adieu 2005

I thought I'd take out the old year with this photo of my friend Carl. The end of the year is a time to look back, sometimes past the current year, to summarize a whole life, and what it has brought about so far. The ability to look back and cherish is a gift given by all the things you held close during that time. Carl is one of them. He and I have been good friends for about 35 years now. Hopefully he'll be out of rehab and back home in a week or two. He's made fantastic progress since his stroke.

This was taken with Tri-X. I worked in my cold N.Miami darkroom during the recent cold snap. I'm more used to souping film at 85 degrees than at 60. It's not always easy getting great negatives at those extremes. Lately my friend Mikal Grass has been buying some strange films and I've been playing around with some MACOPHOT CUBE 400, but I really don't care for the flattened out mid-tones. Mikal is fond of new film discoveries and often shares with me. There's something to say for that, as long as you keep notes and use the film creatively.