Photographer Jon Wilkening is doing a 365 day project, where he offers up a print each day – and it costs whatever order it’s in. I got day number eight, so I paid $8. Day number 365 will be $365, etc.
Jon’s work is very cool. He does pinhole street photography, with interesting motion and abstract blurs. I waited for the right combination of light and colors for my print, and day eight has this lovely primary color scheme going on.
My family took a short vacation to northern Michigan over the weekend to visit family. On the way back, as I usually do, I made it a point to stop at the little towns along the way and grab a few photographs.
Capturing small towns in Michigan is long, ongoing project of mine. I find the sights of these little communities so fascinating. And it highlights the benefit of getting off the interstate highway system and travel the two-lane highways all across the countryside. It’s on these little side trips that you see the memorable stuff. There’s space, time, and a lack of traffic that makes pulling over easier, too.
Making photos of these small towns is almost an archeological exercise for me. I feel like I need to capture the quirks and personalities of these towns and villages before they disappear. Or in case I never come back.
Since January, I’ve been working on a modest fitness goal: lose 10 pounds and start working out regularly again.
So far, so good. I’m down eight pounds, thanks to a combination of healthy eating and exercise, and I hope to reach my goal before the holidays (when I’ll really need to work on my discipline!).
Part of the program involves photography. Landscape, nature, and street photographers already know this, but including photography in your fitness plan is easy. You walk, you shoot, you get some fresh air – each thing reinforces the other. Heading out to shoot is a great excuse to get some exercise.
So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve made it a point to head out, especially during my lunch hours at work, and take a long walk, camera in tow.
The result has been a ton of new street photography experiments. Getting out and exploring Ann Arbor has been a lot of fun. And after a summer of getting outside, I’m really noticing the benefits.
A few tips:
Take your lunch hour and get outside. It’s your time!
Pick a new route to walk each day. This one’s easy for me, since I’m working in a new city, but note some new neighborhoods or parts of the city you haven’t been to, and go see those.
Your camera’s charged or loaded with film, right?
Start a project, and look to these walks as a way to accomplish it.
Walk at least once a week. After a while, you’ll look for excuses to do it more often.
Win-win, right? Fresh air, slimmer waistline, and an excuse to make photographs.
What I’ll miss about moving closer to the city? This.
It’s something I’ve learned while we’ve been out house hunting: I need trees, green space, a sense of privacy, nature, birds chirping, and clear seasonal changes.
I need to feel like the woods are only a short walk away. That there’ll be foggy fields on my way into work. That my home will be well shaded by trees.
I need light filtering through branches and boughs.
If I were to give one piece of advice, it’s to study light. Study it in everyday life. Pay attention to its properties and how it behaves. See how it changes after the sun dips below the horizon but it’s still not dark. See what it does when it bounces off a white wall, or wraps around a black sphere, or morning light shines through the hair of someone you love. Then capture it with whatever camera you have.
Light. It’s all that matters. If you’re not a student of light, you’re barely a student of photography.
Celebrate light.
And celebrate the people, places, and ideas that you love.
There’s value in returning to the same places or subjects over and over again. In time, you watch the place change, grow, or deteriorate as your own skills develop.
The Irish Hills of Michigan has become my go-to spot, over and over again, for years now. My fascination with the place comes from childhood: I grew up and around the area, and visited the local amusement parks often. It’s also a gorgeous place, full of rolling hills and secluded lakes, and located along the US-12 corridor west of Detroit.
Lately, I’ve driven US-12 on my work commute, which is much more my style – no freeway, no stop-and-go-traffic, etc. And each day I drive the route, I think, “This is the place I want to focus my creative attention.”
There are plenty of project opportunities in a diversity of settings in the Irish Hills. It already has been my focus for a few years now. But lately, I find that I keep coming back to the place. I did just that this past weekend, revisiting some old haunts and scoping out some new ones.
Chris Gampat at the Phoblographer on the unique look of older CCD camera sensors:
CCD sensors on the other hand were really a work of art. They delivered great images, but at high ISOs they just fell apart. Arguably though, you’d get even better colors with one when paired with more modern glass. CCD sensors also delivered images that simply just looked organic and film-like. You generally didn’t need to apply some filter from VSCO or RNI films, you just got it.
Embrace the old school – the flaws, the imperfections, the personality, the challenges. With film, it was easy: grab a camera and buy a pack of film. But with digital, there are only so many limitations, and one of those is the older-style digital sensor format.
Maybe CCD sensors will be the new Lomography for the digital crowd.
This time last year, I was knee-deep in working on my documentary, Albion Anagama.
I learned a lot during the making of that film – about ceramics, and artistic process, and teamwork.
I also learned the value of a dedicated space to do creative work. In this instance, Ken built a fabulous studio on the outskirts of Albion, Michigan, complete with kilns and a garden and lots of space. He and his team had just about everything they needed to do work right there, from music to materials.
The idea of a dedicated work area appeals to me. In my recent house-hunting sojourns, it’s fun to see a basement workshop, or a dark room custom built for a film photographer. Even a simple office works.
At work, I find that taking my laptop and going somewhere fresh and new is a good kick in the butt to get work done. It’s not dedicated space, but it is a new space – and that helps me get some things accomplished.
