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Winter Project – Trees
A reader that stumbled across my site specifically looking for black and white prints was interested one of my Adox MCC 110 sample prints but wanted something shot with a super fine grain film. Honestly with my eyes you cannot see the grain in an 8×10 of any of the medium format negatives that I offer as a selection but at the end of the day we settled on the image that you see with the post.
Yep it is a tree. Specifically it is a giant tree that I shot on medium format Kodak TMAX 100 film. That is about as fine grained high resolution as you can get. The sample print negotiation aside – I wanted to share a little about projects that I am working on this winter. The first one I decided on was the tree project. I have a big problem with projects and with the winter season in the mid-atlantic. My project problem is that they are usually over ambitious. At least my personal projects are – commercial projects are easy. My winter problem is even more serious – I hate the winter, I hate everything about it. Ever hear of seasonal depression – my case as long as I remember is more like seasonal disaster. I don’t like going outside. I think the world is an ugly place. I find nothing that is positive at all about the winter. I wish I could actually hibernate.
This year I took a little different strategy for getting me through – at least photographically. I decided I would shoot an outdoor project. The subject is trees. They are about the only thing that I find remotely interesting in the winter time. Some of them are more interesting than when they have leaves. They are also extremely challenging to me as a subject – at least they way that I want to shoot them. They must be shot in context and the context has a couple variations but they are all similar – dark subject on light background if they are big trees. Yea I know there are exceptions but that context is completely opposite of the way my photographic and aesthetic brain works in terms of negative space. Filters can make the situation worse in a lot of circumstances – bring the tree up and the sky down so they are the same – very flat.
In any case I have only seen one photographer that has done trees as a subject that I ever really loved. Yes it is a matter of taste – I have the guy’s name written down. I will try to find it. My tree project is simple – I want to make 10 images that I like – not that are my vision of perfect. That would take 10 life times like some of my other overly ambitious personal projects. Just 10 images that I like and speak simultaneously to my feelings on the winter season while somehow portraying the one shining example of beauty that I see. The project has a hard stop – the spring of this year.
Wish me luck I have only made 2 images that I like so far and winter is not that long – see how this project helps me get through the winter, this is one of them. I can feel the project deadline approaching fast now and I am only 20% done.
Hope this helps any other people that suffer through the season as I do.
RB
I think this is seriously good advice.
Projects are great, but as you correctly point out most folks are way too ambitious, so they end up not being completed.
Many people advise aspiring photographers to get a “project”, what you suggest is much better. It’s a “No weasel room project” NWRP. 10 Prints (not 10 pictures) ,of Trees in Winter, Portrayed in a similar way, Before the leaves pop out.
NWRP #1 (leaves pop early on the Maryland shore)
One of the reasons professional photographers get better is that their life is a series of NWRP’s. If they want to survive, they must produce, credible results, of an assigned subject, on a deadline. When the deadline comes you MUST deliver.
An Asprin Bottle, a pair of shoes, a football game, or a portrait of a movie star, when the deadline comes, you have to let them go.
This “forced letting go” is very difficult to learn.(I’m a serious backsilder here) Your name is on it, and you can’t change it. It goes out into the world to represent “Your best work”
Most GOOD photographers are hardest on their own work, (the hacks are hardest on other peoples work)
Good Photographers always want and believe they can do better, so the tendency is to hold onto it, not put it out there.
Sadly we are almost always right about that, most of our work COULD be better.
The paradox of art is that if we don’t let it go, we don’t get Better.
You hit this squarely on the head when you say “I want to make 10 images that I like – not that are my vision of perfect”
You deserve credit for this. It is a great gift in a simple package.
I call it “Waiting for the Perfect that never happens.”
It’s up there with Fred Picker’s “Assume you are standing in the Wrong place.” His admonition to move, spend time, look at relationships & juxtapositions.
It is one of those simple pieces of advice, that if heeded, makes you better.
Not glamerous (like a new lens) just foolproof.
For me, one of my projects has been the seashore or ocean in winter, which because of a personal situation I can’t pursue this year. I don’t like the cold either, but have noticed a natural reciprocity, the more times I’ve been willing to check out sunrise @ 10 degrees F, or sunset at 20, or the beach in the rain, the more keepers I get. It’s been an ongoing project for me. I think that the “ongoing” is a mistake. Maybe Chapters would be better.
This idea of putting a limit on time & quantity is a very good one.
Thanks
Can’t wait to see NWRP #1
Michael,
Thanks – I think everyone has issues with personal projects – most of my personal projects are not “done” because I keep re-inventing them from scratch. Plus my ambitious borders on the undoable. This one is actually making the winter go faster – at least psychologically.
Plus – trees are the most difficult subject for me – by a large stretch. It keeps me somewhat challenged. I have made 30 exposures this winter – two have make the cut – you see 50% of my work so far. Well at least the result of my work so far.
RB
Ps.
80mm Zeiss – red filter. The temp was bone chilling (for me). TMX 100 in Pyrocat HD 1+1+100 for 12mins at 75 F. The prints are gorgeous. With an amazing sense of infinite detail that goes on forever.
That is frozen river – not surf.
RB