La Macchina Fotografica

The Perfect Age for a Boy

Mark — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:26:22 +0000

We used to have this hole in the backyard. It was meant to be a new drainage area for the septic system and was one of the many of dad’s unfinished projects. He’d always get jazzed up about one thing or another and we’d spend a weekend digging holes or re-roofing the house or sawing wood or banging nails into this or that. I always knew he was serious when he’d remove his shirt and put a sweatband around his forehead. Normally a crewcut engineer with a pocket protector and slide rule, it was not a reassuring sight. If you’ve ever seen Michael Douglas in Falling Down, you’ll know what I mean. He was a weekend warrior with a very short expiration date. Once Monday morning came and he put on his name badge and pocket protector the project was over, whether it was finished or not. And it was never finished. That’s why there was a big hole in the yard for about fifteen years.

One day, long after the hole was started—when I was the ugly age of fifteen—I decided to burn all my airplane models. Some years earlier, when I was eleven, those airplanes were my pride and joy. I especially loved the WWII fighters—P-38 Lightnings, P-51 Mustangs, and, of course the glorious Spitfires. I had them hanging from the ceiling of my bedroom. They were all there, in an eternal and frozen dogfight. I’d look up at them in the middle of the night and pretend I was in one of the cockpits, a hero in the midst of an ace maneuver. Anytime a visitor came into my room they looked up in amazement at the expertly-painted and painstakingly-constructed planes. Then one day I grew up, got sick of them all and burned them—in the big hole in the backyard.

At the age of eleven, everything was just about right in life. It was before girlfriends and cars and peer pressure. Fun was playing a board game on Friday night or maybe Pinocle with my grandmother and her friends. There was no booze or lust. Cynicism was rare. I liked to build model planes and hang them from the ceiling. When I’d finished one, the next big goal in life was to start another.

A few months ago at an air show, at the age of 53, I saw my first Spitfire in person. Coming through the gates I saw it right away and ran up to it. “Jeez!” I proclaimed in my eleven-year-old voice. It all came back. I could see my own, miniature Spitfire hanging from black thread and a thumbtack. I recalled how carefully I’d painted the camouflage. My daydream was jolted when the real plane’s propellor began to turn. The aircraft roared down the runway and flew into the sky. “Jeeeeeeeez!” I said again as I photographed every minute of its ascent into heaven. Ten minutes later it was gone except for the smell of its exhaust fumes. It disappeared to the south.

When I could no longer hear the Spitfire, I wondered why I’d burned all those models. I so wanted them back again. Then I remembered the acrid smell of the burning plastic and winced. I’d never want to be fifteen ever again. But eleven, now that was the perfect age. It was right around then that we started digging the hole in the backyard. I suppose, by now, it’s all filled in, at least I hope so.

The Spectacle and the Fair A fair! There is nothing like it to stir the...

As the Reflection Fades…

Mark — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:34:37 +0000

I often find myself out on a limb—way off on a tangent. It’s a borderline condition, not enough OCD for medication, but I do obsess a bit much on my art projects. Then—poof—they burn out like a pop of flash powder. So is it with my window-reflections series.

I have no idea from where these things come. Such is the mercurial nature of creativity. I suppose my fascination with shop-window reflections originates from an early and consistent love of the Eugene Atget. His Parisian windows are among the most haunting images I’ve ever known. He was reportedly a shy man who preferred to photograph a deserted Paris in the early hours of the day. His loneliness shows in most every image and proves to me that what we choose to photograph is really, and ultimately, ourselves.

And so it is that today I end my recent adventures down the rabbit hole of reflective images. Readers of this blog have suffered enough. Tomorrow it’s back to the rock-solid world. The earth shall be firm under my feet. Everything will be clear and understandable. Life will make sense. The camera shall reveal all. Goodbye reflections.

Poof.

A good photograph is like a good hound dog, dumb, but eloquent. – Eugene Atget

A Reflection of Me, A Reflection of You The camera makes me feel like a skulking voyeur. Pointing...
Interlude Sometimes I got so involved with a project, theme, or...
Deep into a Morning’s Reflection Staring at the edge of the canal I look down...

Looking at Me Looking at You

Mark — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:30:28 +0000

It’s a brisk day in Northern California. I pull my coat collar tight up to my neck. This stops the downward draft that goes all the way to my waist. The overall visual effect makes me look like one of those little spies in Spy vs. Spy (Mad Magazine, circa 1968). On this day, I feel like the black spy waiting for the white spy’s engagement. I prowl the sidewalks on the balls of my feet—the way cats do.

I look at a shop window and into my reflection. I’m missing my fedora, a dandy Borsalino that I found in Verona on a distant day when I was then, too, cold and brooding. Today I wear a baseball cap, a feeble substitute. I wonder why I don’t wear the fedora more often, but, elegant hats in America just don’t seem right. My reflection looks less like a spy and more like a typical Marin County male just past his prime.

I shake myself of my self-absorption long enough to notice a woman. She’s also looking at my reflection.Given that I’m wearing sunglasses I don’t think she knows that I’m looking back at her. It is an eery encounter. I lift my camera gently, focus…and squeeze the shutter release. She’s still staring so I make five more images.

I walk off. And I wonder about her and her life’s story, figuring we’ll never cross paths again. Then I return to my spy fantasy and look for another window and another reflection. By now my collar has fallen so I pull it up again. The draft is yet again uncomfortable.

Reflection in a Blue Car Like a snapshot, my reflection catches me in a moment...
Deep into a Morning’s Reflection Staring at the edge of the canal I look down...
Curious about Pole Dancing? Suburbia. It feels like a dream in which a towering...

Moving In

Mark — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:33:56 +0000

I saw three big cameras at the farmer’s market this weekend. It seemed to make the photographers imposing and separate from the life of the market. Lenses are getting longer and bulkier. It used to be that a zoom lens was an extravagance—it was most certainly a tradeoff in quality. Back in my youth, most serious photographers used prime lenses because zooms were so unsharp. Now everyone seems to use a zoom lens. I do, though with ambivalence.

While zoom lenses are enormously helpful, they do tend to keep us away from our subjects. It’s so much easier to zoom in than it is to move in. But, moving in is where the action is. Moving in takes interaction and courage. There is nothing worse than a portfolio of people images, all photographed with a long-focal-length lens. The detachment and sterility are palpable.

Move in. I remind myself of this constantly. Sometimes I do, other times I succumb to the shyness and laziness of staying back letting the lens to the work. Moving in forces an interaction between camera and subject. The camera becomes part of the stage, the unseen actor that provokes reaction.

One of the best-known encounters with camera is exhibited in the famous photo of Joseph Goebbels by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Shot in Geneva in 1933, Goebbels glares at Eisenstaedt as the photographer moves in with his camera. It is chilling preview of Nazi horrors to come. Eisenstaedt, a Jew, courageously intruded into Goebbels personal space to evoke the hidden veracity of the Nazi regime. A long lens would have yielded nothing more than a tabloid-style throw-away image. Instead, we see truth.

This weekend at the market I tried to move in whenever possible. The result is today’s image of one of the market workers as he looked up at me for a spit second. For that moment we saw each other, interacted, and acknowledged each other’s existence. I don’t think it’s a deep photo, but it does have power—thanks to moving in.

Moving Gasping for breath on steep inclines, I tend to chatter...
A Moment Soon Gone There are times in a photographer’s life when the...
“Just What Are You Doing?” I stand there with my big, nerdy camera and they...

Fear and Photography

Mark — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:58:38 +0000

Carrying a camera around in a public place is tricky business. Sometimes I think people assume the worst in the person behind the lens. The world of paparazzi and hysterical mass media have made us wary of everything and everyone. Try carrying a tripod around a few major buildings in a big city and watch the reaction. Most likely a security guard will pop up out of nowhere and tell you to go away. When a society assumes the worst, it usual realizes its expectations. Sadly, fear is big business.

The fear of photography gives me angst. My camera and I are simply trying to find that little sliver of a moment when people become themselves. Sadly, cameras can get in the way of the treasure hunt. People stiffen, sometimes smile, other times scowl. They tend to look at the camera askance, out of the corner of the eye. While the reaction to the camera is part of the reality of the moment, my goal is to trigger the shutter just before that happens. While my intentions are good, it makes me feel more like a hunter than an artist.

The world of photography is partly to blame for the hostility towards it. Photography can be aggressive and invasive. Examine, for a moment, the language of photography. We capture images, take photos, and shoot our subjects. The term, snapshot, is borrowed from the sport of gun shooting. I know not why these terms were adopted by photographers. However, I try never to use them.

Who among us wants to be shot, captured, and taken?

Relics of Fear The crumbling bunkers and batteries tell no lies. Amidst the...
Somnambulance & Photography A photograph is a facsimile of a moment, something elusive...
Grandness in Photography Photography has always had a love affair with the American...

Outside Looking In

Mark — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:34:05 +0000

Outside looking in. Fourth Street is dead on the Monday of a three-day weekend. There is a sterile scent of nothingness in the air. I escaped from the studio to see the world and the world stayed home. I’m just slightly out-of-sync on the tail end of a twilight-zone holiday.

President’s Day weekend is among the strangest long weekends. Not exactly the birthday of any one president, it is little more than an excuse for ski weekend. No one seems to even think of Washington or Lincoln or anyone other president. On the way to San Rafael I did see one of those tea-party guys hang a pathetic little “Impeach” sign on a chain-link fence along Highway 101. I give him credit. At least he was thinking about presidents on President’s Day. But his creepy little sign just added to the weirdness of the abandoned day.

Outside looking in. There’s nothing left to do but smoosh my face against empty shop windows. Every light in every window is off. Dark. I come upon a closed, glass door. Inside is a stairwell littered with old magazines and phone books. I ask myself why they’re there. Then I imagine one of those old black & white TV shows from my youth where some guy (me) is about to realize that there was a nuclear war and he’s the sole survivor. I wonder how old the magazines are.

Right around noon a couple shops open. The world transforms from monochrome to color. I awaken from my B-grade fantasy and realize that I haven’t given one thought to a single president, dead or alive. The day remains a mystery as do the old magazines behind the glass door. Outside looking in.

Doors to Somewhere I was in San Francisco last month making photos while...
Forgotten and Used-Up Consumers. In a recession it’s all about consumers. The consumers...
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A Reflection of Me, A Reflection of You

Mark — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:50:09 +0000

The camera makes me feel like a skulking voyeur. Pointing the damned thing at people makes them nervous. Therefore, I oftern walk around with my camera as if I were a cat tiptoeing on a sheet of aluminum foil. Cat owners who have actually seen their feline doing this will appreciate what I mean. More times than not, I want to be invisible.

When I feel myself getting shy or paranoid I start photographing my reflection. I’m a willing subject, even when I’m cranky, and I really don’t care what I look like in my images. Sometimes the worse I look the better the image is.

Besides being a convenient method of self-portrait, the reflection deepens the complexity of an image and reveals the elusiveness of reality. Children intuitively grab at reflections like they do soap bubbles. Both are elusive. Children understand the multiple planes of reality.

A reflection is so deep and complex that each viewer sees something different in it. Whether our own reflection is bouncing back at us or not, reflections are mirrors of our soul. We see into them what we must. And so I photograph them as often as I can, especially when I feel that blasted aluminum foil under my feet.

A lot of my early work, especially the reflections, was about what I call the surrealism of everyday life…picking out the strangeness in the world we live in. Those doors are doors that could lead you to other worlds, or what is behind what is in front of you. – Stephanie Torbert

Reflection in a Blue Car Like a snapshot, my reflection catches me in a moment...
Is This Real? Reflections are elusive. They seem one step removed from reality....
Deep into a Morning’s Reflection Staring at the edge of the canal I look down...

A Moment Soon Gone

Mark — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:44:36 +0000

There are times in a photographer’s life when the light is so exquisitely right that it aches. When the right light combines with a compelling subject one can feel an alchemical change occurring. Clicking the shutter becomes an intoxication, something we must do. Endorphins rush into the brain. It’s heady stuff.

Regardless of where we are or what we are doing, it always starts with the light. We photographers are the sentinals of electromagnetic radiation as it dances around the universe. It is wrong to think, however, that photographers are simply observers of light. We know from the study of quantum physics that the observer never merely observes. She changes the nature of the observed. Pull out a camera and it changes everything. I have spent most of my life pondering whether this is a good or bad thing. I suspect it is neither, simply a fact that needs to be recognized.

The very nature of capturing something and freezing it forever is unnatural. It is toying with space and time. Photographers are tricksters. If we’d been alive during the Inquisition we’d have been burned at the stake for heresy. There are so many photographs on the planet now that we’ve become numb to their power. Yet, our unconsciousness is unfortunate. Not only do we alter reality with our camera, the photos we make come back around and alter us. They change our perception of everything.

Standing still at the farmer’s market last weekend I was struck by the light as it passed through the morning fog. I began to feel the rush of the moment. Light and subject were converging. A family walked by. I made an image of a sublime moment that might now last forever.

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. – Dorothea Lange

Moment of Convergence A delivery truck speeds by. A man crosses the street...
Moving In I saw three big cameras at the farmer’s market this...
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Curious about Pole Dancing?

Mark — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:44:22 +0000

Suburbia. It feels like a dream in which a towering mountain of wet wool buries my sorry soul deep within it. In that dream I poke my head out of the suffocating mass of animal fur. I am nearly decapitated by a black SUV as it rushes past me. Some crazed woman is taking her child to piano lessons…and she’s running late. Welcome to my suburban postcard from hell.

Deep within this mass of conformity there are pockets of resistance. Yesterday, emphatically not in a dream, I meandered around downtown San Rafael. I stopped in my tracks and blinked. No, I really was awake.

“Curious about…pole dancing?” asked the little handmade sign in the shop window.

Not only was there a book on the art of pole dancing, there were several intriguing outfits of the garter-belt variety. Feeling warm in my overcoat, I looked around to see if anyone was watching me. I stared at the window and deeply into my imagination. A daytime dream emerged. This one has me in a crosswalk. Suddenly one of those SUV mothers ran me over and then got out of her black, suburban-warfare tank. She was dressed in a pole dancing outfit and asked me, “Curious about…pole dancing?” I blinked and shook off the daymare.

Suburban living has its challenges.

Reflections of a Telephone Pole When I was a very young boy, a neighborhood kid...
The Dream of the Dancing Ceiling The equinox has passed. As days lengthen into summer the...
Deep into a Morning’s Reflection Staring at the edge of the canal I look down...

Who Ate the Berries?

Mark — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:12:18 +0000

Regular readers of this blog know of the Pyracantha Caper. For some time, someone had been decorating an agave plant along the old rail bed near our home with pyracantha berries. The berries were placed onto the thorny spikes of the agave in a somewhat festive manner. I decided to augment this clandestine activity with a flourish of my own berry decorations. It was a good way to spend that otherwise dull week between Christmas and the new year. I’d hoped others would participate in this secret, suburban art project. Alas, no one did.

I revisited the agave plant a week after my lonely decorating party, my heart bursting with expectation. Not only did no one add berries to the thorny plant, someone or some creature removed all of them that I’d applied. I’m officially blaming the smart-alecky birds that terrorize these parts and I’m accusing them of being the perpetrators. And, it’s not only the crows. One would expect that kind of misbehavior from those bad boys. The truth is that there are lots of birds of all kinds around here that eat the fermenting pyracantha berries and then dive-bomb my truck with their berry-stained poop. I can deal with the red plops on the truck. But, did they have to eat my suburban art project?

See for yourself. I have photographic evidence. Those birds are lucky that all the shooting I do around here is with a camera. Thanks to the drunk birds (some who have flown into our picture window while inebriated) all the berries are gone from the art project and the trees. Therefore, readers take note: there will be no more suburban pyracantha art projects until late fall.

The Pyracantha Caper It all started last Christmas but I’d long forgotten about...
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