impending unknown future weighs upon the space.

Recent projects

Civic Stadium is a 70 year old baseball stadium in Eugene, the future of which is uncertain. The UO is building a new baseball stadium, and our local team, the Eugene Emeralds, are moving there. The old stadium could be demolished. I got permission to have the Eugene Grid Project photographers enter the empty stadium and document it.

Billboard revealed after removing more recent ads

Eugene Grid Project

Sometimes it takes outward influences to kick us back into gear, and many times it’s the confluence of several things that provides just the kick needed. I have been struggling with a lack of motivation regarding photography in general recently – what to do, when to do it, how it’s done. I guess the closest description would be writers’ block – you sit down with a blank sheet of paper and the pressure to fill it with something meaningful, graceful and important is too much. I watch my wife write and write and marvel at her dedication and motivation and wish I could grab just a piece of that.

I once had a conversation with a photographer who no longer photographed for himself – he only photographed as need for the job. I asked him what he was working on for his Art, and he said “I gave up being an artist a long time ago.” I swore I would never do that – but I confess the idea is tantalizing. Creativity can be found in your job, and I can excel at that. And the Art world is a chasm of despair – rejection and attitudes take their toll on me. What is needed is a personal redefinition of what it means to be an artist – does it require that I show my art regularly, work and work for gallery representation, continue to reinvent the art of photography? I guess what I’m getting at is that it does not, or should not, mean that to me: not everyone can be successful as an Artist. What I need is a definition that allows me to play, to consider my photography a hobby, to rediscover what I enjoyed about it in the first place.

Hopefully the Eugene Grid Project can do that for me. The launching of the website has reinspired me to place my energy there, rather than continue along the path I had been traveling. The appearance of my brother’s blog, as well, has given me the bug again to talk about my work, and to above all, try.

Decompression

Early in June, I attended the Review Santa Fe, a portfolio review event, designed to provide feedback on one’s portfolio by industry professionals. It is that event which has kept me from this page for so long, and only just now coming back to reinsert myself into my work. It was a difficult event for me – my portfolio was well received by some, not by others, as expected, but I found myself afterwards, after coming down from having four days to live my photography, being lost. It didn’t seem as though my portfolio, or this project, had much chance of succeeding. I’m stuck. Lots of ideas, but no clear direction.

It comes down to having an original idea. Are there any more? Has everything been photographed, and photographed by people better at it then I am? At the review, my work was called traditional more than once. Although sometimes meant as a compliment, it was hard to hear. It means to me that my work is derivative of others’ work – influenced too heavily by what I see. It was also mentioned that there’s too much reliance on the concept – not that it’s conceptual work, but that it needs accompanying text to make the intention known.