Posts from the ‘Art of photography’ Category
If a Day Goes by . . .
Tri-X, N-1, D-76, Studio City, California
“And if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence . . .” — Richard Avedon
While I would love to accomplish this, and indeed share that feeling, the undertow that is my life ofttimes intrudes. This image is a sort of cousin to the image of the sidewalk a cigarette stub a week or so ago.
Still scanning, and more to come.
It’s the subject matter that counts
Akron, Ohio, Bessa R2a, Zeiss Biogon, N-1, D-76, Yellow Filter
“It’s the subject matter that counts. I am interested in revealing the subject in a new way to intensify it.” — Harry Callahan
Well, I guess I’m not the only one interested in these quotes. There’s a whole web page set up to store and retrieve quotes from photographers.
This image is from yet another roll of pulled Tri-X. Shot in Akron, Ohio on a day when I went to see a Todd Rundgren concert.
Also, playing with the theme, but I haven’t yet figured out how to edit the background of the side boxes. I’ll get there.
Making Visible
Tri-X, N-1, Bessa + Biogon, Venice Beach
“Art does not reproduce the visible. It makes visible.” — Paul Klee
“What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values.” — Cartier-Bresson
Part of the reason I’ve been putting quotes about photography in my blog l,lately is to make me think about process. In the last year, as Mike Peters has gently and appropriately pointed out, I’ve been distracted quite a bit by equipment. Partly to push myself beyond that, and partly because I think about artistic process quite a bit (I teach it in my coursework) I have been reading a bit lately.
Venice Beach boardwalk
When I come across an image in my scanning where I am reminded of a quote, or am reading and I come across something that I think is appropriate, I have been putting it in the post.
Venice Beach
Not that I agree or disagree with the quote, per se, but rather that the quote made me think.
And I hope it makes you think, as well.
The Destination of Photography
Santa Barbara, CA; Fuji 160s
“The destination of photography is to reveal what something or somebody looked like, under a particular set of conditions, at a particular moment in time, and to transmit the result to others.”
Bill Jay, On Being a Photographer
I have been reading a publication called Lenswork for about four years. It is a high-quality bi-monthly periodical centered on black & white photography, mainly but not exclusively digital. The editor, Brooks Jensen, has a Podcast and seems like a very articulate, well-educated photographer/publisher. I enjoy the issues quite a bit, and have listened to 90% of the podcasts over the years. Before passing away, Bill Jay was a columnist, and a wonderful one, within that magazine. Loved his insights into photography.
Venice Beach, California. Pulled Tri-X.
As you have noticed, of late I have been quoting Susan Sontag from her series of essays, ‘On Photography.’ I have been reading with great interest your responses to the quotes, but have not been responding to your thoughts. The lack of response is intentional, and my choice to quote from Sontag is also intentional. Other writers on these questions and issues will be quoted in the future, as with Bill Jay today.
Enjoy
Ben Lifson
5D, Nik Silver Efex, C/Y Zeiss 50mm f/1.4
Photography is an art form. I’m gonna make a stand there, not really expecting my readership to muster much of an argument. I don’t talk much about the art, mind you, because, as Kirk Tuck has discussed, blog posts talking about art or vison don’t generate much traffic. However, if I posted a review of the Canon 5D Mk III, I bet you I might set records for page views on my site. And, since I just described myself on my business cards as a “fine art photographer” I guess I’d better start talking about it. Eh?
Normally, I tend to keep to my standard topics, which specialize in film-related issues. If I’m known for anything on the web, it’s that I post more b&w than color, and more film than digital. I love those images and topics, and it would be unlike me to veer to far from those topics and those issues.
But I’ve had in the back of my mind two posts which are related to each other. The first is a post about Ben Lifeson, the second a post about Sean Reid. The reason they are related is that I found out about Mr. Lifson by reading columns written by Mr. Reid.
5D, C/Y Zeiss 50mm f/1.4
So, I’ll get to Mr. Reid another time. Today I talk about Mr. Lifson.
Mr. Lifson is a long-time teacher of photography and editor of photography books. In 2005, he published a series of articles about the nature of visual art and the traditions of painting as they applied to photography at a web site called rawworkflow.com. I felt, as you might reading this now, that rawworkflow.com was an odd location for such a series of articles. But there they were anyway. There were 12 articles in all, and the main theme of the articles was centered on the relationship between fine art (drawing and painting) and photography.
It would be difficult to summarize all the topics Mr. Lifson discussed in detail, but among them were the structure of a face and how best to portray that face; the importance of the hands in portraiture, the importance of the bottom of the frame in terms of grounding the image, etc.
There were 12 articles in all, and I printed each one out. The insights and wisdom was always astounding, and reading them and re-reading them always brought insight and new ways of looking at my work.
When I thought of discussing these insights recently, I went to find the articles (each of which I had printed out, very important as they had ceased to be found on rawworkflow.com — I assume Mr. Lifson had asked that they be taken down, or perhaps their license for use had expired). To my dismay, I only found articles 5 through 12. Numbers 1 through 4 were not in the hanging file where I thought I had left them.
I don’t know where they went, or how I lost them. But lost they seem to be. I will, over the next few weeks, try to summarize the insights in various columns on the blog.
All the images in this post were captured in Vancouver and LA on my trip, which concludes this evening.
