Jason Kittelberger Photography Blog

2000 miles and 10 pounds and finally I’m back. As obvious by the dearth of posts, I spent the Christmas holiday away from the computer. Instead, I spent it travelling back and forth from Houston, Texas to Cleveland, Ohio crammed in a minivan with a wife, 2 kids, and a Labrador retriever. Let’s just say that’s not the way to peacefully pass the time.

Christmas was good. My son now has more toys than Paul Allen. And even though I just discovered I’m 10 pounds heavier, I am in good spirits and refreshed. I want to take pictures. I want to print. I want to spend a year focused on photography. I’ve already made a to-do list and set self-imposed deadlines for various projects. Now all that’s left is to follow through with that ambition and focus and not let it slip away.

Happy New Year!

As I spend more time sorting through all the negatives and contact sheets from my West Texas road trip, I find myself vacillating between excitement and disappointment. So far, it’s been quite a task to sort through hundreds of images trying to distill what best conveys what I’m trying to say, along with making sure the negatives I choose are of high enough technical quality to achieve the kind of fine prints I want to make.

What I’ve found is that with these images, the contact sheets from the 6×6 negatives are practically worthless. At best they give me a vague idea if the compensation works and if the exposure was actually somewhere in the ballpark. But that’s about it. In my mind, I want the photographs to convey the scale and grandeur and sheer vastness of the landscape that seemed to surround me during the trip. But I can’t tell if a negative conveys that feeling by looking at one of twelve tiny negatives printed on an 8″ x 10″ contact sheet.

So what I’ve started doing with negatives that seem to have potential is printing actual 7″ x 7″ prints on RC paper as proofs. Then I’ve been going through these proof prints and revisiting them over several days before I decide if they deserve a fuller treatment. As I make the proofs, I have been spending a decent amount of time trying to get the print contrast and exposure close to what I envision, and I’ve also been doing some minimal dodging and burning. So the proof prints I’ve been making are relatively representative of what I’m looking to achieve in the final print. But at the same time, I don’t want to spend a lot of time and waste a lot of paper making proof prints. So I’ve tried to limit myself to no more than three sheets of paper per negative.

Needless to say, so far it has been a very time consuming but rewarding process. Below is one of the prints that I’ve been struggling with. Part of me really likes it, and the other part of me says the composition is lacking. I’m sure looking at the tiny image on the computer will present the same problems I’ve found looking at the 6×6 contact prints, but as this image is one I’ve been thinking about a lot, I decided to post it anyway.

To me, the photograph is all about depth and scale. There just seemed to be a vast emptiness before me as I took the picture. The hills and rocks seemed to extend in layers off into the distance, finally disappearing over the horizon. And I think a bigger print does a decent job of capturing that feeling. What seems to bother me though is the sky. As it was on that day it prints almost as pure white, which along with the sharp horizon line, seems to lend a sort of cut-out feel to the entire image.

So I’m not sure how to handle the sky. I’ve tried burning it in a bit but that just turns the sky to an unappealing muddy gray. I’ve even tried printing the negative with the sky totally cropped, making the entire image nothing but the rocky landscape. I find that image interesting in an abstract way, but part of me worries that without the sky there is no context, and the scale and grandeur of the picture disappears and the photograph then becomes an exercise in abstract texture. So I’m not really sure what to think. At this point I plan to distance myself from the image and spend at least a week away from it. Maybe when I revisit it in the future, I’ll see something I didn’t see before and suddenly it will all become clear and I’ll know exactly what to do. I can only hope.

Here’s an interesting discussion on APUG I thought I’d flag. To me, these are the kinds of discussions that are intriguing. I’m much more interested in the thought processes and influences that go into making photographs as opposed to the actual execution of that vision. Craft is always something that’s interesting to talk about as well, but it’s secondary.

As far as being influenced by other photographers to the point of mimicking their style, well I think that’s only natural. Everybody needs a starting point, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with being heavily influenced by another photographer. In fact, if you’re not, I think that’s probably a bigger problem. Even Michelangelo started out learning by directly copying the work of other artists. So if it’s good enough for an artist like Michelangelo, I’d have to say it’s probably okay for everyone else.

Well I guess sooner or later I had to make the obligatory rant against digital photography. That is, if you can even call using a digital camera photography. In my mind, that’s a debatable premise.

That aside, I guess what really rankles me is that the primary reason people rave about digital photography is because it’s easier. Not because it’s better, but because it’s easier. In fact, digital photographers seem to spend an inordinate amount arguing that the quality of digital photography is nearly as good as film. Not better mind you, just nearly as good. And their fondest hope is that one day digital photography will actually be better than film.

But think about that for a minute. What does it say about a photographer who knowingly chooses an inferior tool simply because it’s easier?

That’s fine if you’re making homemade porn, or shooting Sally’s first birthday, or headshots to jump start your girlfriend’s acting career. And it’s probably okay if you’re shooting the next print ad for Yoo-hoo and you need a quick turnaround.

But as I was perusing the Visions of Rock web site, something Graham Nash said in an audio interview about digital photography struck me, and I think it fits in precisely with what I’m trying to say. He said…

In terms of convenience, this new technology is certainly easier for the user … and you can still do it in daylight, looking at your kids, having a cup of tea, watching news on TV.

Really, that’s why you choose digital photography, so you can watch news on TV while you sit on your leather couch and edit your photographs? I mean seriously, that’s the argument you’re making in favor of digital photography?

Excuse me, but who said it was supposed to be easy? Isn’t there some kind of saying out there, something like nothing worthwhile is ever easy?

What about things such as craft, and vision, and perseverance. Really, who cares about those things when you can fire off 10,000 shots and then fix them all with a click of a mouse? I guess it should go without saying, but you don’t make art playing with your kids and drinking a cup of tea, and you don’t make art sitting on the couch watching news on TV. Never have. Never will.

Digital photography sucks.

I’m not sure what to think of this post, and the whole one shot, one negative, one print mentality. I certainly admire the thought to some degree. I guess because in a way, it’s daring, and Jorge definitely puts his money where his mouth is by selling one-of-a-kind prints on eBay, along with a part of the original negative after it has been destroyed. While you might be able to convince me there is some validity in making only one print from a negative, I’m not sure I’d ever have the intestinal fortitude to destroy the negative from which the print was made. To me the negative is precious. It’s like a moment of time captured on a piece of gelatin. In my mind, destroying that negative is a little like destroying that unique instant in time. And I’m not sure I would be able to intentionally do so, and I’m not quite sure why you would want to anyway.

But the idea of only one print from a negative raises a lot of questions in my mind. What about books? What about the web? Can that one print be displayed in another form, as long as there is only one physical print? Unlike painters and some other types of artists, a lot of photographers use books as a viable means of showing their work. Could these single images be included in a book as well? Or does that somehow diminish the value of the physical print and defeat the entire purpose?

But that aside, Jorge seems to have some kind of fetish with trying to equate painting with photography. Why? I’m not sure I understand and actually think the whole premise is ridiculous. Sculptors don’t worry about want painters do. Poets don’t worry about sculptors, and I know painters could care less about photography. So why do some photographers such as Jorge feel the need to mimic the traditions established by painters. In case he hadn’t noticed, a photograph is not a painting. It’s an entirely different animal, and as far as I’m concerned, it should be treated as such. Treating a photograph different than a painting doesn’t diminish the artistic or actual value of a photograph, it enhances it. Instead, trying to pretend a photograph is like a painting diminishes the value of the photograph by assuming the art of painting is inherently superior. Painting is not superior. It’s just different.

What’s wrong with acknowledging that?

A few days after Thanksgiving I hopped in my car and drove west. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going other than some vague notion I was heading toward West Texas. I’d been to West Texas once before and had briefly been through Big Bend National Park. But I’d recently seen No Country For Old Men and the cinematography inspired me. In my mind, West Texas was nothing but a barren, desolate, and almost inhospitable place. I remember in my earlier trip driving for what seemed forever and hardly seeing a soul, let alone anything man made besides the road I was on.

But after seeing No Country For Old Men, West Texas seemed oddly beautiful. The hills, the rocks, and the sheer vastness of it all, intrigued me. I’m not sure there is a lonelier place on earth. So I wanted to see it all again, and see if it was like I remembered. So there I was driving west on I-10 one dark morning. I started early, and making good time I made it past San Antonio sometime before 5:00 AM. When I stopped for gas at some empty gas station outside the city, I looked up to see an American flag blowing alone in the darkness.

I hadn’t planned on taking any pictures then, I just wanted to get some gas and get to wherever it was I was going. But instead I stopped and setup my tripod and took a roll pictures standing in the bed of my truck. It seemed fitting that my first roll of the trip was taken of this flag. It was kind of like a sign welcoming me West Texas. The image posted below is the third frame I shot on my trip west, and it’s the first image I’ve printed beyond the rough print stage. I ended up shooting hundreds more, and still have lots of pictures to sort through and print. But I thought I’d share this one now, and I hope to share others from my trip in the future.

While surfing around this evening I came across a post from the original blogger Jorn Barger that detailed the Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers. The post definitely offered a bit of insight into the netherworld of blogging. Granted, like just about every blog post on the internet, I found a lot of what he had to say either useless or ridiculous. But still, the post intrigued me enough to keep reading until the end. It was the second tip that especially caught my eye. To quote the self-proclaimed original blogger himself…

You can certainly include links to your original thoughts, posted elsewhere, but if you have more original posts than links, you probably need to learn some humility.

If nothing else, I like to think of myself as humble. I guess whether I really am or not is not something for me to decide. But that said, in the interest of humility and with a desire to keep my reputation intact, I figured it was best to post some links.

Of course, I could turn his suggestion on its head and post links to sites I hate, but again, in the spirit of humility, I figured for now I’d take the easy route at least for now, and post a few links to sites that I actually do like.

One thing I should mention though is that I can’t say I really know any of the people associated with the following links. They’re just sites that I generally like and admire. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Without further ado, one site that in my mind deserves special mention is APUG (Analog Photography Users Group). Yes, I already have this site included in my blogroll, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to mention it again. APUG is a site whose community is dedicated to the pursuit of analog photography. No digital photography allowed. Now that’s what I call a real photography site. I actually do more lurking than posting, but I can’t recommend the site highly enough. It’s a treasure trove of information, opinion, and images, all centered around the now quaint notion of actual film based photography. It’s an oasis in the vast, soulless digital photography desert.

Sort of an offshoot from APUG is the Contact Printers Guild. As far as I can tell, most of the people associated with the Contact Printers Guild are also frequent contributors to APUG. That said, the Contact Printers Guild is basically an association of large format photographers dedicated to the time-honored art of the contact print. The Contact Printers Guild is both a collaborative effort to promote contact printing, as well as a means to market and sell guild members work. In these dark days of the digital onslaught, I think this kind of traditional work needs all the support it can get.

And finally a shout out to a few photographers whose work I admire.

First off, is Ian Leake makes beautiful platinum prints of the nude form. Unlike the wannabe erotic schlock that seems to infest sites like photo.net and photosig.com, Ian’s work is simple, understated, and beautiful. I think he proves the human body in all forms is something to be admired.

Another photographer whose site I find myself visiting often is Domenico Foschi. Again, a unique vision, beautiful tones, and exquisite prints. And all so deceptively simple. If only it were really so easy.

And finally, perhaps a bit more of a straightforward, commercial photographer, but still a photographer I really like is Jeff Singer. Nothing fancy. Not too clever. Just simple. Straightforward. And elegant. And in my book there’s a lot to be said for that. And by the way, Jeff has a blog that’s well worth checking out.

I greatly admire Michael Kenna. I think he has an interesting perspective and is another photographer who makes elegant use of negative space. The prints of his I’ve seen firsthand are exquisite and seem to have some sort of inner glow. Unfortunately his style now seems less than unique after multitudes of landscape photographers stopped imitating Ansel Adams, and started imitating Kenna. I certainly understand that impulse. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But there’s definitely something to be said for getting there first.

Anyway, via a post on APUG discussing Kenna’s printing technique, I came across this short documentary where Kenna discusses his art and his vision. I always find it fascinating to hear directly from the artist themselves.

In anticipation of taking a Polaroid a day for 365 days, I figured I’d better at least get used to the film I’m going to use and find out more about it. And what better way to do so than to take a few pictures. So that’s exactly what I did today. As for the technical details, I plan on using Polaroid 669 film for the duration of the project. Supposedly it’s an ISO 80 film, but as best as I could tell it seemed as much as a stop slower. That will definitely make it difficult to shoot handheld in most situations. Assuming of course, that I care about things like focus and sharpness, which I like to think I do. I know some photographers don’t. How novel.

Anyway, some of the speed loss could certainly be due to the developing conditions. For the most part I let the pictures develop for about one minute. It could be I need to develop the film for a bit longer to get some more speed, or else make sure I develop inside where the temperature is a bit more stable. It was definitely a bit colder than room temperature in the garage where I was when I developed the pictures. So that could be a factor as well.

But finally, after about 3 shots, I did manage to get an acceptable image. Not that it’s much, but it’s certainly better than a black square. I assume within a few weeks of actual shooting I’ll have a much better handle on what to expect from the film.

So for now, here is the first test picture. Not much I know.

Part of me is embarrassed to post this, lacking as it is. But I think this is a good example of exactly why I’m doing this. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and that somehow I need to expand my vision and my perspective. Admittedly I like simplicity, and uncluttered and straightforward images. I hate when photographers try to be too clever. I’m typically not interested in photographers trying to prove how clever they actually are. If I want clever, I’ll listen to Dennis Miller. Backwards.

But I think compositionally, one of the most difficult things to do is to use negative space effectively. It’s always something that has been a challenge for me. I guess if I’m going for anything with my photography, it would be elegant simplicity. I’m not exactly sure what I mean by that, but hopefully with this project I’ll be able to better define that, at least in my own mind.

I will say that I greatly admire Robert Mapplethorpe. Not necessarily the homoerotic, shock photography. To me, some of that is interesting, but for the most part I consider that the visual equivalent of Howard Stern. Of course, Mapplethorpe was around a decade or so before Howard stern came along, but still I can’t help but think that some of Mapplethorpe’s pictures were done for no reason other than pure shock value. Some of those pictures can be interesting in small doses, but to me on the whole, they tend to be boring. And I think it’s sad that most people tend to associate Mapplethorpe with those shock images, because he was so much more than that.

His compositions, especially of flowers and the human form, were both elegant and simple. The way he used negative space seemed effortless. For me, in my compositions, the use of negative space has always seems clumsy and awkward. Almost forced. I never get that feeling with Mapplethorpe’s pictures. Sure, he borrowed a lot from classical composition, but he added something else as well. Needless to say, Mapplethorpe is definitely one photographer I admire very much.

Okay, okay, so I’m not as eloquent as Shakespeare. And I really don’t need a horse. What I really need is a semblance of a plan. The plan as it stands it to take one picture each day and post it on this blog. Not an entirely original idea, I know. I’m pretty sure there have been a number of other people that have done more or less the same thing. But I’m not doing this to be original, or break any new ground, or make some kind of artistic statement. I could care less whether any of these pictures will stand on their own, or work together as a group. Quite frankly, I expect the vast majority of the pictures to be quite awful. So be sure and close your eyes if you decide to look.

Rather than make some kind of artistic statement, I guess what I’m looking to do is to warp my sense of style and bend my vision out of whack. I want to cut corners and take the wrong way home. I hope make outside down and inside up. Basically I want to force myself to change. I think too often as a photographer it’s easy to fall back on what you know, what has worked in the past. I know that’s something I’ve definitely been guilty of myself. Instead, with these 365 pictures I want to find out what doesn’t work, and perhaps in a roundabout way, twist what I see and somehow make it my own.

So that is my plan. I’ll take a Polaroid a day and post it on this site. Of course, I’ll also take lots of other photographs as well, and I may post some of those on the site as well. But every day, I will make one Polaroid specifically for this site. I’ll take pictures of whatever I see and whatever strikes my fancy. Nothing is off limits, and nothing will be too mundane, too obtuse, or too irrelevant. Not that the technical details matter, but I’ll take the pictures using a Polaroid back on a Hasselblad 501cm and I’ll use Polaroid 669 instant color film. The pictures I post will be the full frame square image scanned directly from the Polaroid positive. The only digital manipulation will be very basic manipulation that could easily be done in a traditional darkroom. That might include some minor dodging and burning, along with minimal contrast and exposure corrections. And I will most likely sharpen the images slightly as well, in order to better represent the original Polaroid image rather than carry forward scanner induced loss. Basically I will try my best to be faithful to the original in-camera image.

But again, I view this more as an experiment in composition and vision than as any attempt to make art. Whatever art is. But if for some unexplained reason I do strike inspiration and find myself unduly manipulating any images, I’ll be sure and make note of it, along with posting the original image for comparison.

As for full disclosure, first let me say that I rarely, if ever, work in color. So that alone will be completely new for me, which is good. Almost all of my work is done in black and white in a traditional wet darkroom. I do all of my own developing and printing and am very used to the control that affords. I do realize this project would be much easier if I were to use a digital camera. But you know what? Digital sucks, so digital is out. I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say on that subject later, but for now, let me just reiterate, digital sucks. So Polaroids it is. And I’ll use a Hasselblad because that is my normal camera. I do shoot 35mm, as well as some large format, but 90% of all my photography is done on a Hasselblad. So I wanted to use the tool I’m comfortable with, and the tool I plan to keep using in the future.

So there you have it. That’s my plan. I have no idea how it will turn out. None whatsoever. But in the spirit of passionate experimentation inspired by the Dead Poets, my aim is to look, think, and then let go, consequences and sustained embarrassment be damned. I don’t know how this experiment will affect me as a photographer. It may confuse me, blind me, beat me, or scar me for life. Or it may enlighten and enliven and inspire me. I can’t be sure. And I like that. I think that alone if reason enough to jump right in.

If the plan changes and morphs and grows or expands or shrinks on its own, for whatever reason, I’ll be sure and document that here as well. And by the way, seeing as this is a blog, and my own blog at that, I also plan to bloviate on a variety of photography related topics, and maybe a few that have nothing to do with photography as well. Needless to say, I’ve got plenty of opinions. Did I mention, digital sucks.

With all that said, the first image will be posted on January 1, 2008. Have at it.