Category: early b&w

Santa Monica Cat Show, 1975

In February 1975, I was invited by a cat lover to a competitive judging of … cats.  I was eager to penetrate this alien subculture, but never processed any of the negatives for some reason.  Until now, just running into these long-forgotten documents of an amazing and rather bizarre experience.   One of those situations where people are eager to have you photograph them in their element …

I know that I took many more photos that day, but I won’t track them down now; this should give you some sense of the thing.  

Venice, Circa 1975

In my on-again, off-again project to scan and digitize at least some of the >80,000 black & white 35mm negatives from years past in basement storage, I returned to find something that I recalled, triggered by my recent moon and stars image.  It is this photo, taken of a dirty and broken window in my beachfront neighborhood of Venice, that for me then (and perhaps now) evoked a view of the cosmos.
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Venice was a gritty, roughshod place that suited my gritty, grainy, contrasty style of photographing at the time.  I quickly assembled a few more — all previously unpublished — that fell to hand to display below (I suspect that I have hundreds and maybe thousands of Venice images from this era), led off by a street scene near the beach and boardwalk in pre-gentrification, or early stages thereof, times.

Oh, yeah.  Come to think of it, this was where I was living when I met the love of my life — but she moved me out soon thereafter and eventually we found ourselves in Oregon.  And so on and so on.

From The Archives, Again

After two hours of walking about downtown this morning, I returned convinced that the outdoors is no place to be until the wildfire smoke has abated.  So, continuing my exploration of old negatives that have never previously seen the light of day, I found this January 1974 view of Malibu after fire and rains.
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Then, a few days after that shot was made, I made a business trip to Washington, DC, but first stopped off in Davenport, Iowa where my brother was working as a newspaper reporter and living with his wife and young daughter, Gabrielle. Here, I photograph him during that visit as we encounter the bleak Iowa landscape.

 

A Winter Day at the Beach, Forty-One Years Ago

Came upon the negatives from a roll of film shot on a cold, windy day in the winter of 1974.  I think this was the San Pedro jetty and Cabrio Beach, south of Los Angeles.  Typical of a day of shooting with my photographer friends.  My old photography partner, Bill, appears in several of the photos.