A few months back I embarked on a trip to Cornell Library.  The trip ended up having a minor downfall.  Car problems made me and a couple others have to stay in the Ithaca area over night. While waiting for our host to pick us up we wondered into Tops grocery store.  I have been in many chain stores before but something about this time going in was different.  My eyes were really attracted to the repetition of patterns, color, and mass production.  Everything had an order and people were in with a mission.  I was armed with my digital camera and wanted to capture it.  In the past many have gotten their photos taken away and so I chose to shoot from my hip.  At the beginning of shooting the shots were really crocked and over time I was able to straighten them.

The photos came out really well and the next thing is to do more and try to get more of the people in places like this and the environment that these chains .

It is very interesting how quick this can happen.  I do wonder if we are still as easily to fall into it in todays world.  Still the entire thing was is funny.

It is an interesting situation to be in having little time left and still wanting to do a lot.  One has to be careful though to not chew on more than they can handle.  Laying back and figuring out thing is what I have chosen to do.  Trying to figure out what is most important and where things need to go.  The options are in sight but it is choosing which one to shoot that is the difficult part.  The technique and vision is something that I have by the reason is what I lack. Talking about it has helped and reading other sources seems to be the next step.

Everything that was happening seemed very random and didn’t seem to have any direction at the beginning.  Even though it was what I was after it became very tiring to do; to put in a lot of time into work but not have any of it finished or reason to have the photographs.  Many photographers in the past and present do/did make a lot of photographs and it is true that the facilities to make a lot of photographs are right here for me to take advantage of, but I also wish to have some sort of purpose when pursuing a continuation of work.

Looking at the things produced so far makes me see moments in time.  Some have a certain feeling atmospherically but all are common in that they are all made with curiosity and passion.  There is a curiosity to look/stare and study something and ask why it is a part our world.  The passion of questioning and having the ability of the medium to record our world as it is.  No manipulations.

I keep thinking about the photographer Richard Quieny and his book Things Once Seen.  This semester turned out to be just that for me photographing many things in my world.  This quote from Henri Cartier-Bresson also fits what it is that I am doing.

Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes forever the precise and transitory instant.  We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Many of my photographs reflect me as an observer of part of the world that surrounds me and hopefully people are observing some of the same things.  They definitely would not observe the same way that I do but still are able to take something from viewing my photographs.

The large format camera was a blessing even though it was not used as much.  It always slows me down to make photographs and allows me to make decisions if the photograph is worth taking and allows me to think why it is that I wish to freeze the moment. That is one major reason the interest in making night photographs with the 35mm camera has sparked.

Next semester revisiting the light paintings is what will first happen.  It has to do with the availability of the facility/studio and the help from the models.  The next step is to use the laser and the body in a few different ways.  From the pattern and movements that the laser to the positioning of the body.

Documenting a trip that is being very much anticipated is a project that I will embark on.  Alfred University students join Habitat for Humanity and go to Florida for one week to build a house.  What will be interesting is taking a lot of photos and not being able to do anything with them until I return from Florida.  Then depending on how the images look and what sort of context they actually hold will determine how the work is shown. 

Recently I went ahead and used a lens that I had to my disposal that has been sitting around for some time now.  The lens is an attachment that I can put on to my AE-1 Canon 50mm lens.  It is an ultrasonic super wide macro lens. When I chose to use it, Oct 15, 2009, the weather decided to act up.  There were leaves on trees still and the temperature was not too low.  Surprisingly snow fell.  It seemed like we were in a cartoon or on some special Hollywood set.  The way that the snow was only on the grass and the leaves was odd /surreal.  Night came really fast as well.  I took this opportunity to do some night photography.  There is something about the night and needing a long exposure that I enjoy because the outcomes become unpredictable.  That night that I was shooting I noticed that the snow was landing on the lens which led me to hope that it led to something good.  Standing around for one exposure that is more than thirty seconds allows me to make thoughtful decisions about the shots and then appreciate the space as I stand there. My results were rather nice.  The water molecules allowed for the light to reflect on to.  The image became mystified.  As cars would come towards me I would cover the lens so the image wouldn’t be blown out by the headlights.  Allowing for the lights to be shown of cars going away from the camera and me gives the sense of time spent there.  Yet the images are not long enough to be able to see that which is in the far distance.  We only get a hint/peek of what the space is like.

I also decided to use the wide angle to take some photos of an area that walk everyday and shoot it at different times of the day.  The interest came in with wanting to show more of the area with the camera than I was first showing with the 50mm lens.  Sure I could very easily have used a different lens instead using an attachment but why not use the attachment since I have it.  This specific lens also allows for a distortion but it is not directly recognizable unless one knows what to look for.

 

It was a day that I actually had plans.  I was going to shoot for the light painting series that I was working on.  The apartment was not as cold as it had been earlier in the week but I still did not want to get out of the shower.  I came out of the shower and put on clothes to retain the heat I acquired while in the shower.  Everything else was done that was a part of my morning routine.  I received a surprising phone call from one of the models that I was going to photograph.  She asked me if I knew what was going on.  Being early and not knowing what she was talking about the thought that something happened to the other model went through my head.  She continued on to say that Alfred was on fire.  Of course I had no idea what she was talking about so I asked her to explain what she was talking about.  It came out to be that there was a building that has been around the village of Alfred for a long time.  It housed a couple of businesses and apartments for students.  I went out towards the fire armed with my camera.  The smoke was so clearly seen from such a far distance that it might as well have been coming out of a factory smoke stack. It was a very surreal feeling to walk to the scene.  It was my first time witnessing a fire outside a camping experience.  It was still 8:30 in the morning and many residents of Alfred which are students were just getting up and out.  Steadily they all started to surround the tape holding everyone back from the way of the firefighters.  Of course I could not hold myself back and had to find some holes within their yellow Police Line Do Not Cross tape.  I wanted to get close to the action so I could be more aware of as much as I possibly could.  One minute it is nine thirty and the next minute it was one in the afternoon.  After leaving I went and looked at all the photos to edit them.  While looking at the photos I realized that I was lost in the entirety of the event.  While I was there I became numb.  Interestingly every time that I look at the photos now it seems like one of those things that couldn’t happen close to home.  There is something about seeing photos like the fire event where now I feel like the actual photos have a bigger impact on me than actually having being there.  Now all that is left is a flat space that is being occupied by dirt.

Everyone exited the building.

What a wonderful, mysterious, torturous but yet loving world we live in.

ALL IMAGES ABOVE WERE BEFORE READING THE ARTICLE

Davis is a building here on campus, Alfred University, and it has intrigued me since I first sow it.  The building is not in the greatest shape and while it is falling apart it is still being used with very little maintenance.  There are plans for the building to be taken down to put in an art gallery.  I have been shooting the inside and the outside of the building and really have not known what to do with what I have shot.  That was until recently when I decide to take images and put them along side of an article that a student wrote.  The article has to do with the irresponsibility of an institution like Alfred University to allow for a structure like this to fall apart the way it did.  My images were missing something though and because of that I asked a couple of people to write something that the felt when looking at the images and thought about decay by neglect.  Altogether what I wish to do with the article the images and the extra writings that I have collected is make a book out of it. More images can be made and more writing can be added.  The soul purpose of the project is to show how Davis gym is being allowed to fall apart.  With the layout I wish to make the preface and historical background and then to have the images after.  For the pages in the book I wish to make it so that there is a page with a window and the following page have an image with writings underneath the image.

ALL IMAGES BELOW WERE AFTER READING ARTICLE

These seven photos were shown in the Turner Student gallery in Alfred New York where the viewer would come up to a window matted image pick it up and open it to find the text of what Kenneth Gould, a student at Duke University, and Laurie Mcfadden, an employee and well informed resident of Alfred, wrote.

 

four:light painting nude

 

three:light painting nude

 

two:light painting nude

 

one:light painting nude

It has been a while that I have worked on the photos of the nude paintings but it is something that I don’t want to let go of.  It is not resolved. Nothing really; from the positions of the body to the amount of light being used and even to how many people I wish to use. These photos were the last ones that I made and there are some things that are happening that I do enjoy looking at.  The sharpness of the photos is definitely something that I still like looking at.  There is a small detail in the second photo with the foot where it seems to be popping out of the photograph.  The brightness of that particular area is also surreal.  Well the entire image is surreal.  I think that this is what I enjoy about this way of capturing the body.  The fourth image has some close detail that is the first of its kind that I enjoy.  The actual texture of the skin is captured and I want to follow through and get some more of it.  Finally the third photograph is one that I tried a new one.  On the top left area of the image are the legs off in the distance with the shoulders in the very foreground of the image.

 

Some questions have been raised and some thoughts have come up.  Why is it that I am shooting the nudes and why it is that I am using the light paintings?  This is something that I am looking into the aspects of what it is that I am doing and what it is that I want the viewers to take away.  As of right now it is simply a study of the body in looking at it in a new way.  The figure has its natural very recognizable aspect like curves and proportions that are so easily picked up.  Just the fact that one can not see the entirety of the body is interesting.  Right now I am in the process of looking up what it has meant to shoot the figure.  In particular photographing the female nude.  Historically shooting the nude has brought about some interesting aspects to things such as the male gaze to problems of it being so real that it should not even be seen in galleries.  One such area that I am looking at is books like Rose is a Rose is a Rose: Gender performance in photography by Blessing, Jennifer.  It allows me to look at what it that others have done and how others used the body in the use of the photographs.

 

 

 

 

What she is saying about her work is interesting.  The aspect that she is not manipulating the image.  She has decided to just emphasize and de-emphasize what she wants.  At this day in age there is a lot of manipulating which I am trying to stay away from. I am not going after my fears at all.   Thinking that the flesh is both seductive and repulsive is what fascinates me like her and makes me continue to go back and work with it.  The light paintings also is just a what that I am seeing like she sees underwater.

http://www.connieimboden.com/MainPage.html

It has been a while since I have been here.  If anything it has been interesting.  Meaning life.  Sickness, shutdowns, stresses, wins, possibilities.

It definitely is crazy how close the end seems to be.   Decisions have to be made and it seems like this is a very hard time to make them.

I have found a few sites that seem to have something to them that just might have something to help me out.   One of those sites is, http://fjordphoto.org/feed/?cat=48

 

There are more sites that I have found but I will sift through them before posting any of them.