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With a little help from my friends….

By on December 22, 2012 in beauty, craft, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, quiet islands, rangefinder camera, silver darkroom, skill and craft, spiritual journey, Uncategorized, working
Ancramdale, New York December 22, 2012 07:45hrs

Ancramdale, New York December 22, 2012 07:45hrs

I have found through trial (many trials) and error (many errors) that I can accomplish very little in life without the assistance of those around me.  Whether it is the gentle and loving care for my mother, my continuing work at the Aegean Center or any spiritual journey I may undertake, I cannot do it alone, nor do I really want to anymore.  Yes, there are times when we all need a little solitude for reflection and meditation, but overall I long to embrace the company of my fellows, whomever they may be.

I return to Greece in just over a month.  Christmas will come and go and the New Year will ring its bells and I will, I hope, have some work to show for the time I have spent here.  I am opening up my darkroom and am about shooting film (both 35mm and MF) as well as recording some digital images.  Besides my Leica M8 I have resuscitated my old Canon Digital Rebel, the first decent digital SLR I used.  It needed a new battery so I picked one up from Adorama.  I hope to use it as a point-and-shoot while I am here, reserving the Leica for more contemplative images.  The MF film work is up in the air.  Maybe I’ll work on some more short depth-of-field images and bring the negatives back to Paros.  The 35mm film is being used in a really old Canon AE-1 with a 50mm lens.  In both cases I am shooting Kodak Tri-X 400.  If I am industrious I hope to begin developing by the end of this week and printing by 2013.  2013!  Imagine that…A lot of water has flowed under the bridge, over the dam and out to sea since I started this blog.  It seems like a lifetime ago that I switched gears and turned onto this road, a journey that fills me with endless gratitude and wonder.

It snowed early this morning before I awoke.  The weather outside is grey and leaden, a wintry wind is reminding me that all things must pass and, as they do, new opportunities for knowledge and growth appear on the horizon.  In some cases it is better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all and I have to believe that there is something better for me down the road.  As a friend and I were remarking this morning…one door closes, another door opens.  Life is a series of hallways and corridors.  Take a risk and turn the knob.

 My never-ending thanks to Kit Latham for all of his wonderful support in the much needed update of this blog space.  You will notice that the old images of the Bosnian Roma are gone, replaced with more current and relevant images from my portfolios.  To have them off the site is a great relief to me.  They represent a time of my life that has passed.  I have also cleaned out much of my gallery site, letting go of a tired and used vision for something a little more current.  In a few days there will be an even larger shift.  Siga-siga, as we say on Paros.

JDCM

American return…

By on December 18, 2012 in autumn, beauty, Greece, skill and craft, Uncategorized

My flight from Vienna to NY/JFK was uneventful.  I actually slept little which is not normal for me, so maybe that’s an event.  When I returned to Ancramdale I was able to stay awake until about 11PM and then crawled into bed and slept soundly until around 5:15AM.  That will change in a week or so but right now I am awake in this quiet early-morning house, my mother and a caregiver downstairs asleep.  The eastern sky is just beginning to grow pale…almost 7AM.

It has been just over 4 months since I last saw my mother, and vice-a-versa.  This is, I think,  compounded her everyday confusion by making her suddenly aware that I have been gone and that I have returned.  There were also moments of “who is your mother?” last night while we watched Jeopardy, questions which are unnerving for me, to say the least.  Like so many people in her life who have dropped off of her social map, I am walking on the fringes of her memory.   I put a positive face on it though and we changed the subject a little, easing her discomfort.  I hope that within the next few days she will have forgotten I went anywhere and have been here all the time.  That would be a relief for both of us.

My time in Vienna was lovely, although the weather was a bit gloomy at times.  Still, it makes for good museum weather and I took advantage of that.  As I stated earlier the Albertina Museum and Durer exhibit were stunning, some of the works not having been displayed for over 50 years.  I saw the ‘Triumphal Procession’ (among many other pieces) in all of its 54 meter glory, the other 50 meters being lost to history.  I was planning on going to see ‘The Third Man’ that night at the Burg Kino Theater, but by 9:30PM I still had over an hour to wait and I suddenly felt the need to just relax and not push the plan.  So I called it an early night and hit the rack.  I have had the Vienna/Third Man experience twice already.  I could skip it this time.  

The next day was drizzly and cold and I trudged over to the Kunst Historiches Museum for a day of Great Masters and palatial Hapsburg splendor.  I was not disappointed.  I made a wise decision and rented one of the audio guides.  Even though I already knew much of what the guide told me, it slowed down my journey through the building thus providing a more enjoyable experience.  It is safe to assume that there were whole rooms devoted to Rubens, Breugal, Velasquez and others.  Truly the booty from one of the most powerful and wide-reaching empires in world history.  From Vienna, the Hapsburgs directly controlled all of Europe, except for England, Russia and parts of the southern Balkans.  Massive power and wealth.  The French Louis’ were common landowners compared to what became the Dual Monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  In any case, they could afford to either buy it all since everyone worked for them.  Here is a list of just some of their employees, all of whom I was able to view last Saturday:  Titian, Tintoretto, Velasquez, Durer, Holbein, Rubens (2 rooms!), Altdorfer, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Bruegel.  That is the Top Ten.  There were whole salons of painters with whom I was not familiar.  

The next day I had a great time with my friend Mathias and his family.  I walked in the park and had lunch with them and photographed the three of them with their young son, Anton.  It was such a nice time.  Then I went to the Schloss Belvedere to see the very large Klimt show. Hmmm…After the previous day, Klimt fell flat for me.  What was gently impressive, however, was the exhibit upstairs of the late 19th c. painter Erik Jakob Schindler.  I loved the work and I ended up purchasing a small book.  

So Vienna was a success:  good food, good friends, good art and once again, worth the trip–more than just a stop-over on my way back to the US from Greece.  I think I will try to make it back there this spring for a few days.  

JDCM

Note:  for some reason I cannot add links with the text.  You’ll have to investigate stuff on your own…

Post time…Vienna…

By on December 14, 2012 in autumn, beauty, Greece, nude studies, Paros, rangefinder camera, silver darkroom, skill and craft, Uncategorized, working

I haven’t posted in quite a while.  I’ll give the short-story to catch up and then expound a bit…

The student exhibition for the Fall 2012 Aegean Center was lovely.  The students worked hard, expressed their individual talents and it showed.  That’s all I have to say really, except well done to all!  I am looking forward to the spring session and all that it may hold.  Challenges, rewards, hard work, hikes, frustrations and solutions.  It all makes up the rich pageant that is the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts.

I traveled to Athens and stayed there for two days.  While I was there I was able to see an exhibit from the photographer Helmut Newton.  I was surprised.  I have seen much of his work over the years, in books mostly, so to see full-sized prints was stunning.  There was also a movie, made by his wife of almost 50 years, June Newton.  It portrayed a man severely maligned by the press and the photo-world as being a pervert and a weirdo.  The truth was eye-opening.  He worked hard, used incredible skill with no trickery and produced some of the more iconic images in fashion I have ever seen.  His CV reads like a who’s-who of the fashion world: Vogue, Elle, Yves St. Laurent…the list goes on.  His commentary was clear and the filmed interactions with his models proved beyond a doubt the level of respect for their professionalism and grace.  At one point he said that his goal was to make a fashion shoot not look like a fashion shoot, but rather something from a movie.  He also talked about the gear he uses, i.e. not much: a Hasselblad 500 and a Polaroid for the light tests.  He switched to a basic canon EOS digital later on his career for the lighting tests.  Very few exterior lights and almost no studios that looked like studios.  His eye captured the realities behind the shoot as well as the focus.   I left the show feeling like it was a good two hours spent in the afternoon. The next day I flew to Vienna and was greeted by the lights of a city in Christmas season and the weather to match.  It’s cold here, folks.  Last night it went down to 18*F.  Today was cloudy and chilly and snow is predicted for tomorrow night.

I visited the Albertina Museum today to see the Albrecht Durer show.  It was a huge event focusing on his work during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I.  Many of the works mentioned in the Wiki article were on display for the first time in decades.   I have to leave descriptions of those for the next post since I will include many links.

Tonight I dine on tafelspitz and then walk down to the Burg Kino Theater and watch ‘The Third man’.

JDCM

Down to the wire and a Five Year Plan…

By on December 2, 2012 in Uncategorized

Polly Jo McCulloch Masters, circa 2012

The term winds down, a spring relaxing, but ironically the ticktock increases for the final push.  The student exhibition is this weekend, preceded by readings and vocal performances.  I am too tired to go into the details, but it is an exhilarating time for many and stressful for the rest.  I have all but finished matting my photographs and only have to wait the final call for how many I need to matte for hanging.  The 11 pieces I worked on today will be in the ‘flip file’.  They are simply matted and wrapped in protective plastic to keep the fingerprints of my adoring fans on the exterior instead of marring the precious silver emulsion inside.

On a more personal note..I returned back to my flat Thursday evening to the sound of my mobile phone chirping, meaning I had missed a call.  When I checked, it had been my sister in Maine.  This unrolled a laundry list of stressful thoughts about my mother.  Was this ‘the call’?   As I called her back the thought came into my head “Mom has had a stroke…” and I wasn’t far off.  It was either a stroke or a TIA, but the good news was that she was well, in the hospital and had almost completely recovered in the short time since the event.  I was told to not worry, go about my day/night and check the next morning.  The caregivers had acted quickly and efficiently, probably saving her life.  So I went back to the darkroom and worked on some final proofs.  As I was slowly agitating my work in the soup I thought back to the summer of 2009 when I first applied to the Aegean Center.  I wrote and submitted an essay about photography, developing film and living as a primary caregiver for an elderly parent.  Here is an excerpt:

“I have tried to hold on to dreams as I wake and am dumbfounded when they disappear in the daylight. But hers are different. They come and go like shadows thrown by the leaves of trees as the sun arcs through the sky and clouds rolls past. But hers are not dreams. They are misfiring synapses and broken electrical connections in her brain that make no sense to me or others, but, to her, are as real as a photographic proof on high-contrast paper.  When her process is done what will the results be?   Once there was a writer, a theater owner, a lover of mysteries, a friend to the down-trodden and a mother who cradled her son on the edge of the pond lest he fall in the water and drown. The woman who gave birth to me, who saved my life, who visited me in the worst of places, is a shade of the agitated image now asleep in the wide bed. The picture is soft but the overall image is even, like there is something wrong with the inner workings of the camera. No amount of re-focusing can fix this and no expert can offer any kind words that will make it right. The light is lovely and soft; it is always magic time. The reality the camera catches is not what I expect. It is more and less at the same time, urging me to follow, yet losing me in the bright haze of a summer afternoon.”

As I stood in the darkroom and gently swirled the Microphen across the silver emulsion I weighed the passage of time and what has transpired since that summer.  Nothing stressful or too alarming for her, thankfully, and looking back I can see that she has wandered a steady but declining plateau while I have progressed in a more upward fashion.  Yes, there have been pitfalls I have avoided and the occasional mess I have stepped in but on the whole it has been a positive 3 1/2 years.  What is to come?  That was a question put forth the other day in class and, truthfully, I have no answer for the Big Question.  I have some goals for the next year, but five years is still too far off to tell…

JDCM

 

Darkroom work and questions…

By on November 18, 2012 in 4×5 photography, beauty, craft, Cyclades stone walls, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, quiet islands, silver darkroom, skill and craft, Uncategorized, working

In the past few weeks I have begun printing some of the images I made last summer during my island hopping following the spring 2012 session here at the Aegean Center.  For the most part, they are photographs of the stone walls that criss-cross the Kyklades landscapes like so many topographical scratches: property lines, terrace farming, some ancient, some new.  The proofs are working out fine, but I have begun to grow uneasy.  I am still coming to terms with the idea of ‘art’ and my photography.  True, I can compose within the format, be it square or rectangular, but am I an artist or am I simply a skilled documentarian?  The same applies to the portrait pieces I am photographing with my 4×5 and then using the scanner to render them into a digital format.  This is not my discussion alone, but one that has been on the table since photography began.  Is a photograph art?

I was told tonight by someone at a cafe that if a photograph ‘moves him’, creates an emotional response, then it is art.  I’ll buy that.  So what kind of emotional response is my ‘wall photography’ generating?  Nostalgia, loneliness, sadness…The scenes are desolate, full of ruins and, in some cases, the detritus of man.  Overturned ore carts, rotting and rusting in the harsh Aegean climate; volcanic chunks of stone piled two meters high to create the snake-like patterns running over hills one sees from the aft deck of the Blue Star ferry as they sail from Pireaus south.  There are no people in these images.  There are only the bones of ghosts.

The portrait work, on the other hand, is completely different.  I am trying to capture the essence of the person, or people, in their own environment.  Some are in studios, others at home.   In each case I have been able to catch a glimpse of something that reaffirms the great possibility of life.  The terrace farms may collapse due to misuse over the centuries, but these people will live on through the images I am creating.  I am creating.  I can create.  Perhaps that is as close a definition for ‘art’ as I will ever get.  Art is creation, a recognition of beauty and grace despite the ravages of time.  I can be a creator of something.   I can document with a deft hand, be mindful of the alchemical processes and thus reveal something to the world that I find beautiful.   There is a lazy part of me that wants this feeling to go away.  The realist in me understands that questioning is essential.  Without doubt and self-examination, how can I possibly progress?

JDCM

Serifos, 2012

 

Andiparos, 2012

Dentistry and roast pork…

By on November 12, 2012 in autumn, beauty, Greece, Paros, quiet islands, skill and craft

As everyone knows by now, Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States, his second term.  I, for one, and happy although the victory is bittersweet for me.  This is the first major election in which I have not participated.  My absentee ballot for New York State never reached Paros.  I checked on-line and I am still registered.  Obviously a mix-up somewhere.  New York went thoroughly blue, so it wasn’t a huge deal (my absentee vote probably would not have mattered) but I feel it is still important to participate.  Enough of that subject.

During the fall break I was on Andiparos.  One evening while enjoying the satisfying crunch of potato chips, I bit down on something much more crunchy than the crisps and, thinking it was just a fried chunk of spud, swallowed it.  It turned out that the side of one of my lower molars had sheared off and that is what I ate.  It did not expose the root, so there was no pain or sensitivity but it did necessitate a visit to the local periodontist–a Greek word, by the way.  After short research I was given a choice between the authentic, mad Greek dentist full of charm and local color or the modern young fellow up the street who had been recommended by another ex-pat.  I chose the less colorful, more practical path and made a visit to Panagiotis Hondros, DMD, Msc.  He took one look and booked me in at the beginning of the next week.  Long story short, he re-built my tooth for 60 Euros (last week) and this week cleaned my teeth for another 70.  In the USA this would have cost me hundreds of dollars and I would have had to have waited a month for the first appointment.  I was very impressed.  I was so impressed I have booked him for some cosmetic work on a tooth that has become discolored following a root canal in my mid-teens.  It will be a simple procedure and we start bleaching next week.

As I write this post in Pebbles Jazz Bar, overlooking the bay of Paroikia, I am also roasting a bone-in pork loin.  Some would call this multi-tasking.  Here they call pork loin ‘pancetta’, not to be confused with the Italian bacon of the same name.  Here is the recipe:

1 bone-in pork loin, approx. 1.5 kilos

4 small onions and three carrots, sliced in half, both from Dimitri, the old man who sells vegetables here in the streets.

7 cloves of garlic, chopped

fresh rosemary, gathered from the hills just below Marathi

fresh oregano, gathered on a hike along the Byzantine Road above Aspro Chorio

sea salt/ fresh cracked black pepper

200 ml extra virgin olive oil, from olives grown near Boutakos

Mix the olive oil, salt, pepper, chopped herbs and garlic in a bowl to make a paste.  Place the halved vegetables in the bottom of a roasting pan to create the ‘rack’ on which to rest the meat.  Pre-heat the oven to 190C (375*F).  Smear the pork, all over, with the paste and place in the pan, on the onions and carrots.  Roast until done, about 1 1/2 hours.  Take out of the oven and let the roast rest for about 10 minutes, then dig in.  I plan on gnawing on this for the next few days.  Below is a photo, before cooking, to give you a visual of what it should look like after it is prepared.

JDCM

Parian roast pork

 

Sunny days, cooler nights…

By on November 4, 2012 in autumn, beauty, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, quiet islands, silver darkroom, skill and craft

The mid-term break here at the Aegean Center on Paros has drawn to a close.  The first day of the rest of the session begins tomorrow with our Monday morning meeting, and back to work we go.  As usual, most of the students went traveling, as they should, and many came back in time to knuckle down and get back into the swing of things before the final push begins: 31 days until the student exhibit and I, for one, have not done enough.  Granted, I have been shooting a lot of film and developing it, but my digital projects have slowed and I haven’t been printing as much as I should.  I am not worried, however, as I know what and how much I can do and how to accomplish these tasks, but the newer students are just now acclimating to the idea that they are here to work as well as explore.  First the push, then the crunch and before anyone knows it, it is time to say ‘farewell’ to Paros, unless they are lucky enough to return in the spring, a session that breathes at a different rate then the fall.

As I write this dispatch from Pebble’s Jazz Bar, overlooking the quiet bay of Paroikia, in America the election for the President slouches  towards the the doorsteps of millions, like a wary and red-eyed dog begging for greasy scraps. On Tuesday evening the tally will reveal the overall tenor for the next four years of that country’s leadership and how this beast will be fed.  Of course, this election will effect the whole world.  If Obama wins, I hope he will have a chance to do more than just clean up his predecessor’s terrible messes.  If Romney is chosen to succeed, I fear the world will see what kind of mess can be created by a man with a parochial world view, a medieval stance on civil rights, freedom of speech and a religious background that I, for one, must call cultish at best.  I imagine the worst.  For a good idea of what this could mean, please feel free to read ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood.  To think that a military theocracy is impossible for the United States in this age is to bury your head in the sand.

The days have been warm and sunny.  There has been a shift in the breeze, from south to north, resulting in clearer skies and cooler nights.  I am hoping for more rain this week.  As the temperature slowly drops this becomes more likely, but the weather report doesn’t list this as a possibility.  More good news along with the weather is that the water in the darkroom has dropped to a lovely 21C.  This makes my life easier: small mercies for a possible bleak future.  I hope Yeats is wrong but poets seldom are.

JDCM

Quiet Andiparos…

By on October 27, 2012 in autumn, beauty, craft, Cyclades stone walls, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, quiet islands, skill and craft, working

I am visiting Andiparos for part of our fall break from the Aegean Center.  I have been sleeping in and staying up late reading and watching movies.  Today I drove around for a while and photographed some of the stone wall formations that wind their way across the rugged landscape.  I am disheartened by some of the building I see going on–large luxury estates high up on the sides of the mountains, along the steeply sloping terrain, ruining the views of the sea.  Still, with my Mamiya c330 I can extract the beautiful lines of stone from the uglier new constructions, taking them out of context by cropping out the obvious greed and ego of modern man.   Such is my fantasy.

Throughout the day I have had the song “Wichita Lineman”, written by Jimmy Webb and made famous by Glen Campbell, stuck in my head.   I have always loved the melodic loneliness and deep heart of this song.  A friend, mentor and colleague reminded me recently that country music is just as much ‘soul music’ as the famous hits of Aretha Franklin.   This song is a good example for it is in that broad expansive landscape that one hears the lonely soul of America, forever distanced from its European and Asian roots, forever isolated from the rest of the world.  Webb wrote,

I am a lineman for the county

and I drive the main road
Searchin’ in the sun for another overload

I hear you singin’ in the wire,

I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman

is still on the line

I know I need a small vacation

but it don’t look like rain
And if it snows that stretch down south

won’t ever stand the strain

And I need you more than want you,

and I want you for all time
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

Campbell has many religious and political views that I do not share but one enduring legacy that I admire him for, however, has been his musical work, his labor.  As a member of the “Wrecking Crew” he was one of the most sought out session players from the 50s through the 60s.  He wasn’t a mainstream star until later.  Last year he announced publicly that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.  He is currently on tour with his family, a tour which will be his last.  When I read Webb’s lyrics again, hearing Campbell’s voice, I cannot help but cry.

County Line Road, between Washington and Marshall Counties, Kansas.
Photo courtesy of Robert Crowe, photographer, St. Louis, Missouri.

For more of Robert Crowe’s photography and prose, please go here.

JDCM

 

Seasonal turns in the Cyclades…

By on October 24, 2012 in Cyclades stone walls, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, Uncategorized, working

In his collection “A Year With Emerson” Richard Grossman envisions the poet and essayist discussing the merits of the simplicity of life with his close friend Henry David Thoreau.  Emerson wrote, “To find the unity in diversity is the role of the seeker of laws.  When we find the unity behind the complex array of nature, we find the inherent simplicity of nature and are at home in it.  We can never be at peace while we exist in a myriad of facts.”

I wrote this entry a few days ago and saved it in ‘drafts’.  I am glad I did.  I had little else to say on that day and surprisingly, not much else to say today.  My energy is stable, not over-the-top.  Tomorrow most of the students are heading out to a week off from the Aegean Center.  Exotic locales, travel plans, etc…Turkey, Copenhagen, islands in Greece, islands of thought and distance.   I think we all need a break.  I am off to the quiet island of Andiparos, adjacent to my current locale and only a 10 minute ferry ride from Paros.  I will have 5 or 6 days there.  I hope to do some reading, take some pictures of stone walls, maybe a little swimming (weather permitting) and generally just hang about.  I’ll be back well before the break ends.

It is very quiet here on Paros.  Tourists are few, visitors to the school are fewer and this weekend we set our clocks back for daylight savings time.  We are a week ahead of America, I think.  Clouds have rolled in and the welcoming rains have been washing the streets clean, rinsing dust from the trees and filling the sky with richly contoured thunderheads.  The rains have been mostly at night, with mixed sunshine during the day. The lightning and thunder has been dramatic, waking me at 3AM,  reminding me to check the open windows in my small flat.  So far no floods.  Tonight I will develop some film and be available for the other students should they need any advice.  It seems a simple, quiet life I have stumbled upon, a veneer for a complex interior.  Too complex to actually comment upon.  I wouldn’t know what to say.  I will take David Byrne’s advice, “When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.”

JDCM