CHRISTOPHER LANGE
Photographer
ask / tell
917 • 558 • 0476
chrisplange@gmail.com
MY WEBSITE
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EASTBOUND by CHRISTOPHER LANGE
A grin slipped across my face as I craned my neck to look up into the viewfinder of my Rollei. I was holding it out the sunroof of my friend’s car, upside down so I could look up onto the ground glass, and was praying that a five-hundredth at twenty-two would be enough to tame the violently bright sun.
There was so much drag that the camera felt like it wanted to fly out of my hands, and for a moment I was scared that it would. The last thing I wanted was to look out the window and see my little Rolleiflex explode on contact with the pavement, the parts splattered across the highway as if it were a piñata hit by a Jeep at 80mph.
I circled the strap around my wrist one more time, just to make sure.
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This is a page from a book project I just finished. All of the images are original silver prints, which I selectively bleached in a number of unorthodox ways, and then toned in extremely strong selenium to exaggerate the color imparted by the bleaching.
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When I woke up.
I woke up early this morning. It was raining.
I took a shower, walked down to the café and ordered a large coffee, and a sandwich, to-go, because I thought I was in a hurry.
It turned out I wasn’t. Plans change, that’s life.
No longer having any obligations for the earlier part of my day, I went up Main Street, coffee in one hand, Rolleiflex in the other, looking for a dry place to sit down for a little while.
I ended up under the bandstand, and relaxed with my not quite strong enough coffee. It was somewhat hazy out, and the silvery light provided by the clouds above was a good enough reason for me to open the viewfinder on the old Rollei, and see what might be hiding right in front of me.
I took a few frames, with only the quiet, rain-slicked streets as my subject. These aren’t the sorts of photographs that one makes because they are “amazing” pictures by any account, but they are the kind of photographs that, if one does have a camera on them, should be taken, if only to record the memory of such a serene and motionless moment.
Preventive photography. For one’s own sanity and soul.
I take them because when I wake up tomorrow, and walk down to the café to order my large coffee that won’t be quite strong enough, and flip the viewfinder on my Rolleiflex or Hasselblad into place, I’m not going to see the same thing.
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CONTACT . 4/6-7/2012 . ROLLEI . NYC . DELTA3200 by CHRISTOPHER LANGE
I know I’ve shown a couple photos from this roll on here already, but I always enjoy looking at other photographers’ contact sheets, so I figured I’d share one of mine.Should I show contact sheets more often? If you guys like seeing them, I would be glad to post them every so often.
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Nick greeted me at the door, and waved me past the bouncers and coat check.
Friends are good to have.
He returned to the booth to keep playing his set, but handed me a few drink tickets before disappearing up the stairs. So far so good. The music was loud (the system is pretty decent at the Griffin), and I managed to maneuver through the cloud of cologne and perfume that represented the dancefloor, and make it to the bar.
“I’ll have the darkest beer you’ve got”
These places generally have an amazing selection of cocktails, but very poor beer selection. I’m told that dark beer is not a possibility. I remembered having a Blue Moon there once before, so I ordered one of those and found a place to sit back and relax.
The group was the usual sort, annoying financier types and their overdone women composed the majority, but there were a few genuinely interesting people there.
She’s one of them. I don’t know her name, or even remember her face, but she had a book in her purse, a copy of JD Salinger’s 9 Stories.
Most girls that go to out to clubs don’t keep books in their purses.
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So, if you ever want to impress someone, wear whatever you like, but keep a good book in your bag.
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G - 4TH AVE & 9TH STREET by CHRISTOPHER LANGE
The sunlight carved angular fields of shadow onto the surface of the platform as I stood waiting for the train. Glancing at the ground glass, I noticed the pinwheel-esque nature of the view in front of me. I waited for a moment before actually making the photograph, listening for the subtle roar of an oncoming train, to potentially add another element to the image, but when I heard nothing, I decided it wasn’t necessary.
It would be another fifteen minutes before I was en route to manhattan.
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