Seeking The Critic's Slings and Arrows, Finding a Purpose to Create.

Monday's Premium Newsletter for July 3. We declare our independence from trolls!

A glorious July 3rd to you all.

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July.

For those of us in the US, it is a holiday.
For those of you not in the US, it is a Tuesday.

Flag in Monument Valley, Utah. Photo by Don Giannatti

I spent the weekend cleaning out a lot of stuff from the garage. Some of it was just junk, but when I got to my Omega Enlarger over in the corner… well…

I had wanted that enlarger from the day I started my business. I had a nice new Beseler, but it didn’t do 4x5 negatives, and I had begun to shoot more and more of those.

I saw this baby at Tempe Camera and the price tag knocked me back a bit. I was starting out. Photography was expensive. We couldn’t clear a roll of film and use it again. Just didn’t work.

And besides the film, there was processing, snip tests, Polaroid, multiple bricks of emulsions to be frozen.

And this baby was just a bit more than I could justify.

For two years.

One day a client called with a heck of a great gig, all to be shot on 4x5, and he wanted a ton of prints from each negative we shot.

I did the math. If I handled the print order, it would be more than eight times the price of the enlarger.

We set that bad boy up the day after we finished the shoot. There were 60 final images from the week, and he wanted dozens of 8x10s from each.

My darkroom guy had his work cut out.

I loved the darkroom experience. I know a lot of people didn’t, but I did. The tactile sensations of handling the negatives, working with chemistry, finding the sweet spot for making prints that would be more alive and expressive.

I’ve asked around, looking for a good home for it.

None have been found.

So… I picked it up and moved it to the pickup pile at the edge of the driveway.

An hour later, I was standing in the kitchen when my wife walked in and said, “Did you mean to put your enlarger on the pile?”

I retrieved it. It is back in the garage.

I will find a home for it. One where the user feels a sense of wonder as the image appears on the easel, and we fine-focus it on the paper.

I’m sorry, old friend. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.

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Two Recent Articles at Medium

So Long “Prompt Engineering,” We Hardly Knew Ya

AI and the Bleak Desert of Uninteresting and Boring Content

All of my content on Medium is free. They do throttle the number of articles you can read without an account, but since it is early in the month, you should be fine.

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As I was hauling stuff out, my wife was going through some boxes of photographs I was organizing. She found this image of me and her dance company in 1984. She is over my left shoulder, and we did this image with the self-timer on a Nikon FM.

Me with the dance company.

Well, happy Monday again, have a great holiday - or Tuesday - and we will see you soon.

PREMIUM MEMBERS:

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