Rural Images from the Fall

It has been too long since I have posted. The camera's have been used sparingly and the time to select and edit h as been in even shorter supply. So I decided that I just needed to make a blog post of some images that were taken late last fall. These are small town images and rural images of Indiana and North Eastern Illinois. As you can see the light changes from typical sunny fall day to rain and fog. Classic Midwest small town images. Enjoy! 

Prim and Proper

14 and 8 tenths of a gallon 

Elevator 

Three Windows 

Old Homestead

Metal 

Fancy New Equipment 

Old Bins at Dusk

Old Bins at Dusk II

Across the Way 

Garage 

Out of Gas 

Red Barn and Pump 

Red Barn, Track and Pole

Flounder Bank 

Another Up Arrow Crib 

Drink Velvet Beer 

Fish Scale House 

Wife Beater!

Johnson 18 in the Rain 

Fish Scale House Street

Christmas Lights 

Gothic and Details 

Rural In Winter

The light is just different at different times of the year. Here are three images from a recent trip I took to Indiana for work. The Winter light certainly is evident in all three. I particularly like the Castle Silo and Historic Pink and Pealing!

Castle Silo

Rusty Barn on Main Street

Historic Pink and Pealing 

Chicago Skyline at Dusk in January

When you are stuck on the highway in traffic and the light is perfect this is what  you get!

Skyline from Dan Ryan Expressway in January 2015

Two Images Selected for Sheldon STL 250 Competition

Well I was happily surprised at first when I received an email telling me that one of my submitted photos was selected to be in the show and the book for the Sheldon Gallery STL at 250 photo contest. Then yesterday I received another email. At first I thought it was a mistake or that my first photo had been rejected for some reason. But after looking at the email and following the link a second photo appears to have also made it into the show and the book. I don't yet know how many photos were submitted to the competition but it had to be a lot so having two photos out of three selected seems pretty incredible. Woooo Hoooo! I am really amazed, honored and very pleased as this is the first real formal recognition of my photography work.
 

Bike Racing on the Hill- St. Louis

New wing of the St. Louis Art Museum in the Snow- St. Louis

Anotherone Bites the Dust - Servco Warehouse fire South of the Gateway Arch

If you look back through this blog you will see another short series of photos form a fire not very long ago. That fire was only two blocks away. It was in the Western Building of the Crundon Martin complex. This building, I will call the Servco Warehouse, burnt on Monday, December 16, 2013. Again another dramatic fire that will decimate yet one more piece of the historic riverfront fabric. Likely caused by some accident, carelessness or stupidity as the cause is  yet to be determined when I am taking these images.

Fox News Story with Photos of the Servco Building Fire in St. Louis

Servco Burning-Flames



Servco Burning- Smoke



Servco Burning - Far Away



Looking for Smaller, Lighter, Easier

So I have embarked on a project to have a smaller, lighter, and easier camera to do 4x5 film photography. The camera I have been using is a Sinar F and while it is a dream of camera in terms of interchangeability of parts, amount of movements and quality it is just too heavy and slow for me to use when I am out in the field. As I looked at good field cameras I just wasn't going to spend a fortune so I have been bargain hunting on E-bay and am now the proud owner of an old really beat 1950's Graflex Crown Graphic and and a Super Graphic. The Super Graphic is missing its ground glass focus panel. The goal has been to find, at really low cost an alternative to the Sinar which I can keep in the car and take with me if I hike someplace with minimal gear. The Sinar while a great camera was never intended to go into the field unless it was manned by a crew. Once the prefect camera for shooting architecture and interiors but in those days the team consisted of a photographer and one or even two assistants.

I will post some photos of the cameras in there current conditions. If I decide to make the Crown into a fully working camera I will have to restore or re purpose it. The leatherette skin is shot, the bellows has holes in it and the overall camera is stained and dirty. I suspect it was in a flood or at the least stored in a garage or barn for many years given the accumulation of residue. But the price was right. It will require some TLC in any case.

The Super Graphic is in better overall working condition, the bellows is light tight, the movements all work and by being a Super, it gives me more of the movements I might expect had I actually gotten a real "field camera". Funny I don't find myself using that many movements even with the Sinar outdoors but we will see. I am curious to experiment with more selective focus and shallow depth of field and slower exposures. Something that I find problematic with digital cameras. The real problem with the Super Graphic is that it is missing the ground glass focus panel. Even if the rangefinder worked I can't seem myself handholding this or using it as my focus methdod. So solving that problem is paramount if it is going to really be a working camera. Graflex completely re-desinged these parts for the Super Graphic so the Graflock back from the Crown will not mount to the rotating back of the Super without removing the slider clips necessary for attaching roll film backs etc. I am presently awating a Cambo back which I have been told does mount to the Super's rotating back. So the journey commences.

All this because I still want to shoot "film" even thought my Nikon D600 cranks out really great, sharp, high resolution images that don't require any of the processing, scanning and photoshoping that is necessary to simply get a film image up on the web or printed. I don't have a real drakroom so my process is a hybrid of analog film and digtal. In the end I am hoping to still do really large prints. I have a good color plotter that prints up to 48" wide and I would like to create images that  hold together at that size. The Nikons full frame sensor gets me pretty close and it is a consumer grade semi pro piece of gear. In the past I would have needed a Leaf or Sinar digital back. But you can almost do it now with consumer grade equipment.  In the end this may still be a fools errand as color transparency film, labs

Clayton LAX Club Photos JV vs. DeSmet JV Game

 

 

Victory!

This post has links to the my photo album of images posted on Picasa. I have been asked by players on the teams and some parents to make photos available.  I am going to be uploading game shots to the web. At this time I don't have time to sort out individual players or good from bad so I am posting the entire photo shoot to albums as they are shot. I do reduce the size from the 4 meg size that shoot at to the smaller size for posting. If you have questions or comments please post them or you can reach me by email.

Picasa Album Link: Clayton LAX JV vs. DeSmet Set 1

Picas Album Link: Clayton LAX JV vs. DeSmet Set 2

Lifts and High Voltage Lines

Tonight I am posting an image that I took this afternoon. I call it Lifts and High Voltage.

Riverfront in Spring Iphoneography

Just an example of what you can do with an Iphone and Photoshop Elements. The real image is quite large and I plan on printing it on our large format plotter. The way you compensate for a small sensor is to take multiple images and stitch them together. This image was taken with the camera/Iphone held vertically to maximize the amount of data in each shot. 6 shots were taken, downloaded to my PC and stitched together in Photoshop Elements. I have attached a how to link to just one of many  Youtube video instruction- creating panorama in Photoshop Elements.

Working with 4x5 Film Camera





Barge Crane and Abandoned Power Station

Chapel Cornice

Tonight's post is of two subjects that I have photographed before. The first is a barge crane on the Mississippi River. Across the river is an abandoned power station. It is an ethereal place. Quiet and vast. This crane stands tall looming against the vista of the powerful yet mostly silent river. These were  photographed with my 4x5 Sinar  F2 and 150mm Schneider Lens using E100G film. The second is the cornice of a chapel at the Bellefontaine Cemetery. The cemetery provides examples of architecture that are more art than function. Most architecture serves two masters being both art and function. But in these temples, tombs and chapels at the cemetery serve little practical purpose being absent of function. Yes the structure must resist the elements but they are of little use but to serve and express the connection that architecture has with our emotions. These classical structures are so rigid in their execution. Still they are are so sculptural and three dimensional.

Tin Men and other industrial residents!

Red Tin Man

Makeup Please

Up on the roof!

Industrial Village

Industiral Village 2

One of my photographic interests. Part of my interest in industrial buldings are what I call Tin Men. These are material processing and colletion devices often found on the buildings which are used for industry. I call this one "Red Tin Man" The rest are just some other industrial and urban images I have taken recently.

Today's post explores a wide interest in the built environment and architecture as seen through the camera lens. Taken on a crisp sunny Saturday morning and within close proximity this series of photos display a wide range of imagery. From urban shotgun houses to silver chemical storage tanks to a stately classical gate denoting an elite neighborhood. If you like these images please comment. I would love to know you impressions of my work. As a photographer I find the images compelling. The tanks are very sculptural. Like modern abstract sculpture they are pure in form. They remind me of organ pipes on a distorted scale. The column capital is pure classical architecture from a time when rules and specifics defined art and beauty. Rules that are no longer applicable for either art or architecture today. Yet these classical, formal details do posses and convey  a very real sense of order that cannot and should not be ignored.

Flora Place Gate

Corinthian Capital

Details

Hey Brother!

Organ Pipes

Tanks

Factory I

Factory II

Lone Shotgun

Keeping up with the Jones's

For those who are familiar with St. Louis. The tanks and the shotgun houses are in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood. a neighborhood that is seeing considerable redevelopment and revitalization. Yet the "old" neighborhood and the "new" are in great tension. There was a double homicide one block away from where the "shotgun"  houses were photographed. Reminding us that our city and our society are in constant push pull of evolution.