The Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ) photoclub is going to be holding a photographic gallery show on Friday March 12th at the Washington School of Photography in Bethesda Maryland. The theme of the show is Wildlife and Wonders: The FONZ Photo Club.

Please join us for the opening of the show on Friday March 12 from 6-9PM.  All sales will support the construction of the new Clouded Leopard facility at the zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, VA.

The gallery is located at the following address:

Washington School of Photography
4850 Rugby Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814
(301) 654-1998

My Sunflower Sunset photo will be one of 50 photos that will be show at this show. I decided to print this photo as a 16x20 gallery wrap canvas for the show. The canvas arrived yesterday afternoon and I'm very happy with how it looks as a canvas print. I hope to see you there on Friday March 12th.

This past weekend a historic snow storm hit the mid-Atlantic region and dumped about 30 inches of snow on average across the DC, Maryland, Virginia area. As I'm typing this another storm is on its way to hit us with another 10 inches of snow.


During the weekend snow storm I took hundreds of photos of the storm and the day after results. I also took the opportunity to setup several cameras to do some photographic experimentation. My first experiment was a time lapse of the snow fall on the trees in my backyard. I setup a camera on a tripod and set an intervelometer (Canon TC-80N3) to record an image every 30 seconds for the next several hours.

One of my major goals for this year is to finish planning and start my Civil War Infrared photography project in anticipation of the sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary of the Civil War next year. In a nutshell my project is to photograph the Civil War battlefields using an Infrared converted digital camera. You can view some of the images in this Flickr set.

I have always found the study of the past and history an interesting subject. I continue to research and learn about the history of the world in my spare time and listen to several history based podcasts on my daily commute to work. I'm not sure if I'm just wired that way or maybe it was an influential history teacher in my past that generated my interest in History. You can't chalk it up to older age since I have always been interested in the subject (especially Military history.) 

Many people could care less about history and have no idea why I would want to waste my time on such a project. I recently saw the following article in my feed reader and it gave me a pause to think about how people think and view history.

Proof that History puts people to sleep
Gary Crabbe Enlightened Images

"However, with my current book project, the minute I tell people (or they sense) that it's a history book, they fall asleep. They turn off. They tune out. They switch off their radar. It's like you suddenly become a non-important entity. In all of my career, I've never experienced anything like this. But it's happened so often, among so many people at so many levels, that I'm now 1000% convinced that it's purely related to the history aspect." [ read more ]

So with this in mind I'm opening up the following questions to my readers.

Do you tune out history?

Do you have interest in history based photographic projects as an art viewer or maybe an art buyer?

Please leave a comment below.

I ask this question more out of curiosity rather than determining the future of this project. As a creative person and image maker I'm still going to proceed as planned no matter what the response. I'm just curious if history based projects are doomed to failure from the start.

Back in 2005 a group of developers made a strong push to open up a casino near the city of Gettysburg Pennsylvania. After a tough fight from many historical preservation groups this plan was defeated. Well the same developers are proposing to build a casino again. This time even closer to the historical battlefield sites in Gettysburg. Click on map to view proposed casino site.

This proposed casino site is opposed by many historical preservation groups: Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), Preservation Pennsylvania. They recently drafted a letter in opposition to this proposed casino plan.

Preservation Groups Declare Opposition to New Gettysburg Casino Proposal
Proposal poses direct threat to National Park and America's most famous small town

(Gettysburg, Pa.) - In a letter dated January 26, 2010, a coalition of state and national preservation groups conveyed to Adams County, Pa., businessman David LeVan their decision to oppose his effort to open a casino a half-mile to the south of Gettysburg National Military Park.  In the letter, the Civil War Preservation Trust, National Parks Conservation Association, National Trust for Historic Preservation and Preservation Pennsylvania cited the location's proximity to the battlefield as a direct threat, noting that the potential development and traffic impacts place the National Park at further risk. [read more]

If the casino plan comes to pass years from now Gettysburg could end up just like Charlestown West Virginia. I have driven through Charlestown several times in the past couple of years and the only remarkable thing about this city is the amount of signage and billboards dedicated to lure people into the race track and gambling. All of the historical significance of this city has been forgotten other than a footnote on Wikipedia.  They also have the most obnoxious radio ads promoting Charlestown Races and Slots. I would hate to see this happen to historical site and city like Gettysburg.

If you oppose the construction of a casino near one of our most famous Civil War heritage sites. Please sign the petition.

Additional information can be found at the following links:

• No Casino Gettysburg
• Civil War Preservation Trust
• No Casino Gettysburg Facebook Group
  

Recently I saw a post on The New Modern about a documentary of Sally Mann's process to photograph Civil War battlefields using a Civil War era photographic processes. Introduced in 1851, the wet-plate collodion process is a method of making photographic negatives on glass plates that have been coated with light-sensitive chemicals. The plate is then coated with a silver nitrate solution, loaded in a plate holder into the camera, and then exposed while still wet and sticky. The photographer has only about five minutes to make the picture before the solution dries.

This process is alluring and the results have a distinctive look that I find attractive. There is a growing number of practitioners  returning to these alternative photographic processes. As I spend more time researching my Civil War photography project I'm finding that many of these practitioners are also actively working on projects as well. I don't see myself switching to alternative processes at this time, but it certainly interesting and maybe something I could explore later.




For those interested in the history of photography I highly recommend Jeff Curto's History of Photography podcast. He records his lessons from his History of Photography class at the College of DuPage. I have listened to a couple of semesters worth of classes and have found them both interesting and valuable in my photographic research.

Here are some additional links to people that are actively exploring and using the wet plate process for their photography
Tintypes, Ambrotypes - Wet Plate Photography
Photography Contrastique - My Alternative Photographic Processes Diary
Civil War Photography - R.J. Szabo

One of the key lessons I learned in my college economic classes was the concept of opportunity costs. In a nutshell given a set of scarce resources and multiple needs, when you apply that resource to one of the needs you are giving up on the others. Those unmet needs are the opportunity costs.

One of my goals for this year is to focus my time, money, and attention (all scarce resources) on just a few goals and projects. This requires me to postpone or give up other projects I had running simultaneously in the background so I can use my scarce resources towards the goals I want to accomplish.

A recent example was presented to me last week. For the past couple of years I have been asked to photograph the talent show at my daughters old elementary school. In the past I saw this as a way to give back to the school and to potentially  build up a portfolio and client base for a future photography business. Last week I was asked once again to photograph the event this year. I was not able to photograph it due to a scheduling conflict but I took this opportunity to explore my options as if I was available.

Talking Heads - Burning Down the House

Watch out you might get what you're after Cool baby strange but not a stranger I'm an ordinary guy Burning down the house Hold tight wait 'til the party's over Hold tight we're in for nasty weather There has got to be a way Burning down the house

This weekend I helped Emma with her 8th grade science investigation project. She was able to pick any project she wanted and decided that burning down houses would make a fun project.

Her study was to compare black and silver heat resistant paint against a control of no paint. She built 9 different popsicle stick houses, painted them, and then we burned them to see which one would last the longest.

She also needed photos for her project board and with fire involved I was very happy to give her a hand.

In the photo above you can see the glue bubbling on the corner of the house.

For those that are curious, the silver heat resistant paint lasted the longest by almost a minute. The black heat resistant paint didn't do much better than the unpainted houses.

The project made for some interesting photos and I can potentially see myself doing some more controlled burns of stuff in the future to get some abstract photos using my 180mm macro lens.

The start of a new year gives me time to reflect about the coming year and also about the year past. What went well and what didn't. The last year was a tough one for the family and I. This time last year I had a single goal, to find a new job. I accomplished that goal in the middle of July and I'm happy to be fully employed again, unlike many people in the current economy.

My creative photographic output also suffered for the first half of the year. I guess Maslow knew what he was talking about. While I was unemployed I took consulting jobs to help pay the bills and I also toyed with the idea of taking some paid photographic jobs. I shot several events and portraits last year with the idea to build up my photographic portfolio. This portfolio could be used to help launch a photo business. During these small odd jobs I quickly confirmed something that I already knew, I don't want to make a business out of my photography. I like having my photography as a hobby and creative outlet. Turning it into a business and becoming a professional photographer is just not for me. I'm happy and proud to call myself an amateur rather than an aspiring professional.

Back to my goals for this year, I have found that the goals that have the highest likelihood of being accomplished are the goals that are written down. So with that thought in mind here are my goals for Twenty 10.

During the month of December the 2010 Smithsonian National Zoo calendar was shipped to all of the Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ) members. I'm happy to report that one of my images was selected for a page in the calendar that was set aside to promote the FONZ Photoclub. For this page they took a selection of photos from our photoclub members for display on the calendar.

The FONZ photoclub meets on the first Tuesday of every month in a relaxed and inviting environment to share and learn about photography. The club also raises money to support the Zoo by selling member's photographic work at special events. Club members also help out with photographic services at various zoo special events.

Earlier this week we had our January meeting and there were several new faces in attendance. They all mentioned they learned about the photoclub from the calendar. So this little promotion seems to have done the trick.

Shown below is one of my images they selected to be shown on the page.

A couple of years ago I was asked to take photos for my daughters elementary school talent show. The photos were going to be used in the yearbook and were also sold as a fund raiser for the PTA. At that time I was starting to practice my new found "strobist" techniques and setup a black backdrop and 2 speedlights to shoot the portraits for about 40 different acts. It was a great learning experience.

This year I was out shooting at the Maryland Zoo when I received a call asking if I was available to take the photos again this year. The only problem was that the talent show was that night and the photographer they had scheduled was unable to attend. I have been actively seeking opportunities to shoot portraits for my portfolio so I agreed to shoot the event.