120mm, Yountville, CA  1982

I don't know that I fell in love with photography all at once. My first love in art was with painting, specifically spray painting large canvases I stretched myself.

But as a student in class photography began to take hold as I learned the darkroom, chemistry and optics, and the medium began to seduce me with its charms. I learned that by leaving a print in the developer longer as the image came up I could get a richer black, that I could vary the contrast of a black and white image and control the overall color by what toner I used in what concentration and for how long. This was a gradual realization that photography was capable of being very beautiful, rich and rewarding when practiced with skill.

8 x 10 in Western MA about 1990

I gravitated towards larger format over those years, drawn by a slower pace, a camera on a tripod and exposure time spread out often over several seconds. I liked the challenge of making a good print, the craft and even the difficulty for I was learning in the late 60's and early 70's that mastering this medium was hard, that commonplace photography was easy but that really great photography took patience and depth of understanding. And practice, practice practice!

8 x 10 Blackwater Dam, NH about 1997

I found it a great challenge to harness the light, the focal length and aperture settings, the right view camera movements, the right film developing and then to use an expanding set of skills to work the paper and chemicals in the darkroom to get a fine print. It was not easy to become a master photographer.

All this became a singular obsession as photography took hold. For the first time in my life I was a good student, applying theory and criticism into practice and actuality. 

Now, it is all different, although I lean on years of experience to tell me what a good print looks like. I thoroughly respect what we have now, an amazing ability to make a final image exactly as we want it to be, to make adjustments on a very fine scale, with software, sliders and a good calibrated screen. But somehow our digital process is a little colder, a little more analytical and therefore a little less passionate.

Still love the medium? Absolutely. But I believe we are where the ends justify the means for I am making photographs now that are of such consummate quality that they relegate older film-based photographs of mine as vintage and good for their day but not as good as what is possible now. I would include 25 years of output from 8 x 10 film in that mix.   

Digital, Imperial Sand Dunes, CA 2013

Digital, Nantucket, MA 2014

Digital, Somerville, MA 2017

Digital, San Jose, CA  2018

Of course, I've only addressed my own work and history here, not extrapolating out to this "then versus now" comparison in the work of others or the huge changes to the medium itself. Perhaps this should be another post and I wonder if you'd like to weigh in here in the question of what we have gained but also lost in recent times. Nostalgia for an old system, quaint and archaic? Or "get with the program", don't look back, relegate history to the dumpster because its irrelevent and move on.

As always: Neal's email

Boston Up

I took some photographs to the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) this week for a show that will be up through the winter. I am showing with longtime friend Peter Vanderwarker. The BSA is planning an opening reception for January 30th.

The show features work I made in 70mm black and white infrared film in the early eighties of downtown Boston. It is called Boston Up.

If you don't know of the BSA they offer a wide variety of programming, classes, lectures, and exhibitions, all centered around the built environment. They are on Congress Street in Boston.

The Boston Society of Architects/AIA is committed to professional development for our members, advocacy on behalf of great design, and sharing an appreciation for the built environment with the public at large.
Established in 1867, the BSA today consists of nearly 4,500 members and produces content for a diverse array of programs and publications, including ABX and ArchitectureBoston.
A chapter of the American Institute of Architects, it is a nonprofit, professional-service organization.
The BSA is located at BSA Space. BSA Space features more than 5,000 square feet of gallery space for creative explorations of the potential of design to inspire, create community and transform the world we inhabit. BSA Space is also home to the BSA Foundation (formerly the Boston Foundation for Architecture).

For more information and open hours please go to: Boston Society of Architecture

This was my last day in Paradise, Day 4. Although cut short by rain in the afternoon, some of what I was able to get to in the morning was grim.

Much of this, of course, had a purpose, was purchased at some point, used by human hands for some reason, stored away for use another day, now rubble, debris in a disaster zone.

Three deer came by while I was photographing, foraging and perhaps looking for a handout.

Just before the rain started I ended up in a higher-end neighborhood, with gated driveways, security systems and views out over the canyon, homes perched on the edge.

These are places I wouldn't have been allowed close to before the fire, now, in a perverse form of democracy, wide open, gates unlocked, nothing for robbers to steal.

That's it for the photographing part, the acquiring of photographs, just really the first phase of a project. Next when home I will edit and edit and edit, an endless process of working on the imagery to refine the work to an essence, a core group of pictures that say best, that speak to my intention. For this group I will write the story as well with the idea that perhaps this work deserves attention as a published piece. Not my field or area of expertise. We will see.

With a little research you can delve into the politics behind this particular fire, the worst in Caifornia's recorded history.

The fire caused at least 86 civilian fatalities, with 3 persons still missing, injured 12 civilians, two prison inmate firefighters, and three other firefighters. It covered an area of 153,336 acres, and destroyed 18,804 structures, with most of the damage occurring within the first four hours. As of November 19, insured damage was estimated to be $7.5–10 billion.

Source: Wikipedia

Was this fire preventable? How did it start and who is liable? Could the town and state have prepared better, plotted a safer and more effective evacuation plan? Will Paradise rebuild?

Thanks for coming along. I appreciate your being a subscriber to the blog.

Overwhelmed. I think that was it. Photographing in Paradise for several days got to me. Scene of the infamous Camp Fire. So much destruction. 

At any rate, I've been staying in Red Bluff, about an hour away. Why? Because forget finding anything in Chico, the closest town, because so many displaced Paradise residents are living there now. The commute each am and pm is long, two lane, straight and flat. I am in Central Valley, the huge agricultural region inland from the coast in California. On the morning of Day 3 I began photographing along the way to Paradise (putting off the drive up the ridge to town?). Row after row of nut trees, almond and walnut, some fruit orchards, all bare, in January.

 Rural farmland mostly. Open and expansive, a river valley in large scale with distant mountains on either side. And very beautiful.

Why stray from the stated mission to photograph the effects of the Camp Fire in Paradise? For a reprieve, a break, to come back to beauty, some serenity and sense that all is right in the world. For things are very wrong in Paradise and I don't know that it can ever be made right again.

Padlocks on a fence overlooking the canyon in Paradise.

Wooden crosses on the side of the road into Paradise to commemorate the 88 killed in the fire.

Mailboxes at the entrance to a retirement community leveled by the fire.

Last day today, Day 4. Back to Paradise as a wrap up, to take one more look, to see if I missed anything.

Flight from Boston to San Francisco uneventful. Stayed in the Bay Area with my sister in El Cerrito then drove north to Paradise through the flat agricultural Central Valley filled with row after row of fruit and nut trees. Everything looking tinder dry and brown as I drove up the ridge into town. 

Initially, I wasn't sure I was seeing the effects of the fire, not until I noticed trunks of trees that were charred. Because of high winds a firestorm may be moving so fast it can leave trees singed but still standing. This is the case in Paradise, the site of California's worst fire on record. 

The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history to date. The fire started on November 8, 2018, in Butte County, in Northern California. After exhibiting extreme fire behavior, an urban firestorm formed in the densely populated foothill town of Paradise.The fire caused at least 86 civilian fatalities, with 3 persons still missing, injured 12 civilians, two prison inmate firefighters, and three other firefighters. It covered an area of 153,336 acres , and destroyed 18,804 structures, with most of the damage occurring within the first four hours. As of November 19, insured damage was estimated to be $7.5–10 billion. The fire reached 100 percent containment after seventeen days on November 25, 2018.*

*Source: Wikipedia

First Impression

As I approached town, it quickly was clear where I was, as almost everything had burned.

The central street of the town sits along the top of a ridge and as I drove up the town's main street called Skyway the devastation is everywhere.

The Happy Garden Chinese Restaurant

A motel

Here I was just scouting, trying to grasp the extant of the damage, thinking what it must have been like, having to flee, Skyway Road backed up with vehicles,  homeowners and businesses alike, everyone evacuating, leaving everything behind, raging fires on either side. Some were trapped in their cars, gridlocked, some abandoned their vehicles and escaped on foot, nowhere to go and nowhere to escape. Imagine. The fire raging around you, looking like night in the middle of the day, your own town, propane tanks exploding, plastic signs melting, embers flying over you, the air thick with smoke. And the wind, fanning the fire, urging it on to the next and then the next, the fire raging through the town, consuming everything in its path. A nightmare.

Paradise, California, a town that doesn't really exist anymore.

I will be back again later this morning and am flying today to make aerials out of Chico Airport, the closest to Paradise.