Car - Rain

NOTES ON THE CAR SERIES

We don’t tend to picture ourselves in the actual environment we’re in. Instead, we think of ourselves in a more ideal setting, perhaps our porch, living room, perhaps hiking our favorite trail. However, if we live where the largest percentage of people do, we spend much of our time surrounded by concrete and cars. If we commute in a city, we end up spending a significant time on this earth behind the wheel.

Some time ago I started a set of pictures that I called the “Car Series.”

The concept "automobile" is so deeply ingrained in our daily consciousness that we've really lost all possibility of having a real perspective on it. In that sense it has become rather like the concept, "self." If you doubt this, remember the last time your car broke down and your mental state at the time. So that's why the car features prominently in these photos.

I had some goals in mind in using time exposures in a moving vehicle. , I wanted to capture more time than the traditional instant a still picture captures. Another photographic goal was to find a way to add more fluidity to photographic images.
There was also a pure desire to experiment. The nature of the time exposure/motion technique meant that I would not really know what had been recorded on the film until it was developed. I knew what the setup would record, but had no idea what conditions would be recorded on my particular trip through the city.

Under the Belmont Bridge - Charlottesville

Click above for a larger view

"Belmont Bridge"

This is a photograph of the underside of the Belmont Bridge, before the railroad moved to block access. Now it's fenced. That turf in view on the other side of the tracks has not changed much in the years I've lived here. That includes the older two story building visible between the pillars. Sometimes called the Beck Cohen building because of the sign on it, it is now also sporting a “for sale” sign. This was taken with a Plaubel Makina Pro-Shift 6X9 cm., on Tri-X.

The Downtown Mall had tough times long after it became pedestrian. The road was removed a long time ago, but that did not really revitalize the area. Instead there was something like a “tipping point.” Enough outdoor restaurant seating, a feeling of a secure setting, and more people at all hours, led to what it is today. Plus, Charlottesville changed from “the Hook,” (a place where you went to UVA, and then moved away, to an urban career center) to a place with enough business activity to support “a life.” Jeez, whatever that is . . . If I ever get some time off, I’ll have to look into it.

Painting with Light – Outer Banks

Click on the above image for a larger view

The cottage I rent in the Outer Banks is one of the oldest cottages in the area. It won’t be there for long. It’s on an ocean front lot and the owner passed away several years ago. All the other houses around it are new and tower many stories above it. They are there so a hurricane can have something to sink its teeth into. That this is the oldest ocean front cottage attests to the wisdom of its design.

The house is surrounded by small boardwalks that are weathered. The cottage has quite a few resident toys and is obviously peopled by families with young children. The photo above was taken of a space between two walks where some shells had been arranged, probably by a child.

I’ve taken a few at this cottage using the flashlight and time exposure method mentioned in other posts. The benefits of this approach are many, such as; as many apparent light sources as desired, oblique lighting that works well for highlighting textures and the ability to paint/light selectively so there are plenty of areas that are close to the darkest tones. Click here to see a detail view of a light-painted area.

This time I tried a different approach to exposure. I estimated based on one second worth of exposure at F16, but I used a digital camera for a series of test exposures, before replacing it with a Pentax 6X7cm camera with a wide angle lens. This is a major improvement over just blindly shooting a bunch of negatives with fingers crossed.

Outer Banks Grave

One of my death-related projects has been searching out unusual examples of “rites of passage.” I came across one of these while investigating old graveyards on the Outer Banks.
Although the Outer Banks (aka, Hatteras Island) has a long history (“The Lost Colony”) it hasn’t many older graveyards. One exception is the town of Avon, which has an older town center. It is surrounded by miles of the beach houses that are the heart of the local economy. Located on the Sound side of the Island, it has long been a community focused on fishing. There is a church in the town that yearly has a unique service where an empty boat is launched and prayers for "the waterman’s" safety are said. There are a number of church and private grave yards under the expansive limbs of the live oak trees.
I came across the above grave site while walking the shore road in Avon. It’s a sad story, the passing of someone young, on the verge of the first year of college. Although, it’s a wonderful display; the young man’s prized possessions, a college banner, and a more spontaneous arrangement of shells, etc. I also was struck by how the live oaks stretched over the site, as though they were putting roots into the sky.
The grief of a loved one’s passing is overwhelming. It feels like the emptiness formed by that loss sucks all the life from you. Most of these actions we take in response are made to make peace with that powerful emptiness.

Anonymous Grave - Chestertown, Md.

This marker is from the same graveyard on the Eastern Shore of Maryland that I wrote about in the post preceding this one. Like the other grave stone, this is one of a group of stones without the names of the deceased. These stones are all grouped in one area of the graveyard.
The other stone had the phrase, “Is God Love God is Love” chiseled into it. This one is cast concrete, possibly cast by digging out the shape on the ground, and pouring the concrete into it. A large bathroom tile was set into the concrete, surrounded by 13 marbles. Since this is a graveyard that had been associated with a church (closed now, with no indication of name, etc.), one wonders if there is a religious association. 13 is the number of apostles if Christ is included in the group.

A recycled bathroom tile and some marbles. crickets, and the silence that lives deeply in all of us. Our little piece of existence chipped out of, but always present, in eternity. With some concrete and found objects, here lies a real monument to something beyond names.

Is God Love? God is Love.

Looking back over the photographs I’ve taken, death seems to emerge as a theme, or perhaps just an obsession. I’m sure I’m not the only one who might feel it. Mystified. Considering walking, living, breathing, seeing; what’s up when it stops? You can answer, nothing, it all stops, etc. An answer, but we want more. This seems like a wall blocking understanding; a mystery.
Words fail. Are we self-conceiving or self creating? Or, were we formed by our interaction with others, environment, God? Gurdjieff said, somewhat facetiously, much was determined by the smell of the lozenge the midwife was sucking on when she delivered him. Regardless, we can’t conceive of not-being, and we’re likely to feel distress if we try.
“Is God Love? God is Love” is the most important of these photos to me. I spent a lot of time in that grave yard, with the chant of the crickets by day, and the grunts of the frogs by night. Most of the grave markers have no name on them, since, given time, it’s the spirit of life, not particulars, that could interest the living. These are memorials that are more real than grave stones. They’re not talking about sentimental love, they’re talking about something as ever present as light.
The detail view of the stone shows two crudely chiseled fishes on either side, swimming toward a heart in the middle. On the right corner is a hand, pointing down from above. It appears to be cut in with a simple pointed tool.
These are all Christian symbols, the fish, the hand of god. The heart is usually the sacred heart of Jesus. This is the message left, instead of a name. The names all disappear in the wind, anyway. The eyes that read this are in the same body as a beating heart.

The Coffee Cup (Painting with Light)

Coffee. Is there anything better than coffee? Well, perhaps, but, never mind. The above taken with the antique Speed Graphic, with the 135mm lens. The lens was pulled out to full macro, beyond the focus track. Then it was titled forward so the near and far lip of the cup would be in focus even at F-22. Spirit courtesy of time exposure and a flashlight waved above the cup. The flashlight provided light on the cup, and the reflection in the coffee. Simple lighting!