Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Goletaville-Day 7




So backtracking a bit, Day 4 was about Color; Day 5 pt.1 was about trying some new things breaking out of the mold; pt 2 was a combination of several past experiments of line, abstraction, light vs. dark, composition, and reflections, with a splash of color; Day 6 was about applying those same elements, along with more emphasis on light quality, to a new location while attempting to get more of a sense of place; and now Day 7 was about bringing it back down to communicating a mood. So I turned back to the clouds, another common subject of mine...and the ground...and the darkness. Once again, the thumbnails tend to fall a bit darker, so please click on them to see them closer to how they are intended, if you are so inclined.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Goletaville-Day 6







Some say God is in the details and others say the devil is in the details. Whichever it is, at this rate this could take a while...

Goletaville-Day 5 pt.2




This is a building I drive by all the time. It is part of the "industrial complex" part of town. Got to give it up to the architect, he definitely new what he was doing utilizing the shadows from the nearly constant sun here. Just amazing lines and reflections and reflections of lines.

Goletaville-Day 5 pt.1






On the heels of the inspiring words of Mr. Callahan and other Abstract Photographers of the same period, such as Aaron Siskind, day 5 results in an explosion of new found images. 2 locations and 2 parts for this day's ramble about. Another photographer of this era to check out is Frederick Sommer, he is perhaps my favorite.

For this part I decided to switch things up a bit and play around with the square format. I think I could do a whole series on just the ground of parking lots. There's so many abstract compositions that can be made from each one of them.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Day 4...and The Big Deal...continued



Carrying over from the post the other day, much of that interpretation was derived from later reflection on the photograph. When I took the photo of the tarp and garage doors I was just walking around, saw that scene and thought, "Oh, look, a slice of life. That tells a story." And, too,  I was drawn to the contrast of the rigidity of the shapes of the garage doors and the amorphous shape of the tarp. Later as I was looking over the photos of the day on my computer, I kept coming back to that photo wondering, "why do I find this so interesting?" Then I started to realize that along with the explicit rectangles in the back left there are also all these implied shapes lurking mysteriously in the shadows on the right. And I thought, "Now, I've got something! That's interesting. Now there is this subtle element of material vs. immaterial, the concrete world vs. the world of ideas. O.K. I like this photograph." Then I must have liked it too much and thought, "how can I muck this up? I know, I'll try to force some mood on it. Art is supposed to be "moody", right? Alright, that'll do the trick!" Note to self, let the photos speak and pay attention to what they are saying. As the photographer sometimes you should only be the interpreter.

Which brings me to my next point, I've been noticing with these recent projects where I am returning day after day to the same subject, that round about the 3rd/4th day the excitement and newness of the subject starts to where off and I enter this existential quagmire. Nothing seems like a picture, confusion as to what I should shoot begins to sink in, and my focus is all over the place. Mostly it kind of goes like this, "Well, there's that thing. I guess I'll take a picture of that." Click. Check the back of the camera, "eh." Move on. And at the end of the day it's sort of like, "What am I even doing?" Ah, but then you find something that sets your mind at ease. Recently I found this quote by one of my early influences, Harry Callahan (who was an Abstract-Expressionist photographer in the 1950's) and it made it all alright. It reminded me of what I'm doing and that it's not always going to be easy. There will be bad days. It's part of the process.

"I photograph continuously, often without a good idea or a strong feeling. During this time the photos are nearly all poor but I believe they develop my seeing and help later on in later photos. I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively, when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit of people."      -Harry Callahan

Friday, April 22, 2011

What is the Big Deal?

Now might be a good time to take a look at what exactly is going on in a photograph and get down to what it's all about. Why take photographs? Why make the effort to get up early and go through all the trouble to take a picture? It's just a picture! They're cheap and easy and everybody can take a picture with their phone these days, so why would anyone want to go to school for it, or even worse, dedicate a life to it? And for what? To take pictures of a nasty old tarp laying on the ground? Bravo! There are tools which lay sharp in the shed...and there are stars which shine brightly in the sky...actually I forget that metaphor. It's, "not the sharpest tool in the shed" and, "not the brightest...bulb in the sugar patch"? Anyways, I digress.


So, what's so great about a crumpled up tarp carelessly tossed on the pavement in an alley in some town no one's ever heard of? Well, I find it interesting, probably due to some faulty wiring, but I find it interesting nonetheless because of the play of order vs. disorder and man vs. nature going on in the photograph. The foundation of this photograph is based on the order and sharpness of the squares and rectangles in the background, of which there are many, created by the garage doors (see photo below, I highlighted a few) and the formless disorder of the tarp in the foreground.


What is also interesting is that most everything in this photo is synthetic and man-made. Even the organic form of the tarp is at odds with the synthetic material of which it is made. The only natural things in the photo are the few blades of grass poking through the cracks in the pavement and the small wood board laying on the tarp, but even that is only natural by material and is still a man-made object.

Now, that is only the foundation of the photo. From there the next step is to hopefully capture some sense of place and/or character. And beyond that, if the photo is to be really successful, it has to communicate some form of mood or feeling. It really is a visual language. Just as words are symbols for thoughts and concepts, so too can be the aesthetic elements of photos. Both have their shortcomings and are by no means a perfect and complete way to communicate, but it is these quirks that make them interesting in their own right and it is the mystery of the thoughts which make them so fascinating, scary, and exciting to attempt to express.

In the end, I think this photograph is most successful in its "intellectual" foundation and it is fairly successful in communicating a sense of place. Where it falls short is in communicating any really interesting mood. Hopefully that's just my bias being the one who took the picture. When I took it I was feeling pretty ambivalent. I was just kind of taking pictures of interesting looking stuff. Then later in post-production I felt like I had to try and form it into some sort of "mood" and to me that awkwardness is apparent, or at least is responsible for making this photo not as good as it could have been.  But that is o.k. Not every photograph needs all of those elements to be successful. Some photographs just need to be about what they are about. Some photographs are just about texture, or just about mood, and lack in the other areas. That's perfectly acceptable. The problem comes in when, like I did with this photograph, you try to shape it into something it's not. So, in the end, what makes a "successful" photograph is accurately portraying a sense of the subject. It's what the "listening", "feeling", and "looking" is about. It's more difficult than it sounds, but that is why you get up and do it again and again...

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Goleta Project- Day 3







This is "Old Town Goleta" near my apartment. It has more of a downtown feel than the strip malls and box stores of "new town."

Friday, April 15, 2011

Goleta Project- Day 2








Back in Goleta day 2 found me in a thrift store. I was searching for a dress, a large stuffed trout or catfish, and a violin bow, just the usual. It was for a project for my cinematography class. A mock art short film...or was it?! Anyways, the search was unfruitful, so we went with a guy dancing with an inflatable monkey wearing a chicken beak instead, but that's rather obvious. Two distinct types of shooting going on in these shots all taken within a matter of minutes of each other. Some days are just all over the place.

A Ventura Kitchen





I thought I would show more images from the non-day day for two reasons. One, the late afternoon light in this kitchen is amazing. And two, I think they help lead into the shots from the second day of the Goleta project and put them into some sort of perspective.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

a pause for station identification

Out sick. Trying to get caught up! I've gotten a couple of days behind, but there are new pictures to post, just haven't had the time. Until then, here's a picture of a dish towel and cabinet handle.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Goletaville-Day 1





I don't think the rules for this project will be as strict as the last one. The location for this project is a bit broader so I plan on shooting 7-10 days, not necessarily sequentially, but to be done in 2 weeks time, at least for this round. I don't think I'll put any time limit on it either. Last time an hour was sometimes too long and sometimes not long enough. The one constant I will introduce to keep this an experiment is that I will only listen to music from 1993-1996 as I shoot. For me those are the high school years. Recently I watched some episodes of The State, which operated in the year 1993, and it sent me in a tailspin of nostalgia. The mid 90's were about half my life ago, so I'm curious as to the wisdom and perspective, or lack there of, that I have gained since then. Am I where I thought I would be? Am I doing what I thought I'd be doing? Am I the person I wanted to be? Would my 16 year old self like my 32 year old self?  Coincidentally, that was also the time that I set about on this crazy road of photography. Maybe I can rustle up some of my old photos from that time and post those! That probably won't be embarrassing at all!

The shots from this first day show some of the effects, or what I'm assuming are the effects, of the down economy. These are some of the shops in the neighborhood I used to work in and I would walk around during my breaks. Look, the nostalgia is taking affect already! What I like about these images is that the reflections in the glass created a multiple exposure effect. I finally got my in-camera digital multiple exposures! I didn't only shoot in this area, though. More shots from the day can be seen here.