Serif & Silver Issue III: Unchanged – The Moral Order of Negative Space

It’s a rainy day, the ground is saturated with water and leaves are beginning to drop. It was only a few days ago we got that first good rain of the season; the one where you can smell that autumn is coming. But it’s late this year, mid October and the Portland area is still regularly hitting nearly eighty degrees. I’m running late too, but for entirely different reasons. This issue is the first time I have ever felt as if I am low on photographs.

As the first issue of Serif & Silver came to a close, I already knew where the second would take me. Our road trip through Wyoming had been planned months prior, camera and film had been selected, but most importantly I had a direction. It was in this down time between the first and second issue that I sat down at my desk, pen and paper in hand, and planned a road map for Serif & Silver. This map contained inside not only specific details for ideas and themes, but more importantly a general idea of where the third and fourth issue would go. Because after number four this series of publications will be over. And it’s because I’m running late that I’m doing something I haven’t done yet — writing prior to selecting the photographs that will make up this third issue.

In reality though I think this is ok, I know where we’ll be heading together within this series, and where we will go after that as well. This project, Serif & Silver, began more or less on a whim. I was looking to gain a few things; one: work on my writing, two: build collections of photos, and three: to be able to better speak to those images and what they represent. This began in Serif & Silver (Polaroids: Instant Photographic Prints 2010 – 2015) as I explored the idea of images coming from seemingly nothing and being used together to create a larger idea and series. I focused in on this concept with Serif & Silver (Artifacts: Past, Present, and the American Roadtrip) looking at pairs of images and how they interact with one another. Yet it’s clear that from the most base level a series of photographs can be looked at more closely.

Unfortunately the photographs I want to look at more closely may not exist. But if they do, I am confident that they are somewhere within the eight hundred and forty square feet I call home. Built approximately 75 years ago and originating as an apartment complex, the condo we now live in provides everything we were looking for. It’s minimally designed brick exterior hides a well laid out floor plan maximizing the small space within and leaves nothing to waste. The furniture we have chosen accentuates this with clean lines, low profiles, and a smart layout to maximize how we move and use what was already provided to us. It’s a great place to live for a number of reasons, but more importantly many of those exist beyond the exterior walls. We have a communal courtyard where our complex has potlucks and events, we know all of our neighbors, and it has a walk score of 94. The walk score is never something that I thought I would be proud of, or something that I would enjoy; a younger version of myself would be frustrated that I only have one parking space and one economical car to go with it. And I’m ashamed that it took me until I was 27 to realize I didn’t need the large suburban plots I grew up with, and it saddens me to know that there are many who never will come to those same conclusions.

Despite our furniture choices, and outside the community space, it is the walk score that is important for a number of reasons. What it boils down to is nothing inherently scientific. And in my research I was never able to pinpoint how points are earned. For example anything above a 90 means you could live without a car from this location and would never run into issue with errands, groceries, etc. But how does a 92 differ from a 98? Are there more grocery stores? More transit options? Unfortunately we never get that in depth into what builds these metrics. But perhaps more interestingly is how accurate they end up being without providing a context for their foundation. Unfortunately for most, the concept of a walk score, or being able to walk to anything in your neighborhood is a foreign idea.

James Howard Kunstler is an outspoken opponent of the modern American Suburb. Having discussed ad-nauseum in his first non fiction book on the subject, “The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape” we’re given a deeper insight as to why the structures around us haven’t been designed for human use, but rather the car, and how this has not only caused a greater divide between the rich and poor, people of color, and contributed to global climate change, but has removed us from the community and interaction with those around us. An example provided is that alleyways are no longer seen within new developments. Ignoring that they are often seen now as a waste of space, and a home for crime or homeless populations to congregate, the actual reason is they cannot be made with legal width to accommodate a fire truck. While this may be seen as something that isn’t necessarily missed it forces many unintended consequences. Most importantly the loss of an alleyway forces the garage the be at the front of the house; meaning where we were once greeted with a welcoming entrance into personal space, we are now met with the large blank wall that is a garage door, while the front door has been pushed back another 20 feet.

Kunstler further demonstrates that we’re drawn to focal points naturally, and this leads us to the basis for city planning. Using universal principles a typical town environment will often have streets capped in a T-Junction . This “T” provides us with something to focus on as we move through the area around us. Historically this would have been a building dedicated to the public such as a City Hall, library, or a church. But it not only pulled us in and provided an anchor, it created pause and allowed our eyes rest as they had an object to focus on. Decades later as the automobile was introduced and suburban sprawl became a goal, this T-Junction was removed to allow for faster passage from point A to point B. Since we were walking less and driving more, removing the junction removed stop signs and we could freely get from our home to our destination. Unfortunately this allowed for cars to create their own speed limits. Where a total speed of the community and roadways was never thought of before, it now was a problem that had to be fixed. The intermediate solution for this was to bend the street so that you can’t ever quite see the end. It provides a pseudo focal point, but with nothing of substance. Imagine yourself at a diner with a bendable straw. As you look through it while perfectly straight it focuses your eye on the destination. But bending it just slightly closes that window and forces you to only look at the wall of the straw. While you’re seated at the diner this doesn’t matter much; unfortunately when driving it is ever changing, and we are given no place to visually rest. This again unintentionally adds to the speed in which we can travel from point A to point B, but as Kunstler puts it, this is “exactly what you shouldn’t want in a place where children play.”

It is these little things that compound on one another, pushing back the entryway from the street to accommodate a garage, bending roads so we don’t need to stop. These have removed our community space and furthermore the interaction with our neighbors and the people around us dramatically decreasing the quality in which we live. This applies even for those of you who tend to be more introverted like myself. No longer are we able to walk to our local markets, where produce and goods are provided from local resources, where our purchases are going to others who live nearby, straining our economy and environment, sending money away as we ship goods in and further separated our societies from the real world.

Unfortunately I believe removing the focal points that has caused more damage in the long run, as it is the same type of focal point that exists in photography.

Looking at the focal point as a piece of the photograph the intent becomes more clear. It is not the most important aspect of any given photo, but rather one of many building blocks. Take a look at your hand. It is a complex system of muscles, tendons, and bones with unparalleled dexterity. It is what gives me the ability to type these words, then with a quick shift of position they are able to turn the page that you are reading right now. But the building blocks, the bones that make up your hand are not unique to you, not unique to humans, and not unique to primates. The design behind the hand and all its complexities is one that can be seen across the animal kingdom linking us back to a common ancestor. They are the same blocks that exist hidden inside the flipper of the blue whale. Similarly those within the whale’s flipper exist stretched out in the wing of a bat. But there is another common trait that is rooted in our yearning to survive that rises above all others: pattern recognition.

You should consider yourself lucky for it. Just by being human you already are unparalleled in your ability to see the patterns in everything. It is why you know who people are by looking at their face, and why you can get somewhere even after being provided vague directions like “turn right after the McDonalds”. Perhaps even more interesting though is your ability to seemingly slow time. While this sounds outlandish it is a phenomenon you have certainly experienced before. Perhaps you were bored in high school, your teacher going over a math problem you would never find a real world use for; as your eyes dart back and forth panning the room you look at the clock wondering how much longer until your next period only to see the red second hand hang there for slightly longer than it should. There is reasoning behind why this happens rooted in our history as a species. Our brains never stop looking for something to rest our eyes on. And as you pan the room, looking back and forth your brain never stops interpreting what it sees. Despite it looking like a blur, we are analyzing the many different objects our eyes stopped to look at in that time. So by the time you consciously pause to look at the clock, your mind needs to play catchup for a moment, causing that second to last just a little bit longer than the next. It is also within pattern recognition though that we owe so much more than our survival, as it allows us to create and enjoy art.

But the focal point is not the only piece of a photographic puzzle. Looking back on Kunstler’s model for the American town it is heavily weighted on a balance between the living and use space. The mixed use building, one that combines a first floor consisting of office or retail space with living on the upper levels is a style that has thankfully seen a revival in recent years. Unfortunately after the 1920s it fell out of favor, even being banned in certain portions of the country thanks to strict building codes. But these structures best exemplify a working model for any given city.

It is when we take this approach that builds living spaces designed for all uses, and not just one, do we actually find the balance. More importantly we can now clearly see how the connections between the positive space of the focal point, and the negative space that surrounds it.

Looking back on the instructions that I was provided as a young aspiring photographer I don’t see any difference as to what was thought 100 years prior, or what is tough today. We tend to fall back on our defaults for helping out those who are looking to improve their artwork. These suggestions, these ideas, they often provide any real substance in terms of advice. If you are looking to photograph weddings, automobiles, fine art, kitschy art, or anything in between you won’t even see individualized help be offered.

But even if help could be rubber stamped across the countless different types of photography, would it matter? Take for example the most common tip you will see pop up, the rule of thirds. Designed to aid in the composition of images by simply placing your subject at one of 4 pre-defined points within the frame it is an easy and carefree way to give your images a more dynamic flair. And it should come as no surprise that we see it in all forms of photography, the same weddings, automobiles, and fine art I had mentioned above all love to hit the ground running and shove their subjects into a corner. But while it will guarantee the photo is made more dynamic, it is rarely looked upon to see if it is warranted. This is because rules are looked at like a light switch, on or off, with no middle ground. The reason the rule of thirds makes a photo more dynamic is because of the tension that has been thrown into the mix. Tension that resides exclusively in the negative space of an image.

Taking a few steps back to the message I provided in Serif & Silver (Polaroids: Instant Photographic Prints 2010 – 2015). I looked at the photographs based on their similarities in composition, forming patterns and building a series of connected images from snapshots I had been taking for years. But within the last 6 months, and specifically in the last few weeks as I have been stressing out due to the lack of photographs that will be printed on the upcoming pages, I have been more inclined to try and look at things from the opposite end.

It hasn’t been easy; this ground up perspective is and idea that while I haven’t advocated against, I certainly have been less than friendly towards. As an outspoken proponent of not only photographs as a complete and finished collection, but as pairs and companions to one another it seemed counter intuitive to look at the similarities in all images regardless of subject or the rules that were imposed on them. But in doing so it helped me to realize that the negative space of an image is just as, if not more important than the subject itself. In putting together “Polaroids” I was looking at the positive space in the truest sense. Focusing on key aspects of a photograph that lend to the design of the image, and not the image itself because I was refusing to take it as a whole. It is within the concept of the whole image, what negative space means from photo to photo that I was able to see the structure that connects everything. This is a universal truth that extends well into the real world and the spaces in which we occupy as well.

We find ourselves back on that slightly bent suburban road. Only changing enough to remind you that you are indeed moving forward and not remaining stagnant through the cookie cutter homes. It is this structure, and this use of space that provides the antithesis for what Kunstler proposes, and the meaning behind it is what I have laid out here. Because the specific focal point of this landscape has been removed, we are left with only negative space. Yet since negative space cannot exist on its own it must be exclusively positive space. However positive space without its focal point is a mess. It leaves our eyes nothing to focus on as they track the various patterns. It bears no relation to other landscapes we see in the urban core, or out in farmland. It refuses to acknowledge that the moral order of negative space is what provides the focal point and place to rest, a place to bring in components from outside, and a place to call home.

Serif & Silver Issue II: Artifacts – Past, Present, and the American Roadtrip

Every day we are fortunate enough to be able to look back on our past experiences and evaluate them with a more critical eye. We watch ourselves grow and see how we can improve in the images we make. If you have read the first issue of Serif & Silver (Polaroids: Instant Photographic Prints 2010-2015), you are getting this opportunity now, comparing this second issue to the words and photos within those pages.

Tomorrow you will wake up, go about your day, and think about the good or bad things that occurred just 24 hours earlier. These little life experiences help us improve ourselves, help us grow, and help us learn more about the world around us. But although they are necessary, it is undeniable the space they take up in our psyche. Similar to a roll of film, we are only allotted so much space. 36 frames to remember what we did well and what need to improve upon. Once filled, something new is often called for. It was this same idea that perpetuated the desire to begin publishing Serif & Silver, and the theme that was the basis of Issue I: the ability to step away and return later.

I am a fan of books as a printed format for sharing photography. During the planning and final production stages, or even within this issue of Serif & Silver, I have found myself faced with the concept of return many times. Perhaps you have too. After printing, culling, sorting, and organizing images in a physical space, inevitably you see that your images are more often better used as pairs rather than individually or in a larger collection.

You will see that your photographs support one another, but also rely on the opposing image to not only continue the story, but to make each one a better and more poignant image. Whether the images find their pair naturally or in a more conscious manner, before the shutter is pressed or during post-production, is inconsequential – because it isn’t how things come together, simply that they do.

Decades ago, after my father came home from work one day, we were brought out of our rooms by my mother. I was ten years old, my sister seven, and brother five; she explained to us that it wasn’t our fault, and that while each of my parents loved us children very much, and loved the other as the parent of us, they weren’t in love with each other anymore. As I’m sure you can guess where this leads, my parents separated, then divorced shortly after.

Later that evening we were lead down the stairs for the second half of the unwanted conversation from his side. Walking into the family room he sat alone on the sofa, staring at a TV that was off, waiting for us to arrive. I’m sure he could hear the discussion upstairs with our mom, us asking what was wrong, why, what we could do to fix it, and it probably went just as they had planned. The statements that were made on both sides seemed to be read directly from the divorce how-to manual. As many of those reading this know what the experience is like, it sucks; it changes relationships and the family dynamic.

That year we would still have Christmas together, and in what I’m sure was an effort to mask the tension in the room, I was given a Nintendo 64. It worked. I forgot about how uncomfortable my dad looked, and it allowed me to bring my old Super Nintendo over to his place. That, along with going to the apartment gym to watch cartoons or swim in the pool became great ways to kill the forty-eight hours we were required to spend there each week.

But the thrill didn’t last and shortly after we would grow to resent one another. Looking forward to getting out of school and enjoy the weekend quickly turned to being forced into the car to sit through two days of playing that old Super Nintendo, watch kids shows, or wait by the pool for everyone to finish. Arguments became commonplace, and after he remarried his new wife and her two daughters became more people to disagree with. Eventually, after a particularly rough weekend in which the police were involved, I stopped going to visit on weekends altogether.

Years would go by, and the tense relationship we had with one another would mellow out, but we never got to go back and make up those missed years. Yet during this time that have lacked a real emotional bond, we were able to find common ground in one area. Driving.

Each year, after school let out for summer break, my days became filled with road trips and quintessential family vacations, traveling over every state west of the Dakotas by Chevrolet Astro (later upgrading to a Suburban) with a camper trailer in tow. While some of these trips took us to visit family, there were many that existed simply for vacations sake. But the real beauty of a road trip is everything that leads up arriving at your destination. It was in these interludes that I was able to find solace with my dad, and if there is one thing that defines a road trip with him it is the hour you must be on the road by.

The night before departure would involve our real work. We checked off each box on the provided itinerary: five pairs of underwear, three t-shirts, a sweater, a jacket, two pairs of pants or shorts, a toothbrush. The only items allowed to go unpacked were personal effects, things that would be considered a carry-on, had our mode of transportation grown wings and a flight attendant. With every check, we moved closer to leaving. Once everything was loaded into the car, which became a Volvo 850 after the divorce, it was time to finally fall asleep.

Not that much of it would matter anyway, as by the time our eyes got heavy they would only stay shut in bed for a few hours. Three o’clock would come around, dad having never gone to sleep, or perhaps crashing on the couch for a moment, would eagerly encourage us to get in the car as to get as much distance between us and our home prior to the sun rising before us. It was a unceremonious departure, but it worked, and in reality provided him a little more quiet time in the car before my brother and sister fully awoke.

The air was cold, even in summer, while the night enjoyed its peak hours. The road was quiet, as the only other vehicle we would see was the occasional long-haul truck. Our headlights lit the road in front of us just long enough to ensure darkness didn’t get too close. The dashboard illuminated with lots of green LEDs – dad had described the center console as looking like a cockpit to me before he bought the car. In the backseat sitting to the left and right of our blue and white Coleman cooler, which doubled as a snack container and a barrier, my siblings would quickly return to sleeping.

Up front, I had my own passengers to deal with. Primarily our massive Rand McNally road atlas with the states along the West coast earmarked for quick review. Certain states had their own notes and suggestions for routes to take, as I-5 to Lake Tahoe was not as fast as the state route, but was our preferred method of travel. Tucked between my left leg and the center console was my dad’s thermos; a pebbled green Stanley with the chrome cup you could screw on and off. It was in these early hours of driving along the freeway that I, riding shotgun and pointing out things on the map, with Dad driving, that I would first get to see the world outside of home.

* * *

Five years ago, in the fall of 2010, I took a photography course at our local community college. At $200 it wasn’t cheap for what it offered, but the premise intrigued me. Many of the other classes on the list for that quarter were standard fare. “Getting To Know Your dSLR” and “An Introduction to Photoshop” make their rounds four times a year, so seeing the opportunity to photograph some of the regions within the Pacific Northwest, learn about technique, and chat it up with other photographers I was on board.

Unlike other photo groups and high school classes I had taken previously, the emphasis here was with the printed image itself. Our instructor, Warren Mitchell, has a specific way of getting his images into the world to be seen, and perhaps as important, actually purchased by the public at large. By printing the photos onto individual postcards that are sold at convenience, grocery, and book stores in the Portland area, he had made a name for himself with picturesque scenes that followed very strict rules.

His personal life followed these rules as well: up each morning at three, because that was when the newspaper was delivered. Begin photographing an hour before sunrise, and conclude your day with a late morning lunch. But it was within his prints that we as students found the most use.

Weekly lessons were provided to us in print form. As we talked about composition, background, and other objects within the frame (Mitchell was known for plucking flowers and breaking branches off trees if they would help the composition), we would look at photographs of his that supported this point. Not one to worry about the equipment being used, the prints would often be pixelated, as he was a big proponent of cropping the image to get a more interesting composition.

Our assignments were required in print as well. A selection of six to eight images, printed at five by seven size minimum, eight by ten preferred. After placing these prints on a table surrounded by the rest of our peers, we would stare, arrange, and ask questions about what led to the images being taken. It was only after Mitchell determined that sufficient discussion was achieved that a cropping tool would be pulled from his bag.

This large piece of cardboard was something I had never seen before; even since then, I have never seen in practice. It is a relic from the darkroom, and one that unfortunately hasn’t carried over into our more modern age. Cut into the face at a 45 degree angle is a four by six rectangle. You’re able to move and position this opening around your print, finding images within your image as we were often told. But the beauty would become more evident once you realized this opening could be adjusted to various sizes and positions. Portions of the original print were now removed completely, we would zoom in onto small details and pull new scenes out of the photograph that hadn’t been noticed before.

It was a confidence booster to no end. As you placed your raw images onto the table the other students would immediately support what was placed in front of them. Mitchell wasn’t as kind, but as he whittled away a few images after asking “What’s your subject?” or “Where does your eye go?” you would get the benefit of having exciting new photos within your print pointed out for you.

During the term, what had been a big attractor for me to sign up, was something I discovered I had not fully known what to expect. At three points during the course there would be field trips, not unlike what we had gone on as children in school, only without a bright yellow bus and lunches filled with Capri Sun and orange slices. These weren’t mandatory as we weren’t being graded, but there was a strong push to get everyone to attend with ride sharing and after-photo lunches planned. Like everything else within Mitchell’s life, these small adventures began early. Waking up three hours before sunrise in order to capture the light transforming was key, and most of the time we had finished our work for the day by ten.

It was within these two components, the reviews and group outings that problems within the work of the photographer began to arise. Images were both being made, and reviewed on a singular level. Within each assignment we were being trained to photograph for the individual, and not for the story. Looking back the evidence is there with Mitchell’s postcards. Each one was a lesson on its own, providing both the back story and information he wanted to present. This created a culture of photo making that wouldn’t be easily undone.

In the fall of 2014 I came back to the same community college, to the same class, with the same professor, and some of the same students. In my absence a small group seemed to have formed a photography club, with the same students taking two or three classes with Mitchell each year. Many of them even remembered me. I was the weird kid with the old camera(s). And the questions were the same, with only slight changes to the pronunciation of adjectives. “You still shoot film?” easily translated into “You still shoot film?”, followed by dismissal or vague curiosity.

But the similarities ran deeper, and while I was the one still shooting with the weird old cameras, I was disappointed to see the other students shooting with the same tired techniques. I should clarify; the images from a technical standpoint had gotten better. The composition and subject matter had improved greatly. It had for me as well, but where the photos fell short was their lack of connection to any other image within a series. These images are “Facebook Fodder”: designed to look pretty, to make people stop and enjoy them for a brief second prior to moving on to the next topic. Fundamentally these were the same photographs that were taken four years ago, and placed side by side it would be hard for me to distinguish what the new work had included.

* * *

Months after taking Mitchell’s class for a second time, Jenny and I had decided to take a road trip. We sat outside, hunched over a map of Wyoming, marking the places we each wanted to visit with various colored pens. It was a vacation we had wanted to go on for some time, tracing the landmarks and cities each of us visited when younger. It would be a few months before we would actually get a chance to leave, and in that time we ignored the bulk of planning. Our goal was to keep as much of our schedule as open as possible. There were landmarks, and days set aside for bigger locations like Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons; but for the most part we made it a point to only be persuaded by what could be seen in front of us.

Over the 11 days we spent on the road I was thrilled to revisit the destinations that I had traveled as a child. As we explored the places I once camped at, the air was still filled with a dry wood smell that transported me back in time better than any photograph could.

Waking up in Montana was horrible. The fan next to our hotel bed was on full speed, oscillating left to right like it was disagreeing with us. Despite its efforts, there was no help provided. The hot, stale air was being pushed on to us just long enough to keep the intruding bugs away. Earlier in the evening we had made an effort to air the place out, opening windows on either side of the room to allow for wind to bring tolerable conditions. In reality it only brought the moths and some large insect that looked like a fly’s skinnier cousin. It was the kind of discomfort that cannot easily be escaped from, but nonetheless we would certainly try. Neither myself or Jenny were using covers as we slept, lying in bed afraid to move as every time we would shift we could feel the pool of sweat we were leaving behind. Despite all this we had managed to get some sleep, and three to four hours had passed when we woke up. Checking my phone to see what time it was would bring this trip full circle to those of my youth, 3:00 am. We might as well get up and hit the road. Driving through the back roads of Montana into Yellowstone did not conjure up the joy of seeing the sunrise over the interstate as I had anticipated for this trip. Rather, we had the deck stacked even more in our favor with the ability to stop our car and sit on the benches near the hot springs, and watch the earth around us begin to light up.

Return isn’t the correct word to define an experience like this, nor is it the correct word for many occasions including both my photography class and our recent road trip. Because while you revisit, you aren’t ever able to return. A photograph is part of this idea. It is saving an incredibly precise recollection of time and location, a time and location that we will never be able to come across again. Perhaps more important is the realization of what truly connects us to these moments. It wasn’t Yellowstone, or the road trip that changed, it was me as a photographer. I was now able to look at the world from a different perspective and bring both the prior and current versions of myself into my work.

The photos within this issue are artifacts of one another, and recall pieces of myself through the years. They embody the adventure in travel and the influence of my memories of childhood. In these images are remnants of what once had been, and the tie to what is next.

From the hotel in Montana we planned to venture into Yellowstone for the second day. In doing so we’d see the sites that we had been more familiar with as a kid. Despite our unanticipated desperation to leave early, we had been slow in getting ready, checked out, and to the North entrance of Yellowstone. As we drove in at 5:00am, admittedly later than I would have liked, the sun had only started to ascend over the hills ahead of us illuminating the landscape.

We had passed through this northern portion of the park on our way to the sweat lodge that was our hotel the evening before, but were now seeing it in a completely different way. The pools of water reflected the thin morning clouds, generating steam as the temperature had remained low overnight. Herds of elk were slowly roaming the area, licking dew off the grass and lazily standing wherever they wished, often in the middle of the road to the dismay of the few humans trying to get by.

At this moment we weren’t going back to where we had already been; or to where the other tourists had, for the most part, disappeared. The general store and souvenir shops were still closed for hours, and the areas open to the public were empty, except for us.

Serif & Silver Issue I: Polaroids – A Collection of Instant Photographic Prints 2010 – 2015

The couch is from Ikea and for whatever reason has the name Karlstad. It has a replaceable textile cover in Sivik Green, making it easy to change the look of our small home if we decide to. The tufted buttons sewn into the rear cushions are ones Jenny and I made. You can purchase a kit to produce each one; it takes some work but they look good. Yet as I lay here, if I roll around they will make popping noises when the belt loops on my jeans catch the buttons edge. The legs of the sofa were changed as well, they are now a tapered walnut. It fits in with the rest of our décor, and helps to hide the fact that this couch comes from a store known more for selling meatballs made of horse than high quality furniture.

It’s comfortable enough, and lets me rest the voice recorder nicely on my chest. I find that it’s often easier for me to just talk aloud when trying to get ideas out of my head. It is why I started Pdexposures, first via YouTube with me simply talking into a webcam. As time went on the production value of our camera reviews increased with Pdexposures.TV, and finally we launched the Pdexposures podcast, which evolved into the Pdexposures Network and now which hosts four podcasts all dedicated to film photography. Throughout this evolution I have learned to discuss photography and cameras for hours without notes or storyboards to guide me. Free form conversation is a talent I happily exploit, but when it comes to written thoughts, I tend to struggle.

So the recorder sits, moving up and down as I breathe, listening to me talk slowly. More often than not I find myself speeding through my words trying to get each out faster than the last. This way I will be able to hear what I said when it comes time to turn this audio into text and eventually, a publication.

Though it just occurred to me, why am I not using a dictation program?

As film photographers we are faced with this struggle daily. Do we choose to embrace technology, to use the dictation program to write for me and cut down on work later on? Or should I be taking pen to paper and explore the feeling of putting my thoughts down by hand? The pendulum constantly swings back and forth as we continue to not only use a medium that should have seen its final days, but regularly pump money into it as a crutch to ensure our lifestyle does not vanish. The great irony exists with how we incorporate these very recent and modern advancements into a photographic format that has not seen much change or growth in the past 100 years.

There is a phenomenon known to many as a shifting baseline. This theory describes our inability to understand quantifiable notions that existed before our time, it is often used for conservationists to help us realize our impact on the planet. Jon Mooallem in his book, Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America, tells the story of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean Sea in 1492. At that time there were almost one billion sea turtles in that area of the ocean. Columbus’ men wrote about being unable to sleep as turtle after turtle would hit the hull of the ship. So many of these creatures were living in the ocean they became a hassle, an obstacle to overcome as we moved west. Nowadays, of course, such creatures are rare, to the extent that people gather to take photos of them on beaches in Hawaii, and strict fines are imposed to ensure you don’t get too close. We will never know what an ocean is like filled with turtles, and placed into context, we will never again see a film marketplace with the variety that once was. No other niche exemplifies this better than instant photography.

In 2006, high level executives at Polaroid held a meeting in secret. With a handful of engineers, number crunchers, and surely at least one executive who’s title would have begun with the letter “C” and ended with the letter “O” in attendance. The meeting was to discuss the future of Polaroid film. With the advent of digital photography, the razor blade method that both Kodak and Polaroid relied on so heavily had started to crumble beneath their feet. Consumers to longer required purchasing a medium that would only hold so many photographs prior to needing to be replaced. With a simple memory card they could take more photos than a roll of film, and simply reuse it once they were done. This lead to a steep decline in the sales of film, but even more so for the company whose practice relied on the ability of a photographer to be able to immediately see the photograph once it had been captured.

It was decided in this single room that as of that year, Polaroid would no longer order any more chemicals to produce instant film. By all estimates and sales projections, the company would be able to continue manufacturing until 2010, however a strange phenomenon occurred, and sales started to rebound. By 2008 Polaroid knew they wouldn’t make it through the first decade of this new millennia with production, and the last packs rolled off the assembly line in spring of 2009.

Not long after,three men came together to purchase the last remaining Polaroid factory in Enschede. This company had a single goal of bringing back instant integral film for Polaroid cameras, and by now we are all familiar with The Impossible Project as well as their trials and accomplishments. Around the same time a much smaller group wanted to do something similar with a far more unique material known as Type55. Arguably it was an easier process to replicate, they did not require color film, nor did it need to contain a battery inside the film pack. Despite this it has still taken over four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get close to a production ready product.

It is within these two companies that we see the current state of film better than anywhere else. It has been abandoned by Fuji and Kodak, leaving start ups to handle a task that was once served primarily by 3 companies to the entire world. And through that journey the uprising of the film community to come to the aid through donations of time and money given on the assumption that a final product will be delivered at some point in the future. Through this evolution, the shifting baseline has stayed with us and brought new photographers into a world that is struggling to bring us back to a point we were at less than a decade ago.

Around that same time I started treating photographs and the art of photography seriously; like most the spark was ignited through a high school arts credit that I was required to take. Mr. Abahazy, Otto, was our resident photography teacher. As you would imagine any arts teacher to be he would tend to ramble and get us swept up in social causes. I watched President Bush get re-elected in this classroom, and subsequently would see Mr. Abahazy mumble about the room visibly upset. He is Native American, and drives a beat up Toyota pickup truck with many bumper stickers declaring him as such. A proud man, he was the teacher you wanted at a time when you are so easily influenced. He is well known in our area as well, having painted a mural on a wall at the Chinese Restaurant I worked at in High School reminiscent of those seen in the Tang Dynasty.

I still have most of the prints I created in the small darkroom in his class. The exposure is off on many, no doubt due to the faulty meter in the Minolta Maxxum 7000 I was using. The composition leaves a lot to be desired as well, though that is a fault I cannot blame on the camera. But beyond traditional prints it was encouraging to explore what a wet darkroom will allow creatively.

Towards the end of the first semester I had become bored with traditional prints. As there were more than twenty of us in the class individual time could not be spent showing us how to craft a print beyond the standard test strip, expose, dev, stop, fix, rinse. Because of this I explored what else could be done with nothing more than chemicals and photographic paper. Solarization, an easy gimmick back then was welcomed, and when I splashed the exposed paper with developer rather than dunking it to create patterns of an image, Mr. Abahazy asked me what it meant, how it benefited the photo rather than dismiss the idea. To his dismay most of the class would turn in their next assignment using the same technique.

But it is within this period that I have seen the hours I put into crafting images grow.

In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell proposed the idea of a 10,000 hour rule in his third book “Outliers”. This theory states that before you can truly become an expert in any given task you must first dedicate a specific amount of time improving yourself. Put into perspective if you were to quit your job tomorrow and dedicate those 8 hours each day to becoming a better photographer, you wouldn’t hit that mark for five years.

As most reading this will know, dedicating that much time is impossible if you’re not making money through your images. Because of this my hours grew slower; with each photograph taken I added more time.

“Your first ten thousand photos are your worst.”

The above quote from Henri-Cartier Bresson is very well known and has been contested many times. More often than not from bloggers who deem it a better use of their time to justify why their early images are good rather than working towards making their images better. Cynicism aside I find that both Bresson and Gladwell, despite counting in different mediums speak very much to the same goal. Earlier in the week I sat down and did some rough estimations for how long it takes me to produce a single image. Including all aspects of travel, composition and exposure, firing the shutter, development, scanning or printing and finally publishing providing one hour per image is a generous estimate. But assuming that it will average out, each of those 10,000 photographs, one per hour, will not only be your worst but will provide you with the stepping stones to become an expert photographer.

There is a larger issue though; photography, at least how we use it, is an art. Unfortunately it is because of this we quickly come to find out that expert does not inherently mean good. My knowledge on film processes, cameras, composition make me an expert but putting those into real world use are the only way I can be considered a good photographer, which is far more valuable than the title of expert. This level of expert photographer we get to is ultimately a misnomer. It describes our ability to finally start becoming a good photographer once we have removed the requirement to learn the technical information.

Two ideas, the Shifting Baseline and 10,000 Hours, give us a more relative explanation for the photographic landscape we exist in today. But they aren’t applicable without a one last key aspect.

I spend a lot of my life using technology including social media. These are brief snippets of time here or there, updating, refreshing, tweeting, sharing. This isn’t different from most others, especially as a photographer. We exist as our own brand and promote it to ensure we are not forgotten.

Coca-Cola has been one of the top ten most recognizable brands globally for decades. Despite slipping on these charges in recent years when someone asks if you would like a Coke you know exactly how it will taste, how the can will look and feel, and remember that one summer years ago. It is because we see this drink consisting of little more than sugar and water as joyous that we can quickly associate it with memories from long ago. And yet they continue to advertise, not to promote a new product but to simply remind the world that they exist, and that you might be a little thirstier than you were before their commercial came on.

We do this as well, sharing our work on countless social media outlets to raise our flag a little higher and know that we haven’t been forgotten.

Pulling on me regularly is the data behind social media. Many different websites use the API of these companies to provide metrics about how many followers you have gained or lost. Your interaction with each photo posted, and how many likes or comments you received. But it is the tracking of my followers to like ratio recently has been especially struggling.

Ten percent. That is what is considered a good ratio for each image you post on Instagram. I call out Instagram specifically as each social media outlet varies greatly. You’ll see a far higher number of people who don’t follow you but will appreciate your work on Flickr thanks to Groups. Twitter will often receive a very low interaction rate, but those who do take the time to provide feedback will do so with honest feedback. Instagram though has been able to provide real data on averages and expectations for someone using it to its full potential. To save you the easy math, if you have 100 people following you, 10 of them should like any photo you post. It won’t always be the same people, and tags can increase your audience, but for a general rule that is where you should be. Recently I have been hitting only five to six percent, and with some series I post it has fallen to three.

A publication doesn’t offer that information to the publisher. Once this issue is finished and goes up for sale I will only be able to track how many copies have been sold. You can hate all but one single photo, and that will provide me with the same feeling of accomplishment as someone who finds inspiration and meaning inside each image.

Narcissism runs rampant through our world. We are constantly sharing photographs expecting them to capture a response from our audience, despite not hitting 10,000 hours, despite not being an expert photographer, despite not being a good photographer. Within this we become so eager to share our most recent work, chasing likes around like an addict seeking drugs that the work we spend so much time trying to create only becomes a blip on our timeline.

This is intended to be different for me than any other project I have worked on. I want this quarterly publication to be candid and open about far more than my work, I want to open the discussion about modern photography and where we are taking it. The future of this art form, like any, lies on the shoulders of those who produce it. And so often we are caught up in the idea of how we should be carrying ourselves as photographers, and even more so as artists. That the art we create isn’t the product, we are.

Recently I met with a photographer who has accomplished more with his images than I ever will. He’s the Vice President of Imaging at a large company, it is one you have heard of and probably own products from. The question I wanted to know more than any other was about his life goals; he interrupted me before I could finish my question,

“I always wanted to sell out, I just never could”

Polaroids: A collection of instant photographic prints 2010 – 2015, explores our ability to produce large bodies of work when we aren’t trying. These are the photographs we all take, going out to dinner and bringing a camera only to take one quick photograph. These are the attempts we make to sell out, to create art from nothing but often give it to the world before it is ready. It is only once we step away long enough and let the images breath that we can come back and find the stories that have been pulled together inadvertently.

These photos are the images you see here. Images that conjure feelings of old memories, of experiences, and of where I am going. They tell a story together, one that highlights points during and after my 10,000, and inside that are chapters breaking the story up and challenging me to work within the time frame of a few presses of the shutter.

It is within these images that I bring you Serif & Silver.