The Kids Are Alright: Anna Kuperberg and Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine; Newsies at Skeeter’s Branch (They were all smoking), A.M. Monday, May 9, 1910; Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, National Child Labor Committee Collection, LC-DIG-nclc-03489

On Black Tuesday, November 28, 1939, the thick gray smoke billowing from the many coal-burning furnaces around St. Louis literally choked out the sun. Noontime on Black Tuesday was described to have looked like just after sunset. Resulting from this, the city passed stricter legislation requiring infrastructure change and the use of cleaner burning fuels, which had the support of residents, who had foresaw something of their possibly catastrophic future in “the day that the sun didn’t shine”. Sometimes it takes a dramatic gesture to stir change…

St. Louis in Black and White

On a recent outing with Photo Flood Saint Louis, I decided to break out the black and white film, and shot some in 35mm and 120mm. Working in film is a cathartic process; it forces you to slow down and consider your composition and exposure in a way that digital does not. Also, once you’ve taken the picture, you are released from it, at least until you begin to eventually unwind it from the spool after development. You must trust in your intimacy with the camera. How well you know your partner corresponds to how well your photograph will turn out in the end. With digital, it’s the opposite. Even after you’ve used a camera for an extended period, common practice is to distrust it; to check on what it has been up to immediately after you take the photograph.

Of course, realistically, neither process is “better” than the other. They are just evolved to different tasks: digital is the master of exact color reproduction and instantaneous results, whereas film is the master of inherent expressiveness and, for the most part, resolution. Whether you use either may depend upon what you plan to do with the results. Or, like me, maybe you just have an itch to slow things down a bit, and concentrate on the picture-making.

Scanning My Days Away, Part 2

As mentioned previously, I have been scanning in my darkroom prints to create a consistent digital record of my film work. This is the second update.

Miles Mausoleum, Again

Some of you might recall that post that I did some time ago on the Miles Mausoleum. Anyway, here are the first prints from that session (these are from the 35mm that I shot that day). Definitely more to come on these…

All Nikon 8008s with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens and Kodak T-Max 100 film.

Lindsey Davidson, Part 2

As promised, here is the second set of images from my recent shoot with Lindsey Davidson, photographer (and model 😉 ). These were all shot on 35mm film (Kodak T-Max 400) with a Nikon N80 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D or Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens.

More Men (not Mormon)

Last week, I posted a pic from a new series of photographs that I am working on. This week, I am showing off more shots of some of the men from the series, and next week, I hope to have some of the women ready to put on display. It is interesting to me to observe how differently the women versus the men approached posing for this; the women had a sort of default “pose-face” whereas the men kind of let their guard down a bit more. I guess that’s culture….

All Nikon N80 with the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G lens and Kodak T-Max 400 film. Prints are on Adorama-branded, variable-contrast, fiber paper. Please excuse my dusty and orientation-moody scanner.

Heavy Metal!!

Well, maybe not quite, but I did use copper to tone these. This is a short series (meaning these may be it; let me know what you think) in which I attempted to reduce real birds to 2D “cutouts”. I have been playing with the illusion of the real lately, in my photography, and I think that these are a good example of that.

“In painting, the curve is a hill; in photography, the hill is a curve.” -Arnaud Claass

All Nikon N80 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens and Kodak T-Max 3200 BW film.

More after the jump–>

Armour Meatpacking Plant

The Armour Meatpacking Plant in National City, Illinois rests its hulking, decayed mass on the former site of the National Stockyards. This complex, formerly consisting of crisscrossing train tracks, bellowing pigs, and the rhythmic clang of industrial machinery, represented the second largest hog processing center in the world (behind Chicago’s Union Stockyards). If you were wondering, it was Chicago’s Armour Meatpacking Plant location that inspired the colorful tale, “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair; one can only surmise that the conditions probably weren’t much different at this location.

In any case, the plant was abandoned in the 1950’s and it certainly looks that way. More information on this site can be read at Built St. Louis and at my friend’s site St. Louis Patina (if you haven’t checked out his site, definitely do!).

All shot with Nikon N80 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens on Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO film.

More after the jump–>

Back in Black (and White)

Here are my latest scans from my explorations around the STL of long ago. Enjoy!

All Nikon N80 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens and Ilford HP5+ 400 Film.

More after the jump–>

New Photographs

As promised, here is the first round of work that I have been producing on 35mm, black and white film. Last January, I enrolled in courses at the St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, which gave me access to a great, black and white film lab. Since then, I have been working on a group of pictures that centers around a wooded area in Forest Park (the urban park of St. Louis). I have made a few exceptions to that, as you will see. Enjoy.

All Nikon N80 or N8008s with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D or Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G lenses. All of the image are hand-developed and printed, and then scanned on an Epson Expressions 10000XL Scanner.