Later this spring, the museum will be opening a new exhibition: The 1968 Exhibit – which I’m looking forward to seeing! I was at UC Berkeley in 1968 – and have many memories of that tumultuous year!

What drew me to make today’s stop at OMCA was following up on some of my Walker Evans explorations which reminded me to explore another great American photographer, Berkeley’s Dorothea Lange. As a contemporary of Walker Evans during the 30′s and 40′s, Lange “created an indelible record of everyday life in difficult times.” Lange gifted her personal archive to OMCA – some 25,000 negatives and 6,000 prints. Perhaps her most iconic image is Migrant Mother – shot in 1936 – shown at right.

Similar in approach to Evans, she documented the people of America in their daily routine. I found this comment about Lange’s approach in the book “Watkins to Weston: 101 Years of California Photography 1849-1950“:

If Lange had a guiding motto, it seemed to be a quote from Francis Bacon that appeared in her 1934 Christmas card and that hung over her darkroom doors: “The contemplation of things as they are, without substitution or imposture, without error or confusions, is in itself a nobler thing that a whole harvest of invention.”

Keep it simple – and direct.

In the Art Gallery, OMCA displays a very wide range of art from its collection – including several of Lange’s more famous prints in a separate alcove. I really enjoyed my tour of this large gallery and seeing a few of Lange’s prints. Also displayed were several Ansel Adams prints – including one from his early days when his images were purposely soft and painterly. Great stuff!

Rosenheim divided his talk into three parts – a biographical introduction to Evans, his primary years photographing New York, Paris, Havana, and the American South, and his later years at Fortune and Yale. A frustrated writer, Evans turned to photography instead – and made photographs that have become the iconic images that document life in American in those days.

As I’ve been spending a bit more time studying the works of Evans, I found a wonderful volume at my local Menlo Park Library this morning titled “Unclassified – A Walker Evans Anthology” edited by Rosenheim and published by the Metropolitan in 2000.

In the introduction to this volume, Maria Morris Hambourg, Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan writes:

“…[Evans] sensed that the timbre of the time was conveyed with a peculiar authenticity through vernacular things rather than formal or academic expressions, and he therefore made a habit of studying billboards, roadside stands, wrecked cars, rural churches, graffiti, and trash for signal significance. Shifting attention from the ideal to the ordinary, he leveled the landscape of art.”

From the ideal to the ordinary – Evans made the ordinary so special. Walking through this exhibition of his images, you can see the most ordinary elements of American life through Evans’ special eye. Remarkable.

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. – Walker Evans

[Notes: When asked about his other favorite American photographers, Rosenheim mentioned Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Dorothea Lange, Lee Friedlander and Helen Levitt.]

Fortunately for me, in California the IMA battery is warranted for 10 years or 150,000 miles – so Honda replaced it at no cost to me.

The difference in performance of the car – no surprise – is significant. That electric motor boost from standing stops is back and things feel almost like new!

I’ve written about those steps before – first pointed out to me by my friend Chris Gulker.

As we explored Evans’ images, several themes came through, among them:

• His composition – with street shots that are aggressively composed or cropped to leave just a hint of some elements. Cars, for example, were often present but very limited in their intrusion into the scene.
• His desire to include advertising signs – as indicative of the mood on the street. Doug comments about how Coca Cola advertising signs could be seen in several of Evans’ shots – and how it reminded him on recent times in Africa where Coca Cola advertising could be seen in the villages today.
• His subway shots – and how they exposed his subjects. About his subway shooting, he wrote: “The guard is down and the mask is off even more than in lone bedrooms (where there are mirrors), people’s faces are in naked repose down in the subway.” Indeed.
• His SX-70 shots – in the last year of his life – which are strikingly like Instagram shots we take and share today on our iPhones.

The is a great exhibition – be sure to get there if you can before it closes on April 8, 2012. See also my post Walker Evans – from the Ideal to the Ordinary.

Late this afternoon, I headed over to Half Moon Bay – specifically to Montara and the Point Montara Light Station – to join up with a small group of Google+ photographers. I tried several HDR shots – none of which worked very well given the continuous movement in the ocean. But this image grabbed me – primarily because of the vanishing point effect of the clouds merging at the lighthouse.

I shot this with my Canon 5D Mark II on a tripod – using a Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 lens. I shot it at f/11 at 1/50 of a second and post-processed it in PhotoShop CS5 using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 and Color Efex Pro 4 filters. I particularly like the wide tonal contrast around the lighthouse in this image.

I’m back from our local Honda dealer where I got the news that my 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid needs a new IMA battery. That’s the big battery (behind the seat in my Civic) the helps boost acceleration in concert with the small gasoline engine in this car. It’s a core component of the hybrid technology.

Earlier this week, the Check Engine and IMA lights popped on on my dashboard – although, curiously, when I headed out to the dealer this morning both lights were off! But the codes were still set – which the dealer readout – and pronounced the verdict. The battery needs to be ordered and then installed – a half-day downtime.

I shouldn’t complain too much about this – it’s covered under warranty and the car really has been trouble-free to this point. I ride it hard and put it away wet – so it’s proven its worth. I’ll be interested to see how it performs after the new IMA battery is installed.

If you’re wanting to try HDR photography, Doug’s pretty much covered the bases on the various post-processing alternatives. I’m looking forward to trying out his newly recommended favorite technique using 32 Float in Photoshop!

Having started my working life at IBM, I was shaped by the strong culture that was such a core part of the company. The IBM Basic Beliefs (Respect for the Individual, Customer Service, and Excellence) became part of my life in those early years. Especially that first one: Respect for the Individual.

One of the customs inside IBM that was a delight was the practice of just saying thank you. When you became an IBM manager, one of the accoutrements was a set of personal stationery that you used to just say thanks. Sending those letters was an important part of gratitude for me – and receiving them was just a delight.

I had such fun going back through this folder of personal thank you letters that I had received over the years. A practice and a tradition that’s certainly faded a bit in today’s email-based world – but one certainly worth remembering! Gosh, how I also wish I had kept copies of the thank you letters I sent as well!

Yesterday, Doug Kaye and I headed out on a glorious January morning for some photography shooting over on the coast. We headed first to one of my favorite spots – Fitzgerald Marine Reserve north of Half Moon Bay. This county park has an iconic row of trees that offer a beautiful setting for us photographers. On some mornings, you’ll get fog – on others, a mix of fog and sun. Yesterday we had a glorious bright sun – but with that low sun angle this time of year.

I call this image “Tunnel View” – mimicking the Yosemite shots of that same name. I just love how these trees frame the path – and provide their own tunnel. The sun and shadows add layers to the image.

I shot this with my Canon 5D Mark II with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L lens – and post-processed it from a single RAW file using Lightroom to export 0/+/-2 exposure JPEGS for processing in Photomatix Pro. I imported that result into Photoshop CS5 and further tweaked the image using Nik’s Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro 4 and the amazing Silver Efex Pro 2. I did a final blend in Photoshop before importing back into Lightroom for some final tweaks, noise reduction, a touch of vignette and a bit of love (!).

Hope you enjoy it!