Just before completing a month’s residency at CopperLeg Artist Residency in Vaskjala, Estonia, I had an opening for the photographs that I made and printed there. During my month in Estonia I made trips to eastern and southeastern Estonia, close to the Russian border. I was photographing the land and the people’s use of it as well as the scars on the land from the abandoned Soviet era buildings.
At CopperLeg, I made a portfolio of silver gelatin prints in their darkroom. Additionally, I exhibited digital prints from both a digital camera and from an iPhone. Below are some of the images.
Borderland
Abandoned. Viivikonna, Estonia
Sun Struck. Viivikonna, Estonia
Facade. Viivikonna, Estonia
Survivors. near Narva, Estonia
The White Fence. Põltsamaa, Estonia
The Black Cross. near Turba, Estonia
Ungru Lossi Varemed. KIltsi, Estonia
Delivery. Lohussu, Estonia
Borderland. Põltsamaa, Estonia
The Green Fence. Põltsamaa, Estonia
Orange House. Põltsamaa, Estonia
Yellow House & Fence. near Varska, Estonia
Red Roof. Põltsamaa, Estonia
The Wall. Lohusuu, Estonia
Backyard Sailor. Võõpsu, Estonia
Baltic Birches. near Viivikonna, Estonia
Cement House. Mustvee, Estonia
Fences. Varska, Estonia
Lone Tree. Saatse, Estonia
Yellow Insulation. Varska, Estonia
The Sled. Mustvee, Estonia
Public Parking. Lohusuu, Estonia
Abandoned Soviet-era Factory. Viivikonna, Estonia
Hauling (ice fishing on Lake Peipus). Mustvee, Estonia
The Black Fence. Räpina, Estonia
Dusting. Vaskjala, Estonia
Leatherman. Vaskjala, Estonia
The Astronomer's Brother. Vaskjala, Estonia
Janno. Vaskjala, Estonia
Sunset on the Baltic. Jõesuu-Narva, Estonia
Time Out. Narva, Estonia
The Star. Vaskjala, Estonia
Bus Stop. Vaskjala, Estonia
The interior courtyard of the Palacio Carlos V in Granada, Spain. The architect was Pedro Machuca, and construction started in 1527. It is an architectural gem just begging for black & white photography.
I believe I’ve bored everyone to tears who follows me on Facebook with landscape/skiing images from Alberta, Canada. So here’s one last one: the back side of Mt. Rundle in Banff, Canada with a full moon in the eastern sky, right at sunset.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since I lasted posted to my blog. Sometimes, life just has a way of taking over. But have no fear, I’ve been tirelessly capturing images. Most of my images have been the product of iphones. I’ve always been a promoter of alternative cameras, starting with plastic Diana cameras in the ’70’s. In a way, iphones are kind of like old school toy cameras; certainly a lot of the photo apps ape toy camera photography with countless filters, some even named Diana. Go figure. So, as I distill down a year’s body of iphoneography, I’ll you give one of the early ones; interestingly I was at this location last week, and the nozzle is no longer there, but the hose is, lying almost in the same place.
Hose Head
Photographing in Spain always brings out the BOLD in me. My first trip there was in 1974, and I ended up staying for a while with my girlfriend’s mother on Ibiza during the late winter. I was just starting to make photographs; I didn’t have a clue what to do with a camera other than push the shutter release. One image I made was of small hilly, mountainous island jutting out of the Mediterranean with the weak winter sun behind it. Later, back home someone saw the photograph and told me what an artist I was. I had never even considered the possibility of being an artist. Bottom line, that photograph plus a couple of others from around New England got me hooked on photography. A year later I quit my day job, I hopped on a Polish freighter, and I moved to Europe with all the accoutrements for a B&W darkroom (Those were the days). Once in France, I started to teach myself photography. That didn’t mean I was a photographer yet, even by a long stretch of the imagination. But I had the bug, and I started to learn. During the year-and-a-half that I lived in Europe I spent a lot of time in Spain. And after I came back to the United States, I periodically returned to Spain to visit friends and to photograph. My most recent Spanish sojourn was for my wife’s 50th birthday several years ago. It was one of my last trips using film as my primary photographic medium (although I was beginning to dabble with a digital point-and-shoot camera). From that last Spanish visit, here are a pair of Spanish images, bright in color, abstract in composition, intentionally painterly, and without manipulation.
I saw this one on the North Fork on my way to Liz’s “the egg lady” farm. It wasn’t until I got out of the car and I was about ready to make the capture did I see the heart. (It reminded me of a small heart shaped piece of corral that I once found on a beach a long time ago: I still have it.) And just for fun, I used a real long focal length lens to flatten everything out. Interestingly, there were no clues as to what was being grown inside the greenhouse; maybe bouquets of love.
Here are several more personal architectural images from my pool shoot last week. They’re from a small house in East Hampton. The owner bought the property for a quick fix and flip. It is a small, one story 80s vintage bungalow with a great, sloping back yard. Her architect designed a huge wooden wall in front of the house which is what you see to the left in my first image. My pool guy, Mikie, designed an incredible negative edge pool which took advantage of the back yard’s steep grade. His mason used the same stone for the veneer of the pool’s wall, the patio, and the house foundation’s veneer. I like how Mikie picked up the wood theme from the house’s front wall, and incorporated it in the back yard’s retaining walls. This little Hampton’s weekend getaway can be yours for a mere $1.75M.
I captured this image of my friend’s daughter, Isabella, last week. I was sitting up on a deck overlooking the backyard where Isabella was just starting to pump herself higher and higher on the swing. For once, I actually had a camera at hand, and I scurried down in front of her. It was twilight, and I purposely avoided using a flash while I made this capture. I mean, how great is the blue rope, her blue dress, and of course, her blurred red hair?
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