Ron - Polaroid Work and Truth From Perceptions

Self Portrait

I am exploring making images using Polaroid cameras (a Polaroid 420 and a Spectra 2) with Fuji and Impossible Project instant materials.

In the past, Polaroid Type 55 Pos/Neg 4"x5" was my workhorse film.  That film has been discontinued for quite some time.

I am excited about the possibilities that I am seeing.  With regard to the instant photograph, do I simply have this photograph as the single original or do I scan it and enlarge it through digital printing?  These are a couple of questions that I haven't answered yet.  Making books of these images is another possibility.

So, here are some recent "Polaroid" photographs and a video by Satch.

9-29-2011

9-29-2011

I have completed the first phase of Truth From Perceptions. There are about 135 photographs from which to cull the exhibit. I have made over 500 negatives during the last nine months. Now the editing begins. In some cases I will be presenting differing perspectives and "contact prints" that will show the process by which I came to the final image.


This project has caused my thinking about my photography to be more focused and I foresee big changes coming. Final decisions and discussion about these changes will come after the exhibit.

Mike- Post V

Montgomery Wards



Montgomery Wards




Mehling's Drug Store



Forgotten – No one wants to be forgotten.  “Remember me” is a poignant and timeless request made by many.  The same goes with places.  In this time of fabricated throw-away buildings and look-a-like structures, there is something wonderful about an old building that has been standing for over a century.  And yet, and yet, there is such little regard for the weathered buildings of the past that stand either deserted in the center of once was my bustling small town.  Long forgotten are the summer nights on the courthouse square where families would gather to enjoy the county fair.  The sounds of rides, the smells of fair food, and the displays, exhibits, and souvenirs all nestled together in the heart of our small downtown for an unforgettable county fair.  Or, was it unforgettable?  As you stand on the courthouse square today, you would never know.  Again, it’s the disconnect between the present and the past that my photographs attempt to capture to make the point that it is our memories which tend to blur the reality of the past with the present.  It’s almost like I wish I could step through the photographic image back into the time that is preserved through my memories to see the small town once again that I remember.

Ron - Michigan this Week

Satch and I had an excellent visit to New Buffalo and Union Pier on Wed - Friday.  We delivered Satch's new work to Craig Smith Gallery at the historic Gordon Beach Inn.  A portion of Satch's work will be headed to Craig's space in Oak Park where he will be presenting an exhibit of new work by Harry Borgman, whose work Satch and I adore.

On Thursday evening we had dinner with Craig and Harry at Timothy's, also at the Gordon Beach Inn, which was great fun.  It is always good to visit with Harry.

We also had time to explore and make photographs.  We ended up in this pretty wild place.  Hopefully I will have photographs to share soon on the 2 Photgraphers Facebook page and here on the blog.

Ron - The Wall Series

Wall Series, Triptych, Truth From Perceptions (click on all photographs to enlarge)

So, it's a wall.  It's just a wall, right?  Why would anybody bother to photograph a wall?  I'll try to explain.

• Interesting - just after I wrote the sentence above "Self Righteous Wall" by Ryan Bingham began to play on the stereo.  Yes it was a total fluke.  This was the first time that I had listened to that album! •

When I first came upon the wall that is in the series of photographs and in the accompanying video, I visually experienced the the elements and materials that shaped the wall's form and construction as well as the erosion of its face.  The light played across the wall revealing the reflectivity of its surface textures.

View of the wall in context with surrounding buildings

Upon closer observation I began to see the wall's history and evidence of contemporary visitors.

I realized that a building used to exist where I was standing as evidenced by the outline of the old interior staircase on the whitewashed cement wall.  Drilled holes and other imperfections revealed no longer existent structural elements.  Time was taking a toll on the cement wall and the underlying brick structure.  Parts of the cement wall that was littered with random marks, gashes and spalls had fallen away from the brick.

Visitors to the wall had made their mark, or marks, either by simply scratching into or painting the wall leaving evidence of their calling or proclaiming their devotion to another.  Others took the time to etch shapes into the surface using the wall as a sort of an outdoor sketch book.

Metering for the last photograph in the slide show

So, in front of me was this wonderful wall, a facade full of abstractions, history, personal messages, expressive doodles, textures, shapes, forms, shadows and highlights.  At this point it was my mission to discover, conceptualize and visualize the various elements in the wall and present them, and what I felt about them, through my photography.

I have visited the wall several times.  Each time my understanding and view of the wall became more refined.  Seeing more clearly I was able to progressively make better photographs.  Photographing the wall has been a work in progress.  In this post I'm presenting a slide show of what I feel are the best photographs of the wall in the order that they were made.

This series of photographs is closely connected with Alfred Stieglitz' concept of Equivalence which was also practiced by Minor White, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, all photographers whose work I greatly admire.  The subject of Equivalence has been written about extensively so I will not delve too in too deeply with this post.  

Within Minor White's 1963 essay, Equivalence:  The Perennial Trend, there are these two passages:  

"...in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer's expressive purposes.

When a photographer presents us with what to him is an Equivalent, he is telling us in effect, "I had a feeling about something and here is my metaphor of that feeling."

These two passages do a good job conveying the concept of the series of wall photographs that are a part of my project "Truth From Perceptions."  Photographs such as these do defy a simple description although I have made an effort in this post to detail the inspiration for making them.

Making the first photograph of the Triptych

Here is a short video of when I recently visited the wall:

Here is the slide show of images from The Wall Series, in the order that they were made:

Click here to go to the Flickr page of "Truth From Perceptions" where you can view the "Wall Series."


(Candid photographs by Satch)

Mike - Blog IV

The subject matter of this work in progress has so far reflected on my life growing up in a small town.  I have tried to be somewhat brief in describing my background and family in various activities.  The main focus of these blogs and the images provided will be to communicate how I have felt on the times that I have returned to the town.

None of my family has lived there for quite some time as my mother passed away in the early 1990s.  There have not been any childhood or school friends that I have had any contact with, basically since I left at the age of 20 when I was going to college. 

There has been very little reason to visit the town other than sometimes passing through on the way to other cities in northern Indiana.  Several years ago, one of my two brothers had contacted me to tell me that our neighbor who was a very close friend to our family while we were growing up had passed away.  I went to his calling to visit with his family and share memories.  Our neighbor was "Mr. Middle America."  He was everything you could think of that represented the best of the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 

On the way home, I stopped to see my best friend from Hartford City who lived in an even smaller town close by.  Later that year, he was killed in a car accident.

And I returned once again to my hometown to speak at my best friend's funeral.

These thoughts and reflections are primarily of a personal nature.  However, most of this blog will also deal with the changes in the city itself in the past thirty to forty years.  Like many small towns across our country, Hartford City enjoyed a boom and growth in the years after World War II.  New houses at the edge of town were built, industry and businesses on all four streets around the Courthouse flourished.  I recall that for many years, much of the county fair was held on these four streets, with all the games, concessions, and some rides lighting up the night sky. 

As we now know those times that we thought would last forever, did not.

Mike - Post - III

403 E Kickapoo St.

403 E Kickapoo St.

As Ron has indicated, computer problems have prevented me from posting.

To continue, being raised in a small 2 bedroom house in a neighborhood full of other kids was fun. Mom was divorced when I was young, and it was sometimes a struggle to provide for her sons. We always had used bikes, never new! As the old saying goes, we were never hungry, and always clean.

The old house, long since removed, was rented at a very low rate.

At the start of most every school year, she would walk us uptown to J.C. Penny or Mongomery Wards to get us some new school clothes. We would stop and get some groceries on the way home.

Ron - Ludington, July 14, 2011

This summer Satch and I drove up the Lake Michigan shoreline during the week of July 12, Satch's birthday and our anniversary.  We stopped along the way in search for materials for Satch's art.  We spent a couple of great days in Ludington.  While scouring the town and nearby countryside for rusty and other intersting stuff I began to see that many of the working class neighborhoods were in decline.  A little research revealed that Ludington has an unemployment rate of 12.5% and negative job growth.  Obviously the economy and the shifting sands of business relocation were taking a toll on this beautiful, small Lake Michigan harbor city.

While this particular trip was not about making photographs, I had my cameras along and kept them close by.  After stopping at a neighborhood shop to acquire more Satch materials, what I had been seeing in the non-tourist areas of Ludington came into focus and I needed to make photographs.

Snapshot by Satch

An abandoned corner store stands next to two abandoned houses, one of which has brush growing up all around and even out of the edge of the house's foundation.  On the street by the houses are two streets signs proclaiming that between them only "One Hour Parking"  is allowed and the corner store has two signs in windows that lets passersby know that financing is available for any income or any credit!

I made three photographs, two of which I selected to show.  The one of the two attractive, yet abandoned little houses prominently shows the brush and the two parking signs.  In the photograph of the store I wanted to show a bit of the surrounding environment which makes obvious its prominent corner location in a neighborhood that continues to exist against the odds.  I continue to dwell on and think about the metaphor of the fragile network of wires that connect all of us and supply our power for technology and communication while bypassing this abandoned business.

Ron - 70% of the USA's Economy is Consumer Spending

 

 

A portion of my recent work examines the man-made landscape that our contemporary suburban/consumer society has constructed over the course of the last several generations.  Most of it is spiritually vacuous and is devoid of cultural value and leaves a legacy that is greatly lacking.  The suburban/consumer landscape has been homogenized, sanitized and distilled to the point that it has lost any sense of individuality as it seeks to be completely inoffensive. 

Having lived in the Carmel, Indiana area for the last 49 years I have witnessed, first-hand the evolution of this landscape and the culture that accompanies it.  I endeavor to make the photographs present the viewer with a truthful perspective beyond the perception that is foisted upon us every day by corporate marketeers.

This post features a series of photographs made one evening in early June.  I had been looking at these particular scenes for many months and was waiting for the right time to make the exposures.  Finally one evening I realized that the sky was finally devoid of clouds and the early setting sun was on the verge of almost the exact light that I wanted.

So, Satch and I took off for the shopping area.  After arriving, over the course of an hour-plus I made several exposures and Satch took some snapshots while I worked.  Some of my photographs are presented here as a contact sheet of sorts that shows the frames that I chose to print.  Please take a look at the finished photographs below the contact sheet and later I will talk a little about them.

(click on the contact sheet to enlarge)

Ron - The Journey To The Final Print

I always go back to images time and time again and try to improve them, all the while working my way to the final print.  I endeavor to find the print that reflects what I saw and felt when I was making the image.  Today I felt like revisiting a couple of recent images and see if there were any improvements that could be made in the digital darkroom.  I feel like my efforts have paid off as this is a much more expressive photograph than the previous ones.

Ron - Previous Post Update

I have finished the photograph that I spoke of in my previous post.  I found this abandoned building to be quite beautiful and metaphorical, especially with respect to the issues I wrote about in my last post.

click on the photograph to enlarge

The small handmade metal sign on the right side over the painting, I would imagine, is from the building's last enterprise.  The boarded up window and what looks like a jail window, with broken glass, evokes feelings of capture.  If the residents need to contact the outside world, the mailbox awaits their stamped letter.  The trees and sky on the upper third of the photograph and the parking lot on the lower shows the contrast between man and nature, you know like Joni said, "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot."

Ron - New Photographs

On my 2 Photogs WIP blog posts I had not planned to jump way ahead to my immediate work, but the best laid plans and all of that...

For the last several days I have been scanning and working on negatives.  I had a burst of creative energy from my recent work that has precluded me from posting here - my apologies.  That being said, here are some thoughts about that work.

Lately, I found myself spending some time in rural Indiana, which has been a source of past photographs, e.g. my Indiana Small Towns Project.

I really had not planned on this being a part of "Truth From Perceptions" but, on a recent trip, I felt the need to make some photographs of what I was seeing.  Harry Borgman, an artist that I greatly admire, told Satch and I that a key to his artistic success was to follow himself; again, I took his advice.

While I have never lived in rural and small town Indiana, over my 53 years I have spent a lot of time there.  Part of my family had a dairy-farm, my Grandfather was an outdoorsman and he and my Grandmother lived in a small town in northern Indiana, Kendallville, where I was born.  When I was young man the downtown was still bustling.  Their next door neighbor owned the local downtown diner, The Sweet Spot, where there were coin-op juke boxes in each booth.  On Saturday after my Grandmother got off of work we used to drive fellow diner customers crazy by playing all of the Elvis and Beatles records that we could.  But I digress...  This really wasn't that long ago.  The economic and social changes that have come to rural and small town Indiana are significant and in many cases devastating.  I suppose it is the same or worse across the country.

I am witnessing what had already started as far back as the mid-1990's.  The erosion is becoming even more evident and it feels like it is coming faster.  In many locales it certainly appears that we are experiencing a depression.  Commerce is trying to make a stand in these areas but in many cases it has given up the ghost.

(Click on the photograph to enlarge)

This photograph of the door with hand-painted hours for whatever business is behind it, shows that no longer are perceptions required - truth has arrived and settled in.  There is no need for a fancy sign; whatever it takes to let the customer know business hours is now adequate.  And, the building, with its bricked up windows continues the theme, no fancy facade here.

Another photograph that I am yet to work on shows a small sign advertising an abandoned venture over a much older large faded sign painted over the entire side of the building.  (I will post this photograph very soon.  Please see update above.)

Things change, that we all know, but these changes are feeling permanent.  World events have precipitated an economic realignment that is yet to be completely appreciated and understood.  But, I do not want to sell the residents of these areas short.  I'm sure that many are doing everything that they can to continue their lives in a productive way and what they can to make their community a better place.

You can check out more photographs from this part of the project on our Facebook page.

Ron - 8-14-2011

Gorgeous day today. Made several photographs. Will be posting more photographs and information on the blog this week - maybe a video too! Visualizing the work today really crystallized what I've been thinking about my work this past seven months. Hopefully today's work will result in more good prints.

Mike- Post II

Hartford City, Indiana, circa 1965-70.  Like many small midwestern towns, Hartford City was in the midst of bustling activity on the downtown square.  The County Courthouse on the square stood in the middle of department stores, five and dimes, a couple of drug stores (one of which had a lunch counter) and a furniture store.  This downtown area was just a block off the State Highway which carried traffic north and south to larger cities.

There was a grocery store just off the Square and my Mom and her 3 sons lived close enough to be able to walk there.  Until a new high school was built in 1970, the city high school was close enough to the drug store with the lunch counter that we could walk there for cheeseburgers and fries after school.  I worked there from 1968-1972.  I would stock shelves, clean up, mop the floor Sunday mornings, and worked the cash register on Sunday afternoons. 

All very typical.

Ron - Leicaflex SL and Pentax Spotmeter

Here's a video about the photography equipment that I am using for Truth From Perceptions:

The Beginning of Truth From Perceptions

I've always believed that it is not necessary to travel to exotic locations to make photographs.  Wherever one is located, exploring one's environment and discovering and then seeing what lies beneath the obvious is always possible.  Being more familiar with a place is helpful.  Over time as I learn more about and observe a particular place, my seeing becomes more focused.

At the beginning of the Truth from Perceptions project I went to some places where, over the course of my life, I had been many times before.  Here are some photographs made early on from Carmel, where I have lived for most of the last 49 years.

It was a gorgeous winter day and it was like the sky was playing its own concerto.  The interaction of the natural clouds with the contrails was quite something.  The area where these photographs were made is one that stills reveals Carmel's history as a small town whose livelihood likely revolved around this grain elevator adjacent to the railroad tracks - maybe that is why I'm drawn here so often.

The two photographs that I particularly like are Carmel 4 and 5.

(Click on the photos to enlarge)

Mike- 1st Post

A photographic project. This is the start of expressing thoughts and concepts of a project that has been developing for an extended period of time.

The purpose of the project is to explore thoughts and feelings about my early life growing up in a small town in the mid-west of the United States.  The town is a little north of Muncie, Indiana.

However, most of the images will be from a more recent time, showing the town as it is today. The thoughts and commentary provided will not be the typical quaint, ‘nostalgic’, seen-through-rose-colored-glasses view of growing up there. This project, while relating to the time long ago, deals more with the period after I left my hometown, and the times I have returned to visit.

These thoughts and feelings and sample images will be presented future blogs.  The project and future exhibit will explore both personal feelings and universal concepts of returning to the city and the changing nature of small towns in America.

Mike the Stroup

Ron - Truth From Perceptions

A portion of my involvement with the 2 Photographers Works In Progress is presenting "Truth From Perceptions" which is a project, or better, an inspiration for recent work.  Below is an essay that was written to describe the genesis of the work.

The project that I am working on that is a part of 2 Photographers Works In Progress started sometime around February of this year.  It's genesis came at me from two directions.

First - one day I read this poem that really knocked me out:

Poem 10
Societal Instincts
Edward Henry Satchwill III

To separate truth from perceptions
Is to remove all its coherency.
Yes, absolute truths do exist in man
But their comprehension is beyond us.
Happiness, envy, love disgust and hate,
All ideals which are never to be matched,
And for this reason, clichés are needed:
"Love is exactly what you think it is.
If you don't know what you think, then you are
Lucky, for you can find love anywhere."
Such are the I.V. drips that keep us here,
Below enlightened, but above insane.
Not reaching full potential, but also
Not falling to our deepest depths of life.
So, in this way, do we oppress ourselves?
Or engage in paternalistic aid?
The fallacy of minds trumping the mind
Seems understood by none but you and I,
The weight of all mankind now upon us.

© 2011 Edward Henry Satchwill III
(reprinted with permission)

The concept of separating truth from perceptions and the poem's examination of the human condition continued to bounce around in my mind.  Many times in today's world truth is ignored and calculated perceptions are melded into one mass marketing scheme; yet in reality we all must end up dealing with truth rather than the perceptions that we are bombarded with every day.  These notions led me back to thinking about and revisiting particular photographers' works that are important to me - Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz (especially his Equivalents), Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind.

Second - very shortly thereafter I met Matt Lafary and Angi Skaggs in Fountain Square.  After getting to know them it became very apparent that they had a passionate affinity for film photography.  Their knowledge and love of cameras was impressive.  This rekindled a notion that I should take a look back at some of my cameras.

Thanks to Satch, I have used rudimentary plastic cameras (Holga and Diana+) for the last several years.  I had to let go of the science and process of photography and completely embrace seeing and perceiving my environment.  But I felt that the time was right to again explore the possibility of using a more precise camera, for a specific project.

I started to put all of these things together and got the idea to do an ongoing project. Conceptually, the poem would be the inspiration to see and perceive. Off of the shelf, I pulled an old Leica SL2 (35 mm), that had an excellent wide angle lens.  This would be the project's tool.  Using a hand held camera was important.  Wanting to be mobile and photograph at will, I did not want to be saddled with a tripod.  I ran a quick test roll to see if the camera was in working order and realized that I would need better metering.  So out came the spot meter - a light meter that measures the reflectivity of a tiny spot within a scene.  Employing no metering or through the lens focusing since using the plastic cameras, all of this kind of jolted me a little bit.

So, out of all of this the project "Truth From Perceptions" was born.  One of the first photographs that I made came from the wall of Satch's studio.  It seemed like an appropriate starting point.

Untitled

2 Photographers Works In Progress

The inspiration for the 2 Photographers Works In Progress endeavor emerged from the realization that, in the digital age, the public’s perception of photography has begun to take on a disposable nature.

The advent of the widespread use of digital cameras in tandem with social network websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Twitpic and Flickr where viewers can click through photographs at break-neck speed, with no true contemplation of the image, has become the rule of the day.  The proliferation of iPhoneography along with it corresponding apps where just a click makes an inane image appear hip and in some cases nostalgic, along with other highly manipulated images via photoshop, has cheapened the creative image making process.  Millions upon millions of these images are around us everywhere, every day all vying for some part of our short collective attention span.

Yet photography as a fine art has hardly disappeared.  Many people are hard at work making excellent images using alternative processes, cameras, films, etc.  Whether or not conscious, much of this work seems to me to be a reaction to the overwhelming digital camera phenomenon.  The time, effort and care that it takes to visualize and make a photograph using film, or taking it many steps further, utilizing the wet collodion process or printing with platinum/palladium for example, produces a method and system of seeing, creating and presenting an image that takes time, thought and skill.  This is not to say that I believe photography must come from the analogue domain to have any validity.  Many photographers have been able to embrace and exploit the digital realm and produce exceptional creative images.  And, the combination of analogue and digital processes presents an opportunity to create expressive prints of remarkable quality.

As I thought more and more about the current state of photography I felt that I needed to do my little part in bringing attention to the fact that photography still has a rightful place in the fine art of self-expression.  Having studied the history and art of photography over the past twenty-five years, my love and appreciation of photography is firmly established in my spirit.

Drawing upon this experience I was reminded of the Group f.64 collective that in 1932 sought to revolutionize the art of photography by rebelling against the type of photography known as pictorialism.  At this time in history it was accepted that for a photograph to be considered art it had to appear painterly.  Effects such as soft focus, hand-manipulations and other artificial effects were used to render romantic and emotional images.

Group f.64 repudiated this tenet and showed though their work of sharp images that the art of photography need not be confined to nostalgia and dreamy images.  The f-stop 64 is the smallest aperture on a view camera lens thereby producing the longest depth of field and the sharpest image.  Members of this group included Ansel Adams, Imogene Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Brett Weston and Edward Weston, among others.

The idea of Group f.64 and their achievements led me to think about what I could accomplish, albeit on a smaller scale, in defiance of the aforementioned current state of photography.

Rather than make a simple statement that could easily be ignored, I tried to imagine a better way to show what the art of photography was all about.  I realized that affording interested parties the ability to watch photographers at work could raise awareness and appreciation.  Photographers would present and describe their work on several levels - inspiration, methods and processes, locations, philosophies, etc.  The use of social networking could make this entirely possible.  The viewers would be able to access the information and explore the photographer’s work at their convenience.  I felt that an exhibition with a corresponding book was a necessity.  Periodic personal presentations could augment and personalize the project. The beauty of the endeavor is that it is a work in progress, that is it has no ending and no beginning; there are no defined limits of what must be accomplished.  All of that would be strictly up to the photographer and how they chose to pursue their vision.

So, that is the thought process along with the ideas that brought 2 Photographers Works In Progress to reality.

I decided early on that I did not want to the project to get too big, unwieldy and complicated.

Without a doubt Mike Stroup needed to be a part of this project.  Mike and I go back a long way to when we first met some time in 1986.   Over the years we’ve worked on many photography projects and exhibits together.  I’ve always admired Mike’s work.  He has an eye that sees beyond the obvious.  Even the simplest of subjects that he photographs are shown in a caring, sympathetic and spiritual manner.

I look forward to see what we come up with.  We definitely have two different personalities and approaches to the art of photography.  We are motivated and excited about sharing the experience of making our images with you.

Ron Kern
July 12, 2011
Montague, Michigan