I've just added some new pictures to the site called "The Field." Take a look: here.

Head out to Medfield, MA right through town and out to the site of the Medfield State Hospital, drive right past the incredibly beautiful red brick buildings of the "campus", past the old and new water towers to the back side where there is a huge field.

That's where I've been working this week.

The hospital used to grow its own food so it's easy to understand the size of this field. My formula? Flat light, very careful wide angle work with several trips back to correct, reshoot, reframe and try to perfect (never possible but I still try). This project comes at a very good time for me as, since recovering from both hips being replaced this past winter, there has been little new work. In the early spring I finished a series called Zinc but that was work started earlier, last fall. The well has been relatively dry since then. This is a glacial pace for someone who has been traditionally very prolific. I think full recovery takes longer than I thought but truthfully, it has taken me a while to love what I do again. I am pleased to see that love returning in these pictures.

Some lead-in pictures

Some establishing pictures

Some confrontational pictures

including an epic crop of poison ivy growing up the fence. Then a few that I like to think of as substantive

like this one, the bike sitting there day after day each time I went back. What is the story? Where is its owner? Love a mystery.

This is a way of making pictures I've been using since the early 80's called Series Work. If you've read this blog before you know there are many. This way of working lies at the core of whatever I've made as a career photographer. These are sequenced pictures, one sitting next to another as in pages in a book. There is a beginning, a middle, usually a climax and an ending. There is a narrative, as abstract and obtuse as it may seem. Many of my series prescribe a path around a place or an area, as does this one. The Field is 18 photographs with two used as bookends, or framing pieces. Here's the opener:

an old park bench at the edge of the campus showing its age as there is a small tree growing right up through it and then the closer.

that perhaps it is not so difficult to tell is in color, to bring us out of the altered state of black and white and very wide lens. This one made with a longer focal length and normal perspective. Again the full series lives here.

Now, you and I both know that this blog and this online presentation is an extremely poor representation of the real work, which is printed on 22 x 17 inch paper and is quite simply, extraordinary. I know, a very bold statement and yet it's not bragging if it's true, right? You really do owe it to yourself to see the actual prints as I have something of a reputation as a very good printer. See if I've lived up to the hype.

By 1983 I'd been teaching at Northeastern in Boston for a couple of years. I was teaching at Harvard two days a week as well. Plus I had a new kid, a new house, a German shepherd, a beat up Porsche 914 that was rusting everywhere and my marriage was in a shambles. Fast and not altogether heavenly times. 

I was struggling to be an artist during those years, squeezing a few hours in here and there to make pictures that now look scattered and disorganized. I had built a darkroom on the third floor of the house we were in in North Cambridge and would sneak up there after everyone was asleep to develop some film or make a print or two. I remember being exhausted all the time. 

I was building a new photo program at Northeastern with a tiny budget, no staff and a very poor facility that leaked when it rained from the ceiling above in a cruel irony right into the darkroom sink. I sat in meetings, stating the need as clearly and forcefully as I could to department chairs and deans, competing for bucks, space and faculty lines in a hugely competitive bureaucracy where art, and photography underneath that, didn't get much credit, exposure or attention. 

The MBTA started to build a new subway line right through the campus at Northeastern, right outside the building I taught in that was then called Ruggles Hall. I wanted to shoot this construction, but was stymied by having no permission to be on the site. The one time I tried I was promptly kicked out. A friend who had more experience than I did suggested I go on the site wearing a hard hat. I got one like the crew was wearing, put the camera on a tripod and walked on the site like I owned it. Bingo! Problem gone. For the next 1 1/2 years I roamed all over the new T line called the Orange Line and made pictures.

No assignment, no client, no show coming up, no reason to make these pictures whatsoever. This was one of the first construction projects I shot, mostly in 2 1/4  but also some in 4 x 5 (I didn't work in 8 x 10 yet). Did I have some sense that I was photographing a historically significant project? That the pictures might be worth something someday? Not particularly.  Little did I know.

So why write about this work now, in July of 2016? Because today (7/6) I donated all of this work to Northeastern University, where I taught for thirty years. It's taken months of inventorying, appraising, reading over tentative contracts and signing a final one but yes NU now owns the originals of the 19 prints, free and clear.

Let me tell how weird that feels, to let go of the only set of actual prints of this work. It feels very odd, partly good but partly I feel a loss, letting go of work that seemingly had no value but is now appraised at a very high amount. I retain all rights to use the imagery any way I wish. I can make new prints from the negatives, scan them and disseminate them any way I choose. NU also can sell the originals, store them, exhibit them, reproduce them any way they see fit with the only stipulation being to give me photo credit.

But what better use for the photographs I made than for Northeastern to have them? The Orange Line cut right through the campus, bisecting it and also providing a T stop right near the school's central quad. And there are my pictures showing the line being built in 1983 and 1984.

Are you new to photography, making work that might be significant in 40 years? Take good care of it. If you're older, did you make pictures long ago of something important, relevant, significant and timely? Still have them? Let them go where they might be of use. Let them go so that others can see them and appreciate them. Isn't that better than your work sitting on a shelf in your studio seldom seem?

Footnote. The 19 photographs that comprise the Orange Line pictures are now added to 53 I gave earlier over my career at Northeastern. The Development office decided that it would make sense to inventory and appraise all the other works I made over the years on the campus and informally gave to the school. I would frequently photograph buildings under construction then give the work to the school for display inside those same buildings. The new contract formalizes and legalizes those gifts as being owned by NU. The gift of those and the new gift of the Orange Line work makes this one of the largest donations to Northeatern in fiscal year 2015/2016. I am proud of that.

Addendum:

I received this letter from Joseph Aoun, the President of the University, the other day:

As I said earlier, if there is any possible use for older work, if there is any historical significance to it, give it away.

This is the last in a three part essay on the series called Newtown, CT, a portfolio of photographs I made in 1998.

In Newtown 2 (here), the last picture we looked at was this.

It is a transition or hinge picture in that it is used to get us to the next one, or two really. Before we go there I need to write about the structure as it becomes important as we move on to the next them. Its make up is that it is three horizontal bands, the pavement, the building and the sky one. Yes, it is very simple.

It also is the same way the next pictures are structured:

The same scene made first in sunlight and then with the sun behind a cloud. Also simple.This happened as I was standing there making the first one. A landscaping crew came in, probably before construction started, and clear cut the woods. This pair reinforce that all is not right in this assisted living facility in Newtown, CT. Personally, this was a big event for me as this was, I believe, the first time I did this, to place two pictures like this in a series. I believe it focuses attention on the choice I made and is an effort to draw attention not only to the fact that I stood there, camera in hand, and made a clear choice to make pictures of both sunny and cloud covered. Finally, for more on my thinking during this time it might be helpful to go back to the Lebanon, NH series, which are here. There are also three blog posts on the  series, which start here.

Here we go. A new subset and another new way for me to photograph.

What was I thinking?

Why did I do this? 

These make the core or foundation of the Newtown, CT series.

First of all let me give you some  inside information. These are made with a fixed lens camera, so I either cropped to make these or I just walked up the hill to make them in succession. I did the latter. I also printed them lighter as I made them to emphasize the increasing white in the frames. Finally, I made this subset completely intuitively, having no idea that I would use them in the final body of work. They were an experiment and completely out of the norm for me. 

This is the next to last in this long series and is there to allow us to begin to leave, showing us where we've been to some extent but also to contrast the bright white of the former set.

And this is the last. Remember the picture with the three bushes planted in the grass? Here we are again with three, this time with flowers in pots. But look how dark this one is. We are consumed with black here, so deep we don't really know what is in there. This is a very specific print, pushed way down to make a point and not residing in anyone's definition of a "good print".

We are now done with Newtown, CT. Before I close, let me give you some perspective as I look at these now 18 years later (I am writing this in the spring of 2016). Brutal and severe. That's what these pictures are. With the photographs wrapped in a deceptively conventional package of black and white photography and a late spring sunny day, the underlying message is harsh, critical and angry. I was angry at the inhumanity of the place, the sloppy design and lack of aesthetic that pervaded. This isn't a cost thing, it is a "care" thing. It doesn't cost more to think things through, to design based upon a care for our human condition and what it means to live in a place like this. The designers of this place did not have that concern. Not caring pervades throughout our contemporary times and culture and is a pet peeve of mine.

The methodology I used to make these pictures was both conventional and different for me. Remember that the way pictures like these are usually viewed is in a portfolio and they are seen one at a time, as in pages in a book. This means the sequence I made over several photographs of the unfinished building is unveiled one at a time in a subset of pictures that seem endless and increasingly microscopic as though we are analyzing something very far away with great detail. Exactly my point, like a scapel and yes, brutal. There is also an insider view being expressed here. Part of what we can do as artist photographers is move in on the mundane to analyze in minute detail allowing analogy to larger issues. I was trying to draw attention not only to the place and the living conditions but also to my own way of seeing. As such there is a personal statement contained within the overall structure of the Newtown pictures.This was something of a personal breakthrough for this photographer and I remember being very excited at the time at what I had done, hoping that I could pull it off back in the darkroom when I made the prints.

I hope I've been able to help in understanding these photographs I made. I know they are not pretty and although beauty often plays a large role in my photography, these are something different. I thank you for looking and staying with me through the three posts.

Feel free to let me know what you think. My email address is: nrantoul@comcast.net

This post continues to look at the pictures I made in 1998 of an assisted living facility in Newtown, CT. 

In number 8, the last image in the first post, which is here, we were looking at the backs of the housing units. Here I've walked up to the end of the row of them and turned 180 degrees to view them in the full context of the blasted out rock on the left. This is the third time I did that, turned to face what had been behind me.

My effort here was to show the rock in the context of the village and move us on to new things while paying homage to where we came from.

Now we're really going to look at the units or dwellings. In this case they look stacked up on top of each other like building blocks and with garages predominating. Note the one plant out there in the asphalt jungle of the driveway.

Forgive the digression but I need to write about the printing of the Newtown series. If you've read this blog for a while you know about the importance in my work of the Portland, Maine series, made in 1996. Those are here. I wrote several posts about them which start here. They were a group of photographs that brought me back to a fundamental way of working, which was the sequenced series. They also brought me into something very new and that was the making of series work in bright sunlight. I know, not so earth shattering to you, but to me it was a big concept. So here we are in 1998 two years after Portland, making a series in very bright sunlight. My point is, that the printing of Newtown reflects this: bright whites and deep blacks. Number 11 above does just that, with very bright whites in particular.

Let's move on, to # 12:

Yes, the rock again but with this car parked in front of it. Can we draw conclusions here? Can we use the juxtaposition to associate the timelessness of the rock against something so in the present as a car parked there at the end of the 20th century? Is that too much? And here we are in one of the key pictures in the series, looking at the absolute banality of three recently planted bushes, some rather rough looking grass and some trees, with a light gray sky. Remember the picture of just that rock, number 6? This is the plant-based equivalent and speaks to how caged in this place is. This one also establishes the subset topic for the next few pictures: the planting and surrounding trees.

Here again I've worked to contextualize the photographs, to place the very black perimeter so that we see it as a fence or a barrier.

This one, number 15,is a study in contrast from the previous picture, that one being so very dark to this one being so very light. Funny to think that white in photography, as in a gesso'd canvas, is simply the substrate itself. It is the grays and the blacks around it that convey a sense of brightness. This one looks almost bleached to me and blindingly bright.

Here it is in all its glory, as this photograph shows how the units are positioned in a long row opposite each other, little patio facing little patio, with our rock wall way in the back topped by, again, black trees, bushes planted somewhat haphazardly and an almost out of scale fire hydrant in the foreground. Finally, our puffy clouds again. I'm sure the importance of this photographs hasn't escaped you as this one really does lay it all out.

This will end this second post in the critique of the Newtown series work. 

I remember having some reservations about including this (which is #17) in the 28 print series but kept it in as it brought us back into an emphasis on pavement, at almost half the frame, and the row of bushes planted to ease the bottom of this rigorous structure as a sort of a "skirt". It also repeats number (#15) the light one with the single tree, but time no longer moderated by anything in front of it.

Newtown, CT 3 coming up, and the last.

Stay tuned.

Twenty years ago I made a series of photographs in Portland, Maine. The series is on my site here. It might be helpful if you looked at those first, as they are the frame of reference this new work is based upon.

When I wrote several blogs about the work I discussed the photographs and their timing, the pictures made as the last snow was melting in March and the fact that it was the first group like this I'd made in several years. The posts start here.

Last weekend I drove to Portland from Cambridge on the twentieth anniversary of when I made the first pictures, stayed in a motel and photographed in about the same neighborhood I had in 1996 on a cold, bright and cloudless March morning to see what was different and what was the same. Not only different and the same about the neighborhood but different and the same about me too.

March 1996 Portland Maine

March 2016 Portland Maine

It was a humbling lesson.  I did not try to duplicate pictures or try to survey exactly where I'd been two decades ago. That would be dull, predictable and too much like a survey, for I am an artist not a  documentarian. But I did want to be in the same area, with similar light and then see what happened.

It was very cold and very early, the light as sharp, clean and crystalline as any I've ever seen with strong sunlight and deep shadows filtered and channeled by the buildings.

2016

Why would I presume that I could be as "sharp and clean" as I was twenty years ago? Was I trying to regain my more youthful self? Presuming that I could perceive and render with decisiveness? No. I was there to see if I could muster the forces inside to make relevant statements, to see if I had wit, perception, clarity and design in hand, to measure the level of my game. But I was also there to see if my perception of what a picture was had changed in the context of this familiar territory. We all agree we are the same person we were twenty years ago and yet we are not as well. There is so much that happens to us that changes us. Would this be perceptible in the pictures I made?

2016

2016

2016

I don't know that I can answer that, yet. 

Funny to have pictures you made twenty years ago rattling around in your head when you are making pictures now in the same place. Certainly I could work to repeat myself but that is something I have no interest in. Have you gone back to something you did in the past to re-realize it, to re-aproach it? Maybe its my being 69 years old at work here, I don't know. But this thing I am trying certainly has its challenges built in.

What did I find? I found that I learned that re-obtaining the feeling of exhilaration and magic of those pictures I made twenty years ago did not come so easily. Just because a veteran like myself points a camera at something with intent and purpose doesn't make it any better than pictures made by someone completely inexperienced and clueless. In fact, the very nature of having made pictures in the past that were good carries the weight of presumption and makes photographing now more difficult. Call it baggage. I did make one or two that day that sing but will clearly have to work longer and harder than just one March morning to make a new series that will be truly good. Scratch the idea that I can bring a high level of insight to reality at the flick of a switch, on call. I never could and I certainly can't now. As I said, humbling, but exactly as it should be. 

What a truly odd thing to be doing! To be standing out there on the sidewalk in 20 degree freezing sunlight on an early Saturday morning in March, pointing the camera at the side of a house and banking on the premise that I am perceptive, endowed with ability and discernment, able to speak of larger issues in this very small sphere of place and time. No wonder artists are so misunderstood!

2016

1996

A footnote about the tools I used: I found myself obsessing less about what I used. I did use a camera with a wider lens than I did in 1996 and a 5:4 rectangle for shape  to contain the width and exposure settings to try to favor the highlights so as to keep them from overexposing as they were very bright. This meant I lost some detail at times in the shadows. So be it. I was also framing looser as if what was on the edges needed less overt control or that I felt it was okay not to overthink it.