Photo Arts

Do students need an analogue base to slow down and think about the Photographic?
Or - is it us that understand the analogue and have knowledge of a photographic practice that keep this belief alive?
I believe they can learn to develop a photographic practice using today's technology and tools.
What is necessary to understand the art and craft of the image?
Requires
Comittment
Vision
contemporary issues
historical issues and context
craft - regardless of medium
knowledge of medium used
patience
mentoring
critique
editing
sequencing
voice
focus

April 6

Why are some years are easier than others? This is not an easy year.
Nostalgia and remembrance come from places that always surprise me.
April has been a difficult month since 1979 - the year my dad died of a massive heart attack and stroke.

Jean
Jeannie waited until she was sure that it was the exact same day that dad passed or as she asked me everyday the week before she passed "Is it daddy's day yet?" She did drama so well - right down to the last minute. As she moved between worlds, she had active conversations, negotiating how she could stay and not leave right until the last second. I remember asking her who she was with and talking with. She mentioned the family members of which had many already passed, and then said Elvis was there. Loved it - Elvis - go figure. Our spirits can figure things out, but there is a point when our bodies can no longer hang on. Jean's body had deteriorated to a place where it was simply not possible for her to stay. Cancer - a horrific process.
I keep thinking how she would have so loved Blaise. I often tell him that she would have "ruined" him:)
They would have loved doing all the things that little boys love - belching, swearing, sticking out there tongues covered with food, being obnoxious, making fun of  his mom... one of Jean's favorite things to do. She often would say to me "You are one of the most stupid smart people I know..." sigh sisters speaking harsh realities.
She would have added so much to his life,  been a confidant and guide. Life would indeed have been/be different with her here.

Life changed after she left - in every way.

Louis James
Dad would have loved Blaise. They would have built things and I often fantasize about how Blaise would have learned to love the outdoors with his Grandpa Jim. Dad always wanted a boy:) Instead e designated me as his "son".
I always miss him and the smell of his cigar and how he took care of me. Silly things - Registering and inspecting my car while I was living in another state - delivering my sewing machine in the middle of a blizzard simply because he said he would do it that day. He loved painting, eating, being outdoors in nature and most of all, he loved his family and accepted each person for who they were.

Musings - Nostalgia and humans

Being vintage, I grew up on film and "real" photo paper, you know the kind that was around before resin coated paper, took hours to wash and then dry. Getting a true glossy surface meant ferrotyping (sp?) a print = having a big, shiny, hot, metal drum that you attached the print to by having a big cotton blanket tightly adhered to it and "baking" the shine onto the emulsion.

4 x 5 and 8 x 10 were commonplace, 2 1/4 and 35 mm were not really serious photography... especially if it was in color!

Personally, photographs on paper were of little interest to me when I was in college.

I hated color photography since it never felt like I saw color.

Consequently, I was in love with original photographic processes and spent most of my time making emulsions from hard to find and decipher formulas. 

This WAS -  REAL photography!

I could then coat all kinds of materials and substrates...

I then spent many years painting and drawing on all my b/w photographs to create color the way I felt, saw it.

In grad school, one of my professors was a proponent of 35 mm photography. 

He believed that if you used a point light source (very focused beam of light) in the enlarger, you could make large prints that were equivalent to a similar print made from a 4 x 5 negative.  The focused light wrapped itself around the fine grain film in a way that allowed one to make big prints from a small negative. In many ways, the Point Source method was akin to Clarity, and correct sharpening in digital workflows. Warren Stevens was a VERY smart man.  

His hypothesis and procedures were correct of course. 

We all did it (Point Source Photography) - mostly to please him.

The results were evident, especially if you followed his workflow (one needed to be meticulous and precise and there was the issue of dust and the subsequent hours of spotting - each print - sigh...)

BUT - we all coveted our Hasselblad negative, and (the becoming vintage) large format films.

After all, 35mm could not be serious enough! We missed the struggles of "real photography" even though this then new fangled thing required more intense "realness and seriousness".

This Professor was a veteran war photographer. He had photographed WWII carrying an 8 x 10 and 

4 x 5 camera around. He knew the joys of large format, but knew its limitations and how it held photographic explorations hostage in many ways. Needless to say what it did to his body parts.

Warren (my professor) understood the need to romanticize, love of nostalgia, the exuberance of youth.

He understood that the grass is always greener.

And he truly understood that what goes around comes around. But things only come full circle when we are ready for it.

Using a 4 x5 is valid and important - but the same skill sets can be developed and honed with current technology. 

This I believe!

And yes - we will do exercises in 4 x 5 when it is time later in the qtr:)

What do you think?

Is Photography an ends to a mean?
or
A particular way of doing it?

Is it process driven or practice driven?
Process being - how - format, analog, digital, color, b/w ....
Practice being making images.

How do you see it?

Do you see yourself as  a visual artist with a practice in photography?
Does the process  dictate the discipline and the practice?
Does the process result from the known practice of photography?

More Musings and questions....

4 x5 and 8 x 10 provide great control over perspective  - (long list of elements that are related to the camera controls)
The larger film size, image area, provides greater flexibility for high quality enlargements.

I have also heard it said that large format shooting

• Makes you slow down and really think about the image, composition, lighting etc ...(yet I have seen some  really badly composed images, poorly lit etc ...)
• Forces one to use a light meter, consequently get better exposures (yet I have seen some very bad exposures on large format...)
• Why can't you do that if you shoot any format and are mindful?
• Do we require the physicality of large format to force us to do what we should be doing anyways?
• ....

"I miss film"
What doe this mean?
What do you miss?
Do you miss dropping it off and picking it up from the lab? Hours in the darkroom?
Is it the fact that you can't see the image and your results until you drop off and pick up?
Is it the suspense and having to wait?
Or is it the look?
If it is the look, what about the "look" makes it different from digital, other than the grain structure?

I have adapted the notion, that the tool should be chosen based on what will give you the best result for your message. The tool should not matter and should be transparent.
Personally, I do not miss film.
I do want to work with analog processes like Lumen prints and go back to doing more historic process like Platinum, Cyanotype, vanDyke Browns etc... Why? nostalgia and some of the effects you can't quite achieve in digital output, although, today you can achieve MANY. its cool, I like the way working with these materials makes me feel.....

Are we really referring to the method of working and how that makes us feel?

What are your personal thoughts on how you see the difference between film and digital?

Blaise's Nail adventure ....

This is what Blaise did Wed night while he was working with his dad at R.A.S.P.
Sigh - boys - luckily, he missed the bone, nail went right thru the fleshy part of his finger, no stitches, little blood. On an antibiotic just in case and all seems good - especially since today is a snow day:)

The Snow Hurricane - Weather Event

From my deck to yours MS Paula!
Diana, this is looking out from my dining room onto the backyard deck.

baubles by ...

http://www.sallybass.com/index.html
Check out her site - WONDERFUL and FUN and very Ballsy!

Baubles...