Bookworms and Shutterbugs

"Photography books often have titles like The Photographer’s Eye or The Vision of So and So or Seeing Photographs — as if photographers didn’t have minds, only eyes." -- Duane Michals

“A book is like a piece of music; it has a beginning and an end, but what happens in between is up to you.”

-- Stephen Shore

 

In this episode, Antonio talks about connecting with his new Fujifilm X100VI camera during a photo walk around New York City. He reflects on how much he enjoys shooting with this camera, which feels just right in his hands and helps him capture the energy of the city. As fall sets in and the days get shorter, he’s planning to head back out for some night photography, especially around the bright lights of Times Square.

Ward shares his recent experience photographing the Pride parade in Calgary. He usually shoots in black and white but decided to switch things up and capture the parade’s vibrant colors. It turned out to be a lively and colorful event, full of energy and emotion, and gave him a new perspective on his work. He also took a vintage Rolleicord camera to a local car show, revisiting the slower, more thoughtful process of shooting medium format film. These experiences got him thinking about how different settings and equipment can change the way you see and capture the world.

The guys also talk about their latest finds in photo books.

Antonio shares his experience attending the ICP Photo Book Fest in New York City, where picked up some new titles including Todd Hido’s "On Landscapes, Interiors, and the Nude", which explores the emotional impact of color and composition, and Trent Parke’s "Minutes to Midnight", which offers a stark, striking view of life in Australia. He also discusses his motivations for selecting specific books and how they can aid in teaching photography.

Ward also talks about a local photography book launch event he attended, featuring the work of pure mathematician and photographer Arturo Pianzola. He also brings up "Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture" by Ivan McClellan, a book that dives into the unique and underrepresented world of Black rodeo. He describes the vivid color photographs that capture the people, culture, and atmosphere of this often-overlooked part of American life. The book opened his eyes to a new side of rodeo culture, adding another layer to his understanding of photography’s role in telling diverse stories.

 

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Show Links:

Neat Film Lab

The Monochrome Guild

Arturo Pianzola 

Antonio M. Rosario's Website, Vero, Instagram and Facebook page

Ward Rosin’s Website, Vero, Instagram and 
of so-and-so or seeing photographs as if photographers didn't have minds only eyes.
A book is like a piece of music. It has a beginning and an end,
but what happens in between is up to you.
Music.

(00:30):
Hey, welcome to the Street Shots Photography Podcast.
This is Antonio. And this is Ward.
Choking to death. It's Ward. It really is. It's not. It is Ward. Yeah, yeah.
This is Happening Live. And this is episode 215 for the, what are we,

(00:55):
in the middle of September.
The middle of September, yeah. Yeah. Kids are back in school.
Right. Leaves are starting to fall. School buses are running over people.
Oh, okay. I didn't hear that one. Okay.
You know what? Sorry, I can rant a little bit, but I don't know who's training
the bus drivers in New York City, the school bus drivers.

(01:17):
But they must have trained at some demolition derby or something.
They are the most dangerous drivers, I think, in New York City.
And you know they've got the worst vehicles those big yellow school buses are
just are terrible and and they have really bad driving some of them like for
for i get it they'll drop off a kid and you know like a two-way street what

(01:40):
they'll do is they'll diagonally cut both
like instead of staying on their side of the street right they'll cut into the
both lanes on a diagonal so that nobody can get by now i get that sort of like
yes it's going to stop any car,
coming by. But, you know, I mean.
That must say something about New York drivers, too, because they don't see

(02:03):
the little stop signs that come out of the school bus.
Even with a big fine, that's no deterrent. It's just...
Anyway, so yeah, school has started. It's a lot... I don't know if it's quieter, but who knows?
And it feels like... This feels like the beginning of the year.
September always feels like,
Like, I think I don't know about you, but I always still feel like I'm on a

(02:24):
school schedule for some strange reason.
I think I did now that our kids are older and we, I don't really have that ebb
and flow. It's just the traffic, I guess. The traffic looks different.
But I mean, just in terms of like your general overall, like feeling,
don't you, do you still feel like, you know, September is like the start of
a year in some way? Not really. No, I don't think.

(02:46):
It's just here. There's this kind of doom waiting for the snow to fly.
That's part of that right yeah but that's not
like you know hunker down that's you know back to
school it's we're we're back at it i don't really
have that feeling okay all right
i don't know i hated school so so

(03:08):
you know september comes up and i dread i kind of dread like
it feels like the beginning of a season right so
you know the beginning of therapy because they all go go away on august
and so therapy starts in september school starts
in september you know the seasons change like all of
a sudden the you know like a switch flips sometimes and
like our temperature drops so anyway anyway

(03:28):
yes it's the middle of september that's a long long way to say that and we don't
remember we don't know what the area code is do we for 215 i didn't look it
up i didn't look good so let's just leave that leave that as homework for the
viewer what is area code Code 215. 215.
There is one. Yeah. So how have you been?

(03:50):
I've been good. There's some stuff we'll be talking about.
I've been doing the last couple of days and it has remained warm here,
thankfully, and will probably remain warm, I guess, into the mid eighties Fahrenheit
and a little warmer over these past few days.
So that's very good for this time of year and the length of time we've had this warm weather.

(04:11):
You can say unseasonably warm.
So does that mean anything for your photography or it doesn't matter?
It's just like more people are out or like, does it, does it change?
Well, I mean, if I was still working downtown, I think I would, I would do more.
And there were, there were some things I did, uh, whatever, two weekend,
two weekends ago, a weekend ago, or it was a lot of fun covered the parade and that was fun.

(04:33):
And good weather, right? In good weather. Yeah. And very often it's,
it's cooler and it's not, not as much, not as much energy in the crowd or in
the parade participants.
Right. Cool.
Yeah. Nice. Yeah. We've, we've turned into fall today and I think we're going
back to summer tomorrow.
So, uh, yeah, it's, it's okay.

(04:56):
Yeah. And what have I been doing? I don't know. I've been playing with the new
camera. So, you know, there's that.
Sorry to say i'm not sorry to say this but you know there's sometimes when a
piece of gear you know you can resonate with it on all levels and that model
camera not necessarily the specific one but just that you know that x100 series

(05:19):
like yeah once i pick it up and and get sort of,
reintroduced to it again and just me and me and it work really well together
i just feel that it's It's the kind of camera I really always wanted to have and use.
I mean, yes, it's digital, not film, but it's just to me and it like I get back

(05:39):
my pictures with it and I'm looking and I'm like, you know what? This just feels right.
So last on Labor Day.
My friend and I, my friend Geraldine and I did a walk, a photo walk,
sort of the opposite direction that we went, that you and I went.
We started up, actually, no, sorry. No, we walked, we started off at B&H and

(06:01):
I helped her buy a camera.
And, you know, that's, she was getting a new camera for doing some,
for some job that's coming up.
And she hasn't purchased a new digital camera in a while.
So I was there to help. And I, and I bumped into my friends there.
And so we talked for a while, but then we walked from there down to eighth, eighth street.

(06:24):
So from 34th street on the West side. Yeah. Yeah.
And so reminiscent of, of when you were in town and we stopped by,
we walked down sixth Avenue and we stopped by the jazz loft and we took the
same selfie that you and I did.
Although they've changed the the another
another store or something like that moved in but

(06:47):
i did yeah i did go up the stairs i went
halfway up and the floor that i went
to was was closed and the next floor was open and i decided not to push my luck
but i was inside of the i was actually inside the jazz loft on the stairway
yeah and so that was pretty exciting so both of us walked down the street and
she was using her camera and i was using my x100 and and doing some street I

(07:10):
haven't put any of those pictures up yet,
but that was, that was kind of fun.
And then I, I understand now what you were talking about, cause it's really
hard to talk and photograph at the same time. Yeah.
So, and, and, but we were there to talk. I mean, I wasn't, it wasn't a photo
walk. We were, we just brought our cameras to walk. So that was great.
That was a blast. And I realized I need to go back into the city more often

(07:33):
to, to do some photography.
There's just so many opportunities or just drop myself into some place where there's a lot of people.
And now that the holidays are coming up, like that's going to be pretty rich
and especially going to like, I want to do some stuff at night,
you know, but like in the time square area where there's a lot of lights and
stuff, I really want to try doing that.

(07:53):
And because it'll get darker earlier, I could go in, you know,
you know, earlier in the day and not stay so late and, uh, come home.
And so I'll be shooting at night. So anyway, it was, it was, it was some of that.
And yeah, but of course I went to BNH and I had to buy something,
but I just bought it. I bought some strap.

(08:14):
I bought a strap for my camera. One of the peak design straps,
which I really like. I've sort of fallen for those peak straps.
I don't know if the button thing. Yeah. It's got that little red. Yeah.
Clips on. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice because you can, once you have those little
connectors onto the camera, you can, you know, pull off the strap whenever you want.
It doesn't make the camera have these little dangly things, but,

(08:35):
you know, taking the strap on and off is not a problem.
So it's a, it's, it's a nice little design.
So I got that in a little wrist strap too, like a clutch or something like that.
So cute, but yeah, but you know, I walked out without spending too much money. Yeah.
It was in the the the two
to three digit not the three yeah yeah yeah

(08:58):
yeah there's a there's some lenses that i
was i was intrigued by but uh i also took
a look at this sorry this is a gear thing but i did take a look at the
nikon zf the their you know
version of it's kind of like the modern version of the fm2 or the is it a full
frame or is it a crop it is a full frame they have two two cameras they have

(09:18):
the zfc and they have the zf right the zfc first came out and it's been around
for a zillion years and it's got that retro look but it's the smaller frame and then the zf.
Is is just the big brother of that but more
modern things going on inside and a full frame and
i gotta say if i

(09:39):
if i sell some gear or something like that i'm gonna get that icon yeah no i'm
not gonna buy it now i wouldn't buy it now but it it had a 40 millimeter lens
on it and that seemed like such a nice it like seemed like a perfect focal length for that camera and,
i don't know it just have lovely electronic viewfinders don't they yeah this

(10:03):
was this was really a nice camera and plus it's got all the stuff on the outside
and my friend we had already.
We'd already purchased the the sony or she put
the order in for it and then we walked by and i showed her the zf and
i said she bought a sony and i said and she
was looking at this she was oh i like this one i was like yeah but
the sony's got better autofocus you know but uh you know it was a bit she was

(10:27):
but i like all this stuff on the outside i get it i go yeah yeah but you know
it's like it's more expensive than the sony and then but yeah anyway it was
it was it was you You know, it's a, it's a temptation.
You're walking that place. So, so speaking about temptations,
uh, yeah, as we segue into this segue into this segue in a ham handed consumeristic way.

(10:53):
Yeah. But before we do that, I do want to, I do want to mention,
you know, usually bring this to the beginning, but one of our listeners,
Tim Arthur bought us some coffee, right?
Wow. He bought us five coffees and he said he loved the Meyer,
the mayor discussion. And so thank you, Tim, so much.

(11:15):
That was a fun one to do. Cause we were really lighting fires on with that discussion. That was that.
And I, I've, I felt thankful that you were able to see, you know,
a lot of the same stuff that I did and how inspiring it was and the whole thought
around her and, and the work and where she fits. That's was great.

(11:37):
But thank you, Tim. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you, Tim.
And, you know, I'd like to put a, you know, sort of a rain check on continuing a discussion with her.
Cause I can't imagine we could have solved or talked, talked her out in a half an hour.
So I would love to pick that up again, maybe with somebody else too,
if we can get to get someone else to come and talk to her.

(11:58):
But yes, Tim, thank you for the coffees. I'm, I'm, I'm definitely caffeinated for sure.
So I really, really, really appreciate it. it so if you want to if you want
to join tim and support the show and buy us a coffee it's uh,
buymeacoffee.com slash antonio rosario i'll put that up at the end of the show
anyway but figure this is a good time to put it in and make tim a honorary producer for today's show.

(12:26):
Very cool thanks tim all right anyway so yeah now to segue into stuff yeah so this This weekend,
we're recording this on a Sunday, this weekend, for those of you who are in
New York City, you might know of the International Center of Photography.
And if you're not in New York City, you may know about it, but it's like the

(12:49):
one large photography museum in New York City and also an education center.
And they were having a photo book fest this weekend, Friday,
Saturday, and today, Sunday.
Day and i decided to go to
that i went i went yesterday i have

(13:11):
all the cool stuff what uh yeah well you know
what again another embarrassment for me is just like i had not been to the photographista
place and now they're going to be closing although for those of you who are
in new york you still have 20 days to go see the vivian meyer and bruce gildan
show there it's going to close on the 29th.

(13:32):
But I have not been to this. ICP has been in different locations in the city.
They first, or at least the first time I went there, they were in this really
old sort of gilded age building on like West 87th street, right off of a central park.
It seemed, it was a really nice place, but it didn't, it was never big enough
to hold all the stuff that they would do.

(13:54):
It was kind of, it was a nice gallery space and it was definitely gilded age kind of thing.
And then they moved to sixth avenue and 42nd street in which they had this sort of modern.
Classroom space that was sort of underground a
little bit and then they also had a museum space or
gallery space across the street so they sort of occupied two locations

(14:15):
i kind of like those locations but
especially the the classroom thing they had this giant underground classroom
thing and then they moved down to essex street
now and it looks to me
like i'm not sure about this because i haven't researched it but
the building might have been specifically built for them so it's like a modern
building with multiple floors and the ground floor is the entrance and it's

(14:40):
a coffee shop cafe and and a bookstore too you know they have all the books
and other things which i walked in to go to go show my tickets i was like i'm gonna,
yeah it was like a wall of books and it's like all right i said i'm going to
the book fest it only costs five bucks to go to the book fest so that's that was nice,
And I went there, you know, I brought an empty backpack with me because I did

(15:04):
anticipate buying some books.
And I actually asked you for some, some recommendations because.
And I just kept shoveling on pictures from my library until you said enough already. I know.
I wanted to get a couple of books at least so that you and I can have the same
library in some sense so we can talk about it on the show.
Or if we, if we decide to do something else with books, you know,

(15:27):
we both have the same book. So I thought it would be a good opportunity for
me to, to see about buying at least one or two of the same ones that you had.
And I, and I did buy, I did get a couple of books that I know you have.
So that's, that's a good thing.
But the multiple, multiple, excuse me, multiple publishers, they're publishing
companies I never heard of before.

(15:48):
I mean, but, uh, you know, I'm not very well-versed in the photography publishing
business, so I don't know if they're new or not.
It was, it was overwhelming.
There was two floors of books of vendors and publishers.
And they also had a couple of classrooms running some seminars,
which I didn't really go to.
And I didn't want to spend all day there.

(16:10):
And it was very crowded. It was very crowded. And I did scope out all the different
publishers and just the sheer number of books that I want.
And photographers I've never heard of, too. I think it's, I think going to see
like a book fair like this is a great way to get yourself introduced to people
that you've never heard of before, because these, especially with the smaller publishers,

(16:34):
they're producing pictures of books for photographers who are,
you know, they're experimenting.
And, and so I don't know where you get the chance to see all this stuff because,
you know, you're not necessarily finding the books on Amazon and you're definitely
not going to find a lot of this stuff in the library.
I can guarantee you, I got to find some of this stuff in the libraries,

(16:54):
you know, and where kids can look at it or stuff like that.
So I didn't spend as much time scouring. I was looking for some of the books
that you were talking about.
And I, I, I was going to pick up a Ralph.
There was two Ralph Gibson books I wanted that I saw. And then I walked around
and I totally lost where they were.

(17:15):
I don't know if I, which is probably good because I would have bought them in
addition to all the books that were already stuffed in my, because by then I
was like, I had already bought a bunch of, of books and I'll tell you what I got.
I got this book called photographs, not taken a collection of photographers,
essays edited by Will Stacey.

(17:38):
And it's actually, I'm going to open it now. It's if there's no photos in this
book whatsoever, I think it's just, hang on. I didn't plan for this.
So I don't have my blade with me. I got my blade. Here we go.
There we go. There you go. With the gravity flick thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There we go. So it's a small, it's a small book,

(17:59):
but the photographers who wrote essays in it, I go, wow, there's a whole list of them.
Tim, Timothy Archibald, she's Nina Berman, Tim Davis.
I'm just mentioning names. I don't know necessarily. Jim Goldberg,
Tim Hetherington, Chris Jordan.
There's, there's at least like 50 photographers here.

(18:22):
David Mizell, Alex Webb, Rebecca Webb. Yeah.
Mark Power. So let's see if I can read you what the book is about.
So on the preface, it says, Photographs not taken as a collection of essays
by photographers about moments that never became a picture.
I have asked the photographers within these pages to abandon the tools needed

(18:45):
to make a photograph and instead describe the experiences that did not pass
through their camera lens.
Here, the process of making a photograph has been reversed.
Instead of looking out into the world through a camera lens,
these essays look directly into the mind's eye to reveal where photographs come
from in their barest and most primitive form, the original idea.

(19:09):
These mental negatives depict the unedited world that could not exist in a single frame.
So that's by Will Stacey. That's an interesting premise for a book, for sure. Sure.
Yeah, it caught my eye, especially because I started to think about like,
well, what what is it the books that I want to get here?
And I decided to sort of aim at books that might help me for doing teaching.

(19:33):
So I thought this would be a good this would be a good a good thing to read
and add to, you know, whatever curriculums that I'm going to create in the future.
The next book I got was called Looking at Photographs. so
this is just another i think this is just it's
a book by what is it by laurent julier

(19:53):
i'm probably pronouncing that wrong j-u-l-l-i-e-r but
it's another book essay it's sort of an introduction guide to about how to look
at photographs but it's it it seems like it's not just an intro you know what
i mean but again i bought it in in the idea that i could use it for help with
With inspiration coming from other people's work.

(20:16):
Another book by Sophie Howarth called The Mindful Photographer.
So being present is the key to mindfulness and to taking great photographs that
this helpful guide will show you the way this is the way the mindful photographer,
part of a series of essential pocket companions.
So it's a, it's a practical guide about mindfulness and photography.

(20:37):
That's cool. I like, I like this side. It's not just about other people's work.
It's about the philosophy and, and some of the, whatever you want to call it,
the scholarship around photography and not just the act itself.
Yeah. I figured that was a good, it was a good way. That one not taken.
I'm going to have to get that title from you. I'm going to see if I can find it locally here.

(21:01):
Yeah. And it was not an expensive book. It's only like, it was only like 15
bucks. It's 15 bucks. So it's a worthwhile little thing.
It's nice because the cover is this empty frame. It's this empty four by five
piece of film. So it's, it's really, it's really nice.
It's caught my eye. I did buy on your recommendation, the Stephen Shore modern
instances, the craft of photography, a memoir.

(21:23):
You could probably tell me a little bit about this. Yeah. So it is a memoir
and it's also a description of individual circumstances he's been in.
It's very, it's about what goes on in his mind so much. It's not a teaching book.
It's his musings about his life and his work.

(21:44):
And it's great because it's more like you and I sitting and talking to each
other. It's not like, here's what I did.
Here's the chronology. Here's what I did this year. Here's what I did that year, blah, blah, blah.
And it's wonderful. It's light. It's not a heavy text.
Although he does go into, well, maybe I should take that back a little bit.
He talks about a lot of art and there's a lot of art criticism.

(22:09):
As it pertains to his ideas and perception about art and how it affects his photography.
So the densest parts of the book are around art and how they have affected him
and how art has affected him.
That's just my problem not being able to digest it, I think,
for a normal human. It's not a problem.

(22:30):
Because I'm like, he's talking about art. I don't know about photography.
But definitely, there's this back and forth. I mean, it's, and I like,
I like it because it's not, it's not a textbook.
It's you're sitting across from shore and he's telling you what he's thinking, what he's feeling.
So you think, do you think something like that, like this could make a good textbook in some way?

(22:55):
Like that, cause you know, it's not, when you're talking about,
it's not like the how to is, you know, as a memoir of a photographer,
I'm always like trying to tell students, like if you get involved in the mind
and the thinking of how a photographer,
like what's going on in the making of the pictures, like not,
not the actual making of it, but like the, the whole process of it,
you know, I always think that's a valuable.

(23:15):
Well, it's the other side of the brain you're using when you read that book, right?
It's not, I mean, there's scholarly
material in there. That's not really the point of the book for me.
It's who sure, who sure is as a creative person and those things that help build him up that way.
I mean, I'd have no problem with if a prof dropped that book in, in front of you and said,

(23:40):
aside from all of this dry history stuff, here's a contemporary photographer
who, you know, here's his creative outlook on things.
I think it's great. I mean, I mean, the fact that it isn't, that it is,
has a more creative bent to it, I think is its real appeal.
And maybe it should be, it should be taught. Maybe it is. We don't know. Just the way it is. Yeah.

(24:06):
We don't know. But no, it's very enjoyable. And it's, most chapters are very
short, two, three, four pages.
There's usually one photograph associated with each.
There could be, there could be one paragraph or three pages based on kind of
keyed off what goes on in that photograph or that photograph was produced because

(24:27):
of this set of perceptions.
And so it's just, it's just, just to keep you in the, in the game.
And I love it. Like I've got it, I've got it on my, you know,
beside my easy chair in my, in the living room and I can just thumb through.
It's one of those books. You don't have to start from the beginning if you don't want to.

(24:48):
Oh, okay. All right. I think I'll start. I did the first time.
The first two times I read it, I went from front to back. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow.
So it's interesting. I haven't unwrapped it yet. The book cover is really nice
because it's got a sort of what looks like an etching of a camera obscura.
And it's a very low key book,
but the back has got a couple of blurbs from the Washington Post says modern

(25:12):
instances is more than just a collection of musings about a life lived in the
arts. It's the book itself is an artwork.
David Fincher, who I think is the film director. He's a director.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Modern instances will no doubt affect how you make or appreciate
photographs. It might even alter how you see.
And then Alex Soth says modern instances is the textbook I've been waiting for.

(25:39):
It's about craft and biography and the subtitle suggests, but as the subtitle
suggests, but it's also a guide for living.
So that's an interesting thing to say So this one I'll probably unwrap And maybe
start this week I'm in the mood for something along these lines So the books
continue Hang on There's a couple more Wait,

(26:01):
there's more Now how much will you pay? Wait, there's more Well,
actually, there's a couple of Hang on,
I'm going to pull these out. There's a publisher in Brooklyn called,
or at least they were in Brooklyn, called Red Hook Editions.
They've got a picture. They've got a logo of the giant crane.

(26:22):
The cranes that are down in the shipping cranes that are down in Red Hook.
But they're no longer in Red Hook. They moved to Queens.
But they were giving out these zines called dog food.
And you know you look at them and i'm not
gonna i'm not gonna you know obviously people who are listening are

(26:42):
not going to see them so i'm just showing you ward yeah they're really sort
of designed and experimental and they're just these great zines and they gave
out like i took five of them they they were actually making them for free and
you know they're this they're these great eight zines.
And so I picked up a bunch of these also because I do teach zine classes and

(27:07):
I wanted to have multiple samples of zines to show people who come to that class.
So that was nice. That was really nice. I got to meet the guy who was running it too.
I also went to the Magnum booth or actually this one was from the Aperture booth
and I bought a book from Todd Hido.
It's called It's called On Landscapes, Interiors, and the Nude.

(27:29):
It's a photography workshop series.
And it's just, if you know Todd, how do you pronounce his name?
Heido or Heido? I honestly don't know. I thought it was Heido,
but we could. I'll say Heido because that sounds better.
I don't know. But it's all a book on his pictures and why he's photographing them and how he does it.
The color of emotion, the intimate distance. Yeah.

(27:50):
Finding your way. Right. And so it's a nice selection of his pictures and then,
you know, paragraphs about, you know, as if you were talking to photography
students, but he also signed it. I got a signature.
Nice. Yeah. So he signed it. That was nice.
And then last but not least, I bought at the Magnum booth. Okay.

(28:19):
They had a copy of Trent Park's Minutes to Midnight.
Totally. Fantastic book. And when you texted me that you were looking at it,
I had assumed that you hadn't made a decision to purchase it.
So I was, I was giving you a rough time. The number that you said that they
wanted for it. I'm like, oh, it's a great book. It's not worth that.

(28:41):
I mean, I would, I would, I would spend my money somewhere else.
I said, well, don't judge me because I bought it. now i
feel like a horse's ass uh yeah so
okay well you know to be fair it is a book it's one it's it's amazing book to
be fair it was it was pricey and i i rationalized and judged by saying it will

(29:04):
be my early birthday present well what you can say about anything that you buy
yeah as long as it's before your birthday you can say after your birthday he's like well you know
it's a belated birthday present so yeah it it's so i have to blame you okay
great so i feel bad it's a double whammy i give you grief for spending the money
on the book yeah i know you're the one who got me into into trent parker at

(29:30):
least you introduced me to him and then.
Just by what i've seen of his work in the connections and you know i've only
i think i've only scratched the surface looking at his work but i've fallen
in love with that of the, we, we talked about the book monument and I have at
least two copies, you know.
I actually by accident ordered a third. So that's sitting on a shelf someplace.

(29:53):
I didn't realize he did that. I wanted to have one so I could thumb through.
And the other one is a collector's thing. Cause it's just a beautiful book in itself.
And I won't rehash that. And we can go back to that episode, walk in the park.
But when you, you have this book. Yes. Yes, I do.
Yeah. Yeah, so when you showed it to me, I think that was my first introduction to his work.

(30:13):
And then as I started to find more of it, and then I found a YouTube video where
somebody was, you know, viewing this book and going through all the pages.
And I'm just floored by his work. There's something to be moved by a photographer
in a way that, you know, that doesn't happen that often.
You know, I've had it with like Irving Penn, and there's probably a few other photographers.

(30:35):
I think Michael Kenna has done that to me.
David la chapelle of of all photographs like
there's just color and noise and structure
yeah just over the top stuff right you know and then and then you know trent
park it speaks to me on a level that is there's almost no words to so you know
there's nothing so the book itself is like it's it just looks like a book right

(30:59):
but it's out of print and it's his pictures and so it did make it an expensive collector's item.
And my intention is it's still wrapped up in the plastic. My intention is to
unwrap it and look at it because I bought it. Cause I want to look at the pictures.
It's, I mean, of course I'll try to take care of it because it is, it is a valuable thing.
And I want to, I treat, I try to treat my stuff with respect because it will outlast me.

(31:23):
You know, we're just the caretakers of these things, I believe, you know?
So yeah. So that, you know, actually after I got that, I said,
I got it. I told the woman at the counter, I said, I got to go now.
Yeah. I got to leave because, you know, and then that's what I was trying to
find the Ralph Gibson books that I didn't. And I, well, actually I want to get

(31:43):
one of those books, but I'm glad I couldn't find it because that would have
just sent me over the edge.
But the, the, you know, Trent park was, that was well worth it.
And it was a book that you have, and I'd like to sort of do a,
you know, you and me talking about it sometime, you know? Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. There's something amazing about the light in that book. and
and also echoes into monument too

(32:04):
that light that low you know
morning and evening light at that latitude it's fascinating
different and slightly alien to us that are in north america yeah and you know
that cover with these bats that are you know translucent wings and it's just
you know and it's printed on it like it it's printed i mean you must have the

(32:27):
same one but but the pictures are printed on the linen.
Yeah. Like it's not a book cover. It's, it's really kind of cool.
So, oh, all right. So I got that and you know, we'll leave that.
We'll, we'll shelf that, you know, literally till the next time.
But I, I did see, remember, I don't know if we talked about it,
but the photographer, Matt Black had, I know of Matt Black. He was a magnum. Yeah.

(32:50):
American geography, I think was, was, I don't, I don't know that.
Oh, maybe, maybe we did, But I don't know if we talked about it,
but anyway, his, his book was there, which I have, and he signed that.
And then there was another version of it. That was the cover.
His book was all black, right? And even the type is all black.
And it's, it's this trip that he took through the United States.

(33:14):
I'm, I'm, I'm not doing it any justice by this description, but it's incredible photography.
Right. And then there was a second volume there that was all white.
That was the same name. And it was, it was part of the same trip.
And I almost bought it and I was, had I not gotten this thing,
I still might get it, but it was a collect, think of it like,

(33:34):
like an Irving pen and burned and Hilla Besher combined.
Oh, okay. Where he's photographing ephemera and garbage and debris and detritus
and, and, and cataloging them.
So the like double page spreads of like crushed beer cans and they're black and white.
And there's like hundreds of them all lined up

(33:56):
sort of like a catalog and and and i didn't
quite get it immediately because i was not sure i wanted to like i didn't
i wasn't sure i wanted this book about this catalog of of items but now that
i've been thinking about it it makes a nice companion to his other book and
it's part of the whole process that he he went through while he was photographing

(34:17):
because he was photographing america and all the things that make in his mind what was.
Making america at least during this trip so i think i might
get it you know if it's i think i'm i'll put that on my amazon list
and hopefully buy it or go to a store and buy it so
yeah so that's it i walked out with a good
selection of books you know i've got stuff to keep me company as

(34:37):
the weather starts to turn yeah i
can sit and read at the coffee shop or here
and you know this this trend park book i'm
gonna have to like you know it's gonna have a special place yeah take
care you know don't want a cat scratching it otherwise
like that cat will have to pay the ultimate price all
right there's a

(34:59):
loving cat owner right there yeah no no i used to have a cat that used to i
used to have cats that scratched my books these guys don't do it but they used
to use it as a scratching person oh you gotta be kidding you've ruined how many
books so anyway so that was that That was my, that was, that was my hall.
And again, you know, we've talked about books here on this show a lot and I, I.

(35:23):
I don't think I can get enough of them in some way, you know?
Well, you know, it's nice. I get a burst of them and then I'm done.
Like I'm kind of running out of shelf space.
I have to get rid of some other books and stuff, but you know,
this, this idea of having like the, the next best thing to seeing their photographs
in a gallery is, is having a book, I think.
Yeah. And so I just wish I could have spent more time there.

(35:48):
And I think I need to just go to ICP and just go through the books themselves.
Like again, Again, I tell students, like, if you want to find photographers,
just go to a bookstore and hang out there.
And I probably said this a million times, but we used to have this place in
the city. It was called the photographer's place.
And it was just a bookstore for photo books.
And it was a big bookstore for what it had. And it was amazing.

(36:12):
And, you know, we don't really have that much anymore.
And for people who are not in a place where they can easily go to a bookstore,
store you only have amazon or something like that where you can order you
know it's a little trickier but i would say anytime you get a chance to go to
some place and just dive into the books it's just a great way to like you know
if you randomly pull something off the shelf and and take a look you know you

(36:35):
don't know where you're gonna find so anyway that's that's my uh that's what
i did that was my week you did.
Music.

(36:56):
Now there's a couple of things book-wise that happened this week for me.
Um, one was, I received a book I ordered some months ago, actually,
or quite a few weeks ago called eight seconds, black rodeo culture.
It's by Ivan McClellan.
Believe Ivan is a photographer from Oklahoma.

(37:21):
I would like to say. And he discovered black rodeo culture just,
he happened to drive, if I remember correctly, he just happened to drive by a rodeo.
He noticed that all the participants were black, as we tend to think of the
cliche cowboy as being white, but there's a whole culture of black farming, ranching, and rodeo.

(37:46):
And so like McClellan, I was embarrassed to be ignorant to that.
And so I, it just arrived, this book just arrived yesterday and it's a vivid
color images of, of competitors in rodeo, of families, of dads with their babies up in the saddle.
Battle you know it's a competition for kids called mutton busting where the

(38:10):
kids put on you know a vest and a hockey helmet and they put them on sheep and let them go really yeah.
And so yeah so just just all of all of the you know all of the aspects of of rodeo culture,
but with uh with the african-american little

(38:31):
to it and i had no idea and so i'm going to go through this
and i think it's going to be a treasured volume because it
is what i think i know about rodeo which is
actually really not that much i take pictures of them but now i've
got something to help help complete the circle of north
american rodeo culture and it's it's amazing
and i'm very glad i had it how did you find this book in the first place like

(38:54):
you said you ordered it but it was i think mcclellan was on the berrian x's
oh yeah and that's where Where I first heard of it and then I was embarrassed
when I was listening and I thought, well, I have to order.
So, so yeah, so that was, that was great. Next was on Friday night and I went to the camera store,

(39:16):
which is not quite ICP, but it's our little, they have, they have quite a well-stocked
photography photo book store inside the store.
They were advertising for Friday night this guy who is a mathematician.
He's called a pure mathematician.
And his name was Arturo, Arturo Pianzola was his name.

(39:38):
What is a pure math? What is a, do you know what a pure mathematician is?
Pure math as opposed to, you know, doing math for astrophysics or chemistry or that sort of stuff.
It's just pure, pure math numbers.
And so that just on its own.
So it's very much into symmetry and plotting out various things in algebraic,

(40:00):
you know, functions and things like that.
So his whole life, he's grew up in Argentina, moved to Canada to work with a
Canadian mathematician in Edmonton,
which is about three hours north of where I am sitting right now.
And he's, yeah, that's his day job. And he joined a group called the Monochrome

(40:23):
Guild, which is an Edmonton based black and white gelatin silver club,
basically a group of, a group of photographers.
And they. What a great name too. I know. It sounds great.
So he has some six by six cameras. He's got a Leica M4, I think,
that I saw him, that he had out on when he was giving his talk on Friday night that I attended.

(40:46):
And he also does shoot digital, but because of the idea of the club,
as you print your work, he creates a digital negative.
So it's a transparency, a black and white transparency created from the digital source.
And then he prints that. that so and basically
the thrust of his talk was is if it's

(41:07):
really your passion put every every bit
of effort into creating the work that you're creating which you know in the
instagram culture when i use the phone and all that sort of stuff i i don't
do that i yeah i put in as little energy as possible to get the image i want
it's just this different you know i have this idea of what i want to shoot and so on.

(41:28):
Well, he was very much about, he's in the location.
He told the story of standing in front of a basilica, I think in South America somewhere.
And there was, it was a crypt. It was like an outside crypt,
like a small, like a, almost like a sarcophagus out in the street.
And there was the Virgin Mary standing as a statue behind in this kind of scalloped

(41:51):
in area of this, of this presumably a basilica. and it was a very symmetrical looking,
composition and he was getting his he had a film camera like a
like a six by seven film camera and he
was kind of lining up trying to decide if you know if he should take this picture
and he thought there was an element that was missing and a little boy about

(42:14):
four years four years old ran into the frame and stopped and looked up at the
virgin mary and he said oh i think i got it the composition is good now, I will shoot it.
And so he had stories that he told of that ilk, of these different pictures that he took.

(42:34):
And so all these images that he
spoke about are in this book that he was promoting as part of this talk.
Sorry, did you say he lives in Canada? He lives in Canada.
He lives in Edmonton, yeah. He's been here for quite a few years,
actually. Maybe 40 years he's lived here.

(42:54):
I see. Okay. So, and it's, it's great to buy local.
I got a book from, from a local photographer. So his images are from South America
around where he grew up, Buenos Aires, also around Alberta too.
And there's Alberta, which is like a couple of hours east of here and out in the mountains here.
And that's, it was really, really good to see some kind of fine art,

(43:19):
black and white pictures around the local area. So I was happy to, happy to get that.
What's the date? Does there a date range in the book? Like, is it of a certain
period of time or like a. That's a good question.
Actually, that never came up, but I'm just looking at the images here.
I don't think there's anything earlier than perhaps 2000 in these.

(43:42):
There may be stuff from the nineties, but it all to, to, to my eye,
I think it was, it's all pretty recent.
And the stories that he told of the images that he did highlight from the book, uh.
Would, you know, was shot with this camera and I went with my friend from Edmonton

(44:03):
and we, you know, shot this picture.
So it's all, it's all pretty recent.
And I have a feeling it's just probably since he joined the monochrome guild is what I think.
And he's just got, got support from that, from that group of people.
Probably they probably helped convince him to, to produce the book.
Is it, is it a self produced book or is it? It is. Yeah. Yeah, he's selling it.

(44:27):
I mean, he's, it's in the, a few different camera stores, but it's in,
if you look up the, the monochrome guild, there's, there should be links there to, uh, to the book.
All right. We'll make sure we put that in the show notes too,
so that we can click on that.
And yeah, so I believe it is for sale on the web. I could be wrong about that.
I purchased this in the camera store right after his talk.

(44:49):
And it's funny because I told him, you know, I have a book in here.
My friend Mark and I have a book in here and it's just right over there.
So he ended up buying, he and his wife were there and they, they said,
well, we have to buy your book.
So they ended up buying, it was the last one that they had in stock there.
Oh, that's great. That's great.
So, and we, we dedicated the books to each other. So that was kind of nice. Oh, that's nice. Yeah.

(45:13):
And it's nice to just sit and hear someone who's passionate about.
About photography in a different way than you are you
know like there's always lessons you can learn about somebody
else who's doesn't have the same equipment
or doesn't have the same interest in
the gear or doesn't have or just comes from

(45:33):
a different background entirely and how they discovered
and how they work and how they think you're getting
into steven shore too you know same kind of thing like it's
nice to appear inside somebody else's mind about their creativity
and how they work do you do you
find yourself like i mean how can we not compare yourself

(45:53):
to someone like that like you were just saying before about instagram and how
you you know how you think about pictures compared to someone like him and i
i was as you were saying that i'm thinking the same thing it's like you know
there are people who who live and breathe photography and you know which this
gentleman sounds like he's doing in some way.

(46:14):
And, you know, I, I, I tend to sometimes want to like, you know,
I wish I could be like that.
You know, there's some part of me that wishes that. And, you know,
I don't know if it's just, you know, something, well, just do it.
You can't just do it. Like there's something further, there's something deeper about it.
So anyway, I was just curious about that from your point of view.
No, well, I asked him in the Q and a, after I said,

(46:36):
you know, if your, your day job is mathematics,
mathematics is a very concrete academic you
know procedural thing that you're
doing day in and day out and i said how
do you separate like i talk about my own experience
how do you how do you separate the act of shooting
the pre whatever you want to call it pre-visualization lining up the shot whatever

(46:58):
the shooting the developing the printing and the spotting of the print he had
a story about one print that was particularly dirty the negative was really
in poor shape and there was pots all over and.
And he spent hours spotting the print because he didn't have time to go back
in the dark room to get, and the whole, and the, and the, the,

(47:21):
the picture is in the book. The spotted print is in the, is in the book.
And it's this kind of masterpiece of tonal range.
And he was talking about how you get the ink and it's pure black,
and then you water it down until it's the right tone on the print.
Well, if it's too light, that's not a problem. It's too dark.
You're screwed. I remember those things. Tell that story, yeah.

(47:46):
I was lucky. I didn't have to spot too much, but the whole, what do you want to call it?
The mystery and the joy and the frustration and the victory of that particular
picture was all these hours of spotting it to make the print in such a way that

(48:07):
it's a world-class fine art print that's in a book now. Right. Right.
But yeah, so I asked about how do you, how do you separate that,
that concrete academic part of you from all these different steps of photography?
Now myself, I, I love those steps, right?
Like I get to go out, I get to hold a camera, which is kind of a valuable thing.

(48:27):
I get to line up a shot. I get to look for all these beautiful composition and
I get at home and do the post-processing and blah, blah, blah.
And the posting, that's all fun. And he just wore glasses, and his head was
down while he was listening to me, and he just looked up through his glasses.
He says, I just love it all, which is like the best answer ever.

(48:48):
I'm like, sold. I want to buy a book now.
And it was kind of perfect. So as different as he was, a personality and his
day job and all that kind of stuff, he's this kind of lyrical gentleman with an accent.
You know, with a different accent, who really transmitted his passion and love for photography.

(49:15):
And, and in, in, in that answering that question, you know, there's a connection
between me and him, you know, it's like every step is, is enjoyable.
So do you, do you see, and I don't have the pictures in front of me,
so I can't, I don't know what they are, but can, can you see any connection with his photography?
And then what he does as a, as a pure mathematician, like, or are they, are they very separate?

(49:38):
The old, no, they are, they are separate. The only pictures that are direct
relationship to mathematicians are,
he took a picture of one of his grad students and he took a picture of a prof
at his blackboard with the equations up on the blackboard.
And he says, those are the only two that have a direct relationship with mathematics.

(50:01):
So you look at his pictures and you couldn't, on a list of, if you had to guess
what this guy does for a living, you could probably not guess from the picture. Okay.
That's interesting. And the whole thing is the whole, what's the word I'm looking for?
The conceit of this book is he tells you in the foreword that he's a mathematician

(50:22):
exploring the world through photography.
And what would a guy like me, what kind of pictures would I create?
So, and in that way, you know, you're just, it's the story.
So it's unlike, you know, a zine or something where it's just picture,
picture, picture, picture, and you're left with, you know, your perception and

(50:46):
what you're pouring into the picture as you perceive them.
Here, he's telling you, this is me. These are the pictures I made. This is my story.
And I would say in terms of story too, which he did touch on during his talk,
the pictures are very good storytelling pictures.
They're not just cold, fine art pictures.

(51:07):
There's a lot of texture and, and humanity in the images.
So, so there's, there's a richness there. It's not just his technique or his,
his craft, but he is, he is good at, at discovering and transmitting story.
So I give him all the credit in the world. So I really enjoyed the talk.

(51:28):
I enjoyed the book very much. Yeah. And I'm very happy.
Did he talk anything about the production of the book? Like just the making of it or like why?
He did, he surrendered design of it to a designer in Italy, I believe,
and it was printed in Italy.
And so the paper that it's printed on is apparently ancient,

(51:49):
produced with an ancient process.
And it's very, it's very beautiful. And the tones are.
Are amazing and it reeks of ink
which is my favorite oh i love that yeah the reeks the ink
reek the reek ink reek yes yeah so in terms of ticking the boxes for a photo
book it's got and it's got the lay flat binding which i showed you before the

(52:12):
uh right before we started the recording so yeah so yeah so the design so a
lot of the pictures are like one third two third where
the picture does go over the middle of the book.
And there are others where it's just a catch and throw. There's one frame,
one picture higher on one page and lower on the other side and so on. So just the design of it.

(52:37):
So he was fine with surrendering design of the book to someone else.
And I think it works. I think the book has a good flow and good sequence.
I'll have to look at that. I could use another book for my show.
Last question about this guy just is a technical thing
but you said that he would be making negatives from
digital files did he did he mention anything about how he did that

(52:59):
no he didn't he he my sense
was that much of the crowd that was sitting there were
not well versed in chemical photography to begin
with i see so and the whole idea of the
enlarger and that sort of thing so he kind of
held back the technical deals i didn't think to ask him but
presumably he would have printed

(53:20):
on printed transparency on some kind of inkjet device
with high resolution that's about the size of a negative that would fit in the
carrier and is enlarged yeah i i remember trying to do that a zillion years
ago with inkjet printers and like you know you'd look at the print and you know
because inkjet printers were not so good yeah back then i guess if if that's

(53:42):
That's the technique he's using.
Be really curious to see what the, the end results are. Cause that's such a
nice thing to be able to print.
If you can print a negative on an inkjet printer at a high enough resolution,
and then use that as a, use that as your, your main negative to print a silver
gelatin prints, that'd be kind of cool.
So, all right. To be, to be, to, to be continued in some way.

(54:06):
Yeah. Cool. All right. Nice.
And that's a, that's a nice full couple of days.
Yeah yeah and and you and you had one last thing right well i had i had a couple of things like.
Experiences kind of peak experiences in photography the act
of shooting as opposed to collecting books and i don't

(54:29):
get out enough since i don't work downtown i complain about this
every show i know just to
get out and have an excuse to shoot a couple of things and i think it
was around the time that we recorded last i went to
shoot the pride parade and downtown calgary now that
I've been there once I will always go there it's an
amazing just a human and love and

(54:50):
color and noise and fun and the
Calgary parade that's very open in terms of as
a photographer you can go kind of anywhere you want and I
joked that I could have probably crawled up on a float if I wanted to
and it was just it was
just amazing fun colorful and then you know get at ward
to shoot color yeah like you said one

(55:11):
does not shoot a pride parade in black and white so right
i had to put that bit of ego aside and
work on my color processing i should say
one ought not to one ought not to yeah i do have one image of a gentleman holding
a placard saying you know dad hugs free dad hugs standing with the placard off

(55:32):
his hip so that was that was the only black and and white image that I,
uh, that I took that I felt would work in black and white.
Everything else was in vivid color. So that was one thing that was a lot of
fun. I'm going to do that again every year. I'm going to try and always cover that.
The other thing was a year ago, I was gifted a twin lens reflex. It was a.

(55:54):
There's a Rolacord, what is it, Rolacord 5B from 1959 or 1960.
A gentleman was retiring. He was downsizing. And so he was giving away all of
his stuff or selling what he could and the stuff he couldn't.
And a friend of mine who was helping him do that said, he's handed me all of his photography stuff.

(56:17):
Would you like it? So I've got digital cameras. I've got all kinds of little
things here that, that he also, that I also got, but I think the prize of the
collection is this roller cord.
So it hadn't been used in years and years. So I sent it to a friend of mine
who does this is that's his, his, his, what is it? His side hustle. Yeah.

(56:40):
What is it? The word is cleans, lubricates and adjusts old cameras,
CLA as the kids call it. So he cleaned it up and that was ready for me a year
ago and I hadn't run any film through it.
And so I decided enough is enough this summer.
Another summer is going to go by and I haven't used this twin lens.
So I put a roll of film in it and I went to a little car show,

(57:03):
little car club show that was celebrating a hundred years of Chrysler products or whatever.
So I went there and I just took, shot this roll of Ilford HP5 in a 120.
Is a these would use as 120 film and
sent it i didn't do my own processing though
i almost have enough stuff here i probably could have but anyway

(57:24):
sent it to a local lab a young couple have a lab here in the city so sent it
to them and pictures came back on friday thursday or friday they they they scanned
the negatives they're gonna they're gonna mail me the negatives physically but
they They did scan them and sent me the scans,
and I did some digital processing on the scans, and they turned out amazing.

(57:51):
The lens is sharp. It's providing the coverage that, you know,
the kind of feeling, the twin lens medium format feeling that I missed from my old plastic,
whatever, twin lens that I used to have.
And my, my Yashica, I had a Yashica mat, 124 G.

(58:12):
And so we printed, I did print, I just processed them in Lightroom and it's amazing.
So the gentleman who, who brokered this deal for me to get all of this equipment,
including that camera, he, he, he's a few years older than I am.
And he said, he'd like to get a portrait done of himself for his family. Oh, as a legacy thing.

(58:37):
And I said, well, let's use Lawrence as a gentleman who, who owned this gear originally.
I said, once we get Lawrence's camera figured out and it's good, why don't we use it to,
And now that these pictures have come back and I think I underexposed a bit,
but I, it's word. I always underexpose my film.

(58:58):
So. Well, did you use to underexpose and overdevelop? No, I used to,
I was consistent underexposure, exposure. Okay. Just in general.
You didn't compensate for the overdevelopment. Just add a half stop or a stop.
Yeah. It's just a typical word. You wanted the extra speed in some way.
No, it's just like reading the scene and going, no, I could use another half

(59:19):
a stop. Anyway. All right.
So, so he, so I just pinged him tonight here after I, I had posted the pictures on Instagram.
I said, look, we, these pictures look good.
I think we should go ahead and do this, this portrait thing.
So yeah, between Pride Parade and then now I had to wait three weeks to get
the negative scan because they're a very busy lab.

(59:41):
And so I got them. And so these were all gifts. Like all this stuff happened this weekend.
Wow. Oh, so it all just came to a head. Yeah. I got these two books and I got
these negatives, these negative scans.
And so, yeah, there's a lot going on, man.
I saw the pictures that you're talking about, the ones that you shared with
us. They're very simple. They're just pictures of the front of the car,

(01:00:02):
detail of the headlights.
They're as much, they don't really cover my love of old cars so much because
I really don't love old cars that much. They're like a taster,
though. Yeah, but there's a lot of chrome and some high contrast and like,
how does the film render it?
There was a little boys about, I don't know, five years old,

(01:00:23):
six years old, wanted me to take his picture because his dad said,
Oh, you got this old camera, like whatever.
And that little boy saying, can you take my picture? I'm like, sure.
So I got a picture of him holding a Slurpee cup or something in front of one
of these old cars. And so I took that picture.
And just really loving the grain pattern of seeing film and seeing the grain

(01:00:43):
again. It's, it was good. It looked very special.
It looked like a special shot. The one shot I saw it and I could tell that you,
you made sure that your reflection wasn't being seen in the Chrome.
Yeah. There was some shots looking at us. I wonder if he was like,
and I looked, I was like, oh yeah, you positioned yourself so that you would
be like this amorphous black shape in the Chrome. And I was like, okay.

(01:01:05):
And you know, I never, I would say never, but in school,
you know, know i was doing mostly 35 i i
didn't do medium format until i was
shooting stock and then i wasn't thinking about it
in the terms of like useful like way
to make good art pictures or anything like that it was just
i'm going to make bigger negatives or bigger slides i should say and

(01:01:25):
and it's it's nice to sort of come back to that now when
i saw your picture i was like boy man i
wish you know of like i kind of wish i had
done this way back when when it was
you know film was cheap in the camera you could have the cameras and
it was just something nice but it's not a nostalgia feeling because
i never really had no that's funny too i didn't think it was nostalgia

(01:01:46):
i had a bit of nostalgia operating the camera now
it's a roll of cord not a roll of flex and so
you advance the film till it stops then you
cock the shutter and then you
release the you know focus do your thing and then you release the
shutter and then you know it's there are
a couple more steps than just winding like on the roloflex

(01:02:07):
it's got a crank and another thing
too is i went out that's another thing but i've got i've got another yashica
matt 124g that i've lent to my son to use and we went out last weekend and shot
some street work but those cameras they have a crank and it does everything
for you it advances the film anacoxa shutter and it's like a modern and mechanism.

(01:02:29):
But there's that something of lining up and then reaching underneath the lens to cock the shutter.
And there's some kind of classic about it. Yes, it does slow you down,
but you know, my first time using a twin lens reflex in over 30 years, I was going to be slow.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And the viewfinder, the viewfinder is all backwards,

(01:02:49):
right? The viewfinder is, yeah.
You turn the camera to the right and the view goes to the left.
Yeah. Right. But I see my friend Gary, when he CLA'd it, he actually,
he looks like he put in a Fresnel lens finder window or finder glass in there.
So it's brighter? So it's brighter.
Yeah. It's very bright. Image is very bright. So. Yeah. It's very happy to see that. And grid lines.

(01:03:11):
It's got grid lines on it. So. Oh, nice. Helps you with the, helps you.
Which is funny too, when you tip the horizon and when Tom, my son Thomas and
I were out shooting, you know, you tip the horizon.
It's like, whoa, it's getting worse. It's sort of like. I know.
I'm getting seasick with this thing. And then I shot up a building.
Oh my God. Trying to shoot up a building. This was in, this was this last weekend.

(01:03:34):
And then trying to get the top of the building to be vertical.
And I thought to myself, and then the voice said, twist from the hips.
Okay, now I'm getting it right. It's not moving the camera, yawing it left and
right. It's twisting at the hip.
That's how you get it to line up. What do you mean twist from the hips?
When you're pointing the camera up and the top of the building,

(01:03:58):
you want to be like, you know, a few millimeters parallel to the frame.
And it doesn't seem to line up, right? And so in order to get it to line up,
you have to turn the camera, but you turn the camera in the wrong orientation, right?
You want to, you want to turn it in your hands like it's a steering wheel.

(01:04:22):
No, no, no, that's not right.
You want to turn at your hip so that it's, you know, so that you're changing on a different axis.
Okay. Oh, maybe that was driving me crazy. It was like a minute of like,
what the hell am I doing wrong here?
And my son is standing there. He's got it all figured out. He knows what he's doing.

(01:04:43):
He's shooting his pictures of detritus and Mylar balloons blown out on the street.
And he's got color and I got black and white.
And we're doing our thing. But I'm like, God, I just...
I got a digital picture of this very same composition, but I don't have it in square.
And this will be a great way for me to get it right. And I went to all the trouble
of trying to calculate the exposure and everything.

(01:05:03):
And I'm like, God, it's not lining up. And I'm like, twist.
I just heard this voice run. I twist from the hip. Okay.
There we go now. Oh, there we go. And it's like, I got reached down to the shutter
release and make sure I kept it steady.
Yeah. You know, cause it's not, you know, thankfully it's not a lot of effort
to trip the shutter on that thing. You should get, you should get a cable release

(01:05:24):
for it so you don't have to reach over. Well, I'm going to, well,
I've got a cable, I've got cable releases, so I'll use that for on the portrait session.
Yeah. It's just easier than not having to reach under because then you don't
screw around with the camera. Yeah. You've got this, the trigger, or you can even tape.
I remember seeing one, somebody had like gaff taped the, the cable release to the side of the camera.
Yeah. So I could do that. But it was just in that particular circumstance holding

(01:05:48):
the camera awkwardly. Yeah. It's usually not a problem, but.
Yeah. You know, but. It is an interesting experience if you've not done it in
a long time and you're trying to, like, I remember when I took out my Minolta
cord and I was just, even just like the tilting back and forth and like, whoa.
And you talk about getting car, you know, seasick. It's like, yes.
And it seems like such a simple thing. It's like, all you have to do is tilt

(01:06:11):
the camera in this way. And you don't.
Anyway, it's funny because I'm standing there. I imagine you're the same.
You're just looking at this thing and you're like, what the hell am I doing wrong?
Why is it not working? And why do I feel ill anyway?
Well, that's cool. You're inspiring me to, I mean, I still have,

(01:06:33):
I'll show you this little bag. Oh yeah, with 120.
Yeah. Those are exposed? Yeah. There's eight rolls here and I got one roll and
a camera, maybe two rolls and a camera that I haven't finished yet.
And there's a local...
There's a local processing place in my neighborhood. Not, not quite,

(01:06:54):
but it's like on fifth Avenue and the 18th street.
So I can drive over there and I want to do that because I want to support a
local processing place.
And someone told me that they're very good. So you got me sort of hyped up to
say, I should probably draw.
This film has been sitting around for a while. So can we plug these labs?
Cause I would like to, I can't plug this lab, right? You can plug your lab.

(01:07:16):
I can't, I don't know the name of mine yet, but I will. When I,
when I process it, You tell me the name of your lab.
Mine's called Neat Film Lab and they're in the Inglewood neighborhood of Calgary
and it's a young couple, Haley and Louie, and they're going great guns.
I wish them all the best. And it's nice to have, they do black and white.
They do C41 and they do E6.

(01:07:38):
Okay. And so that, and that's black and white, color negative and color transparency, ectochrome.
So. E6 processing. E6 processing. Yeah.
Yeah. Send me the link and I'll put it in the show notes. All right. Okay, cool.
All right. I think, uh, my, my watch just buzzed me and it said time to,

(01:08:00):
uh, time to reflect on time to reflect on the show that you've just recorded.
So let's, let's tell the world. Oh, anyway, first, thanks.
This was glad we got to talk about books like this. It's a nice sort of Sunday
afternoon, evening thing to, to talk about. So I hope everybody who's listening
is enjoying, enjoys this as well.

(01:08:22):
And, and you know what, if there are books or photographers you guys know about
that we don't know about, just drop us a line.
I'd be really curious to be able to feel like, you know, we've got this network
of people out there listening to the show.
It'd be great to, you know, hear what photographers they're into and,
and, and, and sort of bring them into our sphere of influence,
you know, just to, to, you know, so we can discover them as well.

(01:08:45):
So I would say send, drop us a line. So anyway, Ward, where, where are we?
Where, where's the world finding you these days?
Well, on Vero and X, formerly known as Twitter, I am at W Rosin photo Instagram.
I'm at, at Ward Rosin fine art, which by the way, those car pictures that I took are posted there.

(01:09:05):
Ah, okay. I put, I put a soundtrack on it.
I put, uh, the, um, the roadrunner song from the cartoon. Okay.
Cause one of the cars in the, in this sequence, I think, as a roadrunner.
As a roadrunner? Yeah. Yeah. On Facebook, you can find me at Ward Rosin Photo.
My website is rosin.ca.

(01:09:26):
And I promise one of these days we're going to...
Put up most of my street work and my film work.
Cause I have a feeling there'll be more film work coming and our unofficial
sponsors or an official sponsor.
Yeah. Our unofficial sponsor. And I am working, trying to build relationships
with other manufacturers outside of seven artisans and photo deox,

(01:09:48):
although they're, they are great partners to work, to work with,
but I'm trying to expand that reach and market and, and hopefully generate some more sales.
So that's it for me, my friend Antonio. Where can we find you in the Internet?
Oh, and I do want to mention that it's ornis.photo.

(01:10:08):
So just make sure you get that address in there. You know what?
I'm going to skip a lot of my stuff.
All right. Well, no, I'm going to say Instagram would be the place to look for
when I post on Instagram.
So my Instagram account is amrizariophoto. My website is amrizario.com.
But you know we've been getting a lot of we've getting a lot of traction on

(01:10:31):
substack because we've been posting a couple of articles lately so i kind of
want to lean people towards me
to go to our substack i think that's going to be a
nice place to sort of hang out so go check
out our stuff substack at streetshots.substack.com all right uh you guys know

(01:10:52):
where you can find me in other places but i really like to build up the substack
community It's a nice little it's growing nicely there and I like what I see
about other people what other people are doing with I.
Community and just sort of the social aspect of Substack. So I think I'm just
going to lean towards pushing that a little bit more.
So go check that out. I owe you a couple of articles probably.

(01:11:14):
You can do whatever you can. Yeah, as the weather closes in,
I'll be inspired to write some stuff down.
I also like summing up our, you know, taking this podcast too and turning a
little bit of it into an article. Well, the Vivian Meyer discussion,
I think, has really generated some interest. And I really like your article about it, too.

(01:11:34):
Yeah. So I'm going to keep doing that. So that's good.
If you want to leave us a voicemail, you can do it at speakpipe.com slash streetshots.
You can leave us a little 30, 40, 90 second street thing, you know, voicemail.
And, you know, if you want to emulate our, you know, our honorary producer,

(01:11:59):
Tim, you can support us by buying us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com slash Antonio Rosario.
So thanks again to Tim. And he's our honorary producer for this episode.
I'm really happy. That's really fun to be able to say that. So, yeah.

(01:12:21):
Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's it. We're, we're good. We actually,
we actually had a show tonight.
I'm always, I'm always happy when we can find something to talk about for a
while and I'm hoping everybody finds it interesting.
Anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm already now in chatty mode, so I got to stop.
All right, everybody. So we'll see you guys at the end of September and Ward.

(01:12:44):
Thanks for joining me tonight. Always a pleasure.
Yeah. And to everybody, Everybody have a good rest of the September and see
you in a couple of weeks. We'll see you. Good night.
Music.