The Self Absorbed Chronicle

Severed Serpent — Boise, ID

October 9, 2009

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The difficulty with obeying the self-imposed obligation of preserving life is that it can get in the way of my living it.

I've slowly begun to organize all things visual over at Flickr with the hope of offering a more complete picture of my past year (or, to be honest, the past few years, as there are many projects that haven't ever made it off of my desktop until now). Allowing Flickr to sort my life into trifling categories seems far easier at this point than building a web site. Ambitious projects of that nature should only be undertaken if there's an audience for it, and by audience I mean something a little grander than my own ego.

Veteran's Memorial

Veteran's Memorial — Eagle, ID

October 9, 2009

Brush

Bottle Brush at the Veteran's Memorial— Eagle, Idaho

October 9, 2009

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Further evidence that the light in Idaho can be every bit as crisp and theatrical as the light of the Willamette Valley.

The Seductive Properties of Beauty as Rationalized Through an Unsanctioned Reference to an Undeniably Greater Photographer

Veteran's Memorial— Eagle, Idaho

October 9, 2009

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I read an interview with Keith Carter many years ago that percolates to the front of my mind every time I take a picture like this. In that interview he relates how, one day, he was out looking for images to photograph when he happened upon an old grave yard. Knowing full well that it was impossible to enter a graveyard with a camera and not leave without a roll of cliches he stopped himself at the gate.

And then he went inside and shot some film anyway.

The desert was all gold and heat.

The desert was all gold and heat. 2009

acrylic, leafing, toner, and wax on panel

10.5" x 10.5"

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I recognize that I've been a bit lax with regard to blogging of late— there has just been so much to do to prepare for shooting the upcoming film that I've felt a bit overwhelmed. In the past I would have sprinkled a few liberal promises about posting more frequently to make up for my silence, but I'm not in a position to fully honor such vows, so the most I can say is that I haven't forsaken blogging regularly; I'm simply in the process of redefining "regularly."

* * * * *

The desert was all gold and heat. is an utter fabrication. It is an amalgam of a found image and the texture of an old daguerreotype plate. At the MKAC opening one of the other photographers exhibiting there told me it had the quality of an Edward Curtis, which made me glow with a golden sheen not at all dissimilar to that displayed in the work.

I don't belong anywhere near the same breath that would utter Curtis' name; he being a master photographer and me being something of a photographic imposter. But I could see how the color of the image might elicit a comparison.

Curtis, Edward Sheriff (American, 1868-1952)

The Morning Bath—Apache

from The North American Indian (published between 1907-1930)

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

D is for Durable

M is for Muir, 2009

acrylic, leafing, toner, tea, and wax on panel

7.375" x 7.375"

Click on image for larger view.

When I'm on field trips with my class I don't get too many opportunities to take photographs. The reasons for this should be obvious. However, and here is the great irony, the only times I tend to travel are when I take field trips with my class. Oh wicked conundrum!

* * * * *

I learned very quickly that only the most durable camera will survive a road-trip with a class of adolescents. That fancy new DSLR would certainly be the most versatile camera, but it would hardly hold up to falling out of the back of the van when the cooler lid is thrown open carelessly in the pursuit of snacks. So, I opt for indestructible over versatile, and always bring my trusty manual Nikon FE with a first-gen Lensbaby. The Lensbaby, while exceedingly limited in what it can do, has no glass components. That means that 70lbs. of lumpy duffle bag can be thrown on top of it and nothing much will happen to the simple plastic bellows.

* * * * *

M is for Muir was taken in the California Redwoods as we wound our way down to San Francisco. The students were completely immersed in ensuring that the quiet majesty of the Redwoods was anything but quiet so I took a moment to fixate on a few of the fallen giants that bordered the path. As usual, some yahoo had felt the need to deface the soft orange bark of a 200' long nurse log and that is what I ended up photographing. I'm still a bit unsure as to why I compile so many images of initials carved into trees— I suppose because defacing a tree is not all that different an act from taking a picture. Both claim that one tiny presence shared a moment with something much greater.

Counter Clockwise

May 21, 2005

The Photo Phazer doesn't really capture images on the vertical, instead the picture must be reoriented after it has been uploaded to the computer. Nevertheless, there are times when the disorientation that comes with the wrong alignment adds another element of interest to the image. This horribly overexposed shot of my wife's sewing machine surging through some fabric in the evening hours wouldn't be nearly as intriguing if I'd bothered to turn it 90 degrees counter-clockwise.

Beauty is a Void

April 28, 2005

In college I took a concept seminar class on beauty. The first assignment was to make an artwork that was as unattractive as possible. For some this meant creating a piece of kitsch, for others it was an exercise in audacity. I chose to subvert a historical masterpiece and, with apologies to Van Gogh, turned Starry Night into something utterly banal.

It's difficult to intentionally make something ugly. Maybe this isn't true in the industrial world of consumer goods, but at an art school tethered to a historical tradition of craftsmanship, it is a challenge. Many people didn't succeed. Most people struggled with the idea.

After our critique we were randomly assigned someone else's hideous object to somehow beautify. The parameters were fairly loose: essentially, you had to have the object serve as the primary material for the new work.

I was given a ceramic mosaic fish with kissy-lips and cartoon eyes. As Ceramics  was a studio I studiously avoided (too dirty), it would prove difficult for me to work in that medium. I opted instead to document the creation utilizing some pinhole cameras I'd recently built. 

I draped the fish in some white muslin and then sprayed it with water for that "wet drapery" look so adored by Classical sculptors of the Hellenistic Period. Between that, and the softening effect of the pinhole camera, I was fairly certain that I could create a few images that would be considered beautiful.

For the most part the results weren't that intriguing.

But, oddly enough, this image of the fish lips. . . 

. . . would unexpectedly mimic earlier work. . .

. . . and remain one of the more enigmatic photographs I've ever taken.

Diffusion Magazine

April 19, 2005

Tomorrow we will return to imagery from 2005. Today let's turn our attention to the imagery of 2009. 

Fellow OCAC alum Blue Mitchell has spent the past year creating a magazine devoted to that unquantifiable realm known as unconventional photography. As stated in the recent press release for Diffusion:

Diffusion focuses on unconventional photographic processes and photo related artwork. We showcase artists working in alternative processes, experimental darkroom derived work, analog/low-fidelity, mixed-media photography, as well as unique digital processes. We believe the print market is saturated with traditional photography and conventional digital photographic practices, therefore Diffusion showcase’s artists working with unusual photographic methods.

I am one of a handful of artists profiled in the magazine. Apparently, spending weeks producing a drawn photograph (whatever that means) places me squarely in the unconventional photography camp. Now that Diffusion has created some sub-categories for the unconventional I find myself wondering if I'm more "alternative process" or "analog/low-fidelity." 

Last night, the Director shared his belief that the artwork I create is a physical re-creation of using Adjustment Layers in Photoshop to build an image. That might be the most pithy insight I've ever heard about my work, and I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never thought of it that way before.

However, plenty of what I have thought of before awaits you in Diffusion, along with some sage words from Blue Moon Camera's Zeb Andrews, and a phenomenal gallery of contemporary alt process photographs. Click on over to www.diffusionmag.com for a digital preview and purchasing information.

Proof

April 13, 2005

I think my favorite portraits are those that omit part of the face. The diminished visage leaves more to ponder and more to assume. In classic portraiture the intent was to not only represent the sitter but to please the patron. With the advent of cheap photography however we are under few (if any) financial obligations to those we photograph, and while vanity may still be a major factor behind why we take pictures, the need to memorialize events is just as important for a short-sighted culture. Portraits now are proof. Proof of youth. Proof that we visited someplace exotic. Proof that we loved someone. Proof that we were happy.

Memory, it seems, is a poor substitute for proof.

Graveyard of the Poorly Exposed

March 29, 2005

As March 29, 2005 also seemed to be too packed to take 60 seconds and make a Photo Phazer movie I've included a few more images from Cherry Canyon. 

The above image was shot using a roll of film that I was rightly very dubious of— a C41 process black and white. For you non-photo people out there that means that this is a roll of "black and white" film that's actually processed using the same chemistry as color film. The results are predictably flat, with dramatic differences in contrast and not much subtlety through the gray tones. As I didn't have access to a darkroom at this time I had no way to produce black and white images using standard black and white film, so in a fit of desperation I picked up some Kodak BW400CN and decided to give it a try. The resulting images turned the thickets of the canyon into jumbles of indistinct black and white lines (although it didn't do too badly at capturing the gray tones of the smog or the glint of noon light off the top of a porta-potty), and I haven't used it since.

These images were created by cross-processing slide film or, in layman's terms, shooting with slide film but then insisting that it be developed with the chemistry used for color films (the c41 process mentioned above) as opposed to the chemistry intended for developing slides (known as the E-6 process). Cross-processing slide film yields images with an odd color shift and heightened color saturation. You can really see this effect in the grass image above, where the sky is an ungodly blue and the pale dry grasses have taken on a peculiar greenish yellow cast. In the image below of an abandoned oil tank, the actual yellow should be more of a school bus tone, not the strange chartreuse cast seen here.

On the back of these two photographs I've written in pen, "pushed 2 stops w/normal exposure." Such valuable information was obtained the hard way when I shot what might have been my most perfect roll of film one autumn morning in the canyon. I took it to the photo shop that very day and had them cross-process it. What I neglected to tell them (as I assumed they already knew) was that you have to over-develop the slide film when you choose to cross-process. Otherwise, that collection of 35mm masterpieces will be little more than dingy under exposed slides. I still feel physical pain when I think about looking through the loop at those negatives and seeing what could have been. Perhaps someday my Photoshop skills will be strong enough to raise those photographs from the binder that serves as graveyard for the poorly exposed.

Cherry Canyon

March 28, 2005

I have been away. After tallying up the number of years I've been married and comparing that sum to the number of times my wife and I had taken a vacation together I determined that we were long overdue— so we left for Seattle and spent the week not thinking about work, blogs, computers, or creative commitments.

* * * * *

When living in California I would often feel the need to escape into some natural setting. The closest bit of nature that you didn't have to pay to enter was a spot called Cherry Canyon. It was a scrubby little canyon amidst the La Canada hills that housed not only a few majestic oaks, but the hulking steel towers that supplied Glendale with its electrical power. When standing near the welded legs you could hear the buzz of power crackling through the thick cables overhead. It seemed a peculiar edition to the dry grasses and crab apple trees. 

Tension, Polaroid photograph, 2004

I often went to Cherry Canyon to take photographs and, in theory, my familiarity with the place should have led to ever more confident and subtle images of that locale. But this never quite happened. Instead I developed a mish mash of stills on a variety of films; all of which look like the work of an ungrounded personality flailing about for some sense of peace.

Sunburst, Polaroid photograph, 2005

Diagonals

March 22, 2005

Diagonals occur frequently in photographs that are shot without much concern for composition. Often, it is just those diagonals that grant the image a touch of life— a sense of movement that keeps the eye moving along and around the picture. 

When you think about handwriting, the majority of people don't write in mechanically parallel lines. Script slants up or down, forward or backwards, depending on all sorts of variables ranging from pencil grip to paper placement. Nature doesn't work nearly as much in parallels and perpendiculars as it does in diagonals. The diagonal line is active. It grows and falls at different degrees. It speaks to speed and development, as well as time. And, ironically, as Buckminster Fuller would point out, it is far more structurally sound than the 90 degree connections humans have concocted to erect their world.

Phazer: The Missing Years

March 16, 2005

The Photo Phazer may not be the highest fidelity camera, but it periodically produces images that possess a mysterious quality absent from the real world subjects. This shot of flowers under the garrish florescent light in our California bathroom is a respectable example. Here are a few others from the pre-2005 archive:

Magnolia Rain, La Canada-Flintridge, CA

Cedar Hills Car Port, Portland, OR

Library Sunday, Portland, OR 

The Bottom, Portland Zoo, Portland, OR

Progress in the Studio

March 14, 2005

My life isn't all children's theater, small film production, and blogging. Take a gander at the most recent fodder for my studio practice:

Riparian Grass

Boise River

Friday the 13th

March 13, 2005

There's always something sinister about shooting an interior scene from outside the house— even if the subject is your wife doing the dishes. Being outside looking in is simply invasive. A wall, a window, a door; all of these create barriers to consent, and such physical barriers establish a distinctly uncomfortable emotional space. 

Artificial Light

March 12, 2005

Variations on a theme.

The Edges of Life

March 7, 2005

My favorite pictures of people do not involve faces. I prefer to see the figure in passing; swallowed by the promise of a continued reality beyond the edge of the composition. Someday I will devote myself to a series of such portraits— where shoulders, arms, necks, and feet orient your mind away from personality and towards an implied experience.

Color Shifts

February 24, 2005

On this day in history my mother bought her first digital camera. We stood on the bank of the Boise River as I explained the various settings on the dial at the top. I took a few test images:

. . . and then I handed the camera over to Mom. With the trusty Photo Phazer in hand I shot yet another short film of the flowing river. When we got home I downloaded the various images from the two cameras only to realize that neither of them were at all accurate in depicting the true color of the river that bright afternoon. Mom's camera had pushed the blue of the water to a peculiar intensity and the Photo Phazer had, quite naturally, robbed the current of color. 

Colored Bands

February 23, 2005

OK everyone, let's test your chain-restaurant interior design scheme recall. In what super-fun eating establishment would you be likely to find this dramatic use of red and white stripes?*

For a person who doesn't profess to love working with color when creating artwork, I do seem to have a fixation with capturing it on film. Contrast, as well as vibrancy, tend to catch my eye— like this doorway to a pump house on the Puget Sound. The textural difference and graphic quality of the colored bands is emphasized by cropping in and denying any sort of larger contextual information.

Only years later (January 2008, to be exact) would this pump house image filter back into my consciousness. I stood on the steps of the ostentatious Il Vittoriano in Rome and realized that I really should have flipped that negative.

Hint: Think "flair."