This begins my second year of going to “The River.” A five-mile stretch of the North Fork of the South Platte near Buffalo Creek, Colorado.
It is stimulus overload. Maybe it is just stimulus overload for me. Something I must figure out. You see, I go up there with my 8×10 camera to play Ansel, when I should be going up there with my 8×10 camera to play, for sure. But also to see, and chase light, and make an equivalent exposure/photograph to what I am feeling in that moment and at that moment instead of playing Ansel. Or Brett*. Or Alan**. Or anyone but me.
You all bring specific gifts to your office, clinic, studio. No one else is like you. In fact you were made so perfectly, God threw away your blueprint at your birth. You are one of a kind. I need to remember this.
I was so proud of this exposure and not the visual statement of the subject nor the discipline of the frame (or lack thereof). Am I still at the “wow factor” of the 8×10 camera? Am I more surprised I can handle the camera instead of using it as my pencil to create a sketch within me and the ground glass where I can make the ordinary extraordinary? I hope so. Because if I am not stuck in the “wow factor,” something else is a work that is stopping me from seeing and translating that “vision”, if I may, onto a two-dimensional piece of light sensitive paper. I only mention this because…
I sent the original scan to my dear friend Ernie Leyba, who is a great photographer. Told him I was so proud of the exposure. Sent him the original scan and the one I processed . And Ernie said, “Could you just increase the contrast of the original scan?” And, he was/is right.
We all carry burdens. For me it is turmoil within my families in California and Illinois. The death of my neighbor. If I do not take the time to grieve these things, they will manifest and reveal themselves (itself) in what I try to create, how I play fetch with my dog. The programs I watch on TV.
This example (#2) is an exposure that went too heavy. Too dark. Too moody. Just like me.
The original, PhotoShop (set blacks and whites) and Auto Tone and Auto Contrast.
*Brett Weston
**Alan Ross
