Favourite Albums 2014

So I have neglected the blog terribly in 2014 and promise to do more in 2015. I'll make that my first resolution. Meanwhile I did have a top ten list of albums I enjoyed throughout this year. I managed to see most of these artists on this list as well in person.

1)  The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream
2)  Hiss Golden Messenger - The Lateness of Dancers
3)  Hurray For The Riff Raff – Small Town Heroes
4)  Beck – Morning Phase
5)  Spoon – They Want My Soul
6)  Real Estate – Atlas
7)  Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire for No Witness
8)  St. Vincent – St. Vincent
9)  St. Paul & The Broken Bones – Half the City
10) Sun Kil Moon – Benji

My Favorite Albums 2013

A funny year for music. Records that kinda sneak up on you and linger instead of smacking you right in the face. So here goes:

1) Johnny Marr - The Messenger
2) The Besnard Lakes - Until in Excess
3) Laura Marling - Once I Was an Eagle
4) The Dead Tongues - Desert
5) Shearwater - Fellow Travelers
6) His Golden Messenger - Haw
7) Scout Niblet - It's up to Emma
8) Angel Olsen - Half Way Home
9) Arcade Fire - Reflektor
10) The Love Language - Ruby Red

Next Few Down:
Don Dixon - High, Filthy and Borderline
Michael Rank - Mermaids
Sarah Jarosz - Build Me Up From Bones

Ebb and Flow, Raleigh Arts Commission Exhibit

I recently applied for a call to show work in the Block Gallery which is owned by the City of Raleigh. I am happy to report I was selected for a show in this space on West Martin Street in downtown Raleigh. The theme of the show is "Ebb & Flow." It is described here:

The artists of Ebb & Flow channel the beauty of the world around us through the lens of nature. Sacred belief, personal struggle and the essence of time and place form the conceptual framework of three distinct and powerful bodies of work.

The selection of the images was done by the director of the gallery, but I was quite pleased with her choices.
She wanted alot of  larger, new work which I am pleased to now have framed and presented for the first time. There are a set of photographs from Fort Macon State Park, and the rest being from areas in and around Orange and Alamance county. The images are all traditionally darkroom-printed silver-gelatin photographs. As part of the show we were interviewed:

Prepping for a show is never easy. I will readily admit I do not like framing as its hard work to do correctly. I did frame these with the help of photographer friend Doug Van de Zande. After a long, hot afternoon of asselmbly they were finally ready to go.

The opening was Thursday, September 5th and the presentation of the 12 images I had selected was left to the gallery to decide. Turns out my images were first in que to be seen and looked great on the wall.

I am grateful to Annah Lee and the Raleigh Arts Commission for a chance to show this work for the next 30 days! Also, I was lucky enough to have two of my photographs purchased by the city of Raleigh for their permanent collection!

Ak-sar-ben 8x10 Camera, 1897

Ak-sar-ben, (Nebraska), 1897


www.piercevaubel.com/cam/misc/aksarben.htm says:

This camera has so far only been found to be advertised in the catalog of R. Dempster, Omaha, Nebraska, c.1897. The large, wooden side plates are quite distinctive and unique, as are the folded brass springs holding the ground glass frame, which probably means that this camera was a Dempster product manufactured locally. In case you were wondering, Ak-Sar-Ben is the name of a certain state spelled backwards.

References:
Hand Cameras, Kodaks and Supplies, R. Dempster (Omaha, NE), 1897, p. 39

I have been lucky enough to find one of these cameras for sale and have been fitting it out.

This is the 126 year old Ak-sar-ben shown as it is ready to use!  There are two lenses I have for it to date.
One is an Eskofot 150mm, which actually covers 8x10! This camera has a very short rail so the rail showing up in the frame  is not a problem. I have installed a yellow filter and have a lenscap ready to go. The other lens is a  Rank, Taylor and Hobson 8 1/2" (225mm) that has a lowest aperture of 4.5! It should make for some interesting possibilities in limited light.

The back of this lens is threaded so I could mount a yellow filter on the back , lenscap on the front which I have done before.  To put the quick release on this non standard camera I had to buy a longer that usual screw for it and file it down at the base so it would fit into the shoe mount. Took about 2 days to do all the lens mounting and camera prepping. Lets hope this thing works!

Social Media Goals Ignore the (Formerly) Flickr Community

Flickr's recent stats are still headed south. But truthfully they have been headed south for a couple years. What they failed to see was that the people actually using flickr were committed, paying customers who built community, not commodity. The inability to monetize the community aspects of flickr meant that model was destined for the scrap heap.

Jealous of the rising popularity of quick photo sharing services like instagram, flickr was not a player in the evolving arena of social media. The redesign squarely focuses on turning flickr into an endless photo stream generator. Look! pretty colors! maybe you'll click. The new format cannot measure "visits" as visiting the photo is no longer necessary so viewer metrics are out the window. Favourites can still be clicked but clicking into the photo page is no longer necessary. The photo viewsa are now justified endless scrolling lines of images vs. nicely paginated presentations. Its as if someone loaded your photos in a cannon and just splat them on a screen with out regard for space or context.

Part of the communication that has been lost in a design like the new flickr is the description aspect of the photograph. Descriptions are no longer immediately viewable simultaneously with the photograph. Process is critical to film photographers. We rely on the "research" of others constantly. Saves us time and money. Someone discovers a method, it is shared. I cannot count the number of times I have researched lenses, film or darkroom printing materials just searching flickr for examples. Flickr search is now not only an endlessly justified mess, its unpredictable-not delivering the same result twice.

Flickr is an ARK of film photo knowledge in the rising sea of digital. So much good information resides in the forums and dark corners of that site it should be a national landmark for film shooters. The new management fails to see this. The lack of respect for community and continuity has cost us much. I am very happy to see so many of my film photographer contacts and friends here at ipernity. I am equally pleased to see the sane, controllable layouts to present the work.

2012 Top 10 Records

Here without too much comment are the 10 records I enjoyed most in 2012. I will qualify that Poor Moon actually was released in 2011, but to only 500 lucky people with turntables. So this year's CD was the first mass release of this fine record.


1) Hiss Golden Messenger - Poor Moon
2) Wintersleep - Hello Hum
3) Other Lives - Dark Horse
4) Sharon Van Etten - Tramp
5) Shearwater - Animal Joy
6) The Tallest Man on Earth - Theres No Leaving Now
7) Japandroids – Celebration Rock
8) Spider Bags - Shake My Head
9) Lost in the Trees - A Church That Fits Our Needs
10) The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth

Next 10:

The dB's - Falling Off the Sky
The Small Cities - With Fire
Some Army - Some Army
Balmorhea - Stranger
Kenny Roby - Memories and Dreams
Allo Darlin' - Europe
Bowerbirds - The Clearing
Midtown Dickens - Home

Hello, Goodbye

So there's a reason they call them Albums, because when you make one,they become one, full of memory, life and and pure joy. So many nuanced memories I have connected to music, I have been so lucky. One record I made I did with no fewer than 13 people and included Paul Price, Wes Lachot, Ed Butler, Parthenon Huxley, Chris Stamey, Stacy Guess, Bobby Patterson, Nancy Middleton, Bill Newton, Scott Sawyer, Jack Campbell, Jeff Hart and Brent Lambert. Been reliving some of that tonight.

Paul and I at the Cat's Cradle in the mid 80's 

It breaks my heart to write that my longtime musical conspirator Paul Price passed away last Sunday peacefully and at home. He was surrounded by a cadre of true friends who cared for him till the last breath. There was soft guitar playing, and the laying on of hands, meditative prayer and tears.  Paul was one of my musical idols, my mentor, and a very good friend to me. He always told the truth. He often said "straight ahead" when parting, meaning be true, be straight on your path and implying that he damn sure was going to be. I was so happy and pleased to reconnect in a deep way with Paul again. It was a trying and all too short three and a half weeks but we got alot of heavy lifting done and left nothing but clarity around our friendship. I miss him already. Godspeed.

Coffee Plus X-Rays Equals Art!

I recently began photographing with an 110 year old 8x10 camera. Its a lovely heavy beast which requires rather expensive sheet film. I really enjoy using it and have been actively seeking economical ways to make this camera usable on a weekly basis.  One thing that Large Format photographers have been using instead of costly film is X-Ray film. It comes in most sizes, even more commonly 8x10. So here is a readymade orthochromatic film that can be used cheaply! The problem is there are no specifications toward using it as a photographic film. So a good bit of experimentation is required.

8x10 X-Ray Film image by Holden Richards

The main problem is developer/development time. Which developer gets the best results. I tried several with the outcome usually being that the negative was uneven or blotched in some way. After a few near-hits I stumbled across a Flickr user who was experimenting with Caffenol (an instant coffee and vitamin c based homebrew film developer) and it seemed to yield a smooth perfect negative. So now when I develop X-Ray film I'm in the darkroom mixing kitchen safe materials into film developer. The recipes for caffenol can be found at caffenol.blogspot.com. 

Full Color Depression

With the loss of many types of film to the dustbin of history, there are certain things that endure about some of these photographic emulsions that are gone. Not the least of which is that Kodachrome in all its incarnations was one of the finest, most detailed colour films ever made. The development process was complex and based on a subtractive development process (the mixing of paints, dyes, inks and natural colorants to create a full range of color, each caused by absorbing some wavelengths of light  and reflecting the others). Sounds complex, mostly its just beautiful to look at. The fact that such complex colour film existed in 1930's even more amazing. A show at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies showcases this film at a pivotal point in American history.

 http://www.fullcolordepression.com/

Commisioned by the Library of Congress’s Farm Security Administration, photographers like Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Russell Lee, and others, took some of the most indelible images of the Great Depression. Some  images were taken using a new film called Kodachrome. Because they had to be processed by Kodak the photographers of these images never got to see them. These photographs were rediscovered by a student researcher doing a dissertation in 1978 in the Library of Congress Archives.

Year End Top 10 Albums for 2011

I hope your 2011 was as entertaining musically as mine. Many live shows with my favourite bands and performers all year long. Here's how my top 10 albums shook out this year:


1. Wye Oak - Civillian
2. War On Drugs - Slave Ambient
3. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
4. Mount Moriah - Mount Moriah
5. The Kills - Blood Pressures
6. Gillian Welch - The Harrow and the Harvest
7. The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh
8. Phil Cook and His Feat - Hungry Mother Blues
9. Megafaun - Megafaun
10. Wild Flag - Wild Flag

Also amazing in 2011 (in no particular order):

Des Ark - Don't Rock The Boat, Sink The F*cker
Simone Dinnerstein - Bach: A Strange Beauty
The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck
Wilco - The Whole Love
Dolorean - The Unfazed
Hammer No More the Fingers - Black Shark
The Antlers - Burst Apart

Revolution of the Mind

One of my favourite bands ever, the dB's, of Winston Salem, have release what I think is the best single for 2011. Its called "Revolution of the Mind" Its available as a download free from http://www.thedbs.com.

Hopscotch 2011

Hopscotch is a very large music festival in Raleigh, NC featuring over 320 bands in 3 days over 15 different venues simultaneously, day and night, almost non stop. Some of the best that indie rock has to offer, quantities of known and unknown bands. Large touring acts like the Flaming Lips and smaller, less known but no less amazing bands. Doing this festival requires good shoes, a decent pair of ear plugs and more than a couple cups of coffee.

This years festival was more selective in its appeal but no less entertaining. Having sacrificed Friday night to a friends art opening I can only speak to Thursday and Saturday as far as evening performances.

What I saw:
Thursday:
Lynne Blakey, Kenny Roby, The DiBonzo Brothers, Frank Fairfield, Last Years' Men, Lower Dens, The Necks, The Love Language, The Black Lips

Friday
"Power of Narrative Song" Panel with Patterson Hood, Steve Gunn & John Truscinski

Saturday:
Lake Isle, Future Islands, Hammer No More the Fingers, Chris Stamey Small Group at the "Future of Pop" Panel with Wayne Coyne, Rosebuds, Superchunk, The Flaming Lips, Prayers and Tears, Des Ark, Bombadill, Lost in the Trees

This is a lot of music even without a full day Friday to drink in. Some highlights have to include the visceral fury and subtle control of Des Ark at Kings Saturday night, the lovely, restive interlude of the Chris Stamey Small group Saturday afternoon. Last Year's Men were angular, aggressive and excellent Thursday evening bringing their punk but clean energetic brand of rock. I have seen the Love Language numerous times but I thought what they gave hopscotch was pretty special on Thursday night. Local bands seem to shine at this festival, more so than usual. Those that went Friday night said it was exceptional, I wish I could have attended.



Des Ark - Amy Argote



The Flaming Lips - Wayne Coyne


The Love Language - Stu McLamb

New, Old Old Camera

This is a Rochester Optical Company "Universal" Camera manufactured in 1891. I recently bought this 4x5 film camera to begin learning about large format photography. This camera originally made images on glass plate, but at some point someone added a more "modern" film loading mechanism to the back (and even that is still made of wood). This camera came with a Bausch and Lomb 1890 "Rapid Rectilinear" lens. The first lens to offer no distortion in vertical lines. The construction of the lens is symmetrical. Identical groups of lenses equidistantly apart. Its called "Rapid" because it can focus and operate at f/8, which I am sure was quite a breakthrough for 1890. Rochester Optical Company was eventually to become a little company known as Kodak! I am going to have to learn about tilt and swing and putting this camera through its paces before I can remotely claim to have mastered it. I have gotten the camera light tight and have made some test images (see below):

Postcard for an Exhibition

This is the front and back of the postcard for my next exhibition of darkroom prints entitled "Time and Light" at the Morning Times Gallery in Raleigh, NC. The show opens Friday, August 5th, 2011.

I have been working in the darkroom alot in the last 7 days to get this ready. The newer images are a larger 12"x12" square print mounted in a 22" frame. Larger prints make some elements easier to execute but flaws that might just slide by in a smaller image are writ large upon a significantly larger print. It also seems that getting good dark black tones takes more conscious effort in larger prints as well. All that aside I am pretty satisfied with the results of this concentrated effort.

Work From the Center

This is what I submitted to the ArtsCenter for the show and opening this evening;

Statement: Our best creative moments often come when we least expect them
all the while the practice necessary to receive that creativity has been integral to the process all along. Moments from the "center" for me implies the truer nature of an artistic process revealed in the practice of all phases of photographic reproduction; from shooting, developing, and later to the printing of these images. The "center" to me also implies a creative process that is my artistic "home." A place and time of complete understanding to me awaiting my technical interpretation to realise it. Whether wandering to long abandoned 18th century locations on the Rivers of North Carolina or exploring the marshland of the Piedmont the abundance of wildlife and diversity of flora never fail to overwhelm me. I am in my proper place in the world, that of the empathetic observer of the inherent timeless beauty of landscape and water.


Purpose: The purpose of this show is not only to exhibit these traditional wet darkroom prints on archival fiber papers but to remind the community of the great resource we have in the darkroom facility at the Arts Center in Carrboro. With traditional film rapidly dissapearing from the artistic landscape its essential we endorse and use what resources are available to keep them around as a viable option for future film enthusiasts.

The print in the photo above is a larger 14x14 print in a 24x24 frame, the one next to it is the standard 17x17 size frame with the 9x9 print I usually make... Here you see things getting boxed up and ready to go! Digital photo does not do the real contrasts in these justice! Lots of readable dark areas and Zone V starts pretty far down the scale so its a rich look.

Pictures for an Exhibition

Its getting close to time, I have been printing, printing and printing. I switched papers to get the densities I wanted to be able to produce some negatives that have not been easy to reproduce on the matte. I am liking this Glossy FB, VC very much. I have 11 prints done and want to do 5 more and ultimately select 12 to put in the show I am having the entire month of April at the Arts Center in Chapel Hill in the East End Gallery. If I get through these 11x14's I am going to produce some 16x20's as well. Whew...

I have take to flashing the paper before printing to control the highlights. Its a simple idea that gives you a certain amount of control over desparity of densities within a negative.

If Not For You - Cat's Cradle Feb 26th, 2011

Peter Holsapple onstage with me; Photo: Stan Lewis

I had the pleasure of participating in a performance of the entire album of "All Things Must Pass" by George Harrison. The evenings proceeds were going to the Caring Community Foundation - an organization that supports chronically ill people in their every day financial needs for rent, food and just living. Having recently performed in a duo with Chris Stamey at the Alex Chilton memorial show at the Cradle it somehow seemed only right that I get to perform at this show with Peter Holsapple. Peter sang while the band and I played "Isn't it a Pity" for a packed house of more than 600. It's not a night I will soon forget. Having recently played to a packed house with my new band Cloudlines I have had two recent music experiences that have been back-to-back two of the best I can remember.



One of the best outcomes of playing the "All Things Must Pass" show is reconnecting with many, many people (there were over 40 people involved in this) I had not seen for years and performing with many of them for the first time ever. Folks like Chris Chamis, Lynn Blakey, Jane Francis, Rebecca Newton, Bryon Settle, Pete Gamble and Greg Bell are all long time participants in the North Carolina music scene and its was really superb to be able to finally share a stage with all of them. I am in debt for the organizer of this show (Jeff Hart) for including me in this unforgettable experience.

Big Star Third - Cat's Cradle Dec 9th, 10th 2010

This is the drummer/singer/songwriter from the seminal rock band Big Star. Big Star is most known now by the song that kicks off a TV show called That 70s Show but back in their day they were one of the most innovative rock bands around. Their sound went on to influence many important bands The Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Gin Blossoms, Wilco, Afghan Whigs, Whiskeytown and others. The 1987 tribute song "Alex Chilton", co-written by three members of The Replacements, was released as a single from the album Pleased to Meet Me and contains the lyric "I never travel far without a little Big Star". Standing behind Jody in this shot is the bassist Mike Mills from the American Band R.E.M.

So they are putting on a live show of the entire 3rd Big Star Record in Chapel Hill with a full string section and a horn section. It was LUSH to say the least. This show includes members of Local Triangle bands Lost in the Trees, Rosebuds, The Old Ceremony, The Love Language, Mayflies USA, The dBs, Let's Active, Tomahawks and more. There are a lot of people on that stage!

We got to setup stages in front of the stage at the Cat's Cradle to shoot this so we were shooting on a higher level than usual from the front. I also got to use a tripod which I never normally can in live music situations. In rehearsal on wednesday at Overdub Lane Studios in Durham there were so many documentary people and photographers that Will Rigby said the band had a String Section and a Camera Section.





Stu McLamb of the Love Language

Mike Mills of R.E.M.


Photo notes: this is T-Max 400 pushed all the way to 3200 as the long lens on the Hasselblad only stops down to f/4. I love how smooth this came out in stand development.

Best Albums of 2010

This is my top ten for the year end of 2010. There was so much good music made and seen this year. Between the amazing Hopscotch festival, a really nice local-centric Troika in Durham and large name band shows at local venues (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes at the Cradle for one). This was a great year for music all around.
My top ten is as follows:

1) Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago
2) Sharon Van Etten - Epic
3) Arcade Fire - the Suburbs
4) The National - High Violet
5) Lost in the Trees - All Alone In An Empty House
5) Megafaun - Heretofore
6) The Love Language - Libraries
7) Bright Young Things - Self Titled EP
8) White Rabbits - It's Frightening
9) Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks
10) Spoon - Transference

Hopscotch 09/09/2010-09/11/2010

Taken during Broken Social Scene, Nikon F, Film.


Hopscotch - One-hundred thirty bands in three days, that's the promise of the Hopscotch Music Festival in downtown Raleigh this weekend. It is set to be the biggest music festival in the history of North Carolina. Essentially curated by the Indy's Grayson Currin Hopscotch 2010 was an ecclectic and great bunch of music. From gritty rock to electronica, hip hop and everything inbetween. What was unique about Hopscotch was that the record companies and downtown establishments and businesses in Raleigh sponsored day parties in which many of the highlighted bands played for free to afternoon concert goers. Some of the highlights for me for the entire weekend happend at just such shows. As an example the "Friend Island" day party at the Pour House on Friday the 10th featured Collections of Colonies of Bees, All Tiny Creatures, Pattern is Movement, Family Dynamics and Megafaun and Breathe Owl Breathe. The entire afternoon was well attended by more polite than usual concert goers and the added attentiveness brought out
great performances. The Megafaun performance I saw that day was one of the best I've ever seen. They were beyond inspired and delivered an emotional full-throated punch throughout their set. Friday night brought for me Rosebuds, Broken Social Scene, Panda Bear a quick trip to Slims to see Austin Texas' own Followed by Static (very original music for cello and rock band) and then back to the Pour House for Ryan Gustafeson and Sharon Van Etten. A full day by any stretch and I left early at that.

Saturday started right back at the Pour House where I attended the Trecky Records day party which consisted of; With Butterflies, Embarrassing Fruits, Sharon Van Etten, Midtown Dickens and Lost in the Trees. A super inspired set from Sharon Van Etten who I felt had her Hopscotch sea-legs after playing the night before and put on an even more relaxed and beautiful program that afternoon. This was quickly followed by one of the most manic Midtown Dickens sets I've seen. Inspired and ecclectic it was fun to watch. For me the highlight of the day, maybe the weekend, was seeing Lost in the Trees put on a gripping, tight, extremely musical set of songs where they, like Megafaun the day before, quickly exceeded any previous performance I had seen. (and I have seen some very, very good ones) Then it was off to the main stage to see No Age and Public Enemy (!). The show was easily stolen that night by the Helping Hand Marching Band who marched through the crowd before Public Enemy took the stage with a step crew a flag brigade and a drumline complete with drum major. They were amazing, all the moves and the dancing. Then it was off to Tir Na Nog to see electro-pop from Motor Skills and Tiger City, followed by a walk to the Lincoln Theatre to see NOMO and some of Bear in Heaven before calling it a night.

Easily 18 bands in 2 days is enough for anyone.