ImageGuy

In upstate New York we’ve been in the grips of a deep freeze for about two weeks now and it just doesn’t want to let up. We’re fortunate here in the Finger Lakes that we don’t get that west wind off Lake Ontario and all the lake effect snow like they do in Oswego County. There’s been over 100 inches there in just over a week. But it’s cold. In the twenties today so somewhat of a warming trend, but will be back below zero on Tuesday night, so we’re not out of the woods. Our wood pile is getting low and will likely be exhausted in a week or two if I don’t call for another delivery.

My daughter is in Quebec this weekend for winter carnival with the French Club. The high there today is -10 degrees Celsius (about 14 F). She required a major wardrobe upgrade for winter attire before she left. She’s the kind of kid who wears flip-flops when it’s 20 degrees outside.

There was a blood drive in my town yesterday and I went to give blood as I usually do every eight weeks. And they told me my next eligible date is April 7th. I went to put that on the calendar this morning and realized that I’ll be in Florida by then, and Spring will be here. That’s only eight weeks away, 56 days. I can handle that. My wife’s amaryllis is blooming in the living room window. A beautiful trio of blossoms that remind us that this regeneration of life that comes with Spring is not far away.

The first color of Spring to show here, as in many areas, is the forsythia. I grew up in the South where my mother called it yellow bell. Banks of golden yellow against the drab gray left behind by the winter. A splendid feeling of warmth after months of chill.

And the bulbs come up. First the snow drops and crocuses, then the daffodils and the tulips.

The trees begin to leaf out and blossom. First the willows, that always seem to be the first to get their leaves and the last to shed them. The cherry blossoms and tulip magnolias and other flowering ornamentals. The colors so absent for months, now showering down around us with every warm breeze.

Then the maples leaf out and suddenly the woods are awash with that spring green that is unlike any other. There is almost as much color as in the fall, but in reverse, bursting with chlorophyll.

The gray and barren landscape littered with remnants of melted snow and sanded roads, wind-blown branches and leaves that seem so depressing in March, become transformed as the grass is revived and the trees bloom and the earth is renewed with life. A season of hope, of Nature’s promise. A time to breath a sigh and smell the air and shed the burden of winter.

I long for Spring this time of year. With every blast of cold wind I must remind myself, 56 more days. I can deal with that. In 56 days I’ll be walking the warm beach. In 56 days I’ll smell the jasmine and be ducking my head under the wisteria arbor. In 56 days I will have weathered another season of snow and ice and be on the other side, loving the rebirth of the planet, the red buds of the Shenandoah Valley, the dogwoods of Virginia and Tennessee, the warm sun and sand of the gulf coast.

Only 56 more days. I can handle that.

Most of the images that I post to my website or this blog seem to be without human presence. I don’t photograph people a lot and I admire very much photographers that shoot people a lot and do it well. It’s not as easy as one might think. Good people pictures usually require a connection between the subject and the photographer. My good friend, Frank Dimeo, is a wedding photographer extraordinaire and a great photojournalist. Frank knows how to shoot people. He knows how to bring out something from inside, how to communicate with them, how to get them to be their best for the camera. This is a real talent. It’s what made such people as Annie Liebowitz, and Arnold Newman, and Richard Avedon, and the like such stars in the photography world.

But I have shot people. A great many people. And occasionally quite successfully. I shot people more often in my earlier years as a photographer. And in going back over my black and whites as I have been digitizing old negatives, I’ve come across a number of people pictures that I had lost touch with. I said in my last post that I preferred to do my street photography when the streets were less populated, but that is not always the case.

A camera often makes you feel different when you carry it on the street. Assuming you aren’t in an area where you might feel threatened carrying a two thousand dollar piece of equipment around your neck, a camera can be a great tool for getting close to strangers. Some people feel you are intruding when you aim a camera at them, some don’t. Some like the attention. Some find you to be a curiosity. Some ignore you and allow you to become invisible. A camera often gives you an unstated license to go where you please, to approach almost anyone. I’ve seldom had people become irritated when taking their picture. Most take it as a compliment of sorts, that you find them interesting enough to make them the subject of your art.

Then there are those instances when people expect to be the subject of photographs, like weddings or large gatherings, parades, and sports events. These kinds of opportunities are the perfect place for candid pictures of people being themselves. Weddings in particular afford a festive crowd of people who’s inhibitions are down and who seem to revel in being the subject of any photograph.

When I lived in Atlanta, the Shriners held an annual parade on West Peachtree Street and such an event brings out the best in grown men who belong to clubs and organizations. There is a need for all of us, I suppose, to occasionally dress in costume and march in front of throngs of people. You’re never to old to play dress-up.

The 70’s were a time of hippies and free love and drugs and war protests and rock concerts. I missed Woodstock unfortunately, was too caught up being a responsible young married guy and trying to keep from being drafted. But music was everywhere and Atlanta was a big city with it’s share of concerts in the park and music venues of all types.

I made a trip one Sunday morning to the fairgrounds in Atlanta where “The Great Southeastern Fair” was hosted every year. The whole carnival atmosphere is one that has always intrigued me. It seems like such a hard and lonely life for the carnival people. I met a man who worked at the fair and photographed him there. He was a moving hand and, I thought, a truck driver as well as a food vendor when the fair was open. I guess a lot of the carnies wear multiple hats. It wasn’t until I got back to the darkroom and printed this image that I realized the man had an artificial leg, the pale white shin showing above his sock and the knee hinge visible through his pant leg.

I’ve always loved the farmer’s market or the local street market as a place for candid people photography. Boston’s Haymarket was such a place and was always teeming with ethnicity and interesting faces. The bustle and crowds make it easy for a photographer to capture faces of common people whose stories could fill one’s imagination.

But aside from candid photography or weddings or parades and fairs, I have also shot portraits and studio images of people. I worked in an area of Atlanta known as Buckhead in 1973 and had my haircut at a local salon there by a young woman. Susanne was about 19 and worked as a model when she could and cut hair the rest of the time. She worked with one particular fashion photographer in Atlanta and appeared on the cover of Atlanta magazine a couple of times. Young models, like young photographers are always looking for new portfolio material so with that mutual desire in mind, she and I did a couple of shoots together. Susanne was very natural in front of the camera so she made it easy.

I had a friend named Gene who wanted to be a fashion photographer. Gene knew many of the young models around Atlanta and introduced me to Melinda. Melinda did a lot of catalog work, but had been offered a job with Wilhelmina in New York as a hand model. She was looking for portfolio pictures that showed off her hands, so another great studio opportunity for us both.

Gene agreed to stand in for me when I needed an additional prop for Melinda’s hands. Sometimes it’s far easier to be in front of the camera than behind it.

I had the great privilege to work for a week as an assistant to Eliot Porter at Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, Colorado one summer. Eliot had always been one of my idols and the finest example of the kind of landscape photographer I wanted to be. I subsequently traveled to New Mexico on a couple of occasions to visit him and there took a portrait of him and his wife, Aline, that is among my most treasured portraits.

Our encounters with people when behind the camera can be anonymous or can have an intimate connection. Regardless, they all touch our lives. They all have a story. They are all there at that moment in time, frozen by the camera and held forever. We are richer for knowing them. And they live on through our images.

All images are Copyright © George Cannon, all rights reserved.

All images are copyright, George Cannon, all rights reserved.

When I first began photography seriously, I shot black and white film. Mostly Tri-X, developed at a community rental darkroom and printed by hand. I learned a lot about photography by doing this, about light and contrast and film density and filters and highlight and shadow detail and film latitude.

I went through boxes of paper, experimenting, running test strips, making print after print until I got what I wanted. I also relied heavily on the old Time-Life series of books on photography. I don’t believe there was ever a more instructional and inspiring series for beginning photographers that taught about the basics of film and cameras, light and exposure, tricks and techniques, and exposed me to the very best photography by the best photographers in the world.

Digital has changed the way of looking at much of the technical aspects, but the basics of exposure and making a good print still apply. Photoshop has given us a whole new set of tools for rendering the final results. The days of paper and chemistry and hours on my feet under the glow of the safelight are pretty much behind me now. Although I still have a great appreciation for a finely crafted silver print.

In the last couple of weeks I have been scouring over my old black and white negatives looking for images I loved to print in the past and digitizing them so I would have access to them on the computer. I use a Minolta slide scanner for this. I have been fortunate because I had the good sense to organize and file my negatives safely years ago in binders with corresponding contact sheets. So my negatives are virtually scratch and dust free. Something I can’t say for my color slides. But it has been inspiring to look back over years of images and pick out those pictures that I always loved as well as some that I have found a new appreciation for.

When I lived in Atlanta, I would often spend my Sunday mornings driving about the city in search of images. Sunday mornings were always a quiet time with little traffic and fewer people up and about. I would drive around listening to “Concert Hall”, a classical radio program (even though I was somewhat of a hippie and preferred rock and roll in general), because the music just seemed to fit the Sunday morning mood.

As I collected images from around the city I began to be aware of how our environment changes. Things I took pictures of one day would be gone a week later. Buildings torn down, trees cut, areas that were run down eventually replaced with something new. Without recording things, I probably would have simply not noticed as changes happened. But by being aware of my surroundings as a result of peering at it through the camera’s lens, I became more aware of how things changed.

I think that’s one of the things photography does for us. Makes us more aware in general of our world and how in flux it is all the time. That’s one of the driving forces that causes us to take pictures in the first place, that desire to hold on to a passing moment so as not to loose it or to just preserve that memory of it, lest we forget.

My black and white images span a time from when I first began photography to the early 1980’s, about 15 years. I shifted to color slides in the late 70’s in an effort to produce material for the publishing market. So these negatives span a very important part of my creative development as a photographer.

They cover time in Georgia, my years in Rochester, and then in Boston, as well as my transition to upstate New York. They bring back memories, as photos should, of events and friends, people I have lost touch with, and places I have seen, lived in, and moved away from.

They represent growth, and changes, losses and gains, experiences and trials, beyond just an artistic statement. A journal of sorts. They help us sort our past and see our life as a time line. They are our record and our statements about life.