I am still in the process of moving some more files over to the laptop so although I am doing much more postings on the forums and finally participate in some great discussions I have been putting off the blog until some more images are in my portable archives. That soon will change. The weather is great outside and I'm already planning some shoots.

I am surprised with the planning I now undertake in projects. My recent one is a book of portraits based on personal relations of some sort or some significance on my life. Today for example I asked a fellow collage whom I have been discussing Buddhism in recent weeks if I could take a portrait for my book. He agreed and I was very happy to find out that the location will be a rooftop garden in the Greenwich Village in new york. Slowly the list is growing into a significant project. I am for once reaching out of the box to fill my book and challenge myself. So more of some exiting things to come. The photo-shoot mentioned above will be sometime in June as my May is already looking full with some ideas I have.

Tonight I am including a photograph from February. I call it the 'point of reference' as this was my view out the window of the apartment in Krakow. I bet this little van hasn't moved in years but it looks neat in the space and it offered a familiar point of reference retuning to the apartment after sightseeing the city.

I've been honored few months back to join a group of photographers on the web where some real thoughts and real people talk about their creative lives. I am only now discovering the true value of this invitation. I owe a big thanks to my friend.

I've been strangely procrastinating the review and contributions to web forums after burning out on one some few months back. Multiple factors contributed to that. For one I was really turned off by people with little experience proclaiming the 'industry' standards. More so I disliked the fact that the artistic approach was attributed to nudes only. The only thing that kept me going back (and still does) was in part to some folks who bring in a higher standard even when contributing to a spiraled downward gutter talk.
But to be fair I need to confess that I was confused on my choice of tools at the time. I have since found what I needed to realize the next steps which actually hold the value of using those tools. Photography to me is a way to live my life around.

Tonight an eagle flying high over the canyon of power lines.

So with conversations I've been having lately I come to some satisfying feeling of not going at issues I'v been having alone. I'm also looking back and realize that the past is teaching me to let go because the same stuff goes around the track just dressed up differently.
The weather finally broke and now its actually warm. The one project I am going to do this spring and summer is a series of portraits with the 4x5 camera. I've already asked 3 people and they all willing to do it. There is no other reason for these portraits but my own. All of sitters in these portraits will be people I am willing to spend time with, whether at work or outside of work, to get to know them a little better. But this does not mean they always stay in my life. I suppose through this project they will. I will have these negatives with me for years to come. My life moves very quickly and it still amazes me that despite seeking some unique elite of people that I actually can relax around, I often find myself with books and the internet satisfying a solitude which fills with thoughts.
The winter delayed a lot of that. I simply hibernate creatively in the winter time. Shooting a roll occasionally satisfies my photography longing but the work until now had little effort,
I'm learning a lot in the last few weeks that is helping me with easing to accept things for how they are and how to best understand them in order to be productive. I mean this beyond photography and the art process. I suppose accepting oneself is a life time process. But I feel very angry and little with myself for producing below mediocre work in the last few months. The anger comes from the guilty feeling of approaching the work with procrastination.

Still cold outside. These days are flying by too quickly. I thought today how photography is my life. I tried to walk away from it at one point to get things organized but I was lost. I remember a scene from college when in one the classes I took on photography for the use of the darkroom the instructor was offering words of encouragement as if for his students not to give up photography. He commented through some people at the table and then he turned to me and said: 'You, you'll always will be photographing'. Its true. And I do it on film because it makes it scarce. You'd figure that process would make you choose frames much more carefully. But that's only half true. I do not want to see the image right after I take it. I want to live the moment though and work the camera. I do find it necessary to be re-assured every time the shutter is triggered. I like the developing process. And if I mess up a roll, oh I'll be out there again shooting more. Its just how I am.


This is a photograph from Krakow. This is about 30% of the original frame. The cross is a monument for 20,000 Polish Officers murdered by the Red Army in 1940. Katyn is a forest in the east of Poland. The event was Stalin's propaganda blaming it on the Nazi SS. The questioning of the Polish exiled government in London played right into cutting off diplomatic ties. The Polish Officers were the doctors, professors, layers, professionals that formed among the best of Polish intelligentsia. The purge was the house cleaning to set up four years later the communist rule.

There is a beautiful monument on the same subject that I am planning in photographing with the 4x5 but there is park renovation in progress and I'm hoping that will clear up in a month or two.

I’m feeling very tense lately. It’s probably the fact that I am awaiting warmer whether do get out and run a little. Other then that I fought of some sort of flu this winter for the 3rd time. I hope it’s the last of it.

Another one from the series of finding new interpretations of the negatives I am revisiting. In this photograph there was a wall on the right part with a modern day garbage can so that was taken out for a more atmospheric feel that his Wawel courtyard truly had especially on a flurry midweek cold February day.

And here is another one from the crops. Almost all previous posts, until otherwise motioned, were full frames. And the 4x5 work is the mostly the entire negative (minus scratches in the corners I am trying to eliminate by cleaning the film holders). After my conversation with Don today I realize croping is a normal practice. It makes me feel to know this is ‘ok’ to do. And since Josef Koudelka does it the ‘ok’ gives new life to some of my previous photographs posted here.

The photograph is of Krakow's old town streets. Krakow was untouched by the Germans in WWII and has a lot of beautiful atmospheric streets. This is one of them. I cropped some excessive details leaving the human elements in the frame. I think at most I cropped 15% of the entire frame. I just think this shows best that the city although old is thriving in all its corners.

And so the second photograph finally from my cropping attempt the other night. This is not a habit but a mere attempt in taking out the edges of the photograph which might have been beyond me at the moment I took the photograph. Since I don't often pose nor go into a excessive setup process (at least while traveling) I can only have so much control of the final frame.

In the spirit of Easter, all the wonderful wishes to everyone.

Down the path (rom the previous post) was this enterence. These churches are very old and I really like this gateway. Krakow, Poland, February 2007.

Good Friday. Took a camera with Tri-x to a Polish town where my parents do their holiday food shopping but I ended up not photographing. The store was packed but I know it’s not a place to photograph. So I helped out my parents and walked over to a near by liquor store to buy them a case in half liter 20 bottles of OKOCIM, a fine Polish beer and this is their strong version with 7% alcohol in it. But no booze today nor meat for that matter. Tomorrow off to church to bless the little basket of food (which hopefully I'll get to shoot with 4x5 before the noon mass).

And finally, a photograph. I had some fun cropping and working on composition in the post production phase. So tonight and tomorrow in the spirit of Easter I am including 2 photographs taken in Krakow (Cracow) in the beginning of February.

The photograph tonight is very sharp. In fact it seems a lot of my Mamyia 7 negatives have a life inside each frame when I play around with the cropping. In this frame a little form the right side was cropped. But I like the figure in the left corner looking down into the camera.

There is something very special in loosing oneself in his or her work. There is something much more comforting when that work is of artistic pursuit. But the definition of art has to be defined here as for individual pursuit of one’s ideas or expression in a way that satisfies its creator. Anything else will most likely have some commercial connotation and very quickly will become a craft. Craft can be artful but I have an opinion that craft can be imitated, duplicated, and pinned against heavy completion of the process was too easily found. But art is individual. Picasso was not concerned to be clear in his paintings. I understand more of his work by understanding him. But some of his work I’ll never get nor will try to understand. I’ll adopt as my own.
Photography works the same way. The beginning of the century worried many painters the development of photography meant to their profession. But those were the skill and craft changes. The vision remains individual. Art when personal, in pursuit of ones intrest, is most rewarding. The audience can be found later.

I attended a lecture yesterday with Josef Koudelka at the Aperture Gallery in NYC. I was among the lucky ones who got a seat. There were quite a few seats reserved for the Photography and Publishing bigger names. But when a woman who co-lectured along with Mr. Koudelka commented on his photography the clear distinction of audience vs. the photographer was evident. Mr. Koudelka answered in a straightforward way which I undertood despite his average English and distinct accent. He spoke from the simplicity of vision.

This blog is becoming to mean more to me now that I have begun to think about my photography on a purely personal level. It took me a long time to break the bond of commercial excuse to my photography. I do not seek to purse photography for anything other then my interests in it. However that might sound I am not saying I won't offer my skills in assisting others. But not on a commercial scale.
I have not shot much in the last two months. Winters have that effect. Its cold and grey outside and dull. Today was good day for photography with a evenly overcast sky giving a crisp outline to everything. But I didn't bring a camera with me. I'll start that again soon though.

Tonight a photograph that with somewhat survived the underdevelopment from last night. To be honest I'd love to get great usable negatives on each roll but how easy things would be then. But as an encouragement to all, with time and understanding my gear and myself the camera more often the extension of my eye and though instinct connected to a ongoing reflection. In the photograph are my parents leaving the church on Palm Sunday.

Sharing from peronal expereince, the time listed at Digitaltruth.com for Tri-X in rodinal 1:50 at 18.5 minutes is not recommened. The roll I shot 2 days ago is drying with 3 possibly usable frames. But I'll scan them tommrow. In the past I would probably be pissed about the result but somehow I am fine with it these days. The fact of shooting film gives such result a true appriciation for a developed roll.
I have been reminded by Pope John Paul II greatness in the last 24 hours. Its now been 2 years and the time of his death I was in Poland feeling the loss. The whole country came together. It was(is) an amazing place in the world to be and feel powerful events.

I have typed an entry only to loose it few moments ago. Sadly or maybe better for that reason since my writing is not my strong point. But to satisfy my frustration into a compromise that I did try I am posting this. Despite the lingering cold that keeps on coming back and my runny nose I am about to sleep and relax to the thought that this week is short.
I have a roll of Tri-X I shot yesterday at a church while the ongoing mass stretched in celebrating the Palm Sunday. Listening to the crowd singing I thought very much how wonderful the voices echoed though the church.
No photograph tonight because as I mentioned the roll is yet to be developed. But I’m curious how the roll will come out. So until tomorrow then.