a tenable peace

Fotographia

A year ago I had my first camera CLA’d (Cleaned, Lubed, and Adjusted). That Canon EF continues to serve me well. Today, one year later, I have 6 cameras, a deli drawer in our fridge full of film, and an unabashed love of photography. I would never say that I am actually a photographer, but I’ll always say that I have had a great amount of fun taking pictures or snapshots of my life over the last year. I have found myself becoming increasingly frustrated though. Frustrated with my lack of creativity, my lack of vision, my lack of…something. While this sometimes is apparent to me in when I have a vision of how a photograph should look but I can’t get it just right, most of the time it’s more apparent when I can’t get a vision of how the photograph should be at all. I told my wife one time that I was frustrated because I felt like all my pictures looked like snapshots. She replied, “but they are snapshots” and she’s exactly right. Maybe, for now, that’s my photographic “style.” The problem is that I don’t necessarily like that style, it’s just easier for me than to carefully plan out every picture on every roll of film or memory card. My goal for the next year is to plan more carefully when I shoot pictures. My wife will love this idea because it means I’ll take fewer pictures and develop less film. I think it will be more effective for me than the “spray and pray” technique practiced by so many, including myself. My other goal is to develop a real “vision” or “style” for my photography over the next year.

Here two photographers that, IMO, have an incredible photographic vision or style (is it a coincidence they both shoot mostly film?):

Zeb Andrews: This guy takes great shots using all (or mostly?) film cameras. Beyond his amazing photos, I think he also has a great philosophy on photography in general.

Wallace Billingham: Incredible long exposure Holga nature photography mostly taken in northwestern PA close to my hometown.

A realization

I think that I’ve finally realized that I don’t really want to do “bench” science anymore. It’s been a long time coming and yet I still struggle with it. I feel that I’ve put so much of my heart and soul into my work at the bench, and so saying I no longer want to [...]

Hope and a change

People read blogs that they can relate to. In order for people to relate to a blog, it has to have a purpose – a reason for existing. Otherwise what’s the point? I can blog about all these little things that happen to me during my day and does anyone really care? No probably not. [...]

Resolutions

One of my resolutions this year was to blog more. Yes I know – that’s a lot of people’s resolution and so in the month of January the internet gets clogged with extra resolution posts. Part of this blogging resolution was also to take more photographs. Recently, I re-found my dad’s old Canon EF in [...]

Pumpkin Spice Ale Initial Impressions

After three torturous weeks in the bottle, I broke out the pumpkin spiced ale that I brewed a couple weeks ago.  My first impressions were that overall, it’s a very drinkable ale with a slight aftertaste of spices. At first impressions, the beer was still a little hazy, but had very good head retention (from [...]