Forgotten dogs.

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything on my blog.  I've had to focus on things other than photography for a while, but I'm getting back into my groove.  I am starting work on my tintype series again, and should have posts soon.  In the meantime, the one thing that I've been doing photographically is shooting rescue dogs and cats.  I volunteer at the SPCALA and am one of the photographers that shoot the animals that come in for adoption.  They post the images on their website in hopes that people viewing the site will see a dog or cat that they want to take home.  This has been so rewarding.  In addition to being an obsessed dog lover, I also love the idea of being able to help these guys find their forever homes.

Deirdre and twins

Deirdre delivered her twin girls two days after these photos were taken.  We had a quick opportunity to shoot some photos, and these are her only "maternity" images.  It was great to be able to give her and her husband this gift.

Holga Tintype

In working on my Holga tintype series, I had a couple extra tins left over from my first batch, and I wanted to try some double exposures.   What is printed on the tintype is not the same thing I see in the viewfinder.  The distances are different between the two as the viewfinder on these camera are off to a side and you're not seeing what's being shot.  So as I take more images, I will be better able to estimate where I want to place different items and get exactly what I want in the shot.

I'm also experimenting with shooting urbanscapes and different themes.  It's an interesting process to me to see what works and what doesn't.

Now and Then.

My partner, Joe, and I recently celebrated 37 years of being together, and I wanted to put together something that reflected the passage of time from when I was 21 to the present.

I have always liked to go through my family's photo albums and look at pictures taken of my parents, grandparents and others when they were children or young adults.  It's always given me a different impression of who they are.  I think many of us have the same curiosity about other people.

One of the projects I have been working on is a series about the LBGT community over 50 years old.  I know anyone in that age category probably has similar feelings.  However, in this youth-and-beauty-oriented gay community, there is an ever-increasing aging population that has now become invisible to the community at large.  With the series, I'm trying to find a way of presenting older LBGT to the younger generations in a way that we are not seen as a forgotten segment, but are just as vital as we once were.

So with this in mind, I've just started to work on presenting portraits of my subjects along with some image from their past which is important to them.

Philip

Jennifer and Bobby

I know this young couple who had their first baby this year.  I've watched the baby grow, and he's been such a charmer.  The husband works in Alaska and is away from the family for long periods at a time.  I wanted to do a shoot with his wife and baby, Bobby, so he wouldn't feel like he was missing out on everything.  I really enjoyed working with mother and son despite all the horror stories about trying to shoot infants and toddlers.  Bobby was a great subject, and I think he'll be a natural in front of the camera.  Watch out, world.  Here comes America's Next Top Model.

Working in the digital age, it's fairly easy to turn a color image into black and white.  I really love the timelessness and classic beauty that black/white gives to the same photograph.

 Holga tintype.

So my Southern California weather is not cooperating with my project!  The last several months the weather here has been great:  sunny skies with little cloud interference.  Now that I'm starting to work on this series, our "June gloom" is setting in.  In June we end up with a marine layer setting in most of the day, which leaves our days mostly overcast.  This does not work well with my tintype project.

I find with the emulsion I'm using to coat my tins, the emulsion has been estimated at approximately ISO 50, which means it has a very low sensitivity to light and needs more light in order to expose an image correctly.  I have to set my Holga to "B," which stands for "bulb," meaning that the shutter will stay open as long as I have the shutter release button depressed.  Any faster shutter speed doesn't allow enough light into the camera to expose the tin.  So my images also have to be taken while the camera is secured on a tripod to minimize movement.

So when I go to shoot any image -- landscape/portrait/whatever -- I have to estimate the amount of time I hold the shutter release button down.  Too little time and the image turns out way underexposed; too much time and the image ends up way too light.  This actually is the reverse from regular photography because of the nature of the emulsion.

But this is all new territory for me, and I'm enjoying the trial-and-error process that is necessary in order to make this work.

Holga tintype series.

One of the interesting things I find about this tintype business is that all your images are reversed so that if you have some writing in the photo, it will appear backwards.  This is true of all the images; so when I look at a street scene I shot, everything is in reverse.

I'm trying this project out on people as well.  Because of the low ISO of the emulsion (how sensitive it is to light), I have to keep the shutter open longer than is normally possible for a crisp, focused image.  It's hard not to shake a bit, or the subject will move just a little.  But with this first portrait attempt, I'm realizing what I need to do to make it a stronger image:  first is to put the camera back on the tripod, and second I need to expose the image just a little longer.  When this tintype process, the longer the plate is exposed to light, the lighter the image becomes, which is completely reversed from normal darkroom work.

But I'm liking the ethereal quality of the image as a first try.  I will be working with more people, I can tell.

Carlos.

Carlos is another young guy I was able to shoot for the outreach project I'm working with.  This project is aimed at young Latino and black gay/bi men who might be engaging in risky behavior and offers them an alternative social setting.

This last image I know goes against a number of different photographic rules, one of which is not to blow out the image.  However, in view of one of the aims of this outreach program being to draw young men away from a possible life of drugs, I really like this image as it gives me the feeling of being strung out after a drug run and how raw and stark everything appears.

Sergio.

On the project that I am working on in conjunction with a local outreach project seeking to help young Latino and black gay/bi men find healthier ways of living than the hard party life, I just shot Sergio.

Conrad, 25.

I'm starting a new project for a local organization reaching out to young men of the LGBT community.  Conrad is the first of my subjects that I've worked with.

Gary Ochoa.

One of my last posts was about an artist I'd been introduced to, Gary Ochoa.  He lives in a great place called the Santa Fe Art Colony, a place where artists live and work together in this old brick warehouse-turned-artists'-lofts.  We spent quite a while talking, and I was able to shoot away as we went.  I love the active feeling of these images versus the standard stationary portraits.  I'm looking forward to shooting more this way and seeing what develops.

 

 

 

James

James is a guy I just shot for my senior LGBT series.  What I like about this process is the chance to spend time with new people and get a chance to get to know them a little.  I've heard over and over -- and I'm learning now -- is the important part of the shoots are the relationships you build with your subject.