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

As usual, single prints are available for $25; subscribers get a discount and always get access to editions before they become available to the general public. More information about subscribing is available on the Print of the Month page.

About this print:
Image size: 7½ inches square
Paper size: 8½ by 11 inches
Archival pigment print on 100% rag, matte finished paper
Limited edition of 20
Signed on the back

Price: $25, including shipping to US and Canada (add $5 for shipping elsewhere)

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.

I thought I’d leave you for a long weekend with a few of my favorite photography-related blogs. I’d rather do this from time to time than try to keep a blogroll, so expect more of these posts in the future as I dig into my feed reader.

These blogs tend to focus on the more creative and thoughtful issues of photography. You will hear mention of megapixels only when it is necessary for creative image making, not for the sake of pixel-peeping. For your reading/viewing pleasure this holiday weekend:

Liz Kuball, a terrific photographer in her own right, writes about her own work and process as well as showcasing the work of others. One of my favorite things about Liz’s blog are the comments she inspires. Sometimes snarky, often quite helpful and supportive, she has developed quite a community over there.

On Shadow comes all the way from Paris, France. Nick is great at digging up interesting images, much of it vintage, and also writes about the contemporary art and photography world.

We Can’t Paint is not just a blog, but an entire network of photography related enterprises, curated by Noel Rodo-Vankeulen. Noel is a great writer, and his photo magazine Wassenar is highly recommended as well.

Exposure Compensation is maintained by Miguel Garcia-Guzman, who discovers wonderful new photographers that I’ve never heard of just about every day.

Horses Think, written by Ofer Wolberger, collects an eclectic mix of photography along with general musings on the world of art photography. Ofer sometimes offers his own prints for free on the site, but they’re always gone by the time I get there. I’ll get one one of these days!

Jörg from Conscientious recently wondered aloud about “What the world of photography blogging needs”, which spawned an interesting discussion in the Conscientious Google Group. I think it’s true that the online world involves a lot of backscratching and self-promotion and not nearly as much critical thinking. Of course it is easier to come up with links to other people’s work (as I have so heroically done above) than it is to spend more than fifteen minutes writing something yourself. I also think that many photographers are more comfortable communicating visually than they are with writing.

I have been thinking about this more as I wonder what I am up to with this blog. Is it just a platform for me to showcase my own work? Should I be highlighting the work of others more? Should I be writing more in-depth pieces about philosophy and art and culture and photographic theory and practice? Can I do it without being pretentious?

Well… maybe.

I prefer to spend my time taking pictures, but it is looking to be a long, cold winter here in New York. I’m either going to start looking for some indoor projects or take up writing a bit more. Robert Adams’ seminal Beauty in Photography is just about the best model for great photography writing one could ask for, so I will take that as inspiration and maybe work on some longer-form pieces. I think, at the very least, that it will sharpen my critical thinking skills, and who knows, maybe even clarify my goals and thinking about my own photography.

Do you have a favorite photography blog that I should be reading? Let me know in the comments. And when I return… more prints? Probably. I’ve been cooking up a lot of stuff in my darkroom lately.

Light Leaks Issue 11

I am excited to announce that I have a photo in the current issue of Light Leaks Magazine. Light Leaks is a venue for “low fidelity” photographers who use toy cameras, Polaroids, and alternative processes as part of their work. One of the photos from my “There are no straight lines in Brooklyn” series is reproduced in issue 11, the Polaroid issue, which is available now.

An interesting new blog popped up a few weeks ago. Schtock.com claimed to be the work of an enthusiastic amateur designer working at a major stock agency, anonymously posting interesting images from the agency’s archives on their personal blog. It felt just a tiny bit illicit. We all knew that this person might be risking their job by posting these images without permission, and the work was good; sometimes funny, sometimes juxtaposed in ways that were quite striking. I quickly looked forward to checking the blog every day.

Today I opened my feed reader to this. A press release opening with the following brief:

As a newly formed design shop, General Projects launched with a self-assigned first project – to get the attention of Corbis and eventually turn that into a client relationship. This was done by launching a faux-viral campaign online with the intention of getting the Corbis name in front of as many members of their target audience as possible on a limited budget.

I don’t mind clever marketing campaigns, but I don’t like being tricked. It may just be that I am naive, but as an enthusiastic amateur myself (the word amateur often comes off sounding like a slur, but it really just refers to someone who works out of love, not for money) I like the idea that there are other people out there who are doing something they love without an ulterior motive. The idea that I was just part of some sort of “faux-viral marketing campaign” makes me feel a bit dirty. I think that marketing needs to be open and honest, because when people feel used, they are suddenly no longer interested in you or your product.

To me, this feels like the work of someone eager to get some attention, which obviously worked. I am sure this new agency will do very well in the world of business, selling Coca Cola or stock photos or whatever, but I am left with the nervous feeling that pretty much everything that comes my way from now on is a marketing ploy, which is a shame.