Icehouse, Tyler, Texas.

Took a class downtown to an old ruined section of town for a session. Was pulling out to leave when I saw this from across the tracks. I thought it might dissolve when I got close but it didn't.

Peartree in 2012

Afternoon light. You can barely see a shadow of me and camera in the lower right. Sun was behind a screen of clouds.

Later-in-the-day shot a few days later. Sunlight is off the grass but on the pears and the treetrunk.

Fallen Pear branch this year. It broke last year but still is alive and well. Looks a little different every day.

The Photographer's Equinox.

Today. Tap water running 68 degrees out of the cold side in the darkroom. 68 is standard Kodak processing temperature.

This month.

OK. NOT this month. Negatives have been sitting next to the enlarger since I processed them in November. Shot in August at Lake Erie while we were up for the National Matches. Quite a struggle. I kept moving closer as the light got better and better and lost the shape of the leaves up above. When I proofed them I liked the first shot best. Might be a lesson in that.

My favorite pear tree in the whole world. We've had a long relationship. This week. Was back there the last two days. The peak of the bloom is just a couple of days. Might get a moonrise on Tuesday evening here. Rare that the bloom and the moon line up.

Our stairs and our personal pear tree. White cat out in the yard.

This is down below with another. Tossed a negative without the clouds. Hit three in a row in just a few minutes. The roof from the side, the gates and this.

Such an honest little field! The men who have worked it have been here all week. Yesterday one drove by to tell me they would leave the gate open for me when they left. Growing roses.

From top of the truck. Pretty windy so it isn't the sharpest. Whole image built around the gopher mounds.

Scanning proofs. Not any dodging or burning, though I do edit out a few spots here and there. Its just pretty late in life but I really feel like I am at the top of my game. Shooting single sheets of my holders. I've shot both sides for years but just gave that up this year. Trying to quit "worrying" the image so much, just see it and shoot.

All these negatives a very well behaved. Proofed on #2 paper. No printing problems ahead. Working with the light at the peak of its revealing quality, having it on my side in every negative.

Ebay News Photo Archives.

For an article in the Detroit Press Sunday Magazine about "beatniks." He isn't shaving. He's hanging out all day in the coffee shop drinking ice-cream shakes. I't's a travesty!

Ecological disaster. Ran in the Detroit paper March 24, 1949.

There are many newspaper archives going up on Ebay full of wonderful original prints. The physical condition ranges from pretty good to awful but the prices are very low for really historical artifacts. I think my oldest is 1929 and the newest 1968.

As much as I recommend avoiding looking at other artists work, if you are a working artist, (if it's good, you get influenced and if it's bad there's no point.), photographers MUST know, understand and love the visual process. I've got a little pile of striking images made in the Detroit area, WWII images, snow images, et. Quite wonderful examples of the photographic art made by photographers long since gone.

Early Boing 707 and a posed photo. I doubt he is really "working" on it.

Isn't this a wonderful posed photograph? Graflex 4X5 with a big flash bulb to fill the shadows. Just the kind of happy image an editor needs two or three per day.

Press photo of the auto buffet on a Chicago area train.

Heavily retouched Kingfisher from 1929!

Winter walker "weather shot for the Detroit paper in 1961.

God bless these good people who made these images.

Contact prints.

Here's a negative I acquired somewhere that was in my file un-proofed. Tyler from the air in the late 1950s or early 60s. The old Courthouse is gone and the new one built. Looking North along Fannin Street.

I've got a couple of pretty good original negatives in the files of historic Tyler.

I'll never get my negatives even contacted. The 4X5s are in boxes from the now-defunct Light Impressions numbering up into the 1500s. 5X7s are generally grouped in LI boxes by subject. All the 5X7 are contacted as I go along, so that's done. In the darkroom for an hour and a half this morning working on contacts of downtown Tyler, both old and new.

Copies of old photographs are usually bad. Copy negatives and even digital scans can't ever have any more information than the prints has, so each generation gets worse. Original prints from the original negative are the best way to go. Digitally, I would say scans from the negative are by far the best.

Barn Gates

Working at Clarksville during late deer hunting season.

This is a scan of a little non-dodged or burned 5X7 contact. I bet I can find a few things to intensify when enlarging. 5X7, HP5. Used polarizer to cut the contrast a little.

Here's a larger view done first:

Ansel Adams 110th birthday today.

On top of 4-Runner after a barn roof.

Contact print of one of the 5X7 negs.


Happy Birthday Ansel, and thanks for your good works.

Sans Lucy.

We are without our family member and burglar alarm...until Monday. Last Thursday she ran a suspicious-looking kid up the sidewalk and he called the police. She has to do seven days in quarantine at the vets, plus we have to pay a fine based on how contrite we are to the Municipal judge.

I'm carrying a pistol instead of having her along.

The Blackfork Guide for sale on Blurb.com

10 bucks off. About 1/3, which is a pretty good deal. Just put "SAVE10" in the coupon code when ordering. Only works for single copies it looks like. Good until the end of February.

Don't forget the electronic download for 1/99!

Photographers and their most famous image.

Interesting enough. Though it is usually a mistake for photographers to look at other photographers work: If it's great, they tend to copy it. If it's terrible, what's the point?

Ebay photos.

Dr. Sneed and I split a little Ansel Adams Yosemite print from the AA gallery. Then I found a W. Eugene Smith photo he had shot for Life Magazine that we got at a bargain. I'm always picking at cheap WWII photos. 12.00 and under. Some are really wonderful.

Here's "Killer" Joe Piro, a NY Coast Guardsman living it up at a USO dance contest in June of 1942. Original print. Probably a Graflex 4X5 with bulb flash.

Marine Cpl Jackie R. Perry from Dallas, Texas writing a letter home from a trench near the DMZ. He was lost two months later. This is a transmitted wirephoto- not on photo paper but on wirephoto stock. It has bleached out and will fade. Not worth paying much for wirephotos as they won't stand much light. Most likely the image is a 35mm film shot.

Post-WWII publicity shot of Jerry Colonna, Bob Hope's sidekick through many USO tours and movies. Probably an 8X10 contact.

Got a stack of others though I certainly miss some jewels because I'm not bidding very hard. I'd rather have these prints made for news than the modern archive reprints. I haven't had much luck with Owens Archive and others. One I won was a British Press photo that was a ferrotyped 11X14 with a wonderful range of tones. Amazing what is available.