February 2, 2013

Gavin-Seim-Family-Portrait-2012-880x476Once upon a time there was a guy, his family, a bunch of cameras, a Super Camper and lots of passionate ideas. No sponsors. No backup team – Just the open road, a sense of adventure and three months to take full advantage of.

I’m Gavin Seim. We’re out to explore as we attempt to make images and film that do justice to the beauty America. There’s lots of projects on the menu so we can pay bills and keep gas in the tank. We live mostly by the seat of our pants and enjoy the ride.

On Feb 2nd 2013 we set out for the road trip of 2013 – It’s a tad intimidating but quite amazing. We don’t hang out in RV parks or campgrounds. Months on the road in the Super Camper with my wife Sondra and our kids, Cyrus (5) Ariana (3) and Asher (1). There’s new products to test, new images to make, new stories to tell. Last year the big project was the EXposed Light Workshop. This year we’re working on a brand new film called Photographics. By the way,  you can learn more about our rig and tips on how we camp in this article.

With Facebook pages becoming less effective and the fact that I can’t send out the Light Letter every day, I wanted to share our journey with you in more detail than ever before. So rather than clutter up the journal with endless micro posts, I’ve decided to try something new – A Road Trip Journal.

This journal details our adventures by reverse date. The stuff you normally don’t see. The snapshots, clips, odd happenings and craziness. The things I’m sometimes reluctant to share, being such a perfectionist. That’s what you’ll find here. I hope you join in this adventure. Bookmark this page and come back because we’ll keep updating as long as we can still pound the keys. You can also join my Light Letter below for more updates and stories. Lets roll.

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FINAL UPDATE: What it’s Like Coming Home Day 89-91 05/01/13 – 05/03/13

Cyrus at Cabelas
Cy likes the shooting gallery at Cabela’s. Teach them early.

It’s bittersweet as I drive down the hill towards familiar grassy slopes and familiar cities on the map. We watch a Spring sunset and flowers spattering green hills. Three full months on the road we’ve been. An adventure of that won’t be forgotten. Yet a part of me feels somehow less for it coming to an end. Like my spirit of adventure is fading because I long for that slow hot shower, a bed where my toes do not hang over the edge and where my wonderful wife’s elbows do not hit me in the side every time she rolls over.

The last few days lacked the grand adventure you look for at the end of a long trip. The kids got a stomach bug and did what you do when you have that. Sometimes we had two going at once – The miles were long and we needed to get home soon for Wall Portrait Conference. We drove hard that final day. Perhaps longer than we’ve ever done. Over five hundred miles from Twin Idaho to Ephrata WA. It took us about twelve hours between breaks, gas and pauses to clean up the mess from sick kids in the back seat.

“What a lousy way to end such a grand adventure” I thought – But somewhere along the road I stepped into the sunlight and realized it was not. Sometimes we get sick, but it passes. Sometimes things go wrong, we have to make repairs, or we come in late. All of those things happened on this trip. More than once. But they’re part of the memories, part of the adventure. They’re surrounded by moments of laughs and wide eyes glistening at the wounder of creation.

The moment I pull in I’m starting a new vacation. We worked hard on this trip. We played hard. It was a gamble too, but our new film PHOTOGRAPHICS is already showing in the black and the trip is all but profitable both emotionally and fiscally. All that time on the road, but so happy to have a place to call home.

We walk in after 91 days on the road and switch on the lights. The house is still here, warm, waiting. Nearly as we left it but for a few extra cobwebs. A bed, a shower, a late night movie with my wife after the kids are finally asleep. We really are home. Next it’s time to process the film, repair the gear, make the prints and get organized.

On Sunday we’re off for a week again to learn and teach at Wall Portrait Conference. But really we’re home right now. It’s only a couple hours away and among people we know. That home feeling is back. It’s odd. Truly surreal to walk down the isle at the store and for once in so long see people you know. Get a hug from your mom when you walk thru a door, or see neighbors wave as you drive down the street. I honestly feel strange not being the stranger here. But that passes and fades into tales of the adventure and silent longing for more.

As the sun shines on our first day home, a breeze blowing, spring flowers popping out, I realize that the world is still alive and that both home and away are something grand. Appreciating your adventure is how you look at it. There’s nothing like a place to call home, but there’s also nothing like the open road, your wife riding shotgun and kids kicking the back of your seat as the road rolls by. This is living, all of it.

Until the next trip, Gavin Seim.

Coming down from the Death Road new Zion. Amazing views.
Coming down from the Death Road new Zion. Amazing views.
Picked up a hitchhiker from France named Tebu who's roaming America. He's headed for Moab. No room in the truck cab, but he fits in the back and his gear in the camper. This guy is hauling way too much weight.
Picked up a hitchhiker from France named Tebu who’s roaming America. He’s headed for Moab. No room in the truck cab, but he fits in the back and his gear in the camper. This guy is hauling way too much weight.

 

An evening at the Salt Flats. It's a stark place. but grand none the less.
An evening at the Salt Flats. It’s a stark place. but grand none the less.

 

The kids are hams. Just like dad.
The kids are hams. Just like dad.
The last sunset, overlooking the hills neat Pendleton Oregon.
The last sunset, overlooking the hills neat Pendleton Oregon.
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January 1, 2013

PhotoGraphics8

 

It’s no secret that I love to travel, to study and to hunt out ideas new and old that will make me a better image maker.

But months on the road are not free. And gas is certainly not. The hidden but sad truth is that my bill collectors do not put my bills on HOLD while I load up my entire family and spend months on the road traveling, studying, filming and making new images. So while each of my giant trips is fairly open in it’s destinations, I still plan. Last year by big project was the EXposed workshop. It was more work than I imagined, but it also came out better than I ever imagined

Here we are in 2013 and the time has come – In around a month we’ll hit the road again for about three months. For details on that visit the tours page. This years project is one I’m very excited about. One that takes on some of the harder to approach concepts of photography, like composition and over arching technique. But it does something more. As the adventures progress, this film explores history and looks for what we can learn from it to make our art better.

The truth is I don’t know exactly what I’m going to find our there. But I know it’s going to be interesting and I’m confident you’re going to like what you see. We’re gearing up and laying out plans now for what’s shaping up to be a bold project for a small fish like Seim Studios. But stay tuned. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

You can get more details on PhotoGraphics here and join my newsletter below to get updates. See you on the open road.

Gavin Seim

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September 24, 2012

Vintage 1968 photo magazines I bought. It’s refreshing to see articles on how to make good photos, instead of how to fix ones that were made wrong.

by Gavin Seim: (rev 05/13)

It was Spring of 1968. Motor Trend had just crowned the GTO car of the year, Eddie Adams just made one of the most iconic images in history and in a few months the Detroit Tigers would win the World Series. Pentax was telling us they made “fine photography easy.” and the Polaroid swinger was happily swinging off shelves. Topics ranged from the quality of drugstore printing to the latest spot meters. And yes, publishers knew that bare breasted woman sold photo magazines. Even then.

It was in the Spring of 2011 when I jumped back into film. I had cut my teeth on it back in the late 90’s. That was around the time the Unibomber was captured, scientists cloned sheep and Titanic sunk into theaters with a splash. As I grew, digital did too and soon took over the game. It was fresh, exciting and before long, even practical. Soon professionals everywhere were laying down their film for what were essentially 35mm SLR’s with a bit less detail. It was in some ways a downgrade, and yet digital does offer many advantages.

So I decided to go back and take film seriously. Loading it up for my travels to use it alongside digital. At first it was for the simple reason that a well scanned large format negative could produce vastly more detail than today’s digital. So I bought a classic 4×5 Linhoff and went to work. And it was indeed work, I picked one of the harder formats but it would turn out to be well worth it.


– 4×5 HP400 Film, Linhof Technika IV

 

Popular Photography 1968, ad for the Contaflex 126.

A few months earlier in ’68, the world saw Charlton Heston tell his primate overlord “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” A classic was born, that would be somewhat tarnished by less impressive sequels. Meanwhile The soft focus filter was in vogue. Forty-four years later my wife would stand next to me in the living room looking at a cover portrait from a 1968 magazine and say. “It’s blurry.”

Back in the twenty-first century we’re making coffee and I grab my Olympus 35RC rangefinder to take a photo of my kids helping out on the kitchen counter. My daughter giggles adorably and I realize I forgot to wind the film. I react quickly before they move and release shutter. One frame and it’s back to lattes.

I’m in New Orleans with my Linhof. Jan, 2012. It quickly draws a crowd and I’m happily chatting. Photo by Jason Eldridge.

I was not the first to be out there rooting for film in this digital era. Many of the best Pictorialists never stopped using it. People like John Canlas, Ian Ruther and a few others had also been sharing their passion for silver for awhile. But I was not so into the romance, I just wanted the quality. People acted like I was a little crazy, but they still were a bit breathless when they saw my Linhoff Super Technika IV that came out around 1956. It started to become a part of my brand. Not just in my pictorials, but in my portrait work.

Next I started talking about film. I started talking about how I blended it with digital. Scanning, editing, printing. I have nothing against the traditional darkroom and I hope to build one when I have more space. But I’m a digital kid and I have a workflow there. There was a method to my madness. I needed to be able to get great images made and printed large in reasonable time for a reasonable cost.

Soon I had a Jobo ATL1000. A remarkable machine in which you load with a small batch of film and a very small amount chemicals and return about thirty minutes later to finished images, color or black and white. The next step was to scan on my V700 using a wet scanning attachment and then into Lightroom and other tools for the finished image. The result was amazing resolution from this 60’s era camera that has not changed much in half a century. I can get around 100-200MP of detail from 4×5 and a beautiful organic feel that digital somehow misses.

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September 11, 2012

Folio-Resting-Place2

Resting Place – Dry Creek, Oregon, 2012 by Gavin Seim – PPA 2013 Loan Collection.

The forests of the Pacific Northwest are almost primeval in beauty. Tinkling water and gently blowing ferns make an almost unrivaled tranquility. A scene so stunning that in a story, it would be require a giant beast or a sinister wizard to balance the scales. But the tranquility is real and there are no monsters lurking in the shadows. At least, not today.

Forest light is like seasoning on a platter of summer vegetables. It tickles the palette and pleases the senses, but only if used in the right proportions. That happened here. We camped down in the forest and I started early in the morning, having scouted this Dry Creek Oregon location the day before with Nathan, as we filmed for the EXposed Workshop. In truth I did not realize how breathtaking it was until I stood there the following morning. I made my images and then wandered up to the waterfall just a few hundred yards upstream, poking around and peacefully musing about the forest light. I like to muse.

Awhile later I was about to leave when I saw the light. It was beautiful before, but suddenly the sun moved to just the right position when the radiance glimmered and danced through the foliage. Not to harsh, as often happens from high sun over a forest. Just that perfect glow. I quickly setup again and made this image, thankful that I had not rushed away to breakfast, or assumed that the first light was the best I could get. The reward for my patience was Resting Place. Perhaps the best pictorial I have ever made, and certainly one I’m very proud of.

Resting Place – Dry Creek, Oregon.

Release details: Prints Available Now. Order Open Edition originals above. Master prints and Signature Limited Editions can be ordered by contacting gallery.

Currently Released prints….

 

For Photographers. How it was made…

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August 25, 2012

Survivors – Gavin Seim, 2012. Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Washington State.

Oddly it was the first time I had been to St. Helens. A remote park and does not get as much attention as it deserves. My brother and I spent a few days up there filming for my EXposed light workshop and of course, hunting for landscapes.

This place astounds my eyes. Not for it’s serene perfection. But for it’s lack of it. A forest picked up, as by God himself and scattered across the landscape like toothpicks. Some areas have no trees standing. Others have new growth coming back with vigor. And here, the skeletons of the past still stand proud, having survived May 18, 1980, when Mount St. Helens erupted and blew down or scorched 230 square miles of forest.

There are many remarkable stories from that day. And if you live in the Pacific Northwest you may know some of the people that experienced them. But to me these trees still standing, are a reminder and the awesome power in creation and of the valiant effort to stand your ground. They will make a beautiful print… Gavin

Release details: Prints Available.. Order Open Edition originals.. Master prints and Signature Limited Editions are listed below and can be ordered by contacting gallery.

Released prints….

For Photographers. How it was made…

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