Crossing Paths Enriches Our Lives and New Technology Can Inspire Using Old Technology in a New Way

So excited that my one of my in-camera digital multiple exposures was chosen for F-Stop Magazine's Abstraction Issue. My image, Intersecting Lives and Lines, captures manifold views of a glass fire door at MASS MoCA.

Intersecting Lives and Lines

I see the gray lines as the journeys of individual humans. When our paths cross, our life experiences become deeper and richer.

Discovering that my Nikon DSLR allowed me to create in-camera multiple exposures like this sent me on a digitally enabled journey into abstraction.

In my prior days working as a photojournalist in the film era, I did everything I could to avoid double or multiple exposures.  In the past few years, I have begun shooting film again.

Empire State Building

This image I shot with a plastic Holga 120mm film camera. I was passing the Empire State Building in a cab and shot out the window, rotating the angle of my camera between each of four exposures on a single frame of film.

There are a few day left to bid on a print of this image, which I donated to raise money for the In-Sight Photography Project, a non-profit in Brattleboro, VT, that offers photography classes for all youth, regardless of their ability to pay.

I love the way a new technology inspired me to go in a new direction, which then led me to use an old technology in a new way.

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Visual and Digital Arts Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at CreateLookEnjoy.com  Instagram: @john.nordell

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Part 2: Shooting Film After All These Years - Pick Hits

The Three Musketeers

It was a great experiment in summer 2018, shooting film as a way to limit living a digital life and to get back to my photographic roots.  Starting as a boy, and then later at a professional, I developed and printed hundreds of rolls film by hand.

I used these three cameras.  On top, my first Nikon, from the 1970s, a Nikomat (aka Nikkormat), purchased for me by my uncle in Hong Kong.  It had a roll of film in it that I started shooting in 2011.  I obtained a new battery for the light meter, but did not know if it would work.

In the middle is a medium format Holga.  I bought it used for $10 at the In-Sight Photography project in Brattleboro, VT.  I had no idea if it was functional.

At the bottom is a Diana Mini.  The complex and creative film photographer Beth Maciorowski spoke to my photography students and suggested they use this camera for their nascent film explorations.

Beth also explained how to create multiple exposures and incremental, overlapping panoramic images.  Thank you Beth for the inspiration.

I shot six rolls of film before sending them off for processing.  Bye-bye instant digital gratification.  The anticipation built as I waited to see the scanned film.

I cannot fully describe the thrill of seeing the scans of my film images.  On one hand, I see them as rough, imperfect and bursting with soul.  They  disrupt clinical digital perfection.

I vacillate though, wondering if I am making romantic excuses for sometimes messy, unsharp and grainy images.

Click on images to enlarge them.

For additional film explorations, I invite you to also visit Part 1: Shooting Film After All These Years - Process         
                                    

Holga - East and West

                                     Holga - From Concord to Rowe to Pittsfield, MA                               

Diana Mini - Boston Harbor

Diana Mini - Walden Pond

Diana Mini - Gettysburg 

Holga - Empire State Building 

Diana Mini - Long Point Light

Nikomat - Labor Rally, Greenfield, MA 2011

Nikomat - Self-Portrait, Same Roll of Film as Labor Rally, 2018

Nikomat - Shutter Click Heard 'Round the World

Nikomat - Dam

Nikomat - Black and White Sails

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Visual and Digital Arts Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at CreateLookEnjoy.com

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Part 1: Shooting Film After All These Years - Process

In summer 2018, I visited friend and photographer Benjy Swett to use his scanner to digitize my negatives from documenting the mid-1980s rap scene in Boston.  (I invite you to also visit Part 2:  Shooting Film After All These Years - Pick Hits.)

New School Old School

I had a meeting scheduled with Boston historian and journalist Brian Coleman and UMass Professor Pacey Foster of the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive to show them the images.  Big thanks to Brian and Pacey for encouraging me to dig into my 30 year old archive. Here is a sample:

Disco P and the Fresh MC

Benjy and I attended the same prep school and our creative writing teacher extolled the virtues of packing a small notebook for jotting down ideas and observations.

Not That Kind of Little Black Book

In my continuing explorations of questioning digital living, I decided to shoot film in summer 2018.  I found a notebook and jotted down ideas and observations about going back to my photographic roots, as, since 2001, I have used digital cameras for my professional work.  The following italic text is a transcription of my writing, which is sometimes just short phrases or hard to decipher words, denoted by (?).

Photographing in Times Square.  Trying too hard.  Need “bokeh.  Have the 1.4 lens.  What would Beth do? Keep trying for the US Flag but felt I should have some other element.  Silhouette - need to impose on a stranger.  I took a break.

 

Texting and Vaping

Ate some fruit.  Joked with some Asian girls - to get away, I went to the narrow flag side, working the out of focus lights.  I saw a perfect flag reflection in the windows of a yellow cab.  Thank you Shakti. After the fruit, I also did a wild panorama with the Diana.  Don’t like it as much since I need my glasses…  Felt I had to capture something.  For my film blog.

I don’t know if any of these film images will work.  The cameras are becoming much more familiar - the way the Nikomat back opens.  It is such a solid camera!  Seeing the billboard of Kayne and Beyonce - I thought that those kids in Boston paved the way for him.  And, the white kids who bought Run-DMC’s albums.

Times Square

I had wanted to shoot b/w in NYC - Benjy gave me a roll of Tmax100.  Not enough for night.  I put in a roll of 400 color thinking I can always covert to b/w.  However, just the nature of having film in the box made me see differently.  And, if the flag/cab photo is all that I hope, I am so glad that I was shooting color.

All That I Hope

I’m waiting in front of the red wall - the gal with flowered orange sneakers walks past.  I  go “click’, but the shutter is not cocked.   Just as I finish writing this, two boys in matching bluish shirts stride by.  I was thinking - it is weird to be writing (standing on the street).  Keeping me out of the moment?  PS I looked at some of Jay Maisel’s images last night - I am thinking with the red wall, “Where’s the light?” Color and gesture we have.

Light, Gesture, Color

The white light on white things, a man in a white t-shirt.  He pauses to be buzzed in and I have just enough time after gryeing(?) the exposure change for bright sun to snap a shot before he enters the building, making my canvas tableau no longer relevant.  Who cares?  Is this one of the four stages of narcissism?  A something(?) product, or, am I writing my blog in real time?

White Things

I was about to shoot a cherry/cheesy(?) reflection photo, but advance the film and was at the end of the roll.  Now, shit, back to b/w.  I was in a color groove.  ISO 100 no less.  I was just about to write 100 when I realized I had not changed the ASA on my Niko fucking mat, a stolid, solid camera that is over 30 years old. (Actually 40).  I was also thinking if I did not have this book, I would not be writing.  Just after I changed to b/w I saw some colorful fruit and thought, “That could look cool in b/w, maybe focus on the plastic windows!"  Needed my glasses to change the ASA - otherwise, blissfully, no need.  I did need to put my glasses on to write that.  I am not wearing them now.  Not wanting to use my phone, I asked a dog walking man with an Apple watch for the time.  It was a several step process for him.

Color in Black and White

Bill McKibben:  The quest…"by providing that American necessity, a goal."  I am shortly heading off to photograph in my old stomping (?) why stomping grounds?, Harvard Square.  Can I be goal-less, goal free?  Well… the light was not great and I only had ASA100 in the Nikomat.  Again the feeling, like at the Minuteman National Park, oh those mannequins backed with window reflections - Atget.  Waiting for someone to run through my carefully composed scene - Bresson.  I tried to capture John Harvard like Tommy Alcorn.

My Image - Harvard Square - Early 1970s

Amazingly, in break from my past, I did not take pictures of the endless parade of visitors posing with hands touching the lightened toned worn feet of John Harvard.  And I thought of working for Harvard, taking a portrait of a big donor backed by the statue, or something with my sister taking a picture of my mom by the statue, many years ago, on some assignment.  Later, in the rain, I did a quadruple exposure with the Holga, but I am not sure if in my excitement, I forgot to take the lens cap off.

John Harvard

Yesterday, with photographer friend Patrice Flesch, it was fun to shoot as she knew my process of framing a scene and hoping some late passengers would hurry down the gangway to animate my inanimate scene.

Spectacle Island Ferry

When we approached Boston, she could understand when I said, “I wanted to take a skyline picture, but the light is too flat.” However, as the ferry pulled in, I could twist to shoot the docks and reflections with beautiful light as the hazy humid buildings were now at my back.

Technically Crap and Out of Focus - Or Sublime?

I feel that I am writing with expertise and love about subjects I care about, just like the Bill McKibben I am reading right now.  I have shot multiple rolls of film so far this summer.  I do not know if my 40 + year old Nikomat works, or the $10 used Holga I bought works.  It will be exciting to get the film processed.  The shot of the memorial at the tip of Nahant and the one with the flag in the middle - we stopped because the dog was doing its business and I turned around and saw scenes I otherwise would not have.

Nahant

Deep profound excitement looking at the scans.  The experiment worked!  That’s not my roll of film - what’s this demonstration - no, it is mine, the film had been in the camera for 7 years.  With a self portrait interlude.  Just love the feel of the images.  Wonder - are they actually technically crap and out of focus?  Or, are they sublime?  SUBLIME.  EARTHY.  ROOTSY.  REAL.  You can get only certain look with a f1.4 lens.  I almost wondered if I should dictate while I was looking at the images.

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Visual and Digital Arts Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at CreateLookEnjoy.com

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(d)evolution: Questioning Progress: Is Technology Your Servant, or Master?

"Remember, technology is a great servant, but a terrible master."

- Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Don't get me wrong, I love digital technology.  The pixel revolution transformed how I photograph and propelled me to become a filmmaker.

However,  I am concerned when it appears that for some people technology mediates daily existence.

(d)evolution

This assemblage combines natural materials such as blueberry and raspberry ink with a hacksawed circuit board from an obsolete computer.  My artwork was accepted in The Greenfield Local Cultural Council's Fourth Annual Juried Show, “Changing.”  The opening reception is Friday, September 2, 5-8 p.m. at Greenfield Community Television (GCTV), 393 Main Street, Greenfield, Mass.

Side of a Strawberry Box

This video explores my creative process that led to creating the purple paper:



I was interviewed by GCTV about (d)evolution.

Community Television

My interview comes on at 1:50 seconds:


I invite you to consider the role technology plays in your life.  Is technology your servant, or your master?  Does technology make our lives better?  Simpler?  Easier?

Periodically staining your fingers with berry juice might be a good practice to foster perspective.  Or, perhaps, just making something.  A few generations ago, we were all makers.

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Visual and Digital Arts Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at CreateLookEnjoy.com  Instagram: @professornordell

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On Internet Fasting and Unplugged Living: Blocking the Internet and Making Use of a Shattered Cell Phone

I am about to embark on a three week internet fast.  This unplugging has become a summer ritual for me.  In 2010, I chronicled my first experience with detaching from the web.

Scenes from last summer's fast:

Blocked Internet - Collage on Wood

I was looking for the Minuteman Bike Trial, a rail-trail that I thought led roughly from Lexington, Mass. into Cambridge, Mass.  I asked at the front desk where I was staying in Concord, Mass., and the older woman, though she had a computer in front of her, said she did not know where to find it.  She suggested inquiring at one of the local tourist spots.

Riding the Trails

In town, I inquired at the venerable Concord Inn and was given a map of Minute Man National Historic Park, that noted a bikeable section of the Revolutionary War Battle Road.  This was not the trail I was looking for.  However, loaded with history, wooded dirt paths, tourists from across the globe and planked boardwalks with banked turns through swamps, the route was a bike ride for the ages.

Had I solely searched the web and avoided interactions with not always precise humans, I would have simply found my original destination (the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway - America's Revolutionary Rail Trail) and missed out on an unknown treat.

Printed Information

This weather report from The Boston Globe served me well.  So I got a little wet enjoying pedaling up and down the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway.  Might planning using an hourly forecast inhibit touching all of life?

Another day, as I arrived at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I found a man struggling to take a selfie with a large sculpture behind him.  I asked if he wanted me to take his picture.  When I showed him the image, smiling broadly, he exclaimed, "Wow!"  I think that selfies may have become a culturally acceptable way to limit interactions with strangers.

However, you will have to take my word for this interaction, as I have no digital proof.  Unplugged from the web, I would be shamed in David Eggers' The Circle, a creepy fictionalized (?) world where "Privacy is Theft".

Pony Express

Back home, I wanted to send some postcards, but did not know the proper postal rate.  I asked my mail carrier, who called headquarters to find out.  They later called back: 35 cents.

"I guess you don't send postcards," I said.

"Jeez, no," he replied.  "I can't remember the last time I sent a postcard.  I guess I don't go on vacation to interesting places." He laughed.  "No one would want a postcard from where I live."

Have You Ever Gone to a Movie that You Knew Nothing About?

One day, I wanted to go to a movie.  At my library, the movie schedule was buried deep inside the third newspaper I searched.  "Self/less" was the only movie that fit into my time frame.  I experienced wonder as the movie began.  I knew nothing about the movie and had no idea what to expect.

Had I seen previews, a trailer or a review, I would likely not have chosen to see it, as I am not big on science fiction.  However, I appreciated the overall message that out of human frailty and violence, forgiveness and reconciliation are possible.

Disclosure: During this internet fast, I went online to find the closest urgent care center.  I also occasionally asked family members to look up something for me.  And, one time in a hurry, I looked online for movie times.

Paper, Pastels, Block Printing, Mod Podge, Driftwood

Over the course of a couple of weeks last fall, I found three pieces of a shattered cell phone in the parking lot as I arrived to teach at American International College in Springfield, Mass.  I later inked the pieces and printed them on paper.  I added some background color using pastels.  I used Mod Podge to affix the paper to a piece of driftwood harvested from coastal waters off Nahant, Mass.

Some of the ink unexpectedly smeared when I applied the Mod Podge with a brush.  Also, I was not careful enough when attaching the paper to wood-that-could-have-been-smoother and ended up with distracting wrinkles in the paper

Life's Over, Or Just Beginning?

So I tried again.  Over the course of several weeks, after printing the cell phone parts, I worked the pastels, striving to have the colors blend and meld.  I needed a touch of Wite-Out to remove some stray ink fouling the integrity of the circular button shape.

Paper, Pastels, Block Printing, Mod Podge, Driftwood, Wite-Out

Whereas with my first try the ink accidentally smeared when I applied Mod Podge, the second time around I purposely used the technique with consistent directionality to enhance that falling feeling.  I also sanded the driftwood to a smoother surface and took more care when affixing the paper with Mod Podge to achieve a uniform smoothness.

Solid as a Block

Even the title was a work in progress.

I Wish You Could Feel the Heft

I am ready for my next internet fast.  I am ready to encounter life without knowing what is going to happen before it happens.  I invite you to join me for an hour, a day, a few weeks, or more!

Professor John Nordell teaches courses in the Visual and Digital Arts Program at American International College in Springfield, Mass. He blogs about the creative process at CreateLookEnjoy.com  Instagram: @professornordell

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Reverse Evolution - A Return to Drawing with Berries and Feathers

Several years ago, my monkey alter ego Chuck Darwin produced a prize winning video that explained the technical nuances of digital color management:  The Theory of the Evolution of Color Management.  The primate scoffed at primitive humans that once used berries for ink.

Free Ink - Berries by the Roadside

Well, in this video, I risk Chuck's censure by mashing and using Pokeweed berries to make ink for drawing with a feather. 



I loved the imprecision of using the feather.  Occasionally, a chunk of mashed berry would become lodged inside my quill, leading to thick, explosive lines. 

Tactile

Nothing like homespun art supplies.  I have stockpiled pine tree sap to use in lieu of glue for an upcoming printmaking project.  Stay tuned! 

P.S. If you find yourself inspired to mash and draw, please keep in mind that the Pokeweed berries are toxic. 

© John Nordell

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Imagine There's No Electricity

There are three billion non-users of energy in the world.  I found this statistic at an exhibition on energy use at the Museum of Science in Boston.

Digital Fingerprint

I decided to briefly become a non-user of energy and wondered what use I could make of electricity dependent technologies.

Printed Circuits

So I deconstructed (literally) an obsolete computer, inked the extracted innards and printed them on paper.  I made further use of the components as instruments.



Evocative and Provocative Pedagogy: Toward a Culture-Changing Curriculum, an outstanding seminar presented with verve and style by Olivia Gude at this year's National Art Education Association convention, no doubt influenced these explorations.  Thank you Olivia.

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Nature Nourishes Group Exhibition at ArtSpace Hartford: Images and Artist Statement

(Hope to see you at the opening reception: Friday Aug 19, 2011 6-10pm ArtSpace Hartford, 555 Asylum Street, Hartford, CT, 06105  If the parking lot behind the gallery building is full, across the street is parking at the train station.) 

The tipping point for me:  during the year end holidays I saw a man walking through a mall in Boston, lovingly cradling his iPad, looking at the screen with reverence and love, oblivious to reality taking place around him.

Inside Looking Through

I find this approach living troubling and distressing.  It's akin to reality TV:  sitting and watching other people live their lives rather than having a life yourself.

This iPodus Americanus sighting prompted a New Year’s Resolution:  spend less time on the computer.  I have written fewer blog posts and more postcards, spent fewer lunch breaks in front of a screen and taken more walks, and have embraced the here-and-now of physical reality rather than an untouchable cyber one.  I’ve read novels, used dictionaries and phone books, and spent more time outside.

Like a Shell and Seeds on a Pod

I am not against everything digital.  I am, however, talking about perspective.

Using a digital camera, for example, allows for freer experimentation, due to instant image feedback and zero costs for film and processing.

Earth, Water and Flora

This freedom spurred the creation of the images submitted to Nature Nourishes.  Earth Water and Flora and Visible Photons  - Do thoughts Have Mass? are in-camera multiple exposures.

Visible Photons - Do Thoughts Have Mass?

I used a slow (½ second) shutter speed and moved my camera during the exposure to create the impressionistic Like Butter.

Like Butter (Sunrise Over the Connecticut River)

Often in the morning, on my way to teach, I stop alongside the Connecticut River to meditate.  Many times I pause my practice to grab a camera and shoot (see the double exposure - Cycles of Life).  These in-the-moment experiences with nature feed me.

Cycles of Life

I recently photographed anti-nuclear activists holding a vigil in Brattleboro, VT on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.  Brattleboro is 6 miles from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.  Vermont Yankee's reactor is the same model as those at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.

Nuclear fears began to grip me during my next morning meditation, as my riverside sacred space is about 17 miles downstream from Vermont Yankee.  “Is the water radioactive?” I wondered.

However, as I sat in my car and focused on my breath, I felt that the flowing river connected me to all beings.  “We are all vulnerable,” I thought.

Suddenly, a moist, warm, nourishing breeze blew in my car window and carried my fears out the other side.

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