Just in time for the holidays, I'll be participating in two great sales.
First is the annual SMFA Art Sale coming up this weekend. The sale features work by SMFA students, alumni, faculty and MFA staff members. I had a lot of fun last year (and great success!) and once again have submitted five pieces. They're all photos from my Instagram theme project, one framed and four matted. All of my co-workers from the photo studio also have great prints for sale, and the art ranges greatly in price. I'll be at the opening reception Thursday night, so definitely come say hi and check it out!
Second, I just found out that I've been accepted into a holiday art/craft sale sponsored by UForge gallery in Jamaica Plain. I've been working toward getting things ready to be in a fair like this for a while, and I'm so excited to try out the whole sale circuit! I'll be selling my theme prints in a bunch of sizes, as well as some other framed pieces and cards. It will take place Saturday, December 13 at Eliot Hall in JP. There will be around 30 other vendors, so please stop by to check out everyone's work and keep me company!
Beauty on the outside
This theme was about facades of buildings and the outward appearance they project. I love photographing architecture, so to make this more of a challenge, I decided to limit myself to just the front. Not geometric details, or shots looking up, but just the view from the sidewalk. Boston actually has a lot of different architectural styles from neighborhood to neighborhood, so it wasn't too hard to find a good variety.
These photos are from the Back Bay, South End, Fenway district and Kenmore. As usual, half the places were ones I had in mind, and the others were ones I stumbled upon along the way. There obviously was no shortage of subject matter, so these nine are a very select edit of what I shot.
Going analog
I recently became the proud owner of a vintage Rolleiflex camera. It's a medium format manual camera known for its twin lens system, which allows you to hold the camera at waist-level and look down to see the large viewfinder made possible through a complex system of mirrors. My model was made sometime between 1951 and 1954 and is in perfect working condition. These cameras are also known for their excellent lenses and durable mechanics. I heard a story that the salesmen used to prove that by setting the camera on the ground and standing on top of it.
The only downside is that there's no light meter of any kind built into it. My other manual camera, a Canon AE-1 from the 1970s, at least has a manual pointer needle to indicate the recommended f-stop. Without one, I'm completely on my own for making accurate calculations of the existing light in order to set the shutter speed and aperture. I haven't really paid attention to these formulas since my first photo classes back in high school, and it certainly isn't something you need to think about much in the digital age. When digital cameras also commonly go up to an ISO of 3200, it's very different to think in terms of a film speed of 160.
So it's amazing that my first roll of film with the Rollei wasn't completely blank or solid black when it came back from being developed. After re-schooling myself on a few basic rules for sunny conditions, I doubled and halved my way to the proper settings for clouds and dappled shade. Not only are most of these photos properly exposed, but the color, sharpness and quality show why these cameras are still highly prized. The only mistake I made had to do with not properly advancing the film. My model was the first to include an automatic counter, based on the thickness of the film roll inside. But that means the amount you wind the film after each frame changes over time. I started off without fully advancing to the next frame, which resulted in one double exposure, and one half-frame, below. But honestly, I think they're still kind of fun photos. Certainly a unique reminder of the surprises film can bring.
All of these photos are from Walden Pond on a partly cloudy day in October. None of these have been altered or edited at all. The color and exposure are all exactly from the negative.
The hunt for red (and yellow and orange) October
This theme was all about the new season. The beginning of October meant summer is officially and fully over, so I decided to embrace it photo-wise. Fall is also my favorite season: dressing in layers, cool sunny days, football Saturdays, a bounty of farm produce, and those colors! Sometimes it's hard work finding signs of fall foliage in the city, especially when the coast is a bit behind the peak season inland. But I lucked out (and maybe also timed this theme) that another instameet was scheduled during the same week with @IGBoston.
I had a great time at the last meet-up and had been looking forward to another one for a while. This is the first one that worked out schedule-wise, and it was planned for the Arnold Arboretum. A literal tree reserve on the outskirts of the city, what better place to find foliage?! It's also a very different subject matter than I normally focus on and gave me a chance to take more portraits and pictorials. I included my favorite shot below, and you can see all the photos from the meet on my Instagram feed.
All the other photos below are from my neighborhood or a quick jaunt to an apple orchard about 20 miles from the city. I wanted to keep it as local as possible, even though there are more beautiful colors out west of the city. I feel like there are so many more fall photos to take, but alas, my time frame is over, and it's on to another theme!
Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
This theme was a suggestion from a photographer friend of mine: to just focus on one street. So I picked Tremont Street, about a block from my apartment, and the main thoroughfare through the South End. It has endless options for subject matter, from its restaurants and shops, to plazas and small parks, but I tried to stick to a fairly small portion, about half a mile total. They're not the most consistent group of images when shown together, but I tried to have a variety of subjects and compositions, and it definitely represents the street and neighborhood well.
The only time I strayed from this defined area was for a challenge by the Instagram group IGBoston. In order to become a member with them, you need to submit your gallery and then complete a challenge shot they pick out for you. They asked me to post a photo of one of Boston's grand public fountains, and luckily there's a good one (and only one) along Tremont Street in the Boston Common. I came away with a shot I really liked, that still fit in well with the other Tremont photos, and brought me into IGBoston.