Boat, Accabonac Harbor – Thoughts on Verticals

This very slender image of a boat was taken on the same foggy morning as the last two photographs.  Here’s another variation:

http://johntodaro.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=6475

With images like these I can’t deny that a lifelong interest in Japanese painting still provides inspiration.  Maybe “information” is just as appropriate as “inspiration” because what I’m remembering is an esthetic approach rather than specific paintings.

In the 70′s I discovered the Freer Gallery in Washington and museums with similar work in NYC. The Japanese paintings I was looking at were centuries old but had a sophistication and contemporariness that I couldn’t find in European art.  In my twenties, I couldn’t get enough of the stuff, particularly the verticals. The result has been a thirty year affinity with the idea of formatting photographs in this manner, especially if they’re monochromatic.

There are connections between Japanese design elements and American photography because interest in both arrived here at around the same time. Early painterly work by Alfred Stieglitz followed on the heels of impressionism and it’s affinity for things Japanese. More specific was Minor White’s imagery which its obvious connections to Zen Buddhism. My own teacher Anthony Nobile was an associate of White’s along with fellow student Paul Caponigro. A third student was the late Zen Buddhist roshi John Daido Loori whose ties with White continued to inform his photography until his final days.

My teacher, Anthony Nobile made beautiful black and white images of waterfalls and formatted them as simple verticals. One such image was published in a book entitled Octave of Prayer which is sadly out of print. I can tell you that thirty years later the memory of that photograph still invigorates the way I compose a picture including the one at this post.

Perhaps the modern world with all its clutter is constantly in need of an antidote. Japanese brush paintings are one such remedy. Photography provides another.

Louse Point Boat – Foggy Silhouettes

This photograph is of the same boat in my earlier post and was shot on the same morning in a dense fog which the sun was burning off. The slightly warm look of these photographs is entirely natural. Basically, I photographed into the sun’s watery reflection creating foggy silhouettes.

What’s interesting about these photos is the difference a lens can make in the interpretation of a scene. The earlier photograph was taken with a telephoto lens (135mm equivalent on a 35mm camera) and this one was taken with a “normal” lens (40mm equivalent on a 35mm camera).

An  analogy is to think of the actual scene as the musical score. One’s selection of a lens can change the “feel” of the scene much in the same way that various instruments will change the feel of a score.

Photography 101 – Anthony’s Scissors

This begins a series of very basic pictures.

The images are monochromatic renditions of boats in the fog from a recent morning in Springs. Considering that it’s my 101st post here on WordPress there couldn’t be a more appropriate title than “Photography 101″.

All of us who take pictures with any kind of serious interest can benefit by being both teacher and student.  We remind ourselves what works behind the camera and then we pay attention. When we get out there with our cameras in a “101 state of mind” we start to see things better.

What works best for me is keeping things simple.

What that means is eliminating everything that’s not needed in the picture. In some cases that means eliminating 90% of your photograph (which is not easy). You get attached. You want all of it… the sky, the clouds, the water. But part of you knows it doesn’t work.  Getting rid of the clutter isn’t always easy because it requires a critical eye. It calls for non attachment.

A long time ago I was taking one of Anthony Nobile’s workshops. Our assignment was to take a black and white picture, develop it and return the following week.  I still have a distinct memory of working on my own picture. After a few days, the group of us gathered again in the garage where he conducted classes. Our chairs were pulled into a close circle around a portable heater.  Tony was an unorthodox instructor who spoke with very careful language so we were on the edge of our seats.

I remember him leafing though our pictures while his cat brushed against our shins. The room was quiet – monasterial.  After a few moments, he selected a landscape and held it up. Then we watched as he cut out a small rectangle with a pair of scissors. He raised the cut-up print looking something like a rogue priest holding the Eucharist.

All he said was,  ”this works.”

It wasn’t religion (thank goodness) but it was a game changer for me. Someone else’s print had been cut up, but it could just as well have been mine. Tony’s pair of scissors ushered in a lengthy period of ripping up my own prints that lasted a couple of years. Occasionally there were some good moments – times when I pulled a picture out of the developer that actually worked.

It was around then that I began to understand the nature of simplicity in photography. That was 35 years ago and I’m still in 101.

Fish Traps – Long Beach, Sag Harbor

My 100th post. Thanks to all who have stopped by!

This photograph is of a group of trap stakes forming the leader for what has been called a “fish trap” here on eastern Long Island for as long as anyone can remember. The picture in my previous post will give you an idea what the complete trap looks like from the water.  My friend Brad Loewen, (a lifetime commercial fisherman in Springs) told me recently that the more proper name is pound traps — a term rarely used here unless it’s in an “official” conversation.

It was only after talking to Brad, that I gained an appreciation for the amount of work that’s involved in preparing these stakes. For years, fisherman have been harvesting young oaks and hickories and shaping them into twelve foot poles, shaving each to a pointed end. The final step in the process involves pumping them into the mud of shallow bays…a tiring job done from a boat (which sends the fisherman home with a ravenous appetite!)

Sometimes when hiking along the bay I’ve stumbled upon groups of freshly honed trap stakes lying above the tideline. The poles are ready to go, complete with rigging.  In a day or so, the fisherman will return to drag his stakes offshore to be installed in a fish trap. I’ve often noted how these poles (with their bluntly sharpened tips) seem to closely resemble the small trees felled by beavers.

Fishermen like Brad are maintaining an age-old occupation which has been carried on here since before the arrival of Europeans.

Incidentally, Brad’s wife Cyndi is an outstanding  watercolorist and stipple artist and we’ll be doing a show together at Ashawagh Hall on the weekend of February 18, 19 and 20 next year. More on that later…

Fish Traps – Northwest Creek East Hampton (photographed with the Contax G2)

The Contax G 2 is one my film cameras. Please note the use of the present tense in that sentence. You can’t buy a new G2 anymore, but mine is far from retired and I’ve still got the stuff in my refrigerator (film, that is).

The Contax G2 was one of the last great cameras from the film years because it was a petite rangefinder with an impressive array of fast Zeiss lenses (21mm, 28mm, 50mm and 90mm). I never owned the 21mm which required a separate clip on viewfinder, but I still own the other three – a trio made with the finest optical glass and costing only a fraction of what they used to charge for the nearly identical lenses made for Leica. This picture was taken with the 28mm. You can still find lenses for the G2 but it will call for foraging around on Ebay.

Interestingly, my G2 lenses can be also mounted and used manually on my digital Panasonic Lumix G3, an option which I’ve not yet explored. To tell you the truth, I’m a little hesitant. Putting these lenses on a micro four thirds body means having to purchase an adaptor in order to install a titanium lens on a plastic camera. You end up with a cute little camera with really heavy boots.

My advice for anyone with these lenses is to go find some film. They still make it.

Five  years ago I was taking my G2 onboard my sea kayak in all sorts of strange conditions. The day I took this picture I’d paddled over to Shelter Island from near Alewife Brook in East Hampton. When I got back home the sun was going down and I carefully removed my camera from its dry sack and waded out to chest-deep water.  The G2 was one of the most ergonomic cameras made for hand-holding a picture.

More on fish traps in my next post…

November Light – Sagg Main Beach

This recent scene from Sagg Main demonstrates the sun’s current position relative to the beach at sunrise. It shines directly down the beach and sets the place ablaze. You won’t see that here in summer. Another interesting thing about the picture is the graceful pattern formed by the tire tracks – something which I’m usually trying to avoid!

 The picture was photographed with the Panasonic Lumix Gf2.

Sagg Main Beach – Photograph At Sunrise

In Sagaponack yesterday morning there was a conspicuous blanket of frost on the farm fields despite the presence of an offshore mist. The haze around the ocean these days is due to warmer water temperatures that have yet to catch up to the air. In a way, those conditions make this a November-specific picture.

btw… the photograph was taken with my Panasonic Lumix GF2 and a 14mm lens.

Sag Harbor Bay Sunrise

On Monday morning, I photographed the sunrise from the Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter Bridge. Even without a camera, the bridge is a good place to watch the morning begin.  Our most recent sunrises have been subtle events – clear, with only a smattering of clouds. That can be good especially for a more minimalist approach to the seascape.

Sunrise on Sunset Beach

Don’t let the name fool you.

Sunset Beach Road (in North Haven) can also be a good place to contemplate the sunrise.  If you’re on the beach here at dawn in November you’ll have the opportunity to observe the peninsula of Jessup’s Neck as it becomes illuminated in the first rays of morning sun. Jessup’s Neck is completely within the boundary of Morton National Wildlife Refuge and separates Noyack Bay from Little Peconic Bay.