“My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.” Steve McCurry Today was the last f8 meeting for 2018 and featured two of our own members both capturing images during their travels abroad... The first set of pictures and narrative was from Scott Herman... “The photos were from Strasbourg FR one of the towns that I had visited as part of our Christmas Markets River Cruise on the first week of December, 2018. The markets were bright, colorful, and scattered throughout cities in France and Germany. There were foods of every kind, with a preponderance of hot wines and beers, as well as the usual libations., and booths that sold all things Christmas and holidays. Each market was probably more similar than different. In addition to the temporary booths, the brick and mortar stores also were decorated gaily with stuffed animals of every conceivable kind, and decorations of every kind and color. Additionally, a number of the cities had towering gothic churches as backdrops, leaving a riotous and contradictory set of sights. It was with shock and horror that, exactly one week to the day, and at the same time of day, in the Strasbourg Christmas market a terrorist took the lives of at least 4 people where there had just seconds earlier been joy and celebration. My memories of this delightful trip will always be somewhat muted by despicable current events.” (edited for space) The second set of images is from Joe Loudermilk This is his commentary for his images ...just a few are shown below “Joe presented photos today of architectural subjects in New York City and Tokyo Japan. The shots were in color and post processed to highlight the main the focal points of the image an soften and darken the remaining areas of the images. Many to the images were taken at night or dusk which also emphasized the lighting on, around or in the buildings.” Last thing for the end of the year blog post is a picture of our f8 Pasadena Salon members at our "sometimes annual" end of the year party. This year it was hosted by Julia & Jim Woodward...thank you guys L-R Standing: Kevin Hass, John Holmes, Mark Myers, Scott Herman,Carel Struycken, Jim Staub, Rene Sheret, Charley Kohlhase, Joe Loudermilk, Debrah LeMattre
L-R Sitting: Charles Edwards, Julia Woodward, Kathy Wishner, Bill Wishner, Rod Williams, Cyndi Bemel, Paul Dupont Absent from picture , but present at the party was Howard Landau For a complete list of f8 Pasadena Salon members open the "Contributors Page " on this blog site
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f8 Pasadena Salon had the opening reception at Girdner Gallery & Studio here in Pasadena on December 8th for its exhibit 6x6 It was a great success with almost 100 people attending. Below are images from the reception including pictures of each submission “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.” Irving Penn The following blog post is from Cyndi Bemel...who invited Sarah to our meeting today
"Our guest photographer, Sarah Hadley shared her story of growing up in Boston and living on the top floor of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (which is a replica of a venetian Palace) and how influential that was for her artistic journey. Her project LOST VENICE grew out of that experience as well as working at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Her pictures and book of Ragdale, a nonprofit artists’ community located in Illinois on the former country estate of Architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, showcased the light, beauty ad tactile-ness of the prairie land area. Sarah’s work has an "other worldly" essence and she explained how she grew to incorporating that style. Most recently, Sarah has been working on collages that were inspired by Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg. She brought prints of her latest creations and books of past projects including the classic TIME OUT Los Angeles Guidebook." Here is the link to her website; Sarah Hadley Below are several images from her presentation today I thought we might start with a reprise of a blog post that we wrote after the release of her book "Hold Still"....the post below is from May 2015...pictures are omitted “I like to make people a little uncomfortable. It encourages them to examine who they are and why they think the way they do.” Sally Mann Today's discussion centered around Sally Mann and was led brilliantly by Jim Staub and Charles Edwards. Starting with her early life and her relationship with her eccentric father who, by the way, photographed her naked as a child. A picture of the young Sally Mann (not naked) is below: Her education focused at first on writing then ultimately on photography. She moved to the family farm after her son was involved in a non-fatal accident. Here was able to ensure her privacy. During the summer months, her child frequently were allowed to wander without clothes and she began to photograph them and develop her artistic aesthetic...which, by the way, was not just limited to her children but the physical environment of the rolling hillsides. Her books, At Twelve (1988) and Immediate Family (1992), created a storm of contraversy and discussion surrounding the use of the children and posing them without clothes. Despite this, her work continued to win her acclaim in the photography world. Her other subjects included...her southern roots (Deep South, 2005) and her husband who was diagnosed with Adult Muscular Dystrophy... She has also looked photographically at decaying corpses at the FBI center for forensic research, leading to her photographic essay, What Remains 2003. More recently an article in the New York Times Magazine (April 15, 2015) prompted more discussion regarding her artistic intent and its place in the art and cultural world and prompted rather personal assaults on her personally and a flashpoint in the cultural wars of art. Worth the read...here is link: http://nyti.ms/1OGx8VP The open discussion at the meeting on Mann's work lead us in several directions including the genre of photographing young children in various stages of undress...eg Jock Sturges; the relationship of subject to photographer; the ability to show such work in the public domain; the effect and influence of cultural mores; the staging of her work esp with using a view camera; her technical skills as a fine art printer; and the influence of her children's choices as they got older. The discussion also focused on the distinction between pictures that are just sensuous vs salacious vs frank pornography...and would we display her work at Jones considering the public nature of its business. And finally, should we as artists (photographers) produce work based on our artistic vision and integrity or should we pander to public opinion. I think the consensus was to produce from your artistic view...and the public can decide visual and artistic value. We ran out of time and would have liked to show the Sally Mann -Charlie Rose interview...here is link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQShT_eToY0 This discussion today is in preparation for our visit to the Getty to view their exhibit of Mann's work. Our discussion was far ranging and included the influence of her childhood, family, husband, and the South. We also talked about her detachment from her subjects but we agreed it was better described as "aesthetic distance." We discussed her use of old techniques eg collodion coated plates that almost always led to some accidents in her final prints. We then discussed her work as exploitation as witnessed by the pictures of her children, husband, and African-American models she used. We discussed her use of poetry with her work an example of which is her use of Walt Whitman's poem "I sang the body electric"...and with that we were off to the Getty. We were lucky to have Joe's daughter, Emily as guest on our trip to the Getty. Emily is a budding journalist and writes for the Canyon News....below is her review of the exhibit Emily Loudermilk on Sally Mann at Getty Don't forget the documentary on Amazon "What Remains"
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