For the time being, I am having fun with my photos. I like the pictures I am taking and I'm still really excited to be doing digital printing. I tack it down to being a graphic designer, and especially, a lover of posters. Printing digitally is one of my favorite things about graphic design, and by extension, about photography. I suppose. As cool as darkroom printing is, I am so happy to be printing digitally.
As for my photos, this past week I finally got my hands on a tripod. I had been wanting to use one so that I could get more information and a larger depth of field in my photographs. I also had been looking forward to trying some night photography, which I attempted this week (week nine) and had a lot of success with.
The above photo was taken after after the sun had gone down for the night. I kept the shutter open for fifteen seconds at a small aperture (f/11). As a result of this, I have found that people tend to think that it was actually taken during the day (which is not exactly a good thing). I am thrilled with the way it came out; it is so sharp! I wasn't even sure if my exposure time was right at all, because light meters just don't work with such little light. It was exciting to see how all these photos came out.
I also printed a photo that was a little different for me. So far, I have only shown photographs that are of places (like the first one). I am, however, also very interested in textural photos (I know you hate that word, Kristine!) I don't know exactly how it will fit in with the other ones, but what I am envisioning is that photos like the one above will be a way to break up the standard vacant lot/empty building. It might even begin to build a narrative.
Based on the photos that I seem to be making (such as these two), maybe I will go in a geometric direction. I am drawn to taking photos that are symmetrical (like these) and that have organized formal qualities (like these). Or maybe I will go in the direction of eerie and isolated like I was planning. I will have to have look at them and decide.
I would first like to say that I enjoy reading Tod Papageorge's essays (which is saying a lot, because essays can be really boring). They are well-written and well-balanced. I enjoy the breaks that he makes to tell a story (as in the end of Henri Cartier-Bresson: Two Lives) and to narrate (as in the end of Eugene Atget: A Photographer's Photographer). It livens the essay up and makes it 200% more enjoyable to read.
I am going to speak about the essay on Henri Cartier-Bresson. I could actually identify with the author's fascination with Cartier-Bresson's photos. "It was poetry," he says of Cartier-Bresson's 1933 photograph of a boy looking up. While I was not enamored by the same photographs that Cartier-Bresson was, I certainly was by others.
http://beautydelux.com/?attachment_id=14214 Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson
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I found myself looking at the above photograph longer than the others. I love it because of the moment it shows. It's a simple, common moment - nothing too extraordinary - but it is perfectly captured. From the position of the man's arm and how we can see his watch to the dog's glance upward at the moment of his companion's kiss, it amazes me that Cartier-Bresson took this photo candidly. I suppose this is a large part of the reason that I am so impressed. I could never capture this moment so perfectly! Just today I was taking photos with my 35mm camera and I pointed it at the man sitting across from me on the train, hoping to get his head and torso as he was reading his newspaper. But before I could focus and set my exposure, he looked up at me and I got uncomfortable and the photo was ruined. It's difficult to frame pictures of people on the street.
Many other photos by Cartier-Bresson are like this one. He was expert at photographing the "decisive moment." I define this not just as the moment that a photographer decides to press the shutter (although that inherently is also part of it), but also as the moment where things come together with their maximum amount of static/tension.
Like a social interaction between two people where the photographer captures the moment that both subjects react to something, or the instant before a man jumps into a ambiguous depth of water. I wonder if Cartier-Bresson often waited a long time with his camera in position until that moment came. He must have.
I can begin to comprehend how Cartier-Bresson came to find the things and people - situations, so to speak - that he ended up photographing. He walked everywhere and traveled the world, using his camera as an extension of his eyes. I imagine that he also practiced his Buddhism and entered a concentrative zen state while photographing. But what I can't fully explain is how he was able to photograph so perfectly the split-second moment that he so often did. And how he was able to make himself so invisible while doing it.
I noticed some large similarities between Cartier-Bresson's and Papageorge's work - namely, their subject matter. This made sense after reading that Papageorge was inspired to begin photography as a career by looking at one of Cartier-Bresson's pictures. I scarcely see any landscape, geometric, or abstract work by either of them. It is mostly people; street photography. I am usually not drawn to this genre, but after looking at both of their photographs I was quite amazed.
I have chosen to write about the photographer Joel Sternfeld this week. Joel Sternfeld has made quite a few collections of work, most notably American Prospects and On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam, which I will primarily be talking about.
Both of these bodies are relevant for similar reasons. The most obvious reason is that they depict true American landscapes, scenes, and events, and to someone who has always lived (and continues to live) in America, it doesn't get much more relevant.
I also find his photographs to be very appealing. I am trying not to overuse the word "beautiful." Down to a single blade of grass or piece of rust, they are full of detail. This gives me a lot to look into and keeps my interest for a long time. Similarly, and in the case of American Prospects, his photographs cover a large area with a large depth-of-field. I believe that his photos depict a scene that is beautiful - but also depict it in an elegant way, using time of day (a.k.a. light) and vantage point (high above to capture more stuff). These things are what make Joel Sternfeld's photographs so appealing to me.
On a conceptual level, Sternfeld's photographs are largely illustrative, in a similar way to that of a journalistic photographer. He seems to be photographing places as they are day-to-day without tampering with how they look. From what I can tell, he is not setting up any extra light, or placing actors in the frame, or manipulating the landscape/scene in any way. In other words, the photographer's hand is almost nonexistent. This allows the viewer to take in the scene and focus only on what it contains. With On This Site, we need to read the commentary about the scene's history to give the photograph the extra weight (I question the effectiveness of this approach, however. When I regard Sternfeld's method of taking a static photo and pairing it with equally neutral commentary, I cannot help but feel that there should be a little more to it. Is it too simple, too obvious, to depict these locations in this manner? Does the method agree with the subject matter is represents? I do not know the answer to these questions. I simply can't shake the feeling that there could be more thought put into the process in order to best represent these horrifying stories). The strategy of almost-pure documentation of a scene makes the photographs relevant in that they are very relatable.
After a Flash Flood, Rancho Mirage, California. American Prospects.
This photograph, for example, allows me to take in the scene and the event that it presents to me, and then allows me to interpret it - to compare it to my own life, home, climate, and so on. The photographs speak for themselves.
On one last note, I want to talk a little about something of which I have been thinking. I have been becoming aware of how many professional photographers use the view camera to create their pictures, and I am beginning to realize why. I have never used a view camera before (and most likely never will), so I am not 100% confident in its functions, but what I've gathered from my brief research is that they allow for a lot of detail - more than you could ever get with a 35mm camera or digital camera. This must be a result of the time one must take to expose the negative, as well as the size of the negative itself. It carries a ton of information. Discovering these things about photography is fun, because I am just beginning to figure out all of the possibilities and what their specialties are. It's really just good to find these things out on your own, through experience, instead of being told.
This week, the photographs of David Hilliard resonated with me a lot.
Right off the bat, they have a unique format. They are panoramic, but not in the traditional sense: they are really more like diptiks, triptiks, and upwards (all the way to seven or eight in some cases). Different viewpoints of the same scene sit side by side or on top of each other to complete the photograph.
All photographers represent something that exists in the world; they present something to the viewer that was first presented to them. They RE-present it. Whether it be studio photography with light setups and actors or street photography or landscape photography - it is always a representation. What I think is relevant about Hilliard's photos is that this representation is more lifelike than a standard photograph. They present the same scene to us but at different angles of the same view, and sometimes, at slightly offset times. The picture below demonstrates this.
The man's arm is at his hip on the left, but on the right it has moved (or been moved from?) the side of the house.
Looking at Hilliard's photographs is a little like being there with him. It is like looking out of one's own eyes. When we are experiencing something in real life, we move out eyes around, turn our head, and take in the whole scene in a few seconds. This is the experience that I get when looking at one of Hilliard's panoramas.
I also can't help but think of practically the only other experience I have had with panoramas: the iPhone pano. I know that Hilliard's work is not a direct response to this because his panoramic style predates any cell phone with that capability. Nonetheless, it is satisfying to see this technique done professionally. There is deep thought and consideration in Hilliard's panoramas. They are a joy to look in and look into. And, of course, the quality is much richer than a phone camera shot!
Many, if not all, of Hilliard's photographs have a narrative quality to them.
This always adds to the impact of a photo. It makes the viewer want to figure out what is going on, makes us ask questions and contemplate what we are seeing. Everyone loves a good story, and with photography is can not always be deciphered easily. As for the above photo, I see a couple enjoying a lazy (and romantic due to the roses, candles, and of course, nudity) summer afternoon in what appears to be a cottage. One has fallen asleep by the fire while the other quietly reads a book by the window. Very peaceful.
Others are not so clear.
I suspect that his photographs mainly function in the context of their collection, or series. As with his collection The Tale is True, some photographs tell a more explicit tale, while others serve as punctuation; a breath or pause from the story. I am fond of the photograph above because I can get lost in this place by going deeper and deeper into the space. While I cannot determine what narrative it contains (if any), I find it interesting to look at because of its peculiarity. What's with the castle in the middle of nowhere? Is this truck unloading or picking up the junk, or is it part of it?
Based on the photos that I seem to be making (such as these two), maybe I will go in a geometric direction. I am drawn to taking photos that are symmetrical (like these) and that have organized formal qualities (like these). Or maybe I will go in the direction of eerie and isolated like I was planning. I will have to have look at them and decide.
