I have a few projects going.
A) I come across subject matter and it collects in the house. I don't tend to then photograph it often enough. A difficulty with having time, motivation, and available light all come together. also struggling to find backgrounds for the subject matter.
B) This project is more of an idea, but not clear of the plan. the images have been hit and miss, and currently lack cohesion. again, finding backdrops and choosing framing that works to create cohesion being difficulties. Not having a clear vision means I almost never have time and motivation to experiment with it.
C) lots of travel photography images stockpiled =)
I tend to shoot a lot and gather inspiration, but don't tend to go back and expand the idea.
I also tend to stock-pile images and not look at them again.
The few books I have made I have planned out what I want and standardized formating and workflow and then done a bit of a marathone to select images, layout and edit.
I have several on-going "project", but all in all I'm not really organized about it. I spent a couple weekends with Sanderson in Chicago (fascinating guy!) During a photography conference he did give a shout out to me for suggesting LF to him about ten years ago when he was only shooting digital. I too have shot a lot of railroad stuff, especially at night with flash. Lately I've gone back to my "roots". It was abandoned farms and small towns that got me shooting 4x5 twenty years ago.
Kent in SD
In contento ed allegria
Notte e di vogliam passar!
An Image set came to me, in twilight slumber.
Eureka.
Hopefull, subtle, obtuse, yet carry political consistency.
Presenting IRL @ group Spring Print exhibit without digital preview nor purview.
I am not a typical project photographer, but I have two ideas in my mind.
The first thing is our small town with 7000 inhabitants, probably less.
This 800 years old town practiced agriculture recent century, and here are some ancient buildings, barns, quite far away from rectangles.
But the more interesting thing are the almost hidden courts and yards, which show the true face of our ancient town from time to time from what I have seen.
Unfortunately, this private courts always have closed doors or sliding doors...
Probably I have something special to initiate before I could start the court project.
And I know I better have to start yesterday than tomorrow, but it seems that I need some more time to begin.
The other idea came up maybe two years ago - nothing new of course, but I will give it a try.
I want to show tools and other things which will give an idea of some craftsman's , lawyer's, doctor's and so on environs and/or of their practice.
Something typical, something personal, that's not important.
All I want to hear is "Yes, that's me and my job".
I started up, and I will continue, with 12x16" and Xray film exclusively:
Stawastawa,
Some years ago I had a very closed winter here in south of Brazil. It was the next year's winter after my first LF camera had arrived to my hands.
I made a series of preliminary shots, with few equipment for LF developing, and in the course of the fall I have grabbed almost everything I needed to shot, develope and scan - at this time I hadn't a enlarger yet.
So, as the winter approached, I had a very affordable studio hardware, 3 speedlights, and a space to fit everything inside.
This room, had a very tall window where the light came trough in the morning, and was perfect til mid-day.
I did arrange a primitive but long table close to this window, and imported with the cheap studio tripods and umbrellas a couple of backdrops made of fabric but just perfect for what I intended to do.
During the day, when time permitted, I walked by the neighborhood, sometimes close to my house, but also far from where I live, getting everything I tough I could manage to make a interesting composition in my improvised studio.
At the end of the winter, I had at hand really good 20 shots with 4x5 b&w film, and the same amount in digital files. This series are the most important part of my actual work, this year I had presented it in 3 different opportunities/photo expositions.
This work also opened my eyes to the fact that there is some sort of hope without natural light. I have waked up to the fact that with bad or poor natural light I don't have to store my tools to the next season - this annoyance was really making me sick.
Just to be clear, I thing that I don't have - except for the 3 speedlights cited above - no more then 150 bucks in studio equipment. That's a limiting factor, of course, to try to work with so few resources, but is a million times better then nothing to work with.
Cheers,
Renato
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
I'm planning a "Blacksmith" project for the begining of the next year.
In the small town where I live there are nearby 20 of this blacksmith workshops. They fix and modify all sorts of rotary hoes, harvesters, disk mowers, offset disk chisels, tractors, diesel trucks, and pickups. They have usually a forge burning in a corner, soldering equipment, and all sizes of tubes, chains, steel laminated and manual tools to work with. I can't tell you how necessary is the sort of work they do to the economics of the region where I live, and nobody seems to remember it, but only when something brakes or needs to be modified.
Anyway, seems to be a good project, and will take time to prepare, talk to each one, schedule a visit for image take in the less stressed period of the day, and have something printed to show them my intention - as this people usually prefer to see something then just listen to a good speech.
If the work develops as intended, I'll try to show it in the local culture & arts house - my idea is to give them the first opportunity of their life to see themselves in a public place/show. Recognition matters, and I think it will be a nice project, for both me and those blacksmiths.
Obviously it will be all whet printed - a film experience, and a challenge also - I'm thinking about daylight and flash fill light.
Printed in my lab, I have the idea to do it all black and white in 11x14" paper size.
Cheers,
Renato
Two years ago I finished a 3 year project on a single subject. As for the next projects, I did some self examination of my negatives and realized one or two subconscious themes. So I'm hatching a couple more projects to pursue based on a few current photos. I travel to some far off places wth my old truck packed with LF cameras and it will take a few years to complete a project.
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