Sauvie's Island with Colleen, a few cows, & a chair

Lemonade out of Lemons

I had a wet plate date with a new model on Monday...WHEEEE!!!  so much fun!  Oh how much I love making plates.  Shooting plates is nothing like shooting film.  I don't approach it the same way, I don't plan for it the same way, my expectations are different, and the experience is different.  I sometimes think, "I really SHOULD do more film, especially since I teach film photography."  But when I make plans to shoot, it is always plates.  Over the break, I didn't have a model so I did some random flowers.
Because I had to have the plates.  I don't really do florals pix, but they're pretty, right?  So ok.  Here is one of my flower plates:

 

Anyhow, after much primping and arranging, we are finally ready to create the first plate!!  I pull on my blue nitrile gloves, grab a plate, and head out to the porch to pour.

Pour . . .

uh.

Pour NOTHING, as the cooler containing the collodion had been stolen off my porch. 

:(  :(  :(

But we were not to be stopped.  And we decided to bust out the film cameras and do the shoot anyway.  Here is a shot from Monday.

I loved working with Laura.  She was sorta up for anything, and I expected her to be shy but she really wasn't.  Anyhow, it feels really good that we didn't let a set-back hamper our flow, and she said she would be happy to come back and do plates sometime.

chrysanthemum

I had a date to go out and shoot with a friend, but with rain in the forecast, I had to cancel.  Not to be dissuaded, especially since I'd just made a new batch of developer, I decided to shoot still life images instead, and trundled off to New Seasons to choose some flowers. 

Most of my images were kinda "meh."  But I really liked this one.  Enough to purchase a light kit from B&H.   I am really looking forward to being able to make plates even in the dark Portland winter. 

The Stranger Behind Me

Holding Francois

Sauvie Island

more lisa

small forest

spirits...

Plates with Lisa

I loved working with Lisa, and was so excited to see this plate come out!  I really love how the scarf looks like it's floating in air, I also love how the scarf's undulating edge is echoed by the pour (i.e., upper edge) and by the irregularities and swirly-ness in the grass behind her. 

I also love her gaze...she looks smart and awake and like she knows stuff.  Almost all of my images are of people who do not make eye contact with the lens of the camera.  In fact, I don't really like portraits where the models look into the lens.  In this plate, the directness of her gaze works as a counterpoint to the surreal & dreamy quality of the rest of the image.

Anyhow, words are good...but even if I didn't have any, it doesn't undo the fact that I'm mesmerized by this image. 

tangles

I went to Sauvie Island on Sunday with Levi.  We walked a short distance from the Wilderness Refuge to a cluster of abandoned houses.   I can't say we were properly dressed -I was wearing capri's and flip flops- so we didn't go into all the houses, which were engulfed in blackberry bushes. 

I only shot 48 frames, but still got a few shots I like. 

Sometimes it's hard to say why I like a picture...I like them for different reasons, I suppose.  Sometimes I can look at a picture and like it because it's perfect -perfectly framed, perfectly illuminated...such things.  Other times, something just twists inside of me -the picture means something to me, even if it's flawed or accidental.  The following image is both flawed and unintentional, and yet I really like it a lot. 

Stems

Pulling on Levi

The Secret Life of Trees

A fairly long while ago, I read that "The Secret Life of Plants" was a bunch of horseshit.  But deep down inside of me, I have always believed that plants are sentient. 

I've sometimes wondered about the slow experience of old growth trees...imagined how much they've seen as the years peel by.  The city of Charleston "owns" the Angel Oak, a massive live oak tree that's been alive for 300-400 years...That means it was there for the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. 

Anyhow...trees, trees and more trees at my mother's house in South Carolina.  Right outside her house stood 2 trees embracing.  I mean, one tree had grown its limbs to encircle the tree standing right next to it.  My mom had never noticed them before, but maybe people only notice things when they don't see them every day.  I couldn't get an unencumbered photo of them, but I did get this picture of a tree at the forest preserve right down the street.

Yes, it's just a tree.
But I thought it was a really sweet tree...and it was right at home there...you could tell.

something easy, just for the fun of it...

Milkflower: