In a town like Bloomington, Indiana, 'the arts' intersect many aspects of the community's interests, work, hobbies and daily lives. This may come in the form of murals or sculptures we walk or drive by on our commute to work, live music accompanying most public celebrations, art, craft and maker fairs, and even a local film scene that dates back 40+ years to the making of the beloved Breaking Away and Hoosiers.
The environment, and more specifically, the beauty and presence of trees, also have had their time in the arts spotlight. Acclaimed photographer and Indiana University educator, James Nakagawa, recently completed a series of works titled “Witness Trees,” which is a haunting collection of black and white photographs taken of trees at former internment camps around the U.S.—trees which have witnessed the imprisonment of thousands of Japanese American families during World War II.
If you live in Bloomington, you have surely seen some of the 60 trees throughout downtown sheathed in handcrafted sweaters as part of “Wrapped in Love,” the artful awareness campaign by Middle Way House to support survivors of domestic violence. Or, if you favor writing, much of the poetry and prose work of Bloomington’s New York Times bestseller, Ross Gay, wanders into the 'delight of trees' territory.
And last summer, Cicada Cinema screened the film Perfect Days outside on a beautiful June evening in Butler Park, with its audience surrounded by trees. The film embodies daily ritual and appreciation for the trees surrounding the protagonist and even ends with the word “komorebi. " In Japanese, the word refers to the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees, teaching us to find beauty in fleeting, everyday moments.
This brings us to Sol Folium, which translates from Latin to Sun Leaf. Sol Folium is a new 16mm film by Caleb Allison, a passionate scholar, filmmaker and archivist at Indiana University, specializing in small gauge and experimental moving images. The film invites us to look up and captures Indiana's fall colors on Kodak Ektachrome 100 film—to beautiful effect! Team Canopy decided to interview Caleb about his ‘love letter’ to Indiana's fall trees.
Team Canopy: What inspired you to capture Indiana's fall colors as moving images?
Caleb Allison: Fall, at least for me, resonates on several visual and emotional levels. I often find myself, as many do, reflecting on time, memory, and the cyclical nature of the environment and the human condition. Nothing lasts forever and fall offers such a vibrant reminder that with transformation, even death, lie the seeds of rebirth and life. I found myself trying diligently to be more aware and appreciative of my surroundings and the inherent beauty all around us this season, which can often be overlooked by the more mundane rituals of our daily routines. The film, and the style and format I used, was a deliberate attempt to capture not the visual reality of the season, which always seems inadequate, but the impression or feeling it inspires.
TC: Why did you want to capture these images on 16mm color film as a format?
CA: I have a deep respect and appreciation for 16mm and its legacy as an amateur, educational, and experimental format. This project certainly draws inspiration from its legacy as an experimental format. I shot the entire film in-camera, known as a camera-roll film, and on the Bolex H16, because it forces one to think through every scene, shot, and frame, to slow down and think about how the camera and its effects will translate the world. A simple drive through Bloomington turned into an appreciation for the rich, dizzying colors fall can achieve and the particular way light, at the right time of day, can illuminate a leaf like it's a stained-glass window. I wanted to use 16mm and the Bolex, as well as a Vario Switar 18-86 Zoom lens, in a kind of harmony between nature and machine - to use the Bolex's potential for single frame exposures and the Zoom lens as a means of translation and harmony.
TC: Do you think the Kodak Ektachrome 100 will represent the natural beauty onscreen well?
CA: This was actually my first time shooting on Ektachrome, but I felt the high contrast and saturated colors of this particular stock would showcase the subject matter and offer a dreamy, surreal kind of representation. I also wanted Ektachrome because it's a reversal stock, so I'll have the opportunity to physically project the film for audiences. Watching a 16mm print with the hum of the projector and the direct experience of film grain is an altogether different sensation than its digital translation and projection, not better or worse, just different.
TC: Is your film scripted with a plot or narrative, or is it more abstract?
CA: The film, more than anything, is structural. I didn't go in with a narrative but a series of formal techniques, movements, and approaches that structure the film. As you can see in my graphs, I had the structure in mind first, roughly graphed in 10 second intervals, and then would explore a wooded location in Bloomington and discover the different colors and textures through a particular technique. I relied on single frame exposures, zooms, slow motion, and whip pans combined with a slower frame rate (16 fps) to capture blurred color motions.
TC: When scouting locations or shooting, did you find anything that surprised you?
CA: The beauty of this type of project meant that for most of October I drove around with the Bolex in the back of my car. If I spotted the right color for the sequence I was working on, I'd pull over and grab a few frames. This also meant I was hyper aware of the changing colors, even the evolution of a single tree as the season progressed and the colors evolved. I was often struck by the beauty of a tree I had never noticed before but may have driven past for years. All of a sudden these generally dreary or utilitarian urban spaces were flush with a new kind of beauty and grace.
TC: If you could only have one tree in your backyard, what would it be?
CA: As a child growing up in Lafayette, IN we had an apple tree in our backyard, and I have such fond memories of that time. Beyond the changing of the seasons, there is a ritual involved with fruit trees; the bloom, the bees it attracts, the beautiful simplicity of eating an apple straight from the tree, and then, of course, the obligatory apple pies. This film was a deliberate challenge to help rediscover the beauty of the world around me and the simple magnificence of a tree in transformation. My childhood apple tree certainly made an impression, but not one I fully appreciated until this project.
TC: Being a new father, do you think about trees (and nature) any differently?
CA: Fatherhood has been such a rich and rewarding experience and being able to introduce my daughter to nature has been truly indescribable. Something as ostensibly simple as a leaf takes on new meaning in the eyes of a child. Her curiosity and wonder at the world around her is inspiring. The day-to-day responsibilities and rituals of life can almost imperceptibly close us off to curiosity. Sol Folium was an opportunity and challenge to be curious and discover the beauty tucked away right before our very eyes.
TC: Who are you making this film for and who do you hope the audience will be?
CA: This film is dedicated to my daughter, whose curiosity of the world inspires me every day. I hope to exhibit the film locally and nationally as a silent 16mm celluloid experience. I am inspired by fellow experimental filmmakers like Rose Lowder, Nathaniel Dorsky, Jerome Hiler, Peter Hutton, and Marie Menken - filmmakers whose own work vibrates in praise of the small gauge format and its uniquely material formations. The next step for me is having duplicate prints struck so I can properly preserve the camera original and distribute prints for projection.
Caleb Allison is a passionate scholar-practitioner in the Media School and moving image archivist at the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive specializing in small gauge and experimental productions. His research focuses on exhibition and platform studies, home video cultures, and film restoration and preservation practices. He loves going out to the movies and will watch anything by Andrei Tarkovsky, Wong Kar Wai, Terrence Malick, or Robert Bresson anytime, anywhere.
All images except for the first provided courtesy of the filmmaker.
Image of "Manzanar, 01, Manzanar, California from Witness Trees," Pigment Print on Paper, 2022-23, Osamu James Nakagawa, courtesy of Fort Wayne Museum of Art.
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