Los Colores de Coahuila

Sabinas, Coahuila, Mexico, May 2007

I've resumed work on my forthcoming book, Los Colores de Coahuila.  Stop by here for details on the release date.

Belvedere

 Emily Tomlin, State Highway 30, Oslo, Minnesota, July 2012

I took this with my stalwart Rolleiflex SL-66, loaded with a roll of Agfa Optima II 100 film.  It expired in 2001, but thanks to the Frigidaire, it looks just as fresh as the day it was made.

 

Automobile courtesy of Chrysler Corporation.

Makeup by Estee Lauder.

Dress by Mod Cloth. 

Gone Shooting

Emily Elizabeth Tomlin, Winona, Minnesota, May 2012

 

This past month, I got back into the swing of photography.  I hadn't been out with my camera in a long time, and had a most agreeable shoot with Emily Tomlin.  We got just the 1950s look we were going for at this ice cream and burger stand in Winona.  Thanks to Agfa Optima II, we got just the right color palette, too.

Tomato Harvest In the San Joaquin Valley

Tomatoes and Vista of California's Coastal Mountains

Huron, California, July 2011

Dear readers, my apologies for being "gone" most of the summer.  If this were any normal blog, I'd be updating it via my Blackberry, Droid, or iPhone.  But, being the low-tech Luddite I am, I still do things the old-fashioned way -- on film.

I spent two weeks in the San Joaquin Valley of central California this summer, capturing the majestic vistas found there, farmers and farm laborers doing the backbreaking -- yet highly efficient -- work of putting food on America's and the world's dinner tables.  The panoramic vistas I snapped on the Hasselblad X-Pan, and the grit, grime, and guts of the people bringing the harvest to market I shot on my trusty Nikon FM-3A.  Instead of cards and memory sticks, I captured these images on Agfa's brilliant Optima II 100 film (see above) and Kodak Tri-X black and white 400 ASA.

It was worth the wait.

Harvest of Sorrows

Interstate Highway 5, near Firebaugh, California, October 2009

No crops were planted on this land last year.  None will be planted this year, and next year is probably a wash as well.

Under the Endangered Species Act, and in the name of "saving the planet," half of the farm land in California's San Joaquin Valley is going fallow, and what was once the nation's most fertile ground is falling victim to soil erosion.  Farmers are being denied the use of water on their own land, in order to "save" the Delta Smelt.  Yet, as this video argues, the danger to the species of fish comes not from California's farmers, but from cities and industries upstream, who are using the environmental movement as a cat's paw to cover their own pollution.

Fruits of Labor

State Highway 152, near Los Banos, California, October 2009

If you've been wondering where I went for the past week, I've been out in the San Joaquin Valley of California working on my next project, for which I will divulge details soon.

Now that I am devoting myself full-time to this project, I am pleased to present this as the first image from this upcoming series, a photograph I took of the side of a fruit stand October last.

Los Colores de Coahuila

Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico, April 2002

Coca-Cola may be American, but it is ubiquitous in Mexico.  Not for nothing was their previous president, Vicente Fox, also president of Coca-Cola before being elected national leader.

This one is for a photographer now vacationing in Galicia, who's on a similar wavelength.

Rediscovered Negatives: Los Colores de Coahuila

Federal Route 57, near Progreso, Coahuila, May 2007

The sky was beginning to clear right about the time I photographed this billboard early one spring morning.  To bring a little more color to the image, I used an 81A warming filter.  Apparently, it warmed up the sky enough to saturate the blue to such an extent that during processing, uneven development occurred, and you can see where the developer made the sky denser at points away from the sprocket holes.

Still, the sign made me hungry enough to stop and buy some beef jerky.

Road Trip: New Mexico

U.S. Route 66, Santa Rosa, New Mexico, November 2006

On the same trip I visited the El Comedor Restaurant, I also ran across this relic, a detail of a sign to the Rio Pecos Truckstop.  A business that fell prey to the Interstate, the friendly trucker still greets weary motorists with a sincere "howdy."  Of course, this was almost four years ago.  I wonder if that's still readable.  

I wonder if it's even there anymore.