When refusing to love for your entire existence
You block a path which could be graceful
Many reasons for your soul to be miserable
The only thing you find is sufferance
Searching for something better than misery
But your heart seems empty
The search suddenly feels hopeless
But not for I, for I am fearless.
©by Chantal Perron Aylmer, Canada 2002
thanks for such a kind comment. I don't update my blog as much as I should, but I'm learning. I like how the photograph's edges are blurry; the two-point perspective angle is pretty cool too. Of course I'm looking at it like a traditional artist, since a passive argument I have with my family is whether photography is art. The definition of art to me is creating something, not capturing what's already there, but that's all hooey isn't it. Any photographer brings light, texture, and shade together the way a cook compiles ingredients; it's just that your art form is reality and its perfection, whereas drawing is vision and its perfection.
ReplyDeletewell I'm gonna go sip some more antioxidants now. Ciao
Ah, but photography is more than "just capturing something". It's about seeing, understanding light, form, negative space, emotions, movement, color etc...all the same stuff that other artists use to create their art. Think of the camera as a different tool and you're closer to understanding what it's like to photograph and especially what it's like to be creating in the darkroom or now a days in photoshop.
ReplyDeleteCheck out these folks and tell me what you think...
Man Ray, Alfred Steiglitz, Henri Carier Bresson, Josef Sudek and Doris Ullman..
All with very different styles and techniques but all very much artists. I'd love to hear your thoughts after you look at some of the old photographers.
Let me know...
L
Copied from another thread.
ReplyDeleteGTangerine said...
I should get some books about those guys when I'm in the states, cause it seems to be hard googling them. Well, that certainly convinced me; I looked one of them up on Wiki and how could he take pictures with only one arm? That's insane :( Also that other dude's stuff really looks like Salvador Dali.
I always thought that photography is more of a technical skill, but it's not...it's just the one art used in web pages and cop shows the most. But I was looking at the clouds recently and I thought, it's just impossible to draw like that--you have to be really good at taking pictures. Besides, without ref photos we artists would suck.
GTangerine -
ReplyDeleteYou're right about photography being a technical skill. The really good photographers take the time to learn the technical pieces well so that when they are out on the field or in the studio, it's second nature. They can shoot without thinking. They just see the image and react. The best photographers know exactly what the image is going to look like before it comes out of their camera. They are not surprised because they know the how the technical pieces fit together so well. There's tons of different options in paper, film, printers, scanners, etc. You can do amazing things with both digital and film photography.
You have a good eye! That dude is Man Ray and you're right, his stuff does look alot like Salvador Dali's. He did some pretty amazing things in his day and even has a whole process named after him called Rayographies. He basically just laid objects on the photo paper, exposed them to light and developed them. That technique is still taught in most beginning film classes and is quite fun! You should try it sometime. Don't even need a camera, just a darkroom.
Here's a good link for him.
http://www.manray-photo.com/catalog/index.php?osCsid=e5a5c8d465152ebb9621b6e33f210a97
Think I need another post for the others.
Looks like you'll have to copy and paste the URLs.
ReplyDeleteAlfred Steiglitz - he would be a great guy for you to read about and view his work. He was pivotal in getting photography to be accepted as art in America.
He's very popular so it's easy to find links for him. You can start here though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz
Henri Cartier Bresson - I spelled his name wrong the first time which is probably why you couldn't find stuff on him. Sorry about that.
I chose him for you because his street portrait work is so beautiful and captures not only the person but the time and the mood as well.
Here's place to start. Read what he writes about photograpy on this page. He expresses it beautifully!
http://www.henricartierbresson.org/hcb/home_en.htm
Josef Sudek - he's the guy with one arm. His work is AMAZING!!
He's Chechoslovakian and I'd never heard of him until about a year and a half ago when I went to Prauge to see an exhibit called "Czech photography throughout the 20th Century" His stuff just floored me! Not sure how I missed knowing about him before now but I'm definately going to be learning more. Good start here.
http://www.josefsudek.net/index.php?akc=about_sudek
and Doris Ullman..she's a special find! I discovered her while looking through some very old magazines in the basement of my college library. Her portraits are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. She's not very well known, to my knowledge only one book about her exists. The tonal quality of her photographs is outstanding.
I happened to study for a couple years under a guy named Beaumont Newhall who was without a doubt, THE premier photo historian in the world. He was able to acquire an amazing collection of photographs for our university.
I can still remember going to the museum and having my own private showing of Doris Ulman works. Fantastic! Like being back stage at the best rock concert ever.
Here's a great set of her images.
On paper, they are beautiful!!
http://www.visibledarkness.com/depression/ulmann/
I'm really glad we started this conversation!!!!
What country are you from? Who are some of your countries most famous photographers?
GT-
ReplyDeleteI just realized I forgot to tell you about the whole series of cloud photographs that Steglietz did.
What you said about not being able to draw the clouds reminded me of those series of cloud photos he did.
Talk with you soon about this I hope.
Cheers,
better start checking those fellows out. Maybe i'll take a course in photography if it's so fun--that'll please my family. However, I've appreciated photography without knowing it, I just noticed. A while ago I was taking martial art classes and afterward to cool down I'd walk by this bookstore where they never kicked me out for reading the mags (closed, now :() and the ones I loved just 'cause of the photos were Bon Appetit and Transworld Skateboarding. I suscribed to BA for a while after that--it inspired me to try food writing, actually. You get food for free, then are paid to write about how it was--isn't that just killer?
ReplyDeleteI have a policy against revealing stuff online, but I guess I'm from the US, though I'm out of it for the moment.
No problem with the decision to not reveal stuff. Actually that's very wise!!
ReplyDeleteNext time you're at the book store, look at some of the art magazines. Not the "popular photography" type mags but stuff like Aperture, f-stop and Camera Works.
If you google "art photography magazines" you can see some of those online if they don't have them at your local bookstore.
Hey, bought some new tea today. Some kind of wild red chai tea. I'll let you know what I think after I try it out.