Winter Light '79 - '80

Wetlands Fall & Winter '79 - '80

These were taken with 300mm and 500mm Nikkor lenses. The softness was a feature of the lenses combined with the moisture laden air over the wetland which is exagerated by compression of the tele, all of which produces an effect not unlike painting. I remember reading a comment by Ernst Haas about shooting hand held with a 400mm telephoto, that his images were not sharp mattered little if he got the effect he was after. He would shoot running game in Africa with slow shutter speeds to give he effect of motion. Unlike Haas I used a tripod, with harmonically dampened legs and a counter weight attached to the post. This was to minimize vibration. I also locked up the mirror ten seconds before the exposure, using the self timer. So the softness was all optical and atmospheric not due to camera movement.

Tiffany Lamp - Pike Place Early '70s

Antique Portrait - Pike Place Early '70s

So what do you do when a bare light bulb fools your through the lens metering system resulting in sever under exposure? Make the best of it. A year or two later I started carrying my Gossen Luna Pro with a spot attachment so I could avoid this sort of problem. Using a hand held meter is fine as long as you know your lens and your camera very well. Otherwise you will be in for some surprises. 35 years later, shooting digital, the recorded image displays for one second after each exposure. No need to guess what is going on.

Open Window - Pike Place Early 70's

Dave Hastings - Sept '74

Dave Hastings, a colleague and friend from my first job out of college . Hastings was an artist, musician, theologian, philosopher. He was studying design at Art Center in LA along with working as a studio musician (guitar) for the Armed Forces Radio and TV Station (AFRTS) before he came to Seattle and worked at the residential drug rehab center where I was doing my two years of alternate service. On the staff of the "Center" we had two very fine guitarists Dave and Rick but we lost Rick to the Army. We also had a world class percussionist who was going on for a Phd in music at the UW and had also worked in the AFRTS as well as performed with a major symphony in LA. Dave and Kathy Kushe (artist) were part of the crowd along with my neighbor Steve who was Dave's best friend. Dave attended Denver Seminary where he was mentored by Vernon Grounds. Dave helped plant a new church in Lake Stevens Washington and served as the pastor for over a quarter of a century.

King Street Station - May '73

King Street Station

Lunch Counter - Pike Place Market early 70s

This was taken with Ansco 500 film in the lower level of the Pike Place Market.

Fremont & Aurora Bridges

Sunday Morning Early on the Water Front - March 19, 2006

Sunday Morning Early at the Market - March 19 2006

The Flag - March 2006

Girl in Rogers Park - Queen Anne Hill

This photo was taken in the spring of 2005. The girl was a student at SPU where I did my undergraduate work in the late 60s. This shot reminds me of something by Monet or Renoir or Matisse, anyway that was what I was trying for a girl in a park on a sunny sunday afternoon.

I have a story to tell about Rogers Park.

It was sunny day during spring quarter 1969 at Seattle Pacific College and I was walking in Rogers Park on Queen Anne Hill a few blocks from the ship canal when I struck up a conversation with a young man who's hair was a little longer than mine. He started talking about Jesus and saying all sorts of things I had heard from other folks who looked and acted just like him. They were called "Jesus Freaks" back then. Anyway, he invited me up to his "house" on Queen Anne hill to meet some of his "family". I followed him up the hill to a large house in an old neighborhood. Nothing much happened during my 45 minute visit with the Love Family. A few people were sitting on the carpet in the living room meditating. I was offered a cup of market spice tea. There wasn't a lot of talking and when someone did talk they seemed to always be speaking in parables and quoting scripture. I left after a while and felt a sense of relief to be back out in the sunshine. There was something a little too "heavy" about the Love Family for my tastes. They invited me to come back again. I didn't.


From the WWW:
"The Love Family was a U.S. communal religious movement led by Love Israel. Formally called the Church of Jesus Christ at Armageddon, the Love Family began in 1968 when the community began living collectively in a community on Queen Anne Hill."

Really Bad Art

An improved version of Bad Art plus some more of the same.

This post is to remind viewers that the best stuff was posted first and is now buried in the archives so if you want to see the serious work you would be better off going to the early posts and working forward.

The posts titled Mark Toby, North Beach, Recent Work and anything else with trees or water taken with long lenses represent my attempt to pick up where I left off thirty some years ago with Frosted Tree and the water reflections Neah Bay. These early works were all taken with long lenses from 200mm, 300mm, 500mm. My current camera is an ultra-zoom which gives me the same look in one package. The long lens has two major advantages. It allows you to isolate your subject and it flattens the perspective. Having sort of grown up with abstract expressionism, I found the flat look suited me. I was looking for a way to do representational work that could be read (viewed) as an abstraction. It wasn't an intellectual thing but a feeling I got from looking at these flat images and how do you explain a feeling?

In the early 70s one of my artist friends Cathy Kushe was working on her MFA at the U of W and the professor who was in charge of her thesis project was demanding that she do nonrepresentational paintings for her thesis project. She worked out a clever solution, doing representational paintings that would pass as abstractions. Later on I had one of here thesis paintings hanging in my apartment when I was in graduate school and also a very stunning work by her husband Dave, a surrealist crucifixion.

Empty Bench

Lincoln Park winter 2005

North Beach

Late winter & early spring 2005, from the North beach of Seahurst park, standing at the waters edge at low tide and looking back toward the bluffs.

Accurate Weight -1972

This was taken in the penny arcade on the lower end of first ave. in Seattle just off the water front. It was late at night. The store across the street is Warshall's Sporting Goods an Seattle landmark that is now gone.

The photo was taken with a Nikkor 28mm f3.5 using high-speed Ektachrome 160ASA pushed by Kodak to 400ASA. Nasty grain pattern and weird colors even under proper light but the lighting here was obviously florescent.

Bad Art

This post is to remind viewers that the best stuff was posted first and is now buried in the archives so if you want to see the serious work you would be better off going to the early posts and working forward.

The posts titled Mark Toby and Recent Work represent my attempt to pick up where I left off thirty some years ago with Frosted Tree and the water reflections Neah Bay. These early works were all taken with long lenses from 200mm, 300mm, 500mm. My current camera is an ultra-zoom which gives me the same look in one package. The long lens has two major advantages. It allows you to isolate your subject and it flattens the perspective. Having sort of grown up with abstract expressionism, I found the flat look suited me. I was looking for a way to do representational work that could be read (viewed) as an abstraction. It wasn't an intellectual thing but a feeling I got from looking at these flat images and how do you explain a feeling?

In the early 70s one of my artist friends Cathy Kushe was working on her MFA at the U of W and the professor who was in charge of her thesis project was demanding that she do nonrepresentational paintings for her thesis project. She worked out a clever solution, doing representational paintings that would pass as abstractions. Later on I had one of here thesis paintings hanging in my apartment when I was in graduate school and also a very stunning work by her husband Dave, a surrealist crucifixion.

Ship Canal