Our f8 Pasadena meeting today was largely a show and tell photography session on our trip to Santa Fe and other parts of our trip. Not everybody had pictures to share...a few will show their pictures at a later f8 Pasadena session. Below are several examples from each who presented today. Finally, a change of pace for f8 Pasadena...Paul Dupont discussed and showed his hobby passion...raising bees and making honey. We had a live bee hive as our guest this week.
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Today, we spent our f8 session talking about our trip to Santa Fe and some lessons learned. For what we did that weekend....read our 4-1-17 blog post. Some thoughts today... Studio tours were informative each in its own way....and contributed to our understanding of photography going forward. We all agreed that we should consider tours here in LA as part of our planning. Don Messec reminded us of a future where there will be "no spaces" in our inkjet prints....now, for every dot of color our printers there is a blank space next to it. In the future all spaces will be filled with color. Warren Marr reminded us that photography success has to be built on technical proficiency, persistence in exploring your visual objectives and producing a quality image....of course, doing it over 50 years. Mark Brendt spoke of moving between commercial art and fine art. His approach was to become a "street photographer" as the transition between the two types of photographys. He talked about his switch to a Leica based system. Everybody who went to Taos Pueblo liked the fact that not many tourists were there making shots of the Pueblo itself easier. Charles brought information on Photographers Rights...when doing street photography. He will send the info directly to everybody....sorry, I could not include in blog post. Howard reviewed the Powerpoint presentation that Ellen Landau did in Santa Fe about the relationship between O'Keefe and Steiglitz. He did a credible job of representing her thoughts about the two artists. The 90 minutes just seemed to disappear magically as it does every week. Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. Francis Bacon f8 Pasadena Salon traveled to Santa Fe for our 10th Anniversary celebration...at least those that could.. We started the weekend with a great talk by Dr Ellen Landau...wife of Howard. Dr Landau now retired was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emerita in the Humanities Department of Art History and Art Case Western Reserve University and one of the worlds expert on Jackson Pollack. Below is Dr Landau's summary of the lecture...on Steiglitz & O'Keefe “Ellen Landau gave an illustrated lecture before the group traveled to Georgia O'Keeffe's home in Abiquiu, placing the artist's career into context with her relationship to photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Many of the issues discussed centered around O'Keeffe's career as exemplary of the intersection of the personal and biographical with artistic originality. This, it was explained, was especially true for O'Keeffe in regard to her specific need to combat relegation to secondary status in comparison with perceived male genius. Stieglitz's role as both O'Keeffe's "ideal viewer" and as the primary entrepreneur of her works created a situation with both positive and negative implications, as did his own very public exhibition of extremely intimate photographs he'd taken of her, and his influential and widely accepted interpretation of her art--especially her flower paintings--as deriving directly from her sexuality. O'Keeffe's part-time move to New Mexico in 1929 (which became full-time after her husband's death two decades later), seen in conjunction with her adoption from the 1930s on of a severe hairstyle and form of dress, were specific reactions to this. O'Keeffe and Stieglitz were among the first ever to live on the 30th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. Her desire, disapproved by Stieglitz, to arrogate the seemingly male prerogative to depict priapic buildings in New York--and her particular interest in delineating the spaces in between--paved a way for Georgia O'Keeffe's signature approach to painting hills, cliffs and other landscape themes of the Southwest. Also important stimuli were Paul Strand's close-up views and image cropping, strategies clearly still in play in O'Keeffe's fascination with bleached desert bones.” After the talk by Dr Landau we wandered about 50 miles from Santa Fe to Abiquiu NM the home of Georgia O'Keefe where we had a guided tour of her property...no pictures allowed in the house proper On Saturday we went locally to Farmers Market and Train Yards... In the afternoon we all visited three local studios arranged by f8 friends of the artists. Cidne Hart & Kevin Hass took us to Don Messec's studio... "Caravanning south of town we reached a seemingly ramshackle set of buildings. As snow started to swirl, we entered the studio of Don Messec. This is the scene of his Making Art Safely workshops, his own workspace where he prints for clients, and equipment he uses to test new techniques. The space was filled with inkjet printers, UV exposing units, and sets of tools. He had been making platinum prints for a client that he showed us in addition to a large film negative with beautiful details and tones. He fielded many questions about profiles, curves and custom inks to make inkjet prints and negatives for contact printing. He has collaborated with Jon Cone of Piezography.com and he hosts his workshops." (Cidne & Kevin) We also visited the home/studio of Warren Marr arranged by Mark...Warren is a transplanted Southern Californian (La Crescenta) to NM...he has also presented at f8 in the past. Below is the comment by Mark of our visit... "The f8 Pasadena Santa Fe travel group enjoyed the warm hospitality of artists Warren Marr and his wife Diane MacInnes. Diane gave a Saturday morning tour of the famous Santa Fe Clay studio where she is an accomplished sculptor. Late Saturday afternoon we were guests in their lovely home. Warren is a gifted panoramic landscape photographer whose work is informed by and expresses the spirituality of our beautiful world. Warren’s work can be viewed via his website at http://www.warrenmarr.com/ ." (Mark) The third studio we visited was that of Mark Berndt arranged by Paul Dupont...a comment by Paul is below... "As the first of our visits on this F8 excursion to Santa Fe, NM, this was to the home and studio of Mark Berndt, a friend and client. Mark related to us his 30 plus years of his life experience as a photographer, director of TV commercials and photography education. He stressed his philosophy and approach to capturing the human spirit with his image making by showing us a video he had prepared. It conveyed photos of his style for capturing the essence of his subjects being photographed. In addition it displayed the narrative of the environment in which these portraits where taken." (Paul) On Sunday we visited the 1000 year old Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The above picture by Elmondo Gnerre a photographer not a member of f8 serves as a "placeholder" for pictures from our f8 Pasadena group we will review and publish later this month. What a great weekend for all who could make it...it was a long distance for sure but worth every mile. Oh yes, last but not least we had our first "official" f8 Pasadena Salon meeting outside the country when Joe and Richard met up in Shanghai recently. Maybe we can have our 15th anniversary there as well....or at Mar a Lago....just kidding.
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