Kip Praslowicz

April Release: Smelt on Sticks

K. Praslowicz — Sun, 13 May 2012 21:15:56 +0000

Stiltwalking Smelt - [0 Comments]

For the month of April I focused very little on getting close and doing portraits of people. Instead I played around a lot with broader, more landscapeish views incorporating humans, as well as the difficul...different act of 8x10 street photography. The above image that I'm releasing this month being one of them taken during the Run Smelt Run parade held here last month.

I'm not going to chatter much this month. However, I will say that certain game changing events may fall into place by the time I'm ready for the May update. Will report back then.

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April Release: Smelt on Sticks is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

Invisible Flash In Action

K. Praslowicz — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:48:44 +0000

Make You Wanna Shout - [1 Comment]

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Just a recent photo shot with my infrared flash set-up. What makes this one special? Why, because unbeknownst to me, there was video rolling while I took it. I know how the Internet loves videos of photographers at work!

Fast forward to about 3:00 for the aforementioned photo getting captured.

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Invisible Flash In Action is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

Appeal to Subtlety

K. Praslowicz — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:41:57 +0000

Another month, $30,000 in photography fellowships applied for and another stack of 8x10 negatives sitting next to my scanner awaiting their turn under the light. From what I've scanned so far, I'm going to choose the following for my March release.

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What I like about this particular image is that it really shows to me just how subtle or small the subject of a photo can be when shot on such a large piece of film, yet still be adequately decipherable. Of course, web sizing of the scan doesn't help much to preserve the subtle details that can be picked out in a nice paper print. So in case the sizing of this image is hindering the subtlety for you, let me help.

Flashback to Joel Sternfeld's famous burning house photo from 1978.

I've seen that photo online many, many times over the years, but it wasn't until I seen the photo in the American Prospects book that I noticed that there was a fireman in the scene buying a pumpkin.

Finally noticing that one subtle detail just ended up taking the image to a whole different level to me. From what I've shot so far, I'm finding the scenes like these are turning out to be more satisfying for me than the portraits I've been shooting. Composing a scene like it is a landscape, and then waiting around for just the right subtle moment of human activity has been a fun experience so far. I imagine I'll end up doing a lot of this throughout April.

An interesting side effect

A bad session with an 8x10 camera is still a pretty good marketing device.

I've noticed that while shooting with this big camera in an urban seeing is that I end up handing out more business cards to passersby than photos I end up taking. Pretty neat bonus feature. If I take 200 photos this year, and hand out one card per exposure, that is 200 more people who might come to an exhibition, buy a print or tell two friends. Not a bad deal for the act of just spending some nice time sitting around outdoors.

Non-Photographers: The rest of this will be boring to you.

Going to jump into some gear relation rambling here for the other photographers following me who might be into that kind of thing.

To get going in this project I bought a ratty old 8x10 Deardorff at a pretty good price for a Deardorff. Course, this immediately set of a chain reaction of extra gear buying just so I can use the damn thing without hating my life. It was immediately apparent that the tri-pod I was using on my 4x5 (Manfrotto 808RC4 on old Bogen 3021BN legs), wasn't quite going to cut it. It worked, but it was very obvious that the head was fighting to hold the weight. Upgraded to a Manfrotto 229 head and it was much better, but now it was obvious that the weak link had moved down to the legs.

With a strong tripod head, big camera, and aluminum legs that were holding a bigger load than they were designed for was the first time I think that I ever really noticed the issue of metal legs amplifying vibrations. Yeeeech. Considered going the carbon fiber route for a while, but ended up trading locally for a set of wooden Berlebach 3032 legs. They may weight a little more, and are a bit more cumbersome to carry around, but I'll be damned if they don't hold the camera like a boss.

I might look into getting some new ground glass for it as well. The Deardorff arrived with some sort of frosted acrylic that looked as though a previous owner hand cut it with a knife. Pretty terrible. Ended up swapping it out for the old piece of glass that was in my hundred year old Korona. An improvement, but that glass still doesn't make the image pop as nice as my old Satin Snow glass did on my 4x5. Would love to have one of those for the 8x10, but sadly they stopped manufacturing them. Hopf Ground Glass appears to have sensible prices for a replacement, perhaps I'll look there.

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Appeal to Subtlety is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

Like a Chinese Star Wars Bootleg...

K. Praslowicz — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:03:13 +0000

I'm not sure how long the auto closed captioning feature has been available on YouTube, but I just noticed it today. My first instinct was to go play the Playlist video about my photography with the volume off and auto-generated closed captioning on to experience it like a deaf person.

Given my mud-mouth accent I earned by living in rural Wisconsin for most of my life I didn't expect much, and it didn't disappoint. The resulting caption text read like a Chinese Star Wars bootleg, only perhaps a bit more nonsensical.

Depreciating is bright kids - I did not know that.

Public issued animals I say? I'm game.

What the Garden? What. The. Garden.

We're going to wind up seeing car hit more birds. Yeah. I dare you to make that statement with a straight face. You can't.

Not really the boat. Didn't fool me anyways.

No comment.

Guess I slipped into speaking LOLcat for a moment.

Lettuce and Tomato

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Like a Chinese Star Wars Bootleg... is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

February 2012 Release

K. Praslowicz — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:40:47 +0000

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February 2012 - first full month of dedicated 8x10 shooting. Twenty exposures made over the course of about 7.5 hours and 9 miles of hiking according to RunKeeper.

Given that my backpack and tri-pod weighs in at forty pounds, it is quite a physically demanding experience for the simple act of photography. Fun though. I wouldn't trade it for a gym membership where I have to stare a white wall and listen to energetic pop music instead of being able to explore and experience the world. I just fear how sweaty I'm going to get as we move into the summer months. This time of year all the exercise does well to make me not notice the cold in the air.

All and all, I actually shot more than I was expecting for a month that provides me with little daylight outside of my 9-5 day job. Definitely going to need to get some grants, or shoot with more discipline come summer when light is in abundance. So difficult to slow down though when the images from the 8x10 just looks so good compared to everything else I've been used to.

What I enjoyed most about February though was to finally really start seeing some progress in knocking down the walls which have hindered my attempts at approaching strangers in the past. A good number of who I shot where people I had just intercepted while out walking. Tough for me to start doing that at first, but like most things in life, it seems to be getting easier every time.

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February 2012 Release is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

Going In Head First

K. Praslowicz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:50:47 +0000

So last month I wrote a post about moving into 8x10 format which can be seen here. This month I just wish to say that I'm now diving in head first.

I've gotten myself an 8x10 Deardorff with a modern lens along with a bunch of the other fixin's needed to manage this format. Tri-pod, backpack etc. But more importantly, I got a solo exhibition booked at the Duluth Art Institute for sometime in the 2013-2014 winter that I intend to entirely shoot with the BFCamera. So all of you out-of-town people reading this - start planning your vacations now. Northern Minnesota is lovely in the winter.

This is a pretty new, and exciting experience for me. Up until now I'm mostly been shooting haphazardly with no real goal in mind. Dark Winter Nights was the closest I've come in the past, but even then if was only through a few three to four-month busts of shooting.

This is going to be at least eighteen months of shooting focused entirely on one project. But that is just to fill the solo show. I have bigger plans which may take even longer, but I'll shut up about that. I don't want to be an artist who talks of what he is going to do and then doesn't follow through for whatever reason. So for now:

1) Big Camera.
2) Grant Writing.
3) Solo Show.

So far so good.

A large amount of the photos I want to take for this project rely on what I like to call stranger crashing. Wander. Find someone I don't know. Interrupt their life for a few minutes. Sounds simple enough, but for a giant introvert like myself, this requires a great amount of mental energy to overcome pull off. On the bright side though, I think having an actual endgame with is rather creditable has been helping me considerably lately. I went out wondering last weekend and was successfully able to get myself into a few situations with strangers that I know I in the past I would have ended up walking past out of fear. This is good. Like most things in life, I hope it just gets easier with experience.

Until the show

I've also been trying to figure out a plan on how to release images before the show, without just posting everything I think has the slightest bit of merit. Last thing I'd want is for someone to go to it, and have seen every image already. I'm going to try to adopt a policy of releasing one teaser image a month, with the requirement that it has to have been exposed the month before. And since the final edit won't be done until fall 2013, there is even a change nothing I post will actually make the show. I think that could be a slow enough trickle to get some buzz going without ruining everything.

That said. Here is one from January.

Retro Doug - [0 Comments]

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See you in March!

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Going In Head First is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

As Seen On TV

K. Praslowicz — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:10:26 +0000

Yup. PBS aired a little bit about my work & methodology last night. A fun blend of some medium format street photography and large format portraiture. Watch away!

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As Seen On TV is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

They Just Keep Getting Bigger

K. Praslowicz — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:10:47 +0000

As you may have noticed, the posting frequency on this blog has slowed down dramatically over the past few months. Don't worry, I haven't given up. I just started to feel that instead of trying to be a blogger who photographs, I should focus more on being a photographer who has a blog. Writing posts of any length is a terrible slow and painful process for me. I figure that instead of spending several hours every weekend hamming away on posts I never actually finish writing, I'd be better off just going out and shooting.

It seems to be working.

Since sometime in September I haven't done much of traditional street photography. Instead I've been focusing on shooting large format environmental portraiture. Photographs influenced by the type of moments I'd be looking for if I were out street shooting, yet with a more controlled hand on the composition.

So far I'm finding this switch to be bliss. I've never been so satisfied with the work I've been creating as I have these last few months, and I've been getting a massive waves of positive feedback on the body of work. Shooting this way also adds a great facet to my photography that rarely appears while shooting candidly — actually connecting with people.

Peeka and Jennifer - [0 Comments]

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I've been happily using my 4x5 camera to shoot these portraits, but then a perfect storm of photography hit me right in the face.

1) I was given an old Korona 8x10 camera.

2) I found a Jobo CPE-2 at a thrift store for $30.

3) A kind man who I met one night in Minneapolis gave me 15 sheets of expired 8x10 color film he never expected to use.

So I thought to myself. "Hey, I only have $30 invested into this system. I wonder what would happen if I used that old film in that old camera, and see if I can develop them with the Jobo I just got?"

I think I kind of now understand how a largemouth bass feels the moment an angler sets the hook and he is ripped away from the only world he's ever known.

Now, while the photos from the 4x5 look absolutely amazing, the images coming out of the 8x10 are just something else. This is photography with the volume set to 11. The camera is heavy and physically demanding to use. The film is expensive and I can only take a few exposures out with me at a time. But I'll be damned if it doesn't just feel right.

So that is my quick summary of where I am at so far in 2012. Year of the 8x10. Also, the new Alcest album Les Voyages de L'Âme is pretty awesome. Go check it out.

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They Just Keep Getting Bigger is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

Leica Repair Contest Winners!

K. Praslowicz — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:27:15 +0000

The range of guesses I received for my Leica repair contest were quite broad.

$79.99, $112.00, $124.00, $229.42, $250.00, $250.00, $325.90, $346.66, $355.00, $380.00, $414.00, $537.00, $537.82, $578.29, $600.00, $700.00, $900.00

I sent e-mails to four separate repairs techs and only received responses from two. Of them, Youxin Ye was by far the easiest on the wallet. When all was said and done, the damages clocked in at ..... (drumroll)

$203.00

Very quick service, and a price that seems to be at odds with anything that has the term Leica in the mix. This is the second time I've sent a camera to him to work on. I highly recommend him if you need work on a Leica. Very, very fast, and it won't kill your bank account.

The Winner!

Original rules said "Closest guess without going over." Given the gamut of entries, that winner goes to Mr. $124.00. AKA: One of my recent portrait victims.

Titus Returns Home After Work - [0 Comments]

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Winner Number Two!

The secret second place in this contest was simply the closest guess with going over. In this case, Mr. $229.42, AKA: Photography Wünderblogger, Blake Andrews.

Congratulation winners. And thanks for everyone else who played. Better luck next time I break a Leica.

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Leica Repair Contest Winners! is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer

Eric Ruby

K. Praslowicz — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:48:38 +0000

Here is a portrait I took of my friend Eric.

Eric - [0 Comments]

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He is also really good at being on the other side of the lens as well. I suggest you go look at his work.

Here are a few samples.

Why are you still here? Get over to his site now!

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Eric Ruby is a post from: K. Praslowicz, Photographer