Pepper number 30. Plane number 3.

I have always enjoyed small 'still life' projects and like the idea of having total control over a subject, as a opposed to waiting for the light to change and fending off wild animals.
I also like making things and messing with a sense of scale.

 Paper Jet 2018

When trying to choose a paper plane to photograph, I was reminded of Edward Weston and his quest for the perfect Pepper.
I made 10 paper planes all different shapes and sizes. It wasn't about which plane flew the furthest (although this one did), or which was the hardest one to make (this one was easy). It was about which one made the best image. I just love the simplicity of a simple jet style pattern and the way the folds catch the light.
Yes its just a paper plane, or a Pepper, but there's always more to it than meets the eye..

Pepper #30

It was a bright idea, a perfect relief for the pepper and adding reflecting light to important contours. I still had the pepper which caused me a week’s work, I had decided I could go no further with it, yet something kept me from taking it to the kitchen, the end of all good peppers. I placed it in the funnel, focused with the Zeiss, and knowing just the viewpoint, recognizing a perfect light, made an exposure of six minutes, with but a few moments’ preliminary work, the real preliminary was on in hours passed. I have a great negative, ‒ by far the best!
It is a classic, completely satisfying, ‒ a pepper ‒ but more than a pepper; abstract, in that it is completely outside subject matter. It has no psychological attributes, no human emotions are aroused: this new pepper takes one beyond the world we know in the conscious mind. Edward Weston

The Brothers Douglas.

Back in my college days in the early 90's a duo by the name of The Douglas Brothers were all the rage. Their prints were usually done using the lith printing method along with bits of tape and pen scribbles. Everyone on my year thought they were the business and made haste in trying to emulate their style.  I on the other hand was not taken up with this darkroom sorcery as I much preferred a clean technically perfect print.
Heres one I remember below.

And here's the revamped stuff below.

Anyways, 20 years on and the Douglas brothers archive has since been rediscovered, and indeed reinvented. (You can read all about it here )
What were once small rough prints, with tape and scribbles, are now giant clean prints in beautiful white frames. To my eyes this new reinvention simply doesn't work (when does it ever). Whether it did before, well I cannot really remember as I was too busy trying to perfect my prints..
The show is on at the Kopeikin Gallery in LA.

All hail the photography blogger..

Another year rolls by with a pitiful amount of posting from yours truly.
Personally I blame Instagram and social media for the steady downfall of The Blogger.
The days have gone when a great many a photographer added a blog roll to their website. Instead we have an everyday account thanks to The Smartphone and all that other techno wizardry.

Despite this I shall continue starting the New Year with some of my favorite images from 2017.

 Palm Springs 2017

 Cowboy 2017

 Bombay Beach 2017

 Cross 2017

 Lone Pine 2017

 White Van 2017

 Airport 2017

Mini Mart 2017