“I love beautiful black-and-white movies…” – Peter Bogdanovich
By CB Adams
When I think of chemistry in terms of analogue, film-based photography, I first think of developer, stop bath, fixer, photo-flo, etc. But there is another “chemistry’ or reaction between photographer, camera, film, light and subject, as well as a less-definable emotional attraction, energy and woo-woo vibe.
I passed this structure for more than year before I brought a camera to make images of it. I don’t know why, nor do I want to know why, this small, garage-like building surrounded by arable fields attracted my attention, but it felt emotional, dark. I shuddered every time I passed it, like the old saying, “Someone just walked over my grave,” uttered after a shiver.
I often adhere to the “first thought, best thought” approach to things. My first thought was to stay off the private property and photograph the building from the roadside. This initial approach was to highlight the small window, just visible above the corn, and the horizontality of the roof. I was using a Tele Rolleiflex to make this image, and even without the chimping “advantage” offered by digital, I had the definite feeling that I hadn’t make the image I wanted, the one that drew me, beckoned me, into its energy. It was too “Children of the Corn.”
So I trespassed, as I often do. A “Private Property No Trespassing” sign is a welcome mat to me. Has been for years. I justified my trespass this time with, “Well, it’s only 30 feet or so from the road. I’m not trespassing that far.”
Clearly, “first thought, best thought” wasn’t working for me, so I shifted to Robert Capa’s maxing “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough,” which almost always serves my photographs well. I was using a tripod, and if you review the proof sheet you would see subsequent images you would see me inching (footing, actually) my way toward this structure. The final two images on the roll are my favorites.
The one I show here includes the out-of-focus corn, which has a creamy-dreamy cinematic glow to it, thanks to the Cinestill film, which is a cinema film. Hence the Bogdanovich quote above. This image has a “Last Picture Show” vibe to it, at least to me. The other image, which I’m holding for another time, is the same frame, a few feet closer, no corn. It has a different feel, almost winter-like and stark, like an Andrew Wyeth painting. Again, my vibe, not necessarily anyone else’s.
When a scene like this curls its come-hither finger at me, I obey. I try to make a photograph that is somehow true to the emotional resonance that my internal antenna is receiving. I feel like the little girl conversing with off-air television in “Poltergeist,” like challenged to make a cohesive image from the memory of that chaotic static. Yeah, it’s in there, but how to reveal it. I don’t question that need and can only make the best image I can and, if it passes my own muster, then I offer it to others.