“We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.” Ralph Hattersley Today we were lucky to have with us a talented photographer, Ellen Friedlander....no relationship to Gary. Ellen , in her own right is a long standing street photographer and visual interpreter of her life story. Ellen told four visual stories....in her own words with images to follow each narrative. Betrayal: Shattered in a Moment "A child was conceived and everything changed. I learned that my husband of 25 years had fathered a child with another woman. And yet, my love for this man had not waned nor had his love for me, but he had lost his way. I grieved deeply, counseled my children on their grief and confusion, and through thousands of conversations have grown to understand this man but in a profoundly new way. Putting myself in front of the camera in times of paralyzed sadness has helped my inner being process very complex emotions and to free negative energy. Deliberately cutting these emotionally fueled photographs into vertical uneven strips and reassembling them is the physical manifestation of letting go of this story that no longer serves me. As the new photograph takes shape using the strips, I feel renewed and invigorated to let myself shed the past and be free to find happiness." Street Extended (part my exploration of the Extended Frame photograph) "With my project, Street Extended, I am visually creating a non-linear diary of spaces and places that have been imprinted on my psyche and examining the spatial disorientation that I encounter when traveling or walking my local neighborhoods. I am literally extending the frame to include a series of images, that when combined, create a unique and new reality. This illusion of place is, in fact, visual confusion, but the consistency of elements in the images allow for the recognition that the scene could actually exist. The brain has the ability to recognize place, despite substantial appearance variations, and this allows for new truths and re-contextualization of realities." Portraits In-Camera "Today I shared a few portraits that were inspired by my exploration into multiple exposure captures on the street and with my own self-portraits. Last July, I was invited to participate in Kristine Schomakers’ project Perceive Me which is a conceptual idea around body image and perception, in which 60 artists from all artistic mediums have been invited to participate in making portraits of a nude Kristine, with their own visions. When Kristine came to my house for my photo session, I knew that I wanted to experiment with making a triple in-camera portrait of her. The success of this process with the portrait of Kristine has inspired me to continue to challenge myself as I seek to create a body of work using triple in-camera portraits." Meditation I Grew UP "The Adirondack Mountains, lakes and the landscape of the East Coast is where I have an emotional connection because this is where I am from. Last summer I charged myself with the challenge to create photographs that did not look like those that I had made in years past. I wanted to find a way to convey the tranquility that I feel when I am home in a more personal way. This portfolio is an on-going exploration of that environment." Ellen also took time to discuss some of her technical approaches to her work and projects. Together with her personal insights, the images she brought and showed, the 90 minutes was jammed packed and provocative.
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Quote from BJP / Henry Wessel "The process of photographing is a pleasure: eyes open, receptive, sensing, and at some point, connecting. It's thrilling to be outside your mind, your eyes far ahead of your thoughts," As you all know Chris and Kevin are great petrographers. Petrography is a branch of petrology that focuses on detailed descriptions of rocks. Someone who studies petrography is called a petrographer. The mineral content and the textural relationships
Today Chris showed some his images when he went up north to shoot the Indian rock formations. He also showed a one hour film called "Talking Stone: Rock Art of the Cosos" Interesting visually and from a ethnicity standpoint. From Chris below...below...sorry could not caption them directly. Listed below is a link to the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest that conducts the Petroglyph tours for those who are interested. The California Rock Art Foundation also has tours and they are hosted by Dr. Alan Garfinkle....I call him my Rock Art Rabbi. And for you Anthropology junkies there is the Bradshaw Foundation that has Rock Art and cultural site videos from around the world. https://maturango.org/ https://www.carockart.org/ http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/ “You just have to live and life will give you pictures.” Henri Cartier Bresson The image above is a reminder of our first group project due nxt month...."A Sense of Photography" Each f8er will try to capture an image reflecting one or more of our 5 senses...sound, sight, taste, touch, and smell. Good hunting. Today we had 2 of our members present some of their current work. Cyndi showed images from a Kobe Bryant memorial here in LA....below is he narrative followed by selected images "I journeyed down to LA LIVE, along with hundreds of fans to memorialize the fallen Kobe Bryant and his 13 year old daughter Gianna, who both perished along with 7 others in a helicopter crash. Wanting to capture and personally experience the outpouring of affection, I was taken aback by the diversity of the crowd. The ethnic mix, the vast range of ages, the immensity of flowers, teddy bears, basketballs, photos, shoes, and memorabilia was far beyond anything that I imagined. Even though the crowd was dense, a somber silence surrounded the area. I tried to capture the personal outpouring of grief, sorrow and disbelief that was being experienced by those in attendance. At times, I put my camera down, paused, shed a few tears and took in the immensity of the man Kobe Bryant, an icon in the truest sense. He was one of the world’s best-known athletes but his popularity stretched far beyond his sport. " The other f8er was Jim who once again traveled on his bike capturing the human part of the city. Below is the narrative Jim sent....
"My selection of street photos have in common their location, Pasadena, and the fact that they were executed from a bicycle. Our transportation grid sets up an unsettled duality between vehicles and pedestrians. In that middle zone, with bike and camera, I cut though these disparate groups looking for their movement and moments; 'unconscious choreography' if you will. Generally, my interaction on the streets in this mode means giving up precision and control, yet gaining a sometimes rare look at the stage and it's players." Finally, there were no reports from our British Journal of Photography project...maybe next meeting Today was a short open session As noted above, check out Cyndi's exhibit at Jones. We had two people show ther images today. Carel showed his curated pictures from the Mt Wilson camera that captures images every 30 seconds...N-E-S-W. He entitled this series "Moods of Mt Wilson." Some of his many images are below. Kevin showed some images from his visits to Wisconsin and the Great Lakes.In some there are strong representation of the the "New Topographic" movement. As I noted at the start of this post, the meeting was short today
“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.” Edward Weston f8 Pasadena had a guest today we know and a neighbor here in Pasadena. Ibarionex Perello a photographer, author, podcaster and educator. His podcast, "The Candid Frame" just completed episode #499 is remarkable in itself. Check it out and tune in where you get your podcast. Ibarionex cam to f8 to discuss the concept and value of keeping a journal relating to your personal photography. "Ibarionex shared how he has used sensibility creating street photography to his documentary work. This included long-term projects on caring for his elderly mother-in-law and documenting the morning routines of young families. He demonstrated how the careful consideration of the frame for his street photography compositions helped him to create stronger and more intimate images even when photographing in more confined and limited spaces. He explained how is journaling allowed him to learn and analyze his photographic process. It resulted in him being able to identify his strengths and weaknesses as well as lead him down a path to develop his eye and personal projects." He mentioned an online tool for journaling...an app called Day One...see link below https://dayoneapp.com Ibarionex currently has a series of conceptual photographs on exhibit at A Noise Within Repetory Theater in Pasadena. Entitled the Three-Fourths Project, the images examine the underlying tension and anxiety experienced by people of color under a system of discrimination and oppression. The work is partly inspired by the work of the playwright August Wilson
Finally he discussed a project he is doing right in his own home...imaging his mother-in-law. He showed some images of hat visual project. A great meeting led by agreat educator and photographer. Thanks Ibarionex. Today we had Marco Franchina a longtime photographer as a guest introduced to us by Cyndi. Bio extracted from his full bio on his website ...see below “Marco Franchina was born in Pisa, Italy and came to the states at the age of 3. In 1982 at the age of 21, Marco moved to Milan, Italy to begin his career as a fashion photographer. He was fortunate to study under legendary fashion photographers of the day including Peter Gravelle who he work for as first assistant. In 1983 Marco branched out on his own, photographing for prestigious Italian magazines.. Franchina then moved to New York City to shoot for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. Where he was commissioned to photograph Oliver Stone, River Phoenix, Winona Ryder, Gretchen Mol, Edward James Olmos and many others.. In 1995 Franchina moved from NYC to Los Angeles to pursue his love for film working behind the camera on a number of music videos, commercials and his own personal fine art photographic projects.” His presentation to f8 today was two of his personal projects. The first below is "Curbside" in large part shot with his iPhone. This project felt like a portrait studio in his car The second project Marco showed was entitled "After Hours" shot with a Leica Q Check out his website
www. marcofranchina.com This weekend we had two f8 meetings...on friday we met at the Norton Simon and on saturday we had our regular f8 meeting at the senior center. At the Norton Simon, Howard arranged a talk by the curator, Gloria Wiliiams Sander, of the abstract photography exhibit...Beyond the World We Know. Narrative below from Norton Simon The spring-tight line between reality and the photograph has been stretched relentlessly, but it has not been broken. These abstractions of nature have not left the world of appearances; for to do so is to break the camera’s strongest point—its authenticity. –Minor White, 1950 Photographer Minor White’s quote acknowledges a fundamental quandary faced by photographers in the 20th century. On the one hand, their medium was esteemed precisely for its ability to record what the eye saw. On the other hand, photographers, like painters and sculptors, sought new approaches and rationales to advance their picture making. Abstraction as a nonrepresentational, visual language played a significant role in bending the conventional expectations of a medium unquestionably suited to describe people, places and objects. Beyond the World We Know presents the work of 16 artists who embraced a new goal for their practice: to loosen the grip of realism and demonstrate photography’s ability to suggest something other than itself, to serve as a conduit for visual metaphor and personal expression. This mission to emphasize photography’s subjectivity began early in the 20th century, coincident with the rise of abstraction and nonobjective art in other media. In 1951, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presented Abstraction in Photography, an exhibition that invited the public to evaluate these strange bedfellows. Six of the artists represented in the Norton Simon exhibition were included in that groundbreaking exhibition: Barbara Morgan, Frederick Sommer, Arthur Siegel, Aaron Siskind and Brett and Edward Weston. Almost a decade later, in 1960, MoMA revisited the topic of abstract practices in The Sense of Abstraction, introducing the photographs of Walter Chappell and Edmund Teske, whose work also figures in the Museum’s installation. Abstraction’s presence in the photographs featured in Beyond the World We Know is one of degrees. In some cases, it results from procedures with new equipment, such as enlargers, or darkroom manipulations involving duotone and solarization. Chance is a strong element in the resulting prints. Sommer produced small oil paintings on cellophane paper, which he then placed between sheets of glass. By means of an enlarger, he printed the images onto sensitized paper. His camera-less photographs are known as cliché-verres. Teske employed the Sabbatier technique—a process of chemical toning and solarization, in which the print is exposed to bright light during its development, introducing painterly elements and unusual spatial juxtapositions. In their integration of the visible world and abstraction, the gelatin silver prints on display in Beyond the World We Know demonstrate that the simplest subjects can be evocative works of art when composition, texture, tone and light are handled by artists of great imagination and virtuosity. On saturday we had a guest, Jared Ivy, from Sigma camera / lenses discussing the Foveon sensor The narrative below is from Rod Williams
Our meeting this Saturday was headlined by Rod's guest, Jared Ivy, the Retail and Support Manager for Sigma Corporation of America. Jared was tasked with giving us the history and current application of Sigma's Foveon chip.. The chip was developed by Dr. Carver Mead, Professor of Engineering at Cal Tech. Interestingly, two of our F8 members were in Cal Tech's Beckman auditorium when Dr. Mead presented the Foveon chip to the world in 1999 (Jim Staub and Everard Williams,Sr). The chip was named Foveon after the depression in the retinal fovea where vision is most acute. It was predicted that the chip.would revolutionize photography. The Foveon sensor is modeled after film in that it has three layers of pixels just as color film emulsion has three light sensitive layers. Each layer detects red, green, or blue color. The Bayer type array sensors found in typical digital cameras has one layer of sensitive photosites. Filters over each photosite determines which primary color it receives. This requires interpretive algorithms to construct a complete image. With the Foveon sensor, this interpolative process is not required. The first camera to use the Foveon chip was the Sigma SD9 released in 2002. Several subsequent Sigma cameras have used the chip, or improved versions, but no other camera manufacturer has picked up or licenses the technology. It was a good technical session. Photography, if practiced with high seriousness, is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere... John Szarkowski (1973) Today I thought I would show two iconic pictures of the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl of the B2 fly over...each from a different perspective The images we saw images by three f8'ers ....Rene, Howard and Steve Rene showed his images shot in a railroad yard then processed using his skills as a graphic designer Steve showed some images from his travels in Japan Howard showed several snapshots from the Rose Parade right out side his door on Orange Grove We spent the last portion of the meeting beginning our discussion of abstract photography in preparation for our visit to the Norton Simon on the 17th
Our last meeting this year 2020 will begin our 14th year of f8 Pasadena Salon...our official anniversary date is April 1st. Thanks to all our current and past members who made and continue to make our meetings special. I thought I would look back at some of the subjects we discussed this past year New Topographics Life of Edward Curtis (Carel) Titles and Captions (guest Greg Moore Planetary Imaging (guest from Planetary Society Jennife Vaughn) Artist Statements (Mark) Ethics in Photography (Steve) Project: What makes your house a home Judy Dater (Howard) Street Photography Robert Frank Bjarne Pare (Curatorial Assistance) Bird Photography (Rod & Charley) Vertical Support (Bill) The Atlantic Provnces (Joe) Aesthetics Gordon Parks Armando Arorizo (Perfect Exposure Gallery) iPhoneography Marc Todd Family Photographs (Joe) The Photo Essay Photo Journals Dawould Bey Dana Hursey Art Movements in Photography Collage Pedro Guerro Zofia & Charles Edwards Ara Gular Heroshi Sugimoto Jessica Lange Photography of Poverty and Homelessness Dreaming and Photography Railroad Photography (Kevin) Project: Views of one object PLUS...field trips, exhibit discussions, NYTimes photography, Lens Scratch, PLUS : release of new book "Artifacts" (Bill) PLUS: contribution of all f8'ers who brought images to open meetings SORRY if I missed a project, discussion or contribution by any members WOW!!! Today, there contributions by several f8'ers ending the year. A reminder: as editor I've chosen just a few of the images we saw at the meeting...and none of the discussion today Now to our visual contributions for today... John showed some of his Huntington Library "Lightbulb" iphone images...4 of which are below Bill showed a series of process images from RAW to final product...we'll be doing moe of this in 2020 Kevin showed images from a houseboat trip to Lake Powell...4 of which are shown below We talked and saw some images from the NYT Best Pictures of 2019...click on the link below and notice the juxtaposition of the caption words! NY Times 2019 Pictures of the Year We also mentioned "Street Photography Magazine" and its continuing great editing and curation Street Photography Magazine Rod showed two images he shot in the wilds.of the LA Zoo (tiger) and the actual wilds of Taamania (leopard) Lastly we noted a new museum of photography in New York although we're not planning a field trip to NYC anytime soon
“I think good dreaming is what leads to good photographs.” Wayne Miller Today we had no shortage of dreamers starting with the picture above by Jim Staub. Jim discovered that images on media don't last forever esp when they're on old outdated film / negatives. The dreaming part in Jim's case was the realization that something good cam emerge from these old negatives that have otherwise turned to vinegar. Jim presented image he shot at night many years ago and beside each oneis what they have become with age. Jim entitled them "States of Existence" The first set is a frisbee net original on right and now on left The next set is of a "float fence"...original on right...now is on left The last set is a "Stucco Box" the original on the left...the now on the right Steve in his travels shot several images in Charleston WVA...some of which pointed out archetextual columns and several below of the city itself. We were lucky to have Jenna (Steve's daughter) with us today visiting from Detroit. Bill showed several images shot in Big Sur at the Henry Miller Library...entitled "The Wedding and Guests" Cyndi showed images shot with a borrowed macro lens and enjoyed her new found perspective Finally, Bill had opportunity to attend a group show at Mor York Gallery in which Sidne Hart (Kevin's wife) showed her art fabrics .Sidne allowed Bill to shoot several pieces and he converted the images to a set of composites below. Mor York Gallery is always a source of interesting visual collages. Bill could not resist the collage of things visualized below John made a last minute contribution image created through his iPhone We mentioned briefly the NY Times continuing commitment to photo-journalism...we should support their effort. Joe sent a link about their photo essay on Willet's Point a section of NYC. Here is the link
From The New York Times: Rising from the Ashes, Willets Point Redevelopment Will Go Forward, City Says The project was declared dead in 2015, but Mayor de Blasio says it will be built, without a mall and with 1,100 apartments for low income New Yorkers. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/nyregion/willets-point-redevelopment-de-blasio.html |
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