After a too long hiatus from this blog, it is time to get back into posting. SOmuch has changed in the months since April. Some good - some not so good.
Once again will try to make this a regular thing.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Depth of Field
Perhaps it should be depth of perspective.
I know that my life is shifting. It's not scary, although I have no idea where it will lead me. Re-discovering and re-connecting with parts of myself has been both very joyful and very painful. While it appears trivial, shooting while listening to music signifies a profound awakening on many levels and with it a flood of past feelings, many of them painful. This awakening is urging me to set out once again to learn more about myself, and it feels like a new chapter and a new direction is beginning. Restless feelings continue, and I am so looking forward to the school term being over so that I will have more time for my own work.
I plan to write more frequently here as part of this journey.
I know that my life is shifting. It's not scary, although I have no idea where it will lead me. Re-discovering and re-connecting with parts of myself has been both very joyful and very painful. While it appears trivial, shooting while listening to music signifies a profound awakening on many levels and with it a flood of past feelings, many of them painful. This awakening is urging me to set out once again to learn more about myself, and it feels like a new chapter and a new direction is beginning. Restless feelings continue, and I am so looking forward to the school term being over so that I will have more time for my own work.
I plan to write more frequently here as part of this journey.
Monday, March 23, 2009
In-sights
Been pondering all day the significance of my experience yesterday while in the junkyard. Realizing in hindsight how much listening to music while doing creative stuff has been pivotal in the past. Certainly a way of isolating, bringing more of my inner awareness to bear on what I am seeing. During darkroom days it was a constant - walkman & headphones. Today background elevator music, not injected into my brain with phones/buds that shut out more of the outside world. Would not be possible of course if shooting a person or something that required interaction. recalling not only this method that worked so well for me, but also the music I was listening to at the time vs, what I listen to now - so different.
Also the realization today that I am getting a body of work together. Projects were always part of my method in the past. Would discover patterns of what I was shooting in reviewing contact sheets, then printing quick proof prints - hundreds and hundreds. Awareness of the patterns would sensitize me to look and see more that would fit into the patterns, and so projects were born - themes would emerge. Some would be long lasting, others would wither and fade away. Don't really care if any are emerging yet, too new - I will just allow the images to guide me, and see where they take me.
New workflow with Lightroom that will likely become a major factor.
feels like playtime - exciting - somewhat chaotic
another part of my ongoing self-reclamation project
Also the realization today that I am getting a body of work together. Projects were always part of my method in the past. Would discover patterns of what I was shooting in reviewing contact sheets, then printing quick proof prints - hundreds and hundreds. Awareness of the patterns would sensitize me to look and see more that would fit into the patterns, and so projects were born - themes would emerge. Some would be long lasting, others would wither and fade away. Don't really care if any are emerging yet, too new - I will just allow the images to guide me, and see where they take me.
New workflow with Lightroom that will likely become a major factor.
feels like playtime - exciting - somewhat chaotic
another part of my ongoing self-reclamation project
Sunday, March 22, 2009
First Day of Spring - Junkyard Journal
Went shooting the last two days at a local junkyard.
Was feeling so restless - needing to get out shooting after what has felt like a very long winter.
Perhaps it had to do with the first day of spring, I dunno.
Excursion today was liberating. Mainly because I remembered some stuff. The head/heart space I entered left me not really caring how the pictures turn out.
Some realizations are more profound than they might appear.
Took the iPod and was listening to music while I was shooting. I have have not done this since going digital. Had forgotten how this influences my seeing. In the 80s, I wore out 3 cassette Walkmans because I was ALWAYS listening to music - shooting and in the darkroom. It has to do with the emotional space that music puts me in, which in turn influences how I see and shoot. It also isolates me from the environment so I am more in the space of an observer and more able to step back from the place and see the images. I had forgotten.
Of course the kind of music is huge as well. Did not use the iPod yesterday, but was listening as I drove - heavy metal, played loud. Was a dark gray day and it fit. Today it was older music and did use the iPod - Abbey Road, Let It Bleed, Blind Faith.
junkyard + iPod + camera = some other space
Definitely need more rock and roll in my life - real - raw, music recorded by someone actually playing. The energy is so much more real. Have been listening to too much manufactured music.
So aware that this all has to do with cycles, doing the spiral journey on the wheel. What goes around - comes around. Wish I would remember this more often.
Also remembered how much I love driving - being on the road - just out there - open ended - no timetable - spontaneous and free..... with music of course, its a soundtrack for sure.
Deeper realizations..... such a loner. Not sure if this is a good thing though, so easy for me to isolate, to just walk away. It's perhaps too comfortable and I suspect on some level a cop out from having to deal with others, I became self-reliant very early. Lot of work to do here.... but the real question is... do I really want to make the effort.
Junkyards are such strange places. Can almost feel ghosts, or perhaps just the energy of the people who used these things. Doesn't bother me, just aware of it. Graveyards of our materialism, stuff we use and throw away. Storage area on the way to re-use or recycle. The visual stimulation is overwhelming. Colors, shapes, textures if seen in a narrow view - or a social commentary in wider views. The junkyard also reminds me how temporary everything is. On a material level, its whats left over, but everything is left over - we can't take anything with us and this is where it ends up.
Wandering around the junkyard is also so funny, with the most bizarre juxtapositions of objects, I laugh often at the irony and incongruities, at other times just shake my head at how stuff gets arranged. Passed an area today were there were smashed up toilets and the area reminded me of bones. Its not just objects which are so incongruous, but also colors and textures.
So want to shoot people in the junkyard - the juxtaposition of the living & breathing with the discarded. I really want to do some nudes there as well, although would be tricky for sure, definitely not a very safe place.
I am posting work from these sessions:
flickr
pbase
Was feeling so restless - needing to get out shooting after what has felt like a very long winter.
Perhaps it had to do with the first day of spring, I dunno.
Excursion today was liberating. Mainly because I remembered some stuff. The head/heart space I entered left me not really caring how the pictures turn out.
Some realizations are more profound than they might appear.
Took the iPod and was listening to music while I was shooting. I have have not done this since going digital. Had forgotten how this influences my seeing. In the 80s, I wore out 3 cassette Walkmans because I was ALWAYS listening to music - shooting and in the darkroom. It has to do with the emotional space that music puts me in, which in turn influences how I see and shoot. It also isolates me from the environment so I am more in the space of an observer and more able to step back from the place and see the images. I had forgotten.
Of course the kind of music is huge as well. Did not use the iPod yesterday, but was listening as I drove - heavy metal, played loud. Was a dark gray day and it fit. Today it was older music and did use the iPod - Abbey Road, Let It Bleed, Blind Faith.
junkyard + iPod + camera = some other space
Definitely need more rock and roll in my life - real - raw, music recorded by someone actually playing. The energy is so much more real. Have been listening to too much manufactured music.
So aware that this all has to do with cycles, doing the spiral journey on the wheel. What goes around - comes around. Wish I would remember this more often.
Also remembered how much I love driving - being on the road - just out there - open ended - no timetable - spontaneous and free..... with music of course, its a soundtrack for sure.
Deeper realizations..... such a loner. Not sure if this is a good thing though, so easy for me to isolate, to just walk away. It's perhaps too comfortable and I suspect on some level a cop out from having to deal with others, I became self-reliant very early. Lot of work to do here.... but the real question is... do I really want to make the effort.
Junkyards are such strange places. Can almost feel ghosts, or perhaps just the energy of the people who used these things. Doesn't bother me, just aware of it. Graveyards of our materialism, stuff we use and throw away. Storage area on the way to re-use or recycle. The visual stimulation is overwhelming. Colors, shapes, textures if seen in a narrow view - or a social commentary in wider views. The junkyard also reminds me how temporary everything is. On a material level, its whats left over, but everything is left over - we can't take anything with us and this is where it ends up.
Wandering around the junkyard is also so funny, with the most bizarre juxtapositions of objects, I laugh often at the irony and incongruities, at other times just shake my head at how stuff gets arranged. Passed an area today were there were smashed up toilets and the area reminded me of bones. Its not just objects which are so incongruous, but also colors and textures.
So want to shoot people in the junkyard - the juxtaposition of the living & breathing with the discarded. I really want to do some nudes there as well, although would be tricky for sure, definitely not a very safe place.
I am posting work from these sessions:
flickr
pbase
Friday, March 6, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
wonderful start
I was expecting lightworx to not be available, but it is and I am very happy about that.