Sheila Newbery's "Ohio Woods"

Sheila Newbery, Nest, 2013

As I compile images for a lecture I will give next week in Cincinnati and eye the new fallen snow outside, Sheila Newbery's Ohio Woods is on my mind. From Sheila's artist statement:

"Ohio Woods is a selection of platinum-palladium prints of images made during a cross-country journey by train. The route was from New York City to San Francisco via Chicago: the first leg of the trip took us winding up the Hudson Valley on a spectacular January afternoon, but the brilliance of the day was soon obscured by heavy clouds sailing in from the west. By the time we reached the Ohio border, we were rolling through the woodlands under a veil of twilight snow; the train had slowed because of poor visibility; and everything had softened to a kind of translucence. I had an idea about how to make a few pictures..."

I only knew forest before moving to Indiana. Everything is dense in the Northwest and woods were not part of my periphery. Conifers are not the primary foliage here and the act of seeing through trees to parts of the landscape beyond, still startles me. The absence of leaves in the winter is stark and unwelcoming. It, coupled with the flat horizon, is deathlike in appearance. Perhaps that is why I searched for Robert Kennedy's funeral train photographs when I first encountered Sheila's work. Photographing this particular mode of transportation also recalls a less abstract version of Sharon Harper's Flight.

Ohio Woods is a close inspection of the view outside my window until late April in Indiana. It is Nancy Rexroth's Iowa in remembrance of Ohio. It is Masahisa Fukase's grainy trees without the ravens.  It is also on view in San Francisco this month. See it if you are there.

From the series Ohio Woods (all photos courtesy of Sheila's website).

Birds Part 2

Hmmm... I tend to post a lot of birds, balloons, and globes. Yes, I am fully aware of the symbolism.

Judy Linn, Chicken and Peacock, 1994

Greg Halpern, From A, 2011

Sarah Palmer from The Village of Reason

Laura McPhee, Mattie with a Northern Red Shafted Flicker, 2005

Josef Koudelka, Scotland, 1977

Ricardo Cases via.

Yola Monakhov, New Work

 

Katherine Wolkoff, Cardinal, Cardinalis, Cardinals, Found by David Lewis and Edward Conley. December 5, 1956. From the series Found.

Shelia Newbery, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Postcard Collective & Collections

Clockwise from top left: Sheila Newbery, Amelia Morris, and Camden Hardy.

I was so busy this summer that I knew I didn't have time to participate in the Summer Postcard Collective exchange. I didn't realize it until much later that the theme was "collections." I could have whipped something out in my sleep had I known that! Just kidding - that's not the way I operate. Many thanks to the people that sent me a card anyway. I'll be back for the Fall exchange. Indeed I will.

Society for Photographic Education National Conference

This is the first time Amelia and I stayed at the conference hotel since Denver in 2008. This is our view from the fifth floor (we didn't have the spectacular balcony that all of our friends and Sally Mann had for their viewing pleasure).


Hyatt Regency reading material as displayed by Amelia Morris.



Staying near the Ferry Building on Embarcadero was very convenient as there was good food to be had relatively cheaply for a downtown SF location (hello Cowgirl Creamery). Here is the Vaillancourt Fountain view from the Hyatt.


I would imagine that this was the most photographed lobby at any SPE conference in recent memory. Amelia and I stood here for 20 minutes staring at the light show our first night (we learned that it changed colors and shapes every few days). Amelia and I didn't spot one burned out bulb either!


The Hyatt Regency light show as Las Vegas also from the 5th floor.


My portfolio box with Amelia's business card, Amelia's Photoshop extravaganza printed on Photo Tex adhesive paper (my first attempt at this material in preparation for cat wall paper) and my Ed Ruscha postcard from SFMOMA.

Overall, this year's lectures were hit and miss. Many of the ones I wanted to see took place in the middle of reviewing student portfolios or having my work reviewed for the first time in ten years. The dominant theme (much to our annoyance) was photographers not showing any images choosing instead to talk about their work with the lights off (= instant snooze fest).

Amelia, Alexis, Laurie and I (along with two of my students and one of Alexis's) crammed our work into one large table at the entry way of the open portfolio walk-through Friday night.


I spent a lot of time looking at Laurie Blakeslee's new work (I love this print - the image is from an old Montgomery Ward catalog).


Amelia getting ready to show her portfolio. The big disadvantage of the Hyatt lobby was very poor lighting!


Cass Fey listening to Matt Compton talk about his BFA thesis work Average American.


Kellie Kuratko and her thesis work Memory Distortion.


The next day I showed my work to Chuck from SF Camerawork. He was relatively speechless with the David C. Nolan / Marilyn Monroe photographs and kept referring to them as "strange." The highlight of his conversation was mentioning the "physicality and materiality" of photographs as something he is seeing a lot of now. Because photography is immaterial (primarily seen virtually), more and more photographers are gravitating to making photographs about photographs and that is where this work fits in.


I had a great review with Chris from the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. He continually referred to the series as "strange." He had a number of ideas for presentation which I am seriously considering: it should exist as a book first and secondly in display case vitrines as an archive. He thought they were incredible from a design sense and liked cropping portions of the text. We ended our conversation with him telling me that the "photo's final resting place is as important as the photo itself" which I continue to think about regarding this work.

In any case, I promised both Chuck and Chris images of Aline's cat collection by the end of May. Self-imposed deadlines! No traveling in sight! Here's to getting some work DONE on this series!

Another one of my favorite memories of this conference was meeting fellow Postcard Collective participant Sheila Newbery who spent a very long time looking at my portfolio. She emphasized the need for the Marilyn photos to be seen in a book and presented the idea of it being poster size. That plan may be implemented soon!

Amelia and I also decided that Photo Lucida is in our future.