Tag Archives: water

Nils Karlson – Earth Stands Still

Friends –
I feel I’ve let you down. You see, I’ve known for a few weeks now that Nils Karlson’s book, “Earth Stands Still”, would be coming via crowdfunding. I’ve known this whole time that it was going to be a triumph of pinhole minimalism. But due to some travel and a mixup, I’m getting this announcement out a few days late. To say the book is flying off the shelves is an understatement, and I’m so happy to see that Nils’s work is being received so well. So for those of you who miss out, I apologize!

You have to check out Nils’s work. What follows is the ƒ/D interview with him, along with some sample imagery. Have a gander, and then head over to his IndieGoGo – and fast! There’s barely any copies left, and it is a limited printing.

All photos ©Nils Karlson 2016[spacer height=”20px”]

ƒ/D: How did you discover your passion for photographing coastal areas in this impressionistic way? Is it a vision that you had been searching for? Did you start with some happy accidents that developed into something more? Something else?
NK: It started out with a rather usual approach, trying to record the scene as it appeared in front of my eyes. But I have never found a true connection to my subject by this. This changed when I stumbled over an excellent book – „Liquid Light“ by Fabien Baron – at the photobook exhibition in Cologne 2014. It featured the most minimal and quiet photos of the seascape I have ever seen: All long exposure images, featuring the horizon dead centre in a vertical frame. This became my starting point for this leg of the journey, and several concepts in respect of technical approach evolved from here.

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What influence has the shore had on other aspects of your life?
As long as I can remember I was drawn to the sea. We used to spend summer vacations at the North Sea, and I was always fascinated by the view, sound, scent, and feel. Today, I love the vastness, when you can see for miles and miles. In the densely populated area I live in, you will not find that. There will always be some kind of obstruction. Also the light has a unique character, especially in the very early or late hours. I travels through a lot of atmopshere, where it gets scattered and incredibly soft. Fortunately, my wife loves the sea, too – and it is a great place to bring our dogs!

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These sorts of minimalist impressionist photos leave so much space for the viewer to explore their own feelings in the scene. What do you find yourself getting from them?
The answer lies within he question – it is space what I am looking for. Vast spaces, where the eye can wander without obstacles. Silence is made of vast spaces bare of distraction, and silence might be the most profound factor i am searching for.

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You quote lyrics from the band No Omega in your book, a passage questioning modern society’s priorities. The photos in the book are like an epiphany of calm, while No Omega is anything but. Can you talk about how you relate this harsh music to your nature photography?
That’s a long, and probably confusing story, but I will try to make it somehow cohesive. Ever since I can remember, I had difficulties to filter sensory impressions, especially noise. This put a lot of stress on me, and the first device to control all these impresions was sister’s first walkman. Wearing headphones, I was able to control sound from the outer world as well as the crippling voice of self­soubt (latter one only to a small degree). This brought me to music, and to the drums when I was about eleven. The more ferocious and noisy the music, the better it works as a shield – bury the sound under another sound. It was a progression from bands like Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Jethro Tull over Anthrax, a lot of bay area thrash and death metal. As I found the lyrics of most bands well beyond cheesy, I expanded my vocabulary to hardcore and eventually lots of political grindcore and experimental bands. Listening to all that rather noisy music used to be my safety blanket. But after all these years, it started to wear off. When my wife and me had a vacation on La Palma (Canary Islands) in 2009, it was the first time I was confronted with silence. Actually, this trip was the foundation for pretty much everything I do in the photographic realm these days. Since then, it has become like a quest for me – seeking silence. I seek the most quiet dialogue with the landscape. When I crate these photos, I never listen to music. I don’t need to. The problem is that I do not find that silence where I live. That’s where I fall into old patterns and use music as a suit of armor. But still, I find the lyrical content of music to be a crucial factor, and I am always looking for bands who are passionate and authentic. No Omega is one of these bands, and I find myself in their music to a point which is beyond my means of written expression. Actually I have a quite braod taste in music, with a lot of Indie, old (and old­sounding) Emocore, and instrumental bands with a „cinemascope approach“ balancing the fury. I live in a constant state of contradictions existing simultaneously anyway, and I have stopped believing in the concepts of absolute truth. Embrace Ambivalence.

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There are many studies of the shore in this book, and I’m sure many many that didn’t quite make the cut. How do you choose?
Even in high quality photo books, I often miss a cohesive story, flow, and dramaturgy. My goal was to treat the book like a musical album. Have an Intro, build and release some tension, finish on a a strong, but subtle note. Creating an organic flow of light, colour, and atmopshere was the most time consuming aspect. A lot of strong and beautiful photos do not appear in this book, as they just did not fit into the flow. Other photos, which I found to be just „quite decent“ without context, proved to support the story, leading to a perfect sequence of images. Editing is hard though. Sometimes you have to push your favourite kid off the cliff.

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What technologies did you use to shoot these photos? Were they all pinhole?
For seascapes, I love to work with long exposures, whether in a normal camera or lensless.

In Earth Stands Still, one of the three chapters is dedicated to the vision of the pinhole camera. Isn’t it amazing how the very stripped down to the bare bones concept of the pinhole camera yields such atmopshere and mystery? Throughout the few years I am using pinholes, I have tested a lot of different cameras. The difference in the way they render a photo is stunning, having each a distinct characteristic on their own, just like some lenses. Also, I find it to be fascinating to work without any kind of finder – everything is more of a guess, from composition to the inaccuracy of the manual exposure. The pinhole rules out all the „merits“ of the technical revolution, and becomes much more a part of the person using it.

Another technique I use to depart from the scene in front of my eyes towards the image inside my head, are intentional camera movements. These are inspired by Australian photographer Steve Coleman and other artists he featured on his blog. Ethis technique benefit from happy accidents, though I also practiced different movements with a small digital camera before transferring the knowledge into the realm of film.

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Inspiration Week of 7/25

Welcome back, friends, for the latest installment of our photos to get you inspired for the weekend. Just a short set this week as coordinating things for our open Call for Entry took up a chunk of time. Hope you enjoy this set! When you’re done, there’s lots more to check out at the past features gallery! Use the newsletter signup on the right side of the page to get these updates mailed to you weekly!

Look Back
[singlepic id=425 w=600]Look Back, ©Dirk Ahrens 2016[/singlepic]

Dirk Ahrens made this photo as one of his first pinhole photos. Before this, he was working a lot with solargraphs until he picked up a Sharan Wide 35 and loaded it with Agfa APX 100. This foggy scene is from 1850 meters up in the Alps, at the passage between Kanzelwand and Fellhorn as rain fell in the valley. You can find more of Dirk’s Alps photos, solargraphs, and other work on his Flickr profile.[spacer height=”20px”]

GW Metro
[singlepic id=423 w=600]GW Metro, ©Scott Davis 2016[/singlepic]

Scott Davis is an experienced photographer in historic printing processes, and has recently started to work in pinhole for additional inspiration. He’s developed an appreciation for the simplicity of pinhole and how it lets him focus on the image, not the equipment. As he states: “Working with cameras that don’t have lenses or shutters per se, or at least that have primitive ones, means that serendipity becomes important in my work…What interests me is the capture of whole seconds, minutes and even hours of time in a frame, contrasting the things that move in the scene with things that remain static.” I encourage you to learn more about his work and processes at his site, dcphotoartist.com [spacer height=”20px”]

 

Lake Erie
[singlepic id=424 w=600]Lake Erie, ©Kier Selinsky 2016[/singlepic]

I made this photo of Lake Erie from the shores of the small city of Avon Lake, near Cleveland, OH, at about 8PM as the sun got low in the West. It was an exceptionally calm day, and my family and I enjoyed just basking in the warmth. I made this photo with my Zero Image 69 and Kodak Ektar film, exposure was about 9 seconds.

Inspiration Week of 7/18

Usually I start these weekly inspiration posts with some entertaining banter about the photos, but this week I have something more urgent. ƒ/D exists for two main reasons: to promote the art of pinhole photography and to promote those artists who – regardless of reputation or education – work with pinhole.

However, because of my persistent reaching out to photographers through other sites, I’m at risk of being shut out as a spammer. I need to throttle back on the unsolicited messages, and I need pinhole photographers to meet me halfway.

If you have work of your own or someone else’s that you’d like to be considered for sharing, I encourage you to do one of the following:

  • Like and message ƒ/D about your new work on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fslashd
  • Email ƒ/D about your new work at [email protected]
  • Tweet at ƒ/D about your new work @fslashd
  • Sign up for my email newsletter (right side of the page) – I haven’t sent these yet, but will be doing so soon

With your help, I can still send weekly updates of great pinhole photography!

Don’t forget our open Call for Entry!

Körök / Circles
[singlepic id=411 w=600]Körök Circles, ©Fitt Tamás 2016[/singlepic]

Fitt Tamás made this dramatic capture with his 6×12 medium format “Natasha” pinhole camera with Kodak Ektar 100 film. Fitt enjoys the super wide angle panoramic format because of the challenge it provides in finding that perfect location and scene. The long exposures and ritual process of pinhole give him the opportunity to observe more of his environment around him. You can find much more great work by Fitt at his flickr page.

 

Untitled
[singlepic id=414 w=600]Untitled, ©Michael Nelson 2016[/singlepic]

Michael Nelson has a very strong style to his work, which he applied with great results to this pinhole photograph. You can check out more of his work on his Flickr page.

 

祝 金沢開業
[singlepic id=409 w=600]祝 金沢開業, ©Takahiro Chiba 2016[/singlepic]

Takahiro Chiba used an Abelson Scope Works Omniscope to make this mind-bending capture of Kanazawa Station, Japan. The Omniscope has an anamorphic feature to it, that allows the light to come in at a 90º angle to the film plane, causing such radical distortion of the image. Anamorphic is also a favorite tool of ƒ/D interview subject, Jana Obscura. I invite you to check out more of Takahiro’s excellent work on Flickr.

 

My Ninety Seconds
[singlepic id=412 w=600]My Ninety Seconds, ©Eric Li 2016[/singlepic]

Eric Li made this image with an Ondu 6×12 and Kodak Ektar film, with a 90 second exposure over water. This was only his 3rd roll through a pinhole camera – look for great stuff to come from this guy. You can see more of his work on his Flickr page.

 

Pinhole Photo
[singlepic id=413 w=600]Pinhole Photo, ©Vanesa Henseleit 2016[/singlepic]

Vanesa Henseleit is from Santiago de Chile where she runs a group called Lucky Pinhole. Her group conducts workshops, projects, and respond to calls for entry where pinhole is appropriate. This is a great example of stutter stepping an image – difficult technique to get good results from, but when you do, they’re truly remarkable. You can find more of Vanessa’s work on her Flickr page.

DIY Paper Obscura Camera 6×12
[singlepic id=410 w=600]DIY Paper Obscura Camera 6×12, ©Jason Huang 2016[/singlepic]

Jason Huang made this still life image with a paper 6×12 pinhole camera. It’s an excellent example of the soft and luscious mood that pinhole can give to even simple subject. You can find more of Jason’s work on his Flickr page.

 

Remember to respond to our open Call for Entry! It’s free!

 

 

Inspiration Week of 4/25

For this week’s inspiration photos, we bring you five excellent pieces showing some great captures in wide open expanses. The weather in the Northern Hemisphere has warmed up, but the sun is still a little lower, making dramatic lighting more accessible than in the summer. If we do our job right, this week’s selection will get you motivated to get out there and make some fresh pinhole captures this weekend. Enjoy!

 

Evening
[singlepic id=306 w=600]Evening, ©Don Pyle 2016[/singlepic]

Don Pyle is a Washington based pinholer who captured this excellent vantage point of the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland, OR using a camera he builds called the Innova. A number of these Innova cameras are used in the wild by pinhole photographers around the world. The excellent results photographers are making with these cameras can be seen in the Innova Pinhole group collection on Flickr. Don captured this image on Ektar 100 film in 120 format. You can find more of his photos on Flickr.

 

 

*
[singlepic id=305 w=600]*, ©Pavel Apleton 2016[/singlepic]

Pasha Apletin is a talented photographer from St. Petersburg, Russia who’s been working on a series about the ships there. He made this photo during an early summer morning at the banks of the historic center there. He captured this on 5×7 film, which he sometimes uses for cyanotype printing. You can purchase this print here, or learn more about him and his work at his website, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, or Flickr

 

Jack’s Rake
[singlepic id=308 w=600]Jack’s Rake, ©Andy Werner 2016[/singlepic]

Andy Werner is as equally talented behind the camera as he is building one in his cabinetry shop. He made this photo of Jack’s Rake – the diagonal path running across the face of the rock – in the Langdale Valley in the Lake District, UK. The rock is known as Pavey Ark, and you can see the camera he used here. Andy has been shooting and building pinhole cameras for about ten years. So far the cameras have been for his own use primarily, and is currently working on selling small batches of his cameras.

You can find more of Andy’s work on his website, Facebook, and Flickr. His cameras will soon be available here, or you can get updates on Facebook.

 

Photograph After Visiting My Mother’s Grave
[singlepic id=309 w=600]Photograph After Visiting My Mother’s Grave, ©Cameran Ashraf 2016[/singlepic]

I love this powerful landscape capture that Cameran Ashraf made using his Zero Image 2000 pinhole camera on Acros 100 film. He made this photo while reflecting on his mother’s life and passing, and provided the following text to accompany:

“I took this photograph after visiting my mother’s grave on what would have been her 70th birthday. She had long feared growing old, never did, and passed away at 67. I didn’t say much to her at the grave, and though it had been years since she passed, I was still angry she didn’t stick around.

In the mountains north of her grave, I sat on this long dead log and let the day reach its close. The silence of the setting sun strongly called me to take a photograph, and as set up my pinhole camera I began to weep and said many things which my heart had desired to say to her.”

You can view more of Cameran’s excellent work on Flickr, Instagram, or follow him on Twitter.

 

Impressionistic Field in IR
[singlepic id=307 w=600]Impressionistic Field in IR, ©Marie Westerbom 2016[/singlepic]

Marie Westerbom made this awesome, ephemeral capture using IR film in her Zero Image 2000. She hand held the camera while making the photo over a 2 minute exposure. The result is a practically translucent impression of the field in a breeze. You can see more about the background of this photo on Marie’s blog, or see more of her work on Flickr.

 

 

Corine Hörmann – Test of Time

Nature landscape photography can be deceivingly hard. Not the composition or the exposure, or even the expression, but rather the challenge of telling the viewer something new about the natural landscape. Even once you nail the composition, exposure, and expression that you were aiming for, there’s a massive body of work produced by the photography community that you are measured by – not least that 800lb gorilla that is revered both inside and outside the photographic community: Ansel Adams.

There are thus two ways to excel at nature landscape photography today: go somewhere exotic; or excel at bringing subject, form, and content into harmony. The problem with the former is it’s not really about the art, it’s about deep pockets. Thus the latter is where art shines through as it doesn’t matter where the photo was taken – it tells its own story, with any setting being happenstance. It’s with this backdrop that I’m always impressed by the natural landscape photographer that tells me something new with their photos.

This creative challenge is a large factor in my affinity to pinhole photography. The limited toolset knocks a person off balance and forces the photographer to consider the variables differently, learn to use those limitations as strengths, and think about what is being put into an image more thoroughly. I strongly believe that from this extended experience, a photographer who uses both pinhole and lensed photography will be able to see more photo opportunities. But I digress…

Corine Hörmann is a nature landscape photographer who, in her series Test of Time, has shown me something new. She’s a Dutch photographer who was introduced to pinhole by one of her Art School teachers in 1997, and hasn’t looked back since.

Corine is a natural landscape photographer who is always seeking to capture a sense of wonder in the world. In the Test of Time series of photos, she’s attempting to capture the passing of time in a single image. The exposures are made over the course of 8 to 48 hours, creating contrasty scenes that show the passage of a day or days. Not quite solargraphy, but further extended than your average photograph, there is a peaceful glow in her photos that is only disturbed by the burning passage of the sun. Corine explains further in her project statement:

“This series was created from the desire to visualize the passage of time. I started looking for possibilities to photograph landscapes with a one day exposure time. After doing some research I started experimenting with an exposure of 12 hours using film negatives. In order not to overexpose the film I used several layers of neutral density filter. After weeks of experimenting with different exposure times, film and neutral density filter combinations the first exposures were successful and it is an ongoing project now. I leave the light to affect the film from 8 until 48 hours. The path that the sun describes in the sky and its reflection on the water constructs the image and the result is dependent on this. The line is sometimes interrupted which means that it was cloudy at that specific moment. During the progress I discovered that I am attracted by the cyclic movement of time and water as an important aspect of our human existence and as the most mysterious thing there is. In these photo’s I try to concentrate on the contemplative nature of water in connection with the theme of time. Where is the past gone and where does the future come from? Time flows like water and at the same time water is the primeval sea in many creation myths and the source of all life. It works like a mirror that reflects the universe. In these pictures water and light are like metaphors to visualize the passage of time. In the photos the difference between the seasons is quit clear. You will see the water with a frozen surface and a low sun but also the reflective surface of liquid water while the sun is high in the sky. So the cyclic movement of time is not only shown in a single photo but also in a series of images.”

Please enjoy the following selection from her Test of Time series – if you’re hungry for more from the series, you can satiate that need on her site. The rest of Corine’s work, as well as further background, can be found on her website. You can also follow along on Instagram or Facebook.

 

Test of Time 1
[singlepic id=286 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 3
[singlepic id=294 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 5
[singlepic id=296 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 6
[singlepic id=297 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 8
[singlepic id=299 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 10
[singlepic id=287 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 11
[singlepic id=288 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 13
[singlepic id=290 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 14
[singlepic id=291 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

Test of Time 15
[singlepic id=292 w=600]©Corine Hörmann 2016[/singlepic]

 

David Cerbone – Cheat River

[singlepic id=248 w=200 float=right] [/singlepic]I first ran into David Cerbone and his work almost 8 years ago in the forums on f295 at a time when both of us were discovering the softly focused world of pinhole photography. Right from the start, there was a theme to his work. The guy was excellent at shooting these captivating scenes of rivers and gullies.

In the years since, he’s stayed true to that vision while refining the technique. He’s a rarity these days, staying focused largely on one area: the Cheat River, tributary to the Monongahela River Basin. Years of focus, exploration, and constantly looking for new ways of seeing has yielded a well rounded body of work that puts the viewer into the thick of this West Virginia landscape.

David has always been incredibly giving of his time in discussions in the past, and this interview is no exception. After the interview, be sure to have a gander at his Flickr photostream for more of his excellent work.

 

First, tell us a little about yourself. What was your journey to photography?
In real life, I am a professor of philosophy at West Virginia University.  I have lived and worked in West Virginia for over fifteen years now (my first semester teaching at WVU was in the Fall semester of 1998).  My main areas of interest in philosophy are oriented around the works of Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and more generally around the area known as phenomenology.  I’ve written three books, the most recent a short introduction to existentialism, which is out this month.

My first serious engagement with photography was in 8th grade, when I took an after-school class in beginning photography at my local high school.  There, I learned the basics of exposure and composition, as well as how to develop film and make enlargements.  We started out with little Diana-type plastic 120 cameras:  who knew they would become hipster gadgets decades later!  Throughout high school, I took photographs all the time – for the school newspaper, the school literary journal, for myself – and spent countless hours in the darkroom.  I was pretty obsessed.  I read the Ansel Adams trilogy, pored over issues of Modern Photography and Popular Photography, as well as Canon camera brochures (usually adding up how many thousands of dollars my dream outfit would cost), and thought semi-seriously about photography as a career.  Most of my college application essays centered on photography too.  But then I finished high school and started college.  I brought a camera to college, but never touched it.  I got sidetracked by academic studies, lost interest in photojournalism, felt like I already knew what photography classes could teach me (or was afraid to find out how much I needed to learn).  Whatever the reason, photography went fully dormant as an interest for more than a decade.  (It’s poignantly ironic in retrospect, given my interest now in antiquarian/alternative processes.  Had I been into that stuff at the time, I could have taken classes with Christopher James.  Instead, I had to buy his book on Amazon.)

What had been a teenage passion was only rekindled after my wife and I moved to Albright, in Preston County, West Virginia. The camera came out of storage, initially out of duty (my wife wanted me to get a picture of her in a parade at the Buckwheat Festival), and then stayed out. I began exploring my still new surroundings in Albright and started developing a series of obsessions.  For well over a year, I photographed a number of rusty nails that I found sticking out of old lumber, as well as the rust patterns on the corrugated metal roof of our barn.  I also now had a little bit of money, unlike when I was a teenager, and so I could buy a lot of the gear I had dreamed about as a kid (and as the digital revolution picked up steam, the film gear I wanted just got cheaper).  Having different kinds of equipment encouraged different ways of exploring.  Sometimes, I think I love the cameras themselves nearly as much as I love the end result.  While there is considerable merit in working expertly with a small array of equipment, in my own case, I find that using different cameras encourages me to think and see in new and different ways.

At some point, I turned my attention away from the rusty detritus around our house and started paying attention to the Cheat River, which runs right below us.  I think the real breakthrough was World Pinhole Photography Day back in 2007.  That’s when it first occurred to me to try photographing the half-destroyed railroad bridge not far from where we live (it’s about a five minute walk).  I was intrigued by my first results, but also, in addition to posting on the World Pinhole Day site, I stumbled onto f295.org.  The best of the images I made that morning was the subject of my very first post on that site:
http://www.f295.org/main/showthread.php?7588-Albright-Bridge&highlight=albright+bridge
The community at f295 was really welcoming and I think that helped in moving me more in the direction of pinhole photography.

Railroad Bridge
[singlepic id=256 w=600]Railroad Bridge, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

Bridge At Albright
[singlepic id=247 w=600]Bridge At Albright, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

I also have been in photography for a very long time, but also with some years-long breaks interspersed. How do you think these breaks from photography have helped your vision?
That’s a tough one to answer.  I think there is a special kind of intensity that comes from a rekindled or rediscovered passion that is different from the excitement of doing something completely new.  In the case of rediscovery, you’re tapping into something that has been lying dormant and there is both the feeling of its reawakening, along with the challenge to take it further.  I guess the biggest difference for me is that I come at photography now as a grown-up.  I am probably a bit more patient, a little more adept, and I am able more easily to follow through on ideas that I have.  I also now have an incredibly rich environment to explore through photography.  When I first started doing photography, we lived on Long Island and I had the shoreline of Long Island Sound to photograph (I still have a couple of pictures from that time up on my wall), but in between, I mostly lived in cities.  I appreciate urban photography, but it is not something I have ever felt an urge to try doing myself.

Albright Morning
[singlepic id=246 w=600]Albright Morning, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

As of this writing, your Flickr Photostream has 854 photos and, while I’ve not done an official count, it seems that as much as 90% of the photos are of river valleys in your immediate area. Where is this place that you’ve studied so much?
Pretty much all of the river-oriented photographs I’ve taken were made in the Cheat River watershed.  Most are of the Cheat River itself, but I’ve taken a bunch along Muddy Creek, which runs into the Cheat down below my house.  All of my regular go-to spots are in Preston County, West Virginia, between Albright and Rowlesburg.

There are all kinds of creeks and “runs” where I live and I really need to get out and explore more.  A friend of mine showed me a good spot by Deckers Creek, which runs between Preston County and Morgantown (which is in Monongalia County).  I got some really nice pictures there, but I have not managed to get back.

Muddy Creek
[singlepic id=255 w=600]Muddy Creek, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

Exposed Roots
[singlepic id=252 w=600]Exposed Roots, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

There’s an obvious love of the landscape here. Is this where you grew up? What is the connection you have to this area?
I had never so much as set foot in West Virginia until I had a campus visit for my job at WVU.  I grew up in southern California until I was 11 and then my family moved to Long Island, New York, to the small town of Port Jefferson.  I went to college in New England and then graduate school in northern California, and prior to getting the job here, I was living in Chicago.  So rural West Virginia was pretty far off my radar screen.  Insofar as I thought about West Virginia at all, it was mostly via John Denver’s thoroughly inauthentic song (although that doesn’t stop it from being drunkenly sung in these parts).  I think I knew there was coalmining and I probably had some familiarity with the usual Deliverance-type stereotypes.

Even during my first year in West Virginia, when I lived in Morgantown, rural Preston County was something of a dark continent.  I think I drove once through Kingwood (the county seat) in my first ten months living in the state.  What changed things is that my soon-to-be-wife got a job at the hospital out here.  She’s a midwife and needed to be close by for taking call (no one calls a philosophy professor in the middle of the night).  So we looked for a house out here.  The funny thing is that on her way to the job interview, she drove by what is now our house and saw that it had a “For Sale” sign.  We never thought it would be in our price range, but real estate in rural West Virginia is nothing like California or New York.  So we bought it.  We got married on the front porch and all of our three children were born in our bedroom upstairs.  We have now lived here for more than fifteen years and it is HOME in a big way.  I say all this because my photography is in many ways an extension of this newfound sense of belonging.  Many of my photographs are taken where the Cheat runs below our house.  You can see the river from our house, especially when the leaves are down, and you can hear it when it’s running high.  I walk my two dogs every morning down by the river and I can see the old railroad bridge through the trees, just slightly upriver from my daily walk.  It is a place that I love and photographing what I see every day is one way of trying to express that love.  If I pack up some cameras and spend a couple of hours early in the morning down by the river, I’ve already had a good day.  If I get images worth printing or even just posting online, then I’ve won twice over.

I don’t just stay within walking distance when I shoot, but even when I pack the car with gear, I’m rarely driving more than around ten minutes, so it’s still close to home.  And since it’s still the Cheat River, it’s all connected anyway.

Daybreak
[singlepic id=249 w=600]Daybreak, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

You’ve photographed these valleys and hills in every season and condition. What’s been your favorite?
That’s hard to say.  Every time of year offers opportunities for good images.  I love morning fog and Fall foliage.  I’ve also had some success in the dead of winter, especially if we have had a nice snowfall.  This past winter, though, it was brutally cold and mostly really drab, so I didn’t get out much.  At the peak of summer, when it’s hot and hazy, I also tend to feel less inspired.  The one exception is infrared photography, which cuts through the haze and really does wonders with all the greenery.

Late Winter Rapids
[singlepic id=253 w=600]Late Winter Rapids, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

River Rocks with Snow
[singlepic id=258 w=600]River Rocks with Snow, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem to be an “old soul” of photography. Years ago, photographers and other artists would spend a lifetime studying one subject or geographic area. It’s a tradition that sometimes feels lost in today’s era of gun-and-run digital photography. Is working this way something you’re compelled to do? An itch you absolutely must scratch?
I’ve already talked about the love I feel for this place and that is one way in which I feel compelled to keep exploring my immediate environs.  I also tend to work in photography via fixation.  This can be in terms of a particular place, a particular subject matter, or a particular kind of image.  There were those rusty nails I mentioned, but the old railroad bridge has been another one of these ongoing obsessions.  Sometimes I will stumble upon something and then I will be occupied for weeks, months, or even years exploring whatever that is in different ways.  For example, for a long time when I would go upriver to a stretch of the Cheat known as the Narrows, I was mainly interested in scenic shots that took in wide expanses of the river.  But one time, for some reason or other, I tried some shots of just a couple of rocks where water was being forced through.  I really liked what I got and so now I will spend as much time looking at a two or three foot stretch of the river as I will the whole scene.

In general, I really like the way these familiar spots continue to offer new opportunities for making good photographs.  There’s a lot of repetition to my work habits.  Many rocks along the riverbed feel like old friends, since I end up setting my tripod at just that spot over and over again, even when I think I’m out for something different.  I will move about, looking out at the scene before me, and just be drawn again to the very same place and then I’ll think, “Oh yeah, there’s that slightly rectangular rock,” or “Here’s that one that’s just a little flatter than the others around it.”  But even when I set up in the same place, something different always results.  Every semester in my introductory philosophy class, I teach Heraclitus, one of the central figures in the pre-Socratic era of Western philosophy.  Heraclitus is most famous for the fragment declaring that one cannot step twice into the same river.  When I teach this fragment, I always explain it by describing my daily walks by the Cheat.  In some sense, it is the same river, day after day, year in, year out, but in a different sense, photography proves Heraclitus right:  one can never get the same photograph again, no matter how precisely one tries to recreate the conditions under which the first was taken.  From frame to frame, from roll to roll, from day to day, something changes:  the level of the river, the contours of the banks, the number of stones visible, the angle of the light, the movement of the water, the state of the surrounding foliage, even the color of the water itself.  One can return to the same place over and over again, but it will never look the same, never offer the same look, and in that sense, it will never be the same either.  Photography, which is usually understood as the ultimate attempt to capture and preserve a moment, to freeze and so keep it forever, also shows to us this transience.

River Roll 6
[singlepic id=259 w=600]River Roll 6, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

Since ƒ/D is focused on the art of pinhole photography, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask: why is pinhole photography such a predominant medium for your work? Does it give you something other mediums lack?
I kind of stumbled onto pinhole to start.  I was flipping through a B&H Photo catalog a number of years back (when they still used to send out catalogs) and noticed the line of Santa Barbara 4×5 pinhole cameras they carry.  They looked sort of cool, and so I started poking around online to learn more about them.  I noticed that I liked a lot of the images people were making with pinhole cameras.  I also discovered that you could use these cameras with Polaroid film, which made them seem even more intriguing.  So I got one (or maybe a couple).  At first, I was kind of excited just to get an image.  There’s something about pinhole photography that invites both skepticism and wonder:  you look at the camera and it’s just a box with a tiny hole.  No shutter, no optics, definitely no LCD screen.  I found it hard to believe at first that anything could come of exposing film in something like that.  But sure enough, it works.  The images are not sharp like with cameras using optics, but they have their own charms.  I found that I didn’t mind the lack of sharpness compared to photographs made with optics.  Indeed, the slight softness of pinhole images gives them something of a painterly look, which I really like.  I also liked having so much less to worry over:  what lens to use, what f-stop and shutter speed, and so on.  Pinhole photography is very liberating in that way. Framing a pinhole photo is always a tentative, approximate affair, and the unlimited depth of field afforded by the pinhole frees me of worries about depth of focus while offering new ways of exploring near-far relations (I couldn’t have come close to the images I’ve made of rocks in the river, for example, using a standard camera with a lens).  The exposures are generally very long, and a bit of movement, the flow of water, a shifting cloud, even a gentle breeze can alter the image considerably.  A good pinhole photograph is always something of pleasant surprise, something I cannot take full credit for, as my control over the outcome is far more limited than with a standard camera:  the feeling I get in viewing a pinhole photograph I’m happy with is more one of good fortune bestowed than pride or accomplishment (perhaps this is why pinhole photographers are so low-ego, and generally so sharing with their tricks and techniques).  Though all of photography retains for me an element of magic (first felt when seeing an image emerge on what had been blank piece of paper), pinhole photography strikes me as especially magical, especially incredible:  it continually astonishes me that an image – a detailed rendering of a scene – can be achieved with little more than a tiny hole poked in a thin strip of metal.

Toward the Canyon
[singlepic id=260 w=600]Toward the Canyon, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

I’ve backpacked a number of times in the hills of West Virginia, but never exactly in your area yet, when I first saw your photos, I knew exactly where they were. The land and rivers of WV permeates everything it touches, including the people and the things those people build and do. It’s one of the few areas that come to mind where taking photos of the landscape seems synonymous with taking photos of the people. Do you feel that your methodic exploration of the Cheat and its valley have brought you closer to the people you now live around?
Living in rural West Virginia, I will always be something of an outsider.  Many, if not most, of the people who live here have done so for generations upon generations and so they have a sense of place that I cannot begin to approach.  But I think getting out and exploring the area, creating images in response to what I see, has at least helped me appreciate that deep sense of place and maybe tap into it a little bit.  Making photographs of the Cheat River is my way of trying to express my admittedly newer-found attachment to where we live.  I have over the past several years started showing my work occasionally at a few galleries in Preston, Monongalia, and Tucker Counties.  I also peddle my photographs at some of the local festivals, most regularly at the annual Cheat River Festival here in Albright.  Doing these sorts of things has put me out there with my work among people.  I am not always comfortable doing this:  I don’t have the “gift of gab,” I’m not a natural salesman, and I often feel very self-conscious about my work.  I also don’t like the way appreciating and purchasing often get run together.  But on the whole, I think it has been good for me to display my work and talk about it with whomever happens to walk by and take an interest.  Once a young woman made a point of telling me that one of my photographs was hanging in her living room and it made her happy to see it there every day.  But I also just like getting a positive response from people, even if they do not buy anything.  The nicest thing ever told to me came from a very local guy, maybe around my age.  He didn’t buy any of my photos but he spent a long time looking at them.  Before he left he said something like, “You know, you’ve really captured the beauty of this place with these photographs.  Whenever I’m driving here (Route 72, which runs along the Narrows), I always tell my kids to look out their windows and see how beautiful it is where they live.  These photos really show that.” The locals at these events nearly always recognize the sites where my pictures were taken, but they are sometimes surprised at how these familiar places look (this is especially the case with the bridge here in Albright).  On these occasions, I like to think of my photographs as like that dad with his kids, pointing out to them, and so reminding them of, the beauty of this place.

Low River Fog
[singlepic id=254 w=600]Low River Fog, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

Daybreak on the Narrows
[singlepic id=250 w=600]Daybreak on the Narrows, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

Railroad Bridge with Fog
[singlepic id=257 w=600]Railroad Bridge with Fog, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

Fallen Trees — Deckers Creek
[singlepic id=261 w=600]Fallen Trees — Deckers Creek, ©David Cerbone 2015[/singlepic]

 

 

Csaba Kovács – Out of the Fog

One of the earliest concepts that many of us photographers learn is the power of lines in a photograph. Most often, this concept is demonstrated with a shot looking straight down some train tracks or maybe rows of crops in a field. It’s a powerful effect, and easily reproducible. Therefore, if a photographer makes converging lines a significant portion of their body of work, they better be damn good at it.

Csaba Kovács is a Hungarian photographer who is damn good at converging lines. He’s based in Budapest, a city that has a firm grip on his heart, where he roams looking for interesting places with what he calls “pinhole eyes”. Csaba has a love for analogue photography, reveling in the “magical world” of the silver-based process. Like many pinhole and analog photographers, he’s attracted to the opportunity to get away from the precision of digital and focus on the unique aesthetic of pinhole photography. He’s been practicing pinhole photography since 2013, and uses a Zero Image 2000 primarily.

Many of the compositions below will feature multiple converging lines. In addition, you’ll note that Csaba likes to get out into the city in the early hours of the morning, when the fog is still thick. This blanketing provides, for many of his compositions, a transmuting background which allows for his subject to come forward with a simple clarity.

After enjoying the images below, we encourage you to check out more of his work at his personal website.

Business Center
[singlepic id=230 w=600]Business Center, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Elisabeth Bridge
[singlepic id=231 w=600]Elisabeth Bridge, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Foggy Liberty 1
[singlepic id=232 w=600]Foggy Liberty 1, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Foggy Liberty 2
[singlepic id=233 w=600]Foggy Liberty 2, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Megyeri Bridge
[singlepic id=234 w=600]Megyeri Bridge, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Paris 1
[singlepic id=235 w=600]Paris 1, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Paris 2
[singlepic id=236 w=600]Paris 2, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Secret
[singlepic id=237 w=600]Secret, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Up
[singlepic id=242 w=600]Up, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Triangles
[singlepic id=240 w=600]Triangles, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Simple Symmetry
[singlepic id=238 w=600]Simple Symmetry, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

To The Nothing
[singlepic id=239 w=600]To The Nothing, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

Under The Sky
[singlepic id=241 w=600]Under The Sky, ©Csaba Kovács 2015[/singlepic]

 

 

 

Get Inspired – Week of June 15

Today’s post represents the first in our new format change. In case you missed the announcement and the reasons why, you can catch up here. Every week, we at ƒ/D are going to strive to bring you the best we’ve found in the world of pinhole photography. We scour the archives of Flickr, 500px, Behance, personal submissions, and other sources to find great work being done.

This week we feature some great photos from all corners of the world. The photos below represent some great examples of the fun, the fantastical, and of paradise. Enjoy!

Islands and Islets
[singlepic id=203 w=600]Islands and Islets, Holga-120 WPC, Kodak Ektar, ©Peter de Graaff 2015[/singlepic]
Peter de Graaff made the capture for Islands and islets during winter 2014 at North Head in the Murramurrang National Park near Batemans Bay, on the south coast of New South Wales. The Tollgate Islands are visible in the distance and some islets nearby. The sand on the beach here is incredibly orange and was mostly deserted except for a few kangaroo tracks.

More of Peter’s work can be seen on Flickr and he’s a regular contributor on 52 Rolls. Peter can also be found discussing photography on Twitter.

 

Austria
[singlepic id=204 w=600]Austria, ©Csaba Kovacs 2015[/singlepic]
Csaba Kovacs is a talented Hungarian photographer that we’ll be doing a more in depth feature on in the near future. He has a wonderful eye for pattern and shape. Csaba can be found on Flickr and on his personal website.

 

Encounters
[singlepic id=205 w=600]Encounters, ©Phil Chapman 2015[/singlepic]
Phil Chapman’s image was inspired by the indie game limbo, and his goal was to make something that had that atmosphere and feel. He constructed the scene out of black card ( the robot ) and ripped black sugar paper ( the trees) with layers of tracing paper creating the fog and distance. The toy figure is from resident evil 2 and is another video game reference.
Phil’s camera is also homemade and the exposure times were roughly 2 minutes per shot. More of Phil’s work can be found on Flickr.

 

Pinhole 60
[singlepic id=206 w=600]Pinhole 60, Zero 2000, ©Katharina Korn-Sippel 2015[/singlepic]
Katharina Korn-Sippel’s still life of fruit has that perfectly peaceful feeling that has attracted many eyeballs to still lifes over the years. More of Katharina’s work can be found on Flickr.

 

Synchronized Swinging
[singlepic id=207 w=600]Synchronized Swinging, Diana Pinhole, TMY, ©Kyle Wilcox 2015[/singlepic]
Kyle Wilcox made this stunning capture with a 2 or 3 second exposure on TMY using a Lomo Diana Pinhole camera. While he sat on a swing next to his son and tried to match his speed while he braced the camera on the chain and opened the shutter. More of Kyle’s work can be found on Flickr.

 

Get Inspired – Kaleidoscope

Today’s featured pinhole photo dazzles in reflections and cuts of light.

Kaleidoscope
[singlepic id=162 w=600]Kaleidoscope, ©Angel Rueda 2015[/singlepic]

Angel Rueda made this wonderful capture with his pinhole camera leveled into the sun and perfectly aligned with the symmetry of the scene. The effect is an almost overwhelming sense of light and warmth.

More of Angel’s photos can be found on Flickr.

Get Inspired – MV Coho

Today’s featured pinhole photo is ready to set sail for the weekend.

MV Coho
[singlepic id=139 w=600]MV Coho, Zero Image 4×5, Paper Negative, ©Kier Selinsky 2015[/singlepic]

I made this image after a long joyful day in Victoria, BC. The MV Coho is the ferry that connects Vancouver Island to Port Angeles, WA. It’s a high style trip that I recommend if you have the chance, especially when the tulips are in season. Here she is moored and awaiting her passengers for the trip back to Washington.

You can find more of my photos on Flickr.