Michael Sebastian

With my Jobo still out for repair* I haven’t processed any film at home in over two months. I also haven’t shot much black and white lately, and with today’s lovely crisp bright cloudless weather, I got a hankering to do both of those things. So I loaded up with T-Max 100 and headed out to try something new (for me.) Read the rest of this entry »

Thanksgiving is of course a day for reflection and gratitude, doubly so when it’s also one’s 47th birthday. Mine started with breakfast in bed, courtesy of my beautiful kids and my lovely wife. Tabasco the Brittany wasn’t able to snatch my bacon—sorry fella, it’s MY day.

After that, I spent a few hours photographing alone—a long-term project of mine, one which has yet to really coalesce in my head. I even got ejected from two  deserted malls by two different Mall Cops, the first of whom ratted me out by radio to the second. Any day containing multiple photo-trespassing evictions is by definition a fine one.

So what am I thankful for? My heart is so full, I almost don’t know where to start. My wife, whose love, support, and patience are a wonder. My children, whose lives, health, and happiness are the greatest gifts bestowed upon me. Our comfort and safety, and the ability to look after my family the way I want to. Family, scattered about the country though we might be. Friends, both those who’ve been there for the long haul, and those who’ve extended their hands and hearts to me anew this year. To all, I say a heartfelt “thank you.” You are never taken for granted.

One more high five for my wife, for allowing me the time and solitude to indulge this passion that consumes so much of my time and mindspace. Any success with it I might have enjoyed, or might ever hope to enjoy, is as much hers as my own.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

I’m honored to be featured on Aline Smithson’s Lenscratch today, right here.

Thanks a bunch, Aline, for rolling out the welcome mat.

Also, I have been doing a bit of Facebook housekeeping. I’m trying to gain a bit of space between the personal stuff and the photographic stuff there. I’ve set up a separate Facebook page dedicated to the photography, and I’d be pleased to have you all as fans.

As I prepare my portfolio for review at PhotoNOLA next month, my thoughts have naturally turned to the subject of inkjet papers. There’s a welter of different papers out there, so much so that can be overwhelming to consider them. To wit, here are some of my thoughts as I evaluate my range of choices.

I do not intend an exhaustive review of any one paper, nor do I claim any sort of scientific accuracy in my musings. Others have done those things, and reviews of all these papers are available for the searching on the web. (For some of the better reviews, search on Luminous Landscape, or check Stephen Schaub’s Figital Revolution. There are many others.) Furthermore, since PhotoNOLA will be my first portfolio review, I am far from expert about the review process itself.  On that subject, I expect to have more to say here once the bleeding has stopped I have had some time to mull over the experience. Read the rest of this entry »

With my Jobo out of commission, film processing delays are really slowing me down. But here are a few more from our recent trip to Florida.

I doubt jpeg images can do justice to the quality of light we had down there. Just glorious—warm, soft, golden.

Enjoy.

This is the other Dino World shot, a companion to this one:

Dino World, Cave City KY, October 2009

Perdido Key FL, October 2009

Perdido Key FL, October 2009

Trent, Perdido Key FL, October 2009

Trent, Perdido Key FL, October 2009

Montgomery AL, October 2009

Prospect, Kentucky, October 2009. RZ67, 127mm, Ektar 100/EI 100

It’s the reason I live in Kentucky. Well, that and my Kentucky-born wife.

After my sweltering Deep-South upbringing, I didn’t know what fall was; in Louisiana, autumn is a blink of time between the rainy, hot months, and the rainy and not-quite-as-hot months.

When I interviewed for my first job here in October 1998, it was one of those gorgeous, crisp, cool autumn days like we’ve had for most of the past week or so. I was hooked.

And here we are.

I mentioned a couple of months back that I’d had a portrait accepted for inclusion in the Center For Fine Art Photography’s Portraits exhibition, juried by Mary Ellen Mark.

That exhibition is now online here.

Scroll down, and keeeeep going. My image is number 65 of 73 images.

Cave City, KY, October 2009. RZ67, 127mm, Ektar 100 at EI 100

Last month, we made our second trip this year down to the Florida panhandle—fall school break this time. Zooming south on I-65 between Elizabethtown and Bowling Green, you pass this fiberglass T. Rex in all his kitschy majesty. He is the bone-crunching, meat-eating, vestigial-handed doorman and carnival barker for Dinosaur World, and if the light is right, he just needs to be photographed. Recall that, on our last trip in June, I tried to do him justice, but was tripped up by a processor accident. (Little did I know that it was a harbinger of troubles to come, but that’s another story.) Read the rest of this entry »