The title has multiple associations, beyond his film, of course, including “roll in the hay,” “roll of the dice” and “rock ‘n’ roll”. Amazingly, the dreamlike images are all straight shots, not even cropped; Jacobson achieved his unusual pictorial effects by shooting rolls of Kodachrome 200, a very fast film, in low light at two F-stops below the normal setting.
While his first two books were grounded in what he terms “a sociopolitical construct,” The Last Roll relates to a different context. “It’s a much deeper, purely emotional place,” he said, noting that he’s pleased with the outcome. “When the outer reality of the world you put the frame around starts reflecting your inner emotional landscape, then you’re really on.”
Coming to grips with his own mortality and that of his beloved film freed him as an artist, he noted. “It’s not that the fear goes away, because it doesn’t; but it opens up enormous possibilities, and there’s a huge gift in that.”
Some of Jacobson’s photos play with scale, which further suggests a subjective, emotion-charged point of view. The shot of a rusty bus, for example, was actually of a toy, set up in his backyard. “The stories are banal,” such as the view of the lone girl seated in a lawn chair, which was “just a little kid at a wedding party outside in the floodlights.” Jacobson said that even as a photojournalist, “I was never really interested in the narrative meaning of photographs. For me, photography is more like poetry than journalism. I like to just let the photograph function as its own language. Everyone brings their own experience to the pictures, and the best photos are pictures that walk that line between ambiguity and reality.”
Kodachrome represented the peak of color film. Jacobson had used Kodachrome since the 1970s, unhindered by the expense, since his clients usually footed the bill. Because it had various layers of dye, the film “had a particular depth and richness to it no other color film came anywhere near to having. It was also unforgiving. Your exposure had to be right on the money, or you threw out the picture.”
When it was discontinued, “I was very upset and pretty angry. I’m still not convinced Kodak didn’t have a market for it.” However, “Once I understood it was over, I went through the process of letting go. I’ve got this little point-and-shoot digital camera I’ve been using the last two years, and I love it.”
On May 4, he’ll be interviewed by his son, Henry Jacobson, a filmmaker and photographer who is also publishing a book of photographs – taken on his iPhone. “It’ll be about a father who published a book at the end of the greatest color film technology every achieved and a son doing a book on the most popular mass medium out there.” Jacobson credits his son with helping him put together his book. “He’s the person I turned to the most.”
While he has adapted to digital media, Jacobson worries about the consequences for “people who didn’t grow up with film and are accustomed to seeing the image right away. It’s better not to be attached to the moment of exposure, because, while the situation may be incredible, the picture may not be great.”
In his teaching workshops, he emphasizes the editing process and stresses what a photograph actually is: “a set of graphics, not reality. It has to work graphically before you get to the subject matter. Lots of people can take interesting pictures, but if you don’t know how to see them when you’re editing, then you never grow. What I’m always looking for are photographs that have some sort of emotional resonance.”
Jeff Jacobson’s The Last Roll exhibition, opening Saturday, April 13, 5-7 p.m., talk Saturday, May 4, 3-5 p.m., up through June 16, Wednesday-Sunday, 12 noon-5 p.m., Center for Photography at Woodstock, 59 Tinker Street, Woodstock; (845) 679-9957; www.cpw.org.
