Day: July 1, 2016

I was stunned yesterday to come home and find a box waiting for me from Dan Llelwellyn at maxmax, the genius factory that made my converted monochrome camera for a fifth of what a Zeiss monochrome would have cost. This has altered my entire idea of photography and my own ability and creativity. I opened it and found a camera inside with a note that read “have fun, Dan.”

Dan has been following my journey into serious black and white photography, and there was a Canon 60D for me to experiment with. I had no idea what it was or why he sent it to me, I reassured Maria, who was staring at me curiously, that I hadn’t ordered it or bought it. I didn’t have a clue why he sent it to me.

I couldn’t reach Dan on the phone to thank him, but I e-mailed him and asked him what it was.

Dan is an amazing creative, a photographic genius, he converts cameras into monochrome and infrared only.

For me, this is not just about photography, it is about growing and learning and challenging myself. I can’t believe what I have learned in the past month, I can’t wait to learn more.

He e-mailed me right back: “I sent you an IR-Only camera with a 715nm long pass filter. It still has a color sensor, though in the infrared it will appear somewhat monochrome. Where you will see big differences are in things like plant leaves, which will look white, darker skies, whiter clouds and you will see further through dust and haze because the longer infrared wavelengths are less scattered.”

Dan is a wizard.

He perfected a monochrome conversion process that people told me was not possible, and he has been following my blog and my journey into black and white. I was deeply touched by this gift, because it says he has faith in me, and likes my photographs enough to want me to try out this camera.

I offered to pay him for it, but he says he wants me to have fun with it. I think I have to go down to New Jersey and give him a big fat kiss on the nose.

Not too many people will do that sort of thing. And I am excited beyond words to be able to explore this with one of Dan’s cameras. I know he is the real deal, his cameras transform the mind and the way in which we can see and understand the world.

I am happy to  be able to share this experience with you, many of you made this possible by helping me buy the monochrome camera in the first place. This is opening one window of the imagination after another. Since I got my monochrome camera, my mind has been blown wide open. Perhaps this will happen again later today, when I take my first IR photograph.

Infrared photography is something of a holy grail for me, even as I am only just beginning to understand it. It offers photographers the the opportunity to explore a new world – the world of the unseen. Our eyes literally cannot see IR light, it lies beyond what is known as the “visible” spectrum, that which the human eye can see.

When we take photos using infrared-equipped film or camera, we are exposed to the world that can often look different, enchanting and unlike what we are used to seeing. And everyone else can see the unseen through us.

This is a potentially stunning and very creative leap. One of the many reasons I love photography is that it is helping me see the world and understand it, and beyond that, to share it with others, and with my community. I don’t have a memory card for the camera Dan sent me, I was on the phone to B&H photo in a flash and it is coming today, with a new strap and battery. I can hardly wait to use it and cannot begin to express my gratitude.

I think the best thanks I can give Dan is to take good photographs, he loves seeing that with his cameras. His is the very anti-thesis of the corporate mindset, he is about creativity, not just money.

Dan has not asked that I mention his work or promote his company, but I believe anyone seriously interested in photography would do well to check out the things he is https://photographylife.com/introduction-to-infrared-photography doing there.This, not the cellphone is the future of digital photography, I think, the true fusion of creativity and technology and imagery.

This is a way for serious but not wealthy photographers like me to get into a system long closed off to all but a few of the richest and most privileged. A chance to re-imagine images and see the world anew.

I’ll keep you all posted every step of the way. I feel like I did when I got my first book contract.

This is very big deal to me, and I will make the most out of it. I have a lot to learn, and ever since I found Dan online, I have been learning and learning, at any age the most wonderful gift of all.

It was an odd thing to think at that moment, but I couldn’t help thinking it. I married very well. We went out to check the fence where the bear  entered our pasture after being killed. With two broken legs and a crushed shoulder, he managed to drag himself over our tight mesh fence to get into our pasture and pushed out all of the staples but one.

I was about to reach for my cell phone and call Todd Mason, our friend and fence-builder. I was thinking about how we could seal off this pasture and keep the animals away from the fence. I am good at calling people to fix things, not so good at fixing things.

We needed to get the fence tightened or we’d have sheep and donkeys and ponies wandering around a busy road.

Maria said “wait a sec,” and went back into the farmhouse, returning with a hammer and a box of staples I didn’t know we had. Dressed in her wedding dress, in which she performs many farm chores, she whipped out a hammer, leaned into the fence and hammered in the staples.

It took her about three minutes.

I felt like I was in some kind of inverse, post-modern John Wayne movie. What a woman, I thought. She is smart, gifted, versatile. And also beautiful. I half expected her to whip out a rope and lasso her pony. But no, she is an artist, a gentle and poetic soul.

She has it all, even if she often does not know it.

A few minutes later, she was out in the garden pulling up a potato, then in her studio putting together some work of art. I do very few things well, and none of them have to do with hammers and fences and staples, or potatoes either, it would never  have occurred to me to fix the fence myself. It never occurred to Maria to do anything else.

On the way out of the pasture, she stopped to cuddle with the donkeys and kiss Chloe, the pony on her nose. I got a hug and kiss also.

I think I was nearly speechless at the sight  and meaning of this, although I did do what I am good at, I pointed the camera at her while she repaired our fence and pushed the shutter. We all have to do what we can do.

Maria is a person of many parts, part Frida Kahlo, part Willa Cather, the fiercely independent artist, the tough pioneer woman.

I will never quite understand how this happened, how we came to be in a remote town in upstate New York, met one another, clung to each other for dear life. Is this really my story? Did I know what I was doing? Or are the angels sitting up their with their Ipads, moving the pieces of life from one place to another.