Saturday, February 24, 2001

Finally dropped the Infrared negatives from my last trip to Baltimore Hebrew cemetery off to have better prints made. With any luck, I should have higher quality scans up sometime next weekend.

I also made some inquiries into rental of a 4x5 view camera and Polaroid back to get going with the emulsion transfer project. Ouch! No one ever said this hobby was inexpensive. It does look like the project will be started once the weather warms up.
1:55 PM ::link::

Too bad, Mattel.

While I couldn't find any examples of the artist's series "Food Chain Barbie", in which Barbie dolls are placed in various food preparation settings, I did unearth an old urban legend of Prehistoric Barbie.
1:31 PM ::link::

Some wonderful pinhole images from the 12th Biennal in Esztergom as well as some works by Edward Levinson are on display in an ehibition at the Hungarian Museum of Photography.

Pinhole cameras yield such interesting images, always a surprise when you consider how simple they are. The soft focus, maintained throughout an almost infinite depth of field, coupled with the slight distortion of representing a three dimensional world as a plane, lends a dreamlike feel to the photographs.
1:11 PM ::link::

Friday, February 23, 2001

An e-mail this evening jogged my addled brains into recalling one more new and different technique that I really need to try. There's a wacko west coast chemist/photographer/magician that wasn't satisfied with black and white prints. He set out to and claims to have developed a process producing black and white slides that "are sharper and having more tonal range, than anything else that currently produces an image." This magic is done through his own processing system and has been tested with almost 2 dozen film types.
7:57 PM ::link::

Thursday, February 22, 2001

I have tried to make some small bit of art through my photography, looking to find the life and love behind the ways that we memorialize our dead, hoping to bring some sense of beauty in an examination of these opposites.

I just stumbled upon a site documenting the art produced by those facing a cruel and heartless death every day. The strength, the drive, the need to make art in these circumstances humbles me.

Last Expression: Art from Auschwitz

8:52 PM ::link::

Harmony: 1. Agreement in feeling, approach, action, disposition 2. The pleasing interaction or appropriate combination of the elements in a whole.

Our brain may be able to "harmonize" to allow the neurons functioning on a specific task or stimulus to drown out the noise. By synchronous firing, these neuronal ensembles provide a more powerful signal to the areas of the brain associated with higher level processing.

I told a friend a while ago that I have no sense of rhythm. Hope I can handle harmony better. ;-)
8:31 PM ::link::

Saundra was nice enough to send me a photo of a nice winged skull tombstone from her recent trip to Boston. While there are some great statues and some old stones here in Baltimore, something about the tombstones in the New England area just makes them "classics." From a recent posting on the Grave-L list, I found Old Bones and some of Mary's great photos of tombstones in the New England region.
11:49 AM ::link::

Wednesday, February 21, 2001

There's something about a smart woman that can write well, words wrapping across the monitor in sharper focus than your mind can handle. Her latest story of a photo session proved the falsehood of the saying that one picture is worth a thousand words.

I'm sorry that she encountered a photographer with no sensitivity towards the cooperative process that should be part of the striving of two people to make art. Perhaps he felt that he was being the "objective professional" but part of making a photograph of another person is to be atuned to their feelings about the situation and to put them at ease.

Only when both participants are comfortable and relaxed can the ideas flow freely from one to another and merge into that moment when you both have the same picture in your mind and can work together to capture it on film. Photography is a communications tool, communication should be a part of the process of making one.

Having your photograph taken can be a situation in which you feel stressed, out of control and powerless or it can be one in which you work as an essential part of a team to freeze a moment of truth, of beauty, of life. I hope she tries again, with a more capable communicator as her photographic partner.
5:57 PM ::link::

One of the things I love about photography is learning new techniques of capturing and manipulating images. Looking at one of Kelly's Polaroid transfers got me thinking about how much fun this technique could be to try. It turns out that it is amazingly simple to do and offers a number of options in interpreting an image. Once free of the paper backing, the emulsion can be slightly stretched, torn, or distorted before attaching it to the receptor surface. The possibilties opened by being able to apply the emulsion to different surfaces also opens a new world to explore. Watercolor paper, either smooth or rough, silk, canvas or even stone can be used, with the texture of the surface affecting the image.

Now, if I can find someplace that rents view cameras with Polaroid backs...
2:32 PM ::link::

If your heart is soaring with Kaycee's great news, you may be in the mood to help others on the road to recovery. If you are up to a serious commitment, one that may take years but can quite literally save a life, consider joining the National Marrow Donor Program.

Don't rush into it. Go, read, think... and then decide if a second chance for someone is worth the commitment.
10:21 AM ::link::

Tuesday, February 20, 2001

Woooohoooo!!!

It's been a long time coming, my friend, and you've been the warrior, throughout it all!
3:52 PM ::link::

Two almost lost and forgotten cemeteries in New Paltz, New York are benefiting from efforts to restore and preserve them. Scholars at Vassar and New Paltz will be studying the cemeteries and working towards an appropriate method of presenting the information to the public, possibly through interpretive markers. Cemeteries are an important part of our history and offer a glimpse into the life of the average person.
3:26 PM ::link::

A very special friend of mine, Kaycee, could use some good thoughts and a prayer or two today. Please take a moment and send her some energy and love.
10:25 AM ::link::

A review of the Canon G1 digital camera that sounds like the reviewer has fallen in love. Kristina seems to be enthralled with hers, so maybe it is as fine as it sounds. Yeah, it's on the far distant in the future dream list. ;)
9:58 AM ::link::

Monday, February 19, 2001

Livingston County’s Abandoned Cemeteries Care Association is working to preserve the history hidden within cemeteries. Other Missouri organizations are using the income generated from a large endowment to restore and preserve gravestones. Throughout the state, the search for lost graves continues.
2:20 PM ::link::

The state of Indiana is developing a database of historic cemeteries. They are seeking volunteers from the community to assist with gathering the data. A lot of the work has been done for them already, by such groups as the USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project and other genealogy organizations. This will help to protect and preserve historic graveyards throughout the state.
2:12 PM ::link::

Sunday, February 18, 2001

Thanks to Kelly of the Back Door to the Morgue for the excellent research and information on the symbolism of the hands at Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery.

Kelly has a number of great cemetery photos. I think you'll enjoy them. I know I did.
5:59 PM ::link::

Tombstones used as erosion control? I find it a bit hard to believe that old gravestones are the best material this joker could find to use as a foundation for a retaining wall. Burying bits of history beneath a pile of dirt and not being forthcoming about how they were obtained makes me smell a rat somewhere.
10:55 AM ::link::

Historian Bennie Butler has helped to launch a project to map African-American cemeteries in northern Kentucky. Cemeteries reflect our society's values and the days of segragation live on in the many small and undocumented burial grounds.
10:46 AM ::link::

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