Postcards from the Creative Journey

Output. It Sounds So Technical

From "Objects in Mirror" 

the latest folio on my web site.

The virtue of photographs is they don’t have to be “one of” objects but can be distributed in multiple forms such as web sites, books and magazines. As a matter of practice, I create three copies of my projects. One copy is a low resolution folio that goes to my web site. The second copy is a print folio, 8.5 by 11 inches to fit in a Dane Creek folio .    

The last (and almost never used) is a set of “full size” exhibition prints usually printed on 13 x 19 inch paper. Should I be lucky enough to be asked to create an exhibition I will have the prints ready for printing, matting and framing. The final computer based form for all three products is an Adobe Acrobat file.

Photography has a real advantage in the ability to distribute artwork quickly and widely. It is smart to exploit these characteristics to have your photographs reach a wider audience. Creating your work to take advantage of the opportunity to exhibit your work to as many people as possible is something only photography has.

Tales of the Analog

Jameson Inn, Wallace, Idaho

Way back in the last century, I kept meticulous darkroom printing notes written on paper with pencil and bound in a three ring binder. I faithfully recorded dates, negative numbers, dodging and burning notes, enlarger to baseboard height and f/stops, chemistry, times, temperatures and of course, which type and grade of paper I used, especially if I used variable contrast filters. It got even more detailed when I was doing platinum prints. I don’t do anywhere near that level of note taking now that I have a digital workflow instead of a darkroom process. Maybe I should be just as concerned about my digital workflow as I was with my analog process.

I have the odd file here and there with screen shots showing various dialog boxes for printing and a group of settings for various LightRoom Toning Presets. There’s EXIF data and the lrcat (LightRoom Catalog) file with the history of the original files. My files also go through InDesign and Acrobat before they become the art work that you see. I need to consider how to preserve the post-LightRoom and Photoshop image processing details on the path to the final print. Having records of what digital processing steps taken and settings would save a bunch of time in completing future projects and assure myself I am creating a consistent product. 

Many Over One

Transformation - Cary Arts Center

I much prefer to have an entire series of small photographs of a topic rather than the single large photograph. I have begun to understand and appreciate the narrative aspect of photography and its ability to tell a visual story. A series of photographs is a visual conversation with the photographer. A single picture is like a single word. There is only so much one can do with a single word. A group of pictures is like a group of words giving the artist a lot more options to express their artistic vision. There are some that might say given a single word the viewer can construct a story from it. That puts a lot of responsibility for the conversation on the audience and their interpretation of the single word. Describing something with many words gives the audience a much clearer explanation of the creator’s intent.

I came across this quote about Duane Michaels in the New York Times Lens Blog. “Beginning in an era when the photo world had as its paragon the decisive, single moment, Mr. Michaels set out on another path. “Along comes this guy and he’s saying he needs the moment before and the moment after,” Ms. Benedict-Jones said. ‘That decisive moment is fine, but it doesn’t work for me.’ He needed to create a sequence. Duane Michaels was ahead of his time. It’s taken me a while to adapt this view to my own art.”

Somebody said it much better than I can. I want more than the decisive moment in my work.

These four photographs are part of a dynamic presentation entitled “Transformations” posted on my web site. When I photographed the transformation of the Cary Elementary School into the town’s Arts Center, I decided it would be interesting to photograph from the same spot throughout the construction project. To see the entire project, follow this link.

Rare and Precious or Not?

Hughes House - Doors

There is the temptation to treat photographs as precious unique objects in order to follow the artistic tradition of art being a “one of” object such as a painting or a sculpture.

Maybe a photograph was rare and precious in the early days of photography when it was simply a challenge to create a print. In those days you had to mix your own chemicals, (of dubious quality, consistency and purity) create your own emulsions for film and then coat your own paper to make a print. With so many variables in the process it was a challenge to make a print, much less a print that was beautiful and contained meaning. To triumph against all those odds was a singular achievement. With that challenge, it is little wonder that the production of the single image was considered a technical achievement. For some reason the art establishment continues to view photographs in that manner.

The problem of technical success in photography has been pretty much solved in the digital age. Photographers no longer have to struggle to create beautiful photographs these days. To create the Rare and Precious, the photographs have become big. The prices have been adjusted proportionately so that the gallery can fill a wall with a big photograph and charge a price similar to a large painting. 

 

An Inconvenient (Photographic) Truth

Slit Canyon, Burr Trail, Utah

(3:19 PM, or so says the EXIF data)

Photography is an inconvenient activity. Should you favor photographing the landscape (as I do), it is certain that you might not have many breakfasts or dinners “on time.” Sunrises cannot be rescheduled for later in the day. To see a sunrise, you have to get up when it’s really, really dark. Sunsets usually occur near the dinner hour. Those in extremely northern climes might be able to enjoy some after dinner photography because of late summer sunsets, but for the most part, the directional light landscape photographers cherish happens at the edge of the day. If that’s your photographic interest you will have to miss some meals to make photographs.

There can be exceptions to this rule (aren’t there always exceptions?) and I found some of them over the last two years in southern Utah. When I was photographing Capitol Reef and the surrounding areas, the rock faces were oriented in so many different directions there were always “good” shadows somewhere to be found. It was just a question of keeping your eyes open and your mind receptive to the possibility that you just might find some nice light at 2 PM.

According to my blog statistics, this little musing on the topic of photography is blog post number three hundred. 

Thank you very much for reading my thoughts and looking at my photographs.