One of my photos was published in The Willamette Week’s visual arts listings in this weeks edition. There is also a review which while not glowing, is still pretty positive. I’ll definitely take it. It is a big bonus from what I was hoping would be a mention on the web site.
Review in The Willamette Week
March 31st, 2010Group Show At The Barrett Art Center
March 23rd, 2010I just got a notice in the post today that my photograph “Beauty” has been accepted to be included in their “Photowork ‘10″ exhibition. If you happen to be in Poughkeepsie on April 17th, 2010 check out the opening.
Upcoming Show!
March 20th, 2010I am very excited to have a show of my new project “The Riddle of The Echo” coming up in April. The show opens April 2nd, 2010 at the Press Club 2621 SE Clinton St. Portland, OR 97202. I’ve put a bunch of energy into promoting the show and my fingers are crossed.
God Bless The Internet
December 17th, 2009Help! I’m addicted to Flikr and I can’t stop. I find myself checking on it several times a day. Have people been looking at my stuff? Are my new shots anyone’s favorites? Hours will go by as I link from one person’s images to another. The amount of photographs is staggering. Out of curiosity I searched for groups that have the word “sunset” in their description or title. The result was over 62,000 groups each with thousands of images. I’m thrilled that people all over the world are looking at my work and I get to see theirs. The new developments in photo, whatever they may be, are going to happen in relation to the internet. I submitted to a call for entries done entirely on Flikr. Ironically it was an exhibition showcasing artists working with light sensitive material (not digital). The long term effects of The Web on photo will certainly merit further thought.
Intelect vs. Emotion
August 21st, 2009While conducting an interview with photographer Doug Ethridge he mentioned that he doesn’t intellectualize as he’s shooting and lets his emotions dictate his imagery. I had asked him about the “overarching themes” in his work and I found his response to be a little surprising. I was trying to get him to speak more specifically about particular storytelling or things that happened to him. Conversely he was trying to keep his image making fresh by not over thinking it and letting the photos come to him. In retrospect I think we were saying the same thing, but not realizing it.
I firmly believe that all photography is practiced as an emotional exercise. From staid catalog shots of products to Joel Peter Witkin tableaux of amputees to Moholy-Nagy abstracts the thing that all photos have in common is the viewer’s ability to identify with the image in some way. This identification does not happen as an intellectual decision, it happens, I believe, on an unconscious and emotional level.
Take, for example, Huynh Cong Ut’s famous photograph of the young girl running naked toward the camera fleeing a naplam attack in Vietnam. The power of a photograph as a piece of art is that it affects our emotions. We feel what we imagine the subject feels which in turn sparks a myriad of personal feelings. This is why photographs are used so much for advertising and politics. They hit our brains in the same place as memories and dreams.
It’s this same emotional response that lets us as photographers know when we “got it”. It’s what Alfred Steiglitz called “Equivalents”. He experimented with the theory by photographing clouds in the sky. To paraphrase, the point of the “Equivalents” project was to make the viewer feel what the photographer felt when selecting the shot. Minor White believed that his photographs had a spiritual foundation to them for similar reasons. I would go further and suggest that it is all photographs produced that have this reciprocal, emotional element.
I believe that this is also the reason why photography will always be considered “real”, or based in reality, no matter how much it is manipulated by digital processes.
And maybe I do tend to over think things, but when I’m out hunting or brainstorming images they come to me, sometimes from out of nowhere. And when something hits me just right I grab it.
Feet, Meet Ground.
August 15th, 2009I’ve been spun. I’ve been caught up in the tailspin of the economy and I’m just now getting my head around this new situation. The Portland Art Museum let me and a small group of others go as a cost cutting maneuver. It was a job I loved that taught me quite a bit about the business side of art and about some of the strengths I didn’t know I had. But now it’s time for me to get up and continue with practicing art.
Let’s consider this a new beginning.
The Paper Dragon
April 18th, 2009
Stanley In The Sails
April 18th, 2009
When Is A Photograph Not A Photograph? pt. 1
April 18th, 2009When is a photograph not a photograph? In my view it is when it is a digital collage. When an image is manipulated to such an extent that it is removed from its original content it should no longer be called a “photograph”. When an image is made of several seperate images it ceases to be a “photograph”. It is then a collage. I’ve been wrestling with where the distinction should be drawn.
This is one of the issues I hope to work out on this weblog.
A Bit About The Philosophy
April 15th, 2009 As an initial post to this brand new blog, it is probably a good idea to say a few words about where I’m coming from in terms of what I hope this blog will be and the temperament from which I view the world.
As far as this blog, I’m content to let it go where it will. On it I intend to put some of my own photos, ramblings regarding art and photography (especially photography as art), reviews of shows, and other random, miscellaneous thoughts. I will be highly opinionated. I will not be apologetic, I hate apologies.
In the realm of art and photo I have somewhat conflicting points of view. Experience has taught me that there really is no “good” or “bad” art. Relative terms like this are rather counterproductive. I find much of performance art to be tedious and embarrasing but I’m glad it exists in the world. I can appreciate the thought process behind most of it but I can’t stand to sit through it. That being said I have very definite thoughts about the art of photography. I taught myself the technical aspects of photo before I went to school in the years just prior to the explosion of digital processes. I love photography passionately and I have thoughts about its evolution. I am using this space to educate myself while expressing my thoughts on what photo is, what photo was, and what photo will be. And since I’m looking at photography as a branch on the family tree of Art, I will also be writting my thoughts on art in general. I only hope that the discussion and debate will be vigorous and enlightening.
