Cold Coffee
never breaking news.
Attending a party in borrowed clothes by way of an abandoned railroad
Over at Emulsive HQ, they do these happenings called film parties, and this month it was time for the #fp4party which stars as you likely guess Ilford FP-4. I find January a great month to join in on a party as I find I need a little extra motivation to get out in the cold and grey Rhode Island winter to make photos. Saying to a group of folks on Twitter “sure, I’m in” seems to be just enough to get me out and get something done. And so I did.
FP-4 is an excellent film full stop. But rather than further my winter of discontent with a cold tripod I decided a more sensitive film would be better suited to my conditions and purpose. I skipped over my usual Tmax 400 and went to the fastest 120 film there is, Ilford Delta 3200. Using which does mean that my images will not be eligible for consideration in the viewer voting at the end of the week but as my dad used to say “we’re not here to win a beauty contest” so I’m good with that. For the tech fans: my film was Ilford Delta 3200 in 120 which I rated at its “data sheet speed” of 1000 and developed in Kodak T-Max developer diluted 1:4. The camera was a Fuji GSWIII 6x9.
As for my subject, I went to my list of desires to find a walking photo meditation along the rail line of the former Moshassuck Valley railroad in Pawtucket, quite close to home. I first encountered the MVRR without realizing it when I walked the river of that name. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the diminutive railway had a rather interesting and long history. Although at 2 miles it was one of the shortest in the country it retained its independence from its start in 1847 right up to 1981. It ran passenger service until the 1920s and fought and won a rate dispute with “The Company” the mighty New Haven Railroad. When I learned that an extension was planned (a crucial move in winning the rate dispute) that would have brought the railroad right by my house, I was hooked, and I knew I had to explore this bit of neighborhood history further.
This is just a first effort, but I am encouraged that there is more I can work with. In the spirit of the party and my virtual notebook I’m sharing here every picture from both rolls in the sequence I made them.
The MVRR was folded into the Providence and Worcester Railroad in 1981, and this branch is actually not wholly abandoned. It sees some occasional service. I note evidence here of recent tie replacement and brush clearing, perhaps indicating that the P&W’s new owners still see some value in the line.
For more info: http://www.abandonedrails.com/Saylesville_Branch
And here is a cool home movie of the railroad in use from 1970.
Links in a chain
Working on a piece in the RISD Museum collection; Mae Luther, Necklace, ca. 1930, 2000.51
When I was a young guy and looking to establish myself as a professional photographer, I visited the downtown studio of a well known commercial photographer. He specialized in catalog work, primarily for the jewelry industry which was still a big thing in this area then. I had heard he was looking to hire a new assistant. The studio was quite impressive, and they were indeed working on a jewelry catalog shoot at that moment. I watched while an assistant crouched under an 8x10 camera with a little stick and carefully pushed a gold chain into the desired position, link by link. A nervous-looking art director hovered nearby. “Oh my god, I can’t work that way, I’d go mad!” I thought — all that effort for a gold chain. It was that and the photographer’s requirement for a mandatory drug test that put me on a different career path. And so here we are.
Gallery Night Reception at Bank RI Gallery
Bank RI Gallery Reception
Meet the Artist / Erik Gould
Thursday
August 16
5:00 to 8:30 p.m.
The BankRI Turks Head Gallery
at One Turks Head Place Providence RI
Meet the Artist
Erik Gould
Gallery Night Providence Reception
Thursday
August 16
5:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Mark Armstrong on Guitar
Light refreshments
The BankRI Turks Head Gallery
at One Turks Head Place in downtown Providence
Hours are Monday through Wednesday 8:30 am to 4 pm
Thursday & Friday 8:30 am to 5 pm
The exhibition runs through September 5, 2018
In Memorium: Jan Baker
Friend and RISD colleague Jan Baker passed away on April 28. I first met Jan in 1995 on an assignment for Quix magazine to photograph the interior of her Benefit Street home. She graciously let me wander at my own pace through her beautiful, art filled home. Her home was not only filled with art, it was itself a work of art. Jan’s sense of art and design seemed to be expressed in every corner of the house. This was, as I would soon learn was just how Jan lived her life, imbuing balance and beauty into everything she touched, a thoroughly artful lifestyle. Although our paths only crossed infrequently, Jan always greeted me like an old dear friend. Jan, your warm smile will be missed.
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/providence-ri/jan-baker-7836638
Photograph as a time machine: Emulsive Post
In case you missed it, I had a post on Emulsive about the enduring power of a printed photograph. Check it out.
Don't Take Pictures feature
In case you missed it, the lovely Don't Take Pictures magazine did an online feature of my piece on baseball, photography and getting out of a rut. Take a look:
http://www.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2018/1/2/photography-and-baseball
Darkroom Printing Form PDF
By demand and for my own necessities I have recreated my tried and true printing form. I made this years ago in some graphic program that no longer exists and have been making copies of copies all this time.
In use it's pretty self-explanatory. The diagram represents the enlarger with a line for the negative carrier (glass, full neg etc.) and a line for the lens used. I write the image size in the trapazoid shape, and there is a line for the enlarger height.
The boxes on the right are space to doodle the image (if necessary, mostly I just draw key features if at all) and most importantly the burning and dodging pattern. I found out quickly that the back of a print is a really bad place to store this information. I collect these sheets project to project and store them in the negative file, or if the print isn't part of a project, they just live in a file I keep in the darkroom. Not fancy but it works for me. Maybe for you too.
Opening Day
I wrote a short post for the image and words site Physical Grain about my rituals and baseball. Have a look...
[Physical Grain seems to be no more, the essay follows below- eg, opening day 2026]
Opening Day
There was a time in my younger days, in my view camera days, when I imagined my photographic season aligning with the baseball season. Although that has passed (I wrote about that here.) I still try to honor my commitment to my photography on two particular days: New Year's Day, when I go to the darkroom, and on the opening day of the baseball season, when I get out there with a camera. One might imagine from this that I’m a huge baseball fan. I’m not. This year’s opening day fell on April 2nd, and I was barely aware. This was a typical Sunday filled with tasks and family time. We have an Easter Egg hunt and a formal tea on the ticket for the afternoon, but I have a brief window in the morning, and so I set out.
The day before, I had spotted a couple of promising locations from the car. At the first location, I realize right away that the sun is exactly on the wrong side of the street, so I take a pic or two for reference, and on to the second. This is just a scruffy bunch of trees at a curve in the road, with a steep slope falling away, houses visible through a screen of winter bare branches and trunks.
I walk along, recalling what I thought I had noticed the day before, considering what might possibly make a picture. The spring sun is warm, and the wind that had been tormenting us seems at last exhausted. It is good to be out, with nothing to do but look. On this day that is almost literally true, I had grabbed my camera bag from a previous outing, cameras still loaded, but I find myself at this moment with one frame remaining. Determined to make it count, I carefully considered my options. Finally, my eyes land upon a cluster of trees with the curve of a concrete water tower beyond, a glimpse of a house puncturing the space on the left. A quick check with the meter, a double-check that the reading has been transferred to the camera, a deep breath, and ca-chack. Throw my pitch, and I’m off the mound.
In which I turn it up to 11
Five Frames with Erik Gould on Emulsive.org
11 frames that is. Cross post to my contribution to the "Five Frames with..." series on Emulsive.org and 35mmc.com.
The ruin within
A look at the unused spaces within Hope High School.
Hope High, rear elevation, 2016
In 2015 I was given a quick tour of some spaces within the Hope High School building on Hope Street in Providence. Hope High was built during the Great Depression, opening in 1936. As built it had 60 classrooms for 2200 students. It also featured gymnasiums, shops and performing arts facilities.
Today it serves 1450 students and has had to adapt to changes in class size and to the educational priorities of the 21st century. Classrooms have been renovated, the large cupola has had restoration work and the athletic fields have been updated.
Of particular interest to me were the areas of the school that have not undergone renovation and are not currently in use. These spaces, largely in the performing arts wing are off limits to students, at least in theory.
The building once offered several entrances, focused on different activities (a Theatre door, a sports door) in addition to the large main entrance. Today the building is far less welcoming, with the only entrance being the main entrance with a single entry point and a security station.
Having issues: defeat streaky development in 2017
Develop your own film? Here's a common development issue that can pop up from time to time. It's a streak of extra density running across the short dimension of roll film, visible especially in light areas such as the overcast sky seen this example. It can happen with both 35mm and 120 size film, this one is on some 120 Ilford FP-4+. I've cranked up the contrast a bit in the scan to make this devil more obvious.
In the negative...
As a positive.
What is the cause? This problem occurs during the initial seconds when developer is being poured into the developing tank, especially with 4 or 8 35mm reel size tanks. As the tank fills developer comes in contact with the film before the reel is totally immersed. The time between contact and full immersion is long enough for development to begin in the area of contact. This creates uneven density in an area where it should be uniform. Not good.
Happily I can think of many solutions to this problem. Let's dive in.
- 1. Get fundamental. First thing is to to check your pour technique. You should be aiming to have the tank filled within 15-20 seconds. Tip the tank slightly as you fill to allow air to escape and then pour pour pour. Then cap the tank and agitate with vigor. If that doesn't work:
- 2. Give up. Send your film off to a lab and let someone else worry about it. Upside: More time to do other things. Downside: additional expense and the loss of control over a crucial part of your work process.
- 3. Give in. Accept that an occasional streak or spot, bleep or bloop is just a natural part of an organic process and just proves that your pictures aren't made by an unfeeling machine but by a flesh and blood person keeping it real. Downside: some people won't get it and will just think you're sloppy.
- 4. Give over. Figure that it will happen once in a while so shoot only dark and busy images that will hide a random streak, or if you do wish to photograph some lovely light grey tone, take a page from your cousin the "professional" photographer and spray and pray. Downside: wasting film and becoming your cousin.
- 5. Modify. Change something in the hope that the problem will go away. For instance try a different film type. Maybe HP-5 will be ok if FP-4 wasn't. Downside: giving up on a film that you otherwise like, creating limitations for yourself as you eliminate film types one by one, still experiencing the issue since in fact you're not actually addressing the problem.
- 6. Slow down. Change your developer or developer dilution so it's less active. In theory this will give you more time before development begins. Downside: Development time is longer. There may be changes in image quality that you may not care for. Difficult to know how much dilution is enough before you risk exhausting the developer.
- 7. Scale down. Develop all your film one roll at a time in small tanks. Downside: takes much more time that you might wish to use to do other things.
- 8. Scale up. Get a processing machine like a Jobo. Downside: expensive, takes up more space, not very portable.
- 9. Presoak. You will find a fair amount of debate over the efficacy of presoaking your film in water. On the one hand the manufacturers say it's not necessary as modern films have incorporated surfactants to encourage even development. On the other hand many people have had complete success using a presoak, including Ansel Adams. Jobo recommends a presoak for their rotary process. The theory is that a presoak will encourage even development as the water absorbed by the emulsion will be displaced by developer slowly, with the added benefit of bringing the tank to the process temperature.
Personally I used a presoak for many years (largely because of Ansel's recommendation) with little issue. Oddly, one issue I did have was with X-tol developer in a rotary Jobo processor, I was getting the dreaded "wagon ruts", bands of uneven development running the length of the film. Jobo support recommended skipping the presoak which did in fact eliminate the problem. But I digress. For many years now I've not used a presoak but I feel pretty safe in saying that there's little risk if you do. Downside: one more step added to the process, some small adjustment in development time may be needed.
The handy lifting rod.
- 10. Get a lift. This one requires the fewest changes, but does require that you develop your film in an actual dark room and have a second developing tank on hand. A lifting rod is very useful, but not completely necessary. For the big 8 reel tanks (and larger!) this is the best method to ensure not only even development but to be certain that the film on the top of the tank is being developed for the same time as the one on the bottom.
How to? Place your loaded reels into one tank, using the lifting rod if you have one. Fill the second tank with developer. Turn out the lights, open the film tank and lower the reels into the developer, smooth and steady. Cap the tank and agitate as normal. Now you can switch on the lights and continue as usual. Downside: you need a darkroom.
Issues with film development can creep into the process of even the most careful worker, or lab. Hopefully one doesn't cost you a once in a lifetime image. If you take the time to understand the problem and to review the fundamentals you should be back up and running with confidence in short order.
Ampersand
A Christmas Eve post for all my friends at the FP-4+ Party & to good people everywhere.
Providence, RI December 2016
&
Erudite Vulcan, quondam forger of alliances, uniter of distant lands, close confidant to power brokers and the crafters of contract, acquisition and merger. No boardroom portrait was complete with out you, shoulder to shoulder you stood with the principals, yet discreet, name never mentioned. There was a time when no wheel could turn on the nation’s rails without you, but that was long ago.
Now you find yourself struck from the masthead, unwelcome in the corridors of power, banished from the corporate style guide. You’ve been done in by the manufactured word, the brittle acronym, the awkward portmanteau. Reduced to sleeping rough on a park bench and to endure the worst indignity of all: spelling your name out in full.
How the mighty doth fall.
Film Shooters Collective NSEW book
Proud to have an image included in the 2016 edition of NSEW by the Film Shooters Collective. This is a great collection of work, have a look:
Gabich Magazine
Just in time for the holidays! I collected some trash and made a magazine which you can order on Blurb. What a thrill for you.
What is the 21st Century Essay? Reflections on Silvered: Tracing Gorham at Mashapaug Pond
“ A weave of sounds—voices that emerge out of distortion, looping over and over, and grow clearer before disappearing—float across the images like fog. It’s a scary movie, a movie about a haunted house.”
Jane Gerhard wrote a very thoughtful review of our performance of Silvered for the RIHumanities blog. Read the full post here:
Blog post for the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities by Jane Gerhard.
Holly Ewald, Erik Gould and Erik Carlson discuss "Silvered" after the performance on 9/23/16
Canal of Ghosts
Walking with ghosts along the Blackstone Canal.
Walking with ghosts along the Blackstone Canal.
The wind is sharp as I scurry across busy Branch Avenue, sending the clouds scudding and keeping the rain at bay. The tops of the trees have been stripped bare, limbs black bony against the sky. I’m entering theNorth Burial Ground and I’m looking for the place where the Moshassuck River emerges from it’s subterranean crossing of Interstate 95. I walk for ways with the highway to my left and rows of stones and statuary to my right. There’s much room to grow on this side of the burial grounds and I cross large lawns of brown grass. A concrete retaining wall announces it’s arrival. A pair of rectangular openings angling back toward the highway. Two echoing chambers cast free of any date or ornament, bearing only a modest “716”. These are entrance and exit to fields set aside for the collection of dates, names and bones.
The river immediately finds it’s Blackstone Canal days maintained, the bed running as straight as ever between walls of cut stone. The tow path is clogged with Catalpa and Oak and masses of twisting vines. That’s no problem as I have only myself in tow and I happily clamber around, glad to be free of the droning interstate.
Some trees have succumbed to the pull of the water and have laid down for a rest, momentarily holding and releasing the stream. It’s a reasonable approximation of a babbling brook and I stop to consider an earlier traveller on an earlier journey.
The canal bounds a potter’s field, and likey displaced some remains when it was dug. That certainly was the case much later when the highway claimed a portion of the burial grounds, nipping a piece of the potter’s field. No matter. Despite the appearance of order among the numbered plots above ground it is chaos down below. Decades of poor record keeping has made this area a de facto mass grave. If someone has to move for the convenience of the traveling living they can just move in with someone else, the more the merrier. Perhaps then, this accounts for the observations of my distant voyager, a passenger on a Providence bound canal boat who reported seeing (while passing through the burial grounds) ”a strange blue tinged orb that seemed to hover just at the level of the trees, then dart quickly forth and back…”.
Current employees of the cemetery have described a what they called a "spirit in the trees”, a human shape moving around and above the trees which sometimes "seems dark and sometimes glows with light”. A number of people who have seen this phenomenon say they have seen it not only in the trees here along the canal but around the pond and on the ridge of the esker, which lies just east of the river.
At the north end of the potter’s field the river once again takes cover below a busy off ramp. A little further to the north, on the rail line that put the canal out of business there once was a terrible accident. Two trains collided at the Valley Falls station. Thirteen people were killed. One of the victims is buried in this cemetery under a headstone adored with the image of locomotive. This accident is notable beyond the loss of life for another reason. It is considered to be the first train wreck ever photographed. A Pawtucket man (not unlike myself) made a daguerreotype at the scene, from which an engraving was made that was reproduced in newspapers only weeks later.
Are there ghosts here beyond the ghosts of engravings in old newspapers? As it is nearly Halloween it seems fair to think perhaps. I consider then the lost thirteen, never to arrive at Worcester. There they are for eternity, some staring out a coach window anticipating a less eventful departure, the others rattling along aboard the second train oblivious to the oblivion so soon before them. Or perhaps I prefer to imagine a fourteenth ghost, the ghost of the proto-photographer from Pawtucket preparing his plate and hefting his kit down to the station, focusing his brass lens upon the same horrific pile of splintered wood and twisted iron, year after year, trapped by the shade of the plate he is continually making. I snap my own picture. The rain arrives at last and I squeeze my way past a fence and on to the road home.
Walking the River at Gallery 175
I'm showing work at Gallery 175 in Pawtucket with fellow Pawtucket Arts Festival Poster artists Morris Nathanson and C.C. Wolf.
August 22 - October 29 2016
Reception Sunday August 28 1-3 PM
NSEW: Divided by Land | United by Film Group show in St. Louis
This Film Shooters Collective show closes today so it's high time I post about it! I am proud to have an image included in this really strong group show at the Kranzberg Arts Center in St. Louis.
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to put this together.
The Graflex and you.
So many questions...
Want to shoot large format hand held? Want to shoot wide open and large format and hand held? Want to rock it like it’s 1929?
For answers to these and other burning questions check out my introduction to the Graflex on the Film Shooters Collective.
