We were all using our hands on this job. One pushing the lawnmower carefully taking care of the grass, one holding the paper trying to read between the lines. As for me , holding the camera taking care of the scene. Who knows maybe someone else was watching both hands on the steering wheel.
Trying to pinpoint how photography works for me I found myself making a detour by another part of me: Music. Then came the word harmony and there I was digressing cause I had found a starting point and it really echoed in my mind. Harmony is the key. Harmony is how we work, photography and (I)eye.
The bells toll and I'm flying from far and going anywhere but up. Feathers, concrete and steel is all you need. Oh, and maybe a sword like the one I see sitting on top. Excalibur here I come. Chop chop chop.
I spent some time on the road and in the Great Falls national parks today where I gathered additional shots to add to a series which first take was not rigorous enough.I was lucky enough to find a spot that gave me the same kind of matter even though the forms were richer the first time I saw the performance of Nature. In the process I even found some more exciting views aided by a high dose of sun.They now need to be processed.
I'm juggling with thoughts and repeating myself at times just like life repeats itself everyday with a different face. I need to find a consistent approach in general, but especially in doing photos, not to mismanage time and effort. Reason why I was happy about reading about Weston and Leiter's way of sort of "planning their photography" (See post Rush no spirit no rush spirit). I rarely do that, maybe because of the small territory of my photography caused by limited time to go around places, so grabbing anything that comes my way compensates lack of time and feed the urgency of doing photography.Not surprisingly, it has resulted in a lot of waste of film and time as well. Going digital crucial and mandatory is to define one's work, so that every frame gets you closer to your goal. For me a gentle reminder. As for references to photographers, I know "my classics". I now feed more on articles and essays about them than their photos which are results of a philosophy and a way of doing.
Following my previous post is another catch taken with my point & shoot digital camera.Last night I was reading, at last, an essay on Edward Weston Photography by Terrence Pitts and took the time afterwards to look at the photographs he had made, and It got me battling, in a wordly manner, and taking on photography and the manufactured commerce that prevails nowadays on its shoulders. The photoblog community in which I am taking part will not be exempted from the analysis that will ensue. The blooming of contests, the blooming of production of equipment and the confusion about what photography is, could and should be has reached a climax that has frustration and despair looming upon me. As much as I welcome the beautiful spread of the exercise of expression, it seems strongly that the profusion of glossy mags and photographic entities are drowning and leading photography in a realm of over produced emptiness of senses despite the abundant and honest work of photographers and writing of educated critics. And when it could advocate(let's say for preservation of our waters with so many photos made on the subject), photographers fail to do so for the sheer 15 minutes of warholian fame and commerce only. Photography is living at the same pace of the dominant post-industrial activity. It looks like wall street to simplify. Senseless with few exceptions(the intimist portrait photographers,photoreporters and too little a number of Landscapists). 
I was caught by these two.Then it was only a sight, but reflecting a little on what could be said about it.We look in the same directions.We search for the same thing, aren't we in general? Not the same ways I reckon and not with the same mind frame.But we dress, we eat, we breathe,we work,we dream,we move and are being moved,we think(some with a different part of the brain!?).We got different taste because many flavors to choose from and live by and be satisfied with.But what does it come to and where does it all go during our lifetime? A quest for a good living.Now is it enough to think only for ourselves or elevating and sharing the views and goals with everyone is something worth working towards to?
People are absorbed while driving, somewhere else(when not glued to their phones). I had started focusing on them drivers when photography time would only occur while driving myself. Absorbed by others.
Her silhouette.We were all moving forward. My film was not sensitive enough but I was.
I'll keep posting even though I'm done clarifying my transition in photography. It will help me sorting out the production and tossing away the bad. Hopefully during that process I'll end up with an idea of packaging all of them in a nicer way. Keep watching. The next will be... next.
Aesthetics. The subjects have radically changed from people to things. The nature of the stacked photos speaks volumes of that change. I now study and develop as much as possible. A perspective.
It's about seeing an opportunity and it's about trust in the outcome.It's about the surprise after you've done what was required at the time.Shooting and grasping what you felt no matter what.It is not about achieving something terrific but it is about doing what was commended at the time.And it is what it is, at last.Now it might not appeal to everybody but all things being equal it serves one purpose,your own.A reflex,a thought, an idea,a vision and an image.It might also be an experiment a posteriori to deepen.You be the first judge of that, you decide and others will give you feedbacks... maybe.The absolute truth about it doesn't lie in time but in the intent and the action at the time.
Sun is shining today and I had a wonderful meeting with Nature couple of hours ago. I took an hour and drove to my favorite spot, somewhere in Great Falls by the water, to grab a shot I had overlooked months ago but got notice of, perusing through archives. Nature doesn't waste time. I did and that shot was nowhere to be had no more. Postponed until...Ah! further notice... from Nature!!??
I have just stumbled onto that picture taken on a sunny day. It looks like even the sun can't have sometimes that power to lift up the spirit but leaves you in a dream that went to sleep a long time ago.
This is more like the evolution process of viewing and experimenting a subject before opportunity and circumstances vanished. (I was at a traffic light about going to go green anytime). Or it maybe how a series can bring itself about(See 2 previous posts). This might also be an element of a work in progress which consciousness is just starting to reveal. Or I am slowly , as I speak, realizing that I have been producing and adding different visual pieces to the same body, the same puzzle.
I feel that a gallery is bound to represent you, to take you on board if somehow they feel that your work can hold a distance, a space. If your work got some strength and stamina, and that magnetic quality, entice buyers. Series preferred. A specialization. A theme. I guess it helps building a multi-faceted relationship. A face for the gallery/artist bind, another for gallery/art-buyers bind through artists and the artist and his work/theme/subject. Could the latter lead one artist to be pidgeonholed or pidgeonhole himself to some kind of work? For assurance?
I think some of us work like painters. They in time come up with a signature-style. And also work series. It serves, I think, two purposes: it gives strength and depth to a work in progress, a Body; and it affirms a style, a signature.The latter is important(I'm not convinced but...) and sought after by many.Let's also note that sometimes it comes out as a complete fraud( no real object or perhaps that we can make beautiful out of everything.What's new. Try to have good taste). But as painters can apply their signature to different subjects. Can it be done in photography? Could it be recognizable if applied to different subjects?
Was I the only one to see that woman? Could that shot advocate for invisible undies 2? Man ,these aftershot details!
In my memory, that image is among the first ones I did when I got back shooting b+w in the u.states. That info is important to me now because, first I haven't shot that much b+w and also when I did it was never in good conditions. Can't do real good b+w shooting while driving around. Hence poor production or "deja vu" which is poor production 2.
Framed. Too busy taking, not enough time to reflect on what I'm actually doing. Pictures piling up. Stacks made from one father but with no connections, just a collection. Framed. It felt like producing, but now I face the fact that it was consuming. I really didn't get lasting satisfaction so I would go at it again, and again. Aimlessly driven. Following. I still do just as now, blogging. But I know now what I'm doing.
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