Dan's Cameras Part Six - My Gear My Work
The photographs I made while working at the College of Architecture weren’t just work images. I continued to photograph for myself.While studying photographers, I became interested in the work done by documentary photographers over the years. This led me to a series of shooting sessions that were, in some ways, out of my control. One day I heard on the radio that the state of Virginia was going to execute an inmate the next day and the state expected protesters to arrive at the state penitentiary in Richmond starting early that afternoon. I knew I had to be there, camera in hand. The next day I took a half day off and, cameras in hand, drove to Richmond to photograph the protesters - both against and for the execution. Several months later, there was another announcement and another trip. Then again. And again. I think I went four times to photograph the tense environment that existed outside the penitentiary on the day of an execution.
Over that period I had been doing some small jobs on the side and decided to get a medium format camera for my own work. Given the impossible costs of a Hasselblad I decided to go old-school - a twin lens reflex.
Rolleiflex
The Rolleiflex was a lovely camera. Basic, no meter, but a decent shooting lens and an accurate shutter. I used it on one or two of the execution series trips and, given that it had a leaf shutter, I could hand hold it accurately down to 1/4 of a second.
At one point, there was a portfolio contest that I decided I wanted to enter. However, I was well into Ansel’s The Print and decided that I wanted to print the execution series on graded fiber paper - which meant that I needed to have at least 3 contrasts of paper and a couple of different developers to get a range of contrasts to produce the finest prints I could possibly make. That costed money, so I approached Dean Steger, the Dean of the College of Architecture at the time (and President of Virginia Tech when Devon was a student), informed him of my desire to enter the competition and showed him my estimated budget. He agreed to pay 50% of the costs, which made my entering possible. I spent over a month in the darkroom carefully printing the 12 images that made up the portfolio. If I recall correctly, I was able to produce a final print of one negative in a blistering 45 minutes. Another I think took 9 hours straight in the darkroom. Several took multiple darkroom trips as I refined my printing skills and learned to handle the high contrast images that I was working with (I used natural light for my images, relying on streetlights and the TV crew lights on the crowd to make my images).
I of course didn’t win the contest. My portfolio didn’t even get selected. But the exercise was worth it because, from that point onward, I knew how to make a fine print and for the next couple of years, I was in sufficient practice to produce exquisite results time and time again.
In time, I realized I don’t really see the world in a square format, so I traded the Rolleiflex for a 24mm Nikkor lens, which was much more useful for architecture purposes. I’d occasionally shoot with the school’s Hasselblad when I needed medium format so I always felt it was a good trade.
At one point, fortune called. A friend of mine mentioned that his mother’s company, Kaiser Permanente, wanted some architectural photographs done of their DC-area buildings and that the bids they had gotten were totally outrageous. He asked me if I would be interested in sending his mother some samples and a quote. So I did. My quote was based on what I believed color 4x5 film and processing would cost for the project plus the amount of time I thought it would take me to photograph the exteriors of all the buildings, with time built in for having to go back up to the DC area and shoot half the buildings again. Then I doubled that cost as my bid. I found out that my bid was about 1/2 of the lowest bid they had received and I got the job. Amazingly enough, the planets aligned for me, everything went even better than planned and I wound up making over $1,000 per day for my work! The client was happy and I was paid promptly.
With that first “real” commercial assignment payment I took out taxes and did my usual, 1/2 went to household funds and the other 1/2 went to the business. And with that, I bought a Sinar F.
Sinar-F-4x5-Outfit
Not only that, I bought two lenses, a bunch of film holders, a spot meter, tripod and necessary accessories. I decided on the Sinar F instead of a field camera because I needed something that wouldn’t limit me in terms of making money (so no field camera - the movements were too limited), but was still light enough to carry out into the field (as I was increasingly photographing landscapes). I guess “light enough” is a relative term. Fully loaded down with my packed camera bag and heavy wooden tripod (stability with the Sinar was absolutely necessary), I was toting an additional 35 pounds. But I could pretty much do everything I wanted photographically.
Commercially the Sinar paid for itself. It made the images that accompanied unsolicited proposals that made Fine Homebuilding Magazine’s Houses issues - two years in a row. It made the images that were included in Remodeling Magazine, to include the cover (imagine my surprise when, with a friend by my side, I opened the envelope from Remodeling Magazine to slide the complimentary issue out and saw . . . my photograph! They never notified me that it would be used for that.)
Personally, the Sinar furthered the direction of the work I did for myself - the landscapes and nature photographs that continue to dominate most of my image making today. It helped me refine the precision of seeing, the mastery of craft and the process of photographing that I so enjoy.
Yet, especially then, my work wasn’t all about landscapes. Dean Steger approached me with an opportunity that he would help facilitate if I was interested. One of his former classmates was then with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development and wanted to do a photographic documentary on substandard housing in the state. Was I interested? If so, Dean Steger would donate my work time as Virginia Tech’s contribution to the project and theVirginia Department of Housing and Community Development would cover my expenses and the publication costs of the report.
So that summer I criss-crossed the state in 35mm photo-documentary mode - one camera around my neck, one camera on one shoulder and the camera bag on another shoulder. I shot dozens of rolls of film in every part of the state, furiously developing and making contact prints between trips out. I took copious notes of my meetings with people and came up with the idea of interspersing people’s quotes throughout the publication. On one of our trips out, Karl Bren, the head of the Department of Housing and Community Development, said I probably knew more about substandard housing across the state than anyone - I was the only one who had traveled to all of these places. It was a sad thing to hear.
In the end I printed a lot of images for exhibition both at the college and for use by the state (apparently the 16”x20” images placed up at the State Capitol didn’t please some State Senators), and the publication “Finding Shelter: The Growing Housing Crisis in Virginia” was printed. However, due to political inconvenience, there was not a major release of the document nor a major legislative push on the issue and it saw only limited distribution. The publication did serve me well many years later though. When I was clerking at a law firm in 1998, the discussion of substandard housing came up and I mentioned the substandard housing study. Our computer support person asked me to bring my portfolio of images in so I brought in the publication and copies of the photos. It made her realize that maybe I was something more than just your average law student. I’m glad she did because now I’m married to her.
This was a vibrant time for me. A period where I used photography as a means, an excuse even, to learn about the world. To see and learn through photography having developed the skills needed to produce quality images. So while I eventually left Virginia Tech, I had my cameras in tow and didn’t stop working.