An Indian Chief, a Grouse and a Dodo Bird

It is said that many people look but a few see.  During a recent hike in the red rock formations of Sedona, Arizona, I experimented with angles of view under different light situations to see faces in what seemed just mountain ranges and rocks.

The interest in doing so came from reading articles about rock formations that look like man- made. There are numerous pictures from around the world that depict such anthropomorphic interpretation of rock or mountain formations, and in most situations it is really the timing of the view or picture taking that makes the difference.  The time of the day determines the contrast, the silhouetting of shapes and the vantage point put all in context. Examples are:

• The Dead man or The Sleeping Giant near the Blasket Islands, off the coast of Ireland. The Sleeping Giant seems to be asleep on his back in the very ocean that surrounds him. An aquatic mortuary house perfect for thinking about peace.
• The Sphinx in Hingol National Park, Pakistan.  This is perhaps my favorite as the proportions and posture of this naturally wind-carved rock resemble closely that of the Sphinx of Giza, Egypt.

And of course there are numerous images of how people have not only associated natural rock formations to human or animal faces, but have also built mythology and folklore around them.

So, I took a 1970’s “primitive” varifocal zoom lens (35-135mm) made by Kiron with me on this hike. I like this practically now unknown lens maker as the company was created by ex-Nikon engineers wanting to take their knowledge to the next level. Unfortunately they were not as great product promoters as engineers and the lenses never made it big. I have a few of these lenses (prime and zoom) which are now called “cult lenses” given the small group of devotees who still use them.

The hike was about 6 miles long to reach the “Devil’s Bridge”, a bridge-like formation hovering over a deep valley. At almost 5500 foot altitude the air was clear and the Arizona sun most pleasant.

While most hikers were amazed by the mountains and valleys round us, I was looking for natural rock carvings that could seem man-made. As expected a slight change in vantage point or shadowing variations seemed to change the appearance of what I saw dramatically.

By the time we reached the Devil’s Bridge I had already achieved the aim of my hike: I had found three sets of rock formations that either looked like an Indian Chief’s face, a grouse or a “ménage à trios” between a hawk, a humanoid and a Dodo Bird!

Here they are, in that order:
A. This Indian Chief’s profile was a few hundred feet before the Devil’s Bridge. He seems to be looking at the deep gorge under it. I especially like the mouth and chin as it gives it a pensive look.

And here is the close-up in case I am the only one who notices this natural carving…

B. As I was looking at the mountain range, the head, neck and even the left wing of a grouse seemed to stand out.

The close up shows the beak and left eye as the light was perfect at that instant for giving the needed shade and contour.

C. This one was great fun—I immediately saw, from left to right, a hawk’s head, a humanoid in the middle, and a Dodo Bird at the right! See it? Or all looks like just rocks to you?

Well, does the zoomed picture help? Do you even see the feathers atop the Dodo Bird’s head at the far right?

… This was a unique “street photography” session for me. The subjects did not move, walk around or do unpredictable things. Instead, my challenge was to find the subjects or perhaps “make them up”.

No matter, the hiking path is a street where many walk every day. And the naturally carved shapes, anthropomorphic and capricious, were there for me to fantasize and let my imagination free in these mountains of red rock and deep gorges basting in the desert sun.

October 29, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Classic Cars and Polka Dot Shoes

I think there is something nostalgic about going to classic car shows. As a collector and user of antique cameras, I understand the excitement of witnessing mechanical machines that have survived time and stand witness to the ingenuity of those who relied on form following function, and gave us the opportunity of remembering the first time we push on the pedal of a 1970 Dodge Charger. Or rewound to the next frame of a 1969 Nikon F.

But as in any show, there is that car you have never seen, or the engine you have never heard roar. This 1920’s car, closely matched by its owner, was the first one I noticed.

Ten there was the undeniable allure of the Ford Mustang. People have fallen in love in it, I was told, while others had divorced because of it. No matter, it is the car that defined an era. Yet, the lady in the chair behind the Mustang was texting on her iPhone rendering the moment delightfully anachronistic.

Sometimes, the feeling was more subtle. For example the dashboard and steering wheel of this 1940's Chrysler was romantic and perfectly suited for B&W photography.

And suddenly, I saw the unmistakable tail lights of a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass!  It was my first car, although mine was a 1969 model with a humble Straight-6 engine. But the bumper and tail lights were the same. Now I was happy to be at the show, and wanted a picture of that car. Not the entire car, just the bumper. And since the chrome was mirror-polished, I managed to get my reflection (albeit a bit distorted..) in that bumper. You can see it if you enlarge the picture right above the "V" of the plate. Now, after 55 years, I was one with that car again!

But I was not there to take pictures of cars. I went to the show because there would be many people there and, as a street photographer, wanted to capture the show through the people.
And people always have something to say to a photographer who places himself in the right spot, waits, and is quick on the shutter release.

So, I noticed a rat, its head in a paper cup, next to the cars. Clearly it was a fake, and someone wanted to add some excitement to the show. Or perhaps it was a social scientist doing an experiment on how people would react to a rat during a car show.

I wanted to play social scientist for a few minutes.

Most people did not even look at the rat, or did not see it—they were too busy saying “Ooh” and “Aah” while looking at the cars. They had a single focus and a single aim: looking around was not one of these.
I wanted to capture that indifference but needed a vivid example. This man noticed the rat, decided it was a fake, and kept going. Ok, he was my illustration of the indifferent group. (Notice the smiling lady on the left: could she be the social scientist conducting the experiment?)

Next, I needed a representative of the more skeptical group.  It did not take long until this lady noticed the rat, perhaps wondered “Can it be real?” and cautiously approached to check. Voilà, that was the reaction of the other (or “control” group) in my social experiment.

Finally, I wanted to find an indicator of sophistication among the crowd to match the impeccably kept cars’ color and timeless attitude.  What can be more à propos than a lady wearing polka dot shoes?
Clearly she was wearing these shoes to be noticed, and she got my attention. But how to combine a photographic reportage of a car show with polka dot shoes? Simple—by representing her reaction to a car through the posture of her feet!

Silly? Perhaps. But I was happy to be at the show, see”my” Oldsmobile Cutlass again, and remember the show without taking pictures of the cars!

October 27, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Naʼnízhoozhí, New Mexico

That is the Navajo name of Gallup, New Mexico.

I had first visited that small city of less than 20,000 people in 1985 as part of a nostalgic drive on Route 66. As a kid who grew up in other lands and under different skies, I never forgot the ceremonial playing of an old 78 RPM record of Nat King Cole where he sang the 1946 Rhythm and Blues song “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”. Gallup was a railroad junction city, as the trains passed almost through the city at a non-stop schedule 24 hrs a day. I recall being in a truckers’ motel then and unable to shut my eyes due to the noise from the trains and the shaking of the spring-bed, with every passage.

On this trip, driving from Albuquerque to Flagstaff, a stop in Gallup seemed mandatory, for good ol’ day’s sake.

Not much had changed, although the city looked more modern, with more expensive jewelry stores and well paved roads. I learned that Gallup was named as the Most Patriotic Small Town in America in the 2013-2014 Best of t Road Contest.  Wow!

The city streets have the same ambiance, however, with Pawn Shops everywhere.

And the trains still pass almost by the center of the city….

October 3, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Driving Across America: Impressions in B&W

“Go West, young man, go west – that is where IT happens!”

There seems to be a time, when young or not, one packs the car, the dog jumps on the back seat, and heads West. Once it was for gold, for the unbelievably open spaces, or for that bohemian lifestyle we all have a different way of defining. No matter the reason, our 10 year old dog jumped on the back of the Jeep, and last week we said goodbye to the East Coast.

The drive was expected to be fast in the first two days, then more scenic and slow for another 3 days. A total of 4000 kilometers of asphalt, passing through mountains, forests, cities of steel and concrete, over the mighty Mississippi, then the increasingly arid and desertic plains of Oklahoma, Texas and new Mexico, to end up at 2000 meter high mountains of Arizona.

The journey took us through Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.  Although the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia wear mysterious shades at sunset, the real attraction for a street photographer started in a small town of Texas, called Vega.

Vega, Texas

I may be the only blogger who writes about Vega… Located in the Northwest of Texas, the sign to the town said “Population 841”. Surrounded by huge electricity generating windmills, Vega is a stereotypical Small Town America. A courthouse, a short main street, a General Store and sand, heat and windmills surrounding it. I stopped for petrol and was surprised that it was more expensive than in previous states that did not produce oil… Reminded me of the Port wine price in Portugal or the price of Medoc wine in Argentina—I was able to buy both of these cheaper in the United States than in the country of origin.

The General Store had two gas pumps. The first sign I saw was about a local bar. What was interesting was the picture of the two ladies advertizing the good times one can have at that bar. But what got my attention was the seemingly left arm of a man on the left of the picture appearing to reach the ladies! Why leave that arm in the picture? Needless to say, it was intriguing enough that I took my first picture of the journey.

Then I looked across the street and here was the name of the organization one enters through an iron arch.

A minute later my Jeep had left Vega and soon the Great State of Texas.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

I have been in this lovely city many times and have written about it on this blog. This time however it was different – it seemed to have become a more “generic” city with big store names, predictable street signs, and taller buildings.

However, a bit of the old Albuquerque I knew was found in the decoration of the men’s toilet in a small pizza place we stopped for a goat milk cheese and pesto pizza because heavy rainstorms were passing over the region.

After Albuquerque, the sun was back and I needed to refuel my car. A stop at another small store gave me a chance to capture what I identify with the vast open spaces of the South West.

Yes, it was time to take the leather jacket off and enjoy the sun of the desert!

Route 40: Entering Arizona

Arizona, like New Mexico, is home to numerous American Indian nations. While one drives 75miles an hour on the open highways, the signs on the side of these highways are most telling of what to expect, how things are advertized, and how the desert winds affect these signs. I tried to take a few pictures from the car.

But there cannot be "driving pictures" without including one from the thousands of 18-wheeler trucks going coast to coast. Look at the driver of this truck-- do you think his master is sleeping in the back of the cabin??

Flagstaff, Arizona

Finally reached these high mountains at 6000 feet elevation (somehow in my mind 2000 meters seem more impressive…). Flagstaff was just waking up at 8 am when we entered the city and had to stop for a double Espresso. Then we needed to walk a bit and give our dog a bit of space to run. So went to a quiet cemetery on the campus of North Arizona University.

Can one find cubism in nature?  This Aspen tree seemed to be looking at me while keeping an eye on the quiet grave stones surrounding it. It was Picassoesque; it was Salvador Dali; it was just perfect. So with the old Nikkor 105mm wide open at 2.5, I framed that look with a gravestone silently blurred in the background.

… After five days and 4000 kilometers across America, it felt good to be on a firm mattress 2000 meters away from the desert below….

October 2, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

UFOs: Where Did All the Bees Go?

I saw this man looking over the Inner Harbor of Baltimore from the top of Federal Hill. He was purposefully anachronistic in his clothing; I was too with my mechanical camera and film. So, a quick click as part of my daily photographic diary.

When I printed the picture, I noticed a “black spot” in the upper left quadrant.  A bird, I thought, but it did not have wings.  A plane, but it had no distinguishable features. Intrigued, I looked under my loupe.

It was a strange capture!  I could clearly see the antennae, head, legs and abdomen of a bee. Yet something was wrong with the relative size of that bee within the picture: it was just too big to be a bee! I estimated that it was at least 40 feet away from my lens, yet it looks the size of a small bird. 

Further, the focus seems almost appropriate, placing this creature in the same plane as the anachronistic man. I enlarged the “bee”—yes, it sure looks like a bee!

Is it a bee? Or, as the high-top hat of this man, it is a visitor from another time.  Another space?

I do not know. But the unintended captures through an old lens and 100 ASA film makes me often realize that it is not enough to rely on our eyes to see what surrounds us.  

September 21, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Street Photography from a Dog's Perspective

September started with festive weeks in Baltimore. Tall ships came to the harbor from different oceans and the streets filled a million visitors for music, foods of the world, and fireworks at night. It is the Centennial Celebration week of the Star s Spangled Banner, remembering the victory of the Battle of Baltimore, when the British failed in their attack on Fort McHenry in 1814, and Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner”.  With all these people everywhere, I was certain that I will have a grand time with my camera.

But I did not. Somehow I was unable to find interesting people in a million-strong crowd! They all seemed to just walk, incessantly take pictures with their digital gizmos, and do nothing unusual! After walking in the crowd for a couple of hours, I decided that it was not my day for pictures.

On the way back, I saw a dog and his friend sitting on a 4 meter tall wall at the board of the ocean waters. Perhaps they had also given up walking in that ocean of people. Instinctively I took a picture. Then I realized that the dog was at a higher elevation than I was looking down at me. And a thought crossed my mind: 

 How does the world look to this dog when he is on the ground walking among a million people? That makes for two million legs!  What does he see? Clearly not the faces of people. How does he interpret all these feet and legs he walks through?

Aha! I had a theme now—I planned to go out the next day and take pictures of peoples’ legs. It would be a dog’s perspective. And I wondered:  if I can train my dog to use a camera, what will be in his frames?

That idea made me smile, almost laugh. What a couple we would make if my dog and I hang a 1948 Rolleiflex from our necks and go out to take pictures!

… The next day was rainy but warm. I covered my camera under a small umbrella and went out to discover a dog’s perspective in street photography.

For starters, I needed a small crowd. I looked around for a while to realize how boring it is to look at peoples’ legs and feet. Sure, aesthetically some legs are more attractive than others, but in the street, everyone seemed to stand in a most boring way. So I decided to start with such a picture. 

What would a dog think about such a crowd? Maybe a smaller group will be more interesting? I was totally shocked to realize that if I point my lens to legs in a group, they all seem so banal, so pedestrian! Clearly, I did not have the appreciation of a dog’s perspective and I needed to first see the faces of these people.

Ok, what about a depth of field challenge? If a single person is the focus point, does that give the dog a different perspective? Do dogs have a selective focusing capability like my 1970 Nikkor 105 mm lens? Or do they see everything equally focused? 

And then, I caught that second all of us hope to capture when holding a camera: the man in this couple lifted a leg! Ha, I was laughing when I clicked hoping that later on when I develop the film, I will be rewarded with the intended shot. And I was. “Now”, I said to myself “a dog will fully understand what this man is about to do!” 

Finally, I needed a dog picture to bring things to a normal perspective and routine. But not just a picture of a dog, rather a dog next to legs. And I found it. 

… Silly project? Perhaps. But I have to admit that I had more laughs with this excursion into a million people-strong crowds than I had in previous projects. And, I learned that at the level of a dog’s eyes, human legs are boring!

September 13, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

From Beirut 40 Years Later

Recently, I have been going through my mother’s boxes.  It took me a few years to be ready for this inquiry.

I already wrote about the Ottoman era pocket watch made by Armenian watchmakers I found in one of her boxes (http://vahezen.blogspot.com/2014/07/ottoman-times-armenian-timemakers.html). Today I will share a photo, with a history.

… To my surprise, in a shoebox (Hachim Shoes, a well known Lebanese shoe maker) I found rolled 35mm negatives, 127 film strips, and even large format cut-negatives from the 1940s. Large format? Who in the family used such expensive cameras in those days of war, immigration and struggle in Lebanon? I took the box to my darkroom equipped with 1950s enlargers, loops, trays and memorabilia from my previous darkrooms. I spent days looking at these negatives under the loop and wondering who all these people were.

Then I rolled open the 35mm negatives. These were my photos taken in the 1960s and 1970s with my 1954 Russian Kiev camera. Even then I was curious about mechanical things, so I had opened the camera to see what was inside and realized that it was in fact a true German Contax rebadged as Kiev. I have since owned and used hundreds of classic cameras but I believe that Kiev was a watchmaker’s work—it was pure joy to wind and click, and the Sonnar lens had the creamiest bokeh wide-open.

Most of the negatives were creased, cracked, scratched and affected by time and friction. After all they have travelled to four countries in the past 70 years like their immigrant owners. And in the 1970’s they have seen war. 

So, I decided to print a few pictures from the 35mm negatives, all taken during the 1970s Lebanese Civil War. The one that shocked me when I watched it slowly come to life in the developer tray, under the red darkroom light, was that of a young man, with what seems a hookah tube in his hand.  The tortured negative had not affected his eyes—after a minute in the developer solution they were looking at me with an intensity that froze me and made me forget to take the paper out of the solution to the “Stop Bath” tray making the print darker and the eyes surprisingly brighter.

… I hung the print to dry after washing it under running water and continued to look at it under the red light. These were the eyes of a young man wondering what the future reserves when stuck inside an apartment during a civil war. It was a vivid moment from 40 years ago, kept in a shoebox to come back to life in my darkroom.

What sent a chill down my spine was the fact that this was an auto-portrait, taken with my 1954 Kiev camera probably placed on our coffee table, in Beirut, sometime between 1974 and 1975…

September 7, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014