St Francis Cemetery on KS 96 near Leoti.

This was a funny interlude this week at work.  I work at a Centura owned medical facility in SW Kansas ( Garden City) and the folks have decided that they would do a road trip to all their facilities in Colorado and Kansas to record stories from employees ( were actually all called associates ) about how great Centura is and the mission that we are doing. I have no problems with this and actually recorded a 1 min. spiel about MY mission.  Anyway they come out with a full sized bus, they had treats, three comfort dogs which are always awesome.  I met with the production person who is from LA.  Very nice lady with a British accent.  Well as we were getting close to the display area one of the floor nurses sees this lady and says spontaneously - “Oh look they even brought a clown!!”  This is the difference between dressing in LA and rural Kansas

Besides liking to skulk around cemeteries, the Garden City Cemetery has special interest for me.  Just down the road is Holcomb , Kansas.  This was the scene of a most gruesome murder November 15, 1959 when four members of the Clutter family were killed by two drifters.  This was the story as set out by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, 

I finally was able to find the Clutter grave stone (AI 470-2) as well as the grave site for Alvin Dewey (AG 346/8)  who was the KBI ( Kansas Bureau of Investigations) agent who chased down and brought to justice the two perpetrators of this murder.

I felt and urge to do a blog about The Plains or Prairie .Now that I travel frequently thru eastern Colorado and western Kansas I have plenty of time to look and think about the plains.  The fly over states suffers from the same disparagement.  Even folks in Colorado freak out when they think that I may have moved to SW Kansas.  Take a look at the blog and let me know what you think

Gerda Taro was born in Stuttgart and educated in Leipzig. She left Germany for Paris in 1933 when Hitler became chancellor, and the next year, met Robert Capa. They became lovers, and as she promoted and captioned Capa’s photographs, he taught her photographic technique. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, they covered it as a team on assignment for Vu magazine. Siding with the Popular Front, they concentrated on the activities of Loyalist troops attempting to defeat the Nationalist army. By 1937, Capa had become famous for his documentation of the war, and Taro had emerged as an independent photojournalist in her own right. She and Capa covered several aspects of the war that year together, including the plight of Spanish refugees in Almeria and Murcia. By the summer, Taro was confident enough to make photographic excursions alone. While covering the Republican offensive in Brunete in July 1937, she was crushed by a Loyalist tank in the confusion of retreat, and died several days later. Although Taro’s photographs of the Spanish Civil War have been overshadowed by those of Capa and other photographers, her pictures are effective portrayals of individuals at war. Their graphic simplicity and emotional power make her small body of work a memorable chronicle of a complex war.
Lisa Hostetler
Handy et al. Reflections in a Glass Eye: Works from the International Center of Photography Collection, New York: Bulfinch Press in association with the International Center of Photography, 1999, p. 229.

Taro an Capa

Trying this film for the first time - it’s a very slow ( ISO of 25) film.  I probably didn’t use it the way it was supposed to used - portraiture, landscape - all on a tripod.  No I shot hand held. From the car, walking in the garden

Let the storm wind blow

The Sheriff came
To warn us
He said a hurricane
Was coming soon.

I don’t give a damn
What the lawman said
I am going to stay
Stay right here

Let the storm wind blow

I have seen one
Her name one Audrey
I have seen one
Her name was Camille
I have seen one
Her name was Hilda
I have seen one
Her name was Katrina

Let the storm wind blow

Down in Cameron
South Vermilion
In Iberia
Not far from here

I don’t give a damn
What the lawman say
I am going to stay

Stay right here.

Manitou Springs, Colorado. 2000.

Beautiful film but your exposure has to be spot on.  If not then scanning and post processing is a handful.  Here are a few from 2000

Helen Gee was the first women run photo gallery.  I read her book several years ago and it was very interesting to see how she went about it.  To have been alive and there in NYC at the time…..aaaahh.  Strongly recommend her book.  

On my android phone I have an app that takes videos and turns them into multi-panel story boards.  Not perfect but for some videos the boards turn out interesting.

From the 2016 Cubs World Series Parade in Chicago

Weird little app on my phone that takes videos and turns them into line drawing storyboards. This one is from the VERY rainy 2015 F1 race in Austin.

NOT photoshopped

From the furniture manufacturers family

This is a series I shot in 2000 on the Rolleiflex Automat that I just had refurbished.  Ilford FP4 film.  I was amazed how much detail I was able to capture to say nothing of the mood.  The cemetery is in Fayetteville, NY where I was living at the time.  

Leon Russell’s version of the Bob Dylan song.  A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fallOh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Shot on JCH 400 film. Tricky to scan as it’s pretty ‘curly’.  It seemed to catch a lot of dust which I blame on my drying environment!!

These were shot on my Android Phone.  Nice sometimes not to have to spot the photos to get rid of dust spots

Great video about how the book selling world works - specially for phonebooks - little remains for the artist and in many cases the cost of producing the book falls squarely on the artist.

Now that I’m interested in photographing clouds and severe weather it seems to be all around us here in Colorado.  Going to Kansas for my part time job also affords me even more opportunities.

Shot on Adox Silvermax and developed in the Silvermax developer.

Simla Days, 2018.  I was born in this small town on the eastern plains of Colorado.  I like to stop by every once and a while.  

Lafayette Cars and Coffee

There is more film now in some ways than ever before. Yes Kodak and Fuji have pulled plenty of stock off the shelves but recently Today brought back Tmax 3200.  They are hopefully are bringing back a ‘chrome film if the rumors are to be believed. This page has B&W film, C-41 and E-6.