How Much Do YOU Need to Earn to Do Photography Full Time?

Here's an article of mine published by PetaPixel, a profile of one of the tourist photogs at the Gateway of India. 

http://petapixel.com/2015/08/22/how-much-do-you-need-to-earn-to-do-photography-full-time/

Minor White - Blankness of Mind

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Mark Lewis's Algonquin Park Series

The tutor suggested I also have a look at this series of short videos, but as yet I have been able to find only very small copies that don't really do justice to the work.  Like Misrach, Lewis shows us the tinniness of the human in the landscape.  Lovely stuff.  I only wish I could see it better!

Mark Lewis at the Center for Digital Art:  http://www.digitalartlab.org.il/ArchiveArtistPage.asp?id=59

Clara Mac & Carles Asensio have posted what might be most generously called an homage:  Mark Lewis Was Here:  https://vimeo.com/114825863

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On the Beach by Richard Misrach

In response to the last of my Assignment 2 images, my tutor recommended this series by Richard Misrach.  I was quite taken with them as they do something I admire:  depicting the scale of individual human experience and existence.  These images of lone people or lone couples on a beach speak to how tiny our experience is in relation to our environment.

And perhaps inspired in me a new series, shot from my rooftop.  Let's see.

In one of my recent reads, Susie Linfeld argues that photographs are. like every other representation of reality, incomplete.  They are only a glimpse of our experience, and to be completely understood, they have to be properly contextualized.  When I read about Misrach's work here, though, I was disappointed to find the writer - and even the photographer - ascribing something sinister to these images, a hovering, lurking, anonymous presence.  They were made, it seems, shortly after the events of September 2001, during which time Misrach was in New York to visit his son.

The Truth of Color

What a job: Shooting a Magazine Cover

Amusing cover on the latest Bloomberg Businessweek Middle East, including a collection of behind-the-scenes snaps.  I'm sure every photography student can appreciate getting paid to do this!

Digital photography: message and memory

Article from 01 April 2014 by Antony Funnell, a reporter with Australia's RN (Radio National), looking at the practice and effects of mass digital photography.  Among the more interesting themes he notes are:

1.  The degree to which we now expect to be able to control images of ourselves when shot by others.  I haven't yet run into this, but I don't shoot a lot of photos of people, nor am I often the subject of photographers.

It's not the gear - winner of British Society of Underwater Photographers does it with a Canon compact

“It’s a Canon S90,” said Ms Campbell. “It wouldn’t even be the latest model and would retail for about a couple of hundred quid.” A professional SLR camera costs at least €1,000.  

As a “keen amateur” who practises wildlife photography and scuba diving in her time off from managing a clothes shop in Dublin, cost was a big factor in deciding to go with a compact.

Sometimes, she admitted, using the cheaper camera can be frustrating but “in some cases it’s technique and composition that has more to do with [a photograph] than what camera took the image”.   

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/technology/irish-woman-wins-photography-award-using-off-the-shelf-camera-1.1703155 

The winner's instrument:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons90

Check out Jackie's gallery:
http://www.jackiecampbellimages.com/gallery_489324.html

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Waking Up at WalMart: Nolan Conway

I had no idea WalMart has a policy regarding customers sleeping in their parking lots.  I may have to do this on my next visit to the US and see what I can see.  Maybe even replicate Conway's project for evidence of regional variations.  As my relatives might say, What a hoot!

The central arc in the photo above appears to pinch the image and is interesting not only for its geometry, but also for its strong interior light.  My guess is the  image out-of-the-camera didn't reveal nearly as much.  

The NYTimes magazine ran a feature a month ago, and one of the paper's blog writers followed with an interview.  Conway's website has a few additional photos not included in the feature.

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The lurid colors

Further to a post I made a couple weeks back in regards to a local photographer's use of color, I ran into much the same yesterday while pursuing an article about camera trends and the possible demise of the DSLR.  The blogger is a well-known travel photographer who makes the kind of photos equivalent to black-light posters, full of bright, saturated, almost neon-like color.  The popularity of his blog and his ability to sell images suggest many people like this kind of imagery.  To me it seems insistent, pushing the limits of visual intensity.  There's nothing subtle or understated, nothing to draw you in, just a club to clobber you over the head. 

Notable: Rob Walters' Omaha

The comments to Walters' photos are revealing. One notes that the photos are self-selecting, that is, the photographer deliberately ignored scenes that did not fit his ideas about a people-less city.  An Omahaan chimes in to say, yes, visit this part of town and you'll find lots of people.  Another commenter believes the photographer should be more in touch with his subjects, approaching people on the street to find out why they are on the street.  Someone finds the images bleak.  One man wonders why readers would be interested in "amateur random pictures" of "mundane scenes."

What we prefer is to feel safe, with other people around; to feel charmed by stories that reaffirm our own stories about ourselves; and reassured that our existence isn't really this bleak. What most people seem to prefer when looking at images can be found in popular styles of photography relying on creating super-saturated hyper-realities.  

Rob Walters website.  

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Who would you pay to shoot?

 

This "poster" for a Dubai photography event appeared in my FB newsfeed. I never imaged the existence of an amateur model circuit, in which people hire out their bodies to photographers.  The text accompanying the ad includes a link to the model's FB page, which features many images from model shoots.

I don't plan on attending.  I don't really see the point in making such photos, but I wonder who could take advantage of such an idea.  What kind of people would you be willing to pay to shoot?  Could you organize a gathering of body types?  For myself, I don't have any idols left.  There is no one I can think of I would pay to take photos of.  In fact there is not one person in the world that I desire to photograph.

Vintage Snapshots: Interview w/ collector Robert E. Jackson

I found this at NPR's The Picture Show.  The discussion there led to Project B.  Good stuff - except for the prices - ouch.  

Damn: Photos of monks meditating

Yesterday I had this very idea.  A few hours later - bam! - there it was in my FB news feed.

The Still Point

Capturing the movement of the mind

In his latest work, Junsik Shin, a recent photography graduate of New York City’s Parsons School of Design, takes his camera into the Zen temples of America and his native Korea. In his most recent project, entitled “Ee Mut Ko?” (“What Is This?”), his eye follows not the ornate interior artwork or the sweeping curves of the temple architecture, but the monks themselves, absorbed in meditation. It is both an utterly familiar subject and an unexpectedly fascinating one, for who would have thought that the thing itself, sitting meditation, could be so visually arresting?

Borrowing Ideas

Back from summer holidays and it's time now to get everything into shape for assessment submission. In the meantime, I thought I'd note a couple of ideas worth borrowing.

The first is from Michael Rubin, who used a wall as his subject, shooting everything that passed in front of it in the course of some hours.  I could easily do the same in my neighborhood with a wall, a corner, a train station, or some other suitable landmark.  I'll be keeping an eye out for location on my future forays.

The second is from Jacob Aue Sobol, a Magnum photographer whose latest project is built around the idea of taking massive number of thematically related images within a short time.  Sobol did a 30-day ride on the Trans Siberian railway, shooting 1000 images a day.  His girlfriend filmmaker did the initial selection of 100 images per day while riding the train. Together they winnowed this selection to 20, leaving them 1200 images on arrival in Beijing, from which they made a final cut of 60.

I'm thinking I could do something similar here, driving across the UAE, say all seven Emirates in 10 days. What I would need is a driver, as doing both might be a bit too much.  I could edit in the car or at camp sites, and have a presentation ready on arrival on Day 10.  

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How Do You Photograph A City's Bankruptcy?

I like the empty spaces and the emphasis on form and color in this collection.  

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What were you thinking while the monk was on fire?

This month marks the 50th anniversary of a demonstration in Vietnam which resulted in one of the 20th century's most enduring images, a monk seated in meditation in the middle of the street engulfed in flame, a protest again the war raging in that country.  

Time Lightbox has published a short interview with the photographer, Malcom Browne, who in his response to the question of what he was thinking was refreshingly candid and honest.

If you had to choose one photo to represent the species "human"...

...which criteria would you use? The article suggests color, ethnicity, and occupation.

How things have changed

I don't know how accurate the photos might be (I found this on Facebook), but what they express seems genuine.  Everyone, it seems, takes photos these days.

Managing reality

A wonderful little video from the National about the creation of portraits and their function within the laboring communities from South Asia.  I've seen many such photo studios and now I'm somewhat jealous I didn't think of doing something with this idea.  Ah, well.  Life is full of much more.

No way I can find to embed the video, so follow the link.