The Sixth of Manic Expression

On the morning of the Sixth of July, I was musing about several things as I prepared to go to the Farmers' Market.

I am still having one of those periods where I ride around and nothing seems worthy of a frame of precious 120 film. Is there therapy for this?

The blog post done by the Master School for Communication Design about their pinhole project gave this description.

A photo is created with this camera with the knowledge that diverse and unexpected sources of error influence the result. The experimental method is an essential part of the concept and the extension to explore the topic of "fluid" photographically. These photos do not represent images of reality but are traces of light, shaped by the medium itself.

This seems to emphasize that what the average lens photographer thinks of as flaws are what give pinhole its value and uniqueness. I like the appearance of pinhole images even without camera and subject movement, exposure errors and wrinkled image planes. My approach is to try to take the best photograph possible, and then delight in any pinhole surprises that happen. Are we both saying the same thing? Maybe if I wasn't such a old fuddy duddy I could experience some of this.

The Oshkosh Photographers Lunch Group met on Friday. Two of the volunteer "official" photographers of the farmer's market were part of the group. They fire off thousands of frames both of shoppers and vendors. What would happen if I tried that?

Minutes before stepping out the door to the market, I loaded the 24x24mm format Manic Expression Cube with a "36" exposure roll of Kodak Ultra Max 400. Until recently, I avoided ISO 400 films because the short exposure times were too fast to manage with a hand-operated sliding shutter, even with auxiliary card waving. The Fox Valley Photography Group theme for last month was motion. It was funny to hear everyone struggling to get exposure down to a half-second - about the fastest I can do. I have been using some of the faster film with 120 lately. My hand made exposures in the sun haven't been too badly overexposed and cutting a 10 minute exposure in half in interiors is quite an advantage. Grain is usually given as a flaw of faster film, but it doesn't seem that much different to me than ISO 100.

So buckle up. It took me a while to get started, but once under way, kept it up rather steadily. Somewhere along the way I decided to keep going until the film was done except for other committments in my day.

Locally grown greenhouse tomatoes.

Boerson Organic Farms has been where I've been buying eggs for quite a while. I told the young man who has been a teenager until recently that, years ago, his mother had given me permission to take a photograph of their stand. He said the offer was still good.

The theme for the Fox Valley Photography Group this month is Abstraction which was defined in the little video we watched as "freedom from representational qualities in art." I'm not sure I agree with that definition in photography. This is recognizable as beets and carrots, but it's not exactly a picture of beets and carrots.

This young woman with her "saving for college" sign has been at every market for the last year including being the only busker at the Winter Market.

I started my folkie period at about this age. If there were opportunities like this then, I probably would have been a busker.




Another young man playing the violin.

This egg roll vendor had watched me photograph the violinist and took a picture with his cell phone. I returned the favor.

A variety of colors and sizes of spuds.

With the crowd divided by a trash barrel that the tripod could stand behind, I tried to capture the milling throng from the middle of the street. In my concentration to capture a moment when there was movement in both directions, I neglected to level the camera, but somehow it captures the chaos of the situation.

My former colleague, Rosemary Smith, with her husband and their daughter Jessica, who co-starred with my son Andy in their high school production of Camelot.

Another young man playing the violin.

Stanley-Cooke Project were the main-stage band at the Main-Merrit-Church intersection.

Prints professor at the University, Gail Panske, was hosting at the Art Space Collective.

In one of my favorite long exposure transformations, the lederhosen clad accordionist at Heim Farms.

The only time you can get in the proper place for a wide angle shot of the iconic Webster Block, with a rising pinhole, is when the street is closed for the market. As I was setting up behind the sandwich board which outlines the rules for the event, Market Board Chair and chief volunteer photographer Michael Cooney came by and told me only real cameras were allowed.

This cheerful lady has been selling me jam for at least a decade and thanked me for taking her photograph.

A bluesman with a shiny resonator.

When this Democratic Party volunteer saw my tripod he said "You have a regular camera." I replied "Yes, if you mean a film camera." Impressed by my DIY effort he asked if I had watched a YouTube video to make it and was surprised when I said I just made it up.

Literature with what seem to me like sensible policies.

Another crack at an abstraction.

An arrangement of today's potatoes and a few who have been in the pantry for a while.

These were delicious.

Aliums.

Change left over from the mostly cash-only market, including the most laundered bill I've ever seen still in circulation.

Lunch on the lanai.

Caprese Salad.

Elwood and new accessories in the pond.  Think of it as an upgrade to his pedal board.

The retinue of impatiens surrounding the pond.

It's always a little bit of Halloween around here.

Back out in the afternoon. A very popular day on The Fox.

I saw this sailboat from several blocks down on Winnebago Avenue and kept riding out onto the Yacht Club breakwater to get as close as possible. It seemed like it was trying to stay in the same place until I got there.

As long as the camera has a rising front option, it might as well get used.

The beach in Menomonee Park seems to be very popular even without a place to change or lifeguards.

A group of young men in Lake Winnebago. 

Another scene I saw from quite a distance and had to hurry to get set up for. The bride and groom walking through the wedding party toward their photographer.

Two powerboats trying to stay together for a conversation appear to be racing off.

Water lilies in Miller's Bay demonstrate the rehabilitation of the Fox River industrial waterway.

An addition to the series of trees along Miller's Bay framed by Ames Point and Monkey Island, from a little further than usual, reflected in the lawn of Menomonee Park.

Another possible abstraction where one of those trees lost a limb to the winds off the lake.

The north inlet framed by two trees for a change.




A cloudscape over Menomonee Drive.

Again going for the abstraction in the soggy grass.

Since my essay on Little Free Libraries, I've found numerous others, although rarely with such a comfy reading room.

This is exhausting.

Still have to make dinner.

Most of cooking consists of chopping things.

How many pinhole cameras do you have on your kitchen table?

The Manic Expression Cube has a hand-drilled .17mm pinhole mounted on an adjustable rising front with 7mm of travel above the axis, 24mm from a 24x24mm frame. The Utra-Max 400 was the first roll developed in an Arista.edu Liquid Quart C-41 kit.