“I fell in love with the process of taking pictures, with wandering around finding things. To me it feels like a kind of performance. The picture is a document of that performance.” – Alec Soth More about Alec Soth later in this blog. Before that we had a photographer visitor from the other side of our city, Judi Hochman. Howard met Judi while they both were volunteering for a National Geographic conference. Judi's background was in the business world where she worked as a professional recruiter. In the past few years she has devoted her efforts to the creative side...photography. She has traveled widely and attended a number of workshops. She brought with her two portfolios of pictures largely of street portraits. An example of her work is below as well as Jim's shot of f8 Pasadena at work. So, what about Alec Soth.... We explored several New York Times photo centric articles in last weeks NYT Magazine; the first of which was an article by Alec Soth entitled "Unselfies." As Alec noted "What do you look like...you are the world's leading authority on the subject...you are also the least qualified person in the world to know what you look like...you have no idea." In the NYT series of pictures Alec distorts his own selfies to display his notion of his self image. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/magazine/the-unselfie.html?_r=0 We next discussed an article exploring the proposition...is shooting wild animals completely different from trophy hunting. Looking at the changing environment in the wild as influenced by safaris of ll kinds. Read the article.... http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/magazine/shooting-a-lion.html We next discussed the work and passing of a photo icon Hilla Becher. She and her husband, Bernd, produced over decades a body of minimalist and conceptual work rooted in the post war industrial state. Check out this NYT obit and search the internet for more examples of their work. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/arts/hilla-becher-photographer-who-chronicled-industrial-scenery-dies-at-81.html Next in this busy f8 Saturday was Howard's visit to the new Broad Museum and his use of his iPhone. Below is the resulting abstract image...nice work, Howard...and with an iPhone...imagine that! Paul recounted his experiences at Adobe Max convention...and showed an example of image transfer that apparently was quite popular during the meeting. Unfortunately, I can't explain it completely or at all...hopefully Paul will discuss it more completely next week
Finally Chris brought a guest: Dr Steve Lopuck...
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“I think all art is about control – the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.” – Richard Avedon Today we met at the studio and gallery of Avi Roth & Brian Goodman in Altadena. Above is a picture of both with a prized possession, their classic antique, restored and working "Photo Booth." First, Brian toured us around his studio and we visited Avi's show that opened the night before "Higher Ground." Avi discussed his background as photographer, artist and designer, all leading to his current show. Avi's creativity led him to explore coffee as a creative tool for creating his art.."Coffeegraphs." Avi led us through his creative process leading to his final product. His "Coffegraphs" are gaining some traction and he currently has a piece in the Jerusalem Biennale. Below is just one example from his exhibit... Brian took the stage and discussed his background and long history in the commercial photography world. But as he described his career, he finally re-kindled his creative life and photography and is now a "practicing" fine-art photographer. His current body of work is called "Solice of Space" and his production pieces are produced in very large format sometimes measuring 8-10 feet in length. Brian discussed his aesthetic approach and vision. He also showed several other collections which he hopes will be turned into books. Below is again just one example of his work. I encourage you to visit their websites listed below and go to the studio address listed and see Avi's show "Higher Ground"...well worth the trip to the heights of Altadena
http://www.aviroth.com http://www.briangoodmanphotography.com art-space gallery 2605 North Lake Altadena CA 91001 The art and discussion was great and a good chance to see a photography asset in our Pasadena community. Hopefully Avi & Brian will invite us back in the future. "No matter how high or how strong we build walls ...they can never hold people or their ideas...in or out" Bill started the meeting by describing his trip with Scott (and wives) to Germany and Czech Republic. Scott will discuss the Czech part of the trip at a later meeting. Berlin while reunified as of October 3, 1990 (its birthday is today still is undergoing the pains of cultural and fiscal joining. There was a good article about just that in the NYT today. Bill discussed the physical remnants of the wall from an historic and artistic standpoint. Bill showed several pictures from his Art of the City Wall Series shot in Berlin and Prague. Several examples are below: Rene presented several things today... A book he created on ClearStory.com. It opens flat and was handsome but not cheap. He brought some "selfie" shots as a carry-over from our Snapshot discussion last week...example below and a snapshot of Chez Rene and variations...the original and one variation below Next week we are Brian Goodman's & Avi Roth's Studio...details can be found on our schedule page
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