Clayton Salem

christmas time

2009-12-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

I went to a party at Frank and Vivian's on Christmas eve. Frank reminded me that blog posting is for yourself. As Isaac Brock is singing to me right now, "it's hard to remember." So, here's to re-commencing.

Today I met some high school friends at the Hope and Olive: Jessy, Casey, Jaimye, Liz and her husband Robert. After lunch we walked up to the Poet Seat Tower.

oops, i forgot the color balance

Snippets

2009-09-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

We went to Elizabeth Lord's wedding today. I don't know how to spell her new name so I'm using the old for now. Here it is: Schaufelberger. You can see pictures at my flickr site over there ---> Also check out pictures from the parade on Thursday.

Tiffany and I are moving, slowly, to Shelburne Falls. I'll try to update as we make major moves.

another stab at flickr

2009-09-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

hello, if you're interested check out pictures posted on flickr from Frank and Vivian's party a couple weeks ago. I don't remember everyone's name so please feel free to comment. check them out here or on the sidebar.

collaborators wanted

2009-07-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I posted a want-ad for a friend. I received only one brave applicant who saw through my thin veneer of exclusivity. So, I am re-posting the position in more people-friendly terms:

ISO human for long-term/short-term artistic collaboration. Human must have skills and sensitivity. Communication welcome through USPS or email welcome. Collaborators must not be deterred by large gaps in response(we all have important things that take time, right?) Themes may include, but are not limited to, disappointment, isolation, death of loved one, loss, vision, gender, cartography, stratification(economic and geologic), chess, road kill, romanticism, formalism, scataphilia, cameras, exercise, box building, cooking.

Send your notions to:
Clayton Salem
6 Main St
Greenfield, Ma
01301

or email me

This posting can also be found on the Western Mass craigslist > community > artists

big prints

2009-06-26T06:57:00.000-07:00

For a while I've had in my head this way of pushing my epson 4800 to print large format pictures. It's pretty obvious, but I'm cutting images in half and in thirds and printing out "panels" of those images. I'm definitely pushing the print quality to the edge and maybe a little beyond. I'm also unsure of the final format; I have a few ideas I'll share later. The two forest pictures are from 4x5 negatives, the deer is from a 6x7 negative.

Here's a picture illustration of my process. A couple of issues: cutting glass was a new idea in order to speed up the proofing of pictures. You don't see it, but the glass fits into the scanner and hold an 8x10" sheet of negatives flat to the scanner, much like you would in the darkroom. The other thing you don't see is the film development, but it's much like in any darkroom except I'm squatting over the shower basin. The third thing you don't see here is the larger proofs I print out to fine-tune the image and the splitting of the image in photoshop. I guess some things you'll have to just imagine.

Developing in the shower

The clean-up

Cutting glass for contact sheet scanning

Good cut/bad cut

Scanning negatives

Printing out contact sheet

Looking at contact sheet

In process

A couple other larger format prints

The almost-finished picture

pictures from the late spring

2009-06-26T06:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some things that remembered to take pictures of this spring:

Hanging out at Katie's
she claims to be androgynous, but she's sooooooooo cute!

Sonya was there
ohmagaimsoexcied!
battering chicken and my fingers
student work - i should've given out more A's
I rode out to the Eunice Williams' bridge

allergies!

then i treated myself to a sandwich at Bart's
Yesterday Chris Zinn and I hung out here's the result.... click.

wavering

2009-06-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

yes yes yes and no. i want to talk about atheism, anarchy, authority, but each time i sit down to write it comes out all wrong. this format - a public journal, is not for me. to much exposure, not enough thought. i haven't posted for a month because of my discomfort. i've finished teaching for the term and so the only things i can post about, things that might have some interest are my personal inner thoughts, and the picture work that i'm making. i can't very well talk about job because of the hipaa law i've spoke about earlier, and my inner thoughts i'm saving for myself. so all that's left is my picture work. okay, that's the direction i'll take for the next few posts.

but first,

here's some video still captures from iran:

the dark disc in the sky

2009-05-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my team went out to the Ashfield Lake for a goodbye group for the grads. This is a group of students that have been with me my entire time at Swift River. They swam, we ate food from the Ashfield Lakehouse, we played Frisbee. Then, last night, I woke up with a terrifying image in my head -- it was from the frisbee game: a long floating pass into the endzone, the boys gather around looking into the bright white sky. The frisbee hangs in the sky vibrating and growing larger. I squint and feel the shuffle of bodies around me. We are caught for a moment staring at the growing disc, darkening the sky, blotting out the sun, the sky the trees. I freeze, unsure of what to do, I know I need to jump, but the shuffle around me, the pain in my eyes and the growing disc threaten immenent doom.

I didn't catch the firsbee, in fact, I got knocked in the head by somebody's elbow, but that moment is haunting me, worrying me. To leap would be an act of desperation, as if the frisbee is a black hole and to leap, to bend my knees and leap, I might throw myself into the abyss. Fear of loosing myself, and at once the desire, nagging, burning desire to loose myself into that leap, to reach for the sky, for the black hole, to reach,to stretch towards the thing, the shimmering, shaking thing, growing darker, bigger, vibrating, swallowing the sky. I know, and yet, I cannot act. I can only pray that with practice I may learn to leap up into the dark disc.

100 things

2009-04-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

When I was seven I counted to 100. My dad recorded each number in his slanting chaotic script. It was the first of a dozen accomplishment in this life -- it's been slow going. The other day I started saying the number 100 in my head over and over again when I realized that certain things, upon reaching 100 are accomplishments by themselves. Some of the things I was thinking about: 100 post cards, 100 prints of one certain size, 100 push ups(100 days in a row, yeah, beetch!), 100 seedlings, 100 houses, 100 miles, etc.

I guess the nice thing about 100 is that it maintains a certain childhood innocence as a "big number." Sometime in high school I learned that 100 dollars wasn't as much as I thought it was. And 100 people was a crowd, but not a huge one. In this inflationary culture when we're working our way from the gigabyte billions to the terabyte trillions the lowly 100 is very^10 small. However, an individual with only two hands one mouth and two feet can still approach 100 as a truly monumental task.

I won't promise to do any of the things on my 100 list right now; I'd be working towards 100 things I didn't do, maybe in 100 days.

boredom

2009-04-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

I'm running at 55mph these days, you know, the limit in times of scarcity. I mentor trouble teens, teach them photography and now I'm working on a short movie. Idle hands are the devil's playthings(or whatever). I have a lot to offer, so it's sort of like I'm the very popular guy, everybody wants to participate in what I'm doing. But they're all teens, and our relationship is, by nature, prescribed by the mentor/menti, or teacher/student boundaries. That's a good thing and necessary for that part of my life, but I'm feeling a lack in the other. All of my creativity is going into work. That's okay, but when work is bounded by very strict laws about privacy, rules about intimacy and establishing good boundaries, well, I'm limited. And without creative relationships outside of work, I'm stuck.

So, I'm looking for a friend who wants to work on a project. Something big, something huge, ambitious and over-grand. Someone who can withstand my stony-faced disregard, ignore my whining and self-loathing, someone, anyone, who can keep up.

**this is not an equal-opportunity offer, applicants must be male, or of male persuasion and be between 5'9" and 6'1". Applicant much not work with teenagers or children, must enjoy working in silence, and performing manual labor. Applicants must have better musical taste than me and be able to provide musical entertainment when required. Attractive applicants are desired, though not too attractive, you know, cute, or hunky, but not so drop-dead gorgeous that you outshine me. Applicants must enjoy beer and liquor, but not drink too much because the last thing I need is a co-dependent. Smokers are acceptable, as long your brand isn't Camels, though, with cigarettes the price they are maybe you should quit, we could buy ink and paper for the price of those cigarettes, I mean, come on, eight dollars a pack. Applicants should be C++CAD. Applicants must furnish proof that they have spent some time in a mental health facility. Applicants must not wear green. Applicants must have a cool haircut. Please send application with a self-address stamped envelope to:

Friend c/o
Clayton Salem
6 Main St
Apt 4
Greenfield, Ma 01301 literate and have familiarity with

another quick one

2009-03-24T19:43:00.001-07:00

Today was our lesson on shutter speeds. The students use my camera to capture motion blur(dark against light, light against dark) and freeze-frame. We didn't get to panning, maybe on Friday.
Mr. Salem loves being in pictures
Motion blur
I've been planning to make some big prints using two or more pieces of paper. Here's a first attempt, of course I forgot to put something in for scale, let's see, the clock in the lower left is about five inches wide...

quickie

2009-03-17T07:54:00.001-07:00

We turned the classroom into a Camera Obscura. I couldn't post the "class portrait in camera" because of the hipaa laws. This was the test shot. Check out Abelardo Morell's Camera Obscura work .

putting things on hold

2009-03-12T06:56:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's that time of year -- acceleration in spring. I'm teaching again, today is day one of the trimester. If you don't know, I work full time at a boarding school in the residential department. They've given me the opportunity to teach photography. It's a great way to make extra money, and to make me an valuable employee in these high unemployment times. That leaves me little time for the myriad projects simmering in the back of my head and under piles of unattended to bills, notes and objects of interest. It also leaves little time for this journal. I may have to post just to get some things out of my head and into the world, but I don't expect to be posting regularly. Not that I do anyway...

new camera fun

2009-03-03T19:06:00.000-08:00

So I was cruising craigslist the other day, something I shouldn't do if I'm trying to save money, when I came across an unbelievable deal on an Omega View with three lenses and accessories. For those of you LF camera geeks the lenses are: Caltar IIN 210mm, Fuji 150mm and the creme de la cream, Rodenstock Grandagon 90mm 6.8...sweet. Normally you can't find that last lens for the price he was asking for the entire kit.

Turns out the guy, Dave, is a professional from southern Connecticut. I made the trek down to Hartford and met him in a laundry mat parking lot. Really nice guy, someone offered him more money, but since I'll be using it for education purposes, he held onto for me. Awesome, great guy.

So, of course I very excited to try it out, but I don't want to wait for film to develop, so I set the cameras like this:
With Tiffany as subject
dark cloth goes on
and... snap
funny faces, thanks Tiffany for riding down with me...and thanks Dave

I need your help

2009-02-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

Actually, I'm putting a hold for better names. Please stand by...
Here's what's going on: I'm putting my personal image collection for sale on an online craft sales website. The plan is to sell higher resolution digital images, my own, for personal and commercial use. Basically I am putting my images out as if I were my own stock agency. The difference is that they come from one source (me) and the files cost much less(still working on the price per image, but think itunes). Is this a good idea? I don't know, but I'm going to try it out.

So, what I need help with is a good name. On the side I'm putting up some options that I'm thinking about, but please feel free to suggest others. I'm leaning fishyly because I like canned fish, and it also sort of sticks with the idea of many cheap things packed together.

Walking through Greenfield

2009-02-20T07:34:00.001-08:00

93 Conway St
A couple posts ago I talked about making a picture-map of Greenfield. Conway Street runs from Main St. out to the highway where it turns into Leyden Road. I may not follow it that far, but I've posted from Main St to Philips St here.

Oh, and I've also started an etsy shop to try and sell off the pile of prints flopped around the house: here, thanks Tiffany.

Catching up on some stuff

2009-02-10T09:31:00.001-08:00

I went to Hunt's the other day to pick up some odds and ends. They have a bin of old lenses. I found a 50mm 1.8 nikkor, score! It is filled with dust, the focus and aperture rings are loose and it's an AI lens, which mean no metering, but for 5$ it is a deal. I'm psyched that I now have a medium telephoto for my d90.I don't have pictures of the lens, but here are a couple pictures from the lens:
It takes nice breakfast pictures
Oh, and it came with a soft focus filter attached, hello hollywood.
I'm proud of my fern and my light box.
this isn't with the new lens, I just like it.

Wasting away on a Tuesday

2009-02-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

If you know my schedule you know that Tuesday is my Sunday. This means that I end up wanting to do a hundred things on Tuesday and end up diddling away the day. I said last week that I would do another screen print and show you the process, but I've been waiting for a new screen that I ordered from Dick. It will probably arrive in an hour or two.

Until then I thought I would start another project: photo mapping of buildings in Greenfield. The plan is to create a database of pictures of houses in the neighborhood and link them to the maps in Google Earth(G.E. from now on). As I look into it I realize that it is more complicated than just up loading and linking. To do it right I will probably have to get my own server to host the KML files. The other issue is that, like much of the internet, popularity reigns. You can go on G.E. and see pictures in Greenfield, but they are either "points of interest" or a quirky pic of a snowman. The images chosen are inevitably those deemed appealing to the masses.
Does this point to the inevitable contradiction of populism? See it like this: the most popular images are Eiffel Tower, Daytona Beach, Grand Canyon, Piccadilly Circus, places well known to all people. On G.E. you will find many pictures of these well known places. But the houses that most people live in will not be hosted on G.E. because, after all, who wants to look at pictures of your neighbor's house; it's right there. I guess my hope is that a program like G.E. allows could raise up those banal structures that surround us to object worth looking at. I think they are. Until I've figured out how to by-pass the editors at G.E. you can look at my first step on panoramio here.

2009-02-09T06:16:00.000-08:00

Last night my mom hosted a pre-birthdya party for me. Tobey was there, and Frank and Vivian too. Of course Tiffany was there. And my mom and I. We talked a lot about blogging and wondered at Tiffany dropping her Tiffany in the Trees blog which had a significant number of subscribers. I didn't take any pictures, but trust me there was a lot of food. Instead we'll look at some odds and ends from the past couple of weeks.

Walking across campus we spotted this beautiful Venus and Crescent Moon alignment. One of the students insited I take a picture. Now it looks like momma blur and baby blur.
Soup and Games at the H&O.
Classy
I had some heavy duty dreams last night. This is an illustration of one part. The eyeball floated out of my forehead and stuck to the ceiling.

silk screen printing

2009-02-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

My latest hobby:
Single color Tiffany presaging her migraine on tshirt material
Four color Bina, Mike and Jaimye watching TV on Bristol

I'm very new to this and I am sure that there are better ways to do it. Maybe in another post I'll show you my technique. I could use some pointers from experienced printers out there.

sick like a dog

2009-01-21T17:44:00.001-08:00

I caught a cold over the weekend. I haven't left the house since Sunday. Yesterday I was a wreck. At least today I had the energy to take some pictures:

This is what my view was all day yesterday
Mmmmhhh... starting the morning right
Hello handsome
I dozed in front of this yesterday. At least now I'll no exactly where I was for the inauguration: on the couch.
I was dreaming about this apple yesterday as I lay in bed parched and hungry. Tiffany brought me home two. So juicy, so crunchy.
The leftovers, I was being picky.
On and unrelated note, some of the seedlings are coming to life.
my basal temperature is 100.3, which either means I'm menstruating or I've got a fever.

closing doors

2009-01-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

I know that I don't say much about my real life on this blog -- even the pictures of my intimate space lack meaning, or context. I photograph as if the thing photographed is floating a void of visual looking. (although, maybe that too is a shortsighted description; my pictures float, not in a purely visual world, but in a highly romanticized mode of picture planes, victorian structures and self-flatulation.(boy, sometimes I pontificate when I try to write.(oh,and yes, I meant flatulation, not flagellation, I thought it'd be funny.)))

- What's your point?
- No, I don't got a point, I went in thinking about writing about disappointment, opportunity, thoughtful progress, but it's coming out all wrong.
- Well, say what you want to say and then put a couple pictures up. You took that picture of a door; make a metaphor where your missed opportunity is the closed door and you can then, uh, move away from the door.
- Yeah, but now that you say it like that it doesn't make sense.
- So what? You never think symbols out very far, just stick it in there and count on the viewer to assume it means something profound.
- I will, I will, but I wanted to talk about the process a little before we leap into the symbolic world.
- Ok, you shot the picture, you talk about the process. I assume that's what you mean, you're very vague sometimes.
- You don't need to be so, whatever. So, I took a picture of the white closet door, it was open a crack and I liked the dark line created by that crack. Then I took a picture of the bathroom door, it's is also white and I've tried to photograph it before, but it always comes out, ergh, bad. Then I thought to myself,
- to me
- Yeah, to you, "the only door I like in the house is the front door." So then I went to the hallway, and took three photographs of the door. I was worried about camera shake and wanted to get the framing, just so.
- OK, so what, you took five pictures.
- Well, I guess I wanted to figure out why I didn't just stick with the first picture.
- It was boring.
- But so is the last picture, it's uninteresting, but it's uninteresting in a way... I dunno.
- Listen, there's more contrast in the last picture. It's a dark door against a white wall. There's nothing much to it. I feel comfortable saying this because we're so intimate, but I think your an asshole for spending this much time on the freaking door picture. You deleted the other pictures anyway, so we can't even look back at them.
- I'm afraid to talk about what I wanted to talk about.
- Yeah, I know.
- It's not even the subject matter, it's the manner that I speak that I fear renders things banal. Like, I am grasping at meaning then, when I write it down, something that seemed profound in my head becomes flat, obvious and leads nowhere.
- Did you smoke a lot of pot in high school?
- and college.
- And did you have these mind-blowing day-glow curlycue images that saturated your head with light, then, when you looked at yourself the next day it was drab, gray and obvious?
- Yeah, sure, you know that. And your sounding like a therapist making explanations for feelings.
- I'm just trying to be kind to you. I'm usually critical and mean.
- OK.
- Well, you know where I'm going, but let's let the readers in on the thought process, okay?
- yeah, yeah, go.
- Well, if you spent you intellectually formative years going into these wild curving mind trips, only to find, each time, that the result was a flat and sort of stupid idea, well, then of course you still shy away from exploring anything very deeply. And since your mode of expression was writing, then hear you are struggling with your inner voice avoiding saying what you want to say.
- Holy shit, sigh, you figured it out.
- Okay, you don't need to pull a fancy role reversal, asshole.
- Okay, but I want people to read this and find it interesting, engaging. This pseudo-therapeutic jawing doesn't attract readers, and it will probably turn a bunch of them off.
- Right, but I'm the one who likes the void. I don't care what other people think.
- Well, I wish I were as brave as you, because I'm imaging people reading this and what they're thinking to themselves about me, about us.
- Yeah, well, if your imaging it why not use some quotes or parentheses or italics. I'm letting you use that stuff.
- To much effort, I don't really know who reads this, certainly don't know who gets this far in this masturbatory dialogue.
- You've been wanting to use that word all morning.
- Yeah, seemed appropriate there.
- Well, are we done now?

Projects around the house

2009-01-13T11:23:00.000-08:00

I was going to label each of the ongoing projects that I'm procrastinating from, but I kinda like their mute thingness without the labels. Just look and enjoy and guess what I'm not doing at the moment.

who wants a postcard?

2009-01-13T10:16:00.001-08:00

Cleaning out my desk I found a small collection of unwritten post cards. Do you want one? Send me your address and I'll write and post it to you.

New Year Resolutions

2009-01-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

If you hang out with me for any extended period of time you will, at one point or another, hear me bragging about achieving my New Year's resolutions in 2008. It seems to me that most people make vague or over ambitious goals. By the end of the year either they've become discouraged with the difficulty of their task or they have no way to measure their progress. So you will hear me crowing about concrete task, achievable goals and measurable steps. I can be quite a bore, I assure you.

This New Year I am carefully considering the years resolutions. Once I start thinking about the things that I want to do I get a little bogged down by my own ambitions. In the interest of getting it out of my head and out into the world I submit this list. This is not my New Year Resolutions, because, as I've said before, those need to be clear achievable goals that have measurable results, but it is a list of Resolutions to be Considered.

Exercise - schedule? Mon, Wed, Fri -- pounds bench pressed? miles run?
Chess - join icc play 100 games online
Photo - create greenfield landscape series 8-12 prints, matt, hang, show
Photo - portraits of friends, family ditto above
Photo - continue list of Photographers I Know, lunch coffee with them
Work - it's out of my hands, but I am applying for a promotion(re-write resume, today!)
Reading - reading list? 12 novels, 24 books? write thoughts, blurbs, reviews of books
Writing - write in journal every day
Relationships - see grandma 1x a week, make a baby with Tiffany, help Mom around the house
Garden - garden
Photo - get some work printing for students $$
Video - organize video tapes, shoot more video
Music - learn to play some songs on the bass, learn 6 songs on guitar
Health - dentist, find a therapist
Finance - buy a house
Education - pursue a post-grad degree, figure out what you'd want to study
Gear - sell enough stuff on ebay to buy the 18-200mm lens
More Photo - print albumen using digital internegatives