Wherever there is light, one can photograph. -Alfred Stieglitz

January 2008

1/28/08 - Pretty cool stuff, A filmmaker in Mexico City discovered a case fulll of lost Robert Capa Negatives. It is now in the hands of the ICP in New York which was founded by his younger brother Cornell Capa.

1/19/08 - 8:21am / My birthday is jan 24th. Today the family is coming to the house to celebrate with us. I made lasana and everyone is bringing something. Our first family meal in the new house. I asked everyone if they are bringing gifts the ONLY thing I want is Home Depot gift cards. So hopefully tomorrow I'll be makiing a trip to Home Depot to load up on 2X4's to begin framing the darkroom. I'm going to make a separate page for my website to document the darkroom progress....stay tuned! It may be slow going at first because I need to help Stacey with some stuff for her business. It's kind of a critical time for her right now as she is trying to get bookings for this coming season.

1/13/08 - 3:50pm / Spent about 2 hours shooting at Lincoln Woods today. Lots and lots of people walking dogs and jogging there, but once I got off the main roads onto a path along the water it was deserted. Burned thru about 6 rolls of film with the Mamiya 645. Found it very relaxing, but that film goes fast being only 15 or 16 shots per roll compared to my usual 36 with 35mm film. I need to get myself a strap for the camera, especially if Im going to be around the water again. IM not really planning on developing this stuff right away, right now I just wanna shoot and at some point they will start appearing, maybe when i have the darkroom maybe before. Thing is I cant scan this size negative so Im going to need a print to be able to post it here. This is a good thing. So maybe it will keep me motivated to keep going on the darkroom. In the meantime the film will pile up and I'll keep shooting. I found not using a rangefinder today for a change that I was actually thinking more about depth of field, composition, and fstop/shutter speed combos. Of course all that is in play with a rangefinder, but this camera just slowed me down a little and made me think more about photography and how I was shooting.

10 am / While perusing Photo-eye just now I realized that a new printing of Robert Frank's "The American's" is coming out in May so I pre-ordered one for myself! It will be fun comparing it to the older priting that I have of the book.

Here's a description of the new version:

A new cover was designed and Frank personally chose the book cloth, foil for embossing and the endpaper. Most significantly, in the process of working out the layout of the photographs on the page, Frank chose to reproduce un-cropped examples of the photographs when available. Two images were changed completely from the original 1958 and 1959 editions. Then, on a sunny day in July of 2007, the presses started rolling and Robert Frank personally supervised the printing of this latest edition of The Americans.

-----------

1/12/08 - So begins year number 4 of my journal and website. I hope this year will be more active here and my cameras will get more of a workout. Stacey boought CS3 creative suite, so now I am working on Dreamweaver CS3 not Dreamweaver 4 that still ran on OS 9.

Progress on clearing space for the darkroom this week. Before and after photos. In the 2nd photo you can vaguely see my chalk outline. Dimensions will be approx 14 ft long by 6ft wide with it being a little wider(7ft) at one end to make room for a 7ft sink! It will go beyond that door you see, for now I need to block that area to keep the cat and dog out of there. There was an old wood panel wall that easily came down this morning. Next thing will be to scrape that foundation wall and paint with waterproof paint so I can start framing the walls. Stay tuned for more progress....i hope. Mr Smutek, ever frame a room? I may need a hand.