MorseBlog

Recently I have been shooting more photos in my woodlands exercise.  I started this project last November and it has been useful to help focus me on a local subject and explore some less obvious images. So much of landscape photography is of a few well know places I wanted to do something that was unique and personal.  On another visit to North Yorkshire I found this magical little stream near the main road. It is richly populated with lush vegetation and lends itself to many small vignettes. Except for some rain and a lack of time I would have probably shot many more images. As it was I had to finish up this roll of HP5+ in Monk's Wood. The prints I made from North Yorkshire are discussed here .  A recent post on self-critique had its genesis in the visit I took to Monk's Wood. I took a number of photos there which got me thinking more deliberately about how I find and take these woodland photos and what I have learned along the way. Later,  I also went to Woodwalt...

I think that there are many important parts of Photography that have been lost in the digital age. One of the more notable is that most work is displayed and seen on a screen. While this has had the obvious benefits of allowing more people to see more artist’s work it feels to me too impersonal and lacking in reality. I have spent my career in technology and spent most of that time understanding semiconductor chip development, software, and markets. In fact my most recent work focused on display technology so I am comfortable and well versed in image digitization and pixels and RGB and bits per pixel and resolution and compression. So this comes not from some fear or misunderstanding of the technology but more from my heart.  My need to involve more of my senses in photography has extended to other hobbies such as woodworking. There is something immensely satisfying in an activity that involves the brain and the hands. There is such a satisfying and intimate connection between the ...

Our family first met the Brownes (Norm and Pam) in 1969 at the futuristically named Telstar Apartments in Flagstaff Arizona. My family had just moved there from Dallas Texas and I was just out of first grade. Ourselves and the Brownes were at these apartment for the same reason. There was a housing shortage at the time in Flagstaff and both families had moved to Flagstaff but could not buy a house right away. Norm came to teach Art at Northern Arizona University and my dad came to run the marketing department at Southern Union Gas. This meeting though random was fortuitous and my father would retain a long and active friendship with Norm and Pam. Norm was a talented artist and avid outdoorsman. My father and mother both enjoyed the outdoors as well. Being only 7 at the time we met I don’t have many solid recollections.  This was the basis of my father’s friendship and my family’s as well. Norman was a fly fisherman and he taught my father and showed him his favourite place Kinder C...

 I am still in the first year of my woodlands project. I undertook this because the area of the UK I live in does not have spectacular scenery in terms of grand vistas but I believe you should look for beauty everywhere and so I decided that I would explore a woodlands project in conjunction with my focus on intimate landscape photographs.  I have found the subject challenging. In the beginning I researched and explored various small woodlands in my area and eventually that excitement dwindled as I began to understand many were much alike. There are however three woodlands in my area that have markedly different characters. So as the seasons or weather change I revisit these areas to see what is different. I also take this project with me when I travel such as a recent holiday in Northumberland and weekend in North Yorkshire to visit family. Both allowed me short times to explore the woodland theme.  There are a number of challenges in woodlands that I have wrestled with....

Introduction In a couple of earlier posts on my physical split printing and toning ( Here and here ) I used Wephota FO5 technical film for the transparency portion of the work. Being a technical film it is very high contrast which can be a benefit and a curse. For the physical split printing project the film worked well enough; however I wished for higher contrast to allow more of the substrate image tones to show through the surface image. I also have been exploring masking in the enlarger and my work so far has struggled to get a high enough contrast dodge mask so there is a second use for controlling for higher contrast.  Another area I have worked on was my Lith-Lith prints  where I created a warm tone positive transparency from technical film that I mounted over aluminum foil for a spectacular look. In this case I want to reduce contrast so more of the primary image tones show. So again a desire to control for contrast. The final piece to this was that a number of years a...