This is the fifth in a week long series on Photography. Check out Monday’s offering to get the scoop on it from the beginning.
One of my favorite artists, Robert Irwin, has a saying that became the title of his biography. ‘Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees’. That is why drawing instructors teach on how to see negative space because negative space doesn’t have a name, it doesn’t make you conjure up what an elbow is suppose to look like, or a breast, or a tree or a couch. It is just a shape and it is just defined by the line or the shadows or texture, that’s all.
So, when wondering what to take a photo of, don’t worry so much about the ‘thing’ you are trying to photograph, all named and defined, but look at it without naming it. Find the line or tone or texture or color that is within it and make an image of those things. Your photos will be much better, I promise.
This is the fourth of a week long series on my take on photography. Go to Monday’s posting to see the series from the beginning.
Actually, I say stand too far away or too close… or too low or too high. The demon of creativity is often the eye level shot and the ‘just right’ distant shot. Break the plane of your own eye level, of the model/photographer comfort zone and the resulting ‘well composed’ but boring shot. If you are worrying about what someone will think, the model or an onlooker or whoever, then go back to your house and sell your camera because you are only going to create something that looks like someone elses work, since you are allowing someone else to decide what you do while in the act of creating an image.
This is the third in a week-long series on my take on Photography. Go to Monday’s posting to see it from the beginning.
The rule is to get the whole face in the frame, the whole person, everything perfect. But my rule is that that rule sucks. Are their times to do that? Sure. But for Christ’s sake (and everyone else’s) don’t be a slave to the perfect shot. Try getting the persons face just partially in the frame with most of the image being a background or something else. Try working with angles and composition in an abstract way instead of worrying so much about the subject matter being perfectly upright.
Here is the important thing though. Don’t think every experiment is just so cute and precious that you just have to show it to the world. Remember, chances are every experiment you are attempting a lot of other people have tried it as well. So go look around, see what other people have done. Be self-critical but NOT self-condemning. There is a BIG difference. Being Self-critical means you evaluate and look honestly wat what you have done in context of your own work and others. Self-condemning means you deride yourself for not being perfect or more like someone else, etc. It is boring and selfish and oh so last century to wallow in that. Get over it.
This is the second in a week long series on my take on photography. Go to Monday’s posting to see the series from the beginning.
Whatever you do, LEARN what your camera can do! Do not brag about ‘Oh, I don’t know how to do that’ or ‘Yea, I don’t read manuals’. Both are excuses masking laziness or fear. Read, practice, goof off, experiment. But for God’s sake (and anyone else’s) don’t put a stop sign in your head just because you are afraid. And don’t think that taking bad photos is something to avoid. Take the photo, dag nabbit! How else will you know what is good or not? Do dancers wait until they are perfect to dance? No, they practice knowing they are going to make mistakes and fail. Do the same.
Every day this week I am going to post a page from this book. I found it back in the 80s. It is a hobby book for young children, helping them learn how to take photos. At the time I wasn’t a big believer in all the ‘rules’ of photography (I am still not)and appropriated it by putting my own ‘bad’ photographs over the photos in the book. It was my way of playing with the ideas of ‘good photography. Come back every day all week to learn my way of taking a good photo!
This book was exhibited in an exhibition entitled ‘children’s toys’ at the Young Gallery in Saratoga, California in the early 90s.
This collage is in a book called ‘Sketchbook with Voices’. It is actually a sketchbook of blank pages with an idea, question, statement or assignment by an artist. I got it way back in the 80s and decided to use it for photo sketches instead of regular drawings. This image is probably the only image in the whole book that has any drawing in it at all.
The black and white image in the background was taken by me during a photo shoot with a friend. My sister-in-law at the time knew that I liked tan lines and took the color photo of her friend while on vacation in Mexico and sent it to me.
You can see digital versions of this type of image, people in a museum looking at some huge photo on the wall, which is actually the photo of the person making the image. Just remember where they got the idea, ok? LOL
For many years after we moved from California and I wasn’t creating art work for exhibiting and selling I was creating backgrounds for my computer. I probably made at least one a day for many years.
The original photographs were not mine, but were taken from online fashion photographs in most cases, then used in the collage. Click on the image then go to ‘all sizes’ to see it as large as it should be seen. Use it as a background yourself if you would like.
We were staying the night at the Inn at Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright’s one and only freestanding ‘skyscraper’ in the world (it’s 16 stories high so it isn’t crazy tall by any means). It is about 50 miles north of Tulsa in a town called ‘Bartlesville’ which was the founding home of Phillips Petroleum. It has an art center on the first 2 floors along with a gift shop. We always find unique and interesting things in the shop when we go there and this time we found an engaging and happy store clerk along with the usual stuff. She said one of the statements in the piece to us and I kept hearing the rhythm of it in my head after, but with different content each time and that was the basis for the other ‘truths’ in the piece.
I had gone down to Oklahoma City from my home in Tulsa (about 100 miles) to drop off my presentation for the upcoming Photoslam event. I decided to take the day and check out some galleries down that way, something I really hadn’t done before.
When I entered the ‘Untitled’ [art space] gallery this woman was at the door greeting people, explaining the current show, etc. She was very helpful about explaining how the show came about (it was a year end showing of multiple grant recipients’ work).
We got to talking about me being an artist since I had my camera with me, and I asked her if she was as well. She turned out to be an art historian in training, going to college.
The gallery was somewhat dark, but there were large windows in the front that let in great ambient light. Her eyes, as is obvious, were brilliant blue. I told her about my reason for being in OKC, and explained the ‘truth’ project I would present at the show. I asked her if she would be willing to pose for a collage from the truth series as well and she thought it would be a cool idea.
One of the artists in the gallery had large constructions. One of the constructions had a shredder attached to it that was churning out shredded paper very slowly. Photos of that, with photos of her were the perfect combination for what I learned about her as we talked; her life, doubts, fears, wonderings, etc.
