Draw Boy

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So what's voice about when it comes to art photography? How's it differ from style? If an image needs to say something to the viewer... If it needs to whisper an emotion or an idea, then it's got to speak in a voice right? Like this image speaks in my voice. You can hear it can't you? Or is voice the style that I bring to the way I present this boy to you? I've got to think on this. Anybody got an idea how an artist's voice differs from his style? Hulp!


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And here my friends is the virgin image of Draw Boy directly from my Flash Card. Think at me, okay?

Scooter

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Voice lessons... I take them every day. Like a lot of you who are photographers, I sort of frame things around me. It's a dorky habit, but useful when you want to see stuff through a range finder. Problem is, you look through the range finder long enough and you feel like your looking through it even when you're not.

After a while though you stop looking at what you are looking at. Say what? I mean you start looking at things as if they are about something different. It's like someone learning a new language. Sooner or later the breakthrough comes and your dreams are now in that tongue. That voice. And it's what happens to most artists. They see things and wonder about them. In frames. First you wonder what they are saying, and then you wonder what you might say with them. Not what they say... but what they might say.

You find your voice. But like a singer, each day you exercise. I find that the city does that. All the time it gives me voice lessons... Like Scooter here.

See his expression? That wonderful look of comfort and confidence. No fear. No worry. All boy-to-man in a brightening light, still colored with the vapors and innocence of kid-world. What a moment, eh? No... not necessarily this specific moment, no... that last moment ... or first moment... between then and now. And here's how I see it... in my voice.

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BTW... want to see the virgin image from my FlashCard? Well here. Enjoy.

GASP!

Reading the financial pages and wondering. Does anyone else share my thoughts that the wold is holding its breath?

Gamin In The City

Made For Each Other

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Sometimes I seem to notice that even the most majestic image is background to something else that's swirling around in my mind. Of course I don't know what. But that's what I love about the artistic process. It mixes epiphany with discovery. The first capture creates a question, a puzzle which may stay with me for a year or more. Oh, not top-of-mind, but just nagging like a quietly yipping puppy just beneath my level of total consciousness.

That was the case here as this capture of 42nd street in New York which from the moment I framed it seemed to be part of a story arc. So when I saw this beautiful child at a street festival.... "CLICK"!

Made for each other...

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Here are the two most significant components of Gamin In The City. The first is 42nd Street in New York taken on an August afternoon.
The second was taken at the Mushroom Festival in Kennet Square, Chester County, PA a month later. It occurred to me as I took the second picture that it would be a perfect compliment to my New York street series. I tried to replicate the back light as much as possible and used a similar ISO (200).

However the first image was taken through my 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5), and the second through my new 70-300mm, So I made every effort at the time of the second image capture so that they would seamlessly flow into the depth of field created by the ultra-wide, while reinforcing a certain mystical quality with repsect to perspective. Something which the viewer would subliminally notice.

Madonna

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There's an impulse among many galleries to ignore the surface of an image. I think that's a good thing. For most of photography's life, the surface was the only thing anyone ever examined. Critics judged technique and then aesthetics. You know, is the image adequately exposed? Focused? Sharp? Are the colors effective? What about the composition? How does the image deal with form? Shape? Texture?

But now, because the keepers of the gallery gates want to slash a hole through the plane and into the realm of curiosity or meaning beyond... well, now we have to work harder. Photographic artists are asked to ignite a thought or a feeling... or both. Darn... it's so easy to just light it well, pose it properly and snap the shutter. What ever happened to the good old days? Huh?

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Here's the virgin image from my FlashCard... Wuddaya think?

Mushroom Guy

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Hmmm.... howzabout another street shot with the new 70-300mm Canon from the Mushroom Festival in Chester County's Kennett Square. It's an annual two day event. The Saturday was rained out so Sunday it looked like every family in Philadelphia came out to mushroom country. There were tens of thousands - um - for my new lens to pick among.

Now for my wonder. As you can see I've posted the virgin image from my FlashCard. I like the character of this terrific guy who ran a stand that sold collector licenses. I asked his permission to take the picture. But the image is a few levels away from the camera shutter's moment.

And here's my wonder... this virgin photo on the lower right can be compared to the final image up on the left. It's said that people do not want creativity debunked. They say that "explaining what you do diminishes what you do." It's argued that when people look at the craft, they're distracted by the scenery and don't watch the play.

So... I really want to know: does that make sense? Are you more interested in the mechanics, or the way the engine works?

New Lens.... YIPPIE!

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On June 1st, Rita and I were married 40 years. We agreed, "No Gifts!" And you know that the man who follows an agreement like that is terminally goofy, and certainly not married forty years. So I gave her a couple of gee-gaws of the sparkling AND toy flavors. Well, that of course allowed me to play the guilt card which can be expensive to purchase but gosh it's fun to play. Unfortunately she cheated me out of any opportunity when recently she surprised me by paying for a new Canon 70-300mm which I'd been borrowing from my friend Steve (he's the guy I've pictured at the helm of a sailboat... remember?)

Now of course I wanted the thing, but since I had access to Steve's generosity, well I really didn't need it (as if we 'need' any of this stuff, right?). But not to worry, I have not returned the red, white and black Canon box (s) filled with lens, lens shade and soft pouch carrying case. Yeah, I did spring for the polarizing filter but hey, a man's gotta do.... And instead of working on ImageFiction images, I've used my spare time to diddle with the new thing.

(1) I am a wide-angle man. That's the way the world looks to me. So of course I have no desire of any sort for a zoom lens that's an effective 450mm when it's fully cranked out.
(2) The thing's got two image stabilizer mechanisms built in. Which only reinforces the problems that guy like me who has a phobia about using tripods will have with this thing.
(3) I carry my stuff in an old canvas army ammunition bag. It's inobtrusive so it doesn't attract attention when I'm in candid-photog mode, plus it doesn't screech out to bad guys.... "STEAL THIS!" Which means there is just enough room inside for my camera, some sponge padding, an additional lens and the cards/cleaners/filters/blowers and a tiny plastic poncho which let me work light. This 70-300mm lens weighs about as much as my 40D and when I carry it, there's no room left in the bag for my camera.

But ... but.... OMG is it S H A R P ! And full of contrast throughout most of its apertures and focal length (s). And the image stabilizers work. I can hand hold it at 1/30 cranked full out! Yeah, that's 1/30 of a second at an effective 35mm focal length of 450mm!!!!!! I even got decent results at 1/15th! WHOA!

Now I'm sure a lot of you are wondering, "Ted, given the post processing soup which you pour over your images, why do you care about razor sharpness?" BECAUSE I CAN! And because I want everything I can get in my virgin image, I don't want to compromise an idea or feeling any more than I have to with equipment limitations.

So... as you can see from the street portrait of a woman at The Mushroom Festival (more on that later) I've posted up above.... There was a lot to work with. How much? Well, here's the virgin image straight from my FlashCard, you be the judge. BTW, notice that she was in FULL sunlight on a late summer afternoon. Note that even in the virgin image that neither the shadows nor the highlights are blocked or blown.

Rondo

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Art has to be something more than a perpetually running nostalgia machine. Sometimes it's got to go places that weren't where our memories are.

Here's what I mean.

Have you ever noticed that an abrupt odor... a scent... transports you back to a perfect journey into the past? So many images, particularly photographic based images, rely upon us feeling as if we've been there, or could have been there. And it's by stringing together those common pieces of memory that the artist makes us go, "Wow!" And it happens even if we've never actually been there, but we agree to suspend disbelief and agree that, well, we could have been. The artist plays upon our nostalgia for somewhere we never were.

This time I want to not do that.

Instead I want to take you into a design made up of people... going round and round, like a corkscrew into somewhere below. I want it to be all strangeness except for the movement. The sense of tight spaces. The feeling of moving from light to dark. I want to take you into a tunnel from day to a place that doesn't sleep.
In the city that doesn't either.

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Here's the virgin image directly from the card of my new Canon 40D.

Little Chapel On The Hill

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In Siena they're building a church -the Cattedrale dell'Assunta. They've worked on it for maybe eight hundred years. It looks at least that long until they'll finish.No, probably it will never be finished in its most ambitious form. Seems that they once hoped it would be the world's largest Christian temple. So they began an attempt to more than double the size of their massive Duomo. However The Plague interrupted in the mid 1300s, killing tens of thousands and leaving Sienna a tiny town in its wake. One no longer able to mount such a massive effort. Eventually they returned to ehnancing the existing cathedral, which is the church that's still under construction today. And I'm certain that understanding it would be the lifetime work of scholars.

Not having that time... I was left with only enough moments to try to bring home a sense of awe.

Morning Mists - NOT!

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AAARGH! I have never done this before. I posted an image here last night just after midnight. And now, in the clear light of morning... I see that it is a technical monstrosity. It is in every way inferior. I am ashamed of it. I have taken it down and trashed it. If you saw it, well it now lives only in your memory. I am doing my very best to see that it does not live in mine. AAARGH!AAARGH!AAARGH!AAARGH!AAARGH!AAARGH!AAARGH!AAARGH!AAARGH! AAARGH!!!!!!!!!

A Step Away

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Here's image fiction. Recently my friend Andreas Mannesinger blog-wondered about the legitimacy of photographic art. In an interaction with another photographer he dealt with whether photographers can actually bring their version of truth or meaning to a media which essentially just goes around copying what it sees.

Which led me to create, "A Step Farther". See the boys wending their way toward a radiant vista? See what they are about to see? And I was lucky to be there when these three iconic kids were poised upon seeing a WOW! moment. And of course, my camera acted as a kind of bucket which 'merely' scooped up these elements as opposed to what a painter might do.

See, it's argued that a poet, painter, novelist, sculptor, composer... every artist other than a photographer starts with a blank paper/canvas and fills it with his or her imagination. But a photographer, these folks insist, starts with a frame filled with an image that s/he simply stumbled upon. Hmmmmm....

Oh, by the way... These boys were playing in Musser Park at the center of Lancaster, Pennsylvania last week. Which of course was a... few... miles and months away from the magical coast of California I came upon last March. So much for the photographic artist as a bucket guy, eh?

And what are your thoughts? Are we mindless bucket wielders... or can photographers actually communicate their truth in images? Huh? Huh?

Soar

About Style

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IN 1885, in an introduction to Leaves Of Grass, the legendary poet Walt Whitman wrote that the writer, "Says to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I wfll not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is."

He was writing about the phenomenon of style. Whitman argued that style was an ornamental 'curtain' which distracts the viewer or obscures meaning. In a sense there are many who argue something similar about photography today. They are concerned that the new techniques of post processing come between the meaning of an image and the viewer... that they are so much distraction. But as virtually every art critic living now agrees, there is no way to strip style from statement. They are as married as skin is to a body.

Soarr is a photographic image. Notice I do not write, 'Soar is a photograph.' Why? because it is more than the photo which underlies it. Better? Here's the virgin image from the Compact Card....

That's for you to judge from the virgin image below. But certainly we'll all agree that it's different as a result of my style.

Style is the manner in which an artist presents an idea or feeling. It can be critiqued - probably should be. But style itself cannot be dismissed as a curtain. Take it away and there is no message. Whitman was wrong.

Sidney Sees

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Sidney does not see
What we see.
Instead his world is felt
Inside his mind where
Sidney repairs a future
That will be different
From what we see
When it happens.

Geek Stuff: 42nd & Broadway

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Here's 42nd Street & Broadway at 1:06 pm last wednesday. These are almost straight images from my new 40D shot full frame. I purposely aimed almost into the sun to see how the dynamic range would hold together. The camera raw processor in Photoshop CS3 automatically diddles with the histogram a touch... otherwise these are virgin images shot with my Canon 10-22mm at f9, 1/200, at 10mm.

There's lots of detail, nice contrast, hot color and plenty of dynamic range. Oh... I did use a polarizing filter which may have fed the camera flare a bit. I've got mixed emotions about filters on lenses. The engineers who designed these optics did not leave room in their equations for an additional piece of glass to be mounted micrometers in front of their lens array. So any filter will degrade... it has to. I'm always amazed by people who will buy expensive glass then mount a cheap UV filter "for protection" at the tip of the lens. How often have you scratched a lens, particularly when you use a lens shade? In fifty years of image taking I have never scratched a lens. So unless I need to add an effect, I won't use a filter.

Polarizing is an effect that needs adding. So, to get that deep color boost and flare reduction from a PF, I make the compromise. Actually the thing is doubly messed up by the way a polarizing filter works. You've got to twirl it, and that means getting finger prints on the front of the filter.. which further degrades the optics. Sigh....

All of that said, the images here are adequately sharp at 200 ISO. I still haven't mastered the metering of this new camera body, so I set the metering mode to partial for the day last Wednesday, I have to read the manual. I understand that the 40D has a true spot metering capacity which the 20D lacked. This should be a useful feature.

Okay, any comments?

Vanishing Point

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I'm wondering whether many of the artists I admire have a novel way of seeing, or whether they see novel things. Of course, that makes me wonder just what novelty is. There are people who say that novelty is indivisible from creativity, and that creativity is indistinguishable from art.

Now we know that things get complicated by the simultaneous combination of gargantuan and tiny things together in cities. Look, take a picture of say, a majestic mountain and you limit what you present to us to the mountain, a sky, and perhaps some framing foreground. Whatever... the image is about mountain.

Now, walk around New York City and you just don't see a single mountain sitting there. It's the complexity of things that tumble into the vanishing point which make cities improbably novel. Their order comes from a disorderly jumble of stuff. I guess the pattern of a city comes from a kind of lack of pattern of objects plopped together over years by individuals.

Cities are a blurred tapestry of egos.

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As requested: Here's the virgin image direct from my FlashCard. Comments anyone?

BTW: To browse my entire blog just click here.

At The Speed Of Life

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Now you know that nothing in photography is true. Or all of it is. And.. and... Is there something in between? Here's the last image from out of my old 20D. Here's the bustle inside of New York's Penn Station. It's across the street from the B&H media super store I discussed yesterday. Neither my old friend or I knew at this moment that I'd soon trade it for a 40D. So moments before we parted, the old guy let me grab this feeling of the pulse beat of one of The City's front doors. He did his job right to the end. He caught just exactly how I felt in this last pano. Can't ask for a lot more than that, right?

Can you believe this guy?

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Yesterday I Amtrak'd up to New York City. First stop? B&H camera, right across from Penn Station. It's one of the world's largest camera stores all tricked out with video, computers, audio, and everything else that the video/audio professional community likes to cram into its toy boxes. It took me at least ninety minutes to lumber about in. Since all photographers are gear heads... well... everywhere you look feels like a ten year old's Christmas list.

So spontaneously I decided to trade in my Canon 20D for a new Canon 40D body. YIPPEEEE! And there I was with a day in New York and a new camera and... the world was bright.

Now... B&H has a sitting room right inside of the exit doorway where most folks go and un-box their new thingees. So I pulled mine out, mounted a lens, jammed in a battery and popped off a few test shots. Here's one. So... look around the room and out onto the New York street. I pulled up the test shot just now and blew it up large to test the resolution of the new camera's legendary processor when... when.... See anything odd in the photograph? Go on.... look about.

See the guy on the other side of the room? The one covering his face in exhaustion? Hmmmm.... But wait a minute, he's got a B&H bag on the floor. He's obviously just bought something so why the need for rest? Then I saw it. Can you ID the gee-gaw in his hand? I sense he's done this before and whatever it is he bought makes it even easier. No, he did not ask me for permission. And for all I know there's a picture of me on some website somewhere right now taking a picture. OF HIM!

Can you believe this guy? The nerve!

Street People '08i

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Fred Rogers.... Better known as Mr. Rogers told of a 'sacred space' between the artist, other people, and the message they wish to hear.

I watched these two this morning and wondered if Mom was teaching or telling?

Street People'08h

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Creation is a combination of epiphany and discovery, right? I mean that you recognize an idea or a feeling which you initially capture, then a tension kicks in between where you are and where you sense that you can go. Discovery, I am thinking, is when creation is allowed. Who allows it? Why you of course as the concept is converted to reality.

I found this kid today, inking up woodblocks and splashing herself and everyone around with thick colors.

Hallucinations #2

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We say an artist has a voice. We say an image has an attitude. Okay, so what's the difference?