Mistakes I've made. In photography, too many to list. Some big, some small. From underexposing, overdeveloping, losing negatives, losing files, making unintentionally blurry images from a plane at 1000 feet up, and so on.  I will share one big one: a trip to the Bahamas in the 80s for a spring break vacation with family, my daughter Maru about 2 years old. Being who I am I brought a 4 x 5 camera and 100 sheets of Kodak Plus-X film. I managed to get away several times and shot most of the whole box, changing out exposed sheets of film each night in a dark closet with fresh sheets so as to ..read more

Just quickly, I couldn't help but share this from Petapixel this morning. Olympus (OM System) with a built-in graduated filter. Newer cameras are going to start including not only this but all sorts of AI. Many of the things that we take for granted our smartphones can do, newer cameras will incorporate. This means a landscape shot of the highlands in Scotland will be enhanced right out of the chute. Will the original un-enhanced image still be there as a reference? Don’t know, maybe not. I for one do not want a camera company interjecting its own controls onto my photograph. Still, I’d be wil ..read more

This is the second in a two-post piece on my screwup one day photographing the Black Water Dam in southern NH in the late 80s. I packed the gear in the back of the car and began to drive out to the highway. I thought I might drive into Manchester, a nearby city, as I knew that there was a camera store there. Maybe they would have the Bogen connector plate I needed. Maybe the day wouldn't be a total wash and I could go back to Black Water Dam to photograph. I drove into town, parked on a side street, got out of the car, and, as I was crossing the street heading for the camera store, looked over ..read more

I remember the time when I was on a project shooting at an area called Black Water Dam in Webster, New Hampshire in the late 80s/early 90s. I worked in 8 x 10 in those years in black and white. The project is here This time was in December before the area would be so covered in snow I couldn't get into it. On an early Saturday morning, I packed up the camera, the tripod, the light meter, the dark cloth, my winter boots, and my film holder bag with 10 holders loaded with Ilford's HP5 film. Off I went. Webster was about 1 1/2 hours north of Cambridge, where I lived. I'd been photographing ..read more

Good Morning. I assume this will be my last post for a bit as I will have knee replacement surgery on 12/15. Mark Feeney, the primary photo reviewer for the Boston Globe, has a review out today in the paper that speaks to works I have on display simultaneously at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA of the Pulaski Motel series (here)  in Virginia and the Wheat work of mine currently at the Acton Memorial Library in Acton, MA  (here) Here is the pertinent part of his review:  Also through Jan. 28, the Danforth is showing 14 photographs from Neal Rantoul’s “Pulaski Motel, Virgi ..read more

Occasionally, the blog reprints past posts if they've kept their relevancy. I believe this one is still pertinent: https://nealrantoul.com/posts/a-disturbing-trend From 2016, almost eight years ago.  Let me know if you agree ..read more

Those of you who are in the New England area might want to avail themselves of an incredible resource. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has collected photographs for a very long time and prints from the collection are available for viewing by the public. With a little organization on your part, you can request to see some iconic works made throughout the medium's history. Yesterday, a group of us called the Photo Lunch Bunch did just that. We met in the Morse Study Room at the Museum and looked at about 20 photographs from the collection. Left to Right: Roger Farrington, Jim Fitts, me, Jason La ..read more

Hello all. I've got work in two shows currently.  One, at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover MA, in a "recent acquisitions" exhibit. Mine is a large piece I donated in 2020. It is an aerial photograph from Salt Lake, Utah.  https://addison.andover.edu/ The second is a series of black and white photographs called the " Pulaski Motel" at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA. These are part of another "recent acquisitions" show currently on view at the Museum. https://nealrantoul.com/projects/pulaski-motel-virginia-2012 This is a sequenced set of pictures I made on a driv ..read more

I've been back from the Palouse wheat-growing region of eastern Washington for a little over a week and thought I'd post what I learned from the trip and share a few pictures I made while there. Logistics: This was my first time flying since Covid,  so I was apprehensive. I needn't have been. Everything seemed normal. I was based at the Best Western in Colfax, a little over an hour south of Spokane. Late August is just after the second harvest so most fields were cut and a rich yellow. This meant for a limited pallet but nevertheless a magnificent one. 8 days of getting up early, drivin ..read more

A few thoughts as we slide along these dog days of summer in mid-August in the year 2023 I am headed out west next week, flying to Spokane to spend a week or so centered in Colfax, WA which is wheat field central. Not sure but I think this is my 22nd trip. Concerning is the report that the air is smokey from the fires in Canada. I hope this will blow out by the time I get there. A friend asked if I will do aerials. This was my answer: My original answer was: no. But listening to myself tell the rationale of not shooting aerials this trip sounded like bull shit as I thought more about it. I hav ..read more