6,188 Miles
I just completed the longest shooting trip in days and mileage. From San Diego I traveled to eastern Arizona to finish a few more images for ”Copper Corridor,” (will be updating this project soon), then moved through New Mexico where I found little of interest. My path next took me to eastern Colorado and the ”Sand Creek Massacre Area” where I began to use my new 6×17″ roll film back. This back allows a medium format roll size film to be used to create 2-1/4″x 6-1/2″ negatives and was used with my 5×7″ Canham View Camera.
I traveled north to Montana via the western edges of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and then through areas of Montana I have yet to look at, like the western cities of Helena and Missoula, Montana. From Montana I went west through Idaho, the North Cascades of Washington and then down through Oregon and then on to San Diego.
I was expecting to bring home more photographs, but the weather this trip was a bit difficult with morning overcast and drizzle and not breaking open to partial sunshine to the early afternoon. It was very difficulty to find lodging anywhere in northwestern North Dakota where small farm towns with two lane rural roads have been turned into L.A. traffic with 2 mile bumper to bumper backups near crossroads because of private oil exploration. A three bedroom trailer rents for $6,300 dollars a month, motel rooms are about $225 a night. Some oil field workers must commute hundreds of miles to find places for their families to live in eastern Montana.
I worked in all formats from hand held 35mm film and digital, medium format or roll film, 4×5″, 5×7″ and 8×10″ plate cameras. Most of my work is being done with a medium format “Mamiya” Twin-Lens-Reflex with a 65mm, slightly wide angle lens, which allows me to make multiple images quickly to easily move on to the next seen image. I like chiaroscuro early morning light looking around the historic parts of small towns. I especially enjoyed shooting in Seattle, a particular corner near Pikes’s Market was a sea of subjects making iPhone images of their families in the middle of the street . I am looking for clear weather after this semester to go and look at Portland, Oregon which I saw had interesting architecture and city design. Craig Carlson / August 2013.
p.s. For San Diego State University students, you can access your fall syllabus by going to my web site, craigcarlson.net and clicking on PHOTOGRAPHY CLASSES and downloading the Art 340 Fall Syllabus PDF.
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