Utah in April

In April I will be making my first ever photographic trip to southern Utah, visiting Zion, Bryce, and Capitol Reef National Parks as well as interesting canyons in the Escalante-Grand Staircase region. In planning this trip I had invaluable assistance from photographer Harvey Halpern, who has explored, hiked, and photographed in the most remote parts of Utah every year for a great many years. You can see some of his work at his website, Endangered Canyons of Utah.

It was a delight to make the acquaintance recently of Harvey and of his friend and fellow photographer Karin Rosenthal, who does remarkable abstract nude images. You can check out her work here.

In other news, after attending the Epson Print Academy in Boston recently (a very valuable event), I decided it was time to retire my aging Epson 2200 inkjet printer in favor of a new Epson 3800. I am quite pleased with the new printer, which should give me additional flexibility and image quality, especially in black-and-white, as well as enabling me to make prints up to 17x25". All my photos from the upcoming Utah trip will be printed on this machine.

The Blanket

My website has been updated (improved, I hope), and I have added a page called "Blanket" that gives some of the history of the image I use for an icon on each page.

Also, my new "Print of the Month" for February 2009 is now up on the home page and the "Print of the Month" page.

I think I am done fiddling with the site for a while, and I expect to get back to making more photographs so I can add new galleries and expand the existing ones.

My Website is Renovated

One day ahead of my personal deadline I have just uploaded the new version of my photography website (click the title of this post to go there.) The new version gets rid of frames and uses CSS to format almost everything, which should make navigation and usability better. I have also added several new galleries, and the home page photo is a new "Print of the Month" for January, 2009. There is more new content in other areas as well, and more will be added soon.

R.I.P. Barbara Morss Marshall, 1926-2008

I met Barbara in 1966 at the first of two Minor White workshops I attended. She had previously attended one other workshop of Minor's and at least one of Ansel Adams'. She worked for a while as a still photographer for Boston'e fledgling public television station WGBH in its early days and did commercial portraits. Architecture , animals, and landscapes were her favorite subjects.

After Minor's workshop ended, a number of members decided to continue meeting about every four to six weeks to show and discuss our photographs. These meetings have continued for over forty years, with occasional group exhibits, and Barbara has always been a backbone of the group. David Wunsch, Elaine Fisher, Barbara and I are the four from the original workshop who have still been getting together recently.

At the reception following a memorial service for her last Saturday, a family member put on display about a dozen excellent framed photographs from one of her most recent exhibits. She was always fiercely independent in her views, willing to listen, but following her own photographic path. She was a good friend and a discerning critic. She will be missed by many of us.

The only alcoholic beverage she could drink was Scotch. I don't care for it myself, but I keep a bottle of it handy just for her. Tonight I shall drink a toast to her memory.

New website is up!

My newly redesigned website is now up, a few days ahead of schedule. The site features the first of my new "Photo of the Month" selections for December, 2008, as well as nine galleries of photographs. I would be happy to receive feedback about the site's appearance and usability.

Welcome to my blog

This blog will mostly be about photography and the people and events that have influenced me. My photography owes a great deal to two extraordinary teachers, Minor White and Paul Caponigro, about whom I intend to write frequently.

I will mention equipment from time to time, but my own interest is more in ideas than gadgets. Nevertheless, the gadgets that I have owned have often affected my photography. More about that later.

For any of you who read this soon, I urge you to get to a large and terrific exhibit of gelatin-silver prints by Paul Caponigro now showing (through December 14, 2008) at the Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography at 52/56 Avenue A, Turners Falls, MA 01376. For details, check their website at hmcp.org .

Calendars for 2009:

The two photos at the top are included in the two hand-printed letter-size calendars I have designed for 2009. One is called "Classic Black and White" and includes scanned images from several of my favorite prints from darkroom days. The other has color images from last April's trip to New Mexico. More information is on my website at the Calendars link.

Note that the heading of this post, "Welcome to my blog", is a link to my website.