From the series “Horses on the Backside” by Ellen Rennard

I received a print of the lovely photograph above in the mail this week from Ellen Rennard. I mentioned Ellen’s work recently when she had a piece in Daniel Cooney’s emerging photographer auction, but I thought it would be worthwhile to feature a few more photos from her website. They are so beautiful, and heartfelt.

Ellen’s work can be found at ellenrennard.com, and she has a blog, too.

In lieu of maintaining a proper blogroll, every once in a while I like to post links to a few blogs I have been enjoying. In no particular order:

• B – Blake Andrews – Blake and I seem to have similar interests. I loved today’s post on Sternfeld’s Approximately 17 of 41 Sperm Whales That Beached and Subsequently Died, Florence, Oregon, June 1979, as well as his always challenging (impossible, I say) quizzes.
• Kevin Miyazaki – Wonderful personal work from Kevin as well as the previously linked tinytinygroupshow.
• Lenscratch – Aline Smithson – Aline is always showcasing fantastic work. Where she finds the time or energy to maintain her frequently updated site I will never know, but she is a dynamo.
• Too Much Chocolate – Interviews and image galleries from up-and-coming photographers.

Those of you who love photo books (as I do) will enjoy these two sites dedicated to reviews of new and older titles. Beware, reading either one of these is guaranteed to cost you money.

• 5B4 – Jeff Ladd
• The Photo Book – Doug Stockdale

Please let me know what I have been missing in the comments.

There is some great work in this group show curated by Melanie McWharter. I especially liked Jonathan Feinstein’s contribution, as well as the images by Dan Nelken and Cynthia Greg.

My eyes are tired from looking at too many JPGs. I am happy to report that the United States Postal Service is still in business, and here are a few prints I’ve received in the mail over the last couple of months to prove it.

Photograph by David Bram

Photograph by David Bram

Not one, but two wonderful silver gelatin postcards from David Bram. David is a photographer from Albuquerque, New Mexico who you might also recognize as the co-founder and co-editor of Fraction Magazine. As further proof of the ongoing viability of the USPS, both postcards arrived completely unscathed. Thanks, David!

4056 Waiaha Place, by Camden Hardy

This lovely photo comes from Camden Hardy as part of his Suburban Studies, Lihue, HI series. Camden has another photo from this series available for sale on his website. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but this photo makes me want to go there more than ever.

Photograph by Liz Kuball

Finally, there’s this photograph from Liz Kuball’s California Vernacular series. I grew up in Southern California, and Liz’s photographs hold a mysterious power over me. Liz is also a contender for the Hey Hot Shot competition this spring and was featured on their blog, so be sure to wish her good luck!

Unphotographable is a website by Michael David Murphy, described as “a text account of pictures missed”.

My own missed moment yesterday: Two men emerging from the woods, dressed entirely in camouflage, carrying semi-automatic rifles. I have not taken many portraits in the past, but it would have been the perfect time to start. My only hope is that they spend a lot of time in those woods, and I’ll be able to find them again sometime.

UPDATE: In the comments, Blake mentions The Photographs Not Taken, a collaborative project with a similar theme. And Camden mentions that Unphotographable is also available on Twitter, in a slightly different form.

One more site, slightly different but related, is Air Camera, from Justin James Reed. For the record, my air camera is an 8×10, but it weighs nothing and the film and developing are free.

** It turned out they were paintball guns, but how was I supposed to know that at the time? **

It is fine and good to tell us what not to photograph, but once we’ve gotten through that list, what’s left?

I ask this question partly in jest, because Colin’s series of posts is quite a good read—a bit cynical, funny, and serious at the same time—and does something very necessary, which is to acknowledge that we photographers often rely too heavily on convention and format. One could easily extrapolate that to any group practicing any kind of art. It’s what people do.

The fact of the matter is that there are only so many great and original ideas to go around, and we can’t all be fortunate enough to have them, so we need to borrow from others from time to time. It’s who you borrow from that’s important. Shamelessly copping Alec Soth’s style won’t get you anywhere these days, because everyone is doing it, and they’re probably doing it better than you are. Find someone a bit more obscure, like John Divola, maybe, and try something involving empty buildings and spray paint. Throw in some string and tape, in the spirit of John Pfahl, and you might be on to something.

I’m sure this is true of everyone, but I have questions about the value of my own work all the time. After all, isn’t this set from Sicily just my own version of the vacation slideshow? Maybe this is why I always have problems coming up with work statements. “I was in Sicily. I walked around for two weeks with a camera. Black and white film.” That seems to pretty much sum it up. Decent pictures they may be, but I’m not sure where they go after that.

I have my own list of genres that I love and hate: I dislike irony, I despise a cheap joke, I think portraits are overrated except in those exceptionally rare 0.1% of photos where they’re great and in that case they’re the best thing ever. I love landscapes. Nothing gives me a thrill like Jem Southam’s Painter’s Pool, or Lee Friedlander’s Desert Seen. When I close my eyes, that is where I live, and that is the only place I want to be.

I’m afraid I get no points for originality for my choice of subject, and so I am going to have to make up for it with dedication and obsession. Which is fine, because hopefully I’ve got another 40 years to make that one transcendent piece before I shuffle off.

I’ve mentioned Women in Photography before, because they have been promoting some wonderful work, and now Cara and Amy have something new up their sleeves. Women in Photography, along with Lightside Photographic Services and LTI (my lab of choice in NYC), are sponsoring a $3000 grant to fund a new or ongoing photographic project. Application is open now through May 1.

Oh yeah, and if you’re curious about their spiffy new site, Amani Olu did the design and I did the web development.

Wyman Park, Baltimore, 2009
click image for larger view

This month’s print comes from Wyman Park in Baltimore, Maryland. I have been taking pictures in this park for a couple of years now, whenever we can pop down for a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Curmudgeon, and I am always surprised by what I find. It is an odd spot: a mostly overlooked and untended open space right in the middle of the city. I enjoy exploring areas like this—there seems to be a certain uneasy equilibrium between the city and the land in these places that I don’t find anywhere else.

If you like this photo, you can see the entire series at http://daltonrooney.com/current-work/wyman-park

If you are looking for some good cheer in these sour times, you could do a lot worse than Justin James Reed’s recession print sale. By print sale, I mean that Justin is offering a print-quality downloadable photograph for free, just to spread some warm fuzzies. It’s a great image, too.

In a similar vein comes this post from Rachel Hulin regarding the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog at the Library of Congress. With a little searching, one can find some wonderful high-resolution images freely available for download. I happen to have a huge crush on Carleton Watkins at the moment, and sure enough, with a little bit of digging, I came upon this lovely image, which will soon have a home on my wall.

California Geysers, by Carleton Watkins

As for my part, I am offering the image below as a document of disappearing Brooklyn. These buildings have stood at the far edge of Smith Street for many years and have become so well-known that the surrounding neighborhood is now jokingly called the Notary District. Something tells me that they won’t be around much longer, although the stagnant economy seems to have given them a short reprieve. It seems like building has stopped all over the city; everywhere I look nowadays I see vacant lots where developers have started projects and given up halfway through.

This is a high-quality Tiff file that should make a very nice 8×10 print. If you do end up printing a copy for yourself, please drop a line in the comments and let me know about it.

I would also like to mention that a great friend of the Notary District, Bob Guskind, passed away last week. Bob was the publisher of the Gowanus Lounge, a well-known local blog. Bob worked tirelessly, sometimes writing dozens of posts a day, documenting Brooklyn’s incredible transformation over the last few years. Bob published many of my photographs of the neighborhood on his site over the years, including this one, and he will be missed.

Russo Notary, Brooklyn, 2008

Click to download Russo Notary, Brooklyn, 2008 (4MB Tif)

I am very happy to report that one of my photos is featured on Flak Photo today. Those of you who are familiar with Flak Photo know what a thrill that is. If you don’t know about Flak Photo already, what are you doing still reading this? Flak Photo is a photography blog that publishes new work from contemporary photographers every weekday, with specially curated selections on the weekends, and the selected work is consistently excellent. If you like photography you should definitely be subscribed to their RSS and email list.