07.29.2008
This post was/is inspired by a recent series I've been working on.

Circumscribed Photography

I don’t know about you, but I get rather overwhelmed with the seemingly limitless photographic world we live in, potential photographs are EVERYWHERE. I’ve recently come to the realization that I could (and maybe will) never leave the state borders of Texas when photographing and I would never run out of subject matter that feels worthy of capturing on film. Our immediate surroundings, no matter how mundane (or visually rich) they might seem, are limitless in their photographic potential.

It seems to be so very apparent what Paul Strand once said “The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep”. He’s right.

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of photographing within a contained space. My first exhibit was a series of images all taken within a small sculpture garden. There was so much to be seen and discovered in that amazingly small, yet visually limitless, space. I could likely still be photographing there and not have run out of possibilities. Gaining an intimate knowledge of a place seems a prerequisite to fostering a deep relationship with that space, a requirement in having a muse of sorts.

Oakwood cemetery has undoubtedly been that muse for the last month. Every weekend, I wake up early on sat morning, I load my film holders, and I drive the short 2 miles up I35 to the MLK exit. I drive into the cemetery, I pick some random side road into the plots and within 30ft I’ve stopped my truck due to something visually whispering at me “psst… over here.” Sometimes I never make it more than a radius of 25yds from that first “psst” and I’ve already shot all 4 of my negatives, and am anxiously ready to develop the film. Often times, these steps will get repeated on the following Sunday morning, or even on a Friday morning when I’ve taken the day off from work.
Undoubtedly though, whether it be a Fri/sat/sun morning, by mid afternoon I’ve got 4 negatives, freshly developed, washed, and hanging while they dry. By the following morning I’ve often got 4 finished platinum/palladium prints hanging on the drying line from the previous days outing. The stack of prints is turning into a coherent and rather intimate portfolio of the beauty I’ve discovered in this old cemetery, one that holds a rather strong connection to my heart.

Without these countless visits and the countless hours, I don’t feel I could have uncovered the beauty of this place. It takes time and effort to gain understanding and feeling in any relationship, whether with a friend, a loved one, or even an old cemetery. There’s a dialogue that occurs (not unlike a relationship with a wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, or friend) between yourself and your subject. One that I personally feel can’t come over the course of a long weekend or a 2 week trip somewhere. You learn about the place, you learn about its relationship with sunlight and shadow, you learn about its dialogue with the earth and wind and rain, you learn about its small hidden secrets randomly stumbled upon, you learn about its neglected parts and its well cared for parts, you learn about its protectors and its enemies.

Yet these all take time. Time and commitment allow for the depth and intimacy needed to achieve something more than the cursory.

09.14.2007

Each negative results in 2 prints

I hate reprinting negatives. This is something I’ve been fearful of facing for years. Fearful for many reasons: 1. A mainstay of the fine art photography world is the concept of editions; a photographer/artist sells a limited number of prints from a given negative, slowly rising in price as he/she sells more and more. This is a common practice among fine art photographers and “not so fine art” photographers; the internet is strongly populated by them (the former and the latter). 2. One of the key benefits of photography is that you CAN in fact, make another print similar to the one previously produced, given you have the control and knowledge to do this, this is a key aspect of photography.

In regards to #1, I have always shied away from the concept of editions. I’m going to print a negative how ever many times I feel like it, and if I’m going to sell them, then I’ll sell as many as I choose. In regards to #2, this is a wonderful aspect of photography, but one that is a bit of a curse as much as a blessing.

All this was spawned by a recent need to reprint a collection of negatives I made while visiting New Orleans in late summer immediately prior to Hurricane Katrina. Many of the locales I happened to choose to capture where devastated by the flooding and weather. I had previously made two sets of the 7 best negatives I got on the trip, it was/is a coherent portfolio of images that I was proud to give to my sister and to sell to a good friend of hers. My sister asked that if I might “reprint” them in order for her to use them in a fundraising auction she was coordinating. This is without a doubt a wonderful idea, but I hated the concept of actually pulling out those “old” negatives and reprinting them, I would need to dig out some “normal” black and white silver gelatin paper, mix up developer/stop/fix so that I could make the prints. I didn’t want to do any of that. The photography gods were watching out for me, as I already had a set that I had printed along with the initial 2 sets. Phew. Saved.

But this experience brought up my overall feelings about reprinting when the need arises. Lets be honest, I don’t sell a lot of work, in fact not much at all actually. I’ve had three exhibits to date (one solo and two group ones), not a single “normal” print sale – by normal I’m referring to selling a print to someone in the general public and/or a collector, the only single print sale I’ve had from an exhibit was to a close friend who didn’t even manage to attend the exhibit. I digress, back to my original train of thought, given the rarity of print sales, and the fairly regular exhibiting I’ve been blessed to steadily continue, it brings to light a certain fear I have. This fear revolves around one of the key outcomes a photographer may hope for from an exhibit, prints sales. This may sound insane to some, why would I be fearful of print sales? Selling a print means putting it in the hands of someone who felt it beautiful/worthy of shelling out their hard earned dollars to own and “exhibit” in their own manner. Selling multiple prints of a given negative means it connects with multiple people and means you make that much more money. Money is needed to practice photography, even if you are a minimalists, film, equipment, chemicals, paper, trays, ink, etc, it all costs money. So obviously selling more prints means helping to fund the continued practice of photography, this is a cold hard truth, one that has been abundantly clear for me in recent months. So in that light, why would I be fearful of print sales whenever I am preparing for an exhibit? Well, because I have no desire to reprint a negative. I don’t enjoy it, its work in that negative sense of the word. The older I get the less and less time I have to practice this astonishingly rejuvenating practice of photography, I have a job to go to, chores at home to do, commitments on the weekends etc (and I’m not even married, nor do I have any children) yet I still find the time I get to devote to darkroom work or out shooting to be rare and sparse. When I manage to carve out a weekend morning to shoot or print, the last thing I want to do is reprint a negative I have already printed. I don’t want to reprint something I’ve already done. I want to grab from that unending stack of “unprinted” negatives and explore one of them that has yet to see the UV light make it a positive image. So, when I am preparing for an exhibit, there is always a sense of fear that comes over me, one side of me – the practical one – says “yeah I hope some of these prints sell so I can continue to fund my love/passion”, the other side – the true and deeper part of me – says “I just want to continue to exhibit and share my work, but focus on creating new work and continuing to capture my vision”. It’s a mental conflict, but it makes sense in my mind.

So where does this leave me, or better stated, what/where does this bring me to?

2 prints from each negative. I’m tempted to embrace this concept wholeheartedly and entirely. Each negative I choose to print, when I come to the point where I have printed it to the best representation of my vision, and then I just print another one. Now there I am with two prints. One will be for exhibiting, the other for sale. That’s it. No more prints from it. I move on to the next negative or I move on to going outside and capturing more and more negatives.

This concept is so incredibly enticing to me as an artist and photographer, and at the same time is so incredibly simple, one I want to fully embrace and accept and at the same time it seems as though it could prove to be extremely limiting and potentially isolating, but then again I’m not in the situation of be a proficient seller of fine art photography.

Maybe that’s okay.


06.27.2007

desire to fill art teacher vacancy

I desire to fill this vacancy somewhere in the working world and also to fill the vacancy in me.

I know this is what I'm supposed to be in life. It is one of those supposed tos that resonates with that core part of me, the indelible part of me that feels a true purpose when considering entering the world of teaching. My passion and love of art is something I cherish and feel the responsibility to share with others, both through my own personal creations, and the avenue of assisting others in discovering/honing/sharpening/defining their own passion for art.

It feels right when I talk about art and/or photography. I can spend hours talking about my work, why I do it, what the path was to getting here, how I want it to change, what the art world is like (the little I know), what I feel is important about it, helping others to do the same. Talking with someone about where they are, brainstorming ideas or different paths of expression to possibly take, looking at someones work with a fresh set of eyes, seeing something in it that resonates with myself or them, helping them by sharing the knowledge Ive gained by way of failures and successes and the knowledge imparted upon me by the teachers Ive encountered. Its a level of happiness I dont encounter in any other aspect of my life. The only other aspect that comes close is in creating my own personal art, yet even with that, even during the endless hours I spend capturing images or making prints, I still always have in the back of my mind that perpetual feeling and thought of I cant wait to eventually discuss this with others in hopes that my sharing will assist them in better understanding their own artistic path.

We as artists are unique just as every human being is unique. Our art, even when intended to imitate, is still entirely unique, a paintings strokes cant be imitated fully, a nor a sculptures curves repeated, no matter how eagerly attempted. Photography in particular is an entirely unique artistic endeavor, no photograph can be repeated, no matter the effort given; a photograph is a unique capture of an entirely unique moment in time. Time being an immoveable constant, one that rolls on no matter our best efforts, we can attempt to capture a similar feeling or composition, but time and light are the antithesis of repetition. Time and light in a given moment are as unique as the artists who created them, this being a major factor in a photographs unique beauty. Given that we as artists are unique, I feel, we also have a responsibility to share that uniqueness, to share our unique vision of the world around us, to use the tools we spend effort mastering to communicate this and also to assist (through our sharing) others in their efforts and creations. This is a difficult pursuit, to create art and to continually do so. It is a task we are sometimes blessed with and sometimes cursed with. I know I sometimes can love and hate my artistic passion. The peers and mentors I have been blessed in encountering in my life are a major part of the fueling that sustains my artistic flame; this flame sometimes is a blazing bonfire and sometimes is a merely fleeting matchstick that teeters on suffocation. But belonging to a greater community of peers, friends, counselors, and mentors in art is as essential to the livelihood of an active artist as the actual creation of work. Every artist who has ever existed never lived and worked in a vacuum. An artists life, the society around him/her, the people they loved and hated, all of it is an active part of the artistic endeavor. They all had mentors that shaped their existence and pursuit of art.

I truly believe that an artists/teacher learns as much from teaching another as the student learns by being taught.

I want to find my path towards this life long goal.

06.19.2007

Short of Breath

That has somewhat of a double meaning.
I saw this photograph (or at least a reprint of the above Edward Weston image) this morning while looking through an enormous exhibit book of Westons work that I picked up a few weeks back and have been slowly looking through. The print is entitled Armco Steel, Ohio 1922. It has always been one of the most inspiring and moving images Ive ever seen. In a effort to better understand my admiration I felt compelled to sit down for a little while and write about it, more so because I think itll help me to go through the exercise of verbalization rather than that Ill verbalize it to the extent of it making sense to anyone but me but thats how it is and Im okay with that.
Theres elegance in the man made industrial complex, the architecture it is populated by, and the work that is done there. It always seems so evident and apparent when I encounter it, either personally while out shooting, or when I experience the photographs of another photographer. Ever since this photography thing bit me so deeply, Ive been drawn to it.
This photograph in particular is very unique, in my opinion. E. Weston photographed with an 8x10 camera. Large format cameras are often used for their inherent ability to allow movements with the cameras front and rear standards. These camera movements allow photographs of vertical scenes to remain vertical, by applying movements to keep the vertical lines in a composition from converging (or being skewed, etc). This particular image is a prime example of when 8x10 cameras movements would be applied to keep the smokestacks and piping to remain square and non-distorted, but Weston chose not too. Instead the lines converge and are allowed to remain skewed. The piping on the right doesnt line up perfectly with the edge of the frame; it tilts inward and with this seems to convey a sense of the grandeur of the seen, as if the viewer (and the photographer himself) is looking upward to pull in all that is around him. Much like the photograph below of mine, I wanted my verticals to remain in tact and for the walls on the right edge of the frame to remain straight and vertical. Its what worked in my opinion for this particular composition. But even with that said, I like and admire the concept of not being bound by the functions of a camera, the idea that an image or composition and how it resonates with the photographer should dictate what rules are followed and what rules are ignored. The Armco Steel image communicates this to me. I find my self too often subconsciously attributing rules to my photography. I dont allow the location or my true eyes to dictate what is worth a sheet of film. Those are the things I know I should inherently trust. Those eyes come from that core part of me that is founded on truth and inner meaning. Its the part we all should trust. Its the part that knows what the true and deeper shoulds are over the societal or projected shoulds. It's truth and needs to be listened to more opening and actively.

This is the first print Ive made in many months, infact its the first non-church related print Ive made in almost four months. It was, if nothing else, a breath of fresh air. The fact that Im happy with it compositionally and print quality wise is mere icing on the proverbial cake, well happy is a relative term in this regard, its meaning is more along the lines, I hate it not quite enough to hide it from the world around me. But that delves into the overly and harshly critical realm of my inner artist and psyche. Ill reserve that for other venting arenas.
Lately Ive felt short of breath in life. Its a bit metaphorical, not literally short of breath, as in a lack of air in my lungs, but short of creative breath. Life is a confusing and chaotic thing more often than not. It takes time and work to just merely exist in life. It seems to take even more time and work to exist in life and also pursue a life-sustaining endeavor. My art is, for me, as much a life sustaining action as the need for breathing or eating. It creates the balance to carrying out the tasks that make up our day-to-day lives: work, sleep, relationships, friendships, chores, etc etc. Its the fuel that is burned during the majority of hours in our day. The fuel needed for the day-to-day existence of an entire week can be replenished by a mere afternoon spent shooting or printing in the bastion of a darkroom. The outcome of this afternoon printing/shooting session is entirely irrelevant to its replenishment quality. A successful negative or print is merely a nice outcome. The effort and task itself is what replenishes.
I miss the breathing of replenishment.

11.07.2006

negative/positive

Im not sure what sparked it, or what led to this train of thinking I had early this morning.
Maybe it was the fact I was looking at some of my 7x17 negatives trying to decide which ones to print, I stood there, looking at the negatives, comparing them with the positive test strip prints I made yesterday morning, trying to judge and decide what times to make the straight prints at.

I stood there thinking about the word negative.

Negative:
lacking in constructiveness, helpfulness, optimism, cooperativeness, or the like
being without rewards, results, or effectiveness

That being the straight literal definition of the word.

As an avid practitioner of photography and capturing images I experience in the world, Im quite familiar with the concept of a negative. Ive grown to just see and understand the concept of light and shadow when viewing a negative on a light table. This is no great skill or talent from my point of view, its merely something learned. I think anyone, who has spent as much time as I have looking at negatives and capturing images could gain the same or a greater understanding of negatives and their viewing.

Creating a negative and then a positive (the final print) is an old process, Talbot created some of the first Calotype negatives which were actually paper negatives, then creating the resulting final positive, or print.
But the thing I find interesting, and what sparked my interests was that often times, my photography negatives are created in a time of negativity in life: times of strife, turmoil, depression, confusion, or disarray. Theres a bit of irony to this when I stop to think about it.

I strive to create art. Im not of the mindset to beat around the bush about that. Ive spent a great deal of my life pursuing the act of creating art. I do not, however, claim to know the definition of art. Thats a subject for another day (or life). More often than not, in fact, I imagine a majority of the time; my desire to get out photographing is driven by some sort of stress or chaos in life. Often times work is overbearing, a relationship is tumultuous, family is in chaos, or life in general is trying. Theres always a conscious or subconscious desire to create something from this negativity. Its a challenge, taking a situation in life thats difficult and creating something positive to add to the world, whether it ever gets viewed or not, is again, another matter.

Often times Im capturing something thats less than beautiful, as this seems to be what I, as an observer, am most compelled to capture. I find it fitting; the concept of capturing beauty in decay or neglect, to coincides quite well with the act of creating art from a time of negativity in life. They seem quite analogous.

The above image was the first image I thought of when I contemplated writing this whole idea down, I was depressed at the time of capturing this image, my job was chaotic, my mind could taste the idea that I was on the brink of quitting a job I cared deeply for, because of the actions of a select few and their choices about the future of a magazine I had worked hard to build. I hadnt a clue what I was going to do when it came time for me to leave. It was much more depressing and overwhelming than I would have expected. I was also quite confused about a relationship I was in and it was tying my mind and heart into complex knots, all in all, life was just somewhat overwhelming.

My parents told me about an abandoned A-7 along the Guadalupe River they came across while out driving in the Texas Hill Country. So I decided to venture out one sat morning to take a look at it. It was a hot and humid Texas day. The plane was on the outskirts of what looked like an abandoned airfield. Honestly, I can vividly remember having no desire to even go out shooting that day, even when I arrived there I remember not even wanting to haul my huge heavy camera and wooden tripod out of the car to shoot, maybe it was the heat, maybe my current (at the time) mindset, or maybe a little of both. But I just remember not wanting to be there.

Then I look at this image in the ground glass. Bright and vivid under the dark, hot, focusing cloth. My mind had nothing else in it. Nothing else was even present aside from this upside down and reversed image I was viewing on the ground glass. All I could think about was the composition, what fit where, whether I needed to move the tripod (which I did quite a few times), how much rise/fall to use, getting the valves and tubes to fit in the composition where I wanted them, balancing the smooth scratched metal on the right with the complexity on the left. I honestly couldnt even remember not wanting to be there. It had vanished completely from my mind.

I spent a while there, waiting for clouds to roll in so the spotty highlights from overhead trees would disappear and I could get the soft overcast light I knew I wanted for the image, waiting for bees and flies to swarm their way out of the frame, waiting for something I wasnt even quite sure of. Just knowing I was there creating something, knowing I was capturing a negative that would eventually become a positive after some hard work. That seemed to unconsciously right everything, at least for a while.

09.01.2006

books on photography

Photographers have a lot of books, I can likely safely say, a lot of photography books. I was at a fellow photographers darkroom a few months back, Clay Harmon, someone whose work I greatly admire. As I sat there in the guest house/darkroom table I felt compelled to pick up and scroll through his numerous photography books, Michael Kenna, Michael A. Smith, Paula Chamlee, Rolfe Horn, Paul Strand (Side note: that last one, Strand, I can gratefully thank Mr. Harmon for opening my eyes to a photographer whose work has become one of my favorites). I thumbed through a lot of them and could have likely spent even longer engrossed in them.

Art books in general have always been a mainstay in my creative diet. Almost as though they are a vitamin that needs to be taken daily to survive, survive art that is. I just came inside from sitting on my front steps and looking through Lois Conners book on China, this book being one of my favorites. Its filled with almost entirely 7x17 images that Ms. Conners took while traveling through China with a huge and cumbersome Banquet Camera, a task I can intimately say would be a tumultuous one. There is an amazing sense of freedom when I, as a photographer, take the time to sit down and enjoy a photography book. Allowing me to appreciate, enjoy, and embrace what these individual photographers took the time to record. There a wonderful sense of justification and affirmation that comes from taking this time out of an already busy life. Personally, I feel its a necessity in my creative and artistic life.

One of the things I find most wonderful is the opportunity photography books give such a wide audience. Im not a photography collector, I own some prints, but they have come to me by way of the generosity of my photography peers, through exchanging prints or outright generous gifts. I will likely never be a collector of photography (aside from the stacks and stacks of my own prints), as I will never have the expendable funds needed to purchase the prints I admire most. Ill never own an original Strand, or Weston, or Harmon, or Crane, or Kouklis, or Caponigro. However, I can afford to buy their books (thanks in part to Half Price Books) and I do. I buy them almost compulsively and with no more justification than the intrinsic creative value they hold for me. These book reproductions cant even manage to hold a weak candle to viewing the original prints. I visited the Amon Carter a few weeks back, a retrospective called 100 Great Photographs is on display, 100 images from the Carter collection that they deemed important and worth presenting. The show is broken up in three rooms 1850 1900, 1900 1950, 1950 present. Not surprisingly I spent almost 90% of my time in the 1900 1950 room. I felt honored to finally see an original Strand and an Original Weston. The Weston one was profound in how influential it was to see in real life. It was a print of Charis Wilson titled Nude on Sand, 1936. I have seen this image before in a few of the many Weston books I have. Its one of a collection of nudes on sand. But the experience of the print in person was a profound one, standing there observing this print in the flesh the subtlety of tone, the warm greys of sand, the small and quiet shadows apparent in the sand that could never have been reproduced in a book. Standing there knowing I was looking at a print that was likely made in that simple darkroom on Wildcat Hill, exposed with a light bulb, timed with an egg timer, moved from the amidol print developer into the stop bath and fixer with Westons own hands. That has an effect on a simple, unknown but passionate photographer who often questions his purpose and pursuit in the art of photography. Its comforting and also VERY reaffirming.

But this would likely have not been as profound an effect had I not experienced these prints through the photography books I own and have looked through. They opened the door to my experiencing the diverse world of photography driving me to seek out these prints and see them in person.

I think I can safely say without question, that my small library of Photography books will continue to grow as I discover new photographers and seek out more books from the photographers I already admire.

Now all you photographers I admire that dont have books yet, get going, we as your admirers and peers want them. Thats a hint Kerik, Clay, Carl Weese, etc.

07.26.2006

what is it with photos of dead animals

Thereve been a lot of photographers who have chosen to photograph dead animals. Some artists go so far as to even exploit the deceased in order to manifest their artistic pursuits. Some in the past, and in the present, just capture what it is they observe. One artist in particular, Edward Weston, did just the later. Ive always especially admired one particular image, Pelican on Sand, 1942, from Point Lobos.

Ever since I first experienced this particular print I felt like it was given permission. Mainly, given permission to stop. I see these sorts of things a lot. Dead deer along the highway. A skeleton in a field. A cow skull nailed to a wall. Many different instances.

For some reason, since seeing that Pelican image a spark was struck. I grew up looking away from such things. My emotional reaction would dictate almost an automated response to look away. Death seemed an emotionally painful thing that required both my eyes and my emotions to look away. Now it feels almost like Ive been given a hall pass to stop when I see these things, to allow myself the interest and curiosity and even more so, to photograph these things I find beautiful. I truly believe, from an artistic viewpoint, death CAN be a beautiful thing.

I cant help but find these instances of death to be aesthetically intriguing. The often times exposed bones with its pure white tones, the dark grey that dried blood conveys, the contrast of the inconsistent sunlit fur. Theres a challenge I find in observing these things. I refuse to move or adjust them in any form from the manner I find them, instead the challenge to find in that particular scene what seems worth photographing. Perhaps Ill spend time and never burn any film, perhaps Ill burn film and none of the negatives will be worth printing, or even better perhaps the photogods will bless me and Ill end up with a negative that prints astoundingly.

Regardless which of these occurs, I am thankful to Mr. Weston, for giving me permission.

05.06.2006

industrial decay

In my short history, albeit intense, history with photography, Ive shot all sorts of things, landscapes, star trails, still life, people, concerts, action shots, macros, color, black & white, digital, basically a lot of stuff. However, there is really nothing that seems to resound in my heart more than standing in an abandoned factory or industrial building. Literally nothing seems to feel more right in the metaphysical spiritual sort of way. If you happen to know me, Im not typically an excited sort of person.

The enjoyment and inspiration I feel walking around places such as the above, well, words are ill equipped to express it, I guess that is the reasoning behind my desire to photograph them.

The amount of humanity apparent in these locations is overwhelming. Such a sense of work and life, whether through the structures past purpose or even the graffiti and litter that cover the walls and floors. This existence of life seems that much more poignant given the fact that they are abandoned of all mans influences. The juxtaposition between these two things seems to make the negative capturing process and eventual prints that much more meaningful.

Hard work existed in these place, men and women earning a living, working what would likely be referred to as long hours by todays standards. This seems to somewhat parallel the processes I use to make photographs, ones involved and requiring commitment, time, knowledge, and work. Albeit not of equal amount, but there is a comfort and familiarity that seems to come from the similarities.

As with most photography, at least from my own semi-philosophical standpoint, these images are a selfish endeavor, like all my photography. But there is the secondary (even tertiary) result that hopefully people will appreciate and connect with the feelings and emotions that shooting in these places bring to me. That hopefully the processes, materials, compositions, light I choose will convey the emotional reaction I had in that given moment, the reaction that told me to expose a sheet of film. Because there is always something significant in my mind and experience of that moment that tells me to capture an image.