“No photograph stands alone, and a painful one is more clearly seen in a constellation of other images" Teju Cole Mark took his opportunity in leading the discussion today to talk about Susan Faludi's book "In the Darkroom" and Susan's subsequent essay in the NYTimes several weeks ago. Below is the link to the essay.... Susan Faludi: In My World Photographs Lie The book itself is the account of her relationship with her dad, Steven Faludi, who was a photographer. She was estranged from her father for many years and only reconciled with him after he became a woman late in his life and became Stephanie Faludi. Mark pointed out that the book was devoid of pictures. Family photos appeared in a later paperback edition. The question became: why no pictures? In her subsequent essay entitled "In My World: Photographs Lie." In the essay Susan discusses her complex family relationships and how pictures of her family belie the underlying conflicts and societal changes impacting the family in Nazi Germany. The powerful essay which Mark read in its entirety provoked a discussion about snapshots, family photography and truth in pictures. Perfect discussion for f8...thanks Mark. Suggest you read both book and essay. Richard brought a guest to f8 Pasadena today. Dr Mohammed Kamal, a pathologist who captures images of tissue biopsies with his microscope and manipulates them into artistic portraits. "The end product are images that provoke thoughts and emotions. Kimo believes that this type of art shows the beauty in what would otherwise be considered ambiguous and complicated scientific figures.” Below is an example of his photography. Richard showed a print from his recent trip to Cabo...amazingly the HDR picture was shot with his iPhone
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Charley led the meeting today...his narrative is below
Today’s meeting saw a nice selection of abstract photography with a sampling of both unaltered and manipulated photographs. Generally speaking, most images were properly non-recognizable and were aesthetic with a randomness quality. With the help of yet another computer-to-screen adapter and the experience of Charles Edwards and Joe Loudermilk, all images were projected easily on the large studio screen. With many of the selections taken very close to the subject, Charles made the observation that photography in all its forms allows a person to experience and appreciate more of the world that many would otherwise miss. Cyndi produced works ranging from stained glass windows to the sub-ground level of the legendary Rialto Theater in South Pasadena. A very small area of a 100-ft wide triptych was taken from the Resurrection Window at the Judson Studios in Kansas City. The stained glass had been given a watercolor quality and depicted biblical stories from Genesis to Revelation. Cyndi’s abstract was a small interior sampled area, coincidentally following the May 6 interior composition theme. Jim’s abstract started with the sun’s reflection from a backyard pool, then rotated the image and pumped the colors, followed by several posterizing and blurring operations. Charles created his abstract by photographing a stack of color-coded safety corners coded for different widths of glass, finally using Photoshop to increase the contrast dramatically. Joe’s abstract was a reflection from a car window of an eclipse that appeared multiple times on the window as a result of light passing through many “pin-hole” cameras in the intervening leaves. Charley’s abstract was an unaltered close-up photograph of some graphic-design-like scene in Los Angeles that he can no longer recall, but his favorite abstract scene was created totally in Photoshop to appear as a chalky figure. John Holmes also showed street scene images made by combining and altering several images to create the final result. Charley led the meeting today...below is his narrative This meeting both responded to an assignment to look for small interior compositions within a larger image, and also showed some recent work by Howard and Kevin. The larger image was that of the Frank Gehry Disney Concert Hall taken by Charley. That starter image is shown below along with one of the interior selections by Joe Loudermilk. Other members chose a few other starter images for the small interior composition assignment. Howard showed sample color photos of people from the Grand Central Market in downtown and a really nice B&W from Bandelier National Monument that could be viewed upside down as well as right side up. Kevin showed several photos from the Angels Gate Cultural Center as well as from the Hi-Railers Model Railroad Club in San Pedro. Photos below by Kevin Hass
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