New York Times Photo Blog

Today was special. I learned that images from my ongoing project Lakewood: Portraits of a Sacred American Suburb had been posted on the New York Times Photography Blog. This is a result of my interview with James Estrin, staff photographer for the New York Times and co-creator of Lens the New York Times Photo Blog, at Santa Fe Review in early June. It just goes to show you work hard at something and stick to it good things eventually happen. This business is all about consistency and persistence, simple as that. Oh, I would also like to thank Kim Nowacki who did the interview and wrote the article accompanying the images. I think she did a fine job.

Cheers All.

The Horse

The Horse is short for Horseman, my recently purchased 8x10 camera. I got a very good deal, yet it's a very expensive camera. One sheet of film and process is a bit over $20.00. Think about that $20.00 for one exposure. How much is a digital exposure? Crazy, crazy. But there is something subtly special and compelling about the feel of the image. Of course there is the fall off, i.e. the look of the background as it fades away from the point of focus. I have a 300mm/5.6 lens and if I dare to fully open up and I am near my subject the background beautifully obliterates. And the texture, which I have always loved, is so rich you can taste it.

My goal with this camera is to find something special to use it for. It must be something more than just a subtle quality to the image. I'm searching for something magical. It make take many more views and film to find what that may be, but I'll continue to, carefully, search. It's a bit "Catch 28." To find what's special I must burn film, which costs a fortune. Tom Paiva, a connoisseur of all thing large format, says it's rare that a client will pay the cost to shoot an 8x10, but that does not stop him from using it for his personal work. Can the average person tell viewing it on a monitor? It's highly unlikely, but in photography, do we always opt for the practical? That's it for now. Moving forward my goal with this blog is to write more frequent yet shorter posts. Cheers to all, and it's good to be back.

Street Photographer

I love street photography, and shoot much more of it if I did not live in Los Angeles. But, to shoot street you have to walk streets where there are pedestrians. When I take good street images I'm feeling the street. It wasn't that Cartier-Bresson was just quick that made his work so profound, more importantly I believe he had a spiritual sense of what was about to happen. The man was in harmony with the street.

I also like the thrill of taking photographs of people knowing who might get pissed if they see me photographing them. And most people, unless their concentration is focused elsewhere, sense when a camera is pointed in their direction. I believe people have an evolved sense of alertness when they're being spied upon, perhaps it's an instinct, similar to animals that are preyed upon, that evolved when humans at close range were always attacking each other.

In February and April I was in New York and Boston and here are some street images. Oh, and these were shot with M-6 with the 35mm. I can't imagine shooting street with a fucking Canon. It's so obtrusive.

What I learned at PSPF 2011

This was my second year attending Palm Springs Photo Festival, and I am certain it will not be my last because I probably learn more in this week about photography and myself than in the course of the year. The difference for me from this year to last is I took Frank Ockenfel’s workshop, which was cut short a day because Frank had a job in New York that could not be rearranged. To make-up for Frank’s early departure Jeff Dunas offered us a day of studio lighting with Nels Israelson. Also new for me this year is arrived a day earlier to attend a meeting of stock photographers sponsored by Blend Images. After a portfolio review last year with Sarah Fix, the creative director of Blend Images, and showing an interest in stock photography, she invited me to attend. It was their spring meeting to give their photographers the opportunity to network and hear discussions on all things stock photography and the trends of the their business. Sarah is one of the nicest people I’ve met at PSPF and I’ve come to learn that stock photographers are some of the coolest and least pretentious shooters I’ve met since becoming a photographer.

Because much of my time and energy was consumed by the workshops I was unable to attend any of the symposiums and I could not commingle and network as much as I would have liked at the festival’s hub in the Hyatt Regency. Nevertheless I learned a lot, so hear goes.

I learned that Frank Ockefel beyond being a prolific image-maker is a photographer’s photographer and a philanthropist of spirit. I learned from him that with a bit of resourcefulness and less than $50.00 worth of lights purchased at Home Depot I can make a very provocative portrait, that if I wanted to get out of my creative box I had to suffer, and that if I wanted to get better I needed to delete my ego and embrace being a beginner… I was delighted to learn that my slideshow entry “Lakewood: Portraits of a Sacred American Suburb” was one of the 4 finalists. Ultimately my project placed behind the winner Angela Bacon Kidwell, but for the entire week many of my colleagues approached me with compliments. I don’t believe I have ever been more touched and honored…. As there were highs there were lows. There were no book deals or exhibitions offered by the book publishers and gallery owners I respectively reviewed with. I sense they appreciate the merit and quality of my work, but they don’t yet believe Lakewood will help pay their rent. And the curators I met with weren’t jumping out of their shoes either; one even suggested I try to exhibit my work in the Lakewood Public Library. I am still discerning if this suggestion was an insult, however; I intend to do exactly that. My two best reviews came from those I least suspected, photography reps: they see Lakewood as being more editorial than fine art. I can’t really argue with that, and I got the impression from them that if the work was tweaked a bit here and there it could be commercially viable. Wouldn’t it be swell if I started making money because of Lakewood? Talking with some of my colleagues we are still assessing the review process. Is it worth money? Is it for everyone? How many should we do? All of us agree we get something out of reviews: we learn not just something about are work but ourselves. More often than not the reviews are frustrating, because as my Wisconsin friend Mike Rebholz told me they seem to always want something you don’t have. That written, upon hearing this criticism I have gone out and sought those missing photos which have in turn added depth to my work. And one last thing Tom, you numbskull, when you pack for Review Santa Fe in June bring a recorder… From Nels Israelson I relearned the Inverse Square Law and that all lighting is a corollary of that law, that dramatic lighting works on everyone as long as you or someone you know is good at retouching. That with the continuing advancement of digital technology, the exception being fine art, dots on a screen will eventually replace dots on paper. It’s the Wild West and you have to continually reshuffle your deck and there is no such thing as a pat hand… From Todd Hido’s presentation I learned that art is nonstop and to constantly play and tinker with my vision, from Arno Rafael Minkkinen to make every thing I love into a piece of art… I learned to never have more than two drinks the night before I have reviews… I learned from Martin Gisborne that I would have saved myself hours if had used Aperture to make my slideshow presentation rather than Final Cut…

I learned to never ever test a new camera while trying to see the world differently… I relearned that Jeff Dunas is a pretty cool guy even if he can’t remember that I photograph Lakewood not Lynwood… I wish I would have learned more from Lee Varis’ Photoshop class but I was too tired and too hung over to take my face off the table-$95.00 for naught. I learned if I was not madly in love with and incredibly dependent on, Sydney, my wife I would volunteer next year because there are a lot of nice girls wearing blue t-shirts at PSPF. I learned that I have a group of colleagues that truly wish me well, and I would like Brad, Svjtlana, Nancy, Laurie, Tom, Mike and Mike, and Jamie to know I feel the same about them.

See you at PSPF 2012

Faith

Yesterday evening was the critique in Brian's portrait class for our assignment on the human condition.
We were assigned to make a portrait inspired by the film Bodysong and make a documentary/contemporary portrait that reflected something personal to us about the human experience. For two weeks I struggled to find an original theme that resonated with me. I racked my brain begging for an idea that was not contrived or cliché, then as with most of my concepts it evolved by happenstance. In this instance it was a combination of events: music from a ballet I attended and the inspiration of another student's Christian devotion.

I made a portrait of Joel. I brought him to Mother's Bay in Long Beach, a still saltwater bay to simulate a river for a baptism. I tested my own faith with a camera I have had very little luck with, a Holga. To increase the contrast and the angelic texture of Joel's skin I used a red filter, and I captured the image above. I am very pleased with it, although there were a few in the class who thought this image was staged. Well of course its staged, many photographs are staged. However, the question is does it work? I believe this one does.

I printed it on some old grade 3 Oriental Seafull I've had sitting in the darkroom for over ten years . Of course it was a bit fogged, but I was able to make something out of it. The texture of the paper remains very beautiful. But after becoming fairly proficient at photoshop, it is amazing how much easier it is to manipulate what I want on a monitor than in chemistry. Still I argue the quality of an analog print remains superior.

Stolen from Brian Doan's Blog

a few good quotes

“ Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.

– Imogen Cunningham

“ If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up.

– Garry Winogrand

“ I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just isn’t that good.”

– Anonymous

“I’m at war with the obvious.”

– William Eggleston

“Unless a picture shocks it is nothing.”

– Marcel Duchamp

My Evening with a Master

First I apologize for not posting something in some while. Preparing for New York, being there when the thermometer rarely rose above thirty degrees, then recovering from the trip consumed a lot of time and energy. To add to my excuse I was very sick before we departed, so I simply did not have the energy to blog. However, I promise my dedicated followers, all fifteen of you, in a future post to write in detail about my New York experience.

On this post I 'd like to write about my evening hanging out with Tom Paiva. I first met Tom at a photo critique at Ann Mitchell's home about a year and 1/2 ago. Tom is a very successful photographer who is commissioned by variety of creative directors all over the world for his acute compositional eye and ability to produce superior work; however, his passion is to use one of his many beloved view cameras to photograph prodigious manmade stuff in the stillness of the night. It's awe inspiring to view his work. On first inspection you notice how harmoniously he composes his views of massive structures of metal. On second glance you become aware of his precise use of ambient lights as if he strategically places them to illuminate his image. His awareness of the temperature of and color emitted by each source of light allows him to compose their opposite and complementary colors into kaleidoscope of hues. He works with the colors of the night as Eggleston does with those of the day. Unless he is obliged to shoot digitally, due only to the budgetary concerns of his client, Tom exposes his images on sheet film. In addition to being an excellent photographer, Tom is a lover and collector of all things view camera. He has an arsenal of lenses and cameras acquired over the years from colleagues, E-Bay, and camera shows that allow him to fine tune his work for any possibility. I've always been wary of too much camera gear fearing that it would alter my style. However, this evening I learned from Tom that a different tool can enhance rather than detract from one's vision.

Recently Tom has embarked upon photographing abandoned auto dealerships, please see his blog. So the other night Tom invited me to join him in making images of abandoned capitalistic waste. Serendipitously I happened to know of a couple of nearby vacant lots, so we agreed to meet at my house. Tom arrived around 3:30, in the afternoon, and gave me a little show and tell. He displayed his newest toy, and boy it's a doozy: a massive lens once used to take recognizance photographs during WWII. What's facinating about this lens is that its glass is made with radioactive elements, so as Tom says it's not something that will slip through airport inspection undetected. Tom has rigged the lens so it mounts onto his 4x5 Speed Graphic. The lens is super fast and that coupled with the the Speed Graphic's ability to tilt and shift can create an affect that makes a typical landscape image appear as if it's a still life. The famous photojournalist David Burnett has used this set-up to create some amazing unreal images.

After the demo we drove to a nearby abandoned dealership where I bought my first truck. He agreed that it was a perfect location-"plenty of patina"-unfortunately, it was heavily gated and Tom wasn't interested in trespassing. Yet, let the record show that I was up for some fence hopping. Of course I only had to get my 4x5 Super Graphic over the fence, Tom's weapon of choice this evening was his Toyo 8x10.

So we headed north to Norwalk to another abandoned dealership that Tom had been commissioned to photograph when it opened. But, no luck there either. The dealership hadn't completely shutdown and was not that interesting. It was too new, and hadn't any character. It lacked texture, or as Tom noted, "patina."

It was getting late and if we didn't find another dealership soon our evening would be without. I knew of another abandoned auto dealership in Carson, so off we sped in hopes of capturing something. We arrived at the lot with just a little atmospheric light remaining. I got out my Super Graphic and Tom his 8x10. And as quickly as you can set-up an 8x10 camera on a tripod Tom had lined up his shot. I attempted to set-up mine, but I immediately realized how unprepared I was for night shooting. Lesson 1: when shooting at night bring a good flashlight, duh! Also, my Super Graphic is not yet second nature to me, and it's one thing to not be completely familiar with your camera during the day, but quite another in darkness. We were just on the edge of loosing what remained of the sun's affect on the evening sky. And in my case it didn't help that 20 minutes into setting up my shot I realized I opted for the wrong lens. However, on this evening it wasn't important that I make an image; I was there to observe and learn. Once I had the correct lens I needed to raise my camera, and rather than extending the legs of my tripod I lazily raised its neck. Tom looked at my set-up, cracked a grin, and kindly told me that the passing cars would create enough vibration to shake the long neck of my tripod and blur my views. For a ten minute exposures this can be a problem. There were many other tips and anecdotes that Tom shared as we stood by and waited for his camera to complete its nearly half an hour exposure. He pointed to the pink clouds and told me there is only one type of transparency film that truly brings out those colors. He informed me that the deep blue hue of the night sky is only revealed in an 8x10 negative and that for long exposures, especially with 8x10 film, he's learned that he must pull the dark slide and let the film acclimate with the night air's cool dampness so the film doesn't buckle in mid-exposure.

After shooting we concluded the evening over a couple of beers and Mexican food. Photographing can be such a lonely endeavor, so it was nice to share an evening with a friend and colleague. I noted something interesting about Tom's demeanor throughout our afternoon and evening together. He didn't seem to be bothered that we had missed the best light, or anxious in pursuit of it. He accepted what was there and worked with it. In addition to all of Tom Paiva's technical and creative skill and knowledge, as with all masters, there is more than a teaspoon of zen in his mix.

Finally, the evening reinforced what I've known, but it was good to get another dose of it. If you want to be a successful photographer you have to be extremely dedicated. And if you wish to see your work in museums and be considered a master, making memorable magical images best be your single most important cause.