I’ve photographed in this park several times over the last couple of years, but this is the first time I’ve used color film. I paid for these photos with a lot of bruises and a slightly battered camera, but I’m happy with the results.

The rest of this series can be found here.

Plate burner exposing a digital negative on Pt/Pd paper

All of my equipment and chemicals arrived last week, so I’m finally able to get started in the darkroom with platinum and palladium. So far I’m just doing exposure and calibration tests; nothing to report except that things seem to be doing what they’re supposed to be doing and that I’ve got a lot of work to do.

My wife and I went to Baltimore this weekend to visit friends (Mr. and Mrs. Curmudgeon), and I came across some great photography books in a used bookstore in Hampden. The copy of Winogrand’s Public Relations in the window drew me into the store, where I discovered two more fantastic books: The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot, and Unclassified—A Walker Evans Anthology. Needless to say, I bought all three.

Here’s my favorite photo from the Talbot book. This image is more than 150 years old and yet looks so modern to me:

Photo by William Henry Fox Talbot

We also made a quick side trip to Washington D.C. to see the Richard Misrach show at the National Gallery. The show is only open for two more weeks, I highly recommend it if you can make the trip. The next trip we’re making to D.C. is in January, when Robert Frank will be at the National Gallery, and Frank Gohlke will be at the Smithsonian. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for an Obama inauguration.

I recently read a post from a textile artist named Lisa Call about what she’s learned from blogging, and number four on the list was the item that spoke most directly to me:

“I’ve learned more about myself and my art through my consistent writing on the topic than through just about any other method.”

So thank you, to the few readers who have stuck around in the short time since I retired the photoblog. This recent change started with the need to write a statement about my work for a submission to a publication. As I was struggling with that bit of writing, I realized that I needed more clarity on why I am drawn to take the kind of pictures I take, and I that I need a lot of help in communicating those ideas to the world at large.

Consider this a great big experiment: for one year, I am going to document my photographic process out loud and let you read along, for better or for worse. I’m going to start later this week by logging the entire physical process of taking pictures, from start to finish. I am going to begin with some equipment selection, I’m going to talk a bit about location, and then on to taking some pictures. Then I’ll go through through developing, editing, and processing the film, and finally creating the final prints. Hopefully this might be illuminating to someone—who knows, maybe somebody who is just learning to shoot black and white film, or wants to know a little bit more about scanning. But I’m really looking for help here, too. If anyone decides to follow along, I’d love your comments along the way.

Link via: Photostream