These images were taken in an empty swimming pool near Orange, Texas. There was a whole complex of buildings and shacks at this location that had been abandoned. Perfect for me, because I'm kind of a shy photographer. As soon as you bust out a tripod, people tend to start asking questions, so I find places without people. Nothing better than a deserted building or in this case a pool.
I've been working on a series of images using shadows and textures as a theme for a while now. These are mostly abstract, which allows me to concentrate on keeping things simple and letting composition and form kind of take over instead of the subject matter.
It's been a while since I've posted anything and I'd like to have a great excuse for not doing so. However, I don't have a good excuse. I'm just lazy. I shot medium format film for the longest time and processed my own film. Sometimes I'd have a darkroom to print photos, but usually not. Negatives quite often got processed but would go unprinted. I've started scanning some of the negatives into my computer using an epson V600 scanner. Some of these negatives are 15 years old and this is the first time I'm seeing them as a positive image, which makes the slow and boring process of scanning worthwhile. Unfortunately, my record keeping was non existent, so I have no idea when or where many of the images where taken.
I'm not sure what it is, but there is a certain quality to the images from negatives that I don't seem to get in my digital images. The combination of grain and graduation of tone is something I really like about these scanned negatives.
The images below are fairly typical of what I've done for a long time with my photography. Kind of an urban landscape type of photography.
Since my records are non-existent, I believe the following images were taken in the late 90's outside of Salt Lake City. I do know that they were shot with a Pentax 67 on T-Max 400 film, then recently scanned using a Epson V-600 scanner.
I really liked this boarded up window. The abstract shapes and various textures drew me in. It also kind of reminds me of a flag.
More abstract shapes, textures,and shadows were found in this image of a backyard.
This gate and garage door looked interesting to me because of the contrast between the very hard and rigid shape of the gate and the organic shapes of the shadows on the door.
Generally, I don't title my photographs. I guess the idea of having to be creative with the naming process has never really appealed or come naturally to me. I recently had a small showing of work in a coffee shop here in Galveston, and on the inventory sheet they asked me to fill out prior to the show, there was a space for the title of each piece of work. Could I just put "untitled" for every image? Being nervous about that and not wanting to rock the boat, I quickly came up with a bunch of uninspired names for the work. All of the names ended up being very literal, like "Chair Shadow" and "Banana Leaf". I should have just put "untitiled" for each, it would have been less embarrassing. Should I feel compelled to put a title to each image? I think the real reason is that I'm not clever enough to come up with witty or meaningful titles. Take the image below for example. I have several images of this door. Should I start naming them door #1, then door #2, then door #3? My images are starting to sound like a game show. I'm not really looking for an answer here, I guess I'm looking for a reason to title a picture of a door.
I should stop typing, Here's "Door #2". No, I'll call it "untitled door #2".
