Edouard Boubat

Its always good to mix up the types of photographers I look at. Edouard Boubat is a French photographer who was born in 1923 in Paris. He trained in typography and graphic art, yet it is his desire to capture the beauty of people that I love. Having been involved in WW1 he wanted to show beauty rather than horror and this image capture an elegance that his so feminine that anything to do with horror is utterly removed.

I love how the reflections have been captured and the sense of mystery that the woman creates. What is she looking at, what is she thinking?

I have taken many photos using reflections but I have always been disappointed. This one gives me hope again.

Timothy Archibald

In my latest research I had a look at Timothy Archibald. His website is www.timothyarchibald.com

I like his work and resonate with his approach. Under About Timothy has this to say
"I’m the photographer agencies call to make empathetic photographs of things that are a little bit different, a little bit curious. Human, humorous and sometimes subversive, these qualities seem to surface in every project we take on."

I like the quirky unusual nature of some of his work, which is mixed with a sense of style that attracts me.   Meighan may even get to like the car shot.

Earthquake Portraits

I took a morning to walk around the city of Christchurch and photograph the devastation. After about an hour I had many photos of building but few with people. With the central area being closed off it is a quiet space compared to what it used to be. The only people I saw where those with brightly coloured vests, or an army soldier.

See the line of cones, these are everywhere and even in unusual places, the middle of a busy road to signify a bump caused by the quake, or directing traffic where the lights are out. Men and women, all united in their orange and yellow vests.

The Holidays and self portraiture

Well I have just had two weeks off and I must admit that self portraiture was not what I wanted to photograph. As I was with family in Christchurch and Queenstown I decided that I would take some family shots with the idea of somehow linking them to symbolise who I am.

Here is a shot of our pirate day for my mum's birthday. Although she is in her eighties she is still young at heart.

So here is an idea, I could take a photo of my mother, and another of Ethan, and blend these in photoshop with a photo of me. I wonder what that would look like. I did think of doing a long exposure and having each of us sit in the same position and then paint with light, but I didn't like the impact it might have on mum (needing to be pitch black) so decided the photoshop option would be better.

The interesting Duane Michals

For something completely different I got the book out called How Photography Lost its Virginity on the way to the Bank. The title intrigued me and I love the photographs that Duane Michals makes. It is an interesting book of odd photos, sayings, captions that tell the tale of the tension between art and money.

It made me think about how one can be caught up in being recognised, and the money that goes with it, versus the desire to make something artistic. With writing books there is always a tension between what the publisher wants, and what I want to write.

Tension seems to be a good topic to focus on over the  holidays. I think I will take some time to make portraits, and see how well I can capture tension withing them. This can be my self set assignment.

Reading Paul Strand

I have just finished reading a book on Paul Strand. The book is called Paul Strand and tells about the photographer along with his photos. All the photos are in black and white and all have a simple honesty to them. Strand lived from 1911 to 1976 and it is fascinating to read about him. Especially some of the letters he wrote to his colleagues in photography, such as Alfred Stieglitz. After reading through the book I got a real sense of his desire to make his photos the best they could be, he saw the art of photography as being a pure one and it was his job to use the tools to capture this purity.

I highly recommend reading the book, seeing the images in screen does not do them justice.

I would like to think that at some point people might say "he reminds me of the beauty that Paul Strand captured". That would be a nice complement.

Portfolio - Capturing time

During one of my reckies, exploring the new Wynyard Quarter I loved the way it has a long walk for people to explore. I wanted to do some night shots so took the kids to explore at dusk. I almost missed the sunset and was disappointed with the shots I got. But I had the tripod and ask the light changed to night I took a range of photos using a slow shutter. Some of the times where up to 2 seconds and I enjoyed what the images did with the movement of people. I reviewed the images and although I liked them and especially the colour they needed something to make them more dramatic.  

Here I get introduced to the art of multiple exposures, and again my new friend Photoshop. Meighan showed me how, and away I went with editing my three images into a single almost abstract night image to capture time. I finished it on Thursday night, but by Friday morning decided to make some more changes. Although it looks abstract the way I have joined them, how they flow into each other is carefully planned. even how opacity each has, this is an area I will need to be careful on knowing when to stop.

Here it is.

Portfolio - Portrait

While I was exploring Cornwall park early on a Saturday morning I cam across a man sitting in his van and having a cup of tea. I asked if i could photography him and he said yes. I decided to be low, lying on the ground and shooting up at him. We had a good connection and as our rapore blossomed I got some nice close up shots.

The difficulty with the shot was to decided where I should set my exposure to, the darks or the lights. With such a strong contrast it was a challenge. I ended up with a shot that I liked, but the my subject's face was very dark.

This is where Photoshop came in and saved the day. Admittedly Meighan showed me most of it, and I would not have thought to look where she did, but I live and learn.

Here is the enhanced shot, hopefully you can't tell that it has been changed, that is the art of using Photoshop, to make it look like you didn't.

Portfolio - Still Life

I had done a number of shots of my fathers Kimono a while back and showed some of them as part of the brief on still life. I had spent so much time editing and being undecided that I ended up with a grid that I didn't think was that good. I redid it in Lightroom and posted to my blog. When I decided to do it for the portfolio I wanted to be able to do it in Photoshop. I didn't realise how easy it was once you know how. I put a new grid together, resized, moved around, and came up with another grid that was even better than the one I had posted previously.

Which do you think is best.

Portfolio - Community

My Friday presentation went well. I achieved what I wanted to and was pleased with the results. I made sure that I had done the edit early so the images I was going to work with were already decided on. I learnt a lot of new tricks from Meighan around using Photoshop and on Thursday I went through all the images and tidied them up. The ones I selected for community are all from Cornwall Park, my local community. With leaving Auckland at the end of the year I wanted to capture my local community and as I jog through Cornwall Park every other day this is one of them.

I spent some time looking at sharpening the images but it really didn't seem to make any difference. I played with contrast and curves and finally nailed it with a little adjustment to the hue and saturation. If course I did all this on separate layers, I have now officially got the importance of layers.

Here are the images

They are supposed to be viewed from left to right in a series, but the blog won't do that.

Portfolio for Friday

The process of editing and selecting my images for this portfolio has been completely different from the last one. I feel like I have a new technique that I can use and a better eye for what goes together. I have chosen the following briefs to showcase.

Movement and capturing time
Community
Still Lives
Environmental portraiture

So be able to select more effectively is only half the battle. I am now starting to use Photoshop with layers and doing edits to each image. Wow, there is so much to learn where do I start. I must admit that I got a little carried away with the possibilities, have a look at this.

So this is a whole new world, the world of photoshop and image manipulation. But if its in the name of art then it is worth it. And with this portfolio I wanted to do a range of ways that my images could be presented. I didn't want to do the typical triptych that I did last time, I wanted to challenge myself more.

So what I will be presenting is a grid with four images for my still life, a single portrait image, a series of four images in a specific order for community, and my newly found Photoshop tool of superimposing images over each other for capturing time (three night shots that I have linked together with layers and I hope to get a great looking piece of abstract photography out of it.

More Research - Gregory Crewdson

Meighan had given me a link to a YouTube video on Gregory Crewdson. I was already impressed with the images in his book called Twilight so seeing how he worked and created them was fascinating. It is amazing to think that each shot is almost like a movie setup. The amount of planning and preparation that goes into making the shot is unbelievable.

Here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RywAfP4KFcY

He talks about making the perfect photograph, about all the problems he has with setup, lighting etc, and it is the moment when he captures a perfect world that makes it all worth it.

So much to learn, maybe over the holidays I will pick one shot to make, see if I can make a perfect world in a photo. And I think it will have to be a tree.. Well, maybe something else, stay tuned.

Playing with lens

I managed to get Ethan to come and play with me at Cornwall park. I wanted him to take photos and I wanted to use the 20mm lens I had borrowed from school. We arrived at the park at about 4:30 and the light was poor. I had wanted to take a shot of a large tree as I had seen it when it was bathed in light at the end of the day. I watched the clouds until finally the sun broke through and I started shooting this tree. It took a while to get a feel for the lens, and even longer for the tree. I thought the photos would be better than they turned out, but for my first time with the lens they were okay.

With a wide angle lens there is so much more that can go into the shot, and how the lens changes the image is interesting. I wanted to create a sense of majesty and with the light for this next shot it got closer

And to finish off, a row of trees with some nice light shadows. Yes I have more work to do with shooting trees, I want to make a photo that goes WOW

My environmental portraiture shots

Today in class I presented my three images and two of them I will show here. I wanted to give each image a  title so I added this to the image. I had always wondered if text on a photo would work.

It didn't

I think I could do a series on Barbi, maybe scary Barbi.

Twilight - by Gregory Crewdson

In my quest to read books with photos rather than see images on the screen I got the book Twilight from the library. This guy is a photographer who has done some amazing staged photos. They have to be seen to be believed. Some of them I can't even figure out how he did them. Here is an example of some of the photos from the book

Such attention to the detail and creating a setting that is a little unsettling. I tried to do something over the weekend with a TV, a mirror, and Ruby and the cat. It became too complicated and difficult so I take my hat off to this guy.

Environmental portraiture

Over the weekend I borrowed the light kit, but what I didn' realise is how much work is involved in setting up a shot. I had an image in my head, pre-visualization, was a shot using the toilet. I tested out the angle of shot that I wanted but found that I couldn't get the person in the frame. So I setup another scene in the lounge and started to shoot Ruby. But getting the light right and stopping her from being board was a mission in itself.

I tried on two separate occasions and finally ended up with something that I feel can be used for tomorrow. Here are some examples.

So the environment is the lounge, the barbie is such a great model, didn't complain once.

I must admit that the kiss acronym comes to mind, keep it simple stupid. I had started with a shot where I was using mirrors and had the model sitting on a chair staring at the TV, with the mirror I could photograph them and the TV that they were starring at, all in the one frame. But doing this and getting the light right, and keeping an 8 year old happy proved to be too much.

More Minor White

I am just finishing off the book about Minor White called Rites and Passages. The way I look at the images from when I first took the book out to now is remarkable. I feel that I see images in a different light now (excuse the pun). I see how the light is used, how the use of lines, contrast tells my eyes a story. It is so delightful to have this experience.

To top it off there are some quotes from him that I really resonate with. Here are a few

"Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence". I love this, being in the stillness of the photo.

And this one that is under this photo

Let the subject generate its own photography. Become a camera.

So to honour this saying here is a photo I took last night, when I tried to become the camera.

Boy it was difficult to balance on the wall, hold the tripod so nothing would move, and try out my new remote shutter release. Guess where I was..

Art exhibition at Webb Gallery

Reading the paper I came across a photo which lead me to discover Alfred Gregory, a professional photographer whose work was being exhibited at the Webb Gallery in Newmarket. I did some research about who he was and went and saw his photos at the gallery.

He was part of the Hillary expedition to climb mount Everest and he became the photographer. I read an article in the Times online and these words that Alfred said resonate with me "Here I had a first hint that I was moving away from the pictorial approach to landscape photography, especially in monochrome, and I began to see this story as one of dark against light, of black shapes of men moving slowly, very slowly, towards the summit.”

You can find the article at this addresshttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7025380.ece

I could imagine him trying to use film in such an inhospitable place and the difficulties he must have faced. And yet he did some some absolutely beautiful photos. Can you imagine how much work went into getting to this location to create this environmental portrait...

Friday research

A little browsing of environmental portraits and I come across the Arnold Newman Archive site. I see a lot of photos and a couple stand out for me. This one isn't very large and I can't find a high res one. What I love about the image is the casualness of JFK's stance which is set against the rising columns of power.

The strong lines of the columns offset the portrait of JFK and make this exquisite, the strong lines of the columns that signify power that contrast the relaxed pose of JFK the power of a president.

You can find this image by Arnold Newman at the following addresshttp://www.arnoldnewmanarchive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=9

I also saw a close up of Pablo Picaso and he has such a lovely face, I didn't realise that he was so current and had only died in 1973, I was alive while he was painting, I wish I had met him.

My final bit of exploring is a book I find in the Auckland library called Twilight. It is a book with photos by Gregory Crewdson. As i am going off doing my research of images on the Internet I will go and get this book over the weekend. Here is one of his images.

Look at the composition, the thought given to the subjects, and oh the light, just lovely

Reading Paul Strand

I am reading a book called Paul Strand which I am really enjoying. It gives me the story of his history around photography but it also tells me about what was happening in photography in his time. I can see how this has shaped photography today. It interested how the moral atheistic of art played an important part, and I believe this as well, my photography has to be honest, reflect what I believe in, and is ultimately my reflection on what i am touched by in the world. I hope that this will also touch others.

Such as this

Mid Week Cornwall Park

Natasha and I went to Cornwall Park on Wednesday, I will a borrowed 70 - 300 mm zoom. Boy does it make a difference how close I can get to what I want to photo. Also I love how it compresses the image so while I was shooting receding lines they look better. Of course the down side is that it is very easy to be lazy and not move around to shoot at different positions.

It was interesting being with another photographer and seeing that they "see " the world differently. Natasha would stop and shoot something that had caught her eye. I would have to look closely and see how she was seeing it.

I got into a groove and when this happens there are always some good shots, I can feel a rhythm, a connection to the essence of life, and this is what inspires my.

Have a look at these