Finishing the book...

I finally finished the book. I don't know if I am really satisfyed with it. I think I will probablly to a few different versions after the class is over, to work off of the foundation of the book being printed now. There were so many more stories and perspectives I wanted included, to make my point clearly. Below are a few of the photos that didn'tmake it in the book, but I thought diserved to be seen:

MOPA - Balboa Park

Exhibit: FLESH
Artist: Gary Schneider
This exhibit contained mostly black and white photos - Geletin Silver Prints. I found the genetic self portrait portion the most interesting. I am not sure how the images were captured. I am pretty sure, based on my last visit to the dentist's office (to get xrays), that the images were captured digitally with medical photographic eqiuipment. When you read to the words that explain what the subject of the photo is, it has a real scientific quality. The exhibit seemed to me to be a fusion of medical photographic, microscopic, and xray technology with visual art. Taking something seen with the naked eye everyday and zooming in so closely that those same body parts take an almost abstract appearence. The photos of the body parts take on shapes commonly used in abstract 2D art. The body parts become just barely on recognizeable and fill the frame with bizarre and wonderful biomorphic shapes.
There was a series of images taken up close of just several different individuals' eyes mouths and ears. In this series piece the differences between the people are very obvious, then when you walk further into the exhibit there are microscopic pictures of an eye, ear drum, and hair, etc. At this perspective you can't really determine a difference in ethnicity, social status, economic status, or religious beleifs, one could even inffer that from this perspective you can see that there really are no differences among us as people, as creatures, animals. It was also interesting how each xray could tell a story about the kind of life the subject had lead. I'm sure that if I were a doctor I would read much more, but the images did imply this person lived hard or this person lived very conservatively, under glass, I found the images of the eardrum the most beautiful. The light danced across it. And a variety of highlights and shadows collected on this one tiny form bringing out and apperence of luster and glowing. I found it aesthetically pretty, I think it might be neat to see them hung somewhere liek a doctors office. It might bring some calm and appretiation to all the people in the waiting rooms, sitting there being afraid of what they don't understand about their own bodies. It might also help people appreciate the beauty of their bodies and encourage them to take care of themselves and to not be afraid of what they don't always completly understand.

Info on DONNA COSENTINO

Image Transfers
Donna works with a Nikon F3 and Scala black and white transparency film to create her Polaroid transfers. These photographs are made on her personal journeys to favorite locations in California such as Death Valley, the Owens Valley and Yosemite. She also photographs on travel adventures across North America in such diverse places as South Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Quebec.

The Polaroid image transfer begins with a color, or, in this case, black and white transparency (slide). It is copied onto 4x5 Polaroid Type 59 color film in a machine called a Daylab Slide Copier. After approximately 10 seconds the film with the copied image is peeled apart. The wrong side (not the positive image) is saved. (The image/positive side is thrown away or saved to later make a lift). The wrong/negative side of the peeled-apart film is then ‘transferred’ or pressed onto wet watercolor paper. Transferring renders a somewhat soft result. Different papers/receptors can be used and the resulting colors and textures can be quite varied. Imperfections are embraced. Each result is one-of–a-kind. Copying black and white film onto color film in this process renders colors from blue to brown and the artist strives for creamy warm and cool blue tones within each image.


Silver Gelatin Prints
Donna works with a Rolleiflex 2 ¼ x 2 ¼ Twin Lens Reflex camera built in 1959. It is equipped with a 3.5 Carl Zeiss 75mm lens. She uses Tri X 320 ISO film. She develops her film by hand.

Her prints are made in her very basic home darkroom. The enlarger is a Simmon Omega D2 variable condenser enlarger. She prints on an 11x14 warm paper base made by Forte using warm tone developer then selenium and tea tones the photographs for further duotone effect.

Ordover Museum – Donna Cosentino

I visited the Ordover Museum in Solana Beach today. At this museum, they normally have very bright color landscapes, but right now they are featuring all black and white photographs. One of the photographers exhibiting their work used digital photography. His exhibit was of portraits of people from India. These pieces were very impressive. The artist’s name was Lou Montrose and the exhibit’s name was “India in Black & White”. The interesting dynamic about the exhibit is most photos you see of India are flooded with bright and vibrant colors. The artist felt it would be interesting to use the grayscale to convey another kind of detail that is easily ignored with the colors. I thought it was an interesting perspective. (the image shown above actually was displayed in grayscale at the exhibit)

Another series here I found interesting was by Donna Cosentino. I was fortunate enough to meet there at gallery as well and she shared with me the processes she used to create her exhibit. She took the photos on a 35 mm camera and developed the film into slides. She then takes the slide and exposes the slide to Polaroid film. She pulls the film out, waits, pulls apart the to sections and throws out the actually photo part and uses the side with the transfer inks and stamps it onto Arches hot press water color paper.

The images are framed and matted in 12” x 16” cream colored matte and an inch thick cherry wood frame. I particularly liked the way the 4” x 3.5” images were framed in so much analogous colored negative space. This method encourages the viewer to look deeper into the photo to search for intricacies and details that may not be jumping out in the for-front. The subject of the series was of landscapes of forests, tree, and vegetation and one shot of a babbling brook and waterfall. The photos were taken mostly in locations within California state parks and forests. One photo was taken in Wisconsin and one in Quebec as well.

An interesting side note, the medium being used will not be able to be replicated for much longer. The Polaroid Company will not be producing the film or Polaroid transfers used to create this series. So in the future, a piece using this medium will be extremely limited and irreplaceable. It will be sort of a sign of the time that it came from. I thought that was kind of cool to think about.

Another interesting part about this medium is the unusual colors that come from it. This series uses all cool colors like blues, grays, and indigoes. It is a very subtle and natural looking gradation of color. Also it creates a very interesting light using the watercolor paper, kind of a creamy white warm light to contrast with the cool positive shapes and lines. The texture of the paper creates a very organic feel to the image. Especially since the series is of trees and woods and such, it is very appropriate. The grain of the paper enhances the image of the grain of a tree’s bark.

I also found the amount of craftsmanship and working with the hands to create this finished product to be a point of interest. When working in Adobe Photoshop there may be a detachment from the concept to the finished product you may loose some of that creative experience in building the printed piece. You loose a sort of hands on connection to what you are making. In Photoshop it is more visualizing an intellectual idea and finding ways to achieve the idea. It can at times take allot of guess work for the results of the actual finished printed piece from the screen to the product in your hand. I think this is an interesting dynamic. There is something a little more sterile about the printing of a Photoshop file. And perhaps something more intimate about the working with your hands and the developing of the negatives. I don’t know just something I am pondering. An idea to play with, definitely not something I know enough about yet to preach. And don’t get me wrong I love Photoshop. There have been many times when I have spent hours and hours on a piece and felt very intimate with the finished product but not every time. I don’t know, just food for thought I guess. All in all the Ordover Museum an interesting and educational experience.

Diane Willow

I thought her ideas about changing the enviroment with the electronically generated light was interesting. I also thought the concept of how each individual effects the surroundings of the installation peice. Because although nobody ever taught me in science class about somebody's "energy" changing the room or enviroment you are still very aware of it being true. If a freind comes into my house and his happy and excited to see me and talkative and smiling the energy of the room seems to lift and if my boss is angry and stressed out the rooms energy is down and actually more tired or stiffled from being productive. So she looking for evidence in a way to proove these concepts visually.

Jim Brandenburg

Woh.
Jim Brandenburg's story about his 90 day jouney was nothing short of inspirational.
Woh.
Speaking from the point of view of somebody who has a very short attention span and cannot wake up early, I completly look up to him and his focus and patience and commitment to his project. I loved how he needed work to rejuvinate him from all the working he had been doing. I loved how th epeople that were responsible forover working him in the first place could not help but fall in love with the reason he stopped working for him. How satidfying that must have felt. He had a very wise an experienced point of view to offer. As someone who has litterally seen it all, finding a new way to look at things and to not waste his time on earth. To be driven by an inner passion to find purpose in what you do and not just survival. He took only one frame everyday for 90 days in the fall in a forest outside his home in the North Woods of Minnesota. Visiting there in passing you might not be able to appreciate it as much as he. He was patient and waited for the perfect shot. He walked all over everytrail till he memorized the trees and the shadows.

While learning to take photoraphs I have sloppily just shot anythng and everything hoping that I would be able to get a feel for it, reaching for an understanding of the craft. I love his self control to be able to wait for the one and be so desicive. HE admits to not always being confident that the shot would be good, but an inner will to go on paid off genorously at the end of the 90 day project.

I also loved the bit of the film were he talks about coming home after walking miles for a day and gets his wife to shine a flashlight on the waterfall in there back yard and says sometimes you just have to make the shot. I don't know if that makes it better or warse, but there you go. Sometimes you just have to make the shot.

Lastly one of the things that made a big impression on me about watching the film on Jim Brandenburg was how he was able to make a direct conection between the subject of what he was photographing and the positive impact on saving the subject, which was this natural preserved forest area. That because of his photos he was able to ensure that the forest would stay the way it was untouched be people or abused by people because of the powerful story he was able to tell in the photos. A wide range and large number of people feel compelled to perserve nature and feel a connection to the outdoors through the photos that they might not have had before they saw the photos. I think that is just amazing. That is something I hope to accomplish with my photos. I want to be able to show people the things about themselves they might not see until lookinhg at the photos. I want to be able to change someones point of veiw or behavior for the better by seeing my photos, save life in a sense. It maybe overly ambisious for my first project ever. But like Brandenburg I won't get very far by doubting myself so I may as well try. :) Sounds cheezy, but it is true.

Graciela Iturbide at the Getty Center in LA, CA

So I know that the Getty Center in Los Angeles is not oon the list of place we are supposed to attend during this course, but it just happened that I found myself there a nd walked through a fascinating photo exhibit. The exhibit was called "The Goat Dance: the photographs of Graciela Iturbide".
The artist's media of choice was black and white photography. The prints were called silver gelatin, I think. There were quite a few pieces there that made a lasting impression on me. The first one that struck me was a photograph of what seemed to be a million birds exploding off of a telephone wire, in the middle of a bleak empty sky, in the middle of a bleak empty town. While looking a the photo, I couldn't help but think about the moment that it was taken. What the sound must have been to here all those hundreds of birds leap off the wire. Did the sky grow darker from all their shadows? What made them jump in the first place? What made them all gather there in the first place? Where could this be? Is this what the photographer intended to take a photo of? Or was she actually looking for something else entirely when it happened? Was entirely staged? I guess it would kind of have to be, in order to have the shutter speed just right.

The series of her photography I found the most interesting was about the cholas and cholos that belonged to a gang in East LA. They are candid shots of the gang members in their local stomping grounds. Shots of the women mostly. With their “family” and their children. They stare into the camera proud of what they are and what the represent. Brandishing their gang signs by contorting their fingers in such a way towards the camera. And through their pride and gang uniforms nd their hardness and caluosnesss behind it all you could see somewhere in there eyes a mourning. A mourning aloss of something. Mourning a loss of their identities. Though they are proud of what they represent for reasons I am not sure all of them were sure of, they did not know who they were. I don’t think they even knew who they were supposed to be. All they are sure of is that they are need be tougher, stronger, meaner, and better than the other gangs.

I don’t want to over labor that topic, but their was something I learned by soaking in this work. This is the kind of photos and truth and clarity that I want my photos to have. I want to be able to show the true condition of the drinkers and those around them. I want to show them in how they seem so proud of their state and at the same time I want viewers to be detect the things under the surface in the people and the characters are experiencing. Or I guess not experiencing in a sense… The things they are masking with the achohol. The feelings they are numbing while being drunk. I want people to ask questions when they look at the photos. I want people to ask something about the people they see in the photos. I want them to be able to detach from themselves in the other person’s story, and ask themselves questions they might be afraid to ask themselves about themselves. By the time they have gone through that process, they can find themselves seeing the similarities between themselves and the character. And in that moment they won’t have to lie to themselves. They will feel safe in being truthful with themselves for maybe a moment, and maybe in that moment it can change their lives.

That’s what the photographic exhibit of Graciela Iturbide made me think of. It was a fulfilling and inspiring lesson that gave me more drive and motivation to shoot photographs. It brought into focus what I have been looking for.