Happy New Year. To continue with the idea of last year’s effort I had thought of several themes this year. Problem was such limited time to work on them. I did spend a week in November working on what I thought would be this years effort to share with all of you and get a little vacation at the same time. Well, failed to completely capture enough images so will continue that idea for next year and maybe get done on time with the head start I have. This year without enough images I had to take a different direction. As you have noticed it is color. I do take color along with the B&W, but usually as an after thought. So this special year I would like to share some of the same images in color. Some will be familiar, some I have never used the black and white version and a few were recorded this last fall.

A good black and white image does not always make a good color composition. Since I can have some control over black and white and record the world I see from within onto black and white that is the medium I use. I like color but I cannot control the range of contrast like in black and white so it feels like I am just recording what is in front of me and not creating an image from within. Color, as I have discovered, is not permanent. While selecting the images for this group I discovered that many of my images from twenty plus years ago have a strong color shift. Black and White negatives from thirty years ago still reproduce as they did originally.

This last year has been challenging for me, I do hope the coming year is good to all of you and this late effort finds you well and at peace.

Michael, January 2000

Technical Notes:
All the photographs are large format, 4" x 5", recorded between 1980 through 1999. The film used was Fuji Velvia, ASA 50, for most and Kodak Ektachrome, ASA 100, on older images. The original color slides were scanned with an HP 4C scanner and minor contrast corrections and sizing completed with Photoshop 4.0. The calendar layout was developed in Page Maker and the photographic images added to the Page Maker computer files. This year the print shops wanted too much money so the printing was done on a color laser.