spotting...

Elephants in the Bush, Tanzania © matthew schenningOver the last week or so I have been spotting all the prints for my next exhibition. It is a travelogue from the past year. This photo is from Tanzania. Traveling with my 4x5 is easier then I originally thought it would be. Now I take it everywhere. More about that later, this is about spotting.
I am so much crazier about spots now that I print digitally. I was hoping that by switching to digital printing it would make my life a little easier, which I guess it does, but it also has had the side effect of making me very picky about my prints. It has become a little obsessive. I guess it's better then smoking crack...then again, maybe not.

bus activities

brooklyn house

brooklyn house of detention

coney island.

the cyclone

i wonder how many images i will have of coney island by the end of the summer.

rain

from Prospect Park on another rainy day last year.

black is the new green

i read somewhere that if websites switched from white backgrounds to black backgrounds the internet would save a shit ton of energy. you know what they say, "once you go black you never go back."

the worst blogger in the history of blogging

ok so i know i'm the worst. i promise to get better.

I'm back.

Ok so I have been bad at keeping up with my postings. What can I say, I been busy and its hard to get into the grove with this.
Anyway...

smaller and smaller and smaller

Everyone knows that world of film processing and printing is getting smaller by the day. I was really bummed out today when i stopped by my favorite lab, Exhibition Prints, and found out that they were closing at the end of the week. I guess this means i have to switch to LTI which is where i go for my black and white film anyway, ever since 68degrees moved up there. I am sure LTI is a fine lab but Exhibition Prints was my favorite. The people there and their quality of work will be missed. Here's hoping that some of them move over to LTI. I really hope that LTI is able to stick around for a while and i won't have to get my film processed at Duane Reade any time soon.

Daily Practice

Many photographers believe that you should make photographing a daily practice. That you should make a habit of making images every day, for a number of reason which I am not going to go into. In a lot of ways I share this philosophy and I wish that I made photographs every single day. But I don't. I imagine that most photographers don't. I was joking with a friend of mine at an opening last night that I am a fair weather photographer. This is not entirely just a joke. I make far fewer photographs during the winter months, in the snow, in the rain, etc. Is this because there are fewer photographic possibilities? No, of course not. It is because I don't want to have to stand out there in the cold/rain/snow/etc. I have considered using a smaller camera that doesn't take so long to take a photograph but I just can't bring myself to it. Large format is my current drug of choice and I just have to deal with it. I'm just glad that the fair weather months are upon us.

field guide

Keep and eye out for A Field Guide coming out this summer. It is story by Garth Risk Hallberg and is illustrated by a great group of photographers. I am lucky enough to have two photographs in the published book. You can pick it up on Amazon as a pre-order now.
I have heard that this is the list of photographers in the book:
Jordan Alport, Timothy Briner, Jessica Bruah, Kara Canal, Sandy Carson, Alana Celii, Janice Clark, Jason Curtis, John Paul Davis, Chris Eichler, Amy Elkins, Jason Falchook, Elizabeth Fleming, Catherine Gass, Hans Gindlesberger, Andres Gonzalez, Maury Gortemiller, Jonathan Gitelson, Jennifer Greenburg, Ben Huff, Christy Karpinski, Mickey Kerr, Liz Kuball, Michael Kwiecinski, Shane Lavalette, Jason Lazarus, Stacy Arezou Mehrfar, Nick Meyer, Matt Nighswander, Alexis Pike, Colleen Plumb, Gus Powell, John Putnam, Shawn Records, Rebecca Blume Rothman, Christopher D Salyers, Matthew Schenning, David Shulman, Kevin Sisemore, Brandon Sorg, Brian Sorg, Sai Sriskandarajah, Tema Stauffer, JJ Sulin, Brian Ulrich, Consider Vosu, Grant Willing.

it's raining

i was thinking today about photographs of storms. i took this one yesterday as the clouds came in before the storm. it reminds me of ghostbusters which makes me think about the time i spent as a guard at the metropolitan museum of art. sometimes i would go up to the roof garden and look across central park at that building from ghostbusters and all the leaves moving on the treetops. it was kind of magical. i'm tired of all this stale, lifeless photography. there are so many dull straight foreward photographs of this or that. this fad needs to end. it's as if everyone looked at Stephen Shore's early work and said I need to make work just like that. i need to take pictures of what i ate for breakfast and the tv in my motel room. except that when they try it just ends up being painfully boring. maybe i am just feeling this way because these kinds of pictures are everywhere you look. of course i am guilty of making these kinds of photographs too. but here i am denouncing this kind of picture making. i'm just going to make magical pictures of fire from now on.

here we go

so here we go kids. i am finally starting my blog. i already hate it.