Keep your eyes (and mind) open!

Attracted to desolate areas? MEG member Eric Johnson shares his experience in two virtual ghost towns in California. 

The area around the Salton Sea in southern California has long held an attraction for many photographers for its collection of semi-abandoned towns and its atmosphere of post-apocalyptic desolation.  The Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when springtime flooding breached irrigation canals along the Colorado River, inundating approximately 900 square miles of the Imperial Valley.  Development around the new lake began in the 1920s, making the Salton Sea a popular tourist destination for people from nearby Palm Springs and Los Angeles. 

Increasing agriculture in the Imperial Valley led to decreased water inflow into the lake.  At the same time, prehistoric salt beds under the lake increased its salinity, and the shore of the lake began to recede, leaving behind an inhospitable, salt-encrusted landscape.  All of these environmental changes made the Salton Sea less viable as a tourist destination, and the towns around the lake began their decline.  

While on a trip to southern California last October, I made a side trip to two of these towns, Bombay Beach and Salton Sea Shores.  I went with the intention of photographing some of the decaying structures in these soon-to-be ghost towns, and I certainly found what I was looking for, spending most of my brief visit there photographing abandoned residential and commercial buildings.  Each of the two towns has an odd mixture of occupied and abandoned blocks, with the blocks near the water being generally deserted, and the blocks closer to the roads into and out of town more populated.  However, despite clear signs of human habitation (cars in driveways, well-tended yards) in the more lived-in sections of town, I did not see more than two or three people the entire afternoon.  That may be attributable to desert dwellers’ reluctance to go out in the mid-afternoon sun, but whatever the reason, the whole area was eerily quiet, which even in the occupied parts of town.  This quiet only accentuated the feeling of being in a ghost town.  

Finding Your Lost Mojo

(c) Clifford Wheeler

As MEG member Clifford Wheeler describes, taking a new class or embarking on a new project can help you get your creative mojo back if it's been dulled by the demands of daily life.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to take a seminar class with a Master Photographer and Educator with whom I had studied in college three decades ago. It seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up, especially since his was a voice that kept coming back to me through the years across occasions and experiences.

Once the class began I soon realized that I would be subjected to something I hadn't encountered in a long time — homework. Lesson #1: If I had been making a conscious effort to create artwork, to make time in my life to actually do the work on a regular basis, then the idea of homework would not have felt so foreign. I seemed to have gotten into some sort of rut over the years where little time was designated to anything other than making a living. Now, I appreciate how limited my energy levels are and that time must be budgeted no differently than finances.

The parameters of the course were as follows: plan a project, execute the workflow, and produce and exhibit the results. One thing about the creative process is that quite often what we first conceive as a plan can often take on a life of its own. Depending on how you interpret the results of the work in progress, we often produce a body of work quite different from the one originally conceived. Lesson #2, Evaluation of progress is impossible without the use of “work prints!” Careful analysis of the aesthetic events revealed is paramount to connecting with your intent, and establishing a direction forward.

For this class project, I chose to create a collection of photographic portraits using some rather archaic tools. I knew from experience that these tools would create the kind of image I wanted, and I suspected they could get me where I wanted to be very efficiently.

Portraiture is different than simply pointing a camera at something and capturing an image. It’s dependent on a dynamic that requires cooperation and collaboration between the subject and the photographer. This was the variable I was counting on for these pictures, because I planned on keeping almost everything else within the confines of the image area consistent.

(c) Clifford Wheeler

To get started, I set my view camera up in a parking space right next to the warehouse building that housed my studio and pointed it at the north-facing wall. I needed a subject and found an auto-body technician named Ray enjoying a smoke break next door and I encouraged him to spend his break in front of my camera. The resulting image was surprisingly satisfying, and it spurred me forward.

In reviewing my work prints (see Lesson Two), one issue was immediately obvious. My little kettle grill, which always sat on the sidewalk next to my studio door, was visible the left side of the image. Keeping in mind the lesson that all objects within an image area should serve or reinforce the subject, I moved the grill for subsequent shots because it added nothing to the image.  For the next two months, when the light was right, I'd round up some suspicious-looking character who was friendly enough to hang with me for a few moments to complete the project.

The portfolio came together nicely and as I spent time with it, I figured out why the class had been called Beyond The Image, a title I could not for the life of me figure out when I started taking the class. When the images were finally exhibited and I saw them hanging on the wall, I realized that the first photo I had taken was in early autumn, and Ray was wearing a t-shirt. The last photo I took was in November of Richard, and he was wearing a down jacket. When I hung the photo's, the chronological progression revealed something truly extraordinary and quite “Beyond The Image” — seasonal environmental change! The only visual change from the first photo to the last photo (besides the faces) was the the incremental bulk of the subject's outerwear.

Lesson #3: For cool stuff to happen, you have to be working!

Drive By: Abandoned Towns and A Lesson Learned

Sandy LeBrun-Evans learned a big lesson when developing Drive By: Utah Preserved In Time, her latest show at Multiple Exposures Gallery. Below Sandy talks about shooting in abandoned towns, what makes her feel jittery when out there alone and a lesson she'll carry with her forever.

(c) Sandy LeBrun-Evans

In this series as well as your prior show, Forgotten, you feature abandoned buildings and towns. What catches your eye and makes you stop as you are driving by? What makes a scene worthy of the time you spend photographing it?  While driving by, I'll just see something that makes me pull over or even drive miles to turn around so I can go back and photograph it. If I don't turn around, the image will haunt me.

Before planning a trip, I Google "abandoned places/towns" in the state where I"ll be.  Once I'm there, I'll travel to the areas I found on the Internet, but I also will find gems just driving by.

What makes the scene worthy of my time is what I see through my lens.  I have stopped places and pulled out the camera and tripod, looked through the viewfinder and then decided, "not so much."  Other times when I look through the viewfinder, it's a definite "yes!" and I will work that scene.  What makes it worthy is that it moves my spirit in some way, something that I think is tied to feelings about what used to take place there before it was abandoned.  If I'm looking at a subject and wondering "Who cooked in the kitchen? Who hitched that wagon to the horse? Who put that fence around the house and watched the children run through the yard?" then I'm probably going to be moved enough to photograph it.

(c) Sandy LeBrun-Evans

I actually view abandoned places differently now than I did even just a few years ago. Given our challenging economic times and people very close to me losing their homes in the housing crisis, I wonder a little more about why something was abandoned. Was it by choice? 

Are there people in these towns or are they truly abandoned? How far are these locations from towns or cities that are thriving? Thompson Springs had 39 people in the 2010 census. I would say there are even fewer now.  I met a man named Spydr Mike when he stopped by while I was photographing there. He gave me his card which read "SPYDR MIKE AND FRIENDS, Local Artists."  He makes spiders out of things he finds, but he would love to have the money to reopen the abandoned cafe in town.  Another person I met told me about the ghost that haunts former boardinghouse and its attached bar.  Unfortunately, I did not see the ghost.  I think Cisco is totally abandoned, but there could be some homeless people living in some of the abandoned cars and buildings. 

There are few thriving cities in the areas where I traveled.  What supported most of the abandoned areas I photographed were mines that closed and roads that bypassed their towns.   From what I have read, I-70 bypassing Cisco and Thompson Springs was the downfall of these two towns.

Are you alone when you shoot these buildings and towns? Do you ever feel uneasy? My husband was with me in Utah, but he stays in the car while I wander around the empty buildings and towns.  I thank him for this because it is not easy traveling with a photographer. I have been spooked while out shooting, but usually it's by dogs. 

Cisco was a little scary this visit.  The number of abandoned cars had really risen.  It appeared to be a dumping stations for things and I just felt I was not alone.  I didn't wander much by myself there.
 
You mentioned you returned to Thompson Springs, an abandoned town that you photographed a few years ago. Did you notice any changes or has it stayed the same in its decay?  I noticed lots of changes in both Thompson Springs and Cisco.  It was not in my plans to return to Southeast Utah and visit Thompson Springs and Cisco, but I just did not find what I was looking for in Southwestern Utah.  Beautiful parks, but I was not finding any great abandoned images. 

(c) Sandy LeBrun-Evans

I did find many changes in both towns. In Thompson Springs, my favorite motel was boarded up and I could not walk through and photograph.  The cafe had a lot morejunk in it and the photograph I had taken two years ago could no longer be composed.  In Cisco, many buildings had completely fallen down and I just had an eerie feeling that it was no longer safe to wander around.   

This brought me to a very big lesson learned on this trip -- shoot, shoot, shoot; don't miss an angle or light; stay in a place until you feel you have worn that town out photographing it because it may be your last chance to do so.  You cannot always go back and reshoot!

What is your process when you shoot? Are you working on a tripod? What types of lenses and apertures do you typically use? On this trip I travelled light: tripod, Nikon D700 with two lenses (28-300 and a fisheye), Lumix converted IR camera, and, of course, my iPhone.  When traveling, I usually try and shoot on a tripod as I know I have to get the image right because I cannot go back the next day and reshoot.   I always shoot a minimum of three bracketed images of my subject.  If I am inside a dark building, I will shoot up to 20 bracketed images.  I try and capture the image so I don't lose any detail in the highlights and lowlights.  Typically, my aperture is set anywhere between F11 to F22.

The works in this show were printed on canvas and covered in resin.  Where did you learn to work with resin? Is it easy or hard to do? What is appealing to you about working with resin?   I saw a lot of work encased in resin in galleries out West and really wanted to try the process. Whenever I saw a resin-coated image in a gallery it pulled me in and I thought the process would make the images of abandonment in this show really shine. To learn how to do it, I spoke with a fellow photographer, I Googled and watched videos on YouTube on how to work with resin, and then I experimented.  I did two test images, one on paper and one on canvas and coated them with resin.  I liked the finished resin-coated image in canvas best, so I  decided to present my show on canvas.  It is not an easy process because of the toxicity of the resin. I wore a mask and worked by an open door with a fan pulling fumes out of the house. 

.Please join Sandy and the rest of Multiple Exposures Gallery for an opening reception on Sunday, May 19th from 2pm-4pm at MEG (Studio 312, Torpedo Factory Arts Center, Alexandria, VA).

Memorializing Freedom In Tibet: New Work By Danny Conant

Religious symbolism, alternative processes and beautiful imagery – Danny Conant’s new show has it all. Danny shared some thoughts below on her new series, Once Tibetan, The Wheel Turns. The series is on exhibit at MEG through June 16, 2013.

Buddha of The Rock  (c) Danny Conant

Your new show features work from Tibet. When were the images captured? I’ve traveled to Tibet five times and the images in this show were taken during my fifth trip in 2011. They were captured in Eastern Tibet, which is the home of the Kham Minority.

The photographs reflect religious symbols and imagery. Why did you focus on religious expression? I was inspired by Ai Weiwei’s exhibition  at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.  Weiwei is a Chinese activist artist whose work spoke of the lack of freedom.  For Tibetans, there is a serious lack of freedom as the Chinese try to destroy their culture. Tibetans are very spiritual and their religious symbols are very important to them. To me, these symbols signify hope for the continuance of the Tibetan culture and the future of the people.

Wheel Of Mercy  (c) Danny Conant

Once TIbetan, The Wheel Turns @ Multiple Exposures Gallery

While you started with your photographs as your base, you used an alternative process to create one-of-a-kind pieces of art for the show. Would you describe your process?  I begin by printing my images on a special film using archival pigment inks. Next, I prepare a wooden panel of birch by sometimes coating it with encaustic gesso or applying pastels or just sanding and applying the image to let the wood grain show through.  The panel is the coated with a gelatinous sauce and the film placed emulsion side down and rolled with a brayer. The film is lifted off and the inks remain. Then many coats of an encaustic medium, basically hot wax, is brushed on and colored wax and or an oil stick are added.

I chose to use an encaustic medium on the photographs because it reminds me of the yak butter that is used in so many ways by Tibetans. Yak butter is used to make small images for offerings in the monasteries, to fuel lamps, for food, and as a coating on the nomad’s tents for rain protection.

Please join Danny and the rest of Multiple Exposures Gallery for an opening reception on Sunday, May 19th from 2pm-4pm at MEG (Studio 312, Torpedo Factory Arts Center, Alexandria, VA).

It's All About Color!

MEG member Susan Meyers shares some insights into her new series, It's All About Color, as well as some thoughts on getting out of your comfort zone with your photography. It's All About Color is on view at Multiple Exposures Gallery through May 6, 2013.

Your new show It’s All About Color has been described as a real departure for you. How so?  This work is different for me in two ways. First, it’s intensely colorful, which is something I’ve never presented before. Pre-digital, I worked mostly in black-and-white with some subtle hand coloring. I never did any color darkroom work. Since converting to digital photography, my photographs have been in color, but in most instances, still strongly monochrome with maybe a few pops of color.

Second, the images are much more abstract than anything I have done in the past. My comfort zone has been capturing images of places and things. Moving to the abstract was a big change.

(c) Susan Meyers

(c) Susan Meyers

What sparked this creative shift? During a visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, I saw an exhibition of work by glass artist Dale Chihuly and was taken by the beauty of his work. I knew my two-dimensional camera wasn’t capable of capturing the full complexity of his three-dimensional work, but I still wanted to convey what my mind’s eye was seeing. Rather than simply record the installations, I focused on the color, light, movement, shape and texture of small sections within the larger whole to capture what I was feeling.
Now that you’ve ventured into intense color and abstracts, will you do more work in this area? I hope so.  But this series came as a total surprise to me.  I had no idea that the Chihuly show would have this impact on me when we decided to drive to Richmond for the day.  A friend went to see the show and came back with many positive things to say about it and my sister-in-law has been working in glass for many years.  So the trip to see the show just sort of evolved into a family outing.

Once there, I just went with it.  Some of the installations took up entire rooms. From the start, I knew I’d be focusing on small areas. Because it was a low-light situation, the movement and flow in the pictures just came naturally.  There are additional photographs from that day that I haven’t had time to work with yet, so I still need to go back  and see what other little “treasures” I might have hiding.  This is also the first time I’ve used some of the special effects available in Photoshop in any serious way (only two images in the current show were manipulated).
 
I don’t like to use a tripod, and find that the more equipment I carry and the heavier it is, the fewer photographs I take.  So, this type of work seems like a natural progression for me.

What advice can you give photographers interested in moving out of their comfort zones?  What is the benefit of trying something new?  We’re living in an exciting time in the history of photography.  It has never been easier to experiment or try new ideas.  Once you have a camera and a chip, the sky’s the limit.  

(c) Susan Meyers

I’m especially excited for the kids of today.  Many of us had cameras as children, but in my case, and I’m sure many others, I was dependent on how much my parents were willing and able to support my interest.  We were limited by how many rolls of film our parents would buy and pay to process.  Now, most families have computers and once you have a basic set up, there is no limit to the number of pictures you can make at a very low or no cost.  And, because it costs nothing, there's no reason not to experiment. 

Try some crazy idea.  If it doesn't work you don't have to show it to anyone.  Just as photography emancipated painters and gave us Picasso and Dali and Pollock, I wonder who digital photography will give us. 

Q&A: SQUARE MEALS by Eric Johnson

MEG member Eric Johnson shares some insights into his latest series, Square Meals, as well as some tips for producing outstanding black-and-white photographs. Square Meals is on view at Multiple Exposures Gallery through May 6, 2013.

Is it true that a photograph of a waffle shop led to your latest show, Square Meals? I had walked by the Waffle Shop on many occasions, and planned how I wanted to photograph it in my mind long before I actually took my camera there to make the exposure.  What I was hoping for was early morning twilight, with the lights inside the building balancing the light on the façade, and a sliver of dark sky at the top to balance the

(c) Eric Johnson

well-worn asphalt street.  But on the morning that I went to finally realize this vision, I found that the Waffle Shop was closed.  Permanently.  After over 50 years in that location, they had closed the week before to make way for a planned redevelopment of the block.

While I was still able to capture a different image of the now-closed Waffle Shop, the experience made me think how we sometimes assume that just because a place has been around for a long time, it will always be there in the future.   That is obviously not the case for buildings in a dynamic, urban environment and that realization led me to begin a project that documents similar restaurants and small markets in the various stages of their lifecycles.
 

(c) Eric Johnson

The images often evoke a feeling of nostalgia in individuals when they see them. Did you intend to make a statement about loss? The locations depicted in this body of work vary in their current uses – some have been in continuous daily use for years, some have been adapted to other purposes, and some have been demolished to make way for revitalized neighborhoods.  Despite this disparity, all have retained their unique character that sets them apart from the increasing homogenization of the contemporary landscape.  However, these images are not intended to be an indictment of the inevitable progression of the urban landscape, but rather an acknowledgment of the transitory nature of these everyday places.

The series is a beautiful example of the power of black-and-white photography.   Where did you learn your B&W skills? I started out in photography shooting and processing black and white film.  I did my own developing and darkroom work, and by doing so I developed my love of the medium and an appreciation for the challenges of creating strong images of a world rendered in shades of gray.  Now, when I’m out photographing I can look at a scene and visualize how I want it to look in black and white.  I look for compositions where the colors are not really an essential part of the image; instead I’m more focused on lines, form, light, and shadow to build the image.  

(c) Eric Johnson

What do you think differentiates a great B&W print from merely a good one?
Assuming a strong composition and interesting light, I think that one of the things that differentiates a great black and white print from an average print is that the tonal range and contrast must be appropriate to the subject.  It is particularly important to preserve detail at the extreme ends of the tonal range, particularly in the shadow areas, where it is easy to lose detail if the exposure is not optimized at capture.   I pay a lot of attention to the histograms on both the initial capture and while processing the image on the computer, so I can ensure that there is adequate detail in both the highlight and shadow areas.

Do you have any advice for someone interested in developing their digital black-and-white photography skills?  I think that someone who is new to black and white should first try to get a feel for what a great black and white image looks like.  Pick up a book with high quality reproductions of photographs by, for instance, George Tice, Brett Weston, or Ansel Adams.  Or look at a copy of Lenswork magazine, which publishes several portfolios of exquisite black and white photography each month.  Take note of how the photographers handle lighting, tone, and contrast, and also the types of subject matter that are amenable to rendering in black and white.
After you have an idea of what type of image you are aiming for in terms of tonal range and contrast, experiment with some of the many software applications of plug-ins that enable conversion of black and white images to color.  Entire books have been written on the topic of converting black and white digital images to color, but you don’t need to have that type of encyclopedic knowledge to begin.  Instead of trying every different conversion technique, I would recommend focusing on one method until you are proficient and feel comfortable with the results. 

Editioned Prints: How Many Is Too Many?

MEG member and fine art photography collector Tim Hyde continues to share his knowledge and perspective on the role editioning plays in collecting fine art photography.

“Editioning” is really a shortened way of describing a “limited edition,” and means the same thing in offering photographic prints as in books:  a set number of copies produced, usually with each copy numbered and signed.    It denotes that the print will NOT be produced in mass quantities and always implies a degree of rarity.

Beneath the Roses (Woman at the Vanity) - Gregory Crewdson

Sometimes a photographer will offer a “limited edition” with an edition size of several hundred.  Editions this size are usually a marketing gimmick and often reveal either naiveté or amateurishness on the part of the seller (and buyer too, for that matter).   When, rarely, practiced by an established photographer, it comes off as a bit of an insult—at least to most collectors. Mary Ellen Carter, for example, editions her classic black and white prints in the hundreds.  She is a fine photographer, but not very “collector friendly” because of this.

I would argue that, with rare exceptions, editions of more than 25 are really the same as an un-editioned print, at least as an investment.  Keith Carter, another fine photographer, produces beautiful silver gelatins that sell at retail for $1000-1500 in editions ranging from 35 to 50.  With one exception (“fireflies,” which is sold out in silver) his prints can be picked up at auction—for several hundred dollars, tops.  In other words, collectors simply do not consider them “rare”.  He and his galleries set the retail price, but the secondary market sets the auction prices.
 
There are several methods of editioning photographic prints.  One method, which is efficient for both the photographer and the collector, is to have different edition sizes for different prints sizes.  So, for example, Gregory Crewdson offers prints from his series “Beneath the Roses” prints in two sizes and editions:   18x24 in editions of 20, and  55x88 in editions of 6.   Sometimes a photographer will limit the sizes to two, sometimes there are three or four different sizes, edition sizes, and prices.

Another common method for deploying editions is to use “step editions.”   A photographer might set an edition size of 10, for example, but different numbers in the edition would have different prices.  So, prints 1-3 might go for one price, prints 4-6 for a bit higher,  7-9 higher still, and the last print in the edition would go for a lot more than the others.  Once the print is sold out, all ten will presumably be more valuable on the secondary market.  As with many other market-based transactions, the early buyers take the most risk but reap the most rewards.

One final word about edition sizes.  Usually a photographer reserves two or three “artists proofs” (“a/p”) for him or herself.  You can often buy these along with the number prints from the gallery, but more often they are held in reserve by the photographer for museum or special collection acquisitions.