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Now on substack

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I’ve decided to try writing on substack.  My latest post, Tuesday Talks – This and That, is here.

 

The Cat and the abstract palm

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The Cat

I decided to try photographing once more at The Tides Preserve in Atlantic Beach. As my last visit caused undue police attention to my 8×10 view camera, I decided to take a smaller one – a Mamiya RB67.

That camera measured only 4x4x7 inches and could be carried by hand or mounted on a tripod. It had been the favorite camera of wedding photographers from the mid-70s to the mid-90s, so I thought maybe the police wouldn’t find it so strange. I bought mine after I read that Brett Weston used one later in life when he could no longer carry his heavy 8×10.

I mounted the camera on my tripod and put it over one shoulder. Over the other, I pulled a bag holding lenses, film, and a light meter.

On my previous visit, I had walked over the hammocks to the marsh side of the preserve. This time, I walked across the parking lot to a dirt access road. The road was blocked to traffic by a swinging gate, but a smaller opening allowed foot traffic. I slipped through and walked down the road.

The Live Oaks arched over the roadway creating a tunnel that was spooky even in the daytime. They reminded me of the Disney version of The Headless Horseman. The limbs formed patterns that looked interesting to the naked eye, but they flattened out and lost their appeal when seen through the camera viewfinder. One beneficial aspect of the rise in film prices is better discernment in subject matter.

After a half-mile hike down the road, I arrived at a large pond. It was clearly man-made, with a dam on one end and landscaped, grass covered banks. A few snowy egrets waded along the far bank, searching for food. I chuckled as I watched them walk as their knee joints always appeared backwards to me.

I pulled out a long lens – 250mm – and tried framing the egrets. I wasn’t inspired. Shorter lenses framed the pond as a landscape. Again, nothing moved me. I headed back to the truck.

As I walked along the road, and had almost reached the barrier gate, I sensed something behind me. I stopped and turned. A cat. He saw me stop. He sat down in the middle of the road and stared off to the side with the kind of indifference only cats show.

I walked to the gate, turned and leaned against it. The cat had followed along. He walked until he was about a dozen feet away, then he sat down and looked me over. I looked at him.

What a cat. He had the dirty, scruffy look of a cat without a home. A hairless scar across the top of his head showed he fought for his territory, and he obviously thought of the road as his own. But his strongest feature was his jaws. He had the big, puffy cheeks of an adult tom cat. It was a look called muffle-jawed in this part of the country, a phrase that comes from Gullah and originally referred to a kind of chicken.

There’s my photo, I thought. I slowly set up the tripod and pointed the camera towards the cat. As I was focusing, he stood up and began to walk. I quickly loosened the tripod head and panned the camera with the cat. He ran behind a palm tree, and as my camera stopped, I realized I’d never looked at a palm in this way.

The Palm

The cat ran into the woods, but I had a new subject. I moved the camera to about six-inches from the palm trunk. The RB67, unlike many other cameras, could focus that closely. Through the viewfinder, I saw wonderful abstract displays. The tree’s trunk, called a stem, was covered in the remnants of former leaves, looking like blunt spikes sticking out at various angles, and scars where even the remnants had fallen away. By using a somewhat wide angle lens – 90mm- and putting the camera only inches from the subject, I could control which parts of the tree were visible with selective focusing.

A dozen negatives came from that one tree, and each was fascinatingly different. I had learned a new way of seeing. A lot of photographers take macro photographs. They use a special lens to make very small subjects, such as insects, huge in the image. But this was something different, taking a normal lens and putting it only inches, rather than feet, away. The image and perspective was exactly what any of us would see with the naked eye if we stood that close to a palm.

Luckily, no police came along. I’m sure they’d find someone taking a picture of a tree trunk from six-inches away very odd.

Technical Details


The camera was a Mamiya RB67 Pro – the first version, made between 1970 and 1973. The lens was the original 90mm lens that would have come with the camera. Film was Efke PL-100 sheet film held in a Graflex Grafmatic.

The Tides Preserve and more police

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Tides Preserve

On the south end of Atlantic Beach is the Tides Preserve. It sits in a small area of marsh between the town, the Intracoastal Waterway, and the Atlantic Boulevard high-rise bridge over the river. This preserve is set up as an educational area, with numerous trails, boardwalks and signs explaining the flora in the area.

I found one interesting arrangement of picnic tables and trees and made my exposure.

Then I pushed my stroller farther along a trail until I came upon an interesting grouping of pine trees.

Tripod set up. Camera mounted. Light measured. Lens set. Scene framed. Camera focused. Negative holder inserted. Dark slide pulled.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

I turned. This time is was a female Atlantic Beach police officer on foot. Same pose as the other officers I’d encountered – feet shoulder width, hat pulled low, hands poised above her pistol and her Taser.

“I’m taking a picture.”

“Of what?” There was suspicion in her eyes.

“Of these trees.”

“Why?”

“Because the gallery downtown says the rich people in Ponte Vedra Beach will pay good money for pictures of trees.” The gallery hadn’t exactly said this, but it sounded good.

“People in Ponte Vedra have more money than sense, then.”

Even though she was obviously not a lover of visual arts, I invited her to look through the camera. She declined, remained wary and gave me a wide berth as she walked down the trail. I decided that two near arrests in one day was enough and headed back to the truck.

Why do police go after large format photographers and leave folks with cell phones alone?

 

Dutton Island and the police

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Dutton Island

 

I drove through the entrance to Dutton Island Preserve down a one-lane dirt road lined with palms, palmettos and no-parking signs. I crossed a wide concrete bridge, built to safely allow fishing from the span with vehicle traffic limited to its center. The span is about six-feet above high tide. On the far side of the bridge is a small parking area.

Jacksonville, Florida got into the land preservation business many years ago, meaning there are lots of scenic views for landscape photographers. Dutton Island, in the suburb of Atlantic Beach, is one of those places.

As the bridge gives a very nice, elevated view of the marsh to the north, I trundled my 8×10 view camera, tripod, assorted lenses, film holders, dark cloth, filters, exposure meters, and notebook to the top of the span. I set up on the north side with the tripod well out of the traffic lane.

The view was wonderful. The low tide meant lots of fascinating detail along the wide, exposed banks of the creek below. Heron and other wading birds fished in water up to their knees and hunted on the land. Fiddler crabs scrambled out of their way. Marsh rabbits occasionally poked their heads out of the grasses. Osprey flew overhead. The low angle of the rising sun gave light that clearly revealed the fascinating textures and lines of the scene.

I learned photography through the late Fred Picker’s newsletters back in the 1980s. Fred taught that a photographer should find a scene, expose a negative right away, then set up another exposure and wait. I framed my scene, took my light readings, made my exposure calculations, and exposed my first negative. Then turned the film holder, cocked the shutter, pulled the dark slide and waited for something magical to happen in front of my waiting lens.

Instead, the something happened behind me. As I waited, I heard a loud voice shout, “Hey, what are you doing?” I almost jumped off of the bridge.

An Atlantic Beach police car had quietly pulled up onto the bridge, and a florid faced officer glared at me from the cruiser.

“I’m taking a picture,” I answered trying to act like what a police officer would consider normal. He obviously thought I was some kind of mad man.

The cop got out of the car, walked to its front, and assumed the intimidating position they must teach at the police academy – feet at shoulder width, hat low over the eyes, hands positioned above his pistol on one side and Taser on the other, looking like an old west sheriff about to draw his six-shooters. “A picture of what?”

“The marsh.”

“Why?” His face softened a little into puzzlement.

I thought fast. I knew I had only one chance to avoid being run out of the preserve. “The folks at the art gallery downtown say the rich folks in Ponte Vedra Beach pay good money for pictures of marshes.” Which was actually the truth.

“Damn, maybe I need to get out my camera and take some pictures, too.” He laughed and strolled over to my camera. “What is this thing?”

“It’s an 8-by-10 view camera. It shoots negatives the size of your head.” I pulled another negative holder out of my stroller and held it up to show him the size. “Want to look through it?”

He did. I reinserted the dark slide, pulled the negative holder, and put the dark cloth back over the camera. I showed him how to get under it and look through.

“Damn, it’s upside down,” he said.

I explained how a lens reverses everything, and he seemed satisfied.

“Now I know what to take pictures of. Good luck with yours.” He chuckled, got back in his car and drove further into the park, frightening off any wildlife and insuring I wouldn’t get a more interesting negative than the one I’d already shot.

I packed up, walked to the truck, loaded the equipment and drove away.

Such are the adventures of a large format photographer.

Technical Notes

 

The camera was an 8×10 Orbit/Calumet C-1. The lens was my Rapid Rectillinear triple convertible with the 12 ½ inch elements. Film was Kodak T-Max 100 that had expired a dozen years before.

The movie star – a missed opportunity

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The Movie Star

 

Travelers on Atlantic Boulevard now cross the San Pablo River from Jacksonville to Atlantic Beach by way of a high rise bridge, but years ago there was a much lower bridge. Folks reached the old bridge by a causeway and a series of small bridges over the marsh. When the old bridge was removed, the causeway and small bridges were left in place for fishermen, and for canoeists and kayakers to launch their boats.

The old causeway has very little traffic and makes an excellent place for photography. One fall afternoon, I drove over to try my luck. On a spit of land between the river and one of its tributaries, old wooden buildings sat in various states of disrepair. The paint on the south wall of one building had been devastated by the sun and wind. The patterns of the peeling paint looked alluring, but nailed to wall was a large “No Trespassing” sign.

A couple of sailboats were anchored in a cove, but the wind and tide had turned them so that their uninteresting aft ends pointed towards the shore.

I walked along the road and saw that the ditch alongside was filled with trash, old building materials, and even a kitchen sink. But nothing worth photographing.

The road dead-ended at the river, with the way blocked by a big pile of broken pavement and dirt. Off to the right, I finally saw something interesting. It was a concrete pillar about two-and-a-half feet tall, and set into the top were at least a dozen bolts, all set in a circle, their heads submerged in the concrete and nuts atop some of them. I looked at it and tried to determine what it had been. I suppose a pole of some kind had been bolted to the top of the pillar.

But, I saw it as a photographic challenge. To photograph the bolts, I would have to get close. That meant the depth of the in-focus image would be very, very shallow. The only way to expand the depth of field was to shrink down the lens opening using the lens f/stop control. Making the lens smaller meant less light for a given time, so I would have to expose for several minutes.

Then I saw I had a more immediate problem to solve. The scene was in the shade, and with the lens “stopped-down” there was not enough light for me to see to focus the camera. What to do? I remembered I had a flashlight in my bag. I tried shining the light onto the scene, but it was not bright enough to make any difference. I turned on the flashlight, placed it beside the nearest of the bolts, and pointed the flashlight directly at the camera. I could see the glowing bulb and focused on that. After removing the flashlight, I made my exposure and knew that I had something unusual.

I walked back to the cove, and set up my camera there. I could see that I had a good landscape scene, but to be really good, I needed the wind to change direction and blow one of the sailboats around so that it’s side faced me. I was under the dark cloth focusing when I sensed something behind me. I pulled the cloth off my head and turned around.

“That sure is a big camera,” a small, smiling man said to me. He looked about 65 and was dressed in a khaki shirt, khaki shorts, a khaki baseball cap and deck shoes. Blue.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s an 8×10 view camera. There aren’t many of us crazy enough to carry such a camera anymore.”

“That’s my boat out there, you’re trying to take a picture of. The Ox.”

I looked more closely. It was a two-masted sailing ship of a design I had not seen before. I had a blunt bow as well as stern. “What’s the design called?”

“I built it myself. It’s built like that to haul cargo, and I’m headed to the Caribbean to do just that – haul cargo from island to island.”

I didn’t ask what cargo. “Have you built other boats before?”

“Oh, yes, I lived in Los Angeles and built several boats. In fact, I built one that my daughter and I sailed from California to Australia all by ourselves. I was hoping to get some more acting jobs down under.”

“You were an actor.”

“Oh, yes. I was pretty good on a horse, so I was in a lot of the old cowboy movies and TV shows. I was usually an un-credited extra, but I got a few speaking roles. I had a pretty good time until the cowboy shows became unpopular.”

I couldn’t imagine this man on a horse, but he did look like a sailor. “How long will you be here? I might come back and try to get a shot of your boat when the wind blows it around.”

“I’ll be here a week or so, depending on weather. My name’s Will Corry, by the way.”

I introduced myself and wrote down his name. The sun was setting, and it was obvious the wind wouldn’t change. I packed up and went home.

I developed my film and realized the bolt photo wasn’t much good after all.  There was just not enough depth of field.

A few days later, I logged onto The Internet Movie Database and looked up Mr. Corry. There he was – several episodes of “Have Gun, Will Travel”, “Gunsmoke”, and “The Kraft Suspense Theater.” He had reprised his Kraft role in the movie “The Strategy of Terror,” starring Hugh O’Brien and Barbara Rush. He also had a small role in “Wild In The Country,” starring Elvis, Hope Lange and Tuesday Weld.

And there was more. He had written an episode of “Gunsmoke” and also the movie “Two-Lane Blacktop,” which starred James Taylor and Warren Oates. A further search on Google revealed that he had also written a book, “The Voyage of the Sea Lion.” It was the story of his cruise from California to Australia with his daughter and her puppy. When they set sail, the daughter was only two-years old.

“I’m an idiot,” I thought to myself for the umpteenth time. “Will Corry was the most interesting thing you saw that day.” I packed up the camera and headed back to Atlantic Boulevard intending to take Mr. Corry’s photo with his ship in the background.

The Ox was gone. I’ve driven past the area hundreds of times since, and haven’t seen the strange little ship again. It was an important lesson for someone who usually photographs sticks and stones and bolts sticking out of concrete. Sometimes one should think about photographing people.

Guana River and the hog

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Guana River, St. Johns County, Florida

As the sun rose over the Atlantic, traffic backed up on the turn-off from Florida Highway A-1-A at what local folks call the Guana River dam. Cars pulled up to an unoccupied guard shack, and their drivers voluntarily took an envelope from a rack, tore off the admission ticket, inserted the two dollar fee into the envelope and dropped it through a slot.

About a dozen cars already sat in the small parking lot, their fisherfolk passengers spread along the banks of the river and the dam. The sounds of reels spinning, nets splashing and the occasional grunt of a fisherman pulling in a line competed with the sounds of birds and frogs celebrating the start of another day.

I had different fish to catch. I wanted to photograph a tree in a nature preserve. Out of my pickup bed, I pulled my 8×10 Calumet/Orbit C-1 view camera (called by photographers The Black Beast at 24-pounds) enclosed in a backpack filled with a second lens, an exposure meter and a half-dozen film holders (another dozen pounds) and pulled it onto my back. On my right shoulder, I carefully placed my folded dark cloth as padding, then threw over it the tripod advertised as The Best Damn Tripod In The World, the Zone VI heavy duty (another 25-pounds). Loaded, I began my hike across the dam to the freshwater marsh, interdunal swale, and maritime hammocks I planned to photograph.

The Guana Tolomato Matanzas Estuarine Research Preserve covers more than 73,000 acres south of Jacksonville in northeast Florida. The preserve is split into two parts by the City of St. Augustine, and it hosts a large variety of wildlife. A recent survey lists 44 mammal, 358 bird, 41 reptile, 21 amphibian, 303 fish and 580 plant species within the boundaries. There are habitats for 48 protected animals and 8 protected plants.

The Guana dam separates Guana River, which is brackish water, from Lake Guana, which is fresh water. The dam is 647-steps from end to end, and I trudged every one of them carrying my load. Watching my step, I could see raccoon and deer tracks in the sand. Near the far end, a fisherman climbed the bank of the dam carrying his gear.

“Doing any good?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he said. He bent down and opened his cooler to show off his catch.

“Almost got my limit of trout. Think I’ll go over to the salt-water side and see if I can get me a red.”

“Nice ones. Good luck.”

I resumed my trek. Even that early in the morning the sun beat down and the humidity pulled my strength out through my pores. The temperature had been 82-degreees at 6 AM and was scheduled to rise throughout the day.

At the end of the dam, in the shade of several large live oaks, the management posted a sign-in sheet. Supposedly someone will come and look for you if you sign in, but don’t sign back out. I took my time signing, enjoying the shade.
I re-shouldered my load and started down the path, turned left at the first fork, hiked about 200-yards, paused at the first swale and looked for prospects. The right side of the shore looked promising, and after another 100-yards or so of hiking, a marvelous scene appeared.

A tree had fallen across a small piece of prairie. It was shaped like a human hand, the limb-fingers arched upwards and extended in a curve above another limb that looked like a thumb. I put down my load, studied the scene, and checked the angle of the sun. The light would fall directly on the log if I waited for a while, and would give a nice limb effect when the sun rose high enough. It’s the effect that occurs when a strong light source shines directly onto a curved object – the object appears to have a distinct black line along its edges. It would make an excellent photograph.

The late photographer Fred Picker taught to walk around a potential scene, move one’s head around, bend at the waist and find the best place, and best height, to place the tripod. I followed his advice, placed the tripod, mounted the camera, attached the lens (210mm for a moderate wide angle) and ducked under the dark cloth.

My Zone VI dark cloth was a copy of the one used by the late California photographer Edward Weston. His wife, Charis, wrote that she made it herself from one black piece of cloth (used on the camera side) and one white piece of cloth (used on the outside to reflect the sun), sewn together and weighted in the corners.

The scene looked as promising on the camera’s ground glass as it had to the naked eye. The few adjustments of camera movements took a while because the high Florida humidity combined with the condensation from my breath and sweat to fog the glass after only a few seconds viewing. I wiped it off several times, finalized the adjustments, inserted the film holder, pulled the dark slide and cocked the shutter. Everything was set to wait for the proper angle of the sun.

I sprayed the dark cloth with bug spray, then put it over my shoulders like a cape. I waited. A great blue heron slowly circled low over the pond at the center of the marsh, but spotting no fish, it flew southward. Three egrets flew to the far edge of the water and began stalking in their hunt for food. My boots sank into the soaked soil, and I hoped there was no quicksand. Squirrels scrambled through the hardwood trees and barked at one another.

After about a half-hour, the sounds of something walking through the brush frightened the other wildlife into stillness. The sound grew louder, and above a bush, I could see the hairy back of a creature. Dog, coyote, a Florida panther this far north? It was too short for a deer.

The beast stepped into a clear spot. Oh my, a wild boar, tusks gleaming, thick bristles along the spine, at least 150-pounds. What to do? Looking around, I saw that I was more or less cornered by brush and the log, but the hog was not. Decided to act while he could still run and escape.

Grabbed the dark cloth by two corners, turned the black side out, threw it up in the air while holding the corners, jumped as high as I could, and yelled, “Hey, pig!!!”

The hog must have seen some 10-foot tall monster rising out of the brush, as I hoped. The hog leaped about three-feet, then bounded across the marsh splashing water and scattering birds, squirrels and probably fish. Away from me, thank goodness.

The sun eventually rose, the limb effect appeared, and I made an exposure. I turned the film holder to make a second, and as I pulled the dark slide, a cloud drifted over the sun and the effect was gone.

The rest of the excursion was uneventful. I made another exposure or two, but nothing I thought would be as special as the log. And I was right – the print is special.

A print of this photo is available at my sales website simmonsarts.com

Technical Notes

The camera was an Orbit C-1 made in 1982. The lens was a convertible Rodenstock that barely covers 8×10 with the 210mm elements used here, but it gives a nice, moderately wide-angle view with that format. Film was Efke PL-100, and development was in Michael A. Smith’s version of ABC Pyro. Development was with a hake brush by inspection with a dark green safelight. It was one of my earlier attempts using this method, so the negative is a little thin, but still printed easily on Grade 2 Kodak Azo. Now that Kodak has stopped making black and white printing paper, I’ll have to experiment if I print again.

And I have just found a way to make prints available through my Fine Arts website.


Sold- Conn 10J tuba for sale

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For sale is a 1967 Conn 10J tuba – 3 upright valves, BBb.  It was clearly a former school band instrument and bears the dents and signs of bell repair from its past.  Despite the dents and half dozen one-inch bell cracks, it plays pretty well.

I’m selling because I injured my arm in an automobile accident some years ago, and my elbow can’t handle the arm position required by an upright valve instrument.

It comes with an almost new Wessex gig bag that fits it well.  No mouthpiece.

Asking $550.  There is not bus shipping from here, so this needs to be a personal pick up.  I am willing to drive a couple of hundred miles from Brunswick, Georgia to meet you.

Music Is My Ticket – Bill Prince and Victor DiGenti

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Tracking the musical journey of Bill Prince could keep a family of mapmakers busy for years. This master musician has traveled and performed in all 50 U.S. states and in 81 countries. He has walked the historic streets of Europe, the dirt pathways of South African villages, and sailed the oceans, performing his unique multi-instrumentalist show on multiple cruise ships. Music Is My Ticket touches on historic events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, while providing insights into the music and musicians he played with—the famous and not-so-famous personalities he met during a remarkable career.

Bill formed strong bonds with many musicians, former students, and fellow teachers over the years, and you’ll hear from some of them. Their shared memories add insights into a life rooted in music, describing Bill Prince as a once-in-a-generation talent. From the time he picked up his first trumpet at the age of eight, writing his first arrangement in junior high school, to performing with celebrated big bands and performers, Bill’s musical gifts took him places he could only dream about.

No need to pack your bags to accompany Bill Prince on his musical journey, but hang on tight and enjoy the life story of a joyful traveler who made his mark on the world of music.

“When I first watched Bill Prince play, he blew my mind out. Not only did he play every instrument that he had on stage, he played each one as though it was his major. Personally, I had never heard any musician play with such artistry and confidence.”
Bobby Herriott, former Assistant Bandleader, NORAD Band

“I learned to appreciate Bill’s love for travel and how much one could grow as a person by being on the road. I was in the thick of greatness thanks to Bill and as the years roll by, I look back now to see how really fortunate I was to experience jazz education and performance at its very best.”
Mike Rossi, former Bill Prince student and Professor in jazz and woodwinds at the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Bill’s book is available from Amazon by clicking this link.