A video made from a recent visit to our area from two US Army Blackhawk helicopters. My son-in-law, Jerad, handled the Canon HV30 camera on this one. One of the helicopter pilots is a good friend of his and my daughter. My only wish is that I could have gotten a ride with them and filmed some sequences from “up there”.

Music is Dick Dale’s rendition of “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. I’m glad Mr. Dale is receiving renewed popularity. He is considerd to have invented the surf guitar sound and style in the early 1960s. The likes of Jimi Hendrix and Eddie van Halen are amongst the guitar kings that were influenced by him.

I also uploaded it on Vimeo where you can view an HD version plus download it. The download will only be available for one week starting today.

I have been debating with myself whether to make this change or not.  Its not lightly that I do this which I will explain later below. I have been mostly against this change for several months. But a turning point has been reached and its time to move.

What am I talking so vaguely about? I’m going to add a political dimension to this blog. What the hell does politics have to do with Large Format Photography? It could be everything as I will explain. Here’s the deal:

Barack Obama is a Socialist at best, perhaps an undeclared Marxist. He has rapidly moved he United States to Socialism under the guise of patriotism and what’s correct for the greater good. The principal players behind his election were definitely of the Socialist bent while others of his endorsers, including White House Staff members, are admitted Marxists. One, his so-called ‘Green Jobs” advisor has proclaimed himself to be a Marxist Revolutionary.

Those seem like harsh accusations. I expect a goon squad from ACORN to start hounding me in some away as soon as this entry is published. Tough shit. I’ll say it again; Barak Obama is a Socialist and perhaps a Communist. He wants the United States, as it was and as we knew, to cease to exist. In his own words as he has stated repeatedly to enact fundamental change upon the United States of America. I didn’t vote for him nor his “change”, but I don’t believe that a good number of well-meaning citizens voted for this sort of change either.  Two quotes from a recent article by Ben Stein are worth repeating:

“The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.”

and,

“Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.”

The sooner Barack Obama and all his corrupt cronies are kicked out of power, the sooner we’ll have our cherished liberty and freedom out of danger.

Once again, its been a while since I made a blog entry. Its not that I’m lazy, which is always debatable. It more that I’ve been busy with a great many things.

However, today, I hung a small showing of my prints at the Lawrence Bank, located at 9th and New Hampshire in Lawrence, Ks.  Included in the show is the 20×40 inch Flint Hills triptych, “Road CR-2, Greenwood County”. Please stop by and view if you can.

Back in December, we purchased a Canon HV30 high definition video camera. I had been having yearnings to get a film movie camera, but the production costs really rack up fast, and they wind up being digital videos anyway.  The HV30 is a wonderful little camera, with capability far in excess of its diminuative size. Thus, with a few video skills under my belt, and with the aid of the editing software, I’ve created a small self-promotion video (which includes authentic Flint Hills wind in the sound track). Here it is:

Thistle 16

One thing I truly love about large format photography is doing still lifes. I It may look simple but I’ve found still lifes to be hard work. Everything has to be perfect and its always a challenge to get there.

Thistle 16 was taken on Ilford FP4+ film, 4×5 sheet. I developed the negative in Pyrocat-HD developer using the extreme minimal agitation technique. My “studio” was set up in the backyard, draping a spare dark cloth over the grill for the background. The sun was high and to the right rear.

Rose 2006

Rose 2006 was done indoors on the dining room table, natural light, using Polaroid Type 55 positive/negative film.

Hope you enjoy!

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Monument Rocks #2

Monument Rocks, Gove County, Kansas. This is what black and white photography is all about. Taking the seemingly bland and lifeless and transforming it into an abstraction of tone and texture. This was taken in full afternoon summer sun. The shadow in the lower parts is from the adjacent rock formations.

This negative is what sold me on the new Kodak Tmax 400 film. Contrast range on the subject was extreme yet the main subject is very flat. Developed in Pyrocat HD with extreme minimal agitation. The negative came out very dense requiring split grade printing.

An 11×14 print of Monument Rocks #2 will be on display at the Emporia Artist Walk along with my Kansas Flint Hill landscapes.

I will be located in the Pyramid Pizza building, 11 East 6th, downtown Emporia. The Emporia Artist Walk is Saturday, 18 April from 10 am to 4 pm.

With me at Pyramid Pizza will be Rachel Ferrara, a finely talented up-and-coming young photographer. Rachel is Fine Arts student at Emporia State University majoring in photography. I made this video of her senior project show last January.

I finished mounting the big Flint Hills prints. Quite the project to get that big triptych mounted. The final matted size is 40×20 inches. My Emporia  Artist Walk display will feature Black & White Flint Hills landscapes from Chase County, Greenwood County, Wabaunsee County, and Geary County.

Hope to see you at the Artist Walk.

On Road CR-2, Greenwood County

Near Texaco Hill, Chase County

Discovered Terry Ownby’s photography blog today. Glad I did. Terry is a photography professor at University of Central Missouri. His latest post is about photographing in the Kansas Flint Hills and worth reading. In another recent entry, he discusses the use of the triptych from the classical point of view and its current use. Lot’s of good stuff on Terry’s blog.

Moving into the final countdown for the Emporia Artist Walk. The event takes place on Saturday, 18 April from 10 am to 4 pm, in downtown Emporia.

I’ve been printing more Flint Hills diptychs today. I’ve got to say, those 11×14 prints really make me feel like I’m back in the Hills. Wish I could print them on 20×24. Maybe someday!

Hope you make it to the Artist Walk.

On Road CR-2 Greenwood County

Near Texaco Hill, Greenwood County

Tully Hill Road, Geary County

Hard to believe that I haven’t updated this Blog since October. It’s been a busy year for everything except photography it seems. But, I haven’t been completely lazy.

My latest project on the Flint Hills makes use of multiple prints to form a panoramic display. Using two prints is called diptych (pronounced dip-tick). Using three prints is called a triptych (with similar pronunciation). (People with ArtSpeak  inherently know these pronunciations and meanings, but I was a farm boy and had to look them up.) Using this approach for panoramic landscape departs from the classic construction of a -tych. In the classic construction, each print may be entirely different yet the sum tells a story. I guess one could stretch that classic definition and say that the panorama tells a story about the landscape more adequately than single photographs.

For this technique, I use individual 4×5 negatives and make individual prints. After processing and drying, the prints are trimmed to match, then dry mounted on mat board.

Its really exciting to use multiple 11×14 prints. That brings the image up to a size that’s more in keeping with the feel of the Flint Hills. Using 8×10 prints for an 8×20 diptych or 10x 24 triptych is also nice. The 8×20 format is a standard banquet-camera size, the next step up from the 7×17 format that I use.

I’m participating in the Emporia Art Walk this year on Saturday April 18th. My goal is to have several of these panoramas on display and for sale. Hope to see you there.

August Hay 2003 photograph by Alex Hawley

Its Hay season here in farm country. From mid-August through September, the tall prairie grass is cut, raked, then baled to provide livestock feed through the winter. In this area, it’s the sweet, tall, highly nutritious Bluestem grass of the Kansas Flint Hills that’s being harvested.

Compressing the cut grass into a large tightly wound shape serves to preserve the grass’ nutritional value. The outer layer decays a couple inches but serves to insulate the rest of the bale. Thus, the grass holds up far longer than it would if cut and left loose.

It’s only been in my adult lifetime that the large round bales came in to use. Previously, hay was bales into small square bales of about thirty-five pounds each. A lot of physical labor was used to move the bales from bailing machine to feed. Now, weighing a thousand pounds per bale, they are impossible for humans to handle so machinery is a must. In one way it’s a shame that our youth don’t have such a body developing activity anymore. But as one who has thrown a bale or two, I don’t miss the old bales a bit.

The large round baling machine itself is a Kansas invention. Mr. Lyle Yost, founder of Hesston Corp. in Hesston, Kansas was the inventor and brought them to the market in the early 1970s. Now they are the standard of the world.

“August Hay 2003″ was taken early in my Large Format experience using 4×5 Kodak Tri-X film. The print was made on Forte Polywamtone fiber base paper.