The Eugene Concert Choir decided, in an effort to promote their upcoming “British Invasion” concert of Brit-influenced choral music, that it would be fun and entertaining to recreate the iconic cover of the Beatles’ 1967 Sgt. Pepper album.

It turned out to be a lot more work than anyone realized — and a whole lot of fun. They even got the mayor to join in.

photo: Sgt. Pepper, Eugene style, 2010

I’ve been keeping the printer busy with experiments in black and white. As you can see in the photo, I’m working out ways to make digital prints that — maybe — look something like the black and white prints I get in the darkroom. And, yes, it’s a steep curve. The material you can read online is over-technical, fussy and boring, for the most part.

On Saturday I went out in the woods and shot a roll of Tri-X on the Pentax LX; I also carried the K-7 and duplicated all 30 images, shot for shot, on the digital camera. (The lenses were fairly well matched in length: a 28mm f/2.8 on the LX and a 21mm f/3.2 on the K-7.)

I’m liking these first experiments. Initial reaction: Digital prints — at least the ones I make on watercolor paper — are sharper and cleaner, but don’t have the full dynamic range of darkroom prints. They’re also cheaper if you buy regular artist’s watercolor paper and cut it down and use non-manufacturer ink, like the MIS continuous inking system I bought.

Initial reactions to the MIS system: Like all things digital, it’s fussy. But, with excellent help from the support folks at inksupply.com, I got the thing up and running and it’s only stumbled a couple times.

I especially like having a big stack of paper and big bottle of ink to play with, without having sunk much money into it.

More as I learn more.

PS: You can see in the photo that I’m beginning to hand color some digital prints. That, too, is very different.

People are still fighting endlessly on the Web about the relationship of film and digital photography.

Most, of course, prefer digital for its convenience and because that’s where all camera companies are putting their energy. Some zealots preach “Film is better!” and then go home to their vinyl records.

Me, I like them both. Film is what I love for making hand colored photographs. I also like the slower process of working with film, including the mystical time alone in the darkroom.

And digital is great for its quick utility.

Lately, though, I’ve come to appreciate digital as a kind of sketchbook medium. I can use my digital camera to take notes when I’m shooting large format, for example, and as an aid to previsualizing the photo I am trying to make.

This afternoon, home recuperating from minor surgery, I spent a half hour in the woods shooting flash-blur photos with the LX — bracketing exposures, trying different kinds of movements — before it dawned on me I could do all the experimentation with the K20D and be a little more methodical about understanding the process.

Set the camera to pop out a BW jpeg and you can see, instantly, the scene in black and white.

OK, it’s not the same. But it’s a guideline.

And it’s instant. It helped me to figure out some things about what works, and what doesn’t, in flash-blur black and white — without spending several days or weeks in the process.

What works best?

A subject that is closer than the background and clearly separate. A flash exposure that’s dead-on, or a half stop bright. An ambient exposure that’s about 2/3 stop low. And an exposure time of about 1/15, so you get that nice blur effect.

The photo above gets a lot of what I am after: It has a look that grows from art printmaking as much as from photography.

Now to go shoot some more film, using the same technique but with film’s more beautiful tonality.

photo: Blackberries (digital), 2010

These branches form interesting abstract patterns against the sky.

photo: Branches, hand colored black and white, 2010

photo: The Getty, Los Angeles, 2008

A few years ago I was fortunate to take part in a two-week National Endowment for the Arts workshop in Los Angeles for theater writers.

Not writers of theater, but writers about theater.

One of the high points of the experience was that every day, first thing in the morning, all two dozen of us middle age writers would troupe up the street in our sweats and sneakers to a nearby dance studio, where we spent an hour learning about movement from Tom Leabhart.

Leabhart, a CalArts professor,  is a mime who has studied his art like a martial arts master. He can, I believe, make any muscle in his body move in perfect isolation from the others.

In our work with him, he had us each devise a simple physical routine, which we were instructed to go back to our hotel rooms and practice repeatedly every night, until we knew the movements as closely as breathing.

We were to practice our routines, he said, to boredom, through boredom and beyond.

That notion of going “through boredom” is useful in photography as well as acting.

So much of society’s concept of art depends on inspiration. Inspiration is a great thing, though to quote Chuck Close (and others), “Inspiration is for amateurs. I don’t have time.”

But greatness comes from the deep understanding that comes of steady practice.

I’ve been trying to reach that point — beyond boredom — with some of my photography, taking not quite repetitive images and printing and coloring them even when I can barely stand to look at them anymore. Just doing the work. Shooting four rolls a week, developing every Saturday, printing half a dozen on Sunday, hand coloring those prints during the week. Same subject, one that’s always close at hand here: The forest.

The funny thing is, I keep discovering more and more to learn about those photographs. Even in boredom.