The Moods of a Subject: Lakes Road Barn, Duncan, B.C.

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Lakes Road Barn, Duncan, B.C.

A bag of M&Ms doesn’t last me very long.  Nor does chocolate – any species, type or recipe.

Many photographic subject as are as – or more – ephemeral than my bag of candy: rainbows, fleeting smiles, glimpses of sunset on a field of lambs.  However, there are some subjects that are persistent yet changeable.  These you can, and should, sample over and over again in their many moods.

I live within four miles of this lovely, century-old barn, and drive past it almost every day.  I first photographed it one lightly overcast winter’s day as the afternoon sun brought a glow to its doors, and diffuse light from the thin cloud layer perfectly filled in the shadows.  This soft, diffuse but slightly directional light is ideal for images of old buildings, lending personality and gently accentuating structure without losing detail in shadowed areas.  The lines of the roof and boards stand in contrast to the curves of the naked branches and the coarse bark of the firewood rounds.  This was captured beautifully on XP-2 by the f/6.3 Anastigmat lens of my 1928 Kodak – naturally, on a sturdy and stable Gitzo tripod with a cable release.

The Misty Barn

One early fall morning the next year, l awoke to find delicate veils of mist shrouding the hills and dense, cottony fog filling the valleys as the first rays of the sun filtered through the trees.  Grabbing my camera bag and tripod, I shaved while I drove past farmland and vineyards.  The mist thinned as I crested the rise where the barn sat, but there was enough to veil the farm and mute the distant trees.  The mist cooled the tones of the warm morning light, and the greens and orange-browns of the leaves called out for color film.  With Kodak VC160 in my newly-purchased 1950 Voigtlander Bessa I, I was able to capture this dreamy, softly-tinted image that is totally unlike the sharp lines of the winter black and white photograph.  With the rising smoke and trailer to the right of the barn and muted field and trees to the left, I elected to back away, including more of the surroundings, then in Photoshop cropped to a wider, more panoramic format.  Despite my love of sharp definition, I resisted the temptation to crank up the contrast .  Slight corrections in Curves accentuated the mist covering the distant trees and added to the diffuse quality of the whole image.

The barn and I are not finished; I am still awaiting next winter’s first snowfall, anxiously wondering how its blanket will soften the lines of the wood and erase the contours of the grass.  Will there be tracks in the snow?  Drifts piled by the door?  Crisp winter light or moody overcast?  I can hardly wait.

The PhotoTrucker’s Blues – Part 1: Finding My Way

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Rand and Maxie

Imaging driving a 1956 all-steel Cadillac with a little Austin engine and an eighteen-speed transmission down a tiny country road filled with milling sheep.

Add in a transmission with six gears (including reverse and ultra-low), a ranger switch in front of the knob that that shifts everything into a high range, and a little slider on the side that cuts each gear in half. Plus an interaxle lock switch and a rear differential lock switch (for snow). Together with as many dashboard switches as a Piper Comanche. Stir in the cyclist who yesterday zipped six feet in front of my truck as I was turning off the highway. That’s life in the slow lane (or very slow lane up hills).

That’s learning to drive a 60-foot, 50,000-pound truck and trailer through downtown Victoria traffic. I am learning on a big Volvo/GMC truck named “Maxie” whose Caterpillar diesel is only happy between 1200 and 1700 rpm. I go through four gears before most drivers are out of low, and double-clutch both up and down (no synchromesh). Once I have learned all the skills needed, I may reward myself with one of the dump trucks for sale in ontario that really caught my eye when I was browsing online recently. Long way to go at the minute but I’m confident that I’ll have the skillset soon enough.

Yes, I have a new adventure. Confirming that there is very little call for my many but general skills here, I enrolled in Saferway Driver Training School, the Island’s best commercial driving school, and am spending my days in a full-size semi truck and trailer. When my training is finished and I have my license, I am heading to a camp in Alberta’s oil patch to drive heavy trucks. There’s a reason that I’m going to a driver training school, and that’s so I have less of a chance of causing an accident. I know that driving can be dangerous, I also know that no matter how careful I am something is likely to happen. As a side note, if you are ever involved in an accident with a truck then it might be a good idea to get yourself a lawyer to help you with filing a lawsuit. If this is something that you are thinking of doing then you could check out someone like these truck accident attorneys North Carolina. As well for security reasons or if an accident were to happen, you could visit BlackBoxMyCar to get the best dash cams for your vehicle.

Trucking is immensely hard work, and I am managing to stay fit with climbing into and out of a high cab, and sliding wormlike around under the truck and trailer for morning inspection – also about as extensive as the preflight for a Comanche. It is a complex trade, with many things to do at once – watch the road, interpret many warning signs that I ignored in a car, watch the trailer as I swing wide on corners (taking up all lanes of some small residential Victoria streets). The hardest thing is to just coordinate everything into a smoothly coordinated whole.

It has had its rough moments, but I am actually having fun. I am entering a fascinating culture with many quirky characters and possibilities for fellowship. My instructor, Larry Hurdle, sports an exuberant mustache and possesses an inexhaustible store of both trucking knowledge and stories from his years as a logging truck driver.

Air Brakes Day- Larry and the Spring Brake

Lessons are peppered with stories of absentminded One-Chain Jack, who forgot to chain up on a snowy road, running his truckfull of logs off the road and over a bank. Deciding to cover himself by chaining up after the fact, he was discovered with one set of chains on the wheels high in the air, pondering how to attach the other set to the other set of wheels buried in the mud. He was dubbed “One-chain” on the spot, and never lived it down. This same miscreant, a heavy smoker, once burned up a load of prime shingles on the truck and noted that it was “…probably a spark from the stack (exhaust)…” Another chainless day Jack removed a front axle assembly sliding down a mountainside and into an abandoned logging road, missing the snow-filled ditch the company had dredged across the road.

Air brakes days: Consider a plate of spaghetti loving arranged by a cocaine-crazed kitten. Pepper liberally with valves, couplings, air tanks (Supply, Primary, and Secondary), and hand valve (“The Spike”), red and yellow dash buttons,”S-cams”, and mine-shaped air chambers that can crush a ton of pressure onto a brake drum. Over two days, Larry weaves us in and out, up and down through the maze. Old trucker stories: “In the worst cold, the air valves used to freeze up, so we soaked a rag in the fuel tank and lit it under the valve to thaw it. Except one day, I dropped a rag into the tank and didn’t know it until the truck began stalling every time the fuel was low because the rag would float over the fuel intake. After we figured out what was wrong, I fished out the rag and bought a little propane torch for the valves. The truck ran better too.”

Air brakes- Valves and hoses, valves and hoses

Life-saving tips: Overbraking on long downslope ( i.e., the way most of us drive, holding brakes on down a hill) can heat brakes red-hot, causing drums to expand and lose contact with the pads. Larry says, “If your truck brakes fail on a downhill and all you have is your trailer brakes, don’t just pop the red button and lock the parking brakes on… You’ll die. Lock the brakes off and on, off and on. You’ll have a rough ride, but you’ll make it.’ We all listen intently.

“Drive shaft – no excess play!” “Brakes – spring over service, automatic slack adjusters!” “Push rods – travel adequate!” I pull myself along caterpillarlike under the truck, stomach barely clearing the differential, grit falling on my face. What do fat truckers do? I bang on air bags and tug on lines and shock absorbers, barking out the inspection steps like a Marine trainee on a parade ground. “Kwitcher complaining!” Larry bawls affectionately as he paces me, “I kin hear you huffing and puffing from out here!” I finally haul myself out from under the rear of the trailer, pulling myself under the Honda Bar (a sort of reverse cowcatcher, meant to keep those perky critters from mashing themselves under the trailer). Pulling and tapping and delving from the front of the truck to the taillights, I’ve timed compressor build time, emptied tanks, banged tires (proper inflation pressure has a sound – no time for a gauge). You do not simply climb into a truck and drive away! I’ve learned to back up a semi to within a half-inch of alignment for the kingpin on the trailer, hauled myself up and down from the cab a hundred times, hooked and unhooked air lines, and come to know the sound of the big diesel when it’s happy.

Sometimes this all seems overwhelming, especially at 65 – this old dog is definitely being forced to learn many new tricks – but it is an adventure at a time when many my age are racking up TV time, and I am fortunate that I am fit enough to do it.

I am getting a lot of positive feedback from friends and acquaintances about this enterprise. Once I get over my angst about not using my training, I start to realize that I am embarking on an adventure, and I’m getting a great deal of support, both from Janie and others in my world. This morning, I spoke to an attorney friend he said that he rather envied me! That really made me stop and think! I am doing something unusual.

UP THE MALAHAT – FIGHTING THE GEARS:

Shifting gears on 60,000 pounds of truck and trailer is an art. Not the dreamy, let’s-see-where-it-lands emotionality of the French Impressionists, nor Picasso’s disjointed connection with the moment. And definitely not Jackson Pollock’s exuberant splashes of paint from a ladder. More like the delicate touch of the English miniaturists, or the Precisionist movement of Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keefe – economy of movement with every stroke connected with the last and anticipating the next, and no time for sloppy plunges of the foot or hand.

The basics mastered, a light trailer is paint-by-numbers. Tuesday, we glide around back streets, the gears slipping one to the next with a minimum of grinds and complaints. The day is sunny, the cherry trees lining Victoria’s harbourside coyly expose touches of blossom, and life is good. Even MacKenzie Avenue’s gridlock seems benign as I make my way home, glowing with satisfaction despite aching knees and muscles that feel like warm spaghetti.

Yet enter only part way into the real world of trucking, and the cracks in my technique become glaringly obvious. The next day, a March storm batters the island; ferries huddle in their docks, my office lights die to the blue-flared wump of an exploding transformer, and fir branches fill the air like snowflakes. With only a moderate load of concrete blocks on the trailer, we pull out of the yard into sleet for my first experience of the Malahat’s twisting mountain highway.

I must be in an alternate universe; the laws of physics, at least with my right hand and left foot, are gone. Someone has moved third and fourth – they’re not where they were yesterday. And low keeps creeping into the spot where second lived on Tuesday. Uphill, shifts need lightning speed as the load of concrete pulls Maxie back and speed drops when the diesel stops pulling. Downhill, those enormous blocks spin the rapidly-accelerating driveline , and my hands and feet must match spinning teeth and shafts as we descend. My mind fails to connect revs and kilometers with muscle and nerves, and I miss a shift. As I flail my right hand to connect a gear – any gear – Larry barks “Clutch!” and deftly pulls the gear lever into third. Maxie falters and then growls to work again.

Eaton Fuller 18 Speed Transmission Shift Pattern

However, some things go well. I have my first experience of the “Jake”, or Jacobs engine brake. As we slide around the snakelike curves from the summit, the Jake’s machine-gun rattle holds us steady with only the lightest touch on the brakes as Larry gently feeds me tidbits from his library of life experience of engines and steel.

We weave down the narrow track to Mill Bay as I turn off the engine brakes and practice “Stab” braking – on and off, on and off, watching the speedometer and tachometer, holding our descent parameters in a narrow range, yet never letting the brake pads touch the drums longer than absolutely necessary. Finally reaching the choppy steel gray of the sea, we pull off on a gravel strip beside the waves as gusts batter the truck. The wheel hubs are barely warm.

As I brace against the wind, Larry hugs the shelter of Maxie’s radiator. “Spend much time in the North, and you’ll discover that this is the only spot that’s warm.” Hmm – more advice from an old hand. Images of cowboys trapped in Wyoming blizzards shooting a cow and surviving within the warm carcass flash through my mind. Next time I’m lost in the wilderness, find the nearest Kenworth and drape myself over the hood?

Keeping Warm at Mill Bay - Maxie and Larry

I definitely have much to learn. It could be worse, however. Twisting through the lower reaches of the Malahat, downhill grade, two narrow lanes with a slim barrier on the left and ragged rock wall on the right, Maxie holds us steady in fifth with the Jake rattling. “Can you believe I once went down this whole stretch with a student in neutral with no air for the brakes?” Larry reminisces. I twist the truck left and right, left and right through this narrow chute and think about a terrified student gripping the wheel. Nerves of steel. I could not do what Larry does.

Malahat, April 17, 2011 (Courtesy Victoria Time-Colonist)

Back in the yard, we put the truck away: I crank down the landing gear, uncouple the glad hands and hang up the hoses, yank with all my weight on the handle that releases Maxie’s jaws on the trailer king pin (dodging the pound or so of gritty black grease oozing from the fifth wheel plate) and pull ahead just enough that the trailer hovers over the rear wheels (collapsing landing gear will put the trailer on the tires, not nose-down on the asphalt). My ego is dented – bent and twisted even – but I have learned some things.

ME AND DR. JECKYLL – ON BEING TWO PEOPLE

I am starting to understand Dr. Jeckyll better. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jeckyll transforms at night into the evil Mr. Hyde, who prowls the streets of London – a classic case of “split personality” (now classified as Dissociative Identity Disorder). I climb out of Maxie one afternoon, knees aching, baggy, grease-stained jeans, old green jacket and grit on my face. Trucker Collins’ work boots carry him into a gas station mens’ room, and a suit bag plops over the towel rack. Ten minutes later, Dr. Collins’ brown Rockports step out the washroom door beneath natty beige slacks, white shirt, blazer, and sporty red tie knotted precisely at the collar. Down to Victoria’s exclusive Union Club – buzzed through carven panels by the doorman, shoe polish, brushes and mouthwash precisely laid out on the marble counters of the mens’ lounge, wine rack by the dining room, and Victoria’s elite (and elite hopefuls) sipping coffee by the tall windows. This is weirder than working for MI-5. I discuss opportunities for government contracts with a management consultant.

Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde (Poster from the classic 1931 adaptation with Frederick March)

A week later, Persona #2 is in Baltimore at an elegant lakeside hotel, refreshing his certification with the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) as an inspector for the international ISO 15189 standard for medical laboratories. A2LA is taking on the thousand-pound gorilla of the College of American Pathologists, introducing a new standard for medical laboratory accreditation into the USA. No work as yet, but international labs waiting in the wings to join the parade once A2LA’s certification passes government logjams thrown up by established powers. Week spent on Estimation of Measurement Uncertainty analyzing concepts like this:

as well as document management procedures, traceabilty of measurements to international standards, and much more to do with certifying diagnostic quality. I am helping to pioneer a new venture for American medicine.

My highest cortical functions have had their workout for a week. Ten hours on a plane, blazer folded in the closet at midnight, don Persona #1. Scan the Maxie’s preflight checklist, four hours in bed, and back to the world of drive shafts, hitches, and a growling Diesel.

IT IS COMING TOGETHER…

Out without a load on Victoria’s winding streets, practicing shifting and clutch work. First, second, third, fourth, ranger up, fifth, sixth, then all the way back down again. Not as smooth as Larry, who shift gears like a Chinese master doing water colors (green, pink, brown and black on fours sides of a round brush, then one quick twist of the wrist and a flower graces a page of rice paper) but smooth enough, and no bucking or heaving.

The next day, the challenge I have been dreading: out on the same narrow corners and byways with 50,000 pounds of truck and concrete blocks. Last time, the truck bucked and heaved like a clipper in a heavy sea whenever I started out. A week off has allowed knowledge to settle, however. This time, whenever, Maxie protests, I quickly engage the clutch and tell him to get to work. He likes this new-found mastery, and we move smoothly up hills and through gullies. I have time to watch the traffic more closely and manage a serviceable buttonhook turn in dense traffic, a complex but essential maneuver where one must signal right, then at the last minute move left, simultaneously blocking the right lane with the trailer and occupying the left lane with the cab, before moving wide around the corner, missing curbs, pedestrians, and telephone poles. At an ice arena parking lot, I manage an alley or “Jack” backup, moving the trailer backwards around a 90 degree corner, without being too badly out of position. I will be a trucker yet.

Next week, off to Alberta to look for work.

ON THE LAUNCHING PAD:

Just as it did for the thousands of English and Irish emigrants who populated Newfoundland two centuries ago, the morning comes when it is time to leave for a new land. Work looms before I can leave home, however.

A hectic last month; falling in love with 0.4 acre of Cowichan hillside, we inherited a view of rolling hay fields brooded over by the dark mass of Mt Prevost. With the view and the hillside, we also acquired several hundred metric tons of densely obstinate shale, demurely hiding beneath the thinnest veiling of soil. Needless to say, gardening is akin to breaking lumps in a Welsh coal mine, and our lawn stays green only by dint of intravenous nourishment and its proximity to the septic field. Getting the garden brushed and combed and ready for spring: an arduous task, but finally ready for the lawn service to take over.

My seven year project to create a storage gallery and wood shop in the garage reaches completion, and a car moves in and makes its home. Mail, accumulating in the corners of the office like dry leaves on the porch, must be processed and shredded. Vacuuming, lunch-making, and packing fill the night till early morning. Five cameras? Film? Three pairs of underwear? Restoration tools? Jeans? I’m packed. New persona, new life, new beginnings – frightening but exciting. Many of my peers are watching television and playing golf. Despite occasional envy of their relaxed lifestyle, I realize I feel alive, and happier than I have been in years. Finally, a challenge, an adventure, and life in motion…

THE DAY OF DEPARTURE:

Morning: Moving, a rustle, rattle, and crackle reaches my ears. Knowing that that the range of the Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus oreganus) does not include Vancouver Island, I cautiously open one eye to find Janie asleep beside me on a layer of mail.

North Pacific Rattlesnake

Accustomed to awakening to find knitting needles and other sharp objects sharing my resting place, I cautiously ease out of bed and remove the offending literature. A cup of strong coffee brings my lifemate to consciousness, and we scurry through a morning of final preparations, ferry schedules, and last minute paperwork.

As we back down the driveway, I feel both anticipation and a sense of apprehension: a 65 year old doctor/photographer turned trucker- will anyone take me seriously?. Calls placed to major petroleum companies, and Flint Energy, largest of the equipment haulers. Web sites: Lists of benefits and testimonials from happy workers. Please use our on line service. Resume submitted as requested. No answer. Consider resume: medical director of this, consultant on that, trucker…TRUCKER??? Is this some kind of joke? What did he do??? Abscond with the piggybank? Auction off the Percocet on eBay? Stereotype: Doctors don’t drive trucks, they retire to the Bahamas and play golf. I decide to present my resume in person whether they want to talk with me or not.

ADVENTURES ON THE TRAIL:

We leave the Fraser Valley in pounding rain and gloomy gray overcast,, crawl up the long climb of the Coquihalla Highway, rain turning to a blizzard as we twist and turn between huge piles of muddy roadside snow. Stopping gratefully at the only rest stop in miles, we munch celery as we contemplate this depressing landscape. Suddenly a little while Nissan zips to a stop beside us, a young Asian man jumps out, a multicolored bouquet of flowers in his hand, and a bride with full wedding regalia and flowing black hair leaps out the other side, and they scamper off down a narrow aisle walled by towers of gravelly snow. My photographers antennae a-twitch, I am out of the car and tearing off in full pursuit. Following this elfin couple (at the start of a delayed honeymoon) yields a fascinating sequence of images as they cavort from snow pile to snow pile, and finally pose for me (see The Bride at the Summit):

The Bride at the Summit #5 (Droid Digital Image)

The wide grasslands of the Nicola Valley, coffee in Merrit, the Rogers Pass in a freak winter snowstorm (truckers crawling, car over the bank, one death), then time to explore Lake Louse and Banff, fondly remembering a second honeymoon spent here. Today, I am just savoring the fact that Janie can walk after four years of orthopedic disasters.

At an underground mall in Banff, an opportunity I cannot resist: among the fudge shops and racks of kitchy souvenirs, an underground bar and pool hall, dim light, and a group of colorful but slightly rough-looking males assaulting small balls with sticks. After some hesitation (I am a shy people photographer) I introduce myself as a writer doing an article on cell phone photography and escape with several images.

The Pool Hall (Droid Digital Image)

Challenging conditions for the little Droid camera with its love of bright Caribbean sun, but I push it to the max and one image passes the difficult lighting conditions with considerable tweaking of contrast, saturation, and curves in Photoshop. This would be an extremely difficult shot with a 1940s roll film camera, and one would be struggling with a wide open lens (limiting depth of field) and slow shutters speeds (failing to catch the quick movements as the pools aces quickly align their shots). Here, the Droid’s extreme depth of field is an asset.

CALGARY:

Two days Alberta St. John Ambulance First Aid, one day Hydrogen Sulphide Safety course, on-line Petroleum Safety Training….. and all the networking and potential-employer-visiting I can cram in over the rest of the week. Life may be transformed based on what I learn.

SAFETY TRAINING DAYS:

St. John’s Ambulance: Resuscitating an unconscious choking baby: Place baby face down on arm. Whack baby five times on back. Flip baby over. Poke baby five times in chest with second and third fingers. Blow in (snotty?) mouth and nostrils twice. Repeat as need until baby wakes up or help arrives. One of the few times it is legal to hit your children.

Baby Dummy Heads, St John's Ambulance

Dealing with Stroke (Versus TIA). Open fracture of the arm. Sucking chest wounds. Amputations, Partial versus Complete. Not good after-dinner pictures. Chemical burns. Avulsion of the eyeball. A realistic picture of an eyeball hanging out of a socket. I know it’s realistic, because I’ve seen one just like it. Time for lunch.

Splinting the Tibia

H2S Alive Training:Hydrogen Sulphide (Sewer Gas, Sour Gas). “…an extremely toxic and irritating gas. Early recognition and detection is crucial to protect employees from deadly exposures…(Kalusche, H.E.).” Rotten egg smell, heavier than air, lurks in low-lying areas in oilfields. Potentially hiding behind every valve cover and tank top on a rig. Inhibits cytochrome oxidase enzymes in nerve cells. Low concentrations paralyze the sense of smell. At higher levels, the “Knockdown Phenomenon” – sudden loss of consciousness, respiratory depression and arrest.

Respirator Training - A Fellow Student

Hunting for A Job:
Time to Regroup: Time between courses and job hunting for photography. A shopping trip; a bright display of wine glasses catches my eye:

Wineglasses, Calgary Hudson's Bay

and a drive in a spring snowstorm finds a grove of poplars, thinly veiled with falling snow:

Alberta Poplars, Spring Snowstorm

Farther on, that afternoon, a panorama of horses scattered over snowy hills beneath a leaden sky:

Horse Herd, Alberta Snowstorm

First Interview: Sprawling industrial area southeast of Calgary. Past the distillery, air fragrant with the aroma of mash and yeast; one could get high just breathing. Tired-looking box of a building, just down the street from a crane’s giant arch over twisted car hulks and crumpled girders, a city block disappeared under metal and scrap:

First Interview - the Neighbourhood

Four guys in greasy jeans in an old office. Check out the company: Are the plants healthy? They might be if they like distillery fumes and anyone had thought of them. My target is the youngest. Nice enough, but clearly puzzled by why I’m here. Penthouse screensaver. I pass over my resume. “Seems like you ought to be teaching at a university. I’ve got to tell you that I have a pile of resumes from guys with years of experience. The oil fields are no place for a new driver.”

The next day, I meet with Darryl Faye from Finney Specialized Hauling. Much the same message, but from a kind manager who spends half an hour in a very busy day giving me suggestions: ” I have guys who have trained with us for three years that I won’t let touch some of the projects we move. You need six months of basic hauling experience before you set foot in the oil field. But good luck, and let me know how it works out.” Clearly, I am starting at the top and need to get experience with the basics.

Some valuable connections before we leave Calgary: an appointment with the Alberta Government job service (revise your resume – it’s too medical) and an exhilarating networking group at the library, which yields me a connection to a coach who is brightly enthusiastic about my background, and a recommendation to a new coach in Victoria.

The Ford in the Poplars (Droid Image)

A last walk through the poplar groves of Alberta, past an old Ford, rusting amid the pale columns of tree trunks, then back through the grandeur of Yoho and Glacier parks, the Rogers Pass, and the rolling brown ranch lands of central British Columbia.

REFERENCES:

Kalusche, H.E. Hydrogen Sulfide – Health Effects, Detection and Exposure Prevention. U.S. Army Workshop Online Notes. http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/workshops/04jun-wots/kaluschue.pdf.

The Jeckyll and Hyde Laboratory. On Line Posting. http://jekyllhydelab.blogspot.ca/2011/03/jh-resources-full-length-movies.html.

To Be Continued…

Praying for Rain: The Suzallo Library and Other Rainy Cityscapes

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Suzallo Library, Rainy Night, University of Washington (digital)

The Comanche, Navajo, Osage and Zuni danced for rain.  Ancient Romanian rainmaking rituals survive into the 21st century.  City photographers – at least those who work at night – also pray for lifegiving rain, not for their crops, but for their images.  Consider this photograph of the University of Washington’s Suzallo Library.  Ablaze with light, the door’s multifaceted image is repeated in the wet cobblestones of the pavement, and adds a whole new dimension to this dramatic entranceway.  Taken on a dry night, a later  image was lifeless.

Benches and Street Light, University of Washington (digital)

Around the corner, a pair of quiet benches forms the focal point of a study of a single street light’s reflections not only on the pavement, but also on the rain-soaked bricks of the wall and the slats of the bench.  Given enough water, almost any surface can become a reflective mirror that takes its place in the image.

The Rainy Mall, University of Washington (digital)

A mall walkway offered the most dramatic shot of the evening, with brilliant post lamps bouncing off puddles and patches of melting snow, framed by the naked branches of the mall’s cherry trees.

The Quiet Bench, University of Washingington (digital)

However, not all “wet” images need be as dramatic as this rainy mall.  In this quiet shot of a corner bench, there are no dramatic reflections from spot light sources.  Yet the rain gently accentuates every surface contour and alters colors, darkening the concrete to accentuate the sprinkling of leaves, bringing out the shape and varying colors of the brick, and catching the highlights on the bark of the single tree.  Moreover, the focal point of the image, the highlight on the back of the bench, is a direct result of the rain soaking the dull wooden surface.  This image would have had little life on a dry evening.

Van Lear Diner

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The Diner, Hot Summer Night, Van Lear, Kentucky

 
Van Lear, Kentucky: A magical summer night in a tiny Appalachian town. The best of bluegrass from the porch of a tiny bungalow, paint peeling like shavings in a carpenter’s shop. Meeting Loretta Lynne’s family, mingling with her friends and neighbors. One main street with white clapboard houses, and a small diner tucked beneath the boxy  old Van Lear Historical Society building.

Each year, Van Lear, birthplace of Loretta Lynne, remembers the first coal train rumbling away from the tipple at Consol Mine #151 by hosting Van Lear Days, a day of parades and celebration followed by an evening of down-home bluegrass. The town, situated in the middle of the Paintsville Coal Field, is tiny, nestled in a bend of the road across Miller’s Creek. Winding our way through Kentucky’s narrow, serpentine mountain roads, we arrived to find musicians in T-shirts and jeans setting up on the porch of an old bungalow, spotlights clustered amid traffic cones and tangles of cable across dusty Main Street. Visitors and neighbors perched in lawn chairs, opening coolers stuffed with Cokes and fried chicken. Campaign posters for the local election festooned the porch, luminescent in the glare of the lights.

Bluegrass on the Porch

The music was indescribable – bluegrass played in its home and at its roots. Peggy Sue, Loretta Lynne and Crystal Gayle’s sister, sang and told stories. We met Loretta’s neighbors, and listened as they reminisced about their local girls who had made good. After, I wandered into the tiny diner (Icky’s 1950s Snack Shop) beneath the Van Lear Historical Society.

Armed only with my Canon digital point-and-shoot with its f/2.8 lens (I had no vintage cameras that year in Kentucky), I saw this tableau in front of the counter and snapped one image. The original file was underexposed and of poor quality, but careful use of the Curves function in Photoshop, together with increasing contrast and saturation combined with the “Local Contrast Enhancement” function in Astronomy Tools pulled up a quality image.

Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” always comes to mind as I view this image: with Hopper, the diners are captured through the restaurant’s window; with “Van Lear Diner”, the  tableau is frozen as they wait, the woman rummaging in her purse and the youth, clearly come from work in his ragged shirt, stretching restlessly as they endure the stifling air of the tiny diner.

Here, the fast lens and enhanced depth of field of the digital point-and-shoot wins out over a classic bellows camera, with its aperture limited by the surrounding leaf shutter mechanism. CCD chips in digital point-and-shoots are smaller than negatives, making the effective depth of field greater than any film camera’s at an equivalent f-stop. This factor can be a disadvantage when trying to blur a cluttered background, but it is an asset when depth of field is needed with the lens wide open.

References:

Nicolas. 2002. WebMuseum, Paris.  “Edward Hopper.”  http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hopper/.

Wikipedia Article: “Edward Hopper.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hopper.

Wikipedia Article:  “Van Lear, Kentucky.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Lear,_Kentucky.

Echoes of Eastman’s Little Box: The SmartPhone and the New Photography

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Rattling out of the supermarket doors with my cart full of oranges, milk, and cereal, I reach my car to find two frustrated young men attempting unsuccessfully to maneuver a coat hanger wire into the window of the little red truck in the next stall.  Their keys hang listlessly in the ignition, safe from intruders – and the passengers. Sensing a photographic moment, I grab for my camera, remembering at the last minute that I left it at home.  But my smartphone hangs at my belt, and in a gesture that is now repeated hundred of times a minute around the world, I grab it and snap a photo.  Not my usual vintage camera picture, not quite the quality of my SLR, but I get the image and capture the moment.

Returning half an hour later, I find them sitting disconsolately in the bed of their truck, waiting for help.  I offer sympathy, mention my own rampant absent-mindedness, and suggest spare keys.

Driving home, I muse about the role my smart phone has taken in my life and, especially, how it has changed my photography.  Visions of box Kodaks brandished by women in long dresses and men driving Model Ts come to mind, and I feel echoes of George Eastman rolling down the years.  Eastman revolutionized photography when it was embryonic, and now with the cell phone, the world of image-making has again turned over.

1904 Kodak Catalog Cover (Courtesy the Kodak Girl collection)

Writing on antique and nearly-antique photographic devices, I am not immune to the ironic tension between my topic (the dawn of photographic technique) and my methods (the blog, the computer, digital scanning, the search engine, etc., etc.).  I rarely print an image. My gallery is the internet, and I have an audience far larger than Weegee or Brassai could ever hope for.  I have no wet darkroom in my home; there are no sinks stained with Dektol, and my enlarger has long ago gone to the Salvation Army, after I discovered that trying to find a loving home for darkroom equipment today is like trying to buy ballet slippers for a brontosaurus. I wrinkle my brain learning Search Engine Optimization, crunch HTML to size the image of a 1910 Premo’s golden brass and gleaming wood, and bounce tips on preserving ancient leather off the antennae of orbiting satellites.

Yet with all this modern technology, I was dragged kicking and screaming a few years ago into buying an all-inclusive, do-everything smartphone.  I LIKED my Palm Pilot.  It talked happily to Microsoft Outlook via cable and kept my life organized.  Cell phones had crummy little cameras suited only for snaps at teenage birthday parties.  I had one and considered it junk – which, as a serious camera, it was.

I finally felt Destiny’s wheels rumbling over me one day when a teenager on a Montreal street rushed up to me and said, “Man, is that a real Palm Pilot???  Can I see it?”  Then my trusty little companion died, and its replacement from old stock on eBay lasted only three months.  So this Luddite* finally dragged himself resentfully into the Verizon store and threw himself on the mercy of the clerk.  I walked out with a shiny new Droid X, and my wife avoided me for the next three weeks while I swore at the thing, learned the Android system, and slowly persuaded the phone and my computer to communicate, if not happily, at least with well-suppressed hostility.  This sounds absurd today, but in those days, much cell phone software was unsophisticated, and many apps were buggy and balky.  Finally, I did what everyone of my generation does when faced with ultimate technological desperation: I asked my children for a tutorial.  Three months down the road, the Droid was a part of my body, and I’d rather leave my underwear at home.

Finally tamed, the phone hung on my belt, but I refused to use the camera, considering it not to be a serious piece of photographic equipment.  However, it was always there, photo opportunities came by when I was camera-less, and I will take a picture on wet Kleenex rather than miss a good image.  Soon the memory had hundreds of images, none of fantastic quality, but many documenting important moments, and some even artistic.  I began to rethink my prejudice.  Then I spent months in Northern Alberta, often with my phone as the only camera.  The Droid had its limitations, but it was there.  The next step was a Samsung Galaxy with a good 8-megapixel camera, and I truly saw the potential of this new medium.

I have now come to feel that all of us who carry these little multipotential boxes with their steadily-improving cameras, ride a wave that is changing photography as profoundly as did George Eastman’s little brown box with the string hanging out and a few yards of celluloid inside.  George took photographic art out of the cart of the itinerant photographer, with his wet plates and massive camera, and placed it in the pockets of every one with a few dollars to spend.

But with today’s revolution, we have vastly more.  Kodak gave us a the ability to record a few images conveniently and reasonably quickly, and no-one worried about the developing time – we all waited expectantly to pick up the vacation pictures at the drug store.  Now Nokia and Samsung have given us the ability to capture hundred of images and view them virtually instantly.  And, for the first time, the average citizen can have a camera at hand literally from the time he or she gets out of bed to the moment the lights are turned out. Moreover, within a minute or two, these images can be on their way to Facebook, Aunt Sally in Winnemucca, the Chicago Police, or today’s Al Jazeera.  The chance for the professional or the man on the street to make and send hundreds of high-quality images at will (and almost instantly) has profound implications for both society and art.

We have all become accustomed to cell phone videos and images on CBS, NBC, and CBC. When dictatorial regimes tried to quash democratic movements a few years ago in the Middle East, silencing news media and the Internet, it was jerky cell phone clips that told the story of the resistance movement.  The importance of this new social groundswell is attested to by Stanford University’s new course, ARTSTUDIES 173E, “Cell Phone Photography”.  The Stanford catalog states:

“The ubiquity of cell phone photography has had a widespread impact on the tradition, practice, and purposes of photography, as well as concepts of art and what art should be for. …we discuss the documentarian bent of much cell phone photography, its potential as a component of citizen journalism….and effects that cell phone photography may be having on us as subjects….. students will create works of art utilizing the experimental, documentary, and social potentials of cell phone photography.”

In reviewing the impact of the cell phone on the world of photography, The Guardian’s Richard Gray comments:

“Traditional photojournalists have most to fear from mobile photographers. If something dramatic happens on the street … sorry, someone’s already there taking a photo of it…”

Yet there is another emerging aspect to the cell phone camera: with the advent of quality cameras such as those found on the iPhone and recent Android devices, this mode of photography is now entering the fine art world.  Consider Dan Burkholder’s images taken and processed on the iPhone.   Photographer Daria Polichetti, one of the hosts of the L.A. Mobile Arts Festival, was recently quoted in CNN’s article on the emerging field of cell phone fine art photography:

“These artists are innovating art at the front of the field and doing things… app creators didn’t even know was possible. They’re inventing new processes,” she said. “It’s a real collaboration.”

I predict that, within five years, images taken with cell phone cameras will find their way into exhibits at major galleries.

I cut my teeth on a Motorola Droid X, then moved onto the Samsung Galaxy, both within the Android system.  Picture quality and the degree of operator control have consistently improved, and the multiplicity of sophisticated models now on the market puts good quality photography in one’s pocket at all times.  There are still some caveats; many cell phone cameras are designed for the unsophisticated photographer, and resist creative effects.  My Droid detested blurry images.  Consequently, the shutter waited to fire until the subject was stationary, necessitating fighting with the internal software to produce any kind of artistic blur.  I was able with some effort to shoot impressionistic images of a fir forest while panning vertically, though the camera wanted to wait until I stopped moving to fire the shutter:

However, it balked at recording blurs in a patch of wind-tossed poppies, firing the shutter (despite muttered swear words and repeated jabs at the shutter button) only when it could capture a nice stationary picture that would make Aunt Matilda happy:

Tossing poppies, “Droid Style”

This is a nice image, but nowhere as impressive as if I had been able to record the blurs of the tossing flowers; the image has no suggestion that a wind was present.  Being creative often means having to fight with the device’s internal programming.  I object to a camera that has a mind of its own and won’t let me take a “bad” photograph.

As one whose favorite shooting conditions are evening and and moonlight, the cell phone has one serious drawback: it is severely limited under low light conditions. Although it performs well without flash in a well lighted room or for sunset shots, after the sun goes down, the noise level skyrockets and picture quality plummets.  This problem has improved with enhanced sensor quality, but the cell phone camera is still not the choice in low light, and so far, unlike my digital SLR or my vintage film-based Kodaks and Crown Graphic, night photography is not an option.  Lack of a tripod socket is also a problem, though cell phone brackets that fit a tripod can now be bought commercially or readily improvised.

These objections aside, I have been able to capture some fine images that would been lost in a no-camera moment, and, like the little .38 on a detective’s ankle, I have come to depend on my phone as my backup camera, and an artistic device in its own right.  In addition to innumerable images of family and grandchildren, I have some fair artistic images. A walk in the Denver Botanical Garden produced a good image of white peonies:

White Peonies

In a couple of areas, cell phone cameras actually present advantages over film cameras or even high quality digital cameras.  Depth of field increases as sensor size decreases, so the small sensors on quality cell phones can create some stunning macro images, with depth of field not attainable on expensive, full-frame sensor digital cameras:

Bee on Thistle: Depth of field with cell phone image

The Hungry Bee

Secondly, cell phone cameras enable creation of easy and often dramatic panoramas in seconds, as evidenced by this panoramic image of Palouse Canyon in eastern Washington:

Palouse Canyon – iPhone panorama

Recently, I have started exploring one other option of the cell phone camera: candid panorama photography.  I have discovered that, while it is considered rude to point a camera or phone at a group of strangers and pop a picture, no-one notices if one holds one’s phone and quietly rotates.  This facility for the photographer to become part of the background while taking unnoticed, unique images of public places has possibilities not available with cameras that look like cameras:

At Tim Horton’s

Cell phone fine art photography has blossomed to the greatest degree with the iPhone, with its excellent camera and high-resolution screen.  As with the Apple computer prominence in the graphic arts, Apple’s phone has combined a superb camera with a wide variety of processing software.  The Android phones are catching up and have cameras of comparable quality, but still do not boast the same degree of post-capture creativity for the photographic artist.  Hopefully, this will change in the near future as quality Android cameras are used by artists and Android-based software evolves.

Unlike Eastman’s box camera, however, the greatest quality of the cell phone camera is that it is so much more than a camera.  What other device in my life goes with me everywhere, organizes my life, navigates me to the opera, predicts the tides, and stores my favorite menus? After a day’s hiking, I curl up in my tent, read a book. listen to the BBC, turn on a flashlight, get the weather report, go to sleep with music – all with my phone.  If I can’t sleep, I go outside and and admire the stars and the Milky Way, guided by the Google Sky application: just point the phone at an area of sky, and the GPS sensor and internal celestial map interact to display constellations, planets, and major celestial objects on the screen.  The alarm app wakes me up for the morning light.  AND it’s a pretty good camera.

Where the cell phone camera truly shines is the quick, unobtrusive shot – see, click, and scram.  Passing through Baltimore’s airport recently, I was struck by this line of weary travelers plugged into mini-carrels and propped against the wall, each totally engrossed and oblivious to the bustle around them:

Waiting and Working

I lifted my phone from my belt, stole a quick image, and walked off, trying to look as if nothing had happened.  My actions were lost in the kaleidoscope of movement around me.

Original Box Kodak, June 1888 (Courtesy George Eastman House)

Like the original box Kodak of 1888, with its cumbersome, string-cocked cylindrical shutter and circular image, the smart phone camera is here to stay, and the world will never be the same. That clunky little box launched a social and artistic revolution. The cell phone camera, nestled quietly in our pockets, may do no less.

*Note:

Luddite: The name applied in modern times to those opposed to new technology, especially automation and computerization.  The term derives from the nineteenth century social protest movement of British handloom weavers who, facing the loss of their livelihood as the Industrial Revolution introduced automated looms, burned mills and factory machinery starting in 1811.  The movement derived its name from the English weaver Ned Ludd who, in 1779, is reputed to have smashed two knitting frames in a “fit of passion.”  An exhaustive collection of links to the Luddites and modern neo-Luddism can be found at Martin Ryder’s University of  Colorado site.

References:

Burkholder, Dan.  “iPhone Artistry.”  http://www.danburkholder.com/Pages/misc_pages/Portfolios/iPhone_Artistry.html

Cambridge in Color.  “Digital Camera Sensor Sizes.”  http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-size.htm

Gray, Richard.  The Guardian Observer, London, 2012.  “The Rise of Cell Phone Photography.” http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/16/mobile-photography-richard-gray

“Luddite.” Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

“Ned Ludd.”  Wikipedia article.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Ludd

Russell, Lauren.  “Mobile phones give artists new tools to create. ” CNN Living, September 19, 2012. http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/19/living/iphone-art/

Sweet, Tony.  “A Day in the Life in iPhone-Land.”  http://tonysweet.com/2013/07/16/a-day-in-the-life-in-iphone-land/