NOW at the Waterbury Library

Photographs from the continuing series, "Brass Valley Made in America," are on exhibition at the Silas Bronson Library in Waterbury, from June 3 to July 31.

An Invitation
WHEN: June 19th at 6:30 PM
WHERE: Silas Bronson Library, Waterbury (http://www.bronsonlibrary.org/)
WHAT: Emery Roth will show slides, talk about his experiences, and read poems and stories from the draft of his book on Brass Valley. For three years Mr. Roth has been following the old railroad tracks and photographing among ruins and in the last working brass mill in the Naugatuck Valley. Thanks to the existence of a unique extruder, one brass mill continues operation. It is the last descendent of American Brass with functioning mill buildings in Ansonia and Waterbury. Mr. Roth's photographs capture the men and equipment at work, the large casting furnaces, the extruder, pickling tanks, draw benches, annealers still functioning in a facility that has been making brass tube since before WW I.


Friday, May 25, 2007

The Other Side


No matter how I plan for a series of related TODAY'S, that plan is diverted by the passion of the moment. My note awhile back on The Hollow was intended as the first of perhaps 4 or 5 images in a series on The Hollow Farm. Similarly, the post on the Bunnell Windows Book was intended to introduce numerous Bunnell Windows. It's not that I later think less of the images never posted; one of the Hollow Farm images has a key place in the Camera's Eye exhibition. Rather, I am diverted by some new passion. In the end, however, things usually come round. And so we return to Bunnells.

The image above was worked on after it was shot and then set aside; it never reached completion. I rediscovered it tonight as I reviewed a folder of such temporarily abandoned images, and maybe the variety produced by such circuitous posting habits is a virtue. I set the image aside for technical reasons. My normal habit is to compose in the camera, and it is very rare that I crop a shot after I shoot it. I have no aesthetic objection to doing so, though cropping yields lower resolution images. This one may never be able to print out at 13"X19", my usual size. However, when I did the initial editing, I found the focal interest of the image in what you see; I cropped the rest away as superfluous.

What you see above is the cropped version, my first thoughts on the image. Below are my second thoughts, my current thoughts. Or maybe they are alternative thoughts. Your thoughts on which version is preferable would be most helpful and interesting. There is no question that the effect is very different.

Peeking In


These are the same velvet surfaces posted under the title: "The Hollow," on May 1. However, it was the windows that first caught my attention. I've never seen windows like these on any other barn, and the contrast between their soft, if perhaps forced, cheeriness and the view through them intrigues me. What the shadowy diagonal form inside the barn may be, I have no idea.

Of course, if you've looked at "Peeking In," and "The Other Side," you realize they are not two versions of the same image. They are two distinct shots from the same series. However, they have been worked up differently as described.