In 2003 I went to Venice, Italy to scout it out as a possible location for teaching photography in the summers for Northeastern, where I ran the Photo Program. My idea was to combine forces with Holly Smith Pedlosky to teach photography for a summer semester for the school. Holly had gone to Venice frequently ever since her honeymoon when she was younger so she knew Venice very well. She also had been teaching workshops for many summers in Venice and, on alternating years, in Varenna, a village on the edge of Lake Como. Sadly, Holly died in 2012 of cancer (obituary here). Holly and I spent a week or so that summer traipsing around Venice, speaking to locals about how it all might happen: working on where we would house students, where we would teach, what we would teach, where we would house the faculty, the various logistics involved and so on. Little did I know that upon my return to Boston there would be a nightmare of bureaucracy and obstacles thrown up by Northeastern in the process of trying to make it all happen. Suffice it to say it took two more years of sitting in meetings with amazingly inept people, filling out forms and explaining the concept to pull it off. Argh! It gets my blood boiling just to think about it now. I was successful, though, and ran the course in Venice for three years myself. In fact, it is still running every summer.

That summer in 2003 I wasn't only there to plan a future study abroad program, I wanted to photograph. One of the areas that caught my eye was at the arsenal, (arsenale in Italian). Arsenale is a vaporetto stop (water taxi) and is the walled fortification where the military was housed to defend Venice throughout much of its long history.

But my interest was along the back side outside the walls of the Arsenale where it was, frankly, a mess. To get there I had to get off the vaporetto at an obscure stop on the other side of the island that really led to nowhere. There were some overrun gardens nestled up against the arsenal's walls. I might have had to cross a fence to get access. One of the advantages of increased age is that I can't remember.

What I loved about this place was that it was what the locals created away from the crowds of tourists. Venice is finite, an island in a lagoon with way too many people all the time. It is a sort of bizarre Disneyworld in that it is a place that is in existence to present itself to hordes of tourists from all over the world. And to get their money. But on the outside of the back side of Arsenale locals had a few tables, grew a few vegetables and escaped from the relentlessness of thousands upon thousands of people tromping through their city like in a siege. This place was an escape.

As I began to photograph it seemed odd but I was on familiar ground for I had made a series of pictures in a manner much like this many years before. The project was called Solothurn and was from a small town in Switzerland where the series unfolded in a sort of jigsaw puzzle of sequenced pictures. My series Arsenale is like that.

You can see that here everything is the same but different from frame to frame. I wrote a little about this way of working, referring to the Solothurn portfolio, made in 1983:

Solothurn CH to be precise. Having gone to a European photo festival in the town I set out with the Hasselblad SWC and several rolls of film down the back side of these row houses on a mid afternoon mid week in mid summer. Bang! These things so interconnected and intertwined as I walked down the street, something frame left was showing up in the next one, frame right. Like a jigsaw puzzle, the challenge was to see that, search, find the connection, the thing in its new location, and move on. This was a new way of working, of course. I’d never connected pictures to pictures this way before and this one hit me hard. There are also several frames where I push the lens right into something, more than I’d done before. It was this series that showed me how good the SWC was close in.

Let’s not forget that this is very early series days and this is maybe the third one I’d done (I started making tightly sequenced series work in 1981). It was a big period of learning for me as I was now in the work, so to speak. Not trying to get to the work, not hoping to be in the work, not wishing for anything except another shoot as good as the last shoot. “In the work” means I am in the project and consumed with it. Story of my life, really.

So there I was on the backside of the wall of Arsenale in Venice, Italy, making these pictures, sliding along to place something that had been on the left now in the center and/or perhaps next on the right

with the wall the glue that held the pictures together and made them compre-hensible.

So here, twenty years after I'd made the Solothurn pictures I was  back in this process in front of this wonderful and complex place and knowing I had a way, a method, a strategy by which I could make pictures. You get that, I am sure. That there needs to be a framework around which you hang your pictures, some sort of logic or process by which you work.  At least in this manner, this way of tightly sequencing the work to strive for a whole. 

I can't really go through all of them here as the post will be too long but will place them all on the site on the gallery page soon so you can see the full set.

At any rate, the project moves on in its incremental way and arrives here

to one of those "aha" moments, this rule breaker, this foundation shaking picture which is, all modesty aside, simply gorgeous with its structure, softness, its breaking away from the back wall to establish itself as no longer dependent upon the wall for visual support. It is a core picture in the series, one that many of the other pictures pivot around and one that hits close to home for me emotionally.

And, of course, it goes very well with this:

where things have really gotten a little out of control, growth-wise. The series concludes with a little more logic, a little restoring of things to a sort or normalcy. I am not usually a cynic and this series, made in 2003, came back around to the wall again and also to some of the tools used in keeping a garden.

I will finish soon, I promise, but bear with me for one more point. While I have discussed this way of working, this sliding down something to form a whole through composite parts (not so dissimilar to what what I did with Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, in the current show at 555 Gallery up until Oct 17 of my Monsters work which I really hope you go see) there is another concept at play in Arsenale. Is the seminal picture of the concrete pyramid made as it was found as I moved along the back wall, in essence there as if come upon as a surprise? Or are the other pictures made to hover around the pyramid because it was known and made first? To bring you into this one core image? Is this one picture made by calculation for perceived effect or by intuition in an emotional response? There are two different motivations as possibilities at work here and there would be two different results, I believe. For the record my process in making the Arsenale photographs was the former, for I didn't know the pyramid existed until after I'd made the earlier images in the series. So, yes, I came upon the pyramid. I love that, that the artist has made discoveries just as you do as you look at the work, picture after picture. That's in there, I believe. The joy or amazement in discovering an exceptional something in front of me and all it takes is the quality of my practice and the smarts to know it is exceptional. Finally, it is a contextual thing. No way would the pyramid photograph have any interest or relevance if the other sequence hadn't preceded it. Igor Stravinsky's melody and harmony make little sense and have little impact unless there is dissonance and stridency before them.

I find it ironic that the series of photographs of Arsenale is about the outside and back of the structure and this blog has been about the inside of the series.

We are done with Arsenale and its meaning and implication. What this is, of course, is explication. The explanation of the meaning of something. In large part it is what this blog is for. In the case of my work, to bring you into it and to help you understand it better and clearer, at least from this one person's perspective. Good work? Bad work? Can't really say, I just can relate it to you as I worked it, saw it then and see it now through the perspective of many years distance.

Care to respond? Feel free. As always, easy. Email me here

I just added a series to the site called Mountain Work from 1977/78, (here). Hard to believe I was making pictures so long ago but it's true.

Mountain work was series work before I knew most of my career I would be a series photographer. I made them during a very active period when I was carrying several projects at the same time. In truth my single mindedness about making pictures back then looks, from this perspective, a little deranged but there is no doubt I was making good work in there, if perhaps making too much. Mountain Work was a portfolio of 20 black and white photographs made at the top of  "drive up"mountains. I thought then and still do that these are unique places, with wide vistas, huge skies and, in the summer, people from all walks separated from their more mundane lives, placed as though the sky above was a sort of backdrop for them and, yes, presumptuous I know, for me as well to photograph their interactions, joys  and gestures at being on top of the world. I was passionate about the project and went to places like Mt. Tom, Mt Battie, Mt Tamalpais, Mt Washington, Mt Cadillac. The only rule was that this be a destination you could get to by driving to the summit. Tourist mountains.

Wait a minute. Do you realize the exceptional-ness of the last few sentences in the paragraph above?  This from the guy that does not photograph people. Well, I did in this series, so there. From Mountain Work in 1978 to Monsters in 2015 (some 37 years!) being shown at 555 Gallery in Boston in September, I've gone from photographing the human beings in situ to photographing fake people as masks and mannequins. We will see soon if this is progress.

At any rate, before we get to the pictures let me place them in context. In those years I was single, had not yet started a family and was in my early 30's. I began teaching at Harvard in the fall of 78, was teaching summers at the Maine Photographic Workshops, and had been teaching at NESOP (New England School of Photography) for a couple of years. I would, the following winter, take a self imposed leave from both to drive through the Southwest to photograph. This was the trip that changed my life because I spent 3 days with Fred Sommer (posts on that begin here and continue for three more, searchable by typing Fred Sommer in the search field).

The Mountain Work also ushered in something else. The pictures were mostly made with Kodak's Plus-X. The year before I had devised a new and constant film agitating procedure for processing my negatives and was showing that off with these pictures. While these on screen won't show it well, the large expanses of middle tonality grays of skies in the series were smooth and clean. 

I would drive to the top of the mountain, park, get my camera out and stay for hours, watching as the cast of characters changed as they got out of their cars, headed over to the viewing area, pointed out at things way off, took pictures, hung out a little, got back in their cars and drove away. Only to be replaced with others in a steady stream of  humanity in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. 

This was a sequenced series, in that it moved from start to middle to end in a flow. 

I treated vehicles about the same, photographically, as I did the people.

What's the exhibition history of these pictures?  Practically nonexistent. I showed them once, in a show at my niece's non profit gallery in Newport RI in the 90's. Published? Nope. Anyone know about them before now? Pretty safe to say no. The prints are about 12 inches square, toned with selenium and cool in color. This is a little embarrassing to admit but there is only one copy of these prints. Back then, no one I knew printed editions or copies of prints. 

This one, with a Rollei SL 66 that could tilt, made hand held. Scheimpflug through space. Don't know what that is? Go here. Sharp from small bush in foreground, through woman's arm then off to the left through trees and to the horizon. All the rest not sharp. I used this camera quite often that way. I felt it differentiated my work and that I could direct the viewer's path through my pictures.

I always thought this one above predicted my moving into a stage of marriage and being a young parent with a baby in my arms. In fact, I would be a parent four years later.

This one is a favorite: independent activities on the stage of this parking lot at the same time, almost as though choreographed.

As the series moved on it began to reduce the people in scale to smaller and smaller.

Then, in the next to last picture, the shock of three people, the largest yet, and an acute foreground-to-background range through the fog of early morning at Mt Tamalpais north of San Francisco. I always loved that gesture,  someone pointing off to somewhere.

And finally,

with the lone figure standing on the rock way back there, the picture bisected at a 45 degree diagonal.

The full series is here. 

Let me know what you think, but please, take a look at the full set first.

Neal's Email

Note: this is an extremely poor facsimile of the originals.Want to see the actual prints? This can be easily arranged through 555 Gallery, as they represent my work.

By the way, I made another Mountain Work series of pictures in 2011. They are here.

This is the second part of two posts on the pictures I made in Lebanon, NH in the late  90's. Part one is here.

Lebanon is close to Hanover, NH and also White River Junction, VT. I found it to be mostly a working class town with quite a bit of traffic passing through. I liked it also for a couple of the neighborhoods I found: residential and older, established but also with some diversity and variety.

Once I'd made my point of pairing images together to compare and contrast the way the same things rendered differently I moved on, still alternating between times of the year but making single pictures:

being fully aware that I'd built the expectation that this would be the first of a pair.

Here's the next one:

The first one being highly spatial and with a clear foreground/background contrast as an objective to lead you to where the light was to the second which is flat, planal and light, or at least light gray. The side of the house also plays with depth as it has two walls, one larger than the other through the realization that the clapboards on the left are closer together because they are farther back. So, perhaps these are paired in some other ways? Exactly my point. Set up a theme or an idea and then run through some derivations on the same theme. Not break through but how often has photography done that? Maybe Nathan Lyons has. Maybe Robert Frank did.

Let's move on.

We're still playing here with pairs. This a comparison of two seasons: one really  disgusting, that time in New England where snow is on its way out in March or April but it is muddy and gray and high summer when growth and green and lushness prevails.

These two, another in this new language of pairing, allowed me to work with depth perception and to contrast the garage doors at the end of a path and as the start to one.

The last three photographs in the series begin to break down pairing and ask the   viewer to form connections based upon the rest of the group as precedent. How much are you predisposed to assume the connections between pictures based on what you've already seen? While I don't have the answer to this, I do pose the question:

This last one, the conclusion to the set, is intended to use some of the past practice to reinforce the singularity of the image. In effect, I was working to convey depth but also to indicate a clear object, like I'd done with the first picture, to take the viewer to an objective, in this case surrounded by a superstructure that was supportive and that framed the bush. But also, I regard this picture a little like the the period to a sentence. The End.

That's it for Lebanon. Did I leave some out? Yes, I did.  Want to see the full set in all its glory? Contact 555 Gallery in Boston and ask if you may come by and see the prints. We will make that happen. The prints are unmounted, about 12 inches  square and archivally printed on 14 x 17 Kodak Polymax paper and toned with selenium. They are irreplaceable as the paper is no longer made.

Oh, and Happy New Year! I don't know where you'll be New Year's Eve but I know where I will be. 555 Gallery is throwing one helluva party. Usually I am long gone by midnight but not this time. I hope to see you there.

In the early fall of 2008 I fell and ruptured my quad tendon two days before I was leaving to live in Italy for three months while on a sabbatical leave from my teaching position at Northeastern University. How I fell is far too bizarre a story to tell here and I won't subject you to details.

At any rate, I was promptly in surgery, then laid up at home, then in rehab and taking a cab to physical therapy, my leg in a brace, starting to get around on crutches, etc. etc. By January 2009 I had deferred the sabbatical and was back at teaching, initially on crutches.

Where was photo during that fall? Nonexistent, of course. To someone who is wedded to the medium this was like being starved or alone on a desert island without a camera. By late fall I was just being allowed to drive. I could loosen the hinge on the brace on my left leg, lift my leg up into the car and drive.

I chose Quincy, about 30 minutes from Cambridge where I live. I remember the first time I went. I got myself extricated from the car and hobbled on my crutches for about 20 feet, sliding along on about an inch of snow. Realizing this was insanity, I turned around, got back in the car and drove home. On the second trip I used a  camera on a tripod while stumbling along on crutches and managed to make some initial pictures. They weren't very good but it was a start. As my health improved I went back and back and the series developed into something as my leg allowed me to do more.

Quincy Quarry has a rich history. 

Arthur Griffin's picture of young men diving off the cliff into the water below ended up on the cover of Life Magazine:

The Quarry also had the reputation for a place to dump stolen cars and dead bodies. The films Gone Baby Gone and The Departed come to mind. It was filled in with dirt from the Big Dig in the early 2000's. 

Since I was interested in the graffiti spray painted on the cliff walls, I took the project from an initial few prints made in black and white and transtioned slowly to color.

This is really a project about color, with the idea that photography works well as a comparative tool. Colors are more striking when contrasted with black and white.

This then allowed me to move in closer and to really look at the elegance and aesthetic of what these night time taggers did.

And what they did with color.

Do I know how clichéd a subject this is? Do I know that graffiti is a constant theme used by students in photo programs in big cities across the USA? Yes. Doesn't make it irrelevant, does it? And it didn't feel to me like I couldn't make a contribution as well.

I've now put the full series up on the site here.

I would  be interested in hearing what you rethink of these. You may also subscribe to this blog. 

Reminder: The Focus Awards are at the Griffin Museum this Saturday, starting at 11 am for brunch. See you there.

Laurie Anderson sings "days go by" in a powerful refrain in the song "White Lilly". Nothing could be more true when spending time in the wonderful island called Martha's Vineyard.

This 25 mile long island off the coast of Massachusetts is its own world, of course. Anytime you spend time on an island the mainland fades away. Spend three straight weeks here and you have an isolation that not only has you forgetting about traffic jams, the hectic pace in the city and deadlines but also the world outside the island  all together. 

With a constant flow of house guests and driving them to and from the ferry, trips to town to shop for food, hikes on the beach and on inland trails, long discussions after a meal sitting at the dining room table or clearing space to look at a box of photographs, time seems suspended in a never ending cycle of days that "go by" one after the other in a sort of blissful haze of activity that is fast paced but where they all blend together too, different but the same really.

Somewhere in there, as I carve out space to work, I have ongoing photographic projects I need to attend to. There is the tree in Aquinnah that needs my attention on a daily and seasonal basis:

There is the building of the fish pier in Oak Bluffs:

now finished.

Finally, there is some work to try to figure out if there is merit in making pictures of some trees across a field that I first photographed in a photo class in 1968!

Ancient history I know, but true. In case you have trouble doing the math that is 46 freaking years ago! OMG!

I was taking a 4 x 5 intro class and thought that it would be good to come here to the island to make my first pictures. I hauled the school's Calumet view camera to the island in its fiberboard case, loaded the holders like we'd been told in class, set it up on the tripod in front of these same trees and made several exposures. Back at school in the gang darkrooms after a weekend on the island, I developed the film and made 4 x 5 inch contact sheets. In each frame along the center bottom of the image was the rail of the view camera, sticking into the image as a blurry reminder that it might be a good idea in the future to look over the whole image portrayed back on the ground class.

Oops.