This photo I took back in 1999 in Silver Springs Florida (Near where "Creature from the Black Lagoon" was filmed... in 3-D). This man was in his 90's and had been visiting the park two or three times a week for 7 years. I think he was on a first name basis with the squirrels.
I've given prints of this as gifts and sold a couple as well. You should have seen all the pizza I bought with the cash.
On a technical side, I used a Hasselblad 501c/m with an 80mm Zeiss lens. The original framing is much looser. I didn't want to step closer and miss (or worse, ruin) the moment between these two, so I had to crop it in the darkroom (when I still had one). Thankfully, the resolution of the medium format negative is high enough to hold up. I even blew this up to a 11x14" print and you can still practically read the time on his watch.
I sold my analog darkroom last year and bought a scanner that will scan negatives in hi-rez. A few months later Kodak announced they are no longer manufacturing black and white paper. (sniff!)
1 comment:
Hey Tim,
I'm flippin honored to be posted on such a great web site as your Bald Melon Blog.
By the way, I'm doing my best to become a Bald Melon myself. So far, I'm just a bald melon wannabe. You may be asking yourself, "Self, what's a wannabe?" In order to understand, you must look at the word itself, which is basically made up of three words: "wanna", "b", and "e". What do these three words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is wannabe.
I showed Nicole how I was being honored on your site. I'm amazed to report that she not only remembers that beautiful drawring, but she also honored that I was included. You don't understand -- we're going to go house-hunting today, and that's about all she cares about in the world. So, you can see how amazed I am.
Finally, the man with the squirrel -- I have an on-going and lasting friendship / hatred of squirrels. I never told you the story. Perhaps it can be the first story on my own web long that doesn't really exist. The short of it is: a few summers ago, after I left Big Idea and was living with my parents, my dad hired me to get rid of squirrels infestation in his attic. After plugging holes and telling them they were no longer welcome round those parts -- and failing, I had to step it up a notch. Traps! Sadly, the hardware store man suggested -- rather than live traps, as I intended to use -- that I use DEATH traps, with peanut butter covered poison pellets as bait. While that mostly worked, there were some hyper bread squirrels who were smarter than that. I spent months attempting to secure the house from these terrorist squirrels. It started to get to me. Before teh war was over, I began to suffer from Post Tramatic Squirrel Stress Disorder -- or PTSSD. I guess you could say I was PTSSD OFF by these Squirrels. I've never been a hunter, nor have a tended to harm or torture animals ( or anything else, for that matter ). But I did buy a bb gun, at the suggestion of my in-laws. After many tries, and finally popping a few squirrels, only to have the jump and yell "Yeeooowwww!!!" and run off, I almost gave up. These squirrels began to taunt me, jeer me.... I'd come home, and there would be notes on my bed from the squirrels, "We're here, and we're not leaving. This is our house!" OR, the door bell would ring, and when I'd go down to answer it, there was no one. Only a few acorns holding down a note: "You'll never triumph. WE have declared Jihad on your household. The infidels will die."
Now, nearly five years later, after hard work and hundreds of feet of steel meshed wire, cuts and bruises, I think they're gone. Not only that, but I use Squirrels in much of my decorating. In fact, I have a silver plated squirrel nutcracker. I have a squirrel lantern -- where the squirrel holds a nut open at the top for inserting a tea candle. I have a picture of Kathleen and I feeding a squirrel much like the old man ( only, my unskilled effort to capture the moment, and my less than adequate equipment, produced something slightly better than a few blurry pixelated blobs ). And I think we're actually inviting a few of the neighborhood squirrels to our Christmas feast this year.
All my best, and thanks for the honor,
Alex
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