Here’s some more of a new series I’m working on – portraits of everyday objects. I want to show things we pass every day but don’t pay attention to as if they were subjects deserving of portraits. These are by definition environmental portraits, as these things are found in our environment, not in a contextless studio.
Simon is a friend I’ve known for over 15 years (I think he’d be mildly scandalized to realize exactly how long we’ve known each other). I took these two portraits of him the other day when we met for dinner. Comments on which one you prefer welcome and actively solicited.
Rolleiflex 2.8E, Ilford HP5+.
No real words, just some pics of two-wheeled transportation.
This is the start of a new series I’m working on – portraits of everyday objects. I want to show things we pass every day but don’t pay attention to as if they were subjects deserving of portraits. These are by definition environmental portraits, as these things are found in our environment, not in a contextless studio. I’ve done a few before in color, but I think the black-and-white lends them a certain formality that elevates them from record shots.
The first two were shot on Kodak Tri-X, developed in Rodinal 1:25. I was actually kind of hoping to get sandpaper-y grain with that combination, but no such luck. It’s ok though, because it isn’t that far off the rest of the images, so the change in film and developer isn’t that noticeable. All the rest are on Ilford HP5+, developed in Pyrocat HD.
All photos taken with my Rolleiflex 2.8E.
I came across this while walking around my neighborhood. It’s a balcony on a rowhouse converted to condominium apartments. The sun was getting low in the evening sky, casting long shadows. The scene is almost monochromatic, with the exception of the orange chair. Yet the chair is subtle – it doesn’t pop out and smack you in the face. It may have actually been more intense in real life, but I like it as just a touch – too often you see people de-saturating a color image except for one object (usually red), which they then proceed to hyper-saturate in contrast to the scene around it.
From January to March of this year, Michelangelo’s David/Apollo, normally resident in the Bargello museum in Florence, was on loan to the National Gallery of Art in DC. Being a huge Michelangelo fan, I had to go see it. The last time it was exhibited here in the US was during Harry Truman’s presidency. In fact, there are only three known or attributed works by Michelangelo in the United States (a drawing and two sculptures, one of which is in a private collection), so it’s a rare day when you can get to see something from his hand.
One of Michelangelo’s “unfinished” sculptures, much speculation exists around the entire series of the “unfinished” carvings – were they unfinished because Michelangelo was always biting off more than he could chew and didn’t have time, or did he deliberately leave them “unfinished” because he was making an artistic statement about the relationship between the image, the stone and the carving? Either way, they make for a tantalizing insight into the mind and the technique of one of the world’s greatest sculptors.
I’m almost as fascinated by the people who come to look at art as I am the art itself. Sometimes (frequently, actually) I’m very annoyed with museum patrons because they’ll blithely traipse right between you and a work or the wall label for it that you’re trying to look at, rented headset on, completely oblivious to the fact that you now cannot read or see the exhibit. But when they’re not blocking your view, the way they look at art is endlessly interesting. Some will point, some will stand back and appraise, some will “print-sniff” and get close enough the guards have to warn them off. Some will ingest silently, others will pontificate to their audience of friends (and anyone else within earshot), often as not with art history textbook opinions and/or not entirely accurate “facts” about the artwork and/or the artist.
Rolleiflex 2.8E, Kodak Ektar 100.
Taken with my Rolleiflex 2.8E, on Kodak Ektar 100.
I love all the ironic details of this image – the modern-day hippies panhandling with their massive shisha pipe and their puppy dog, in front of a bank and the Sysco truck (“People and Products You Can Count On”). It was serendipitous that they were posed in front of a bank and a food service truck is behind them when their sign says “broke and hungry”. A poignant clash of cultures. I wanted to get closer to fill the frame more with the hippies and their puppy, but I didn’t want to engage them especially on a negative level (I could see them reacting with anything from suspicion to hostility if they knew I was photographing them, since on a day-to-day basis I appear the very symbol of upper-middle-class conformity and public officialdom – it’s khakis or slacks and a dress shirt while at work). So I popped inside the Pret-A-Manger in front of them and took this from inside the window. I think the person sitting at the bar next to me was a little wierded out by having this guy with a Rollei walk up next to him and take a picture – I suspect he wasn’t entirely sure what kind of camera it was, if it was even a camera.
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