I will recreate wholeness.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
You know how people form certain philosophies about their craft? I think I'm starting to do it too. Today I realized why I'm never satisfied with my pictures. It's because I know that they are all unfinished, part of a unending cycle of resurrection. This can't be "it." Everything before the picture was taken--the memories, images, and gestures that evoked emotion--specific moments of beauty and strangeness that caused me to take the picture, will remain. They will continue to inspire and move me because clicking the shutter isn't a remedy to this undeniable need to recreate something meaningful. I think that there are series of moments in a person's life that are all connected, where present moments trigger the past back to life. I suppose this is why I continue to push myself harder. Thinking this way is comforting. It's not about striving for perfection but is instead about struggling to achieve wholeness--being able to capture the different pieces that made this photograph come to being.
Read more »
[Irish spinner and spinning wheel. County Galway, Ireland] (LOC)
[Irish spinner and spinning wheel. County Galway, Ireland] (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.
Looks so real & surreal at the same time.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Continuation:
Why do I always need to 'wait and see.' I am impatient. What is with waiting, with time, with timing. We are swallowed up by minutes and we think we 'manage' time. There is never enough time to live. We need to decide sometime.
What is there to see. To be honest? Everything. Our eyes offer this panoramic view of everything that surrounds us but it's never whole. Maybe we can see together. And finally see a whole perspective of revolution. An instant view of the roundness of the world.
I have this piece of glass separating my eyes from what's in front of me. And I still see you clearly.
This distance might be enough to focus on what's needed for the right composition. +7,000 miles enough?
Read more »
Why do I always need to 'wait and see.' I am impatient. What is with waiting, with time, with timing. We are swallowed up by minutes and we think we 'manage' time. There is never enough time to live. We need to decide sometime.
What is there to see. To be honest? Everything. Our eyes offer this panoramic view of everything that surrounds us but it's never whole. Maybe we can see together. And finally see a whole perspective of revolution. An instant view of the roundness of the world.
I have this piece of glass separating my eyes from what's in front of me. And I still see you clearly.
This distance might be enough to focus on what's needed for the right composition. +7,000 miles enough?
NYC with friends
Friday, March 05, 2010
This was the weekend after submitting our phase 3 final. Shaun, Dakota, and I decided to go to the city to take a break from Turners Falls and school. Interesting highlights of the weekend... washing our hands at Sabon, snow-covered Central Park, and delicious burgers from Burger Joint. Oh, and banana pudding. Lots of banana pudding.
Landlocked.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Some photos from my phase 3 finals...
Never get yourself into anything that you can't get out of.
Read more »
Never get yourself into anything that you can't get out of.
Labels:
still life
At Pinch with Joyce
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Joyce and I have a strange story. Last September, on the first weekend after I started at Hallmark, my friends and I decided to explore Northampton, which was one of the closer towns. I happened to pass by Pinch, a store that hosted works by several local artists. The front windows were decorated by spoon chandeliers and believe it or not, folded books hanging on sticks. To me, they look like enormous origami encased in hardbound leather. I entered the shop, drawn to these pieces. Being a lit major, I've never seen such a beautiful desecration.
Stepping inside was a beginning to an interesting correspondence.
I ended up leaving all of my information with Meg, who works at the store, when she told me that these books were hand-made by a "little old lady." I didn't know what I was imagining or expecting at that time but I just knew that I needed to photograph Joyce with her beautiful books. How could she not be an interesting subject if she created these things? I didn't need to meet her to know that I wanted to photograph her. In the next 6 months, we ended up e-mailing back and forth, attempting to organize a photoshoot but it never happened because of random circumstances. The first time I called her, she thought I was a telemarketer and she hung up after saying, "No, sorry. I don't want to buy anything." Hilarious.
I can't tell you how happy I am that we finally did it after all these months of planning. Meeting her was like meeting an instant friend. She was lovely and warm, and actually quite spunky. The photoshoot went well to say the least. She was a natural at posing her hands and controlling her expressions. My job couldn't have been easier. :)
These two are my favorites but we tried many things. It's interesting going through the photos and seeing how two strangers could trust each other so easily. It was great. I am honored to have taken these.
Labels:
Joyce Rosenfeld,
Northampton,
Pinch
Logo/Business card
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
I am currently in phase 3... steadily navigating through the marketing/packaging maze of planning a photography business in between shoots and retouching classes. Part of the program is coming up with a logo and a specific "look." The trouble I had in the beginning was finding the middle ground between "classy and modern" and "organic and fun." I didn't want it to be too static or too girly. My instructor Peter Chilton helped me out a lot by teaching me a bit of Adobe Illustrator so that I could draw the 'K.' I think we were pretty successful. Here's the official business card. Hope you all like it!
Read more »
Thursday, February 04, 2010
I've lost a couple of friends in the span of 10 years and it's never been easy. Especially since they're all still alive and I could still run into them. It makes me wonder if they bother to archive good memories despite [insert incident here]. What happens to those rare instances when two people actually share something genuinely honest? I must be one-sided here and over-assuming things. The memories in question might not be as valuable as I would think. I admit that I still think about them except on most days when I don't, but not in the "crying-over-spilled-milk" sort of way, at least most of the time. I do have some regrets though.
Read more »
Sean Kernan: Creativity and Authenticity
Sunday, January 31, 2010
"Sometimes delusion gets you farther than the truth and that worked out for me."
Sean Kernan gave a talk last Monday (01-25-2010) about the pursuit of creativity and authenticity. As seen clearly from his work, he is motivated by his own personal vision, which is seriously a refreshing change. It was never about money or fame, yet interestingly enough his personal work brought him that. I enjoyed his talk because it was about going beyond one's limitations and opening one's vision to "unfiltered seeing." He emphasized that what's crucial to creativity is "what happens before you create: the days, months, years before you even pick up the camera." This is something that I strongly believe in, that nothing that we've sensed and that which has affected us deeply, is lost. Our photographs can be a reincarnated memory, a feeling, a look or even a specific color. And that is interesting because no individual experiences the same event in the exact same way.
During his talk, Sean mentioned teaching several workshops. One of them was a workshop with women dying of cancer. It made me question the idea of placing oneself in a life-altering state like that... like what kind of photographs will one create then? What sort of work will be born from someone who has X amount of time to do it. A body of work with a real dead-line. Nothing beyond that, for sure. But aren't we all dying at some point anyway? I suppose the certainty of tomorrow not coming produces an urgency that most people neglect to acknowledge.
He describes himself as "an artist on his way to work and became a photographer instead." As an artist, we constantly stumble on ideas and life-altering moments that we choose to give meaning to. Days can turn into meaningless years but somehow the yearning to be different forces us to see things beyond what's there. Although, sometimes events from our lives follow a different course, regardless of meticulous planning. It veers away from all expectations and we are surprised with the results of our work. Did I do this? Who is this person who made this? Sometimes it's about timing and luck, and whether it be a happy accident or not, the point is, we've produced something that's ours. It is an unending struggle to discover something new, original, innovative--to go back to the old light of exploring and be aware of every moment that can change us. Sean so aptly describes it, "It took me to places that I didn't know they were there and if I knew they were there, I would never imagine that I would get there."
Besides creativity, he also spoke about authenticity: "Does it look like you got it elsewhere or that you arrived at it?" Authenticity is about "keeping things in the air as long as you can." It is about the energy of the person who is committed to it, a matter of focusing on the task. This is what sets the game, the stage to something completely real. The artist has to believe in her vision for other people to see what she sees. He advised us to begin at the place where we are insecure. I love this photograph. To me, it illustrates how we contain what we want to say, make, and do. The potential lives in us like these words that have transferred their way from my mind to this page. The challenge is to see what is already within us, waiting to be discovered.
Read more »
Sean Kernan gave a talk last Monday (01-25-2010) about the pursuit of creativity and authenticity. As seen clearly from his work, he is motivated by his own personal vision, which is seriously a refreshing change. It was never about money or fame, yet interestingly enough his personal work brought him that. I enjoyed his talk because it was about going beyond one's limitations and opening one's vision to "unfiltered seeing." He emphasized that what's crucial to creativity is "what happens before you create: the days, months, years before you even pick up the camera." This is something that I strongly believe in, that nothing that we've sensed and that which has affected us deeply, is lost. Our photographs can be a reincarnated memory, a feeling, a look or even a specific color. And that is interesting because no individual experiences the same event in the exact same way.
During his talk, Sean mentioned teaching several workshops. One of them was a workshop with women dying of cancer. It made me question the idea of placing oneself in a life-altering state like that... like what kind of photographs will one create then? What sort of work will be born from someone who has X amount of time to do it. A body of work with a real dead-line. Nothing beyond that, for sure. But aren't we all dying at some point anyway? I suppose the certainty of tomorrow not coming produces an urgency that most people neglect to acknowledge.
He describes himself as "an artist on his way to work and became a photographer instead." As an artist, we constantly stumble on ideas and life-altering moments that we choose to give meaning to. Days can turn into meaningless years but somehow the yearning to be different forces us to see things beyond what's there. Although, sometimes events from our lives follow a different course, regardless of meticulous planning. It veers away from all expectations and we are surprised with the results of our work. Did I do this? Who is this person who made this? Sometimes it's about timing and luck, and whether it be a happy accident or not, the point is, we've produced something that's ours. It is an unending struggle to discover something new, original, innovative--to go back to the old light of exploring and be aware of every moment that can change us. Sean so aptly describes it, "It took me to places that I didn't know they were there and if I knew they were there, I would never imagine that I would get there."
Besides creativity, he also spoke about authenticity: "Does it look like you got it elsewhere or that you arrived at it?" Authenticity is about "keeping things in the air as long as you can." It is about the energy of the person who is committed to it, a matter of focusing on the task. This is what sets the game, the stage to something completely real. The artist has to believe in her vision for other people to see what she sees. He advised us to begin at the place where we are insecure. I love this photograph. To me, it illustrates how we contain what we want to say, make, and do. The potential lives in us like these words that have transferred their way from my mind to this page. The challenge is to see what is already within us, waiting to be discovered.
"I write to find out what I want to say."-Sean Kernan
Labels:
sean kernan
Productive Day
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
GREG 09: Progressing to 3 Lights: 2 2X2 Profoto softboxes & 1 umbrella
It still follows the concept of lighting the scene/subject with just 1 light (umbrella) and instead of determining the main light first, we began with the Fill light.
Read more »
It still follows the concept of lighting the scene/subject with just 1 light (umbrella) and instead of determining the main light first, we began with the Fill light.
Art Historical Reference: Yoshitaka Amano's "Spring"
Thursday, January 21, 2010
"Spring" 1998
The Fairy tale
My rendition.
Amano is a genius. And I absolutely love his work. His women are beautiful, fluid, and just gracefully lonely. His art has a mysterious and sensual quality about them that haunts you, quietly kindling your imagination to greater heights.
It's interesting that I ended up doing this illustration for this assignment because it's entitled "Spring." It's somehow appropriate to how things are going right now. Winter's almost halfway over and I'm graduating soon. There's so much to look forward to and yet no matter how exciting it is, I'm still in "battle mode" trying to prepare for what's inevitable. It's surely a competitive industry out there and right now I'm grateful for this environment surrounded by friends and teachers who have the best intentions.
On that note, this portrait wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Jessica Ramsey and Rich Lily. The flowers refused to stay taped to my back so Rich had to hold them. For this assignment, we weren't allowed to composite so everything had to be done in camera. I love love love the way it turned out.
Other works: Amano's World:
Read more »
The Fairy tale
My rendition.
Amano is a genius. And I absolutely love his work. His women are beautiful, fluid, and just gracefully lonely. His art has a mysterious and sensual quality about them that haunts you, quietly kindling your imagination to greater heights.
It's interesting that I ended up doing this illustration for this assignment because it's entitled "Spring." It's somehow appropriate to how things are going right now. Winter's almost halfway over and I'm graduating soon. There's so much to look forward to and yet no matter how exciting it is, I'm still in "battle mode" trying to prepare for what's inevitable. It's surely a competitive industry out there and right now I'm grateful for this environment surrounded by friends and teachers who have the best intentions.
On that note, this portrait wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Jessica Ramsey and Rich Lily. The flowers refused to stay taped to my back so Rich had to hold them. For this assignment, we weren't allowed to composite so everything had to be done in camera. I love love love the way it turned out.
Other works: Amano's World:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
