Lou Chapman - Holga Camera Photography

The Marsh, Minnetonka, and Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis - Minnesota, Fall 2011

2012-01-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

Click on this image to see the others in the series, taken over the Rosh Hashunah holiday this past October, at Minnehaha Falls, in Minneapolis, and at The Marsh, in nearby Minnetonka.Click on any image to see a larger view.

Last of the Aspens - Santa Fe

2011-11-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

[Click on the image to see others in this post; click on any image for a larger view.]I was fortunate to be in Santa Fe, N.M., briefly and spend a little time in the mountains just northeast of town on the last weekend the aspens still had some color, before the temperatures dropped too low and the winds became too stiff and knock the final leaves of gold and yellow from their branches.

The Holga and Me: Someone Else's View

2011-11-06T09:49:00.001-08:00

My recent exhibit of selections from an ongoing project, Circling the Square, got national critical attention from The Dance Insider/Arts Voyager. Head over to Paul Ben-Itzak's article on "The Amon Carter Museum and ArtsGoggle." You'll need to scroll down into the article, but his very appreciative review of my work is in there.

"Circus Circus, Reno," the image above, was a favorite of the crowd during ArtsGoggle on Oct. 8 (see my post from Oct. 5).

Squaring the Circle - Exhibit Oct. 8

2011-10-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

[Click on the text to read the entire post, click on the image to see a larger view]
"Squaring the circle" is the ancient geometric challenge of constructing a square that has the same area as a given circle, and doing it in a finite number of steps using only a compass and straightedge. The challenge has been proven impossible to solve precisely (although some apparent partial solutions have given false hope). So, squaring the circle is also a metaphor for doing something that is logically or intuitively impossible. In sacred geometry and spirituality, squaring the circle represents the marriage of heaven and earth in mirrored harmony – drawing down the spacious arc and spherical cosmos of the heavens to the solid square and material plane of earth.As part of ArtsGoggle on Saturday, Oct. 8, I'll be showing 10 mostly new images from an ongoing project that is one more attempt at squaring the circle, at finding the nexus where the vastness of the arc merges and pulsates with the grounding of the square. Included is the image above, "The Church of San Jose de Gracia, Las Trampas, N.M." [Click on the image for a larger view.]

ArtsGoggle is a celebration of connection, community, music and art on Fort Worth's Near Southside. It's from 4-10 p.m. My work will be at the Artist Gallery of The 1208 W. Magnolia Avenue Building.

12 New Images: The Medium Is the Message

2011-08-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

"Train and the Truckee River, California" (click on image for larger view)

The 12 images presented here have less to do with the obvious subject matter than with whatever feelings they may evoke or energy they might capture. (That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.)

When I tell people I'm a photographer, they usually ask a question like, "What do you take pictures of?" The answer almost always sounds coy: "Nothing in particular." "I don't know." "Scenes that catch my eye." The images below, for example, range from the toddler son of a friend to a silo in the city to a centuries-old church in New Mexico. As I said, it isn't really about the subject matter.

The easiest answer that has any meaning would be, "Whatever seems to draw me in because of its energy, or the way the light is forming, or the way some shapes are working on each other or against each other, or because of something that seems ironic or emotive."

But mostly, it's just a matter of seeing something that's interesting when I'm fortunate enough to have a Holga camera handy and loaded with film (and often, of course, a place on the road to at pull over with at least some level of safety) .

The 12 images in this post were made over the past couple of months and all were shot with the all-plastic, no-batteries Holga camera using a rudimentary, plastic-lens, slip-on fisheye adapter. The shots were taken:

While visiting the 235-year-old Church of San José de Gracia in Las Trampas, N.M., between Taos and Santa Fe.
While participating in a gathering in Squaw Valley, Calif., of about 250 other teachers of Anusara Yoga (on July 1 I became a certified Anusara Yoga teacher, by the way)
Beside the Truckee River, between Truckee, Calif., and Reno
While I had an hour so to kill in downtown Reno before heading to the airport
Back home, while driving around the south side of Fort Worth on a recent Sunday afternoon

(You can see larger views of any image by clicking on it)

"Reno - Closed"

"Train and Silo, South Fort Worth"

"Silo, South Fort Worth"

"Church of San José de Gracia, Las Trampas, N.M."

"Clown and Casino, Reno"

"The Heart of the Town, Reno"

"Danny, Reno"

"Agapita's Burial Site, Las Trampas"

"Kirin at the Anusara-Inspired Yoga Teachers Gathering, Squaw Valley"

"Cathy at the Anusara-Inspired Yoga Teachers Gathering, Squaw Valley"

"Anusara-Inspired Yoga Teachers Gathering, Squaw Valley"

New Images with Fisheye Adapter: Texas and New Orleans

2011-04-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

On Northwest 21st Street on Forth Worth's North Side. In God I Trust. But it's anybody's guess about who hung the sneakers from the overhead lines.

Along Texas 730, north of Fort Worth. Holga with a fisheye attachment (as are all of the images in this post).
Along Jacksboro Highway (Texas 199), north of downtown Fort Worth, another of the original byways that preceded the advent of the interstate highway system. Life along Jacksboro Highway in its prime (if you can call it that) was grittier than even on most pre-Interstate stretches. An old-timer I know used to refer to old Jacksboro Highway in the '40s as "a string of bloody buckets." You can hear about those days in the song, Jacksboro Highway, performed here by Fort Worth native Buddy Whittington.

An empty used-car lot (no longer a true Big Auto Trader) on Division Street in Arlington, Texas. Division Street, a stretch of Texas State Highway 80, was one of the original routes for traveling east and west across north-central Texas before the advent of the interstate highway system. Like others in every city of any size at all, Highway 80 was (in fact, still is), lined with cheap motels, used-car dealers and small retail businesses.
Also on Division Street in Arlington, Texas.
Street performers in the French Quarter who actually did not tap dance or play the blues or Delta music.

When the rescue units and National Guard teams went door-to-door after Katrina and the flood, they would spray paint "gas off" on the sides of houses to signal that the natural gas to the building had indeed been turned off and the building was safe.

An early Sunday afternoon recently in New Orleans, a church second-line through the Uptown District.

More than five years after Katrina hit and the 17th Street Canal broke, a marker was erected to memorialize the location.

Fort Worth and Santa Fe, Winter 2011

2011-03-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

[Click the image for a larger view]
It had been foggier a little earlier on this winter morning. This image is north of downtown Forth Worth, along I-35 and the Trinity River, on the northern tip of Riverside Park, early winter morning.

[Click the image for a larger view]
A view looking northwest while walking in a community along the western edge of Santa Fe in February, mid-morning and the sun having broken through the clouds to the east.

New Holga Images - New Mexico

2011-03-11T15:01:00.001-08:00

Sunset on New Development in Santa Fe (click image for a larger view)

Old Hotel Near the Las Vegas, N.M., Train Station (click image for a larger view)

Winter Grass, Abandoned Cemetery - Las Vegas, NM (click image for a larger view)

Abandoned Cemetery, Las Vegas NM (click image for a larger view)

Old Building - Las Vegas, New Mexico (click image for a larger view)

Last Sunrise of 2010 from the Lake of Kripalu Center, Mass.

2011-01-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

[Click the image for a larger view]
I spent the last week of 2010 at Kripalu, the yoga and wellness center in western Massachusetts, assisting in a five-day Anusara Yoga retreat. Our morning sessions - breath practice and meditation - started at 6:45 a.m. The last morning I was there, the sun was breaking red as the early session was about to start. I chose another route to meditation. I returned to my room, bundled up, grabbed the Holgas and walked down to the lake on Kripalu's property. This shot is one of the results of that outing.

New York Suicide - Accepted Into Major Juried Exhibit

2010-12-03T15:02:00.001-08:00

[Click on the image to view it larger.]
Keith Carter, one of the modern photographers whom I most respect, has accepted one of my Holga camera diptychs into the 7th Photographic Image Biennial Exhibition, which opens next month in the Wellington B. Gray Gallery of East Carolina University. The image is titled Suicide, New York City (Some Say He Had Ties to Bernie Madoff). It was March 9, 2009, and the fellow apparently leaped to his death from his 11th-floor apartment in the Upper East Side apartment were I was visiting my friend, who lived on the sixth floor. The shots were taken from her bedroom window. It was the first truly spring-like day of the year in New York City, a delicious Sunday afternoon in March, and four days after Bernie Madoff, the demonic chiseler, had turned himself in. A short while later, I was at the market down the street. The cashier and a regular customer were talking about the death. I heard one fellow say, "I heard he had ties to Bernie Madoff, had done some consulting for him or something."

Venice Beach Selected for Art in the Metroplex

2010-11-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

While one of the images that I shot at the Venice Beach Skate Park on the weekend of my daughter's wedding in May was on view at Mighty Fine Arts in Dallas (see blog post below), another was selected for the annual Art in Metroplex exhibit at Texas Christian University. The exhibit was juried by Polly Apfelbaum, a critically acclaimed artist whose work is included in the collections of New York's Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France.

Something about these skaters and the hazy sunset reminded me of the energy of the black-and-white photographs of surfers from a generation or two before. I shot the scene with color film in my Holgas, but the combination of light leaks, the film wrapped unintentionally loosely on the spindle, and the cloudy, late-day sky created the final image.

Early Holga Image in Recent Internationl Exhibit

2010-11-07T05:43:00.000-08:00

One of my earliest and favorite Holga images was recently among 68 photographs selected by Boston-based art curator George Slade for Black, White and All Points in Between, an international juried exhibit of black and white photography at the Mpls Photo Center in Minneapolis.

Early is relative; I shot the image in 2004, when my daughter and I were visiting Ansbach, the small Bavarian town where I'd been stationed with the Army some 30 years earlier. Most of the town hadn't changed. Also unchanged was the house where the enigmatic story of the isolated life of Kaspar Hauser had unfolded in the first quarter of the 1800s. In the attic of the old house was one lone chair. The soft autumn light came in through a rustic skylight. That's the image I captured with the Holga.

Hot Shop Summer Juried Show - Mighty Fine Arts, Dallas

2010-07-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

Two Holga Images Accepted into Dallas Show
Hot Shop Summer Juried Show
Reception 6-9 p.m., Saturday, August 7
Exhibition dates: Aug. 7-Sept. 12

419 N.Tyler St.
(between 8th and Davis St.
in Historic Oak Cliff)
Top: "Skateboarder, Venice Beach Skate Park"
Above: "Suicide, New York, March 8, 2009 (Some Say He Had Ties to Bernie Madoff)"
(Click on either photo to view larger image)

Mighty Fine Arts, an artist-owned gallery in the scenic and historic Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, presents the Hot Shop Summer Juried Show to "expose emerging and seldom-seen artists in a professional gallery."

The show was jurored by Benito Huerta, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, director of the Gallery at UTA and co-founder and director emeritus of ArtLies Magazine. His work has been featured in many major exhibitions. A 13-year survey of his work has been presented at the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi and the El Paso Museum of Art. His work is included in many prominent collections, including the Blanton Museum of Art and the Cheech Marin Collection.

www.mfagallery.com
419 N.Tyler St., between 8th and Davis St.

Gallery hours are 12:00 to 5:00 Saturday and Sunday or by appointment. Phone 214.942.5241.

Venice Beach 2010

2010-07-10T14:38:00.001-07:00

Venice Beach boardwalk, May 2010.

Downtown Fort Worth from the Trinity River at the Fourth Street Bridge

2010-07-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

Late June, on a cloudy morning. Again, the film wound very loosely on the take-up spool, so the edges and parts of the image were exposed by chance.

View North During the Rain - Santa Fe

2010-07-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

Looking north from a home on the west edge of Santa Fe, outside Route 599, during an afternoon rain in early July.

Avenida Frijoles Looking East- After the Rain

2010-07-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

After an afternoon rainstorm in early July, looking east from Avenida Frijoles, in a community west of the main center of Santa Fe.

Aspens and Sky Above Santa Fe

2010-07-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

Along a hiking trail above the ski basin, the week after July 4th holiday.

Aquarius-Leo Full Moon, New York City

2010-03-02T08:13:00.001-08:00

I was in New York City the end of January, the weekend of the Aquarius-Leo full moon. Late that Saturday night, I was on the East River Promenade, with a Holga camera that's been jerry-rigged to allow it to make time exposures. This image was taken with the camera hand-held and with an estimated exposure of a few seconds, from the East River Promenade looking toward the Wards Island Bridge.

Frozen Man in the River

2010-02-15T15:36:00.001-08:00

This past Thanksgiving, I hiked up toward Agnes Vaille Falls, on the side of Mt. Princeton, near Buena Vista, Colorado. Most of the stream was frozen over. This image caught my eye. A frozen man clawing his way out of a swirling pool. Holga camera, Ilford 3200 film.

"Tire Store," Central Colorado

2010-02-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

Off of Colorado Highway 24, north of Buena Vista, a Holga image on a cold, overcast day in the mountains.

820 Span over Lake Worth, Christmas Eve

2010-02-15T15:22:00.000-08:00

Arrow S Park is a picnic area and boat launch under Interstate Loop 820 on the west side of Fort Worth. This image, from a Holga camera with Kodak color film, was taken on the afternoon of Christmas Eve this past year, as the snow started coming down.

Fort Worth Winter Sunset from Cellphone Camera

2010-01-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

With the arctic front that hit the Midwest and traveled into the South this week, the overnight temperatures in Fort Worth dropped to 17 degrees. Combined with other atmospheric conditions, the frigid air created crystal-clear skies, particularly at night, and a wonderful sunset Thursday evening - the night the temperature would eventually drop to 17. This was shot using my cellphone, southbound on TX 287 through Fort Worth.

Digital Camera Images: Arrow-S Park, Fort Worth, Christmas Eve 2009

2009-12-24T17:32:00.000-08:00

It started snowing around 10 a.m. today, Christmas Eve. The temperature dipped during the day to 30 degrees. Sometime around 1, when the white stuff was obviously going to stick, I headed out to Arrow-S Park, a city recreation area just under the spans of Loop 820 on the banks of Lake Worth. These images are from a digital camera, not a Holga, with which I shot a few rolls in both color and black-and-white, from which I hope to have images to post soon.

Panhandle Freeze, Early Morning, Oct. 11

2009-11-14T06:16:00.001-08:00

While driving from Fort Worth to Santa Fe in October, I stayed overnight in Amarillo, awaking the next morning to ice on the windshield and the first freeze of the season. After stopping at the first convenience store for an ice scraper, and driving through rain and drizzle, I later saw this scene from I-40, along a ranch road about 60 miles east of the Texas-New Mexico line.

Along I-30 West of Fort Worth

2009-09-28T22:11:00.001-07:00

One cloudy afternoon, I was driving west of Fort Worth, about 15 minutes from my house, and exited onto the frontage road to shoot the Johnson grass, the clouds, the fence line. The frames ran together accidentally. And so it goes. Click on the image to view it larger.

The Wedding Organizer

2009-08-18T21:16:00.001-07:00

A big wedding was held at the hotel outside of Boston where I stayed one night this summer. The next morning, I saw this image as I walked through the parking lot to my rental car. Look closely at that fat book on the floor in the back seat. Click on the image to view it larger.

Bucksteep Trail

2009-08-18T21:15:00.001-07:00

I was at Bucksteep Manor, in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, for a recent yoga training. Now a bed and breakfast, the estate - which occupies 400 mostly wooded acres and includes a manor house, a carriage barn, the barn seen in the next image, and other buildings - was built in 1897 atop Washington Mountain by George F. Crane, a wealthy New York attorney, as a replica of a grand estate he once visited in England.One of the trailheads on the property of Bucksteep Manor, after a rainy afternoon in late July. Click on the image to view it larger.

Bucksteep Barn

2009-08-18T21:07:00.001-07:00

Click on the image to view it larger. One of two barns on the property of Bucksteep Manor in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. There was something about the alignment and lines made by the rows of windows and the picnic table, and the vertical edges of the corners and roof. And yeah, the clouds and dark afternoon after yet one more summer thunderstorm.

Minor League

2009-08-18T21:05:00.001-07:00

Early season home game, Fort Worth Cats at La Grange Field. Click on the image to view it larger.

Montgomery Ward Building

2009-06-17T05:01:00.001-07:00

The west face of the historic Montgomery Ward store on 7th Street, Fort Worth, under renovations as part of the Montgomery Plaza project. The largest building in Texas when it was completed in 1928, the building withstood the 1949 flood and 2000 tornado that devastated much of the surrounding neighborhood. Today it houses retail businesses, restaurants and as the development's Web site says, "Luxury residences from $300k to $1M+." Click on the image to view it larger.

Winter Sunset at the Flying Dog

2009-06-17T04:55:00.000-07:00

The last sliver of the Winter Solstice sunset in2008 at Cindy Crain's Flying Dog Farm, near Weatherford, west of Fort Worth. Click on the image to view it larger.

After the Storms, June 11

2009-06-13T09:14:00.001-07:00

OK, OK. It's not a Holga shot. It's a shot of Mammatus clouds as I stood on Lancaster Avenue on the south edge of downtown Fort Worth, photographed with my cell phone, at 5:30 p.m., June 11 - after the torrential storms that had begun the night before and lasted through the day. Click on the image to view it larger.

"March 8, 2009 (Some Said He Had Ties to Bernie Madoff"

2009-03-15T09:33:00.001-07:00

Click on the image to view it larger.I was in New York visiting my friend recently. She lives on the Upper East Side. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm Sunday afternoon, especially for early March. A neighbor in her building apparently chose the day to leap to his death from his 11th-floor apartment, almost directly above her 6th-floor apartment. He landed on a more or less private terrace at the back of the building, which interestingly also faces the famous and tony 10 Gracie Square.

We were only aware of the event after her dog started barking in reaction to all of the loud police scanners and walkie-talkie noise squawking from the back of the building. Neither of us recognized the man. The police kept looking straight up above us, to the floors above.

We learned later that day that he was a lawyer and maybe an investment adviser. It was rumored along East End Avenue he may have had ties to Bernie Madoff, about whom it had recently been announced would plead guilty to his Ponzi scheme fraud within days.

A few days later, I found an article about him in the New York Social Diary an online column whose author, it turns out, lives in my friend's building and had been at least familiar with the man who jumped.

Sedulous Witness: Click for Larger Invitation

2009-03-05T05:52:00.001-08:00

2009-02-21T06:57:00.000-08:00

Click on the image to view it larger. The director and set designer of a production of "The Flu Season" in Austin asked me to create a couple of collages for their set, each collage using versions of one photo. Each of the photos they chose were of single chairs in lonely places. This is one of the collages, from my photo "Chair in the Attic of the Home of Kaspar Hauser, Bavaria." The actual collage is 3 feet x 5 feet.

Billboard and Tourists, New York

2009-01-23T21:26:00.000-08:00

A summer afternoon in New York. Click on the image to view it larger.

Up and Down the East River Promenade (photographed August 2008)

2009-01-18T19:46:00.000-08:00

Looking up and down the East River from near 10 Gracie Square.

Summer Afternoon, Midtown: Manhattan and Juarez

2009-01-18T08:03:00.000-08:00

Click on the image to view it larger. New York City and Juarez, photos taken three or so years apart from each other. Somehow, though ....

Tree and Basilica, Santa Fe

2009-01-17T11:07:00.001-08:00

Beside the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Santa Fe, Christmas 2008. Click on the image to view it larger.

New Mexico Rain

2008-12-11T08:20:00.001-08:00

Early July 2008, about half-way between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

All Clubs $1.00

2008-12-11T05:33:00.001-08:00

Another image from my brief stop a few months ago at an abandoned driving range in east Fort Worth ("Lonely Chair" posted Nov. 11, 2008). That's me, crouching photographer, shadowed on the wall as I shot the former office and sales room through a broken window.

Sign on 83rd Street

2008-11-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

A street scene detail that resonated with me while walking, looking down, on Gotham's Upper East Side.

Eighth Avenue Minute

2008-11-20T06:49:00.000-08:00

I was standing there, on a late, gray, wet afternoon, alternately watching the scene of the cops keeping an eye on the street and the comings and goings at the subway entrance off to my other side. The cops and the street, the subway entrance and its flow of people. The cops, the subway entrance. The Holga flowed them all together, too.

Wedding Portrait

2008-11-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

Fort Worth's Botanical Gardens are very near my house. This esplanade and the terrace above it (behind me as I shot this image) are especially favored for weddings and for work by portrait photographers. There's something I've always enjoyed about photographing people taking pictures of people in typical or stereotypical settings. It seems to create a world within a world within a world. It's double voyeurism.

New York, 83rd Avenue at the East River

2008-11-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

Carousel, Florence, Christmas 2007

2008-11-19T13:51:00.000-08:00

Jesus in Two Places

2008-11-18T10:15:00.001-08:00

Salutations to Jesus in Chimayo, N.M., and Bedford, Texas.

Abandoned Chair in the Late Afternoon (photographed mid-2008)

2008-11-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

There's an overgrown, abandoned and deteriorating golf driving range on the far eastern edge of Fort Worth. This chair is one of the very, very few pieces of inventory that remained on the premises when I pulled off the road to walk around the place late one summer afternoon.

New York/New Mexico (photographed 2004-2008)

2008-11-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

I photographed the wall in Bandelier National Monument early on in my work with the Holga camera. Four years later it came vividly back to mind when the other image presented itself to me, as I looked out from the bedroom window of an apartment on New York's Upper East Side.

Workers and Woman on a Sunny Day in Manhattan (photographed August 2008)

2008-10-31T07:53:00.001-07:00

Smaller Sanctuary, Chimayo N.M. (photographed August 2008)

2008-10-31T07:45:00.000-07:00