Inspirations #23: Edward Weston - Cypress

When one is visiting the California coast one cannot ignore the cypress trees that make this rugged land their home. The cypress was one of Edward Weston's favorite subjects. I believe he felt a connection with these tenacious conifers, often gnarled in this part of the world from eons of wind. He photographed them equally well as both part of the larger landscape and intimately.

This image of cypress roots has an abstract quality to it, reminding me of flames and even a mountainside or cooled lava flow.

Cypress Root, Pt. Lobos, CA, 1929 by Edward Weston

My father was a printer, and when I was young he would take me to the paper company when he ordered paper. I was fascinated by the entire process, including how paper was made on a commercial scale. I remember receiving a poster of this process from his salesman at the warehouse on the life cycle of a tree (for paper-making purposes, of course). There was an illustration of a redwood with a time line depicting the life of this giant which included the birth of Christ. This fascinated me how something could live that long. And the key to deciphering this was the rings. Rings... also the source of grain.

The image below was taken in the Allan Memorial Grove at Pt. Lobos, most probably in the same area Weston photographed his roots in 1929.

Cypress Grain, Pt. Lobos, CA, 1986 by Richard M. Coda

This image, in addition to being inspired by Weston, was also the result of an image I made on Ellis Island two years earlier of a piece of very weathered plywood. I would love to continue a series on this theme of grain... the life story of trees.

Grain, Ellis Island, NY, 1984 by Richard M. Coda

Inspirations #17: Edward Weston and the Marx Brothers

I was out photographing with my friend, John Prouty, this past Sunday morning.

John takes his photography seriously. He is very contemplative in his approach to photography and when viewing photographs. He photographs with 4x5 and 8x10 cameras. I'll post some of his work in a very near future post. Back to Sunday.

We were driving around very early. It was the first "nice" Sunday we've had here in the Phoenix area since the late Spring. The temperature was very comfortable in the morning. I had a few places I wanted to photograph so we went to them while the light was nice. I will post them soon, as well.

On one of our last stops we went to the Rio Salado Habitat, south of downtown Phoenix. This is a revitalized riparian habitat where they have begun to revive the Salt River as it once flowed through Phoenix a long time ago. Most people don't know that Phoenix started out as a riverside community. Once they dammed the rivers upstream to provide drinking water, the river only ran seasonally when they had to release water if the reservoirs approached capacity, which isn't often. They had to do it a summer or two ago. Anyway, there are patches of river coming back to life. At the Central Ave. parking area they have a "pond" next to the lot, I guess for the kids. There are ducks and small fish, maybe frogs. But it looked like it could use some TLC this past Sunday. There was this congregation of broken reeds, garbage and duck feathers in one corner. We stopped to look at it. I took this shot with my Nikon D300 and then decided to go back to the car and get the 8x10" camera. By the time I got back (less than a minute later) the breeze and current from the filtration system had shifted everything and broken the composition. So I have this digital image, at least.

It reminds me of the Edward Weston photograph, Tide Pool, Pt. Lobos, 1945, which I have a gravure of in my home.

Tide Pool, Pt. Lobos, 1945 by Edward Weston

Now, how do the Marx Brothers figure into this? I call the image "Horse Feathers".

I will post large format work from this weekend as soon as I get to process the film and have the chromes done at the lab.

Inspirations #10: Water from a Stone...

Well, they say you really can't do that.

Anyway, BIG STONES and BIG WATER are always inspiring, especially to photographers. Lately I have found myself yearning for landscapes... I don't know why. Maybe, as I approach 50 (T-minus 1 year) I am seeking some sort of solace from the continuous stream of depressing news that Man generates on a daily basis.

This image, Lake Tenaya, 1946, by Ansel Adams (and a similar image by Edward Weston from 1937, below), has always been one of my favorite landscape images.

Lake Tenaya, 1946, Ansel Adams

Lake Tenaya, 1937, Edward Weston

I haven't taken any landscapes in quite a while so I went through some older negatives that I had never printed in preparing for a print session I had yesterday. After I finished printing new work I went for this negative, which I took on my honeymoon at Jasper Park Lodge in Jasper, Alberta, Canada in 1990. This was a view of Lake Minnewanka. I made an 11x14 print that I think is very beautiful.

Lake Minnewanka, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, 1990, Richard M. Coda

After making the print I also remembered a print that I have from my friend, Jody Forster.

Painted Cliffs, Apache Lake, 1980, Jody Forster

Mt. Jordan and Lake Reflection, Sierra Nevada, CA, 1999, Jody Forster

There's a dimensionality in all of them that's just contrary to the fact that they are two-dimensional photographs. These images are so beautiful that sometimes I feel like I could cry. Maybe you can get water from a stone!

Inspirations #2

Installment number 2 in my "Inspirations" series. We're talking Wings today.

Pelican's Wing, 1931, Edward Weston

Pigeon, Ellis Island, 1984, Richard M. Coda

As I mentioned in Inspirations #1, I had started studying Edward Weston's work after graduating from college in 1982. In 1984, I was accepted into a summer Independent Study program at Montclair State College in conjunction with the National Park Service. The program lasted 6 weekends and the objective was to assist the NPS in documenting and interpreting Ellis Island prior to its first major restoration. The first part of the project, documentation, was to do whatever the NPS asked us to do for the first three weeks. We were each given an area or building to cover each weekend. We were to photograph as much as we could, develop the negatives (or slides), make prints and turn everything over to the Park Service. Our reward, the interpretation, was that we would be allowed to do whatever we wanted to photographically, the final three weekends (within safety and NPS bounds, of course). While most everyone focused their attention on architecture, I was drawn to the peeling paint patterns on the walls. I actually have a set of images that I plan to print as a portfolio of 4x5" contact prints titled "The Faces of Ellis Island". I found many anatomically correct faces and profiles in those peeling walls. I will post those in another blog entry in the near future.

One day, in search of more paint, I found a large room that had huge windows. Most of the windows had holes in them from decades of abandonment, neglect and vandalism. Pigeons, by the thousands, had found their way into the room, but many did not find their way back out – knocking themselves silly trying. They were lying everywhere. Many were too far gone to be of any use photographically, but I did find one that was still in pretty good shape. I moved it into better light and made a few photographs with my 4x5" camera. This is the best of them. Printed on the old Oriental Seagull graded paper, this image has deep blacks, brilliant whites, and steely grays all in one image.

When I saw the pigeon, the first thing I thought of was Weston's Pelican Wing. It, too, had deep blacks, brilliant white quills, and beautiful grays. I thought "here is my chance to make a Weston". I am pleased with this image... I hope you are, too.

Inspirations #1

At our monthly Imageworks meetings we always have a business portion, a program, and mandatory scheduled member print showings. Recently we came up with the idea of letting groups of members select and present programs on a quarterly basis. One of the ideas I came up with was to do a presentation on "inspirations" or "influences". As photographers, and artists, we are all influenced by other artists' work. I thought it would be a good idea to explore this as it not only shows us where we came from [as artists] but, more importantly, where we are going, as well. At our next meeting Juan Garcia, Greg Hunter, and I will be presenting our inspirations.

In preparation for this meeting I thought I would start by offering them on my blog. I hope you enjoy, and are "inspired" as I have been...

Wall Scrawls, Hornitas, CA, 1940, Edward Weston

Foundation, Paterson, NJ, 1983, Richard M. Coda

When I was just starting out in large format photography in the early 1980s I had started reading about Edward Weston. I bought several books on his work, including the [required reading] Daybooks. I was intrigued by his images of ordinary objects and scenes. His use of line, shape and tone were incredible, transforming the subjects into something more. I began looking at my surroundings more carefully, even while driving to and from work. This image was a few blocks from where I worked in Paterson, NJ. I can't tell you how many times I drove past it before I finally decided to go in early and bring the 4x5" camera to work. There are probably 150 years worth of building materials exposed on this foundation wall, and I realized that one day, and without notice, this would all be gone. I am glad that I was able to capture the image and that I was inspired to do so.