Pro scans while Gardening for Ordinance

Gardening for Ordinance Copyright 2013 Douglas Stockdale

Odd title for a post, but hopefully it will soon be self evident as to the reason for this narrative.

Perhaps until very recently, I have been doing my own film scans after processing. First, I have the film scanning equipment and second, I am cheap. Very cheap. Opps, I mean very frugal. Meanwhile, I realized that my scans of the various films were not always giving me what appears as the best starting material as it appeared that I was getting some kind of color drift in the process. I eventually changed my scanning process to first create a JEPG file, then in Photoshop open that scan file in RAW and make some of the color temperature and contrast adjustments before really working on the image. Much better.

I had also been advising a couple of folks that have been working in film that they might want to consider getting some film scans to work out some details in photoshop before making a print by a photo lab. So last week at my photo lab while getting the latest roll of film processed, I checked on their scanning prices, as I recall spending $45 for one high-resolution scan. I found out that they have incorporated a film scanner in line with their film processing and that for $5 I could obtain a low resolution film scan of each image at the time of processing. Wow, even for a cheap guy (frugal guy!), that sounded like a good deal. Especially when you consider their film scanner was some 50 times more expensive than mine. So I added the film scanning to the Fuji transparency film processing.

And so this is the results show. The photograph above is part of my ongoing photographic project Gardening for Ordinance. To save you some reading, the bottom line is that this looks great, and very little required by me opening the scan in Photoshop RAW to adjust color temperature and contrast range. What I don’t like is that they do an ever slight crop to eliminate the film edge, which I prefer to keep in at this stage of my evaluations.

First thing that I really like is the clean film scan, no spotting required. With my studio film scanning, I had all sorts of major dust to eliminate after scanning just to have a low res print to evaluate. I could probably not spend the time on spotting, but sometimes the stuff in the scan was a bit distracting, especially as I intended to print each image to obtain some project feedback. So with these scans, saving this time.

As to the batch scan process, I now have a low resolution scan to evaluate for each and every image of the film roll, no need to spend time on the light box trying to decide which transparency to scan. So that step is eliminated!

The low resolution film scan is a great size, providing a file size that is an 8 x 8″ image at 240 pixels/inch, which works fine for me as my evaluation prints are 5 x 5″ on 8-1/2 x 11″. Also a small enough file size that does not bog my old computer down to process each step and only slightly smaller than with my own scanning process, which I was scanning to a 10 x 10″ image at 300 pixels/inch.

Also what is nice is that as soon as I am back in the studio with the freshly processed film, I am ready to go. Just tuck the CD into the drive and open the folder up to decide what image to evaluate first. cool.

So bottom line, I like it, and this lab processing option only adds about $0.50 per image, which I think is a pretty good deal for all of the upsides. So this is now my new photo lab film process.

Cheers!

SNAPS – New Photo Project

Copyright 2013 Douglas Stockdale

I have found myself with another photo project in the early stages of development.

Background; I spend perhaps too much time collecting, reading and then writing about contemporary photobooks. One genre of photobooks that has been developing for some time are the artists books that are based on found snap-shots. This is a case in which the artist/photographer is not the person who actually created the photograph, but has found anonymous photographs, e.g. the snapshot, that are arranged and sequenced to create a non-fiction fictional (real photographs of real individuals, but the resulting narrative is factious) story. Since the found snapshot is missing its original context (the original family photo album, the owner), the singular snapshot takes on a separate life of its own.

I have been acquiring more of these snapshot photobooks, as they have a growing appeal to me, especially as I sense that these photobook projects are able to create interesting stories about memory and its preservation. And this has led to my thinking about my own past family memories.

To the present. So while cleaning the garage out over the past couple of weekends, I came across a couple of overstuffed cardboard boxes that has been haunting me for some time. I know that they are loaded with an odd collection of old family photographs. I now bet you can sense where this is going, eh?

Yep, I opened Pandora’s box and found amongst some recent family photographs, an interesting assortment of old picture albums with the fragile black pages brimming with old black and white photographs. The dates go back to the 1920′s with a smattering of older photographs, but the interesting aspect for me is that I can not identify most of the individuals, who are most certainly my own family, in these photographs. That was when I realized that this is an opportunity for me to create my own snapshot story. I do not any immediate family who can help me collaborate on any of the historical ”facts” related to these photographs, thus this will become my fictional narrative of what might have occurred. Even as I do identify the family members in these photographs, I want to keep them ambiguous to the readers of this project, perhaps creating the photo album of memories for ever person.

When I found the wooden picture album for SNAPS featured in this post, probably purchased on a family vacation to the Southwest as a souvenir, I think I realized this album may provide the motif if not the actual cover that I will use for this artist book.

At the moment I have a couple of other projects that I want to bring to a close, so off and on during the summer I will start sorting the available photographs while determining what personal story that I want to investigate.

Cheers!

Adjusting to the Fujichrome change

copyright 2013 Douglas Stockdale

With the demise of Kodak 120 Ektachrome, I have made the required change to the 120 Fujichrome, in my case the Fujichrome Provia 100F, considered a Super Fine Grain film. This also means that I might need to make some changes in my overall workflow, including the film scanning on the Nikon 8000 in conjunction with the Photoshop toolbox.

So far, I will have to say that I am impressed with this film. At the advice of John at my photo-lab, I did not change my image capturing processes. Ever hour or so (more often in the early morning and late afternoon), I do an exposure check with a Kodak gray card and my spot meter. At the moment for this film, I am using an Exposure Index (EI) that is the same as the manufacturers 100 ASA in conjunction with the labs standard E-6 film processing.

First indications are that the Fuji film appears more color saturated and the blues of the sky appear more as I remember them. In retrospect, the Ektachrome (E100, daylight transparency) seemed almost desaturated and I continually had issues with the colors of the sky.

Additionally, the scans of the Fujichrome film with my Nikon film scanner appear to require less correction and a lot closer to what I remember than the Ektachrome scans (maybe I have a Fujichrome memory??). I will not go as far as to say that the Japanese film and scanner companies are in cohorts together, but it does appear that the film scanner seems to be better calibrated for the Fujichrome film and not as well for the Kodak films (scanning both color negatives and transparencies).

So at the moment, I am enjoying the film change and having no regrets.

As to this photograph, I created this just before I was the bunny hero last week, as a part of my investigation project “Gardening for Ordinance”. I think that this bush is in the midst of its Spring bloom, but regretfully I do not recall seeing it until now. Another one of the beneficial aspects of working on conceptual projects like this is that it does increase my awareness of those things around me. Very cool. As to the composition, in the view finder the sky was not evident in the upper left corner when I made this composition. I had purposely tried to fill the top of the frame with this flaming bush. In retrospect, I think that this bit of sky adds some mystery and creates a more interesting photograph. So at the moment, a keeper.

Cheers!

Missing palm

copyright 2008 Douglas Stockdale.

Late February I was working on the scanned image of the palm that I photographed as a part of a new project. In a post about this image, I had concluded that I needed to photograph this composition again in the early afternoon sunlight. Which I thought today was a good day to do just that. I had four exposures left on the roll of film in my camera back, which I suspected would be just the right quantity to complete this composition and then head over to the photo lab for processing.

When I arrived at the location, something looked very odd as I was having difficulty getting my bearing when it dawned on me what the issue was. Somebody had cut this palm down! All there remained was a flat stump at ground level. Egads, there went that idea. Of course I have no clue as to when this event occurred as my original exposure was in 2008. What’s that old saying about you can’t go home again?

So in the meanwhile, this image above may be included within the current project, as it ties to the concept that I am exploring. This photographic also highlights my current issue with film scanning, as the color shifts are proving difficult to correct.

Cheers!

Milan Fashion Week – blog-photobook update

Walking the Red Carpet copyright 2009 Douglas Stockdale

In September of 2009 I developed a photographic concept that I thought might be well suited as part photobook, part performance, what I am calling a blog-photobook. Recall that this was about the time of the first iPad launch, some two and a half years ago. So rather than trying to develop a iPad app, which was pretty rough in those days, I decided to go a little more public with an open book and available to all who had an interest to read it.

The project itself, Milan Fashion Week, was borne out of two consecutive years of attending Fashion Week in Milan, Italy. Well kinda. I actually was in Milan in September at the same time as Fashion Week was occurring. So I decided that since I was in Milan during Fashion Week and I did not have a fashion portfolio, why not develop one? I have noted that some artist are being commissioned to do some edgy contemporary fashion layouts, so why not do a self-assignment of my own? My portfolio should show all of those photo editors and creative types that I do editorial fashion photographs.  And this portfolio should lead to a ton of assignments and big bucks that would end up paying for all of those artistic concept projects that I want to publish. Can you say win-win?

Okay, maybe I did appropriate a couple of fashion shots, but I did it in a very creative way! If you look at each photograph, I hope you will eventually find a little irony. I did contact a couple of real fashion photographers and editors to write an essay about the juxtaposition of my project and the fashion world and for some reason they did not want to come within a ten-foot pole of this project. hmmmmm. So lately I have been tweaking it a bit and making some trade-outs of some of the photographs. Perhaps a work in progress.

As part of the performance aspect, I designed a blog so that all 36 posts would show up in consecutive order, starting on the top and working sequentially down, without having to click between pages. Which meant that I did all 36 posts on the same day and posted them in reverse order, as the last post (start of the blog-book) is on the top of the stack. Not a difficult photobook layout task. And taadaa, the blog does function just as intended. Now go look at it here.

So in the last 2-1/2 years, no fashion commissions have been flooding my in-box. hmmmmm. odd.

I am now thinking that after the final tweaks, one option is to continue to allow the blog to stay public until the 3rd anniversary date, then poof! eliminate it. Sort of like Cristo’s “running fence” performance project. Now it is here, but soon gone.

Another option is to actually publish this project as a real book. I have already poked a few publishers, but no interest yet. Maybe after I make the final tweaks the interest may grow. Or not.

Interesting to see what comes of this.

Cheers!

Photographing with a purpose

Copyright 2008 Douglas Stockdale

I have been looking at the photographs that I made in 2008 for my project Places in Between, which in retrospect was not all that well thought out. It was part of SoFoBoMo, so I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to photograph, but the concept was not as well-defined. Thus like the Cheshire Cat admonished Alice, if you do not know where you want to go, any pathway (photograph) will do.

Nevertheless, this composition is actually well in line with my current project requirements, except now I understand what kind of light I want. In this case above I made the image during a dull overcast sky, but I now want this specific image made in glorious sunshine, which thankfully here in Southern California is rather common. This location is not far, either a long walk or a very short drive away. I have been monitoring the sunlight to anticipate photographing a similar composition, which appears that I need to work on it in the afternoon. I have not been there recently, so I am not sure if the background flowers are blooming  (but yet to decide if this makes a difference). Also, may not have the flying flag in the background of the composition either as the photograph above was made just before the 4th of July.

So a nice study that I can now refine during the next set of exposures.

Cheers!

Rancho Santa Margarita – work in progress

copyright 2013 Douglas Stockdale

I just realized that it has been a few years since I last scanned one of my film transparencies with the Nikon L8000 film scanner. Rusty skills, but thank goodness, it is quickly coming back. Perhaps much like riding a bicycle. This is a 1x scan resolution and I am not sure about the color cast. If this photograph makes the final selection, I will rescan it again at 16x.

I will be doing much more of this scanning for a while as I work on my current project. One of the nice things about working local, fewer worries about transporting film through the airport and the security systems.

Cheers!

Book design in progress: Flow of Light Brush the Shadow

Untitled (PingHu) copyright 2008 Douglas Stockdale

I have completed the first edit for my photobook project Flow of Light Brush the Shadows and have embarked into the early stages of developing the book dummy. Thus I am giving a lot of consideration to sequencing and image pairing to establish the flow or narrative aspects of the book. For this investigation of memory & dreams I want to incorporate gate-folds into the design of this book. For some reason, the first set of gate-folds was just very obvious to me, almost like a no-brainer. The second set was not initially as obvious, but while being open to this design element, it seemed that the a specific pair of images worked in a similar way. So now I am looking for a third set, but I want to add a slight twist to it.

I guess that this is about when I should also be starting my interest list for those who want to acquire this photobook project when it is published. This may help me with targeting the quantity of books for the first run, whether this should be 100, 300 or more. So leave me a comment as to your interest and we will see where this goes.

cheers!

Project feedback

Untitled (JiaShan) copyright 2008 Douglas Stockdale

While at the LA Art Book Fair yesterday, I used a page from my own photobook development workshop, that is to obtain feedback from somebody you trust to review a project that is in progress.

I belive that an artists needs to obtain some self-checks during the concept development process. First is an idea bounce, does it seem congruent? Then time to work the concept, but then later some checks and feedback during the process; am I hitting my mark (intent)? For the concept I am developing is the work consistent with that concept? Sometimes I become too insular and perhaps while working on a project, the work starts to drift and all of sudden I realize that I am not where I thought I wanted to be. BTW, that can also be a good thing, so I don’t discount the muddling process of development, sometimes that can be essential part of the investigation.

And the feedback was very positive, so I am continuing to develop my concept for Flow of Light Brush the Shadow. In fact I am writing this while the printer hummmms in the background for some new prints for this project.

BTW one of the other reasons for attending the LA Art Book Fair (yes, I did bring back to the studio another arm full of photobooks, darn) was discussing with various publishers the projects that they have in progress to determine if there is a fit with my current project. Perhaps, as I realize that the concept of my project is dead-on with what the contemporary publishers are considering, but my photographic process is not.

Cheers!

Photobook design

Ciociaria copyright 2011 Douglas Stockdale published by Edizioni Punctum

I recently read a post from another photographer asking other photographers if they have any regrets with a photobook that they published. For me, three small details come to mind that I wish I could retrospectively tweak. 

First I would like to have listed my web site in the credits and regretfully I was offered a chance to edit this and I missed it. My bad.

Second, I should have deviled into more about how this project was a part of my ongoing investigation into memory and its preservation. As I wrote my essay, I have only myself to blame for what was stated. My advice, if you are considering the publication of a project and you intend to include your own essay, start developing it early, such that you have time to allow to mature. Then have others read it and provide feedback as to the message they perceive. (Yep, I did not do that well enough, as I had only one review of my written narrative).

Third and last, both Marco and I should have also taken credit for the design of this photobook. Marco agreed to this project while looking at my early galleries, but it was my book dummy that sold the final publishing, a direct reflection of my editing, image pairing and sequencing. For the final book design, fortunately I was provided the opportunity to again provide image pairing and probably 80% of the image sequencing, as Marco concentrated on the leading and first quarter of the photographs in the book’s photographic sequence. As you might suspect, photographers are not always allowed a say in the book design process by a vast number of publishers.

It was also my idea for the page layout for the paired photographs, with the left image surrounded by traditional white margins and the facing photograph a full bleed. For the pairings, I was able to provide changes as to which photographs were paired up and which side of the spread the photographs were positioned. I was able to provide input, if not approval, of the book cover and dust jacket design and graphics. Lastly, I also had a say in how the images were cropped if that became necessary, as it did with all of the full-page bleed photographs. So perhaps I was a bit shy about suggesting this change in the design credits, but looking back, I think that being listed as a part of the design team would have been fair.

I suspect that I will get these parts correct for my next book, but I will probably miss something else. Meanwhile as I work on my current photobook project, I have the book design that I want well in mind.

Cheers!