“The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” Martin Luther King, Jr What we saw and discussed today... First we saw a Hubble picture of the nebulae "Pillars of Life" dating from 1995 and more recently 2014. While they look similar, because of distance they have actually moved 50-100 billion miles. Perspective! We then looked at some of our f8 contributors pictures: We next indulged ourselves in two video presentations... The first was "The Making of the Lone Ranger"...search You Tube if you would like see the video second, a TED Talk from 2011: Nathalie Miebach / "Art Made of Storms" or more specifically art generated from scientific data...in this case data from storms translated into physical art...sculpture and music. This talk got us into discussing the boundaries of art, layering of art forms providing increased "richness," and how the stand-alone art piece lacks understanding without the "element of performance" as an explanation. Finally, how art can be completely "observer dependent" as much of photography can be. We then discussed the element of collaboration that photographers rarely use. Bill challenged all to work with other f8'ers in some collaborative efforts over the next few months. Not discussed at the meeting was Bill's visit today to the Getty...seeing two exhibits: This exhibit was not photography focused but rather concentrated on war iconography and propaganda. The exhibit was populated mainly by posters, etchings, periodicals and some artifacts...and a rare picture or two. Not inspiring visually. The second exhibit was a retrospective of a contemporary photographer now in his late seventies... Josef Koudelka: "Nationality Doubtful" ...a member of Magnum who documented the Roma (Gypsies), the invasion of Prague by the Russians and eventually became nationless when he left his homeland. Working in B&W with a "one of a kind" Leica he produced a large body of work much of which was panoramic. Not very interested in prints, his focus was the production of books of his photography. Many of his prints are identified by country only as he was reticent to discuss specifics of where he shot and his subject matter. The exhibit is worth seeing...below is an example of his work: A quote from Josef Koudelka...
"I don't pretend to be an intellectual or a philosopher. I just look.
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