Romance, Reality and The Digital Dark Side

This year, I have likely done more shooting just wandering the streets of Philadelphia than I have since the late 90's. What has motivated it, is not completely clear to me but I think a lot of it has to do with the Stand in the Light pinhole photographs, the pilot series having been recently completed. The post processing took hundreds of hours spread out over many months. I kind of just needed a break, an excuse to bum around the streets, simply me, my thoughts, and the camera; to do more or less straight photography and satisfy my hunger for reality, but also to connect with something vital, alive and ever-shifting.

I've become addicted to the extremely long walks and the meditation it takes to use a public space as my studio, especially as I've become more interested in the idea of simply letting things to come to me, rather than trying to force my own vision on the world. In a sense, I have been testing myself, allowing my mind to just take things in and also to let the distraction flow through me. Of course, flexing one's visual imagination in an open-air setting is just as varied and unreliable as hitting a more traditional work space. I've had days where everything seemed to be magic, where my inner state was Zen-like, others where I couldn't make it fly. But something else has become patently clear: the best currently available tool for these jaunts in the urban landscape is a digital camera.

For years I resisted. I carried a multitude of film jobs, many considered collector's pieces. I would use a digital occasionally and without much seriousness or care, using point-n-shoots, often of low mega pixel-age. It was always film that was for The Work. In fact, I even wrote a missive for The Broad Street Review on why I was shooting film and had side-stepped the digital revolution.

My attitude towards working digitally has changed recently, in fact, it's the only kind of camera I feel motivated to use for shooting pretty much anything outside of a studio type environment. As an irrational human, where my sentiments lead is often at variance with rationality. I try to make a conscious choice as to which is allowed the upper hand. In the creative end of art, what has often been called a waking dream, I'm happy to lead to let sentiment romp all over the mental playground, but when it comes to setting the stage and making the tool and logistical choices, I do my best to be as pragmatic as possible.

All the photos I've done for the recent Digital Landscape series have been done using a 6mp Canon Powershot point-n-shoot. In 2007 its list price was about $700. They are now going on e-Bay for about $40. This speaks more for the rapid advances in technology and depreciation in a market ever hungry for the latest thing rather than this camera's ability to make great photos. The freedom to experiment without concern for film or developing costs, to quickly zoom and reframe shots, and to be able to come home after after being out for many hours and closely look at what I captured and then be able to edit and share the images online, makes the cold, plastic-y, and unromantic silver box the clear winner.

I think Cartier-Bresson once said that one's first ten thousand photographs were the worst. With film, only the most steadfast photographers ever reached that mysterious tipping point. The limitations and lessons I learned from film have not only allowed me to start to really appreciate electronic photography but in many ways are informing what I'm doing with it. Shooting film for years taught me to slow down even though today's digital cameras are fast and nimble and encourage a fast and loose shooting style. Film photography really required the photographer to pre-visualize the final print. Though digital does give you an instant preview of the shot, it still is a far cry from the finished image, so little has really changed. I'm still having to get in tune with how the camera sees.

I guess there was and still is a certain romance to shooting with film, some of the biggest arguments being simplicity and the kind of concentration and near-ceremony using a film camera brings to the whole chain of creating photos. It's tactile and physical too. Part of the attachment for me was I brought up on film. Some of my fondest memories are working in the darkroom whether it was a bathroom, or later a small outbuilding my dad and I built.

The romance ramped up in graduate school when I started getting into antique cameras as real users. I had collected old film cameras as a kid, scouring the junk and estate shops of the Upper West Side in Manhattan for old Kodaks that I bought for a few bucks, but it was in graduate school that I bought my first usable antiques and fell in love with them. While I was at LSU in the early 90's I started simply roaming around with them. I bought a Zeiss Super Ikonta C, a German camera from the fateful year of 1933. Then, not content with one, I bought another. I bought a few 35mm Kodak Retinas from George Mrus, who was then alive and selling nice overhauled items.

The mania for finding the perfect outside/street camera continued into my years in Philadelphia, offering a poor substitute for really going out and making a lot of images. The film cameras kept on multiplying as I tried out different tools. The insanity finally peaked this year when I started looking at Leicas and Voigtlander Bessas as my possible next acquisition. Somehow reason stepped in and though I will likely upgrade soon, it's going to be to a Panasonic Lumix G2, a fairly modest mirror-less digital which is even less sexy than the Canon, but it's compact, has some excellent optics available and will suit my needs. I will still use my Graflex beasts and Crown Graphics for Tsirkus Fotografika and for pinhole work. Vintage folder anyone?

Jazz Age Lawn Party 07/17 and 07/18/10

It seems as if the weather rarely cooperates for outside shoots, so one must be ready for just about anything. In this case it was extreme heat. On the second day, I drank approximately five liters of fluid (mostly just plain water). Luckily the shoot was on Governors Island, an oasis out in the middle of NY harbor that is about a twenty minute ferry ride from lower Manhattan. Being away from all the cars and the buildings helped a lot. There is also a cool ocean-like breeze.

I decided this time I absolutely had to something to mediate between me and the elements. I bought a very light dining fly at I. Goldberg for this trip. I did at least open the thing up before I left, but I was not able to set it up. When I got to Governors Island, I realized the design of the thing was just wrong. There was nothing to keep the support poles vertically attached to the top. It really needed an extra set of supports. So, I cut the shock cords and made two long poles and created a kind of improvised curved shell with one end securely staked to the ground. This also obviated the need for a backdrop and holder.

The second day, I really got things down adding some breasting lines as well. I was quite pleased at how clean it looked and it also provided a fair amount of sun protection for most of the day.

Both days of shooting were quite good. The first day was brisk, picking up in the late afternoon. Evelyn Kriete styled and assisted. G.D. Falksen also tagged along and helped with the finishing of the images. Sunday, I was on my own and it was slow up until the very end when a flurry of shooting rounded out the day. I made the 6:00 ferry and hit lower Manhattan with all my gear and a bag full of wet instant film negatives by about 6:20.

I then proceeded up to my cousin's place near 60th and Broadway over land. The whole rig was too large to even think about putting on the subway alone and the taxi fare for a 6.35 mile (I checked this on Mapquest) would have killed any profit I might have made; but moreover, I hate adding to the burning of fossil fuels if there is an alternative. It was decent day for summer and the temperature had dropped to a cool 86F, so I hoofed it. Foolishly, I just followed Broadway, going through some very dense areas: Soho, Union Square, Herald Square, Times Square and Columbus Circle. The whole trip took about two hours, which is about average for human locomotion--three miles per hour.

So many people out! Many tourists and I did my best to be tolerant of them slow-poking along. I also needed to be sure I didn't nail anyone in the shins with my wide load. I did surprising well. As I traveled, especially in the Times Square area, I saw so many artists on the street just trying to scrape out a few pennies. I imagined their workday--sitting there in the hellish heat, uninvited, in a largely uncontrolled and indifferent environment and probably having to scrounge for a badly needed bathroom and having to wait undue time for relief in the waiting line.

A cool apartment with my own room and bath was awaiting me the end of the day. Sometimes we don't realize how lucky and privileged we are. My cousin, who has become a kind of "angel" to my undertakings insisted I take a cab to the bus station on the final return, which I did, but I again went over the streets on the Philadelphia end, about two miles.

Portrait pics to follow in the next few days on http://tsirkus.org

Steampunk Photography: Reinventing the Mechanical Image.

Steampunk World's Fair, May 14, Piscataway, NJ.

Forget that point-n-shoot and cookbook methods for making sepia images in Photoshop, and definitely DO try this at home!

Join alchemical photographic wizard RA Friedman, founder of Tsirkus Fotografika, for a rollicking old-school visual presentation as he discusses his unique DIY analog/digital methodology; one that has defined the forefront of Steampunk Photography. Highlights from the large archive of retro-futurists Friedman and crew have photographed will be shown, as well as studio images. Caution: contains artistic, but sometimes graphic nudity. A brief no-holds-barred Q&A will follow.

Perhaps a bit too Steamy?

OK: Photos here:

Photo to the right: G.D. Falksen, writer and arbiter
of all things Steampunk.

An absolutely amazing day of shooting, as anticipated, at Brooklyn Indie Market. Like last year we had rain, but no wind, but what rain! I mean it was like the monsoon season on a tropical isle. I was not able to leave until about 8:30 a full hour and half after the event let out. I'm willing to get wet, but not soaked and I had to make my way down to Fourth Avenue and Union St. to the N train, which is about six long blocks.

Liz from designglut.com helped with the shoot and was a fabulous right-hand, setting up shots, engaging the crowd, and helping me field-prep the nasty goopy "Fujiroid" remains for their return trip to Philadelphia. The humid weather worked to advantage with the negatives since they ended up drying very slowly at first and then once in the lower humidity of my cousin's place, they dessicated with very little chemical "noise," thus requiring little retouching. The drying process is, I'm starting to believe, the deactivation of the chemical reagent. Once dry, the surface is inert and can be washed under running water. You can't do that when wet; it will remove the image.

I'm getting good at getting the gear up and down the subway stairs too. I was pleasantly surprised, that a number of people offered to help me even though I really was not having much trouble--mostly just making a din as the cart hit the stair risers. It left me neither sore nor out of breath. Primarily it was the long day on Saturday, getting up at around 3AM after going to sleep at 11 and then the long day that tested my mettle. Rather than shlep all the gear back to Philly only to have to do it all again in a week, I left most of it in a safe spot in NYC after carefully pulling it all apart, cleaning everything (especially the power cords that were wet and caked with mud--Liz gets bonus points for getting them into plastic bags without so much as a sigh.) and taking a mental inventory of supplies. I really need a closet somewhere near downtown Brooklyn where I can leave a second tripod, set of lights and backdrop holder; a package about the size of a regular college dorm trunk. Any takers?

RA Friedman, Principle Photographer

Dry(?) Run 09 27 09

Photo: No, it's not garbage, it's a studio on the move! Tsirkus gear, appropriately waterproofed awaits its return to Philadelphia on the Chinatown bus.

The mobility of the vintage portrait studio has been on my mind quite a bit these last few weeks. Trying to move the equipment through the New York City Subway system on the last jaunt to Gowanus back in August drove home the idea that I have to think light, modular, and easy-to-handle. Oh! and add one more adjective: waterproof! You can't tell what weather may do suddenly.

I have abandoned using a single heavy trunk as in shoots past and now have a trusty (and water resistant) Craftsman tool bin to hold the camera, film holders and film. ($19.95 at Kmart). The tripods and stands perch atop that and are wrapped up and bungied as a unit. They then are bungied to the small, foldable hand truck I use. Additionally, there is room to bungie-on one or more small bags that hold the miscellaneous equipment and supplies, including lunch. Everything comes apart pretty easily to take on the bus or get down a flight of killer steps.

The Jazz Age Lawn Party shoot on Governors Island was supposed to have been today, but the weather had been touch and go. (It's now 3pm in Philly and the Sun is out!) I knew that any notification of a last-minute cancellation was likely going to happen after I was already in transit. When I got off the bus and was all raring to head for South Ferry, I checked in and yes, the event had been nixed. Even though I did a 180 and headed right back to Philly, it was a good opportunity to shake down the new arrangement for moving the gear and it worked pretty well. Everything stayed dry and I got a chance to catch up on some badly needed sleep since the bus invariably sends me to dreamland. Hopefully, the rescheduled Oct. 4 date will be dryer.

RA Friedman, Principal Photographer