gabriel biderman ~ fine art photography

Phyllis Freeman Gustafson was my Grandmother.
She was also known as Bubbie, Mom, Auntie Pessie, and a dear friend to a lot of people.
To me, she was Cape Cod.

One of the first times that I met her was after my first airplane flight at the age of 5.  My Mom and I just moved from the West Coast to as far as you could go on the East Coast, Dennisport Massachusetts. The memories are flooding back.

We were surrounded by water on the peninsula turned isthmus, known simply as the Cape. And it was the water, the sea, the warmer Atlantic Ocean that fueled my Grandmother.  We practically lived at the beach during the summer, collecting silver dollars, shells and hunting for hermit and horseshoe crabs. The Cape’s high and low tides push and reveal the underbelly of the Sea. During low tides Grandma would lead us as we would walk or float out to the distant sandbars. And there we would rest, in the middle of this temporary island, with the shore now in distance along the horizon line.

Our visits out to these sandbars were never too long, the tides quickly changed their minds and reclaimed the land they revealed.
Thinking about this now, it is easy to make allusions to sandbars and the style of photography that I love.  Long Exposure Photography reveals the unseen time:  the seconds, minutes and hours that can evolve in a single exposure.  Star trails, moving water, and time can not be seen with the naked eye but it can be captured with a camera.  However, each capture, each picture, is a one of a kind.

I took 8 shots of the lower left image. I varied the exposure between 4 and 8 seconds, and each time the water and sky moved differently, thus creating a unique photograph every time.

Grandma Gus was a high energy woman, to say the least.  She spoke her mind, whenever, wherever, and pushed you to be. That push frustrated a lot of her family and friends at times but probably because we didn’t know what or who we wanted “to be” yet.  Once we had an idea, she fueled it ~ bringing us to museums, sending books, or taking us on inspirational trips.

When I graduated college, majoring in Theater, she got me a camera. We all know the road that has led me down.
And when I moved from the East back to the West and was going through some tough times, she flew out to see me. She saw that I did not want or know how to process what I was going through,  So she took me to the Ocean to see the unseen. It was the first time that Grandma Gus touched the Pacific Ocean. Walking through the water at Ocean Beach in San Francisco is not a popular thing to do, the water is constantly cold, no swimming out to sandbars here! But Grandma took off her shoes and didn’t think twice.
I had the camera in my hand and took one shot, the one you see above.

I love you Grandma, you were always there for us, even when we didn’t think we needed it.
I’ll miss you dearly but will carry your spirit as it continues to push me along..

I invite anyone who knew Phyllis Freeman Gustafson to share a story on this blog. In this little way we can keep a record of her life and inspirations. If you would like a free copy of the 8×10 photograph of Phyllis walking along the Pacific please contact me.

The 8 minute view from Joyce Tenneson’s porch at night.
I’m up at the Maine Media Workshops taking an amazing Black and White Digital Printing Class with George Schaub. Somehow they let me take out the Marshall’s Inks on this image! I highly recommend taking the trek to Maine and immersing yourself in one of their workshops, it really is a special place.

The f295 kickoff last weekend was a huge success!  Thanks to the over 150 people who came out to Saturday night’s 21st Century Photography opening!  The work and vibe must have been reminiscent of Stieglitz‘s old Camera Club openings!  Thanks  also to all that helped put the show together:  the artists who shared their work, The Camera Club of NY who gave their 500 square feet, David, Jennifer, and Amy on the B&H organizational end ~ as well as serving up a record amount of kosher wine!  And finally, Tom Persinger, who brought us all together and had one heck of a time trying to make letters stick on walls.

Wondering what camera to document the gallery opening with, I finally settled on using my trusty Panasonic LX-3, which is an advanced digital point and shoot.  The pioneering Panasonic has a little throwback feature, it has a pinhole scene mode!  See, I told you that pinholes were enjoying a renaissance!  For some reason the pinhole mode is limited to 3MP images while applying a vignette and desaturating the image.   I know it would have been better if the lens could have come off to reveal a real pinhole over the digital sensor but hey, I wasn’t going to get everyone to stand still for 5 hours for the group shot! All the images on the left were taken in this “pinhole mode” while the right hand side shows the packed house for Sunday’s presentation at the B&H Event Space.  For the second straight year over 80 people showed up to listen and learn about new ways to use older technology.

We all struggle with keeping our art and life fresh and new.  For photographers the terms wedding, portrait, landscape, pinhole, or even alt process can all pigeonhole and limit our vision.  Tom Persinger asks us to look beyond these stereotypes and empower the 21st Century Photography:

The 21st Century Photographer remains open to the exploration and use of a variety of processes, techniques, and technologies so long as the chosen method(s) most concisely articulate their creative vision. A net result of this paradigm shift is not only complete artistic freedom but also a palpable sense of empowerment. Historically photography has marched down the long path of process obsolescence – one in which new techniques replace old in a continual cycle of progress. In a 21st Century approach, however, control is wrestled from profit driven agencies -corporations, advertisers, and the marketplace all promoting a consumptive photographic model- and given to the artist/photographer. By virtue of taking the responsibility of control, photographers allow themselves to use a pastiche of tools and materials to make pictures. It is this freedom -which is new for many- that empowers and fuels the 21st Century Photographer.

Photography is a toolbox with many means to express your vision.  Some people choose one, others need multiple instruments to complete the vision.  This weekend I saw art that was in jars, painted on, waxed, dyed, and printed on anything from the latest digital technology to handmade emulsions on a variety of surfaces from tin, glass, and paper.  The photograph that I submitted in the show was originally a 6×9 slide.  I was deciding between two basic ways to present my print:
1.  Drop it off at a lab and have them make a negative copy of my positive slide and then a C-print
2.   Scan the slide and print at home on inkjet.
Now, my good friend and constant conscience, David Brommer, stood aghast when I told him that I  I was leaning towards the lab option;  mainly for convenience as I am still not 100% confident in my inkjet printing.  I’m still most at home in the B&W darkroom.  But he reminded me that I had to control the final outcome of my image.

And really, it is all about the process ~ from start to finish.

Now did I enjoy spending close to an hour digitally removing dust from my image?
No.
Is the excitement the same as flipping over the black and white image in the developer under the red light?
Nope.
But, seeing a project from start to finish is still pretty damn fulfilling.

Rebirth

Today marks the 96th year of my grandmother, Fannie Biderman. I was sad to note that when googling her name, very little comes up. So in celebration of her 96th I’ll start a quick list of amazing moments I’ve had with Fannie, so we can get her on the world wide web for her birthday!

1. Cooking in the kitchen with Grandma, I was two years old and not wearing pants.
2. Dressed in red and riding in her boat.
3. Every SF house she lived in always had a fantastic view.
4. Spending the night at Fannie’s usually meant sleeping in a single bed. Real fun with a significant other! Or better yet with 4 people!
5. The Matriarch of the Biderman/Kuller family.
6. Biking through Golden Gate Park to Grandma’s house.
7. The Grey Panthers.
8. Her wardrobe inspired the White Stripes: black, white, and red.
9. Gallery hopping.
10. Museum shopping
11. Gin
12. More Gin
13. Listening to her “Ohhhhhhhhhhh, your really should…”
14. Riding Public Transportation, as taxis were a waste of money, even at 95!
15. Marching in Protest until she was 90ish.
16. Making Salads in the huge wooden bowl.
17. Through the park, over the hills, to grandmother’s house we go.
18. Watching Nancy and Fannie walk ahead of the Biderherd in Paris and Amsterdam, 1997.
19. Slurping down oysters at the Pacific Heights Bar and Grill.
20. Shopping for clothes in the Castro with the Bartlett sisters.
21. Our fabulous Indonesian dinner in Amsterdam
22. Museum D’Orsay in the rain.
23. Her 5:30am exercises.
24. Barhopping in Amsterdam and San Fran.
25. Seeing her blush as a handsome stranger helped put on her coat in a cafe in Amsterdam.
26. Marching in Protest until she was 90ish.
27. The Bittersweet Chocolate Ice Cream that always seemed to be in the freezer.
28 Chinese food at Yet Wah’s famous spinning table.
29. Fannie mixing up everyone’s names.
30. Her hands.
31. A four hour photoshoot with Noel Snow ~ the 2nd photo featured here.
32. Politics and Fannie.
33. She could eat a burrito faster than me until 5 years ago.
34. Always welcoming all my friends to SF.
35. The Grandmothers meeting again, 11 years ago.
36. Fannie’s 86th Birthday Party at Buca di Beppo.
37. And the 90th with Rochelle, Barbara, and Hans.
38. What?! I can’t hear you!
39. Shopping at Trader Joe’s.
40. Life is a Party with Fannie.
41. The many other photoshoots I put her through ~ anything for art!
42. The hand made birthday cards she would always send.
43. The hearing aid battery sculpture in her living room.
44. Letting me be her roommate when I was 29.
45. Kevin’s interview of Fannie….where is that Kev?
46. She was so cool to show off.
47. The Budweiser cardboard Holiday tree that she let me hang in her house.
48. The family and friends gatherings that we’ve had on her 12th floor.
49 Making old new again.
50. Happy Inauguration Day Fannie, I know you voted.

There’s the first 50! Please share your Fannie experience on this blog as we celebrate her Life at 96!